Redemption

I called my wife as soon as my 360 broke(see below) and asked her where she got it. She told me, she got it at Best Buy with a two year service plan. I called Best Buy to see if they could look that up and they confirmed it was purchased on December 22, 2005. Just under the wire! So I packed up all my goodies and marched on down there. After a few minutes of keyboard typing and asking what was wrong with it, she says go pick up a new one. Then I say, just out of curiosity, can I pick up any other version and pay the difference? She says yes but I can't swap the hard drive. Without further ado, I pick up a new Halo 3 Edition and the computer says it's an even swap because it was a first gen price tag. Score! I don't really care that much about the stuff I've downloaded as I don't play those that much. For a mere $25, I can re-download the few games I do play.

Yeah for service plans and a new Halo 3 360 with HDMI for nothing!

Posted by Mrs_Doublefire @ 2:38 pm EDT | Permalink | 10 Comments

Obituary

Sigh!

My XBOX360 just died. Everyone knows of the red ring of death. I got mine this morning. I probably wouldn't be so upset were it not for the fact that the Heroic map pack comes out tomorrow. I wonder how fast I can get it back if I send it in? I really want the new Halo edition one but, a, I asked for it for Christmas and, b, all my money is tied up for Christmas.

Such a sad day.

Posted by Mrs_Doublefire @ 12:31 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

Return of the Hog Run

Halo 3 ends a lot like it did in Halo Combat Evolved, minus the countdown timer. The Halo Hog run was by far my largest assignment and most crucial. With most of the Studio Artists finishing off the other more highly detailed levels, I along with another noobie, Dave Dunn, and designer, Dan Miller, embarked on finishing the fight with this ambitious level close to the last hour. Really, the last month before polish, but you get what I'm saying. Where some levels have had years in development, we had a month. Dave and Dan had been doing some preliminary layout stuff earlier but nothing concrete and we had one piece of concept art to go on. Cameron Pinard, my fellow noob, was tasked with all of the plates and platforms that fall and blow up. I was tasked with the rest of the environment. I worked section by section as I was given a blocked layout from Dave regarding how movement through the level would work and where our visual occlusions were going to be. Basically, I had to transition from the memory room hallway to this trench run and define the look of what a Halo would look like if it were totally under construction like the last Death Star. So basically, I developed a sort of underlying grid work of structures that could be pieced together in different configurations to form what ever superstructure needed to be formed to support the natural terrain. Then, of course I had to make the terrain as well. Additionally, I made those giant towers and ribbed substructures under the plates. These shots are using default lighting, so I'm sorry about that. However, you get to see what a level looks like without light maps.

In the above image, you are looking back on the hallway exit. Looking to the right in this image or the left when you are playing, you might want to check that area out for an alternate trench run experience.

Fans of the first Halo might recognize this "island" structure.

This concludes my environment work. Up next is UI help, skyboxes, and general polishing.

Posted by Mrs_Doublefire @ 2:06 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

Assault on the Control Room

I guess I did too good of a job on terrain finishing because I did a lot of it as an environment artist.The next such case is on the last level, Halo. As with my other assignments, I finish modeled, UV unwrapped, and did initial shaders on the exterior terrain leading up to the control room. This includes the Pelican approach, crash site, skull trench, drop shaft, and the control room, snow bowl.

Posted by Mrs_Doublefire @ 2:02 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Floor Reloaded

If you remember back to my first post about environments, you'll recall my discussion about work that changes. That first interior Forerunner space had a floor element that ran through it, and still does. However, it now closely resembles the underglass machinery on the level Construct. Originally it was the image below with the round ends continuing to the disk shaped entances and exits. It, along with my holo projector, were re-formatted for use in the ring hall's sub-rooms. Of course, my hologram was was replaced by a hologram of the profit.

Posted by Mrs_Doublefire @ 12:52 am EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments