[quote=“PermaGrin, post:41, topic:1896”]
“when and where” to use them
[/quote]that’s a good point for a topic inside the overall 101 imo
player vs character knowledge in terms of gameplay; anticipation/telegraphed, splashed and how impact helps feedback without interfering… all that as opposed to a contrasting cinematic spectacle
Something I didn’t see in here (through my fast scrolling) that I think would be great to teach and learn as an advanced course, is mathematics for VFX. There have be several occasions where someone has asked a question or had a problem and one of our awesome members would swoop in and go something like: "well you could easily achieve this by taking the UV coordinate and [maths] it with a custom [maths] node, clamp it on the X and divide it by the [maths] then take your end result and plug that into your texture, multiplied by world space and you get [awesome] We did this on our [AAA award winning game] and it doubled our performance. No big deal really… [maths] "
I tend to brute force my materials to look cool, just plugging things in and tweaking values while having a general idea on how the outcome will look, but some FX people know how to use math to get precisely the complex result they want without any wasted time. I think as an advanced elective, advanced mathematics for use in VFX would be a very valuable course. I haven’t used anything outside of basic math since I was done with high school, and I’ve completely forgot all my calc and trig, nor would I know how to apply it to materials/shaders even if I remembered it
Completely agree with this, math + basics of computer graphics would be awesome. Understanding the math makes a world of a difference imo. I used to do the same as well, and try to make my shaders “visually/eyeball it” and it is probably a good method for certain kinds of effects, but having an understanding of the underlying math makes it easier to fine tune and greatly improve the effect / performance.
i love it i love it i love it
Hey everyone! Really awesome discussion going on here!
As a former student (2009) and now working at said education as a teacher the last 4 years I find these discussions very interesting!
We’re currently running a 2 year education where we cover a 3d package from scratch and since I’ve been working with VFX before I really want to run an introductory course to VFX.
I think @hadidjah lists are great! But it would be really nice if more of you professionals out there could update them. 
Especially:
I’ve been doing some research looking at job postings and setting up a list of skillsets required to help me find what I need to include in this course. But I’m a little unsure of what to put the most focus on.
If I were to set up an introductory course of lets say… 2 weeks. Would I be right in focusing on Realtime particles in a game engine, a little bit of node based shader creation and 2d texture creation within photoshop and after effects? Would that be enough to introduce them?
There was a request in the thread for GDC '18 topics about what kind of experience a new vfx artist can expect after getting hired, and I was going to do a write up on here of mine. I just need to get around to it, and I’ll leave it open for others to post their experiences, but I’ll include things I wish I would have known or would be beneficial for entry level fx artists to learn.
Reviving this thread.
I’m working with a professor at a university now to develop their “Intro to Real Time Visual Effects” class. Not sure if I should split this off to it’s own topic, or just continue here… let me know if there’s opinions. These students are 2-4 semesters into the program, so they already know the basics, not need to start from jump. It’s a 15 week class, with 2 classes a week.
I’m starting with 2 things. 1) An overview of what each class will cover. 2) Some “philosophy” of how to approach the class in general to maximize getting kickass portfolio pieces in the end.
Then, as they come up upon each week, I intend to do a deeper dive writeup into what I’m thinking the class will look like.
So, here’s the rough outline of #1. Feel free to give feedback / critique / additions / swaps / order, etc… on the list:
15 weeks
#2, The approach / Philosophy. These are a smattering of ideas for how/why the above is organized in the way it is, and suggestions for getting the most out of the students.
A) The above layout is intended accomplish a few thing. It is expected that each week a new technical topic is being presented. But always with an attached "Make this thing, and you will learn the tech topic along the way.
-The spark is intended as a “make effect exist, tune a few params” intro to the ui.
-The Mist is a similar… very basic effect. Here’s a texture, not need to get into materials. Just spawn them over time, select the texture, give random spins, etc… Still familiarizing with the ui.
-Etc… Each bit builds upon the previous, adding complexity.
-In the end, we’ll cover the basic types of fx work… Environment, Gameplay/Systems, Destructible, Trailer.
