All Work and No Play... (RFA Part 3)

Wow, what a long month! It seems like an age since I last posted, though it was only 19 days ago. Madness! (No, Sparta!). It's been a strange month too; usually I fill maybe 5 pages or so of my sketchbook and then condense that down to share the best and the worst with you lot (all three of you). This month - 13 pages. 13! Madness! (No, increasingly annoying tendency to shout Sparta!). But I can go on about that more next time. This time It's the grand finale of the work I'm going to share with you from Red Faction: Armageddon.

So this will actually be a pretty short entry - there are only three of my pieces left to show, and they all have the distinction of being cut from the game. Actually they do appear, but not in the condition I made them - they were changed from vehicles (which use a special vehicle system), to environment props (which use a different system) and have to be optimized for use as such. My friend Angela did the conversion from vehicles to props, so I can't take full credit for what's actually in the game. Yeah, yeah, I get it, you just want to see pictures. OK, here's a few (Click em to make me embigerize)...

Civilian Transport (C-Tran) #1 "Grub"
Art Directed by Chad Greene & Susan Cenci. Concept by Steve Holt

Don't you love that name. Why "Grub"? Well, the arm rests with the headlights look like grubs, at least to me. I've only got the game engine renders of this one for some reason. I did have some nice renders of the high-poly mesh too, but I appear to have lost them (In case you'd forgotten, or I never got around to mentioning, this is for a technique where you model or sculpt a very high detail model and then a low detail version of the same - you then create a 'normal map' texture from the differences between the two models and apply that to the low detail version which makes it appear very similar to the high detail version. Yes, it hurts my head too, and I do it on a regular basis).

This had the triple distinction of being my first vehicle made for the game, my first ever high-poly model and also it was the first vehicle to be cut. Wheee!

Not much more to say about it - it did appear clearly in the game, but only the rear of it, and it was in bright orange rather than blue - it's the truck Kara is loading when Darius gets useful with the lightning gun.

Civilian Bulldozer "Frog"
Art Directed by Chad Greene & Susan Cenci. Concept by Steve Holt

Why "Frog"? Because it looks like a really happy one. No, really, seen from the right angle it looks so much like one that I traced a picture of it, painted the resulting line-art green and stuck it inside as a Frog decal (you can sort of see it in the thumbnail to this very post. Don't look to hard for it because once you've seen it you can't unsee it, and that would be sad.

I was really pleased with this one, and pretty sad it got cut, but other than that, not much to say. You can see it in the game when you first descend into the pit in the Mining Exo right near the start of the game. It appears elsewhere, but that's the most obvious place.

Red Faction Battle Tank
Art Directed by Chad Greene & Susan Cenci. From a concept by Wingking

If the tank ever had a name I'm afraid I've forgotten it. The poor thing was cut almost as soon as I finished it, so I didn't spend any time thinking up a name for it. It should have been called the "Tarantula," since all the vehicles were named for wildlife, and this has a big spider type shape to it. Again these screenshots are all I have available; and the treads are missing - sorry; they look pretty cool when it has them.

It looks very similar to the original concept (Which I don't have to show you), except I made it a little more practical for the sort of terrain it could be navigating and redesigned the turret so it could actually rotate (The original concept was that the whole tank would rotate, which didn't seem to serve any need since all the stuff needed to have a fully functioning tank was already available).

I didn't like it when I was building it, but I do in retrospect - it's an interesting mashup of Tron and Batmobile styling.

It appeared as being under repair in the actual game, and then you got to drive it in the downloadable content; something I only realized today as somehow I missed that it had been released back in August (it may have been while I was away, which would explain my missing it).

And that's it. I have other, older games I can cover if I get around to it, and we have a new game coming out on November 15th; you may have heard of it - Saints Row the Third? I only did two vehicles for it, but I also did some ships... We'll get to that eventually no doubt.

All Work and No Play... (RFA Part 2)

Since my last post I've done depressingly little art outside of work, a handful of mediocre sketches (and almost all the sketches were of heads and faces rather than figures) and a rough mockup of a book cover that you won't get to see for a while in case it becomes the cover to an actual book. Other than that I'm sick today, which meant I didn't go to work - this is a shame because I'm rather enjoying what I'm doing at work right now. Since I'm stuck in the house though I'll write a blog post instead.  Lucky you.
As with the last (and probably all future) Work and No Play posts this will consist of an image dump followed by some idle thoughts.  Today I'll be continuing with the work I did for Red Faction: Armageddon, this time focusing on the Marauder vehicles. Clicking the images will make them larger; just like Leon.

