Let's start with a quick introduction. Can you tell us your name, what you do, and where you're currently working? Is there a nickname or online handle you're known by in the community?

Hi, I’m Jesse Henning and I am a Senior VFX Artist at Atomic Arcade working on a new G.I. Joe Snake Eyes game with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.

Looking back to your early years, what inspired you to pursue a career in visual effects? Were there key moments in your childhood or early career that shaped your path into the VFX world?

Honestly, I kind of stumbled into VFX. It wasn’t really a career path that was on my mind. However, I was a gamer growing up and really enjoyed wielding a video camera. A friend of mine told me about Blender around the same time I started acquiring video editing software. I was pretty hooked on 3D after that and eventually fell into a career as a filmmaker, animator and 3D artist. After starting my own Freelance Animation business the games industry found me. I fell in love with Real-Time VFX and never looked back. I realized that was the perfect career path for me as it allowed me to be somewhat of a generalist and enjoy doing a lot of what I love about being a digital artist.

From your experience, what are the key differences or common misconceptions when working with real-time FX for games compared to traditional film VFX? How does optimizing effects for gameplay impact your workflow?

That was one of the most difficult transitions for me. I was use to working with Hi-Res full 32-Bit EXR files with a lot of channel data for compositing and also rendering effects, like explosions, for a single camera angle. I was use to creating art that people could only experience one way visually and being able to direct their eyes to where I needed them to look. When I started in games, I had no idea what a flipbook was, thought I could use all 8K textures to get the best quality and didn’t understand performance budgets. Not to mention having to have camera facing sprites that could hold up the right illusion and composition from multiple angles. There’s much I could say here, but all in all it felt like a foreign and completely different discipline even though VFX was still in the title.

How does optimizing effects for gameplay impact your workflow?

For me, the concepting, planning and R&D phases become even more critical. Thinking about how to squeeze more information into smaller resolution textures and what to pack in each channel to get more use out of them across multiple effects. Creating pipelines and tools for asset creation and faster iteration while still making assets budget friendly and performant. And then also thinking about how to composite these effects in a particle system to provide the necessary visual context for gameplay while creating a smooth and lag free experience for players. I also usually have 2-3 plans of attack for creating my effects in case something doesn’t end up being performant or is causing bugs in the game and I have to fall back on another solution.

Let’s talk about your upcoming workshop "Real-Time VFX for Games." What inspired you todevelop this workshop?

When I took my first Art Test in the industry, I struggled to find educational content that could help me succeed at creating VFX for games. I had to buy courses that were related to the test in a way, but not made for Real-Time workflows. So, I had to fill in the gaps. That took a lot more time scouring the internet for any shred of advice on techniques I could use to get my effects in-game. It was very painful, but eventually I did well enough to get an opportunity. When I finally got into the industry, I quickly learned what production life was like and again tried to find tutorials and courses to help me make it through my tasks. I realized that a lot of tutorials showed you how to make cool things and often those cool things worked within the context of the tutorial, but they didn’t work within the context of the project I was on. Or, the feature you needed to make those things work, wasn’t turned on, and couldn’t be turned on prior to the game shipping. I learned a lot of hard lessons, and watched others fall into the same struggles that I did. So, I wanted to make a course that focused more around making VFX within the context of an actual game production environment. One that would provide proven techniques, plans and strategies for creating Real-Time VFX while also collaborating with other disciplines. My hope is that artists who take the course will have a better time navigating studio life and be more versatile as an artist. Not to mention those switching from film to games or seasoned VFX artists coming from proprietary engines who want to learn Unreal within the context of their current skill sets.

How does it stand out from other courses, especially with it’s focus on production-oriented techniques and optimization for gameplay?

In my opinion it’s a couple things. First, I believe it’s in what students will experience within the production pipeline and the created level. I don’t think I have seen any course laid out like this where you will have a level, gameplay systems, and cinematics with block out temp VFX like you would have in an actual production environment.

The second thing is the technique and asset creation focus through tools and workflows that can crossover to many other effects. What’s highlighted in this course are production proven techniques that you can iterate on very quickly, but also shift to bespoke models that branch off of those when needed. They can be used to create realistic effects or many flavors of stylized effects. I think the marriage of those two elements on top of the troubleshooting, time management and task tracking practices is a powerful combination for empowering artists to truly be more versatile in production and be a greater asset to their team. Again, I don’t personally know of another course with this kind of focus, though I hope more will exist.

