Kenneth Scott

Ajax

I'm actually a bit surprised more people aren't talking about how Kenneth Scott slipped silently out the back door at id to head up to work at Microsoft Game Studios/Halo. I can understand why, but man, talk about an end of an era there. Ken has had his quiet fingerprint on pretty much all the amazing and groundbreaking art and design coming out of there for the last 10 or so years as the Art Director there.

Best of luck with the new venture Ken!

doc rob

what

Oh, is this because his wife went there?

EarthQuake

Doc: yeah.

Neox

well humm last id title i liked was commander keen, so i guess that doesn't impress me that much :P

Eclipse

Thats kinda crazy because Ryan Payton who worked on MGS4 also sign onto MGS/Halo, they are getting some serious talent for that team...

aesir

Halo needs it...

Neox

aesir wrote: »

Halo needs it...

hahaha gft

Jeremy Lindstrom

It was brought up a few times when she left gearbox here a couple times it happened way back at the end of August.

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=55294

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54449

Ninjas

Id seems to be going in a different direction now then they used to. Big teams, lots of in-house projects, adopting industry practices (like mo-cap) that they had resisted. I am interested to see how it works out. It is great that so many Polycounters are there now. I am hoping for the start of a new era.

kolbyjukes

Neox wrote: »

well humm last id title i liked was commander keen, so i guess that doesn't impress me that much :P

Seriously, have you not seen Ken's stuff? Whether or not like you like Id's games, it's hard to deny that Ken is one of the best in the biz. Crazy inspiring. I'd kill to work with him.

Microsoft is setting up a killer team, can't wait to see what they're working on.

-K.

doc rob

This will definitely be interesting. Building a big team from scratch with very little core or past culture to grow around . . . it will talk a long time to put together whatever they are building. That will make it doubly hard as it sounds like they're there to make Halo 4. The expectation of scope on a project like that could crush it. They've got a recipe for a 5 year dev cycle and a $200M budget. Being a startup as a first party team, that's another strike against them. . . I wish them luck as they definitely have their work cut out for themselves.

ptoing

Hehe, I liked the original 2 Doom games and Quake 1, but if you can point me towards the groundbreaking art direction and such in ID games I would be glad to see. To me it looks pretty much like Heavy Metal cover kinda stuff. Not very innovative at all and just made to look RAWR EVIL.

konstruct

dang, thats pretty nuts, I`d hate to be the one to fill those shoes.

TWilson

I'm really glad id may be going in a new direction. I think 'Rage' looks good from what I've seen so far. I hope they win me back. Because I fuckin love their history. I played from commander keen to q3. I played quake/qw from like 96-2002 for gods sake.

Kenneth is obviously very skilled and I'd love the opportunity to learn from him one day.

Neox

kolbyjukes wrote: »

it's hard to deny that Ken is one of the best in the biz.

possible but just not my kind of taste
i have to admit that i also like your work more when it doesn't go into that evil monstar direction, just not my thing

i just remeber his mudbox betaworks, which i was good sure but it was still very doomy and thats just not my thing, really can't help it, it's to me as appealing as heavy metal kitsch or airbrushed wolves in front of the moon

doc rob

Bah, if you people do not acknowledge the Q3A skins as a masterwork, then you are fools.

Ptoing, Ken didn't work on those games.

This could be exciting. I think it will be worth it just to see his take on the Chief.

firestarter

Quite pivotal, one might say

Toomas

Too bad hes gonna work on a normal map project,
would love to see him do some more old school 2d stuff
for handheld or wii or something.

Jeremy Lindstrom

Toomas wrote: »

Too bad hes gonna work on a normal map project,
would love to see him do some more old school 2d stuff
for handheld or wii or something.

I got your hand held wii right here :poly124: :poly142:

cholden

Toomas wrote: »

Too bad hes gonna work on a normal map project,
would love to see him do some more old school 2d stuff
for handheld or wii or something.

History is there for the willing
http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/HacX

JordanW

Toomas wrote: »

Too bad hes gonna work on a normal map project,
would love to see him do some more old school 2d stuff
for handheld or wii or something.

So you'd love to see someone who pushed the art in our industry stagnate and working on multi-year old tech?

Toomas

JordanW wrote: »

So you'd love to see someone who pushed the art in our industry stagnate and working on multi-year old tech?

Yes because he is awesome at it.
And about the stagnating part, well you could tell people to stop painting
cause we have cameras.

TomDunne

firestarter wrote: »

Quite pivotal, one might say

Protofiend! Man, seeing that is like putting my brain in a time machine! I see that and I still think 'DPF' before I think Kenneth Scott. I think it was the only Q2 skin he even did before he went to Ion Storm - that's all you need to know about how crazy good he was.

Sometimes, I really miss 1998

Spark

I got to work with him a full week before he left:( It definetely was sad but I know that he is doing very well at his new home and will be bringing whatever he is doing to the next level. Kolby said pretty much what I also wanted to say, he is a master in our time.

