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Halo 4 Art mini-dump

Here's an interior environment I made for the map COMPLEX for Halo 4 multiplayer.
(Renders are WIP Renders as we ended up gutting some things for final release). After finishing up this space I got moved on to doing a bunch of the animated environment assets in Campaign and Spartan OPS. Am slowly going to get around to posting the renders and anims of all those as soon as the latest episodes clear.

refineint01.jpg
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refineint03.jpg
refineint02.jpg

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  • Essynim
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    Here are a few screens of some of the animated environment meshes I did for one of the spartan ops maps called The Refuge. Modeled, rigged, and animated all cept for the switch and the black door which were previously static meshes that I reworked to move and fit together. Couple more from this map that I'm missing but couldn't get good angles on, will try and get the working anims cut together soon though. This was a great map to work on and tons of credit goes out to Shae Shatz for his awesome concept work.Shell.jpgShell3.jpgaperature1.jpgaperature2.jpgaperatures1.jpgaperatures2.jpg1.jpgblackDoor1.jpgswitch1.jpgMainDoor1.jpgTallDoor1.jpgTallDoor2.jpgBlueBunny1.jpg
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    Really great stuff! Are the environment artists there responsible for both creating the tileables and modeling the environment pieces?
  • Boyd_Lake
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    Pretty darn cool. Top notch work!
  • Essynim
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    @Wester- yes, the env artists created our own tileables when we need them and anything 1 to 1. Like any game we'll have a shader library built up after a while and just use each others shaders to help save on production time and memory usage
  • Essynim
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    Here's the opening Vista shot of the campaign level Requiem. There were 3 separate towers that I got to rig up and transform in the opening scene. Models by Ji hoon Kim.
  • Selaznog
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    Selaznog polycounter lvl 8
    Wow, great work! Complex is my favorite multiplayer map; you have no idea how many countless spartans have died in that room...

    How long did it take to make it?
  • threesidedpolygon
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    threesidedpolygon polycounter lvl 5
    That last shot you linked to was the moment in the game where me and my 3 friends literally stopped, and just gazed at that environment. So pretty, and so alluring and mysterious. By far the best part of the campaign visually speaking.
  • Essynim
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    @Selaznog - The room in Complex was the first thing I did when I started at 343. Production took a little over a month, mostly due to learning the new tools and getting everything working.

    @threesidedpolygon - Awesome. I've been trying to get that moment vid capped so I can show the transformations. Anytime I see someone on youtube get to that point they stop for like 3 seconds and then just keep blazing on, and I'm like NO! Stop! I need a valid vid link damnit! GO BACK!
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    I completely forgot you actually have an account here, I always thought you were just lurking. :p

    Top notch work as always Shon! Makes me wish I had an XBox, I can't wait to see those pieces in motion.
  • PopeAK49
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    Hello Essynim,

    I just recently joined these forums, but I've been working with the Halo Editing Kit for Halo Custom Edition for 6 years. I know Halo 1's engine is old, but I have a great appreciation for Halo's artwork.

    Terrain and Forerunner modeling have been my specialty for all those years. I just wanted to say thank you for the art work that you and your team have created. Halo 4's environments, especially the sky boxes, are absolutely incredible.

    There is one thing that has always been distracting me with the forerunner architecture in Halo 4. It just seems like the metals are way too clean for something that has been around for 100,000 years. I know forerunner metals are strong and durable, but I think they could use some darker shades of metallic's, dirt around the edges, and scuffing on the surfaces. What I mean by scuffing is that the architecture should look like it took abuse for those 100,000 years.

    Maybe the forerunner architecture on Requiem is different from all the Halo's and the Ark?

    Don't get me wrong, the forerunner models and textures are refreshing in the sense that they bring a new style to Halo. But it's only the 'clean' and 'brand new' looks that seem out of place to me.


    Also, do you guys do all of the level design and asset population within 3ds max? Or do you use a secondary tool (kind of like Halo Custom Editions Sapien) to populate the level with assets?


    Thanks,
    PopeAK49
  • commador
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    commador polycounter lvl 14
    Very cool stuff indeed! I have a question that maybe you may be able to answer (or perhaps someone may know) On a lot of the forerunner stuff, there are bevels in the texture but not in the geo. I know this would be easy to do if things had unique details, but I'm pretty sure most of this is generic tiled textures. I have an example screenshot.

