Website powered by
Matthew Birkett-Smith
Lead Artist & Art Director in the games industry
Home page
Resume

Rigs shaders - Nevada

Nevada was an environment where the primary shader challenges were for rock and sand. Roel Coucke did a great job on supporting a lot of the complex requirements for this, my involvement in shaders for the level was relatively light.
A lot of the organic elements of the level were all custom sculpts with unique macro textures that then went through a shared bank of tiling textures. This was effective but ended up costing us quite a bit of time! One downside of the shader setup for the map was that the sand floor shader was very expensive for all the elements in needed to support and blend between. This actually hurt us quite a lot as this shader always took up a lot of screen space.

One of the last shaders to go into the level was the hoover dam. I ended up remodelling and UVing this so that the construction lines all lined up neatly to a tiling panel texture. There was a unique macro texture for all paint and weathering.

One of the last shaders to go into the level was the hoover dam. I ended up remodelling and UVing this so that the construction lines all lined up neatly to a tiling panel texture. There was a unique macro texture for all paint and weathering.

Here's the dam shader in game. It's design is not a 1 to 1 match to the dam in real life but it's enough to get the right impression.

Here's the dam shader in game. It's design is not a 1 to 1 match to the dam in real life but it's enough to get the right impression.

Here's a custom trim shader designed for pretty much all trims needed for MP04. This helps keep draw calls down if less shaders are assigned. This one also supported the same sand mask used on all the floor materials.

Here's a custom trim shader designed for pretty much all trims needed for MP04. This helps keep draw calls down if less shaders are assigned. This one also supported the same sand mask used on all the floor materials.

I ended up doing a balance and optimisation pass on the rock shaders used throughout the level. I also tweaked the tiling textures for this.

I ended up doing a balance and optimisation pass on the rock shaders used throughout the level. I also tweaked the tiling textures for this.

Here's the rocks in game. We found we had to have many attempts at things at AO strength, cavity highlights and glossiness values to get rock that was believable but not noisy in game. Keeping surfaces readable was always a high priority in Rigs.

Here's the rocks in game. We found we had to have many attempts at things at AO strength, cavity highlights and glossiness values to get rock that was believable but not noisy in game. Keeping surfaces readable was always a high priority in Rigs.

Here's a custom concrete shader I made with a tiling concrete set and a reused graphic macro. We originally had most of these paint lines as decals but we realised there was a lot of reuse of the same thing.

Here's a custom concrete shader I made with a tiling concrete set and a reused graphic macro. We originally had most of these paint lines as decals but we realised there was a lot of reuse of the same thing.

Here's another view of the same shader. You could vertex colour off the paint lines, I tried to make the transition look believeable.

Here's another view of the same shader. You could vertex colour off the paint lines, I tried to make the transition look believeable.

Here's an example of this concrete wall shader used in game.

Here's an example of this concrete wall shader used in game.

There was a lot of dark metal panelling in the level, some of it huge. Getting edge detail was hard. I ended up helping on shaders that allowed us to line up edge details and weathering where needed.

There was a lot of dark metal panelling in the level, some of it huge. Getting edge detail was hard. I ended up helping on shaders that allowed us to line up edge details and weathering where needed.

The tunnel floors were all different sizes. I made a shader that could support lots of different arrangements of construction lines that could be vertex coloured off.

The tunnel floors were all different sizes. I made a shader that could support lots of different arrangements of construction lines that could be vertex coloured off.

Report