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ethancfmp2025 · 4 months ago

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What is my Specialist Practice and who is notable within said Practice?

During this project I want to focus on VFX and visual design as my Specialist Practice. But what is VFX and Visual design?

Simply put VFX and Visual Design is the practice of designing or implementing visual effects such as Particles, Shaders, Lighting, Animations and Textures to create a cohesive and dynamic scene/level (at least in the area of games design).

Over the course of my last projects I have developed this skillset from creating basic particle systems and using stock Unreal Engine shaders, to creating complex shaders and experimenting with varied visual styles to create unique experiences (see Plaglock, my Rapid Prototyping Project).

I will now go over some notable practitioners within the field of visual design. Though some of them don't directly or solely practice visual design, I think it's worth covering them as they have created visually unique media.

Hakita

Hakita is probably most well known for ULTRAKILL, his first full-on foray into games development, however I had inadvertently discovered him before this from an album he had created in 2017 called “Zen, or the Means Without Ends”.

At the start of ULTRAKILL’s development he was solely responsible for the games visuals, sound design, level design and programming etc. However as the game grew in popularity he gathered a team of people (PITR, Victoria, Heckteck and various other multi-talented individuals) to take over these aspects of development so he could focus on the larger design aspects of the game.

ULTRAKILL is art, and good art at that, all of the systems, narratives, level design and visual design are all so cohesively complex that it would be a rather hot-take to not say so. ULTRAKILL stands out because of the approach taken to making the game, which was essentially “How do we make the coolest game ever”, taking inspiration from sources like art-house film and anime to craft the games’ visual style, as well as using low-res textures and low-poly models to convey its desired look.

The earliest presence that I can find of Hakita online is this bandcamp profile “https://redherringproject.bandcamp.com/community” comprised of most of his earlier music work before the “heaven pierce her” alias which is how I first discovered them at around 2022. According to an interview found here: https://www.prankster101.com/articles/interview-with-arsi-hakita-patala-of-ultrakill/, Hakita got into game-dev because of a course he took, creating various small projects for game-jams (you can find some of these on itch.io) and whatnot. ULTRAKILL was his first commercial project and it came about after Hakita received relatively pessimistic feedback on a stealth game he was creating at the time.

Hakita discusses their creative processes in this interview: https://intothebluesky.com/2021/10/05/follow-up-interview-with-hakita/, where he had this to say about his approach to designing the level 4-2: “the general idea of 4-2 was to have a level that seems very open but without actually sacrificing the constant forward momentum of a linear level, so you’re actually still moving along a single direct path, it just doesn’t feel like a hallway because it doesn’t look like one.” I think this is an underrated technique when it comes to visual design, because it shows how visual representation can convey different settings and emotions despite level design.

Toby Fox

Toby Fox is most well known for 2015 RPG Undertale, which he developed almost solo (he had help from Temmie Chang for a lot of the games artwork). He is also known for Deltarune, the Earthbound Halloween Hack and some work on the Pokemon series as a composer.

As mentioned Toby Fox created the majority of Undertale and Deltarune. He did the programming, narrative design, composing, some artwork and the overall visual design for both games.

Toby Fox stands out to me mostly because his work feels somewhat unfiltered in terms of artistic expression, using basic artwork with great character design and development to create an experience that's not only memorable but emotionally hard-hitting. It’s clear that he takes massive inspiration from things like Touhou and Earthbound in his work and as a result his games tend to feature similar mechanics and gameplay styles.

Toby’s earlier works include that of the Earthbound Halloween hack and various songs for the Homestuck soundtrack, he doesn’t talk much about these (at least not that I can find that's relevant) or how they informed Undertale or any other of his more modern works but it’s obvious how each of these projects eventually led to the creation of Undertale, like the track “MEGALOVANIA” which was originally in the Halloween Hack before being remade for Undertale.

Visually Undertale is quite basic, but it uses this to it's strength. Using consistent colour palettes for different environments as well as unique character designs, Undertale creates an extremely unique 2D visual style that's quite difficult to replicate despite it's basic look.

In an interview with Mary Sue, Toby outlined his approach to designing jokes and trope subversions within Undertale: Interview: Undertale's Toby Fox | The Mary Sue (This website has a LOT of ads, so be careful).

TMS: Some of your humor is just silly jokes, but other times you use it to criticize and poke fun at game tropes that go unquestioned. Did you go into making the game planning to use jokes in that way, or did it just naturally work out like that?

Toby: I just write what’s funny …

Toby is currently in the development of chapters 3-4 of Deltarune, Undertale’s spiritual successor of sorts.

David Szymanski

David Szymanski is most well known for his games Iron Lung and Dusk, with Dusk being his most popular work. Some of his lesser known work includes: Squirrel Stapler, The Pony Factory and Butchers Creek.

Outside of the soundtracks, David is responsible for the entirety of all of his projects developments, with Andrew Hulshult being responsible for said soundtrack (and the sound design).

His work stands out to me as being the catalyst for bringing boomer shooters to popularity and inspiring other games such as ULTRAKILL. I also think he’s a master of atmospheric design, using concepts like claustrophobia and basic text storytelling to reinforce a sense of horror in Iron Lung for example. He makes use of software like GIMP to create gritty, low resolution images used for texturing to make his games look old and slightly nostalgic.

According to Szymanski, earlier in his life he would write quite a bit and thought to get some of his works published, however he “ended up drifting away from that as music and game development took respective center stage.” Taken from this interview: David Szymanski: His New Game, His Old Game, His Horror Fame - DREADXP. His earlier horror experiences helped him gain some notoriety to the point that he was picked up by New Blood Interactive to publish Dusk.

According to the Dusk Wiki, Szymanski used Unity to create Dusk, with GIMP, Krita and Blender used for texturing, visual design and animation. I couldn’t find an interview mentioning his creative process specifically but I found one where he list various inspirations of his creative work: David Szymanski: The DUSK dev dishes on some of his favorite Music, Movies, and More - DREADXP.

#Research #Practitioners

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