"The Great Weapon" event fx
Breakdown:
The “corrupted core” of the Great Weapon - the spherical geometry itself was adapted from Malthael’s “Death Orbs”, done by other D3 Artists. However, from there I re-textured and re-shaded it with a corruption look, including shader animation to make it evil and contaminated looking.
The “inky spirity flames” coming out of the corrupted core were all done by me, particle animated and textured; I had to manipulate a shader (using alpha-testing) to make it “crunchy” looking to be more nefarious.
As for the “swirly spirits” hovering around the corrupted core, I took a generic swirly ribbon trail actor we have on D3, but re-scaled, re-textured and re-shader manipulated it to have the evil spirity look I was after.
Here’s a case where I also did some game lighting – I attached a point-light to the corrupted core, adjusted its color, intensity and falloff to light the environment as if the red corrupted core’s glow lit it.
The angels’ blue “purging energy” fx on the corrupted core including the cast energy, energy streams, impact flashes and impact glow are all modeled, textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me, except for the big blue glow spheres, which used a generic D3 glow asset.
The angels’ “shielding fx" that protects you from the Great Weapon’s pulses including the ground caustic glows, were entirely modeled, textured, and shader-manipulated by me.
The pulsing effect on the corrupted core warning the player it’s about to erupt, was entirely modeled, textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me, minus the distortion spheres, which are used from our library of generic distortion geo (although I did animate their emission and scales to pulse them).
The red-glowing ground region that distorts, lying between the unshielded regions of the angels as the corrupted core is about to burst to warn the player and indicate the danger regions as well as being heated by the core, was entirely modeled, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
The big damaging energy pulses that erupt from the evil core, as well as their explosion impacts fx, were entirely particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
The spirit spawn and cast fx when the evil core launches the trapped spirits within it, to stream and spawn into the real world and attack the player, were entirely particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me, minus the distortion sphere, borrowed from generic D3 distortions.
The entire big spawn of “Kurekas” the boss, from him being launched as a huge ball of corrupted energy from the core, to landing and spawning after the energy ball hits the ground, was entirely particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me, minus distortion sphere from generic D3 distortion.
Kurekas’ custom suck-in power that “brings you into his eternal prison”: from the ground suck-in energy swirls, to the mini corrupted orb “prison”, to the tendrils of corrupted energy streaming out of it used to grab and pull the player into it, to the energy cage that roots the player, were all entirely, modeled, textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me.
And finally, after killing Kurekas the corrupted core becomes purged: the purified core, or “holy hamburger” affectionately called, was done by me taking the original core by other D3 Artists, doing a bit more kit-bash modeling to model out the ribbon of energy wrapping around its middle. Then I created new energetic textures and manipulated the shaders to give it a more “purified”, serene, holy energy look.
The light-rays emanating out of the purified core were also textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me, along with adjusting the point-light to now shine on the environment with a calmer, holier, pale-yellow, warm feel.
"The Wickerman" event fx
Breakdown:
The Wickerman boss' character-fx – his flaming head, his fiery “furnace belly”, his molten hands – all textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me; in addition, I painted a glow-map for his entire body to accentuate his hot spots more. The embers floating off him were generic D3 embers done by another D3 Tech Artist.
His first of three custom boss powers were the “fire swipes” (there are 3 kinds of them with different animation permutations) – this includes the swipe itself and the flames that shear off his hands – fx all modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
His second power is the “fire nova” – the 8 swirly fireballs that get hurled from him. The fireballs, their fire trails and the swirly ignition cast fx, were all modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
His third and my favorite skill of his is the “fire phantom”, where he transforms into a fireball and flies around between the torches in the level, igniting them while also forming streams of fire between them that damage the player. Everything fx-wise in fire phantom – from when he ignites and swirls into a ball of mini fire-balls that merge together and then jets off as a “fiery corona”, to the torches lighting up as he flies through them, to the big streams of fire and flames between them – were all modeled, particle animated, textured and shaded by me.
After he re-emerges from a fireball into solid form again, he emerges from a big damaging “column of swirly flames”, which I also fully modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated.
