17 Year Old's Halo Render Work Rivals Bungie's

Split-Screen: "Martin Ball is 17 years old. He lives in Stoke-on-trent, Mid-lands in the United Kingdom. He also happens to be a highly gifted graphics artist who created high polygon, low polygon, wire-frames etc. for some of the most famous weapons and vehicles in the Halo-verse. These range from the good ol' fashioned Assault Rifle from Halo: Combat Evolved to the silenced SMG of Halo 3: ODST; from Halo 3's Hornet to…Halo 3's Elephant and Scarab. In terms of 'faithful renditions', these look virtually indistinguishable from from Bungie's work."

[Sunny_D]

Pretty cool for a 17 year old, but let's see him make full environments? Or character models?

[thesummerofgeorge]

This is pretty cool. It's not breaking news, but a story about a talented young fan, I don't see the problem.

[chaosatom]

It means that Bungie needs to step it up a couple of notches.

[gaffyh]

He's modeled them pretty well, everything needs textures really, because the clay render doesn't do the model justice imo. However, we need to see wireframes to see how many polys/tris each model is, to see if this quality of work is viable for console, and looks like too much polys to me.

My stuff is hundreds of thousands of polys sometimes, and it just would not be possible on console this gen. Maybe not even next gen.

[menoyou]

Environments aren't much harder to do than these models, especially not the environments Bungie makes which look last gen. Bungie is just an amateur developer that's why even amateurs can rival their work.

[Hoolock]

Im currently on a game design course and close to half the people on the course can create stuff that looks just as good as this. The art to been a good model and texture artist is the ability to get it to run in an engine.
Well done on the good work no doubt it is very nice but please people above me don't take this as a sign of bungie's inability to create great art as bungie have to work in engine.

[gaffyh]

@1.5 - That's pretty much what I was trying to say as well. I agree with you. :)

[evrfighter]

you guys need to get out of n4g more. If you've seen what the pc modding community can do this would be "meh"

[starvinbull]

Nothing wrong with this. At 17 it'll be good practice for the lad who will no doubt go far with ease. Which major developer will snap him up in a few of years time I wonder

[PinkUni]

have you guys even been on deviant art?

people make this kind of stuff all the time, and its usually the younger crowd in their late teens and early 20s

but then you have to remember that this person is also copying the halo style. designing your own weapons and actually making it so people don't think they look like crap is very hard to do, which is why so many people just go with the "military shooter" type games so they don't have to spend too much time on design.

you guys are giving this guy way too much credit

someone said "It means that Bungie needs to step it up a couple of notches." even as a joke thats kinda dumb

you're pretty much denying all of the work into technical programing
bungie has to do.

[jadenkorri]

he will never get a job in the industry, he be lucky if he did, he may be talented, but modifying/copying known works is pointless, these models can be easily ripped off the disc. I have Zelda from twilight princess, all FFX characters and some FFX12, let alone you can just dl them off the net if you know were to look. I've loaded them into 3DS Max just to see them. If you ask any graphic/3D artist, not one will ever tell you he got a job copying other works, even if credit is given, the original author can sue your a$$. I graduated from a 3D course, it was a mix between game development and 3D animations. Anyone with time on there hands can model those weapons, but its those who have their own artistic ideas and create their own that gets those jobs, not someone who can model someone Else's work. This is a 17 year old kid, who probably hasn't learned about copyright laws when dealing with artistic works.

[Highwayman]

Lets see you make any of that art.

[Tiberium]

people need to chill a bit. He made these on a PC so it's obviously going to look better than on 5 year old hardware (360). No to mention using the aging halo 3 engine. I'm sure reach will be gorgeous though.

[2Spock]

The kid has talent no doubt, but he is copying models already. Lets see him make a model on a strict deadline with major pressure and your job depends on it.

[PinkUni]

thats a stupid response

that's like saying "lets see you bake a pie"
obviously since i cant make pies, people who make pies are geniuses

[ps3d0]

Its nothing to make you go WOW over but its still very good. The level of detail he put in those models had take him forever. I doubt anyone on this site realize how long it take to do something like that.

if you really want to see some amazing stuff try cgtalk

[RememberThe357]

The kid is seventeen, get off his back...

He'll do fine once he gets formal training under his belt. And to claim that he could get a job in the industry is ridiculous. Just becasue this is al that you have seen does not mean this is all that he has done.

I give the kid props, good job partner.

