From Indie Developer to Bungie: Finding Your Path in Game VFX

A career in game VFX does not always begin with particles, shaders, or a clear plan to become a VFX artist.

Vinessa Mayer’s path has included game testing, community management, independent development, 2D and 3D production art, work on Forza and Destiny, senior VFX roles, and leading a VFX team.

This gave her experience not only in creating real-time effects, but also in understanding players, gameplay, production limits, and how artists grow inside a team.

In this interview, Vinessa shares how she found her way into VFX, what the work is really like, and what both young artists and indie developers should understand before building a career or a production process around visual effects.

Main Topics:

• Game VFX
• Real-Time VFX
• VFX Production
• VFX Artist Career
• VFX Portfolio
• Indie Game Development
• Game Art Production
• VFX Workflow

Interview

With Vinessa Mayer, Veteran Real-Time Visual Effects Artist

Q: Your career began in testing and community work before moving into game art and VFX. How did that transition happen?

Did you always want to become an artist, or did working close to games and players gradually lead you toward visual effects?

Which lessons from QA, community management, and independent development still influence how you work today?

I always loved playing games as a kid, but for some reason, I never really realized that being a game artist was a career option. I knew that I wanted to be some kind of artist but I had trouble finding the right fit so I tried a variety of careers. I even had a brief stint in nursing and owned a successful pet-sitting company. Eventually, I decided to try Graphic Design, and I enrolled in what had been my dream school as a kid, The Art Institute of Seattle (I know. I was young and naive).

At the Art Institute the first year graphic design students shared a lot of their classes with students in other art majors, including Game Art. I saw what they were working on in their other classes and realized that was the type of art that I have been doing my whole life, this is what I was meant to do. I could not afford the Art Institute’s Game Art program, so I left the Art Institute that day and decided to focus on games. I would try to only get games related jobs from now on and work my way up the hard way.

Like most of the games industry, I got my very first job through someone I knew. A friend that I met while playing World of Warcraft was a contract programmer for Microsoft. They referred me to a contract company that got me a contract job testing games at MGS. I had no experience at all, but I soon found out that was ok, because neither did a majority of the many other people that were hired along side me!

While I was working various contract jobs I was making an effort to learn about Game Art and had even started taking an early online course on Game Art and Design. I also applied for and got a mentor through Women in Games, who encouraged me to go to the Game Developers Conference with an all-access pass and find a job. Unfortunately, there was no way I could afford to go. My family scrimped and saved and managed to gift me tickets and my grandma cashed in her airline miles to buy me plane tickets.

I stayed on the couch of another friend from World of Warcraft, took the BART for an hour each day to the conference, and packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat on the floor of the convention center between panels.

The GDC was an amazing experience, but it was also an eye opener. Despite getting perfect scores in my online course, I was not able to compete for an entry level job yet. I needed to keep learning. On the last day I took all the money I had left and used it to buy a few how-to books from the convention bookstore and headed home.

When I returned home, I managed to find a listing on JobsInGames.com for a Community Moderator with a very small local mobile game studio. I had no experience being a community moderator, but I applied anyway and got it. It was great because while the wages were modest, it was something I was allowed to do completely remotely and with flexible hours.

This was key because I had just found out that there was a new school called the Academy of Interactive Entertainment opening up in Seattle that was teaching Game Art. It’s unique class schedule would allow me to continue to work and support myself while attending, and most importantly, it was a small fraction of the cost of the Art Institute of Seattle, which meant I could actually afford it!

For the next 2 years, my daily routine would consist of me using my mobile hotspot to work my community moderator job while I took public transit to and from school, during lunch, and between classes. I loved the Game Art classes so much that my second year I decided to enroll in the school’s Game Programming track as well, doing second year Art and first year programming at the same time. It was hard work. I had to leave my community moderator job and live off my savings, but when I would eventually hold my diploma in my hands, I knew I could compete and I knew it was worth it.

Q: What made real-time VFX the right direction for you?

VFX brings together art, animation, timing, shaders, technical problem-solving, and gameplay.

Which part first attracted you to the profession, and was there a specific project or moment when you realized this could become your long-term direction?

For our Senior project, the Art and Programming classes joined together to create a Game. While the curriculum taught Game Art, Animation, and Design, it focused mostly on 3D Modeling and texturing for games, but no real-time VFX. Since I was taking both Art and Programming, my teachers told me I was going to be the “Tech Artist” of the team, showed me a pre-made fireball effect from the Unity store, and told me to play around with it so I could figure out how to add effects to our game. I played with that fireball all night, tweaking settings, opening up shaders. My testing experience helped me break and pick it apart until I had made a complete and utter mess of that fireball, but I was enthralled. I knew right then that this was magic. This was what I was meant to do for the rest of my life. I decided to figure out how to learn VFX any way I could.

