Relationships with the team
The VFX Artist, is among the jobs that require a good team communication and a good knowledge of who does what in the project. With the Sound Effect Artists, we are prone to have discussions involving multiple jobs at the same time and adapt to their needs and constraints.
As the effects we will have to author have implications into gameplay, cinematic, environments and characters. Most of the time these effects are support for all the game logic and the feedback the game has to provide to the player. As this feedback is not only made of visuals, but also involves sound effects, camera shaking, controller rumble, and more, it is important to be in sync with the rest of the team so your effect matches the brief and the intent of the game director.
The Art Director and the Concept Art team
He is our father, and his words are the undisputed truth. We will have to come up with ideas that matches his directions and briefs.
Most of the time, the Art Director gives to all artists a set of Art Guidelines for the project so every ambiguity is solved by looking into this document. As new questions come, these guidelines become richer and as the production progress, every artist of the team will know how their effects should look like.
He is also supervising a team of concept artists that are in charge of putting his words into images, and do research to improve the visual guidelines of the game. These Guys will also be of great help when a new idea of effect pops out and the art guidelines are not enough to make the effect properly : often, the art director will assemble a strike team of VFX and concept artists to iterate quickly to find a visual solution for some effect.
Most of the time, the Art Director will come at us asking the impossible and we will be responsible to give him a proper answer of feasibility. Not to worry, along with the concept artists, there are also other people to help us answer: the technical director will help us decide if we have some kind of solution, the producer will evaluate if we have time to do this, and the other job leads will help if the effect require their intervention too.
The Technical Director and the engineering team.
The Technical Director (often named CTO or TD) is in charge of all tech for your project, and as the art director has a global vision of the art of the game, the Technical Director has the global vision of the tech and the engine capabilities. We will get most of the technical information from him, and is our interlocutor of choice when asking for new features or optimizations.
He is often the head of a team of engineers, graphic programmers, and engine programmers who have a strong knowledge of common implementations and will provide you advice if you are unsure about one solution. Also, these guys will review your integrations in game and help you optimize your effects (even if that means removing all the full screen smoke you spawned around)