[SixZeroFour]

i agree with 1.3, 1.5 and all the others that know what it takes to make games

sure, many ppl amature or not, with or without experience can eventually make a fanatistic looking model with a hell of a lot of polys, but as an experiences modeler with experience in game design, they no how to make the best looking model, using the least amount of polys to look as well as a high poly model

the thing that usually differs in the way of how good a model looks is not exactly how many polys it has, but what kind of texture is applied

you can make a very convincing crate by just using a box and applying a very convincing crate face texture and it would make you think that it had more than 6 polys

THAT is the difference between a normal modeler and a video game modeler

[IaMs12]

That awesome i wish i could do stuff like this. He should mod PC games that would be sweet.

I dont see why everybody is dissing Halo 3 graphics i think they are awesome, of course old but still look great. I still do think they need to up it on Reach and you know they will since they have a new engine.

[Peter North]

We are not surprised, I believe I read somewhere that Halo 3 was a combination of Microsoft Paint and Windows Movie Maker.

[Saaking]

The 360 is so inferior, even a caveman can code for it.

[aks6351]

lol, you funny guy

[So Easy I Can Do It]

that was MY line!

[na2ru1]

Reading from a comment on the internet.

[Pandamobile]

Okay, so he re-made some Halo weapons?

There's nothing really special about any of this.

[WenisWagon]

Well for being 17 years old, in that sense it is good considering he has had no college experience in this field, but as gaming news yes there is nothing special about this.

[Pandamobile]

Still, I was making Counter-Strike: Source weapons when I was 14, and that was a hell of a lot more involved than this. Not only did I have to make the models, I had to texture, animate, and get it back into the Source engine (which is no easy task), and there was no news about me on it.

Hmph.

I guess the Halo crowd is easily impressed.

Edit:

Lol at the disagrees.

[Eiffel]

Seriously. At 17 he has some skill. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets hired for a major developer. I compared his with some of Bungies and his work is astounding.

[Pandamobile]

Weapon modeling is one of the easiest things to make in a 3d application. If he re-made the Master Chief or an actual character, then I'd be impressed.

@Below

Yes, the kid's pretty good, but you guys are treating him like he's some child prodigy...

[bjornbear]

You're awsum.

But please be humble and give credit where its due, this kid did a good job, don't be so damn arrogant.

[Eiffel]

So many disagrees just for giving a kid props for his work. The amount of douchebags on this site is astounding. I wonder how many disagrees I'll get if I feel bad for a child dying.

[xTruthx]

I made ut2004 maps when i was 16, wheres me medal :(

[Pandamobile]

I know! The only reason this kid is getting recognition is because it has to do with Halo.

If it were any other game, he'd be nothing.

[Darkfocus]

someone made an unreal tournament 3 master chief charcter model that looks at least twice as good as the actual game that's far more impressive then these weapon models http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[STK026]

here's the thing, like 1.3 and 1.5 said, he can make models, great. Now, are they viable for a game console?

I think it's weird for people to claim this guy can best or even rival Bungie when they have to make everything work with limited ressources (hardware-wise) when all you've seen of this guy's work are a few shots of weapon and vehicule models, untextured and rendered in an empty environment. Ask Bungie to do the same, and I'm pretty sure they can pull-off something even better, but it's pointless to do so if you can't even put it in a game that will run on your console.

Saying that this guy, who has talent I must admit, can "rival" Bungie because of a few pictures, would be similar to saying that CryTek are obviously a better developper than Naughty Dog since Crysis looks better than Uncharted 2; let's totally ignore the fact that Crysis requires more ressources than what the PS3 can offer and let's just go by the looks of both games. Indeed, that would be silly.

[Biggunz]

while I can't do this I have friends who can.
There is nothing special about this and it shouldn't have been approved as news.

[beardpapa]

If he wants to get hired into a game developing company, he'll need to work as a game tester and network with people. I remember reading an article on Joystiq, and the lead developer they interviewed said working in gaming is not just majoring in game design and applying for a job, most of it includes working at the very bottom, understanding what a game software company does, and networking to get your idea out there and let people know you have a desire to design games. Just because a person is good at creating models isn't good enough. He/she needs to know, admire, and understand the expression from Van Gogh's Starry Night, and not just the pretty looks of the stars and buildings in the yonder.

