We at Tuatara had the pleasure to work alongside Counterplay Games on their newest title, Godfall, for the Playstation 5. My focus on this project was creating optimized, customizable effects for environments, and providing some support and RnD for our VFX team.
Check out more VFX work from my team:
https://www.artstation.com/tuataragames
https://www.artstation.com/phrancisco
https://www.artstation.com/gelush
https://www.artstation.com/saninmax
And also the very talented Level Art, Lighting and Shader artists involved in these scenes:
https://www.artstation.com/katherinelopez
https://www.artstation.com/n_kobus
https://www.artstation.com/tejay
https://www.artstation.com/virtualvagabond
https://www.artstation.com/gheromo
https://www.artstation.com/pixelmasher
Status effects VFX on characters using shell meshes and particle systems.
One of the game's scenes featuring mesh-based effects.
Demonstration of the features of the fireflies effect. It consists in a single mesh where the motion is animated via vertex shader.
Another scene using a variety of mesh-based effects.
The waterfalls can be reshaped with parameters that control the vertex shader, using custom primitive data to allow for draw call batching.
Embers used throughout the game share a similar technique with the fireflies. Each group of embers is a single mesh.
Another mesh-based effect, used for polen, dust motes and embers. Similar to the fireflies, with the added looping functionality.
A scene featuring a mix of bespoke and system-based VFX, such as the waterfalls and banners, respectively.
Godray / fog cards that are shaped by the vertex shader, controlled by material parameters. They ended up being versatile enough to be used throughout the entire game.
The lower performance impact of the mesh-based effects allowed artists to use a larger amount of them, creating lively, beautiful scenes.