"The Rock Hive" event fx
Breakdown:
For the rock-hive material themselves, I took existing rock-hive geometry from Prop Artists, and did a texture and shader treatment on them that gave them a dark obsidian look with an edge-glow to convey radioactivity.
The big main middle hive has two extra particle systems: radioactive fire and radioactive pollen. For both I textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated them.
When the little and big rock hives burst as they explode, the main big shattered chunks were cut up and rigged with game physics by Prop Artists. However, for all the secondary little debris, rock shards, pollen bursts and radioactive energy bursting out (for the big hive) that are part of the rock hive explosions, these fx were all modeled, textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me.
“Ixatla”, the Rock-Hive Queen and boss of this event, erupts out of the rubble after the main hive explodes and crumbles. Her spawn from the ground that bursts upwards sending a burst of energy, dust and pollen from the ground was particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me. Furthermore, I added and adjusted an explosion force to push the surrounding rubble up and outwards to sell the violent up burst and clear the area so she’s not blocked.
Ixatla herself has radioactive fire and embers character fx on her. The embers were generic ones from our D3 fx goodies-bag made by our collective Tech Artists, but the radioactive fire from her body was all done by me, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated.
Ixatla’s custom boss power is a flying charge-attack that lays mini-rock-hives along the path. The mini-hives are set to erupt, and when they do, explode out and do damage to the player while also hatching and spawning more little rockling monsters to attack the player. The radioactive pollen bursts as the mini-hives erupt from the ground, and the warning circles emanating outwards from them to indicate they’re about to burst, were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
When the mini-rock-hives burst or hatch, I mostly re-purposed the fx I did for the bigger hives exploding as outlined above, just miniaturizing it. However, I did add one more particle – the squiggly “radioactive burst lines” you see emanating outwards, to convey a violent energy release (which was particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me).
"Clyfton King" event fx
Breakdown:
The evil wannabe King Wynton’s shielding effect completely modeled, textured and shader manipulated by me.
The evil wannabe King Wynton’s custom attack skill swipe fx was modeled, textured and shader manipulated by me.
The evil Mages’ spawn fx (when they come back after killed) particle animated and textured by me; only the blue glow part borrowed a generic D3 flash texture.
The evil Mages’ casting fx and energy streams that protect Wynton with shielding modeled, textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me.
"The Great Ballista" event fx
Breakdown:
The flocking spawning of the bloodhawks flying upward from the nest below were instanced particles of characters. I worked closely with an Animator – he did the flap cycles, I animated the flocking flight patterns via particle animation in D3 engine.
The angels’ “fixing energy” fx on the ballista including the cast, energy streams, impact flashes and healing glows all modeled, textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me, except for the big yellow glow’s texture around the ballista, which used a generic D3 flash texture.
The great ballista’s entire cast, activation and firing fx are done by me; this includes rigging up the ballista itself and shading the “glowy angelic strings” as well. The arrow itself was kit-bashed and remodeled, re-textured and re-shaded by me from Imperius’ war staff done by another D3 Artist.
The Queen Bloodhawk boss has a custom “Divebomb” attack that has a “swoosh” trail effect. I used a generic trail ribbon we have on D3, but re-textured and shaded it to fit this creature better.
"Fire Storm" event fx
Breakdown:
The fx of the giant spinning flame-throwers and the furnace they come from (blistering stream of fire flames, smoke, embers and all), were completely textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me, including the starting ignition cast and flame death.
“Peleil”, the fire death-maiden boss’ “Flame Wreath” power had its fx entirely done by me; this includes modeling, texturing, shader-manipulating and particle animating the jump-cast burst, fire-stream shot, ground warning rings, wreath-spawn burst, the flame-wreath fire swirls and its end burst.
"Angelic Attack" event fx
Breakdown:
Angelic arrow projectile was kit-bashed re-modeled from Imperius’ war staff, but re-textured and shaded by me to be more angelic; arrow’s projectile trail fx as it flies, is also textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me.
