Hey there! I recently did an interview for RTVFX Podcast with Travis McCallum where I talk about my career, working with Riot Games on Valorant and other challenges that I face everyday. The interview is out on couple of different platforms, sharing a few here. I also decided to transcribe the interview so you can read it as well if it is what you prefer.
Pushing the Limits of Creativity
Travis: Hey everybody, I have Paulina MiciuleviÄiĹŤtÄ, VFX Artist at Tuatara, who has been working in the games industry on titles like Valorant and Treasure Tile. She has over 5 years of experience working in the Unity engine and has published her own assets for other artists to use. Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, Paulina is a strong voice in the gaming community as a VFX summit advisor for the Game Developers Conference â25 and an ex board member for the Lithuanian Game Developer Association. Paulina, how are you doing today?Â
Paulina: Hey, doing super great, thank you.
Travis: We are just talking, we’re about a I think 8 hour difference. So, it’s noon here and it’s 8:00 p.m. over there in the European coast. Is the weather pretty sunny or is it pretty cold or is it pretty warm? What are you feeling over there?
Paulina: Actually, today was a super beautiful day. Uh, sunny and we had 15 Celsius, which is very, very warm for this time of the year.
Travis: Good. Good. Glad you can get outside and have some fresh air. So, I want to talk about some of these awesome projects that you have been working on. Let’s start at the beginning with your origin story. How did you get started in visual effects?
Paulina: In visual effects, let’s see. So, I was already working at Unity and how I got into Unity is a whole another story. I was working at Unity and I just saw all of the graphics guys do cool stuff with shaders. I really wanted to learn shaders. So, I just started off by picking up a course on Udemy I believe and I just started it. I had zero programming background. The course was really, really helpful and I made my first simple shaders, because for me, at that time visual effects were just shaders. There were no particle systems, only later that I understood oh you can actually put in shaders into particle systems! and that like blew my mind like wow the technology đ So I started doing that and then I watched some tutorials on YouTube and I got the aha moment, it was like the missing puzzle piece, what I wanted to do in life. That’s the start, and everything else was just learning more stuff on top of it.
Travis: Okay, walk me back a little. You started at Unity and that’s a game development company, right? It’s an engine or a platform for gamedev?
Paulina: Yeah, Unity is a game development engine.
Travis: Was that your first job ever or how did you end up there?
Paulina: Yes, it was my first job ever. I mean, I worked as a waitress for three hours but thatâs another story for another time. It’s my first normal job and I started off as a QA. The classic story, started off as a QA and then I worked myself up into other positions.
Travis: Did you know you wanted to get into video games early on in life?
Paulina: Yes! Yes, because I love video games, and I played so many video games at that time, and I just really wanted to do something, at least going in that direction. Even when I got into Unity, the first task was to actually create a video game for the QA position. So this is just to show that you understand the engine itself. So, it was, I guess, my first experience of creating an actual game there.
Travis: Talk me back to your earliest childhood memory of a video game when you saw or played it. What was that like?
Paulina: Oh, so it was on PlayStation one. It was my brother’s and my brother didn’t like to share with me, of course, but I remember we used to play Tekken. I think the character was King. I always played as a king and also the Capeera guy. Yeah.
Travis: Oh, so your debut was really in the fighting game community. Wow. Is that still kind of where your area of interest is, or is that kind of expanded into other genres?
Paulina: Definitely expanded. I mostly play fantasy games and RPG games. That’s my favorite stuff. Fighting games, not anymore. Maybe at a party or somewhere else, like casual gaming, yeah, sure.
Travis: Rock on. So right now you’re working at Tuatara. Can you tell me just a little bit about your resume in game companies and specifically on the VFX side? You were doing VFX at Unity as your first job. Let’s start there.
Paulina: At Unity, I’ve learned about shaders, and I thought to myself, “Oh, I want to do visual effects.” And I started to talk very loudly about that to everybody, my producers, my managers, “Oh, I love visual effects.” And they said, “Hey, Paulina, do you want to try to make some visual effects for the template projects?” I was like, “Yeah, hell yeah. I want to do that.” So, my first experience with that was just making, very simple visual effects for the template projects that I think are still in use right now. If you download the engine and you can choose a template project. So I started with that [template projects] and then I thought to myself, hey, I want to do this full-time, little effects are not doing it enough for me. Simply, I decided to quit and I had no plan. Absolutely. I was planning not to work for a year, maybe to create a portfolio and then find a job. After two weeks, I went to this local event, game developer meetup, and I started talking about visual effects there and it turns out everybody is looking for a visual effects artist and that’s how I landed my first job at a mobile company but I’ve only stayed there for two months because I got another offer to work for Golem House.
