Magic: The Gathering Arena VFX
For MTG Arena, I began as Senior VFX Artist and later led the art team in creating VFX, 3D assets and animation.
With each cardset release, around 10 unique Mythic card VFX were created by Arena artists or in collaboration with contract studios and artists. I created concepts and storyboards for the more complex VFX, providing direction to VFX artists, modelers and animators as the project progressed. With an ever-increasing number of unique cards being added to the game, re-use of textures and materials was essential to eventually releasing the game on mobile platforms.
To keep the gameplay brisk, even the most powerful cards had to have quick, snappy VFX on their entrance. There’s a constant challenge to making the effect clear and powerful with a quick resolution so that it’s still enjoyed by players when it’s played for the 1000th time.
In addition to card VFX, I also created ambient environment VFX, pet VFX, and many UI/reward VFX.
Chulane, Teller of Tales VFX
In the case of Chulane, I created concepts and storyboards as well as the final particle VFX and animation. The book and quill model were created and rigged by members of the Arena art team. The flashy card entrance effects are supported with additional ability effects on the additional card draw and entrance animations.
Trail texture create for Chulane VFX
More Arena VFX
This video has some examples of the many VFX I created for MTG Arena, including the loading widget, pack opening, rewards, and Planeswalker entrance VFX.
VFX and animations were created with Unity, textures created in Photoshop and ClipStudio Paint, and 3D assets were built in Maya. Custom shaders were built with ShaderForge or in collaboration with our tech art team.
Marvel Avengers Alliance 2 (Disney Interactive)
I created most of the character ability and combat VFX for MAA 2 and drove the look for stylized VFX in game. I was also responsible for implementing/timing VFX with character animations. These VFX used only a few simple shaders to keep performance optimal on all supported mobile devices.