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Gears2 Environment Art

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  • 00Zero
    very cool. im digging the mashup of old and new. the pickup truck just screams 50s but this last one you posted looks like its from the 90s. i envy your speed.

    ps, did you happen to sign any gears 2 posters at comicon 2008? i got a poster signed by a bunch of people from epic, just curious if yours was on there too. theyre pretty illegible. heh
  • bluekangaroo
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    bluekangaroo polycounter lvl 13
    o wow. HI poly cars are a real challenge, I guess tho that since you weren't creating this off a real life car made the process go by a lot quicker since you had a lot more freedom to be creative here. Thats awesome by the way....keep em coming man, my kevin johnstone folder is slowly growing!
  • carlo_c
    Very nice, I didn't think you'd let any detail slide even on the underneath of the car!
  • EbolaV
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    EbolaV keyframe
    awesome stuff :) that name of the registrationplate is the name of you little daughter right? ^^ sweet

    edit: oh you said that before :P sorry
  • vladino
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    vladino polycounter lvl 14
  • A-Train
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    A-Train polycounter lvl 15
    Hi kevin!

    Well that was just an quick example.This is how i try to do meshes like you but i can say im lightyears behind.

    *Make a basemesh in Max 2k9
    *Export it to Mudbox
    *Detail the mesh,Usually ends up in a couple of million polys
    *Export a highres and a mediumres model back to Max
    *Import both meshes,hide the highpoly and run prooptimizer on the mediumres model
    *Now when the mediumres is pretty much a lowpoly model i use the highpolymesh as a projection mesh to extract all maps i need,AO map,normalmap,hightmap and diffuse.

    Im pretty much stuck at the optimizer stage :)

    Also can i ask if you can post some wires of your fantastic work?I really want to see wires of the lowpoly meshes

    And thanks again !

    @Thewiruz

    Instead of polycruncher try using this, it's great (and for now, it's free):

    http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
  • arshlevon
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    arshlevon polycounter lvl 18
    nice stuff Kevin, you make all our environment artists want to kill themselves.

    you mind disclosing the amount of time you spent on those cars? pretty high quality stuff, wondering on how you guys budget your time.
  • stimpack
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    stimpack polycounter lvl 10
    Im curious on the texture end of things what the teams approach is. Was having a discussion with a friend yesterday about it and neither of us could really say for sure. Most the env stuff is so noisy, you could get away with polypainting colors, with a little photo sourcing to boot. That was my guess atleast. Can you reveal any of that pipeline?
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    Wires -

    Car_Wires01.jpg

    Car_Wires02.jpg

    Car_Wires03.jpg

    Car_Wires04.jpg

    Arsh: awesome, if I can just hobble the competition like this I'm set!

    5-8 days seems fast to me too, but I was doing double the normal hours by the time I moved on to the cars, I'd certainly want double the time I quoted if I were doing them outside of crunch!

    I tend to budget my time by what I feel is important in terms of reuseability,

    I think I fall into the pattern in general of making something simple and portable quite quickly ( Like the HI/LOW/Process of brick walls in a couple days), then following through with something a bit fancier and decorative that can be laid on top of the plain pieces in a variety of ways, usually takes 4 or 5 days.

    Stim: I can't really speak for the texture side of the pipeline too well, I just handle the lego production side of things. Maybe Maury or Jordan can field a question like that as they do texturing and modelling.

    Zero: I'm not sure, I remember I signed an awful lot of posters, I remember talk about some of them being for ComicCon... maybe?
  • vj_box
    As Always,Awesome Kevin.Love the flow of the polys here.
  • Seaseme
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    Seaseme polycounter lvl 8
    Hey Kevin,

    Thanks for posting this stuff! It's super inspirational. It's pretty much single- handedly inspired me to start learning zBrush (it's the future!)

    Keep it up!
  • sampson
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    sampson polycounter lvl 9
    i'm not sure if i'm 100% right on this... but:
    say if your doing something basic e.g a plank of wood.... if you were planning to have it just in 3ds max, you would add edgeloops just around the edges for support... but if its zbrush,, you want to insert heaps of edges until you kind of have a tesselating square pattern across the entire surface before you smooth it??....
  • BUSYROBOT
    Your work inspires me so much!
  • Rens
    I love it when things like this are displayed, thanks alot for sharing kevin :D
  • Mongrelman
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    Mongrelman polycounter lvl 18
    Awesome stuff Kevin, great to see the planning behind such work.

    I was wondering about the brick walls for example, after you bake the details down to a plane which you then deform it.

    When you shell the plane, are both sides of the wall using the same uvspace, and you then unwrap the sides and bake the highpoly to them?
  • Paul Pepera
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    Paul Pepera polycounter lvl 9
    Love it! Thanks for posting those wires Kevin.
  • onelung
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    onelung polycounter lvl 18
    Great stuff, that vault door kicks ass!
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Love the engine no that vehicle, lot's of detail! Would love to see the final result on the low poly bake! :P :P
  • ArtsyFartsy
    Pulled this off IGN. That's the truck isn't it?

    http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14232680/gears-of-war-2/images/gears-of-war-2-20081014111502177.html'>gears-of-war-2-20081014111502177.jpg
    EDIT:

    And I think that's the van.
    http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14232680/gears-of-war-2/images/gears-of-war-2-20080625074342517.html'>gears-of-war-2-20080625074342517.jpg

    The final game product looks a lot different from KJ's beauty shots. Plus I'm sure they have many different texture variants.