-We’ll hit major genres along the way. Realism, Stylized, Sci-Fi.
B) I recommend spending 15 minutes at the beginning of every single class… to do a critique of random fx X. maybe it ties into the effect you’re going to do later in that class… maybe not.
Get a video of an effect from some game. And spend some time running through the checklist of Aesthetic critique. Discuss how it nails, or could improve upon each principal. Get them thinking from day 1… what makes an effect good. Rather than just “how it’s made”. We have an internal “FX Critique” guideline page that will be provided (and I’ll start a thread for, when we get to that).
The goal is not to just train them to make FX. The goal is focus heavily on the aesthetics of what makes a good effect and teach them to execute that as part of their routine process.
Other topics, that I haven’t really fit into the list, but are important topics that have been brought up elsewhere in this thread… suggestions on how/where to incorporate these would be appreciated:
Questions:
Scope. Does this seem reasonable? Is 1 new effect each class seem viable or is that too much?
What did I miss?
NvM - you got the UV distortion covered 
i only suggest substitute the stylized weapon trail for a sword slash instead
expands upon previous Shield (UV distortion, refraction, multi-UV’s, soulercoasters) ++ Shield/weapon interaction triggering with an instructional provided character + aligning with character motion
it could be dedicated mesh/trails to accentuate motion and makes sure the student get’s comfortable with how to deal with low poly / pinching issues between static and dynamic/procedural geo
I teach the last 6 weeks of 18 of a masters degree here in London so I’ve got loads of thoughts on curriculums and best practice. Happy to jump on a call and chat if that’s easier.
Our course has developed a lot of the last 5 years but here’s the current rough outline:
Week 1 - space ship shaders - holograms and displays that introduce the concepts of working with uvs and things like the dot product
Week 2 - rainy room - more materials with light shafts and rain on glass. Intro to particles for dust, rain and lightning.
Week 3 - forest scene - more particles like leaves and insects, WPO butterflies, water shaders
Week 4 - blueprints and landscapes
Week 5 - cloth fire and RBD sims
Week 6 - project week
This term were also doing 1 day a week on cinamatography and lighting, taught by one of the vfx tutors.
Personally I think the progression of shaders to particles to blueprints works well to increase the complexity of the content as the course progresses.
Definitely recommend splitting up classes with some theory, some math, some art direction and then some worked examples - don’t be afraid to repeat things early - depending on how much experience the students have. I’ve definitely tried to rush content in previous classes and it’s easy for students to get lost.
I think Explosions/Timing deserves its own week(s). Preferably when they are comfortable with the tools. There are so many fresh artists that know how to make super complex materials but don’t know the first thing about timing and animation principles when applied to FX.
It might be baked into the others, but building things for multiple angles/volume.
Same with at least a basic idea of performance. What costs, how to mitigate it and so on. Not sure why this is covered only as a lecture. Especially during the week where performance doesn’t matter as much 
I also think it would be valuable to make most of these quite constrained. If they need to make a spell, give them exactly how long it is allowed to be, what radius and so on. It’s very common to see spells with 10 second build ups and the same again for travel and detonation. While in a game, we are likely talking about half a second, and a projectile that moves fast enough to be troublesome.
Will any of the sections cover game integration? Gun impacts perhaps? So they see all the different parts come together. Decals, material variations and so on.
Seconded on timing. I definitely fell into the same materials pitfall when I started out, instead of spending more focus on timing. I think it’s really easy for new students to get tunnel vision on material/shader learning, because they have a very defined process and result; node + node * node = expected result. Versus timing, which is more abstract, and something you need to develop the “feel” for.
Understanding the “feel” takes much more time studying, trying, and failing before you have a good grasp on it. It’s much easier to focus on that aspect and dedicate time to improving that skill when you first start out than it is once you’re working in a studio and have deadlines.
Hey, have you ever finished this course? I would be a lot interested on taking it! I see the document is not completed, though it ocurred to me you could have done it by other means.
Can you give me permission to watch?