We were working on a game called Treasure Tile. So I moved there and I worked there for one year, but then unfortunately as an indie company we closed down so I had to find other places to work at, and then eventually I landed at Tuatara.
Travis: Tell me just a little bit about Treasure Tile real quick. What’s the game and what kind of effects did you get to do for it?
Paulina: It was an ARPG. What’s different is that it was all made from tiles and it had a lot of fun visual inspiration from World of Warcraft and Hearthstone. I made gameplay and some environment effects too. It was super super fun because I got to do a fantasy game and I love fantasy, and it’s alsosuper stylized, and I had so much fun, and the team was really really great. I remember the time period like I was walking to the office and I felt just so happy to be working in games. It was definitely one of the most beautiful moments, definitely.
Travis: Rock on. Then you were at Tuatara. What kind of effects did you get to do over there?
Paulina: At Tuatara, I had the experience to work on two projects. At first, I worked on Battle Shapers which is created by Metric Empire. I think early access is out now. There I created some simple gameplay effects. it’s an FPS shooter. The other project is Valorant, which is what I’m doing right now, working with Riot on Valorant. Very cool game. I’m creating environment effects. Riot constantly makes new map,s and I work on them. Simply put, that’s really cool. I love all those games.
Travis: I was just wondering if you could just very briefly talk about your VFX production pipeline from start to finish. What does it look like to create an effect?
Paulina: So I guess it depends on the situation because each time it is a little bit different and the most usual one is that is I get handed a concept of what the client wants. For example this what Riot wants to make, and yeah, we talk with the team and the art director and we just discuss it, like really talk about, all of the atmosphere and anything that might impact the visual effect, and then I just I get started. So talking about softwares, for 3D meshes I use Blender. For textures, I use Photoshop and Substance Designer. I guess that’s pretty much it from the softwares. Of course Unreal as the engine. Yes. And shaders. Create shaders. But usually it’s you block out an effect kind of like get to a first rough version then you send it for feedback. We usually do feedback rounds with my lead or just with the team honestly. I just share it and then everybody comments, and then you just build on it, and you build, and you build, and you build, and you go back and forth, back and forth until it is done.
Travis: Side note here, you had mentioned that you work out of Blender for your 3D modeling. I just saw in the 2025 Oscars that a short film had won an Oscar for working in Blender and I was like, hey, that’s pretty cool. I don’t know if you’re into film or movies or anything like that.
Paulina: Animated films, I guess. Yeah! And the cool thing is that the director is from Latvia. It was created by Latvians, so friendly country and neighbors to Lithuania! So yeah, it’s pretty cool. I still haven’t seen it.
Travis: Real time visual effects, how would you define it? If you were to give it a one-s sentence definition, it depends.
Paulina: If I am explaining this to my family, for example, my mother or my father, or my grandmother, I always say it’s just like, you know, those explosions in movies, I make those things, but in a video game and they’re like, âbut what’s a video game?â. And then you try really hard to explain what’s a video game. It’s impossible honestly, like to all people who donât play. It’s really, really hard. I mean, nobody understands when I show them, they still don’t understand. They see something moving, they don’t have I guess a concept that it’s a video game. Itâs very interesting. For the fellow gamers, or just people, you know, who play games it’s easier to explain because you can say, “Oh, like I create muzzle flashes for guns or or if you see something sparkling there, that’s a visual effect.”
Travis: Can you tell me a little bit about the purpose of visual effects in games? Why do we need them?
Paulina: I believe visual effects are like the spice of the game and it really adds magic and wonder to the game, and it breathes in life, because without it, it just looks very, very plain. Uh you can still make a great game without visual effects. I don’t know, it just wouldn’t be so cool I guess.
Travis: Walk me through a day in the life of Paulina from sunrise to sunset. Your alarm goes off. The sun rises. You’re in bed. What happens next?