The idea was, the Pandemonium Fortress would have an impregnable invisible force-field around it. So when the angelic arrow bolts hit it, they obliterate into smithereen while sending ripples into the force-field. All fx on the arrow impacts - the energy burst, the shattered shards, the disbursed debris, the mushroom cloud and finally, the sinusoidal distortion ripples – all modeled, rigged, animated, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
(Please see second vid above) The central primary part of the distortion ripple was circular poly piece of geo I modeled and rigged in Maya with bones and skinning. Maya has a “ripple” deformer that mimics concentric water sin waves. But it is strictly a point-based deformer, so I first applied it onto a dupe matching circular poly piece, and used that to drive the joint+skin-driven one, through poly-surface constraints driving joints. There were tons of joints, so I also had to use Maya expressions and scripts, then I baked out the result to keyframes animating the joints which the game-engine can use.
The secondary smaller distortion ripples outside the center were simply “ring” textures I painted in Photoshop and applied to a distortion particle shader, while animating the particles to scale outwards.
"Demonic Attack" event fx
Breakdown:
The demonic arrow projectile was kit-bashed re-modeled from Diablo’s tail geo (no one would’ve guessed). I then added on and modeled the arrow head and tail of the arrow, re-texturing and re-shading it completely to match Malthael’s corrupted angelic death theme.
The spinning energetic tendril spinning around the demonic arrow, I completely modeled, textured, shaded, rigged and animated.
The dark shadowy trail fx of the demonic arrow projectile as it flies, is also textured, shader-manipulated and particle animated by me.
"Blessed Shield Prototype" skill fx
Breakdown:
I was the first one who worked on the Crusader’s “Captain America” skill: “Blessed Shield”. In the end, I had to be taken off the skill to work on some critical events fx, so the final result in the game replaces my original, but here in this clip you see my initial incarnation, all done by me …
Here in this clip, Blessed Shield has my swooshier cast fx (energy-swirl, energy-release flashes, sparks), its shield disc-spin halo, energy speed-trails, shield impact’s reverberation waves and hit flashes fx, were all modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
"Crushing Resolve" skill fx
Breakdown:
Crushing Resolve was basically a 5-stage aoe swipe-attack, whereby if you hit a target at each stage, you’ll be progressed to bigger aoe ranges.
All fx on it for all 5 stages of the skill were done by me: the energy swipes, the electrical tendrils that envelope the swipes, the speed-streaks of the swipes’ emergence from the center, to the swirly streamers of energy surrounding the Crusader to indicate being buffed – were all entirely modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
"Caltrops" skill fx
Breakdown:
The basic rune shape was painted by another D3 Artist, handed over to me in very basic silhouette form and I had to touch up the projected ground textures, did texture treatment to spruce up the colors and shape-glows quite a bit.
Everything else fx that follows – all the rune variants and their extra bells and whistles: all their cast fx, all the new ground projected texture shape and color variants, the red damage rune’s “damage energy and danger waves”, the blue extra slowing rune’s “slowing energy column”, the purple immobilizing rune’s “toxic poison cloud”, the yellow extra duration rune’s “central sundial”, and the magenta empowering rune’s “power cast rays and power energy column” – were all modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
I have included a texture montage of all the textures I painted for Caltrops, to give an idea of the kinds of textures I create for D3 vfx.
Character fx
Breakdown:
“Enchantress’ Trapped Sister” look:
One of the few cases I leaned more on developing from someone else's work - the glossy with blue edge-glow shader look I merely took a pre-existing shader look from the Monk’s “Mystic Ally” skill, did further shader-manipulation and texture blend-recombinations (so no, I did not paint any unique textures for this one, nor did anything too original - only tweaked something someone else already came up with, and set a few shader settings differently, which I felt was more appropriate for this event).
“Nephalem Ally” look:
Done for a small event; his ghostly look involved taking his existing character texture and blending it with another blue-ish fractal texture, and doing a little shader-manipulation with edge-alpha to have the animated ghostly skin; the ground and smoke fx were generic D3 player fx with slight color tweaks and variations I did by blending with my own custom textures.
“Rockhive Queen Ixatla” radioactive hotness:
I fully did this - please see outlined above in “The Rockhive” event fx.
“Wickerman” fire hotness:
I fully did this - please see outlined above in “The Wickerman” event fx.
Prop fx
Breakdown:
“The Prisoner Pit”:
The mystical pillar’s magical glow was done by duplicating the pillar’s original geometry, scaling it up a bit and re-texturing and shader-manipulating it.
