Special Effects

Special Effects artists use particles, decals, glows, blooms, etc. to create explosions, clouds, skies, water, etc.

Also called FX, SFX, Visual Effects, VFX and Real-Time VFX.

Special Effects in games can generally be broken down into 3 categories:
 * 1) Particles
 * 2) Shaders
 * 3) Simulations

Links

 * VFX for Games - Particle Effects (84MB zip) presentation delivered at SIGGRAPH 2012 by Crytek’s Sascha Herfort.
 * VFX Artists subforum on Tech-Artists.Org
 * imbueFX : VFX Training ($) training site for visual effects in games
 * FX Artist resources?
 * Inside DICE: Adapting the Battlefield visuals for Close Quarters combat
 * Rendering Wounds in Left 4 Dead 2 by Alex Vlachos of Valve Software, at GDC 2010
 * Faking Volumetric Effects in UDK by Stephen Jameson