    Great, now I can't stop looking at GOW2 screenshots. There's just too much good stuff.
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    Artsy: That Gridlock shot is old, I replaced the van and the pickup and one of those cars. See Mikey Spano had made a bunch of the old vehicles ( with a tougher deadline than myself I might add!!), but in Gears2 they decided they wanted the doors, hood, wheels to come off and needed windscreens be breakable so it made more sense to redo them than try to frankenstein those pieces from the originals which were not designed for that.
  • mLichy
    Very nice stuff, thanks for the wires, and saying how long you spent.
  • jaalto
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    jaalto polycounter lvl 13
    Amazing work! Vault door really have the feeling it really is HEAVY.. loving it :). Thanks for sharing these!
  • IronHawk
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    IronHawk polycounter lvl 10
    thanks Kevin! Really great work here.
  • Lonewolf
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    Lonewolf polycounter lvl 18
    thats some crazy work O.O

    how much time did u get per asset?
  • robinmitra1
    Your work has been inspiring me since ur Unreal 3 thread..Thanks for enlightening us Kevin!

    btw i really dig ur last few renders, would you mind sharing ur render/material setup u used for the vehicles?
  • silver_shadow
    i am such a fan of Gears, got both games and played it a lot! Just a pity its so frikken short. They should look at what made metal gear solid 4 such a great success. (hunch hunch)
    Sad thing is tho, you have such great models, and its kind of a pity even with all the hard work in those amazing models, the game engine kills the effort that was put into making those stunning artworks. Just imagine, if that game reflected all those detail as you presented on this website like that, the game would probably be the best looking game ever. I know its all about poly count, but then...they should look at this, maybe one day we can see our models in full glory as it should be. Insane detail, love it!!! Kick their butt in Gears 3 and tell them they should make even a more awesome game.
  • Talbot
    i am such a fan of Gears, got both games and played it a lot! Just a pity its so frikken short. They should look at what made metal gear solid 4 such a great success. (hunch hunch)
    Sad thing is tho, you have such great models, and its kind of a pity even with all the hard work in those amazing models, the game engine kills the effort that was put into making those stunning artworks. Just imagine, if that game reflected all those detail as you presented on this website like that, the game would probably be the best looking game ever. I know its all about poly count, but then...they should look at this, maybe one day we can see our models in full glory as it should be. Insane detail, love it!!! Kick their butt in Gears 3 and tell them they should make even a more awesome game.

    MGS4 wasn't a success. Well I'm just going to say that Gears 2 was a good length. And MGS4 wasn't that good.

    Also... these are high poly models... no game engine is going to take them.

    Imagine if you looked at those assets in the game... i know it is a stretch ;)... but a lot of that high poly data is there.
  • silver_shadow
    i know i know... lol....maybe i was just pushing for a more epic game lol.
    I go back a lot in my games...stop and pause and look at how detail of certain elements were made and get new ideas of my own how to solve my problems. He he we all love to dream
  • torontoanimator
    lol i totally agree with arshvelon :P your stuff is so good it makes me think whats the point :P but then i think, hey, maybe one day i can be that good :D
  • L3XICON
    holy detail! love the amount of work and effort that went into make each of these pieces so indredible, both individually and collectively. superb work, and thanks for sharing!
  • kite
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    kite polycounter lvl 17
    just awesome work, love the chunkiness of the vehicles
  • innervision961
    Kevin, you're a master of the craft, I have to wonder, do you still get giddy and excited about video games, about going to work at Epic the types of things that made you thrive to get were you are or do you ever feel like "been there, done that"?

    Also, how drastically has decimation master improved your workflows? (if at all)
  • NyneDown
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    NyneDown polycounter lvl 11
    I love all the details that you guys sculpt/model there at Epic...it honestly makes me excited (sorry...I cant contain my inner geek.) Out of curiosity, and I'm sure this has been asked somewhere in this thread, but how much time do you get to model something like the truck a couple of pages back? It feels like the engine components would take a few days alone.
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    Oh yeah I still get excited!

    The other night I was playing the first resident evil on PS3 and realized that when it first came out and I played it on a JAP import PS1, I bunked off the work experience part of the college course I was doing to play it. I only took the course to get the government grant so I could get a PC in time for Qtest1 so I could learn to make games anyway.
    It's great to be sitting where I am now and looking back at that.

    I've also been playing the new Wipeout HD Fury add on and loving how thats been updated and again, remember the other versions, the first time I played the demo on PS1 and was amazed at how different and cool it was compared to other games back then.