Paulina: I get up out of bed and then usually I go to the gym or I go on a run. I take my health very, very seriously. So I do that stuff. It’s like a free time of the day. I just go for a very long breakfast and I make my pancakes. I eat pancakes every day, because I’m an adult and I can. So I do that. I have my coffee and then usually I would just sit and enjoy my coffee or maybe journal a bit and just think about life. So very, very slow kind of getting ready for the day, and then the work starts. So usually there are some morning meetings just to prepare for the week if it’s the beginning of the week.
Travis: And are you working in person or remote right now?
Paulina: Remote. Remote. Remote. So completely from home which is great. I love it. It’s the best thing. So yeah, meetings and then you start to work maybe watch some feedback if there are any videos left or maybe somebody left a comment and then you kind of like plan your day and just get working. Work’s going on and then I guess it’s kind of like an eight hour shift typically.
Travis: You’re at home and you’re able to kind of separate work from play in a lot of ways and get distracted with your shiny toys around the house. What do you do after work?
Paulina: Usually I go for a walk. I’m at home the whole day. So I need to get some steps in. I also dance. I go to dance practices or just meet up with friends. So anything that I can get social interaction in, I guess.
Travis: And usually you get to bed at a decent hour, right? So get your full 8 hours of sleep.
Paulina: Yes. 10pm is when I turn off everything, like all of the electronics and just wind down before going to bed.
Travis: All right. I know that you had mentioned a couple of games you worked on, Treasure Tile and Valorant. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about a particular problem or challenge that you ran into on any effect that you’ve done or any kind of, you know, communication piece, what that problem was, and how you overcame that, and came up with a solution?
Paulina: It was on Valorant. The last map that I worked on. It was very hard for me because the challenge was that I had to create a waterfall which is affected by radianite, and radianite is this special substance in the game which makes things go kind of crazy, and you get like powers and stuff. So the waterfall got affected by radianite and it became a reverse waterfall. Like the whole concept to me was new, itâs not like real life. I had to create something new, something that has never been created before. So the challenge that I had is when I was creating the waterfall, it [direction] kind of went into the super realistic route, which was a problem because the game is stylized. So I had to do many iterations. The problem that I had was that the waterfall felt very airy, not like liquidy, and it’s super hard to make like liquid stuff, especially in a stylized game. I had some help from my lead, Bruno Afonseca, and we kind of worked it out and then I did it. Usually when you’re getting close to the deadline it feels like some pressure builds up and I always say that diamonds are made under pressure. So when you reach that moment, I don’t know, something happens, it clicks and then everything goes fine. I guess you have to go through a lot of iterations to make the visual effect great. I always kind of forget about that. You want to make the visual effect amazing from the first try, but it never happens. I don’t know why, but I always forget it. It takes quite some time to create something very beautiful and it’s okay to have many iterations and you should have those.
Travis: I love that piece you said at the end. There are so many aspiring artists who are wanting to hold on to their effect until it’s complete instead of sharing iterations of the effect and getting feedback. Especially on the forums, right, or the Discord or the real-time thing. They’re like, “I’m not ready to share it yet. I’m not ready to share it yet. I’ll share it when it’s complete.” But it never really is complete. And I’m sure you’ve seen that in your effects, especially after you ship them out and and you see, “Oh man, I wish I had, you know, done this or done that.” Hey, sometimes the ship’s got a sail. So, yeah, that’s true. Uh, just curious because I’m a big Valorant player. What map is that waterfall in if I want to check it out?
Paulina: I don’t remember the official name because I cannot share the production name of the map. [It is called Abyss, you can check out the work here]
Travis: Fair, fair, fair. I understand. So, we talked about a big challenge for you, and maybe this is the same answer. What do you feel like your biggest accomplishment, the thing that you’re most proud of? If somebody were to play a game that you’ve worked on, you would point at the effect and you’d be like, I did that. What is it?
Paulina: I guess it’s the reverse waterfall. Honestly, like every map that I did with the Riot team is like an accomplishment because the people working there, they are so amazing and they have so many great ideas and like all of the ideas are so creative and every time it’s such a challenge and also an honor to work with them, and just to create something super super amazing. The answer would be like my last visual effect that was released. So it was the reverse waterfall.