Part of AIE’s requirements to graduate was that we found an internship to start at after graduation. My Women In Games Mentor had referred me to a technical art internship at Blizzard that was going to start after I graduated, but I was informed that due to the upcoming release of a new IP, Blizzard was canceling most of their internships that year, including mine. So began the mad dash to find another internship so I could graduate.

Thankfully, my Game Art teacher knew an Art Director of another small mobile studio and knew they were looking for art interns. I applied and got in just in time to graduate. This game studio was essentially a group of around 20 people, desks all set up with daisy-chained extension cords in a partially condemned building in downtown Bellevue. In lieu of money, I was compensated in “college credits”.

I learned a lot there, and I met some of the most brilliant developers I know to this day, including the person whom I did not know that 12 years down the road I would be marrying. While I was working on the project, I would spend all free time digging through the shaders and special effects that I could. I noted that the comments of the VFX shaders noted that they were created by an external partner, a VFX house. I found that not only was this VFX house local, but they were also actively looking for interns!

I left my 3D Artist internship and started a VFX internship. I loved the work and tried to absorb as much as I possibly could while I was there because I knew my time was short. This was also an unpaid internship, and a few months later I ran out of savings and left my internship. It was sink or swim time. It was time to get paid for my work.

I applied to multiple contract game jobs as a VFX artist. I got interviews for all of them, and eventually accepted a contract as a VFX Artist at Turn 10. I was being paid for my work. Initially, it felt more like a dream than reality. I saved up every penny I made just in case I woke up. A couple months later I realized that I was a real professional VFX Artist. I bought myself a copy of The Witcher 3 to celebrate.

Q: How often have you worked with VFX concepts before production begins?

Some effects may begin with a clear concept, while others are developed through references, experimentation, paintovers, or tests directly inside the engine.

How has this worked on the projects you have been part of, and how much should be decided before the VFX artist starts building the effect?

In my own experience, because a large amount of VFX is animation and timing, static concept art is usually involved at the Art Direction level to help make sure VFX understand the general vibe of what we are making as a whole, and that what we create fits into that rather than on a per VFX asset basis. Sometimes on small teams I have seen concept art help with the creation of stylized masks that were used by the VFX team, but modern tools seem to have changed that.

At the same time, each VFX artist has their own method of bringing their creations to life. Some may sketch out short storyboards of their effects, some may create simple animated “thumbnails” to brainstorm different ideas. I have personally made my own concept art as a way to mapping out how we might need to plan our under the hood set up for an Abilities VFX system.

Q: What does a new VFX artist need to learn before being trusted with major effects?

From the outside, the profession can look like a constant stream of epic explosions, powerful abilities, and dramatic moments.

In reality, a new artist may first need to understand the project’s tools, technical limitations, visual language, internal rules, review process, and the way the wider team works.

What helps a new artist understand the project, build trust, and prepare for more complex work?

An associate VFX Artist is ready to tackle more complex effects when they have demonstrated the following:

• The technical understanding to set up multiple stages that might be required.
• The communication skills to ask for help from other teams when they run into a new challenge, and keep the team updated on progress.
• The ability to break down large tasks into smaller ones and the time management skills to keep things moving and complete on time.
• A solid understanding of the team’s creative direction.
• The desire and ability to take ownership of the asset.
• A genuine interest in the asset. People who are excited about things and can find joy in it really shine if you let them.

Q: How can a small team build a VFX process that does not depend on one artist?

Hiring the first VFX artist can feel like the project is finally moving, but one person does not automatically create a reliable production process.

That artist may leave, become unavailable, or need to hand the work over to someone else later.

What should a small team establish from the beginning so another artist can understand, continue, and maintain the existing work without adding unnecessary bureaucracy?

This can be subject to how small the definition of a small team is. I have heard people refer to both two person studios and one hundred person studios as a “small team”. Some teams have the luxury of being able to have multiple people sharing the same skillset to work as a redundancy, while the only person on your studio’s one-person VFX team going on vacation is going to be a bottleneck no matter what you do.

However, this is what I’ve found essential to this process:

Establish foundational policies early and stick to them. Do not wing it and try to shoehorn a system in later. That costs time and money that we don’t have and will leave scars that will spread to cause issues when it matters most.