The fx for the spirit-release and spawn of the dead skeleton prisoners – the initial energy burst from the pillar’s core, the spirits that swirl outwards from the pillar, and the “Star Trek beam-me-up” effect – were modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me, minus a glow flash and a magic dust particle textures from generic D3 fx texture library.
“Resurrection”:
The mini corrupted orb and its evil energy streams was the same one I created for Kurekas’ power in “Great Weapon” event. Please see above for breakdown. However, I additionally added a red point-light so that its glow would appear to light the ground and pillars nearby it.
The fx of the demon statue that is attempted to get resurrected – the glowy eyes and the red lightning conforming around the shape of the demon horns – were modeled, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Spinning Fire Furnace”:
All fx of the spinning flame-throwers and the furnace they blow from (blistering stream of fire flames, heat-glow, smoke, embers and all), were completely textured, shader-manipulated, particle animated and rotation animated by me, including the starting ignition cast and flame death.
“Straight Fire Furnace”:
For the straight flame-throwing furnace, the fx of the blistering stream of fire flames, heat-glow, chimney fire, smoke and starting ignition cast were completely particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me; a Prop Artist animated the door opening/closing.
“Angelic Ballista” (with arrow fired too):
Everything fx-wise from the angelic lightning that envelops the ballista to the firing fx, I modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated.
The fired arrow itself I kit-bash re-modeled from Imperius’ war-staff, but I re-shaded and re-textured it. I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated the angelic tendrils flowing off the end of the arrow as it flies. I also rigged it, included a vid showing the Maya model, rig and animation breakdown as well.
“Chrono Wall”:
The pillars were taken from a main pillar from that area in the game, kit-bashed re-modeled by me a bit to better fit being the end pillars of a force-field. I painted textures for and shaded the glowy borders of the force-field. I also did the force-field itself - modeled a simple plane, particle animated billboard energy particles overlayed on top, textured and shader-manipulated the plane to all blend together well energetically.
“Chrono Trigger”:
The atomic core fx was modeled, rigged, animated, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me, aside from the glow’s particle texture, which used a generic D3 one.
"Hanging Baskets":
I fully rigged and skinned the hanging baskets. I had to cut up the models of the original hanging baskets and assign Domino rigid bodies for game physics to do the engine rigid-body sim; dust particles were added on top, animated and particle textured by me.
“Bone Fire Wall”:
I kit-bashed a pre-existing bone fence, re-modeled the shape a bit, tweaking shape to be more “claw-like”. The fire and smoke fx were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me. The embers were generic D3 embers done by someone else I added on top, although I did adjust the ember particle motion a bit. For the burning wood “hotness”, I duplicated the original wood sticks geo, scaled it slightly larger and manipulated the textures and shaders to achieve the “sweltering wood”.
“Fireball FX”:
This was a fireball I did for a bridge attack event in the game. Everything in the fireball - the fireball itself, flames, fire-streaks, corona and smoke – were modeled, particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me. I had a texture montage of all the textures I painted for this fireball fx, which I’ve included here.
D3 Legendary Weapon fx
Breakdown (first 3 from first vid is Reaper of Souls legendaries; the rest in 2nd vid from Vanilla D3):
“Piro Marella Crusader Shield”:
I modeled, textured and shader-manipulated the glowy swirls fx.
“Hard Lesson Monk Staff”:
I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated the staff’s fx.
“General Quang’s Monk War Staff”: yup, named after me :P
I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated the “angry swirl-lines” fx.
“Pus Spitter Witch-Doctor Crossbow”:
I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated all the crossbow’s fx especially the "puke", except the texture of the “buzzing flies”, which used a generic D3 gib texture.
“Frost Crossbow”:
I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated all the crossbow’s fx, except the texture of the “icicles”, which used a generic D3 icicle texture.
“Fey Lash Wizard Wand”:
I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated all of the wand’s fx; also includes re-coloring the wand’s original texture and painting a glow-map for it to highlight its glowy parts.
“Skorn – Hellish Barbarian Axe”:
I animated and shader-manipulated all the fx particles, but the particle textures were re-used from generic D3 glow and fork-lightning textures.
