Today, players expect not only impressive visuals and detail but also stable performance and timely releases. This often creates conflicts: artists aim for maximum quality, while developers prioritize predictability, stability, and deadlines, which can slow down the game’s release.
Yevhen Vytvytskyi, Lead 3D Artist, shares his perspective on how to build effective dialogue between departments, what compromises to pursue, and why artists should invest in developing their technical expertise. His industry experience spans over a decade of work on major projects, including Ghostrunner and Ghostrunner 2, as well as the VR title Eleven Table Tennis, where the balance between performance and visual expressiveness is especially critical. In addition, Yevhen founded the studio Digital Stick, where he developed his own approaches to collaboration between art and tech teams. Drawing on his projects, he explains how to accelerate release cycles, find common ground in team conflicts, and why participating in technical hackathons can be a powerful growth tool for artists.
Synchronize Expectations from the Start
Many conflicts between artists and engineers tend to arise at the MVP stage, says Yevhen Vytvytskyi. At that point, the product scope and target platforms are not fixed, technical requirements are still vague, and artists, aiming for maximum visual impact, often push things too far. As parameters become clearer, a lot of rework is needed because the teams were not fully aligned from the start.
“It is crucial to set up a simple budget table by scenes and characters from the beginning,” Vytvytskyi explains. “We also create a quick prototype in the engine with frame-time and draw-call measurements to see the performance load right away.”
At his own studio, Digital Stick, Yevhen introduced weekly short online meetings between departments to validate new solutions and risks. For every contentious issue a responsible person is assigned, which significantly reduces the amount of rework.
At the same time, Yevhen emphasizes that it is crucial to explain the value of specific visual decisions right from the start.
“If you explain right away why certain elements require special attention, there will be less resistance later on,” he shares.
For example, in the game Ghostrunner 2, Yevhen designed the motorcycle, which became one of the central visual attributes of the project. It often appeared in close-up shots and was heavily used in marketing, so a separate technical budget was allocated for it. This allowed the developers to understand from the very beginning why more resources had to be dedicated to the bike’s level of detail.
Find the Balance: Beauty and optimization can work together
One of the most important tasks in game development is maintaining the balance between visual expression and project stability. This is often considered the responsibility of engineers, but as Yevhen points out, artists themselves need to structure their work in a way that makes this balance easier to achieve. This becomes especially critical in VR projects, where the sense of presence plays a decisive role.
In Table Tennis VR, Yevhen aimed for high visual detail. Instead of heavy textures, he used extra geometry with bevels, small details, and surface relief to create a natural look without overloading memory. This approach proved optimal for VR, where processors handle complex geometry but memory is limited.
Another challenge in finding the balance between art and technology was the Ghostrunner project, a dynamic action video game created by Polish studio One More Level. Here, it was necessary to ensure high speed, complex long shots, and numerous reflections while maintaining clear frame readability. Yevhen did a great job on the technical side, building a coherent optimization logic rather than simply cutting values.
“I optimized transparency, lighting, and reflections in a way that preserved quality while keeping performance stable,” the expert explains.
As a result, the project maintained high visual quality with stable and predictable performance even in the most complex scenes. Yevhen advises artists to plan their workflow in advance. Proper preparation helps avoid situations where you end up just cutting values at the cost of quality. With this approach, communication with engineers becomes easier and more productive, while the amount of rework decreases and release timelines improve.
Build Your Technical Expertise: Learn Through Hackathons
Modern competitiveness in the industry rests on three pillars: artistic taste, technical expertise, and speed of learning.
“Artists often underestimate the importance of technical skills, but these are what allow you to speak the same language as developers and find optimal solutions faster,” Yevhen emphasizes.
Yevhen believes that participating in hackathons is one of the most effective ways to improve technical expertise. Over the past year, he has served as a judge at United Hacks V5, LaunchHacks IV, and AlgoArena Hackathon 2025, where special attention was paid to algorithmic solutions and machine learning — technologies that are increasingly being implemented in the gaming industry.
“At hackathons, you quickly learn to evaluate projects, spot their potential, and see weak points in your own solutions that can be optimized,” shares Yevhen Vytvytskyi.
With technical expertise, discussions shift from ‘beauty vs. performance’ to joint solutions. Feedback becomes clear and well-grounded, documentation is short and easy to follow, and the amount of rework drops significantly. In his studio, the process includes weekly reviews, technical budgets, clear roles, and skill development across the team.
