This is the Tony Hawk version of the legendary Capitol Records building on Vine street in Hollywood. After going to the actual location to take reference photos, I later refined the designer's geometry, textured it, then lit it using vertex colours and floater shadows.
The Tony Hawk version of Hollywood High school at Highland and Sunset in Hollywood. After going and getting reference photos, I later refined the designer's geometry, textured it, then lit it using vertex colours and floater shadows. One of the key characteristics of this building is it's signature mural. I had the challenge of not being able to use the actual mural for copyright reasons, but instead digitally painted a very similar version with faces of co-workers in place of the celebrities.
This is the Tony Hawk version of The Hollywood Metro Apartments at Hollywood and Western. I recreated the exact asymmetrical layout of the windows and geometric shapes for the building which actually looks this cool in real life. Also pictured in this shot is a detailed scissor lift in front of the subway entrance that gets blown up in a cinematic. Along with texturing, lighting and refining the geometry, addition "time-of-day" additions were added.
This is the Tony Hawk version of The House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. After going to the actual location to take reference photos, I later refined the designer's geometry, textured it (including original logo and signs), then lit it using vertex colours and floater shadows. The Scientology building I also did can be seen in the back right.
This courtyard and stucco building is based on the Cat & Fiddle pub and the Sirius Radio next to it is based on the Scientology building in Hollywood. After going to the actual locations to take reference photos, I later refined the designer's geometry, textured it, then lit everything using vertex colours and floater shadows.
This is a wide shot of the Oil Rig level that you get to later in the game. The original version of this level appeared as bonus level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for the Xbox, but for American Wasteland it was located off the coast of Santa Monica and you accessed it during the story part of the game.
This is a night "time-of-day" shot of the oil rig that shows the work that has to be put in to make the level look good when it is lit differently. I had to get the poly count down as so it would work cross platform (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube) since the original version from THPS3 was already over poly limits and the bottom portion of the level was added to this version to increase gameplay time.
This is a shot of the inner core of the oil rig. You can start to get a sense of the scale of this level. This was really similar to working on the Metal Gear remake since I was given the original geometry as a blueprint and was responsible for reinventing though modification, new textures and lighting.
On last shot of the oil rig from inside the core area on the first deck. Here you can see how much of a maze the level was which I would sometime get lost in. I made it my mission to let no nook or cranny go untouched from getting the industrial texture treatment. Unfortunately we has to keep those yellow hand rail pretty clean so the player could easily see them.