What are some of the common challenges that artists face when working on real-time VFX for games?

From an external perspective, time constraints, tech limitations, performance budgets and cross departmental communication. From an Artist perspective, communication, time management, effective planning, skillset limitations and tool knowledge. Artists can tend to get in the weeds early on or silo themselves in production which can cost them time and keep them from not just delivering quality work, but in some cases not being able to deliver the right work needed to accomplish the job. You have to know how to start, when to move on and how to finish well.

How does your workshop help them overcome these hurdles, especially when it comes to performance and optimization?

The Production Pipeline in this course will be foundational for helping students move through a large amount of tasks with the right plan pacing and perspective for dealing with production hurdles when they show up. They will be given many different techniques that they can iterate from to navigate performance and optimization issues as well. I will be sharing optimization tricks and troubleshooting practices in the course to that end as well.

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Who is this workshop best suited for?

I think the sweet spot for students taking this course will be for those that already have some experience making VFX, understand the fundamentals or have a digital art background in some way, whether 3D Modeling or animation. It will definitely suit an intermediate to advanced level student, but probably be more of a struggle for those that are at a beginner level.

Do participants need any specific experience level or knowledge to get the most out of it?

I would say it would be best to have a basic understanding of the programs used and understand the fundamentals of Art theory and animation principles. However, if you have had experience working in 3D, animation or Film VFX with deadline driven projects, then you should be able to navigate this course as well. My goal is that this course will bridge that cross-over gap from other disciplines, Film VFX or those who have done Real-Time VFX in a proprietary Engine as well.

As you’ve progressed to Senior VFX Artist role, what advice do you have for artists aiming to take on leadership positions?

I’d say, be willing to listen to feedback and critique, but gain discernment on when and how to apply it. Get to know others on your team and how their disciplines contribute to your project. This will help with communication and keep you from siloing yourself from the team. Become a champion for helping set visual targets (Through concepts and vision boards) when needed so that you can align with your Art Directors and other project stakeholders so you are clear on the vision before moving forward. Work diligently to pursue your craft, always be creatively curious, stay teachable and remain humble no matter how good you are.

With such a busy schedule, how do you balance your professional work with personal projects?

I have had to learn how to become intentional with my time. That was hard for me for so long, and most of my critiques from my early years were about time management. So, I had to really push to get better on that front. I have had to learn to actually schedule time to schedule time, plan out what I will do with that time in an outline and then figure out when to take strategic vacation days if I need more time. I’ve also had to learn how to do hard things. Which sounds funny, but I believe as humans we tend to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. So our brains naturally want more of what feels good and less of what doesn’t. I like sleep, I like sleep a lot, but gone are my days of playing a game until 5am and sleeping until noon or longer. I usually get up around 5:30 or 6am to work out, get ready for the day and tackle projects outside of my job before I start work. It was hard adjusting to that schedule, be intentional and stay focused, but you’d be surprised at the habits you can form when you start pushing through your barriers.

When the pressure builds up, how do you stay productive and keep your energy levels high?

There are many times I have to remind myself of what I am actually doing for a job. I mean, I am making VFX for games, that’s a pretty awesome job. So, sometimes it helps to just remember that. Also, I talk about this in the course, but learning how to give yourself quick wins in production so you can put that pen on the paper so to speak. This helps keep me motivated, boost my morale and protect me from spinning in my chair as I peer up at the large mountain of work I have ahead. Also, if you have amazing producers and managers, like I do, then being able to communicate with them so they can help you manage scope can also be a huge boost to help you put your focus and attention on proper priorities. I would also say, hobbies. I like to fish, play the drums and spend time with my family. The hobbies give me creative rejuvenation and spending time with my family always restores my purpose. Oh, and caffeine.

Let’s dive into one of your favorite projects. Can you walk us through the creative process, especially how you balanced creativity with production efficiency?

