I’ve been exploring fire a bit more, playing around with 3D noise, but then it quickly turned into tornados and they were much cooler than just fire so I went in that direction. The result is an inefficient shader with 80 properties wrangling a mesh that never wanted to be a tornado. While it’s fun to explore tech art rabbit holes, I’ll try to shift more towards game play now. For that I’ve watched the ‘Artistic Principles of VFX’ series and took some notes:
Gameplay Experience
Write down a few adjectives on what feeling the VFX should invoke. E.g. powerful, calming, snappy, ethereal, larger than life. Avoid things that are rather technical and very general like ‘stylized’.
Area of Focus
Create a clear area of focus for what is most important to the player. E.g. the area of effect should have more contrast on the edge because for the player it matters mostly to cross that boundary.
Explosions should have much more contrast and intensity in the middle.
Always consider what the primary shape and color is and create an imbalance, directing the eye towards one thing (and not everything at once). Be careful with things like smoke and particles flying outside of the area of attack, that might be confusing. Keep it subtle.
Level of importance
The visuals should match the gameplay effects. E.g. small damage = small VFX, big damage = big VFX.
Check every detail for that, e.g. if fire is part of it then make sure that the flame height matches the effect strength.
Shape Language
Pointy and sharp edges usually mean danger, soft and round edges are safer. Create the clearest shapes where it matters, e.g. a beam attack or arrow attack should have sharp edges at the tip where the hitbox is, and less contrast/shape variety in the trails.
Shapes should convey direction, e.g. a flying projectile shouldn’t be perfectly round but instead be stretched/arrow like, so it’s easier for the player to instinctively know in which direction it’s moving (without even having to observe the movement).
Timing
Build anticipation, and then over deliver. As in something big is going to happen, and then something massive happens. Then give the brain time to process it.
But also remove the visuals quickly when the gameplay effect is gone, so players don’t get confused.
Make a graph of intensity over time and avoid flat lines or just linear lines. Even something like a portal could have like a sin wave of interest.