Marauder Combat Buggy
Art Directed by Chad Greene & Susan Cenci. Concept by Steve Holt

I don't think I explained the process for these models in the last post, possibly because it wasn't relevant for any of the images; this time it is though. When building a vehicle for RFA two versions were built (more if you take collision into account, but I won't here). The first was a high detail "high-poly" version (poly referring to polygons). This was built to closely follow the concept (although changes were sometimes needed) in as much detail as possible - commonly the number of polygons in these models was in the millions, a far higher number than any game could currently handle. After that a "low-poly" version was built. This fell in the range of a few thousand polygons and was what appeared in the game itself. Polygons used for in-game assets are pretty much always triangles - for the high-poly they could be anything from 3 sided to 10 sided, but are usually 4 sided polygons.

The reason for building the higher detail version was that the detail information can be "baked" into a texture for use in the lower detail version; thus giving the appearance of a much more detailed model. This isn't trade secrets being divulged here; the majority of modern games use much the same technique for their assets, and the techniques can be readily read about on forums and blogs around the internet, but it is worth knowing what "high poly" and "low poly" are actually referring to.

For this version I actually had to build the low poly version twice. The original concept for this vehicle was that you would get to drive it, however it's role was more or less replaced by the Marauder Light Walker (made by Michael Clark) and so the Combat Buggy was relegated to enemy status; when it was realized that the vehicle would not been seen as close up as originally intended I had to build it again with fewer polygons. It appears in two or three areas in the game, but it's sadly easy to miss it as it's usually quite a distance from the camera.

The first two images here show the original version in beauty renders (I don't think I have any screens of the final lower version). It's worth noting that I didn't come up with the green metal used by the Marauders, that was taken from another vehicle - I think in the final game some of the yellow glows were changed to purple too, but this was as it was when I finished with it.

The Third image shows a wireframe of the High-Poly version. None of the pieces is rendered as solid here - just some of them have a dense enough mesh of polygons that they look it. You'll note the lack of the tire tread pattern - that's because it was added later as a texture rather than modelled into the wheel (If you look carefully you can sort of see it where the wheel overlaps something behind it). This was a good way to save time on something that is basically flat against the curve of the tire. I quite like this image as it has a real X-Ray look to it.

The last image is of a version that wasn't used in the game - this is the high-poly version as no low-poly was built. This one has a shorter engine block and is short a set of wheels at the back. I preferred this one, but it was felt that the six wheel version better reflected the Marauder design sensibilities.

Marauder "Inferno GX" Gunship
Art Directed by Chad Greene & Susan Cenci. Concept by Todd Marshall.

The Gunship had an interesting development path as it's concept was very different right up until it was time to actually make it. The initial concept was less compact and maneuverable looking. When the time was approaching to build the ship Michael Clark was constructing the smaller of the two Marauder walkers for the game, and I looked over at a point when it lacked legs. "Y'know," I said "That actually looks like it would make a badass gunship."

We mentioned this to Chad (the art director) and he agreed, so the whole thing went back to Todd to make the same basic form into something that could fly. The result is what's shown here. It also gave me a starting point, since the concept was based on the walker I could re-use some of what Michael had constructed for it. I modified it a fair bit, but it was still nice to have a base to work from.

The first two images shown above are of the high-poly model. I tried something different here, where I textured the high-poly version and then "baked" that texture information down to the low-poly (in the same way that I usually bake down the detail into a normal-map texture). This worked out quite well for the most part, although there was still a reasonable amount of work required on the low poly version too, but again I had a nice base to work from.

The second two images are of the final game ready model. Unfortunately due to some changes in the game design from the vehicles initial inception you barely get to see the exterior in the game. You do see quite a bit of the interior, which I also built, but I don't have any images of that handy. Aspects of the colouration were once again changed after I had left the project - most notably the yellow balls changing to purple. Could have been worse, could have changed to blue - who wants their gunship to have blue balls?

One thing to note, about both the interior and the exterior, is that it hearkens back to the Pyro GX from Descent, which was the first game Volition did back when it was still a part of Parallax Software.

Marauder Heavy Walker Cinematic Interior
Art Directed by Jasen Whiteside, Chad Greene & Susan Cenci.
Initial concept by Steve Holt.

The exterior of the Marauder Heavy Walker was the work of Michael Clark and Todd Marshall, but when it became clear that an interior was going to be needed for cinematic cutscenes it fell to me and Steve Holt to create it.

