GDC 2024 Session Viewer

Complex games need visual feedback for lots of different character actions, weapons and talents and therefore can quickly result in total chaos on screen. This is a session about how to wrestle the beast of information overload and how to use VFX to drive player attention in the right direction without overwhelming them. The talk uses Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League as an example to illustrate these problems, how the VFX team approached them and what was learned in the process.

Often problems start in the beginning of the design process, when VFX artists are not included, or when single designs come together late in the game—so this talk touches on how to structure teams to include VFX in design, a breakdown of our specific problems and what solutions we came up with and a short post-mortem on what was learned and what we want to improve on in our live phase.

Takeaway

Attendees will dive into what the VFX team at Rocksteady learned about visual overload in the production of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. They will learn how the team was structured, methods to deal with lots of information on screen, and tools to guide the player via VFX.

Intended Audience

This is for VFX artists of all levels, but also for game designers who struggle with how to handle lots of information and how to push that information to the player. This talk may also inform entry level concept artists about screenspace composition.