Hey guys, i’ve been interested in RTVFX for a while and have been slowly learning. I’ve produced enough effects for a mini reel and would love any feedback you can give on what i have so far.
Thank you!
RealtimeFX Showreel1 from Le Noel on Vimeo.
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The video is private. So we can’t see it.
Silly me!! i’ve just changed the privacy settings. Thanks for letting me know
firstly a few points about presentation - the checkerboard floor is a bit too distracting imo - just a plain grey floor or a lot less contrast in the values of the checks would work better.
The final scene also is way too long for the amount of visual interest that happens - it’s just some gentle light shafts, dust and drips so 10s of that is a bit too much. Also it’s worth making sure that you’ve baked your lighting and then maybe do a cinematic render out of unreal using sequencer instead of just a screen grab? just looks more professional.
as for the effects themselves - the explosion is cool, simple enough but has all the right parts and feels good timing wise. I’d probably tone down the distortion burst a little and maybe make the sparks slightly smaller but in general its decent. There does seem to be some texture compression issues with the smoke fading out in the first explosion but that might be the video compression rather than the effect.
the fire looks decent again - the heat haze is a bit strong and you can see it around the sides of the barrel - heat only rises so looks a bit strange. there’s maybe a bit too much difference between the fast and slow moving sprites too - but it’s quite a small thing.
the bullet impacts are fine but nothing outstanding - you can see it’s just a single core sprite being repeated so maybe try and break up the repetition with some more variety but it’s usually better to go subtle with impact effects for gameplay reasons so it’s fine.
i really like the animated material shield effect - shows good technical skill and has a really nice feel to the timing and colour. There’s a lot going on in the effect but it works for me.
Finally the dust and window scene is nice - the texturing of the scene could be better but its not so important for a vfx reel. As i said earlier the scene is a little empty for how much screen time is has - maybe a bit more of a water stream from the leaking pipe with splashes would add more interest. Or a nice curtain blowing in a breeze from an open window. the dust particles themselves are a little bit big and visually repetitive - you can clearly see the same texture on a bunch of them - there’s probably too hard and edge on it too, dust motes should be soft and blurry.
Overall it’s not a bad start for someone just learning vfx - keep up the good work!
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Thank you so much for your detailed feedback, i really appreciate it.
I’ll definitely make the changes that you have mentioned. Regarding the light shaft scene, i tried to do a cinematic but the god rays wouldn’t animate. If i bake the lighting then everything should work fine?
Also, seeing as i’m going for a reel with realistic effects do you have any idea of what else i should add?
Thanks again for your help!
The animated light ray material shouldnt have anything to do with baked lighting. are you just using the Time node in the material to drive the light shaft material animation?
in terms of more realistic fx - i’d probably like to see some water materials or fluid shaders, they’re super common in realistic games.
also probably a rigid body destruction piece - maybe an arch collapsing or a tower getting blown up. Doesn’t even have to be super detailed modelling and texturing but something that shows you have a good understanding of physics and making a piece like that look good artistically as well as accurate physically.
Yeah, silly me! I couldn’t get it to animate in the sequencer for the life of me!! I finally figured it out though!
Thank you a ton, i was chasing my tail for the longest time with this and you’ve helped me a lot!! I’ll upload the new reel when it’s done.