“Red Bone-Saber Sword”:
The fx of the energy tendrils flowing from blade base to tip and the flash at tip were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Red Spikey Hell Sword”:
All fx on this legendary were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me; in addition, I painted an incandescence-map to increase saturation of the silhouette trim to blend with fx better and be more menacing.
“White Sword With Pristine Blade”:
All weapon’s fx - the sparkley flashes and the rim glows – were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Vigilance Heavenly Polearm”:
For the swirly tendrils fx, I took a pre-existing tendril from Demon-Hunter’s ballista skill, and re-scaled, re-textured and re-shaded it more angelic; for the glowy flashes, I particle animated but used a generic D3 flash texture; for the blade’s scrolling energy, I duped the geo of the original blade, re-textured and shader-manipulated it.
“Haga’s Hammer”:
For the hammer echoes fx, I duped the hammer’s original diffuse texture, tweaked it a bit in Photoshop and applied to a particle animation scaling outwards; I particle animated the energy swirls in the middle, using a generic D3 swirl texture.
“Endless War Insanity Blade”:
Apart from the distortion, which used generic D3 distortion particles, I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated the blade’s “endless insanity” fx.
“Bul Kathos’ Children Swords 1 + 2”:
Both weapons share the same fx, just different scales. I did all the fx on both: godly blade energy and rim glows – all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Bone Crusher Mace”:
All weapon’s fx – the energy tendrils flowing from base to head and the head emission flash spikes – were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Odyn’s Son Hammer”: yup, basically Thor’s hammer …
I did almost everything for the fx, except for the lightning texture used from generic D3 lightning, but did particle animate it. The rim-glow and energetic “godly viking wings” were all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Echoing Fury Hammer”:
I did all the fx for this hammer – the frenetic swirls and glowy swirls – all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Earth Shatterer Mace”:
I particle animated the fx for this hammer, but the dirt and glow textures used generic D3 textures; the spikes were the same ones I did for “Bone Crusher” above, just recolored to black.
“Sun King’s Staff”:
I did all the weapon fx for this one – the “sun energy” at the head and the “sun beams” on the handle – all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Nutcracker Mace”:
I did all the weapon fx – the poppy flashes and glows at the weapon’s head – were all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Dawn Pistol Crossbow”:
Weapon fx all done by me: the animated body glow was done by me duplicating some of the original geo, scaling up a bit and doing some re-texturing, uv’ing and shader-manipulation; the swirls at the tip of the crossbow was particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me; the crossbow itself, I had to recolor a pre-existing crossbow’s diffuse texture to make it more “dawn-like” as well as painting an incandescence map for it to bring out the radiant handle and tip more.
“Balance Monk Combat Staff”:
Fx almost entirely done by me: the end-glows on each side and the one on the central handle was me duplicating the original geometry and doing some re-texturing and shader-manipulation; the central holy flash I particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated; the central swirls were particle animated by me, but used a generic D3 particle swirl texture.
“Dangerous Witch-Doctor Dagger”:
For the middle swirly energy, I took the swirls from a Monk skill and tweaked the textures and particle animations; for the rest of the dagger, I took the original dagger diffuse texture from Character Art and re-colored it, as well as painting a glow-map to highlight the handle and end-tips of the dagger.
“The Raven’s Wing Demon-Hunter Bow”:
I did all the weapon fx for this one – bow handle glows and raven feather texture I painted in Photoshop – all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Sydryu Crust Poison Bow”:
The venomous poisonous tendrils fx on the weapon were done by me – particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated.
“Windforce Bow”:
I did the entire wind fx – particle animation, texturing and shader-manipulation; the flying debris I particle animated but used generic D3 rock debris textures on my particles.
“Cluckeye Bow”:
The fx glows were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me; the chicken feathers were particle animated by me, but the particle textures used some generic chicken feather textures in D3.
“Etrayu Invincible Bow”:
This bow never loses durability. The “invincibility energy lines” fx were particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me.
“Uskang Tree Root Bow”:
The dark nefarious smoky mist was all particle animated, textured and shader-manipulated by me; the skull lightning I particle animated, but used a generic D3 lightning particle texture, just re-tinted.