Edit: I actually have a friend who works as a game designer at SE (SE USA to be exact in el segundo CA), and he also had to network to actually be a part of the development team. He started out as a game tester making $13/hr about 6 yrs ago). He said it was boring since they make you play the same game all week long looking for bugs and commenting about the gameplay. You have to really enjoy playing games if you want to be a tester. But it's a place to start if you want to get into the biz.

[2Spock]

Man your comments day in and day and day out is just really sad. You are full of yourself and you never add any importance to any article at all. I should have done this long ago, and hopefully people will strip your bubbles.

"User has been added to your ignore list"

[aGameDeveloper]

Wouldn't the OP have posted a picture of one of the assets, rather than the image from Halo? The way it is now, you HAVE to click the link to see what's so special. If the picture had been one of the untextured weapons, I doubt there would have been much click-through or response to the story.

[Masamori Sumimura]

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

[heylo]

the link works just fine...

[Saaking]

Bungie are noob developers

[Ninjamonkey]

Im sorry, its fine not to like the 360 if thats your thing, but bashing bungie is just not right...

When bungie started reating halo, MS saw it and realised it could be huge, thats why they very quickly bought up the rights to halo as soon as possible.

When it came out on consoles it was just unmatched. I remember playing it round a friends house and it was just incredible, timesplitters, Call of duty, nothing compared.

Games dont sell millions, break records and create huge mpacts in the gaming community on marketing alone, the game has to be truly special.

Halo 1 was a breakthrough for consoles, and multiplayer gaming on them.

And i dont care about the disagrees, becuase its fact that the majourity of gamers will agree with me, fanboy or not.

[Deadman64]

lol yet no game rivals the quality of their games' menu's, lobbys, party system, or matchmaking. Even their loading screens are awesome

[MrChow666]

ninjamonkey, dont waste your time with the TROLL

[likedamaster]

Halo's success is well deserved. This is not Bungie's only successful title.

[AliTheBrit]

The best are always British. :)

[Ninjamonkey]

Best selling game?

GTA4: British

Oh yeah, were awesome =P

[Grand Turdismo 2015]

Sony should hire this guy to work on their games like Killzone 2. Those textures are appalling.

[aks6351]

everyones a funny guy on n4g

[Lord_Ranos]

Hmmm. Let me guess. Your Turn 10. Mart??

Oh no your coreywebb. lol

[kavka3]

He works for Microsoft

[likedamaster]

LOL... They were pretty horrible.

[sak500]

At 15 i programmed knight rider car's front red sensor eye on c64..Basically a red bar with flashing and swaying red light in it. ALso programmed a 3dmaze game well rather copied the program from the computer magazine.

[cyclindk]

Jesus, people are just praising here because it's Halo... they look nice and everything, but people are getting this confused with something else.

They are JUST MODELS! There are plenty of kids this age and younger who do this nowadays. I was expecting to see actual video renders and animated CG stuff, now that would have been impressive.

Has anyone here ever taken a High School art class... there are always a few good young artists.

If he were, say 11 or younger then it MIGHT be impressive, but hell, as long as there are four year old Piano prodigies out there, the term "talented" needs to be applied more sparingly.

Of course this isn't to say his parents shouldn't still praise him to high heaven, but this isn't news worthy only n4g worthy apparently.

[ChozenWoan]

I was thinking that he had created his own game engine from scratch or something like that. But modeling is one of the easiest parts of game development, and making impressive renders is easy to do with the right lighting setup in a 3D program since they use raycasting. Depending on the scenes complexity, one pic can take secs-hours just to render, vs a game engine that must render the whole scene 30-120 times a sec.

Also, how clean are the meshes of his models, as in is there any low z-depth or intersecting polygons. These can greatly effect the visual appeal of a game. Nothing more distracting than seeing a part of your model disappearing and reappearing while it's just standing still due to minuet z-buffer changes.

[Senden]

@ cyclindk

Now if he was doing stuff for killzone you'd probably have your tongue up his bum right now.. it's pathetic how ps fanboys can't appreciate talent just because it's used on halo... either do better or stfu

[maverick1191]

mate its not hard to do gun models i can do gun models on photoshop easy and i've only started to use photoshop for 3 weeks does that make me highly gifted? No.

Cyclindk hit the nail on the head with the term "talented" to be applied more sparingly its not impressive but it makes news because it has the word halo on it

talented is people like 4 year old piano prodigies but to do what this guy has done its not something to call him gifted over

bubbles for the post cyclindk completely agree with what you said

[cyclindk]

Right, because you know me well enough to start making fanboy assumptions... I did my avatar the way I did because I happened to find a picture that fit.

