Check out our Games VFX student projects for Search For A Star & Rising Star 2024!

With a strong combination of both artistic and technical ability, VFX for games is an area that can really deliver some spectacular results! We say this every year, but realtime games VFX is still an area that a lot of universities don’t provide much specialisation in, despite the huge demand for talented VFX artists across the games industry. Even though we don’t see many entries to this category each year, it’s always a treat to see what students have created in the discipline.

Students were given an industry-style project brief, a timeline of a few weeks, and asked to create a game VFX sequence containing four states:
1. A passive or idle state 
2. A transitional or change state 
3. A ‘release’ or final state 
4. An impact or recovery state

A huge congratulations to those who submitted their projects, and well done!

Our assessment team of games VFX artists from across the industry are currently hard at work reviewing all of the project submissions and providing feedback, and the highest achieving students will be chosen to move forward to our finals day event in April.

The Search For A Star challenges are run by Grads In Games with the support of our our studio partners at d3t, 10:10 Games, Red Kite Games, Furious Bee, Steel City Interactive, PlusMusic, our supporting partners at XR Games, The National Videogame Museum and Sheffield Hallam University, our prize providers Adobe, and our recruitment partners at Aardvark Swift

---

Search For A Star & Rising Star 2024 VFX Projects

---

VFX Projects 2024

---

Alex Konosonoks

Staffordshire University

VFX Recreation

Working from the theme “It’s full of stars”, Alex has created a character AOE sequence based on Unrestricted Chant from Reverse:1999

back to top

---

Amelia Morrison

Abertay University

Black Hole Grenade

Also working from the “It’s full of stars” theme, Amelia has created an AOE implosion effect.

back to top

---

---

Joseph Stanley

Futureworks

Lightning Burst

Working to the “Weatherbender” theme, Joseph has created a multi-part caster effect sequence, elevating a single droplet into lightning storm

---

Mishel Soghoyan

University of Hertfordshire

Astral Pool

For their interpretation of “It’s full of stars”, Mishel has created an astral pool effect, opening up an otherworldly portal.

back to top

---

Rohith Guruvayurappan

Anglia Ruskin University

Frostflare Explosion

For the “Weatherbender” theme, Rohith’s sequence delivers an explosive multi-stage blizzard and frost AoE caster effect.

back to top

---

Evan Goddard

Futureworks

Water Puddle
(Rising Star)

With their approach to the “Weatherbender” theme, Evan has created a transitional character effect, transforming the player character into an amorphous and mobile liqueous form.

back to top

---