Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art on Halo 4

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in Halo 4Vic DeLeonLead Mission Artist, Art Lead Outsourcing at 343 Industries.Vic specializes in organic sculpting and modeling of environments, as well as directing the artistic quality of environment prop set pieces. His work on Halo 4 includes modeling and texturing of the Reclaimer, Requiem, and Infinity missions, as well as Ragnarok, Harvest, Shatter, and Wreckage in Multiplayer. He also worked on Spartan Ops season 1 and 2. Vic previously worked at Bungie on Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: ODST, and Halo Reach.

RJ Ranola Senior Environment Artist at 343 Industries.RJ specializes in hard-surface environment modeling, texturing and level assembly. His work on Halo 4 includes modeling and texturing work on the Dawn, Shutdown, and Composer missions as well as Spartan Ops season 2. He also modeled the massive Mammoth vehicle from the Reclaimer mission. He previously worked at Raven Software on several major titles like Singularity, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Def Jam Icon.

Hi everybody! Many thanks to IGDA Seattle for inviting, Bungie for hosting. RJ and I are super-excited to be here and were all going to have a great time tonight.

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The Reclaimer Mission and the UNSC MammothBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Well be taking a look into two of the biggest chunks of Environment Art from Halo 4 tonight, the Reclaimer Mission and the Mammoth vehicle, then taking questions at the end of the slides.2

The big ideas:

Breathtaking grandeur, size mattersHuge wastelands, rocky cliffs, sandy valleysAccommodate large-scale battles and eventsSuper-fun vehicular combat spacesAwesome co-op experienceSupport the fiction of RequiemEvoke memories of Halo 3 Ark mission

The Reclaimer MissionCODENAME M40Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Mid-way through campaign, big vehicle map, replayability, co-op were big factors3

The concerns:

The expense!The expense!!The expense!!!

The Reclaimer MissionCODENAME M40Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Alan Greenspan says CAREFUL- budgets!

Budgets- figuring out the logistics and the math, a lot of vehicles, a lot of weapons, a full sandbox! Then the giant budget-eaters like the Mammoth, Lich and Infinity!4

Art Director creates a mood boardBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Kenneth Scott

Evokes a feeling, first image to be created, a springboard for concept art

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Concept Art & reference sheet

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Thomas Scholes, Vic DeLeon

This is the most interesting phase, exploration, meetings, discussions. Narrowing down the look. 6

Reference collecting

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Bing Flickr Tumblr and Google geologic references- specifics. Find what you want and what you dont want- examples of geology7

More reference hunts

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Specific bits of the environment- like water. Not normal water- La Brea Tar Pits8

Concept Art: Gravity Wells

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

John Wallin Liberto

John Wallin Liberto. Large setpieces9

Concept Art: Interiors

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Justin Oaksford

Justin Oaksford traditional forerunner architecture evolving and changing before our eyes, seeing the newer styles with implied functionality10

Concept Art: InteriorsBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth

Sparth functional forerunner style of the battery room

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Concept Art: InteriorsBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth

Sparth more ceremonial look of the Librarian room12

Economics? modeling method: custom or component?

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Figuring out the logistics and the math. Making the call to custom model or go with components, if so what percentage? Settled on 80-2013

Material studies

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Material response, texture, feel of primary elements, geology!14

Prototype, messy but important!

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Thomas Scholes, Vic DeLeon

First quick kit-bashing of a slice15

Prototyping locations and shapes

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Thomas Scholes , Vic DeLeon

Shapes and silhouettes, locations, scale16

Prototyping scale

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Thomas Scholes, Vic DeLeon

Larger view of scale and giant setpieces17

Basic geo mass out with Design and Structure ArtBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Tim Diaz, Jacob Benton, Vic DeLeon

Block-in and mass-out18

Mass out modeling

Simple shapes Silhouettes Composition No textures!Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Chiyo Lai, Tim Diaz, Andy Bosold

Shapes, composition, silhouettes no textures yet19

Mass out: the entire level in block form Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Beginning to end, its all there, not pretty yet20

Components! Sculpting the very first mesh

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Modeling & texturing main components

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Making things as inexpensive as possible, reusable, omnidirectional and ambiguous shapes. Used 8 models for the majority of the map. 8 custom pieces. Which takes us to terrain22

Organic modeling: solving for multiple viewpoints

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Terrain was all custom, sculpted in Mudbox. Varying levels of detail from micro to macro. Viewpoints: On foot, Warthog, jetpack, top of Mammoth!23

