The discipline of visual effects has emerged as one of the driving forces in game development. Visual effects tie together game experiences, breathe life into real time rendered worlds, and provide an all-important final layer of visual polish. What started as a few simple “tools of the trade” like flipbooks and additively blended sprites, has grown into a full-fledged art all its own involving subtle and precise mixtures of shaders, lighting, particles, materials, models and animation