I think one of my favorites has to be the Casting effects for Sorcery in Conan Exiles. It was a lot of fun, it pushed me creatively and I was able to work with many different disciplines of talented and awesome devs. For that DLC specifically, I ended up creating around a 30+ page VFX style guide to help identify the visual language surrounding Sorcery which ended up helping to define the Art Direction for that content. That led to working with our concept artists, UI artists, designers, 3D artists and others to help pull that off. It involved me creating a procedural pipeline in Houdini for the casting rocks so that we could get different iterations and looks for those very quickly. They also required a destruction element, so that pipeline handled that and everything related to those assets including processing the high poly to low poly meshes for baking and creating textures in Substance Painter. I created a pipeline in that software for authoring those textures and then made a tool in Substance Designer to handle processing all of the Rune Textures one of our amazing Concept Artists, Kristine Houston created. Then I got to work with our Senior Technical Designer, Chris Meredith, to implement the effects. Together, we stood that entire system up in about a week. We had a few days after to polish it a bit more, but we had an incredibly limited amount of time to put that together. I’m pretty proud of what we all accomplished as a team in such a short amount of time for such a key gameplay feature. We knew what we had to do, we trusted each other, worked together really well, accomplished the job and had a blast doing it. It felt like that’s what the magic of making games with friends should feel like.

Looking back, are there any skills or lessons you wish you'd learned earlier?

I have gone through my career as a self-taught Artist. That can have its blessings and its curses. I wish I would have understood the fundamentals and artistic principles a lot sooner. I just saw cool things I wanted to make a lot of the time, did a tutorial and tried to make it. I didn’t understand craft, structure, rules, pipelines, etc… So, I wish I would have had someone who could have helped guide me towards those things earlier.

What do you focus on when collaborating with other artists and technical teams to ensure both artistic quality and performance optimization for real-time gameplay?

The first thing I usually focus on is alignment for the moment, feature or system I am creating effects for. What is the gameplay purpose? How does it relate to the pillars, lore and overall experience of our game? And what visual style and language should this satisfy? So I will be in regular communication with my Art Director, designers or other art teams to make sure we satisfy those aspects. Then, as we start pursuing optimization, performance and implementation I will work more closely with our Tech Artists and Engineers. It will be a back and forth at different parts of the project, but ultimately there are many times that your technical limitations and engine capabilities can dictate your artistic pursuits. So, I find that I am between departments a good bit. That’s why I believe you need to be a solid communicator and be well versed in what others do, so you know how to bridge those communication gaps.

As a VFX artist, how do you continue to push your boundaries and grow professionally?

The first thing that has helped me tremendously is working within limitations. I remember a couple years ago, I gave myself an art test with 6 different effects. I challenged myself to make them all with only one texture, so the same one for all of them, and for each effect I only had 3 working days to complete them. My goal was to take the focus off of what I knew how to do well and push myself to think deeper in the areas I needed to grow. So I found that giving yourself strict limitations can actually boost your creativity and help you discover new ways to make art. I continue to pursue learning opportunities, try to dissect, understand and reproduce others work I admire, and try to stay aware of up and coming tools/techniques I can add to my toolbelt as they become production ready.

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Are there any new challenges you're excited about tackling in the future?

I’d say I’m pretty excited to be making VFX for a AAA level G.I. Joe Snake Eyes game, especially since I was a huge fan as a kid. It has brought many new challenges and growth opportunities and no doubt it will continue too.

In your view, how does real-time VFX impact the overall gameplay experience?

I think it has a huge impact on the overall gameplay experience. Having that visual feedback on screen for gamers is critical for them to understand what consequence their actions have and lead them into further immersion in the world they are playing in. It’s almost like not being able to feel pain in the real world. Without our nervous system we wouldn’t know if that stove is burning our skin, that our scraped knee needs attention, that there is something wrong internally or that, hey I’m not that flexible and my arm shouldn’t be going that direction right now. That’s how I see effects in a game. Did my pistol actually fire? Did I hit that enemy? Was that item for health or was it poisonous? Am I in critical condition or do I have superhuman strength? Well crafted VFX will inform the gamer of exactly what they should know and react too. Missing or distracting, ill-conceived VFX can do the opposite.

For artists who want to follow your work or learn more about your projects, where can they find you?

I primarily hang out on LinkedIn and ArtStation so feel free to catch me on either of those.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessehenningmedia/

ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/jessehenning

Website: https://www.henning3d.com/copy-of-home

To wrap things up, do you have any final words of wisdom or advice you'd like to share with fellow artists, particularly those looking to dive into game production and real-time effects?

We’ve talked about a good bit already, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Stay hungry in your curiosity, learning and passion. Stay humble in your evaluation of yourself and your attitude towards your team and leaders, being thankful and grateful for what you have been entrusted. And hustle intelligently. Working hard, doesn’t mean you have to burn yourself out, so stay focused, work with intent and integrity and be someone your team can trust to get the job done. Be someone who will add great value in more ways than just talent to those around you.

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