    I'm really not jaded like I ought to be, I still love playing games. I'm jaded in terms of the press and the shows and the media/developer/publisher commentary that goes on, I mean I've heard it all before and didn't really care too much about the buzzwords to start with!

    I'm just as excited at work too, every game we make here looks better than the last and is more fun, its great seeing the tech improvements, fun to move on to new themes and new games and inspiring to see others around me pushing onward.

    Really, it's not the case that you have to become a jaded old hack and turn your dream job into just another job after x amount of years. Things have only improved for me because I am growing more comfortable with myself and more sure of how things will go in the future.

    Oh and times for things are listed through out the thread.
  • innervision961
    Man thats awesome to hear... I've always been afraid that it'd happen to me like that

    Its hard to play a game anymore without tearing it apart artistically and technically in my head. Its kind of a reoccurring thing for me, I learned guitar, then I couldn't just listen to and enjoy music the same, learning game art, now every little flaw is noticeable and every masterpiece is amazing inspiring and discouraging all at the same time lo

    If you have the time, give fat princess a spin, its a blast if you get on page with it.
  • crazyfingers
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    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    Reassuring to know not everyone's burnt out in this business. Thanks for takin' the time to tell us "noobs" what's up.
  • BradMyers82
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    BradMyers82 interpolator
    The other night I was playing the first resident evil on PS3 and realized that when it first came out and I played it on a JAP import PS1, I bunked off the work experience part of the college course I was doing to play it. I only took the course to get the government grant so I could get a PC in time for Qtest1 so I could learn to make games anyway.
    It's great to be sitting where I am now and looking back at that.

    What a success story! That makes me appreciate your work even more man, knowing that you must have had your own struggle to get started. I'm looking forward to the next project you can pimp.
  • NyneDown
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    NyneDown polycounter lvl 11

    Oh and times for things are listed through out the thread.

    Woops...my bad! I thought I read everything in your posts but missed that one tid-bit of info.

    But again, amazing work. Everything Epic does is insanely inspiring...it's great to hear that you still enjoy doing what you do. It makes people who arent in the industry yet feel that much more encouraged and motivated. Thanks for sharing man =)
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    I love this thread! Stunning work!
  • Taylor Hood
    I want to be Kevin Johnstone.
    :)
  • OcR Crimson
    fantastic stuff! my teacher was actually showing us this a few days ago

    your our inspiration for our hard surface modeling stuff!!! awesome man just purely awesome
  • bhornburg
    Thanks so much for showing your process. I really like how clean you work and how much planning you do before hand!
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    I've been working on my webpage, putting together some more Gears2 shots, thought I'd show a couple more here.

    LOC_Palace_VertWorms01.jpg


    LOC_Palace_VertWorms02.jpg

    LOC_Palace_VertSides01.JPG

    LOC_Palace_VertSides02.JPG

    LOC_Palace_Entrance01_BIG.JPG

    LOC_Palace_Entrance02_BIG.JPG
  • ibarter
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    ibarter polycounter lvl 8
    Damn, you really are an inspiration man. Excellent job.
  • Mistry10
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    Mistry10 polycounter lvl 8
    these are great man !
    thanks for sharing !!!
  • PredatorGSR
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    PredatorGSR polycounter lvl 14
    Cool stuff, do you ever worry about stuff becoming too busy/noisy? I guess that is pretty much the gears style, but the lack of eye rest was something that jumped out at me.
  • maze
    abusively detailed....although, you have an awesome eye for distribution and that makes the unsubtle a pleasure to watch, amazing work mr Johnstone!!!!
  • Hazardous
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    Hazardous polycounter lvl 12
    Gobsmackin stuff dude, love that floral patternwork - is that all 2d stamped in zbrush / mud or ??
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    Ibarter / Mistry10 - Thanks!

    Predator - Aye, it worried me all through Gears2 development, but that was the art direction and the concepts pushed this. We ( env artists ) had to rely on the LD's controlling the noise more with how they broke things up with rocks and shadows, but the aim was to get that OTT crypt level of detail I think.

    I've pulled back as much as the concepts allowed on Gears3 so we'll see how that goes down, but at the end of the day , its Gears of War you know?
    Do you never think 'Damn, these huge swords in Darksiders are pretty dumb?' or 'gee, should the characters heads be so squished ?' heh

    Its the style right? Some of us dig that, some of us don't but thats the art direction right ?

    LOC_Palace_trim.jpg

    LOC_Palace_Bench.jpg

    LOC_Palace_Brazier.jpg

    LOC_Palace_Hanglight.jpg

    LOC_Palace_Wasplight.jpg

    LOC_Palace_Book.jpg

    LOC_Palace_CircleFloor1.jpg

    LOC_Palace_CircleFloor2.jpg

    LOC_Palace_RockBone.jpg

    LOC_Palace_Horny.JPG

    LOC_Palace_BlockBaseb.JPG

    LOC_Palace_OnyxLight.JPG

    LOC_Palace_Pallet2.JPG

    LOC_Palace_Pallet1.JPG
  • Kevin Johnstone
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