Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - "Break on Through" Caves

My environment art work from the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War single player campaign level "Break On Through". Work done in-house at Raven Software. My Job was to develop a cave look based on caves native to Vietnam. To develop the look, I started with many key references, and from a few concepts provided by Raven Concept Artist Wes Tippets. Houdini was my software of choice, since photogrammetry of caves is especially difficult in darkness and without access to all sides of the subject, so I created workflows to generate cave formations procedurally while still allowing for creative control. I was responsible for assembling and building theses spaces from designer block-out with the assets I created and by using other assets created by the other franchise artists. Lighting was done by Raven's own Terry Barnett. Not for download or distribution without prior written approval from Activision.

(Turn on your Sound!!) Caves environment, Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett. It was a great pleasure to work on this space.

Cave water room panorama. Responsible for taking this space to final look from designer blockout using assets I created and assets from other artists. Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett.

Cave entry tunnel. Responsible for taking this space to final look from designer blockout using assets I created and assets from other artists. Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett.

Cave open room. Responsible for taking this space to final look from designer blockout using assets I created and assets from other artists. Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett.

Cave hallway. Responsible for taking this space to final look from designer blockout using assets I created and assets from other artists. Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett.

Cave water room. Responsible for taking this space to final look from designer blockout using assets I created and assets from other artists. Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett.

Cave exit. Responsible for taking this space to final look from designer blockout using assets I created and assets from other artists. Lighting by Raven Artist Terry Barnett.

Procedurally generated cave formations from shape input, finished in ZBrush. Textured in Substance Painter.

Rudimentary breakdown of process from input, through Houdini, and a basic sculpt pass in ZBrush.

Rock wall tiling asset generated in Houdini using combined scan data to drive unique displacments. Textured in Substance Painter.

Boulder pile, generated in Houdini and textured in Substance Painter.

Rock rubble piles, generated in Houdini and textured in Substance Painter.

Rudimentary breakdown of process, showing vertex color distribution for desired displacement from Houdini, high poly and color mask results, and final lowpoly tiling.

Cave formation decal material. Made from procedurally generated formations arranged and baked. Textured in Substance Painter.

Cave wall material. Made from mixed scan data in Houdini. Textured in Substance Painter.