    gallery_1_204_396094.png

    Here, on the walls and floor are bevels at the edges of geo pieces. At first I thought maybe it was some kind of "edge bevel" shader work happening, as the bevels seem to follow the edges of the mesh. I thought perhaps maybe it could be a bevel in the texture sheet and the mesh it UVd to "flow" this line on the mesh. The problem with this though, assuming its all the same UV channel, there would be no way to easily match the grid pattern of the textures if the UVs were broken between the big flat surfaces and the bevel lines near the edges. The only other way I could imagine it working is if the grid pattern is a detail texture on a different UV channel. and the bevels are just normal details with a flat colored diffuse. Not really something that will kill me if I don't know, but it is something I would like to know how it works because it seems to add some nice details without using beveled geo and seemingly giving a pretty good bang for the buck visually.
  • ZeroStrike
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    ZeroStrike polycounter lvl 8
    Thank you for posting. Loved Halo 4 and its Environments. I got one of the art books and its great to be about to have see some of the artist 's who worked on the game and their work from in game.
  • carlobarley
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    carlobarley polycounter lvl 9
    looking great shon!
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 12
    such a pretty game. good work!
  • nathdevlin
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    nathdevlin polycounter lvl 12
    Playing it at the moment it's firing on all cylinders. Beautiful game. Well done to you all on the team. Now back to playing ....
  • Essynim
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    Thanks guys! Pretty soon we'll be releasing the second half of spartan ops and I'll be able to post up more stuffs, and still haven't gotten around to putting all the other art up...vacation has ruined me :\

    @commador - yes, just a detail map on a second uv channel
  • serriffe
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    serriffe polycounter lvl 9
    awesome work man and I'm also a fan of the entire art team, you guys did an amazing job.
  • Essynim
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    Yeah, so I kinda suck at updating. I realized I got about 200 Gigs worth of animated environment assets that I'm just never going to get around to rendering and editing into a single reel. So instead I'm going to try and update a little at a time and maybe one day I'll get everything uploaded :\

    For starters: This was a switch I did for the Spartan Ops map Refuge. It started out as a static wall piece that I gutted and reworked. Messed around a lot to get the forms to sort of work together but mostly had a lot of fun with it.

    Reworked Model and Texture, Rigged and Animated.
    Other Artists on the map: BJ Christian, Dan Phillips, Alex Haworth, Adrian Bedoya, Rae Chen

    [vv]73346586[/vv]

    [vv]73346587[/vv]
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    God damn those animations came out so sexy! Great work man!!!
  • Essynim
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    Day 2: Forerunner Apertures

    Took care of the full production on these next few. Model Texture Rig and Animation, and got to tag team with concept artist Shae Shatz on the design of them (check his stuff out! http://shaeshatz.blogspot.com/)

    [vv]73426721[/vv]

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  • Essynim
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    Day 3: aaaaannnnnnnd I've used up all my vimeo space :\ Really need to find a better compression method.

    This was the first draft of the aperture for the level but its movement caused pathing issues and would let the player kill themselves, so was scrapped for something that could double as a blocking volume for the portal below. The designers liked the first one tho so they repurposed it for a ceiling piece right above the floor one.

    [vv]73495436[/vv]
  • Essynim
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    First in the series of 4 doors from the Refuge map. This first one started out as an awkward hole in the wall and someone just saying: here you deal with it :\

    [vv]73827565[/vv]
  • Essynim
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    Here are the rest of the doors from The Refuge.

    [vv]74239395[/vv]
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  • Son_of_Anubis
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    Amazing. Thanks for sharing!
  • danjohncox
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    danjohncox polycounter lvl 7
    love love love those door animations! with so many pieces what kind of planning did you do to get those going? did you plan out the whole design + animation from the start? or was it more organic?
  • Cheez
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    Very cool door animations :)
  • BeefWatson
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    Essynim wrote: »
    we ended up gutting some things for final release).


    Sorry :(
  • HyPer128
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    Ahh, man, so inspiring, great job!.
  • Essynim
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    Thanks guys!

    @danjohncox All the doors except for Door 3 were modeled from a base concept. Movement is funny with forerunner stuff since it doesn't operate mechanically so turns out the models line work dictated a lot of its movement. We found that moving in a direction against the grain of the main lines tended to look off. Mostly I would model what was approved from concept and then start breaking apart and reworking what I needed in order to create some nice transformations. there were technical and spatial constraints that dictated some of the animations, but for the most part it was organic and got to have a lot of fun experimenting.

    Door 3 was pretty weird as it originally started out as a static wall and the designers needed an exit at the end of one of the missions, so they quickly asked to convert what was already there to reveal a new hallway at the end.
  • Essynim
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    Here are the final assets I did for the map Refuge. Shell 1 got scrapped and redesigned into Shell 2, both of which were done 90% in 3D Coat.

    [vv]74304834[/vv]

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  • Essynim
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    Here's a bunch of animated env props I got to do for the spartan ops map Breach. I believe you get to see all these in action save the Harvester main door in the final mission.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNREMAWSC7E

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  • 87roach
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    87roach polycounter lvl 5
    Amazing work!

    These animations are just crazy.
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