”May is already over and it is time for us to update you about the development of Othercide. We decided to focus on special effects from the game that Simon, our FX artist, creates for various actions.
Ideas and Pre-production
Some actions of the Daughters and enemies from the game have to be paired with gorgeous special effects. For each action, we ask Simon to make some FX and this process can be quite long.
First, he has to think about what it should look like. Through this conceptualization, he makes use of his knowledge to adapt the FX to each character, action and general mood of the game.
It is important to watch a lot of movies and play different video games to get inspiration. But it can also come from things that don’t have any FX such as sculptures, and basically art in all its forms. For one of the special effects he made in May, he took inspiration from lightning-throwing ennemies that appear in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
He then find a global shape for the FX that can be easily recognizable so each FX is different from one another. He also defines its colors, this step being surprisingly complicated even though the game is in black and white.
Each FX has to stand out from the level colors so he has to choose different tones and shades. As a quick note, black and white are used for enemies in the game while red and white are used for the Daughters.
Creation and Techniques
As Simon said, there is no miracle recipe. In fact, he has to use and assemble many techniques to create FX such as drawing, 2D, 3D, programming, fluid simulation techniques, shader…
With Shuriken in Unity, he starts by creating shaders and defining how the effect and particles will behave. This tool allows him to make the global shape of the FX.
One FX can be made from different effects and particles. In here, we have the smoke, the white line on the floor, the particles ejected (sparks, water drops…) and more.
Finally, after the FX was validated by our Art Director Alexandre, Simon uses Timeline in Unity to decide when to trigger the effect for each character. Phew, it’s done!
That’s it for today, we hope you liked these work in progress FX! June is going to be another busy month and we can’t wait to share new updates with you again. Stay tuned!