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

This gallery is part of my on-going series showcasing my work on The Last of Us: Part II.
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As well as being the vehicle specialist for the duration of the game, I also continued my role as a texture and shader artist with my usual level responsibilities.
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For this particular area, I worked in partnership with Edgar Martinez (modelling and layout) and Bethany Lowe (Lighting) as well as the rest of the fantastic Naughty Dog team, without whose contributions none of these levels would be possible.
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My main responsibilities included the creation and adaptation of textures and shaders for application to the environments and contained assets. The levels ended up being so huge that I also did quite a bit of modelling and additional set dressing, working back and forth with Edgar, to continually push and improve each other's work. I also spent a lot of time in researching a new asset pipeline for which these levels became our testing ground.
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Working on The Last of Us: Part II has been an incredible experience and as always, it takes a monumental team effort in order to make such amazing games. Without the hard work and dedication of the entire team, across all departments, none of this would be possible.
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I would also like to take time to thank our incredible outsource studios who time and time again prove to be so vital to our development of these worlds, their contributions are incredible and I am incredibly grateful to have worked with them.
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Edgar Martinez portfolio, please check him out! https://www.artstation.com/edgar_a_martinez

Face-off - as this encounter begins you don't have much time to think, running is the best strategy...

Face-off - as this encounter begins you don't have much time to think, running is the best strategy...

Here I'm briefly running through various parts of this space to demonstrate the level and it's destructible features a little, as well as to give you a short experience of the final feeling of this encounter

This space was extremely challenging, the flooding, heavy damage and spread of the fungus required a lot of custom modeling and shader work to really communicate the danger and foreboding nature of the space

This space was extremely challenging, the flooding, heavy damage and spread of the fungus required a lot of custom modeling and shader work to really communicate the danger and foreboding nature of the space

Wet and slimy...everywhere. As a side note, our audio team did an amazing job conveying the tension and atmosphere throughout this space so i've tried to include audio in all video clips

Runtime reflections, dynamically lit fog, refractive water, dynamic destruction and huge explosions of fungal spores meant that optimisation of the models (lods, fade-outs) and shaders (texture samples, complexity) was essential

Runtime reflections, dynamically lit fog, refractive water, dynamic destruction and huge explosions of fungal spores meant that optimisation of the models (lods, fade-outs) and shaders (texture samples, complexity) was essential

The destructible walls had cracks that would appear in time with the animation of the Ratking breaking through. I did this using a custom decal shader that had multiple layers of animatable cracks. Here's a quick breakdown (with voiceover)

And here's how all of these effects looked working together in the final encounter. The use of the animating shader layers had never been done in this way at ND before, I really happy to have prototyped it and for how much it added to the final look

And here's the effect in slow motion, so you can see a little more clearly how everything works together

I worked closely with our foreground department, in particular Kyle Owens, to provide models like these doors, that would be rigged to deform under the might of the ratking in its pursuit of Abby

I worked closely with our foreground department, in particular Kyle Owens, to provide models like these doors, that would be rigged to deform under the might of the ratking in its pursuit of Abby

For all shaders in the space, I achieved the wet, mould look by darkening and browning the diffuse, increasing the surface response and using an elevation blend technique to fade these effects vertically as they moved away from the water line.

The fungus materials in this area were all entirely custom (rather than using their default look). Like all other shaders in the space, I wanted these to feel wet, mouldy and even more disgusting than usual too

The fungus materials in this area were all entirely custom (rather than using their default look). Like all other shaders in the space, I wanted these to feel wet, mouldy and even more disgusting than usual too

(Sound on) The audio team did an amazing job as always in adding a heart pounding score and sfx during the encounter, before contrasting that with the moody, ambience that follows the Ratkings defeat...I love the water sfx and the buzzing light here...

Early playtests found this area quite difficult to navigate for the player, as well as many design revisions right up until the end...I used bold tent colours and designs to help the player landmark their position better amidst the chaos

Early playtests found this area quite difficult to navigate for the player, as well as many design revisions right up until the end...I used bold tent colours and designs to help the player landmark their position better amidst the chaos

But the Flamethrower is the only way to go for this enemy...the designers intended it to be this way, real time reflections of these incredible vfx looked amazing, so we worked hard as a team to optimise the space to ensure this look would make it in

But the Flamethrower is the only way to go for this enemy...the designers intended it to be this way, real time reflections of these incredible vfx looked amazing, so we worked hard as a team to optimise the space to ensure this look would make it in

(Sound on) In brief moments of rest, some areas of this space could be quite tranquil...

IGN did a really great feature on the level. I was really proud to see the work that Edgar and I poured our hearts into become the subject of such a feature. It focuses a lot on the character and level design and there's a lot of great bts footage :-)

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