Steve did an initial concept, but I had to make a number of changes in order to fit it into the interior space, which was more ramped than we had initially realized. Other than that there's not really much to say that the images don't make clear, except that as with the LAV interior it needed to appear to be of a resolution the game engine could handle, even though the cutscenes were to be pre-rendered.

That's quite enough for today. Only one post left regarding Armageddon I think, and then it'll be on to other (older) games. I shall try and get back into the groove on the sketching and such, otherwise I'll be running out of things to post about awfully quickly.

All Work and No Play... (RFA Part1)

So as some of you may have ascertained by now I work in the games industry for a company called Volition. It's a fairly well known company, predominantly for the Saints Row games these days, but also for the Red Faction games and some other stuff you may or may not have heard of. I've worked on a few titles there at this point, predominantly as a vehicle artist. I've asked if it's OK to show some of my work from shipped titles (shipped means "finished" basically), and this is apparently fine as long as I don't slip you any source art (the actual files that end up in the game). I'll be starting with some of my work from Red Faction: Armageddon.

A slightly different format to the usual for this series. Almost every image will be 'click to expand'-able - sometimes by a lot. There will be a Big Image Dump with small descriptions followed by some commentary and then onto the next thing.  The number of pieces per post will vary. Here we go then:

Red Faction "Razorback" Light Armored Vehicle
Art Directed by Chad Greene & Susan Cenci. Concept by Steve Holt

Game Engine Renders of unused clean version. Also the only look at the underside.

 

 

 

Beauty renders of the two used versions: Surface and Ice.  Also two looks at the rear door opening on the interior - more on the interior in a minute, but it isn't actually inside the vehicle in the game.  The final shot shows the ramp that was a last minute addition for a cinematic sequence.

Orthographic Views of a moderately dirty version to better show the dimensions and form.

This vehicle went through a number of changes in it's function throughout development, but once this concept was settled on it changed very little overall, but had lots of small changes for various reasons.

The "tower" to the front right of the vehicle is a turret emplacement - at one point it was automated, and then it was to be manned. Eventually it needed to be automated again, requiring it to be sealed up - but the manned version can still be seen briefly in one of the cutscene cinematics.

Two versions were required - one for above ground covered in dust, and one below ground covered in ice and frost. This was done by creating one base version (The clean one seen above) and then texturing ice and dust on top of it. The dusty one was originally quite a bit dirtier, but it didn't read very well in the environment so the amount was reduced.

The main difference between the final design and the initial concept (other than the interior) was that the original concept had an enclosed area over the front wheels rather than the separate fenders. These had to be broken off to facilitate the front wheels turning. There was a version with no fenders at one point, but I can't find a render of it - maybe I'll do one for the next All Work post. Whether I do or not it wasn't used in the final game. The concept also didn't cover the materials the vehicle was made of - carbon fiber and ceramic plate; Not the most standard of military finishes. Makes it look like it wouldn't look out of place in the Batcave, but it works in context. There were some destroyed versions of the vehicle made by Angela Lee derived from the intact original too.

It's nickname is the Razorback because it looks a bit like a warthog - but that name was already taken. 'Razorback' sounds cooler anyway...

Red Faction LAV Cinematic Interior.
Art Directed by Jasen Whiteside, Chad Greene, Susan Cenci.
Initial Concept by Steve Holt

The interior of the Light Armored Vehicle landed in my lap fairly late in the game. It was known that a detailed interior would be needed for cinematic cutscenes, but somehow it had slipped through the net and not been assigned to an artist. A low detail version had already been created, but for the cutscenes a much higher detail version was needed.

In an interesting twist the interior would need to appear as a level of detail render-able by the game engine, even though the cinematic would be pre-rendered (not dealt with in real time). This meant that while the interior had a great deal of detail, it's actual polycount would be fairly low, and the procedure for building it was very similar to any other game asset, and a lot of the detail is actually done using Normal Maps (texture maps that simulate depth) baked from a high polygon original. It would also need to match up to the exterior model that was already built.

I'm quite pleased with the interior - it looks lived in and knocked about without appearing to be overly grubby. It's detailed enough that there's always something interesting in the frame, but not so detailed that the eye is drawn to it over the important character work in the scenes.

The only other thing of note really is that the Hammer on the wall is the iconic hammer from Red Faction: Guerrilla (the previous game in the series), originally designed by Glenn Israel, modeled by Josh Powers and then reworked by Michael Clark. I reworked it again for this interior of course.

I think that's enough for today. I'm away for three weeks starting on Tuesday. If I can I'll get another post in before I leave (more game asset stuff), but if not it'll keep until I get back - I've lots more where this came from.