Travis: Reverse waterfall. Got it. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about environmental conditions, you working at your first studio. You were on site and then now you’re in a remote setting. Can you just talk to me a little bit about the pros and cons for both and why you may prefer remote over on-site?
Paulina: Yeah. So I can also compare because in Golem House, the indie studio that I worked in, we were only four people in the office. So it was still very quiet and very friendly. But then I did have an experience to work at a mobile company which was a huge office and like an open office. And then of course Tuatara, right now working from home. Honestly like out of all of the options I would still prefer working on site with a small team because of communication. You can always reach out. You can joke. It’s very easy to communicate and you really can create games like very very fast. I don’t like open offices. I don’t want to go back to that honestly. All of the loud noises. I guess you can have noise cancelling earphones⌠I don’t know. It’s just stressful. You have to commute to the office. That takes a lot of time and then you get drained. It just takes away a lot of of your free time that you can spend on hobbies and stuff. And working from home, why I love it is because I donât need to commute. I get to wake up kind of like whenever I want and just get the job done because the clients and me, we are in a different time zones anyway. So, as long as I deliver my work, then everybody is happy and it’s great.
Travis: I’m thinking about like how easy life is when you’re just a VFX artist because all you got to do is your art. And once you start kind of moving up to like the lead or the supervisor, now you’re not just doing art, you’re also managing people and relationships and schedules and stuff like that. I feel like you’re living the high life right now. Things are good. Yeah.
Paulina: Yeah. Things are good.
Travis: In Unity, you were wearing multiple hats. We just talked about this. In terms of VFX, you had mentioned that shaders specifically was something that really interests you. I’ve have a little bit of experience, you know, working in shader graph and the material editor with Unreal. Is that kind of your bread and butter is like going in there and building out material graphs and blueprints and stuff like that? Uh, just talk to me a bit about your interest in VFX and kind of where you feel like your strong suits are.
Paulina: Oh, that’s a tough question. I mean in my everyday life, I guess, yes, for environment effects for Valorant, for example, I mostly use only the material editor. So only nodes, barely use any particle systems. Honestly, every environment effect that seems like a particle system, itâs not. They’re usually just cards and then you displace them to look like particle systems. It’s cheaper that way.
Travis: Well, let me ask you for somebody coming into VFX, it can be really intimidating to like open up those node-based networks, especially if you don’t have a programming background. What kind of advice or, you know, pieces of of wisdom would you have to share with somebody kind of entering this sphere of knowledge and how would you recommend they go about learning it and and really making stuff happen?
Paulina: Honestly, I would say at first, do not be afraid of the spaghetti mess if you have it. That’s the first thing. And another thing is just like, take it slow. Do watch tutorials. Try not to copy but really understand why you are using the nodes that you are, what’s the math, what’s the logic. I remember a lot of things for me opened up when I started to visualize the nodes through mathematical graphs because then it made more sense for me. If you have some math background then you kind of remember what you did in school. For me it was connecting what I’ve learned in school, geometry lessons. What I really like about making visual effects is you can visualize the math behind the shaders.
Travis: Great. I also want to talk about working at a thirdparty studio because it’s different than working directly for a first party like you were with Golem House. I just want to call it Gollum. I don’t know, Lord of the Rings reference. Um, you’re not only working with your team, but you’re also working with another team as well. And I guess this case, Riot was one of the clients that you did. You may work with other clients as well in the future. You have in the past. Can you just talk a little bit about that kind of relationship and how that works internally and then externally as well, like the work itself.
Paulina: I can say that for example, if you work inhouse or like an indie company or just any normal game developer company, you get to solve a lot of problems with the developers themselves, that’s actually like the most fun part for me, and as you work for a client you just really deliver the visuals without developer collaboration. From working side of things, that’s like the biggest difference. At Tuatara we have our own teams, they have different projects and we we function as a another company, I really love that as a worker because you have sort of like another layer of protection, for example, if a client doesn’t like you, your company can put you in another project as well as other way round, if you don’t like the client itself, so you get way more freedom and an option to choose what do you want to work on. It’s great because you can then really go on your path where you want to be as a visual effects artist and you can get to choose the projects. We are very transparent with that and you can just like say what do you want and they will do their best like to get the project that you want.
