The Last of Us: Part II...Rescue Jesse
This gallery shows some of my contributions to the hands-on demo that we showed in September 2019.
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While I was not responsible for the amazing environments seen here, which were handled by a multitude of other extremely talented environment artists, I worked for around 8 weeks on the demo, supporting many aspects of it's visual development.
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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 etc). For this particular section of the demo we were showing a new area of the game, a section in Seattle that needed to feel as though it was soaking wet after a heavy downpour.
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My first task was to to ensure all vehicles in the area were correctly placed and posed using our 'move-mod' system whose resurrection for The Last of Us: Part II I was heavily involved in. So each vehicle throughout this area, was tilted, had doors opened, wheels turned etc to ensure it's appearance was dynamic and appealing without impacting game-play. I was also responsible for the general look of the vehicles, where most of my focus was on refining the feeling of 'wetness' in the vehicles shaders and their attachments. This was accomplished using a shader that comprised of multiple layers to simulate the effects of porosity and rain streaks on the materials and the influence these effects might have on the rust and other wear features my shaders employed.
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As my experience with the wetness shaders grew and my work on the vehicles in this area came to a close I was then tasked with supporting the other shader artists responsible for this enormous level. My focus here was mainly ensuring that the multitude of shaders used on the ground/floor areas all were setup correctly for the wetness response that John Sweeney (Art director) was hoping to achieve; reflecting, darkening and exhibiting correct specular response in a consistent manner wherever possible.
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These levels also had around 4 or 5 'vistas' or 'wides' as we refer to them. These were large distant hills, covered with trees and low lying mist. I was also responsible for these vistas, creating the hills and low poly houses, and placing hundreds of tree cards whilst ensuring that the compositions matched the incredible concepts for the area that our concept team worked tirelessly to provide us with.
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This was a huge demo for us as a team, for me it was our moment of 'leveling up', seeing everyone involved working together to set the visual bar for all levels that would come afterwards. It was incredibly inspiring and I want to thank the level artists involved in these areas for allowing me to chip in to support the incredible work they had already accomplished.
My work in this shot was in creating the vista as well as the over turned delivery truck and the vandalized 'F*** the WLF' tarpaulin. The incredibly talented Max Golosiy and Zak Oliver were responsible for the main environment
I was responsible for both vehicles here as well as creating the 'WLF rules' tarpaulin, simulating it's drapery was a lot of fun
A nice example of the typical wetness response that my vehicle shaders exhibited. Use of an optional 'leaf kit' here also helps to add additional detail
Bethany Lo did an incredible job lighting these areas, using cubemaps to help the vehicle shaders really pop. My buddy Tyler Moore also worked hard to create additional 'leaf kits' for vehicles like this one, that was parked under a tree
As part of my work in supporting other artists, I re-baked and created all new shaders for this workbench. With this particular revolver the camera could get really close, so I created additional detail layers to blend into view as the camera zoomed in
I developed an 'attachment system', so that repeating vehicles could have multiple variations. This truck bed tarp is a nice example of one such attachment. The pickup model itself was re-used elsewhere in these levels, but with different attachments
This intense combat area was populated with vehicles I created that were perfect cover for Ellie
This suv, lies buried in the overgrowth, here the 'wet-moss' shader look was used, moss and soil blends procedurally based on angle. I also love the way the wetness shader looks on the broken windscreen I added to make traversal easier
This crashed taxi and military vehicle vignette was important to the story telling in this area, there are more details on the back side, like a spray painted warning to the WLF...
This military vehicle is using the 'WLF + wetness' look that I developed, the camouflage pattern was based on some really cool concepts, it also uses my 'battle-damage' shader look, which allowed me to paint bullet holes and burn damage where needed
Usually all vehicles were fitted with flattened tires, but in these cases I could use our move-mod system, to replace those flattened tires with full ones, like these that are suspended in the air
I was responsible for the baking, texturing and shading of the 'Last of Us Dumpsters' as well as working on the wetness response and puddles on the asphalt in this particular shot
A close-up view of the wetness shader 'streaks'. In this level they remain static, but in other, heavy rain areas they cascade over the surface of the vehicles. This wet glass look I developed for these vehicles was also used extensively elsewhere in game
The wind shader feature was one of my favourite things to add to outdoor fabrics, we could control areas to react to wind and areas to remain still using a texture mask. A huge thanks to Steven Tang for his work on this awesome feature
The high poly for the tarp was provided by our fantastic vendors, I then adjusted the sculpt, baked and created the shaders. In the background you can also see a 'debris-kit' used in the pickup bed, another way I used kits to add variation to vehicles
Finally, as well as providing the vehicles in this area, here is another example of one of the vistas that I created. Quinn Kazamaki did an amazing job on the fog vfx in the hills too