Development of Halo: Combat Evolved: Difference between revisions

One of the early distinctions made about ''Halo'' in development was for there to be a clear distinction between The UNSC and Covenant design aesthetic, with the UNSC employing traditional ammuninition-based weaponry to differentiate from the aliens' high-tech [[plasma weaponry|plasma weapons]]. Artist [[Shi Kai Wang]] was employed to define the look of the Covenant, taking curvilinear forms from sea creatures, shells and iridescent textures from a horseshoe crab carapace, eventually defining the Covenant with a blue, purple and green colour scheme.{{Ref/Reuse|untold}} This direction took the form of the three "design schools" of ''Halo''; the aforementioned human and Covenant, and the Forerunners with large cavernous and mysterious structures. This idea was spearheaded by Paul Russel.<ref name="AOH71">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 71''</ref> The Covenant environments were primarily showcased in the level "[[The Truth and Reconciliation]]", with the original plan for the level involving a ramp the player would walk up to access the ship, intended to be low to the ground. However, the art team didn't want to have the player be able to inspect the ship up-close due to the low resolution of the in-game asset, so the [[gravity lift]] technology was conceived to to help provide the player with a way of entering the ship while keeping the vessel airborne. This idea proved to be more visually interesting that the level was structured around the gravity <ref name="AOH85">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 85''</ref>

To develop the characteristic feel of the Forerunners, Marcus Lehto treated the setting of [[Installation 04]] as a character or entity unto itself - the team started with an idea of the ring's scale and function, and from there began to develop the Forerunner visual language. The ring's external surface and internal landmasses were created by concept painter [[Craig Mullins]], who created a series of images showing the ring in various tages of dissamebly with one pristine and new, one damaged and one on fire and coming apart. The ring's surface texture was gleaned from these paintings and later applied to the in-game 3D model.<ref name="AOH77">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 77''</ref> Lehto felt that the structures on the surface of the ring were simply the tip of the iceberg, with each structure unique and filled with increasingly complex machinery beneath the surface. The Forerunner architecture was created through a process of trial and error, with the original style concepted in the old Chicago office a mix of Aztec and Louis B. Sullivan. The style was broken through with roughly five months before the game reached "content complete" status due to concept art created by Eddie Smith, who would produce several pieces of art depicting Forerunner structures.<ref name="AOH79">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 79''</ref> Smith had little mandate or direction when he first started doing sketches of the Forerunner environments, but wanted to give the environment art team a starting point to begin their work on the levels. There was a vague notion of how things ''could'' look but nothing concrete, so Smith began to sketch based on the story synopsis, trying to differentiate from the existing Human and Covenant environments in a style he referred to as "streamlined industrial".<ref name="AOH80">''The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World'' - ''p. 80''</ref>