UNSC Outpost - Nightfall

I had to change a lot of the original composition to get the new lighting right. Some of which included adding assets around the structure to provide movement to my new intended focal point.

This was my original camera angle from the daytime lighting I previously posted. This time around I wanted the front of the building to be my focal point while the mountains and ring recede into the background.

Color palette played a key role here. I wanted the majority of the composition to be shades of blue while reserving blues compliment, orange, for the interior garage to create a focal point.

Some detail lighting. When I took this photo I was initially surprised how bright the environment was for nighttime. It really goes to show how much local color can influence perception of an environment.

Some images I used to help myself get a grasp on how the moon illuminates the environment and can change the colors of the composition.

Some notes I made on the movement of the composition. As I mentioned earlier, I added assets around the structure to provide movement to my intended focal point.

The entirety of the building was textured using one trim sheet material. I used two trim sheets in one material so I could have many options for detailing. This is 1 out of those two that I modeled.

For the main material texture I actually exported all the masks it used from Painter and recreated it in UE4 so I could instance the material and change the colors quickly. Every asset using the trim sheet material had 4 UV sets including the light map.

My trim sheet blueprint. This also shows how i recreated the main texture in Unreal with parameters exposed.

Material Instance

Composition notes I made on the movement to the focal point of the piece. More shots showing daytime lighting are on another post.

I used these images as reference for texturing my assets. Something I struggled with initially was how worn I should make my models. I wanted them to look realistic, but not so destroyed that it made the composition too messy or not feel like Halo.

When I first decided I was going to use trim sheets to texture my assets I went into Halo 5 custom games and looked around at their environments. I was really trying to figure out when/where to use a trim sheet and when to texture an asset in painter.

I noticed the main shapes of the structures in halo were often very round/abstract shaped and they would reserve the more traditional geometric sci-fi forms for detail. These main shapes also were very thick and armored.

Some reference for modeling. Something I really liked about 343's style of hard surface is how industrial yet futuristic their structures look. Each building looks incredibly sturdy. I really tried to pay attention to shape language here.

Some images from real life I took of mechanical objects. I was focusing on use of color on industrial machinery here.