Travis: That’s great. I love that you have the opportunity to kind of utilize your strengths on the projects that you are passionate about. Really, really hard to work on a game or a project that you have no interest in and you’re like, I’m just here for the paycheck. For you specifically, you’re doing something that brings you joy every day. Sure, there are hard times, I’m sure, but um for the most part, you had mentioned it earlier âI like the fantasy worldsâ and Valorant is kind of in the fantasy space. Not only are you an amazing VFX artist, but you are also very active in the community as well. Can you just talk to me a little bit about the advisor role that you play, but also being a board member for GDC? What is that all about for the upcoming GDC? That’s going to happen in two weeks actually. That’s coming soon.
Paulina: Yeah. This year I was nominated by somebody from my company and I got chosen as an advisor for the visual effects summit. Me and a couple of other advisers for this year prepared and chose the presentations. So basically I had a voice to tell what this year’s GDC VFX Summit is going to be about. So it was a great experience. I am still very involved in the Lithuanian community. So in Lithuania we have Lithuanian Game Developers Association which is an association that just basically organizes gamedev events tries to grow professionals. I guess every country has that. I was a board member there and I just helped to make decisions and shape the industry into a better place in Lithuania which is growing very fast and I’m so, so happy and we have like new companies coming in. All of the professionals are growing and we are having more talents here. It’s great. I’m super happy, super happy about that.
Travis: So, let’s talk about that for a second. What are some of the growing trends that you see happening in Lithuania that is for the good or are challenges that that are facing the industry specifically in your country right now comparatively to what’s going on in the rest of the world that you feel like hey we want to help build this portion up.
Paulina: Okay, the first thing is that it’s growing and a lot of companies are coming in. Another difference that I noticed⌠So we are in a very bad situation right now where the game industry is laying off a lot of people but the difference is in Lithuania we are constantly looking for more people and more talents. So since everything is growing so fast the biggest challenge is that we don’t have enough people who have valuable experience. There are many people who are like into the games and there are a lot of opportunities for young professionals as well. But the challenge is we don’t have those veterans, those senior-senior people that can really help the project grow very fast.
Travis: I understand the game industry business is a very expensive venture. You’re taking a lot of risk when you go into these development cycles that can take years to really kick off and there’s not always a guarantee that you’re going to make your money back from all the investment hours. It’s always curious how different countries kind of operate when it comes to running business and video games being such a high-risk high reward. You often wonder like how can we make this sustainable for our citizens and all these aspiring people who want to get involved.
Paulina: Yeah. So honestly like a lot of the companies here do outsourcing. A lot of the companies just do games for other people and then they get money and then they create their own games as much as possible. That’s one thing. Yeah, we do have some government funds, I guess, and a lot of like accelerators are taking off in the country. Stuff is happening. We are going to better places.
Travis: You got me at the word grow. You’re growing. So, I I love hearing that. I want to talk about things outside of VFX, hobbies or passions that you have that make you a bit more rounded person. And one of them you just briefly mentioned earlier was you like dancing. So, yes. Tell me a little bit about dancing and anything else out there.
Paulina: Recently I started to get into this new dance. It’s called Tribal Fusion which is a dance that mixes belly dance with street dance. So it’s a mix of both. I guess it’s a new dance. But before I used to dance lindy hop and solo jazz which is like dancing to like old timey swing music. I guess I’ve been dancing for like five or six years now. It’s really a passion of mine. I really like it. It’s like a meditation to me.
Travis: And you know who else benefits from dancing? Animators. They love it.
Paulina: Yeah, thatâs true!
Travis: Branding and the importance of making a name for yourself. I guess my question here is how important is it for somebody to have an online presence?
Paulina: Very important. I started off with that. I’m from Lithuania which is a post Soviet country. There’s not a lot of game development going on here and imagine, I get to make visual effects for Valorant and for this huge company right from my home. And how did I get that? With marketing and making a name for myself. So when I was working at Unity I started to talk very loudly, I saw that people actually started to associate me with visual effects. So I thought like okay, I’m going to do this thing, but on the internet. I created my own site and then I started to post. First of all, I posted locally, just so that I could get to connect with the professionals in the area, and then I started to post things in the forum, the Real Time Visual Effects forum, which is like a super useful tool to learn, and then people just started to notice me. One thing that really got me ahead is the social media. I had to grow followers on Twitter (now known as X) and what helped me is to actually share my knowledge and and give back to the community. So once I shared a presentation that went viral, I guess. Sort of viral. It didn’t go too far. It connected me to a lot of other artists.
