Halowars 2

Working at Creative Assembly on Halowars 2 was an interesting project as an effects artist.   A large amount of effects were needed, almost all driven by gameplay and design.   We were given a lot of autonomy in creating the look of the effects, as long as they worked with the design mechanics.

I worked on most effects in the game but mainly focused on leader powers (generally large scale weapon effects deployed from space), buffs, debuffs, projectiles, environment effects and explosions.

Initially, I started off on Blitz mode which is a card game where you can deploy units on the battlefield from your card hand.   I created card deployment effects for different card strengths, energy pickup effects, base effects as well as specific blitz-mode leader powers.

I worked with code to design new tools to help improve VFX workflow.   This tool presented a hierarchical tree view for most data files in the game for understanding data relationships, checking files out of perforce and finding the correct data for effect hookup.

I did a lot of the effects for the Halowars 2 DLC where we tried to use the effects to theme some of the factions with ice, fire, etc.

Overall, it was a great project to work on from an effects point of view.   A large variety of different weapons, a gameplay mechanics driven approach to effect creation and the chance to create some awesome effects for a type of game I've never had the chance to work on before.