Spark

Mark Dygert

kolbyjukes wrote: »

Seriously, have you not seen Ken's stuff? Whether or not like you like Id's games, it's hard to deny that Ken is one of the best in the biz. Crazy inspiring. I'd kill to work with him.

Microsoft is setting up a killer team, can't wait to see what they're working on.

-K.

Yep, what Mr Jukes said.
Like him or hate him you have to admit he's had a deep impact on our industry and is a source of inspiration for many. The man could paint circles around anyone here, literally...

FAT_CAP

Is there any of his newer work floating about anywhere?

Im from a console-gaming background so missed out on alot of the pivotal ID stuff that he was putting out. Being able to see where he is now and what he is pushin about would be awesome.

Justin Meisse

DANG, I remember seeing the title screen for HACX where that dood is kicking the robot's head off, totally awesome.

rawkstar

you may have seen this:

Jeremy Lindstrom

mmmmmmmm symmetry! No shit though, the dude is awesome, he'll always be able to find work.

Jeremy Wright

That is fucking beautiful. moar

Toomas

Dekard wrote: »

mmmmmmmm symmetry! No shit though, the dude is awesome, he'll always be able to find work.

Its symmetric cause Doom3 used mirrored textures anyways.

ViPr

mmMMMmmmm gummy cola appendages for me to suck on.

adamlewis

Yeah, that Hell Knight-looking character is absolutely incredible, and it makes me wish he would post his personal artwork online sometime. Of course he probably has better things to do than make other artists wet their pants, but man, images like that are pure distilled inspiration.

fritz

yeah...i remember before polycount went through the change....there used to be that interview with him. it had like a slideshow showing all his skins and some concepts and stuff. sooo good. i used to just watch it over and over and over.

here's one of his magazine covers

http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.32/feat/images/onspec.jpg

TWilson

Remember this? I dooo

http://web.archive.org/web/20011215214506/www.planetquake.com/skinforge/

wizo

Has anyone saved the pixologic interview with scott? (zbrushcentral-2005) I wanna see more of his work but this link seems to be broken
http://pixologic.com/zbrush/interviews/scott_interview.html

ptoing

rawkstar wrote: »

you may have seen this:

Looks nice, very well done techncially, but the design is NOT anything special? The head looks like it is a normal human head with the noface look of Giger's Alien and spunked up a but. And it has stuff on the back. I am not trying to rag on him here, he is very good technically, and I would love to see more of his personal stuff.

That cover is really nice (nicer than any of his id stuff by far imo)

fritz

man....can someone please post some of his old skins. the dude would take a head....that looked like it was made out of 4 triangles(exaggeration)...paint it up....and it would look AMAZING.

I_luv_Pixels

IM just glad i got to know the guy and get to draw with him for a long while! I miss the guy terribly I learned so much from Kenneth in the short period i knew him!!!

Zephir62

I always found the statues he made laying around his old ID office way more impressive than any of the work he put out for their games. Anyone else get a chance to catch those before he left? They're awesome

Neox

Vig wrote: »

Yep, what Mr Jukes said.
Like him or hate him you have to admit he's had a deep impact on our industry and is a source of inspiration for many. The man could paint circles around anyone here, literally...

totally agree with that

killingpeople

it's starting to smell like nerd-sweat in here!

kwakkie

You guys are talking about him like he's dead or something! Get a hold of yourselves! *slap slap*

BoBo_the_seal

As far as I'm concerned, Ken is the Keystone the mother f'n KEYSTONE!!

- BoBo

John Warner

what? more fucking halo games?

Ninjas

If the new HALOZ looks like the Halo Wars trailer that came out today, I would play it

TheSplash

Here's some of his early zbrush work, for those who were wanting to see.

EarthQuake

Man those shots are cool, and the best part is that this stuff is from 6 years ago. SIX FREAKING YEARS AGO. And he clearly shows master level execution of organic sculpting, mechanical sculpting, mechanical sub-d(even using some floating bits there, before anyone else would have even thought to do so). All things that most artists still struggle with on atleast some level today, after years of experience with current tools and workflows. Anyone who doesn't realize his talents, and immense influence throughout the entirety modern games industry is fooling themselves. Do you guys really think you would be using tools such as mudbox and zbrush if people like Ken Scott weren't there pushing these workflows for production in games? He's had a huge impact on the industry since the days of quake3, not just with games in general but also art production.

I know for me personally seeing the highpoly art for doom3 was what got me focused on doing highres stuff myself, so I owe a great amount to people like Ken for inspiring me to really strive for the success that i've had today in my own work.

PixelGoat

Man thats crazy.

j_bradford

Amazing stuff; I remember looking at these 6 years ago with my jaw on the floor. They still hold up well with a lot of the current game work today!

I'm looking forward to a darker, more grittier halo this time.

wizo

TheSplash: Thanks a bunch, that's exactly what I was looking for !! If I saw these 6 years ago I wouldve had a heart attack. They really hold up well.... they are even better than what we see in most games.