Travis: What was the name of the presentation?
Paulina: How to create a slamming AoE.
Travis: Yep. It’s good educational piece, right? So, I definitely agree that having an online presence can only benefit you. And I love that you mentioned finding your community. You actually started locally and then you found the VFX community and then you kind of expanded it into social media maybe as like that tertiary kind of network but you don’t always have to
be on social media or do you feel like social media is mandatory?
Paulina: It depends what do you want honestly. Like if you’re content with just working locally, you can just meet up people. Just having like real connections with people and talking to them. I think it’s the number one the most valuable thing that you can do in in this industry because it is so small. Everybody knows everyone. So just be nice, be friendly. You will get a job.
Travis: I guess like honestly I actually discovered you through LinkedIn. That was my connecting point as well. Mhm. Question about a personal project or goal that you have right now. What are you working on? What’s cooking in 2025?
Paulina: I have a lot of things cooking. Me and my friend, we started to make a video game, but that’s on pause now. So, I have three things that I’m focusing this year that I actually wrote down and I stuck it to my wall. It’s dancing. That’s one thing to perform and stuff. Another thing is just taking care of my health and getting plenty of sleep. This is a very big priority of me. And the third one is finance, but I’m not going to talk about that.
Travis: You got to stay off Amazon. You got to stay off Amazon. Yes, it’s very hard. All right, Paulina, are you ready for the lightning round questions? Quick and easy, just like visual effects.
Paulina: Yes!
Travis: What is a perfect one-day getaway in Vilnius, Lithuania and the surrounding area?
Paulina: I would say just take a walk in the Vilnius old town, especially if it’s summer and it’s evening. It’s so beautiful. The sun shines through the streets. It’s very, very pretty. Or if you want to go a bit further, there is a historical town called Trakai, which has this castle and lakes around. It just like looks very medieval, very fantasy. So, if you’re into that stuff, definitely go there.
Travis: I know I’m shooting my next movie. What video game or app are you using on your phone that is the most fun?
Paulina: So, it’s an app that’s called English poetry, which is just that. It has English poems and it has like a very big database of that. When I don’t know what to do, I just pull up and just read a couple of poems and it just brightens up my day.
Travis: What is your favorite thing to cook or eat?
Paulina: My protein oat pancakes, which I do every morning. It’s the best meal.
Travis: What is your favorite book or podcast you’ve listened to recently?
Paulina: So right now I’m on two podcast. So one is about money, which is the Morgan Housel podcast and then another one is about just life and psychology and just getting better. It’s Aware and Aggravated by Leo Skepi.
Travis: Best advice for firsttime visual effects artist or people looking to get into the industry.
Paulina: Talk loudly about what you do and do not hide. Say that you are a visual effects artist when you meet people and people will start to associate you with that and you will definitely get ahead.
Travis: Favorite video game visual effect you are jealous of that is not your own.
Paulina: It’s from Red Dead Redemption 2. When you start the game it’s the area is very snowy. It’s the snow. It’s the snow in Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s beautiful. I don’t know how they made it. It’s just great.
Travis: What are you most excited about for the future of visual effects?
Paulina: Less technical limitations. That’s pretty much it. I am not very up to speed with technical things like simulations because I do like the classic ways of making stylized effects just in general, less limitations and more sparkles.
Travis: Totally agree. I love having performance improvements, things that speed up our simulations and and our workflow. What question do you never get asked that you wish you were asked more often?
Paulina: Honestly, it’s a simple one. How do you feel, Paulina?
Travis: How do you feel?
Paulina: Today I feel absolutely great. I’m telling you, man. Going to the gym and just getting outside. It does so much for your health, both physical and your mental health. Yeah.
Travis: Yeah. All right. Any final thoughts or things you want to plug today? Anything you want to promote?
Paulina: I guess I would like to thank my company Tuatara just for having me and I would like to thank all of the visual effects artists and all of the people that want to be visual effects artists. You are creators and you are helping the world by just joining our sides, just making the world a better place with your creations.
Travis: Rock on. Thank you so much Paulina for coming on today and sharing your story. It’s been a real pleasure.
Paulina: Thank you so much.