Matthew Trevelyan Johns
Principal Environment Artist - Naughty Dog
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The Last of Us: Part II...Military Vehicles

I had two roles on The Last of Us: Part II, one as the vehicle specialist (asset creation, art/technical pipeline, management of library) and the other as a level artist (textures, shaders, assets etc).
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The military vehicles were a really great challenge to undertake. I was responsible for the full pipeline, including their concept and design, all modeling, high poly to low poly, baking, texturing, shader setups etc. The challenge for these mainly came from the design aspect, as we always need to be mindful of existing IP's and ensure that our own military vehicle designs are completely unique to The Last Of Us: Part II. I did a lot of research to ensure that this vehicle set would be recognisable and yet would also feature enough unique design elements so that we could call them our own. Hard surface modeling and design is always something I really enjoy so getting to make all of these was one of the most enjoyable parts of the project for me
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I'm also indebted to my friend Tyler Moore, in the final stages of production he was invaluable in helping to troubleshoot the thousands (!) of collision, traversal, cover and melee bugs that we ran into. Tyler also was instrumental in ensuring that background artists had the vehicle variations they needed. I had set up the template materials to define the 'looks' for each vehicle type and Tyler did a great job of propagating those looks to other vehicles when bg required them, as well as helping to optimize 'the fleet' when the time came.
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I'd also like to thank my Leads, Andres Rodriguez and Christian Nakata for trusting me with such a monumental task and for their support along the way, as well as Waylon Brinck, Florent Devillechabrol, Ke Xu, Steven Tang and Dongsub Woo (and many others) for their technical and graphics expertise that was essential in the process.

Test scenes like this allow me to prototype shaders and examine my assets up close, without the distraction of other environment elements. I love this wet, overcast fog setting and the camo paint material variation seen here for the WLF vehicles

Test scenes like this allow me to prototype shaders and examine my assets up close, without the distraction of other environment elements. I love this wet, overcast fog setting and the camo paint material variation seen here for the WLF vehicles

I designed these military vehicles to be completely modular, so that multiple variations could be made from a collection of re-usable parts. This meant many vehicles could exist in our levels, using our instancing system to save level memory

I designed these military vehicles to be completely modular, so that multiple variations could be made from a collection of re-usable parts. This meant many vehicles could exist in our levels, using our instancing system to save level memory

Here's an example, in the front we have 3 truck-bed variations attached to the same front end of the vehicle to create different looks. And in the back, we see an assortment of attachments that could create even more variations of the same vehicle

Here's an example, in the front we have 3 truck-bed variations attached to the same front end of the vehicle to create different looks. And in the back, we see an assortment of attachments that could create even more variations of the same vehicle

As with all vehicles, the military set also featured around 5 different material variations. These were weather/environment specific, but applied to the same, instanced models, which helped us keep unique mesh memory down

The forward base excursion is such a fun level, but this pups ears steal the show

For the military truck design I borrowed heavily from existing vehicles, mixing elements to keep it recognisable but make it our own. These were huge vehicles in game and needed to be climbable as well as fully modular to create lots of variation.

For the military truck design I borrowed heavily from existing vehicles, mixing elements to keep it recognisable but make it our own. These were huge vehicles in game and needed to be climbable as well as fully modular to create lots of variation.

The undercarriage in particular was really challenging, I relied on my usual pipeline of unique baked details + trims, all on a single texture set, plus those same pom decal techniques from my Star Citizen days

The undercarriage in particular was really challenging, I relied on my usual pipeline of unique baked details + trims, all on a single texture set, plus those same pom decal techniques from my Star Citizen days

Here's an example of the wireframe. Mid-poly modeling + bake kit + pom decals + mask based layered shaders = my vehicle pipeline for TLOU:II. See my GDC talk for more details (shameless plug)

Here's an example of the wireframe. Mid-poly modeling + bake kit + pom decals + mask based layered shaders = my vehicle pipeline for TLOU:II. See my GDC talk for more details (shameless plug)

One of my favourite assets to make, the tank design was inspired by the M1:A1 and the British Challenger. Like all vehicles, it could be posed and articulated, with removable armour plates so we could create interesting dioramas

One of my favourite assets to make, the tank design was inspired by the M1:A1 and the British Challenger. Like all vehicles, it could be posed and articulated, with removable armour plates so we could create interesting dioramas

The bags an attached equipment were also optional extras, with most vehicles there were optional 'kits' that could be snapped onto them for added variation

The bags an attached equipment were also optional extras, with most vehicles there were optional 'kits' that could be snapped onto them for added variation

There were also special 'battle-damage' versions of all vehicles (see next video) that allowed artists to paint bullet holes and fire damage/charring as they pleased. This was another factor that helped us create interesting story telling moments.

There were also special 'battle-damage' versions of all vehicles (see next video) that allowed artists to paint bullet holes and fire damage/charring as they pleased. This was another factor that helped us create interesting story telling moments.

Here's an example of my battle-damaged shaders in action, all materials were developed to react differently to the same vertex colours, so fabric/upholstery would show fire damage differently to metal and rubber etc

I loved seeing the team get creative with the dioramas that vehicles were used in, this one can be seen in the forward base area

I loved seeing the team get creative with the dioramas that vehicles were used in, this one can be seen in the forward base area

'leaf-kits' were another optional add on for vehicles, each one would snap into place and could be vertex painted to feature more or less leaves...I tried to make all of these additions as simple as possible to encourage wide-spread use

'leaf-kits' were another optional add on for vehicles, each one would snap into place and could be vertex painted to feature more or less leaves...I tried to make all of these additions as simple as possible to encourage wide-spread use

There were a lot of texture/shader details as well as fine modeled details that presented challenges at distances. We used mesh lods and material layer lods (fades on certain layers) to ensure visual noise/aliasing would not be an issue

There were a lot of texture/shader details as well as fine modeled details that presented challenges at distances. We used mesh lods and material layer lods (fades on certain layers) to ensure visual noise/aliasing would not be an issue

The same pipeline used for vehicles, eventually spread to many other larger structures. I did the final texture/decal/shader pass on this military command structure for example, but using pre-existing vehicle shaders meant the texture pass was really fast

The same pipeline used for vehicles, eventually spread to many other larger structures. I did the final texture/decal/shader pass on this military command structure for example, but using pre-existing vehicle shaders meant the texture pass was really fast

These generators also made use of the vehicle pipeline, I completed the final texture/shader/decal pass, using pom decals for tiny bolts and fasteners helped to retain that high level of detail required, even during these close up in-game-cutscene moments

These generators also made use of the vehicle pipeline, I completed the final texture/shader/decal pass, using pom decals for tiny bolts and fasteners helped to retain that high level of detail required, even during these close up in-game-cutscene moments

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