I’ve really wanted to move into creating shaders and particle fx for our game, but not really sure where to start… Our setup currently doesn’t allow much for the artist to create shaders and particle fx (explosions, smoke, etc) and the coders have to take time from their code to try and understand what we mean when we want the blood to be more fluid and less of a puff… and the smoke there, should get larger and not rotate as much, etc etc… I’m sure you can see where I’d like to find a way to port some of the tech art stuff over to the artists… in as simple way as I can and still get the HLSL stuff integrated into our art pipeline and integrate it so the art department can create particle fx, explosions, smoke fx, etc and port the HLSL or CGSL code back to our coders for inclusion into the game…
We’ve recently upgraded to Max 2010 which supposedly has Mental Mill artist edition but not sure if that’s where I should start…
I’m seriously starting at ground zero here in learning to create shaders, etc and was wondering if some of you experienced folks had any ideas. Either way I’d like to learn more as I’ve had about 10 year IT background so I’m not too afraid of raw code…
With only three artists and three coders, you don’t have a lot of room to maneuver. Working with the FX system should give you some art opportunities while still having to work with all the other systems involved in your workplace.
While figuring out how items get hooked up (for example, the muzzle flash on a gun, tracer movement, hit effects for different materials) you will start to get a sense of where the complicated parts of the pipeline exist. As a junior – you will be able to provide a needed art role and identify pipeline issues. If you are interested in figuring out the best types of particles to emit for your game – use whatever your company’s 3D software is and demonstrate what you want. You can get away with very simple shaders to get beyond the “just a puff” look. Obviously there are a lot of war games to look at for examples.
You mentioned an IT background – if that involves coding – you will likely find many issues easy to fix as you become intimately involved with the pipeline and know exactly what is wrong. A coding background will help you to quickly script some solutions.
I’m always up for pimping my own tools so I’ll suggest you take a look at ShaderFX next to Mental Mill.
</engage toolpimping>
I think you’ll find it many times easier to use.
It is also much more integrated in 3dsMax (you work directly on your 3d scenes in the 3dsMax viewport).
And it has a TON of video tutorials and samples you can learn from.
It is free for individuals and pretty low cost to buy some licenses if you decide you like it.