Organic modeling: terrain sculpting in Mudbox

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Macro normals baked down. Components integrated with terrain and blended24

Start adding in the details -integrationBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Integrating and adding the textures25

Meanwhile: Hard-Surface modeling architecturals

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Chiyo Lai

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Decoration objects

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Organic and geologic features. Mudpots, large cactus-trees, boulders, rocks, small vegetation, pebbles, debris27

Decoration object propagation

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Applying all of the previous to the level artistically28

Meanwhile: Mission Designers are hard at work Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Jacob Benton

Balancing encounters, refining behaviors, adjusting weapon locations etc29

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Meanwhile: Mission Designers are hard at work Chin Fong

Polishing the big moments of the mission. The Lich, the Infinity etc30

Lighting Team adds lights, color grading & atmospherics

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Kenny Magnusson, Barbara Busch

Bringing it all together with lights, tweaks to color, adding fog31

and FX Team adds particles & atmospherics

Water Sand Dust RocksBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Jon Wood, Tim Fortenberry

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Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

FX Team special challenges: deadly water

Water was a challenge- had to look dangerous, deadly. Went through multiple iterations, viscosity and subtlety. Finally found something that made us all happy.33

Skybox Team: matching & seamless

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Oliver Reguiero Fernandez, Ryan Watkins

Final polish: terrain painting blend maps

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Vic DeLeon

Painting the multiple channels into the ground35

Final polish: check collisions and physics

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Everybody helped

Final polish: check streaming & PLAYTEST!

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Final final.. OK to GO!

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

The bigger ideas:

Mega-scale UNSC vehicleA moving base, vehicle & weapon cacheFun to run around on and inPart of the environment gameplayPlausible design ethic

The UNSC MammothCODENAME TORTOISEBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Break down: How excited I was to work on the mammoth.39

The concerns:

The expense!The expense!!The expense!!!

The UNSC MammothCODENAME TORTOISEBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Alan Greenspan says NOPE!

Will talk about concern with budgets. How are we going to make this and have it run ingame.40

The challenge:What would a mega-scale UNSC vehicle look like?

Chunky or sleek? Treads or tires? Speedy or stable?

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Expiration and references. Also Maschinen Krieger41

Treads were reminiscent of the Elephant and we wanted to clearly differentiate between the two.

Look and function as both An assault & support vehicleAND a mobile base.

Needed:Sniper roosts & rocket podsWeapon & vehicle cachesEasy entrance/exit/hatchesA really big cannon

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Actual military reference.42

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Mission Design created very rough function-only models

Toying with sandbox possibilities and gameplay

Starting point. Game play elements were establish. 43

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Mission Design identified preferred layouts

Base layout for the walkable space. How to translate the blockin to a move visual and functional play space.44

Modeling the first visual-language prototypeBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

First in game pass: though the designs was not approve it game the team a sense of scale and gave us a sense of what we were working with.45

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Modeling the first visual-language prototype

First pass in the envrionment46

Expanding on ideas

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Not approve look but designers approved layout47

Kit-bashing ideas to see what works

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

KITBASHING48

Scale tests: exteriorBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Scale with the Unsc vehicles 49

Scale tests: interiorBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Design approve interior layout50

More prototyping

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

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More prototypingBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Having fun with prototypes

Playing with appearance & functionalityBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Playing around with ideas: outrigger COLOR SHIFT53

Meanwhile Concept Art Team feeds off prototypes

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth54

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Meanwhile Concept Art Team feeds off prototypes

Sparth

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Finding the right look

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth

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Final concept of the Mammoth

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth and Kenneth approve design.

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Final interior concept

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth mammoth interior58

Front view paint-overBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Sparth & RJ: Nicholas help with the front view of the rail gun.59

First model from concept

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Massout of the approved Mammoth60

Second model from concept with textures

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Finished model in Maya: how it was made. Kitbashing sandbox asset and material tinting.61

Final hi-res model with texturesBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Finished model in Game : how it was made. Kitbashing sandbox asset and material tinting.62

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Optimize the model, get it in-game

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Optimized model in-game

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

Mammoth interior64

Hand off to vehicle team

Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

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Ship it!Big Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4

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Questions For VicBig Environments and Even Bigger Vehicles: Environment Art in HALO 4Thank you for comingVisit Halo Waypoint for all your Halo news: HaloWaypoint.com

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