• Establish and stick to naming conventions so that artists only have to learn the convention and not try to understand every other artist’s system.
• Whenever possible, unify the processes between disciplines. Work with related teams to see what parts of their process can be unified. For example, if a certain team needs to use a certain program as part of their workflow, and that program can also be used for another team’s workflow, have both teams use that program so more people understand how to use it, and it’s that much easier to ramp up if someone needs to hop in to fill a gap.
• Build documentation creation and upkeep, intuitive template creation and use, and cross-training into the day to day production budget. Treat these with equal value as production.
• Push back against workloads that will require artists to sacrifice these practices to get done. Establish expectations and boundaries early so that your team is reliable and has a good foundation. Burnout kills small teams.
• Specialists are fine to advise and teach, but all artists should be exposed to all types of work within their discipline regularly. Small teams can’t afford to have “the ambient effects person”.
• Use a non-destructive workflow.
• Rotate meeting, feedback, ritual leadership duties so everyone understands what needs to be reviewed and documented and these can continue when one person is out.
• Have enough people on the team so that the Lead can step in to fill a gap without putting their own workload at risk.
• Lastly, I firmly believe that having a flexible, open PTO policy prevents bottlenecks. People feel empowered to take a mental health break while the workload is slow without risking their family vacation during the holiday season. This also avoids multiple people taking their “use it or lose it” PTO when they realize that they are about to lose it.

Q: What should indie developers look for beyond technical skill when choosing a VFX artist?

A strong portfolio does not always show how someone will work inside a small team over several months or years.

What qualities matter when the artist needs to communicate clearly, accept feedback, work independently, follow shared rules, and stay consistent with the direction of the game?

Are there warning signs that someone may create good effects but struggle with ownership, collaboration, or the uncertain nature of indie development?

This one is a tough one. As much as the LinkedIn talking heads want us to believe otherwise, there is no magical set of questions that trick the interviewee into revealing all their hidden personality traits. Most game developers aren’t psychologists or fortune tellers, nor should we act like we are. Nor does everyone fit into a binary “good fit / bad fit” category across the board. Someone may do poorly in one team, but have excelled in many others, and there are so many factors that go into determining this that it is silly to think that we can cover them all in a handful of vague interview questions.

I find that people who honestly have trouble with the basics, such as communication, collaboration, or time management, tend to wear it on their sleeve and get filtered out of the industry very early on. Most people who make it to our interview loop have had success in the majority of their career so far. So I feel that usually the real question isn’t so much “Does this person do the basic X, Y or Z?” as it is “Does our project have the opportunities this person needs to succeed, and does team leadership have the ability to guide this person to those opportunities with the tools they need to be successful?”

To answer this question, the team leadership needs to be aware of our own evolving leadership style with its inherent strengths and weaknesses so we can ask the interviewee clear, direct questions (not silly trick questions) that let us know if their work habits are likely to harmonize with our own. I find that very often if the team and the interviewee are already harmonizing in the interview, chances are they will also do so on the team. If not, then sometimes we just need to part ways and find harmony elsewhere. Every hire is a gamble.

For Small Game Studios

How can an indie team give useful direction to a VFX artist?

A small team may know how an attack, ability, or interaction should feel, but may not know how to describe the visual solution.

What information helps a VFX artist understand the real problem, and how useful are gameplay videos, references, technical limitations, examples of what is not working, direct access to the build, and regular reviews during production?

I find that normalizing sharing broken and unfinished work early and often is essential to this. Allow others to provide feedback with the understanding that everything is in progress, it is up to the discretion of the artist if that feedback is implemented, and that the final call is made by the Lead, Art Direction, or whoever has been assigned that role.

Visual examples are by far the best at communicating feedback, but they can be hard to find. VFX Artists often have a collection of video resources to search through in order to try to get their point across, especially in timing examples. Paintovers also work very well in communicating things like size and silhouette. I also find that it is good to have examples of how the team defines keywords in documentation. Examples of what “Squelchy” means compared to “Squishy” or what “Poppy” might mean compared to “Punchy”.

For Young Artists

What do studios really look for in a junior real-time VFX portfolio?

Is a polished video enough, or should artists also show the effect inside a game engine, its breakdown, materials, shaders, performance considerations, and how it behaves during gameplay?

Which details show that someone understands real-time production, and what common portfolio mistakes make it difficult to tell whether an applicant is ready to work on a real game?

It’s important to understand that a junior portfolio is not going to be held to the same standards that a mid to senior portfolio will be. I want to see that they understand the basics, demonstrate that they know what is hard to teach, and show they are curious about things that can be taught.

The very first thing I look for in a junior portfolio is if there is evidence of work done independently, not just as homework or part of a VFX course. I want to see that VFX interests and inspires the person enough for them to explore and create on their own. I want to get an idea of what they like to do.

After that, I look at timing. Timing is one of the hardest things to teach. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be close enough that I know the person is likely looking at references and making an effort to figure it out.

I want to see evidence of understanding how to create art assets for VFX. I want to see models with proper UV work; I want to see that they understand what makes a tiling texture, mask, flipbook, etc. successful. I need to know that they can work without a pre-made texture or fx model pack.

I want to see that you understand how to properly get your effect up and working in at least one game engine.

Bonus points if you show your work. Graphs and steps you took to optimize your effect for real-time. Be prepared to answer questions about this in interviews. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I want to understand that you are thinking about it and are excited to learn.