I told my nitwit friend who just discovered 3d rendering software that his dreams of becoming a developer are far-fethched if he thinks this is all there is to making games... he's got an excuse though, he was home-schooled.

Point is, everyone and there mother is doing this these days.. now to further negate your fanboy bull I was thoroughly impressed by the sheer scope and choreography of the Master Chief (Halo) versus Samus (Metroid) video which featured amazing animation skills, which by all accounts is a much more time consuming endeavor.

Video is kind of old, but you can find it on GT and Youtube

Edit: here it is,

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

And feel free to apologize if you care to admit that you overreacted which is somewhat understandable given the climate in the Con War as of late.

[jav0918]

I'm no fanboy and I still agree with the people that don't want to give him cred. Anyone can do this.

[Hayabusa 117]

Well of course they're better than the one's in the game, that's because they have no textures, no physics, no lighting and are not in working objects in the game's engine. It's alot more difficult to get it in a game when you've got tons of other stuff going on.

And I know he's talented and all, but at the end of the day, he's still copying from Halo.

[il-mouzer]

I remember trying to do map when I was 14, now I'm a grad in 3d design.
Anyway, you'll see this kind of render any where at any age these days.

[martynball]

I am Martyn Ball btw.

These models are not CG movie quality because they are modelled for games.

Most of these are old and being re modelled, the latest model I did is the shotgun which is below 4 triangles and will go into Halo Custom Edition without much lag.

All of my models which eventually be below 4k triangles and I will hopfully have a full weapon and vehicle tag set.

And yeah, I copied Halo stuff, and wa? I added custom parts to them, I didnt use to. But I am doing now.

Oh, and the guy who put stuff into source. I will be learning how to texture, and I will but putting them into a game engine. so, shush.

And I never knew that this was put onto these two websites and I am proud of it Lol.

[Pandamobile]

I'm not trying to sound like a douche, but the ONLY reason you're getting the kind of attention you are is because you modeled Halo weapons.

I know younger people that have done way more and have gotten little to no recognition.

[evrfighter]

I'm with Panda on this one. Stuff like this has been done by 12+ year olds in the cs/unreal/quake communities for many many years. I'm not talking about just render's either.

I also don't want to sound like a douche but don't let this article get to you. A ps3 fanboy wanted to make Bungie look bad by putting up this article or like Panda said the word Halo is making it famous. Probably the ladder. Well there's also the fact that people here @ n4g don't even know that modding communities exist.

[albert_275]

Weapon modelling is honestly one of the easiest things to do. That's what I started out with in 3ds Max, and I can create them with little difficulty. Just start with a box, subdivide extrude, smooth corners, add little details...
How is this news?

[albert_275]

Or start with a plane.

[tudors]

good job.

[chidori666]

confirmed apenas gorduras americanos miúdos jogar halo ...

[martynball]

Thanks for the kind words. And I agree with some of the negative comments...

But weapon modelling is the same as any of kind of modelling... I could model a character, which I will do. I am just lazy and havn't got around to doing it yet. Will do that last.

And you do not start with a box... box modelling sucks.

[napplegate]

the link seems to be dead now.

[Hectic_Kris]

dunno why you guys are all hating and moaning about this i think his models are great modeling is HARD..... and that lets see your models before you start saying stuff

i like making small animations n stuf (self tuaght) using 3ds max vray and rayfire and i wouldnt have first clue about making models like this 17 year old has done MAJOR PROPS MATE! and plus like he says he din't eevn kno he got onto 2 website one being a MAJOR one....

[aGameDeveloper]

One thing I'm hating is the possibility that this will turn into the next "Cinematic Mod". Imagine the headlines we'll see in the coming years:

"17 Year Old's Halo Untextured Weapon Work Rivals Bungie's"
"17 Year Old's Halo Untextured Environment Work Rivals Bungie's"
"18 Year Old's Halo Untextured Character Work Rivals Bungie's"
"18 Year Old's Halo Textured Weapon Work Rivals Bungie's"
"19 Year Old's Halo Textured Environment Work Rivals Bungie's"
"19 Year Old's Halo Textured Character Work Rivals Bungie's"

and finally

"20 Year Old's Halo Art runs at 5 seconds per frame in-game, Bungie Vindicated"

and every story will have a link to pretty much identical stories, due to the Halo references:

"503 Service Temporarily Unavailable"

[jesuisankit]

well.. I just want to give in my 2 cents here, being in the gaming industry for the past few work and worked on small stuff for games like Fallout and Beatles rockband. Totally unbiased.. the guy has a pretty good sense of making lowpoly models, he has the silhouette there and the UV's are very tight, The polys are nicely used and I dont see any problem in having those odd 3000 to 5000 polys he used on his models in games, very achievable as any good game these days uses 5000 or more polys for weapoons in a game. . I didnt really saw any highpoly model to extract the normal maps from (maybe coz some images didnt loaded) but yeah the kid has a long way to good and he is on the Right track. He is doing a good job here.. I am not talking about maybe another 100 other can do better or stuff. its about this guy here and he is good. Still has a way to go and he will.

[martynball]

Cheers. I appreciate your kind words and your post has been the most helpful as you have been in the games industry so you know what you are talking about Lol.

And I have not yet made high polygon versions for baking, should be the first thing to do really.

Also, the reason they have a lot of detail on is that they are modelled for Halo Custom Edition, which only supports normal maps on the level geometry. So there are no normal maps for weapons or vehicles. Which sucks.

[jspc1989]

What this kids done may not be ground breaking or revolutionary and he may not be some sort of prodigy, but give him a break will you.

He has the same hobby as alot of you, he took a keen interest in it and all you can do is shoot him down for it?

Alot of you sound like jealous 10 year olds. All you can do is go on about how you were all doing better and at a younger age, even if any/all of that is true, i'm going to assume the word humility doesn't mean much right?

If any of you have kids and they drew you a picture one day, you wouldn't turn around and say its crap because you saw some child artist on television who was creating masterpieces.

Whilst i do believe he has a good ways to go with it, I think as long as he keeps it going and enjoys it, at the very least he can potentially do well. So well done mate and keep it up.

[Noctis Aftermath]

jealous 10 year olds? more like realists, this isn't bad work but its not great like this article tries to make out.
Making the kid think his work is alot better then it actually is won't do him any good, in fact letting him know just how average it is will make him want to try harder and help him make a better one next time.

[c4n1f3x]

peter north? as in the REAL peter north ?

[Scenarist]

the first thing you learn how to do in 3d is use references and make copies of stuff. whe you come up with your own idea ,..sketch out some concepts , find some references , make your own stuff and environment and render it ....then come back

[martynball]

I don't make EXACT copies... I make modifications.

[OGharryjoysticks]

That's not Microsoft sh.t - it's chocolates.

[ecstaticpunk]

Hey, I'm from Stoke-On-Trent I love your artwork dude are you at Staffs Uni or something!?!?

[martynball]

Next year I will be hopfully.

[Broncos98]

The only thing I've seen is too many comments ripping this kid. If you say that you can do this kind of work, PROVE IT. Let's see some websites of your work. As for anybody doing this I sure as heck can't do this with a computer.

[Anonagrog]

There's nothing to prove - just because you can't do this, it doesn't make this news-worthy.

The lad is talented, yes, I don't think anybody is denying that. The fact is most computer literate people would be able to do this after a year of modelling, if that.

The problem here is that this is not something worthy of being shown as news... you show this guys work as news then you may as well do the same for the other tens of thousands of teenagers that can do this.

[TwistedMetal]

all there games are halo and they all look and play the same with sd graphics and what not. they got lazy and since the had the name halo they just kept rehashing stuff and didnt work on there skills. a lot of x360 devs are basically pc mod community lvl as far as technical graphics and gameplay, story and whatnot. they just not at the ps3 games developers lvl of skill.

[Downtime]

This kid did was not even trying to compete with Bungie but just did something that he thought was fun out of his spare time. And unfortunately, the good majority of this pathetic community are trying to tear into this kid for "not doing anything that anyone in an art program" is doing.

Just relax and take what this kid at face value. He's probably trying to turn a hobby into a career and the so called "N4G Professionals" like to put themselves on a high horse and pedestal trying to make yourselves feel better because you actually didn't take the time to do something like this. But, oh wait, you will someday right? Christ, leave the kid alone and appreciate what he's done at face value. Most people on this board are a joke.

[jesuisankit]

I couldnt agree more

[Niske]

Timeplitters > Halo

GTFO

[Infernus]

Now this article is up we get to see what everyone else in the community modelled when they were 17. Maybe it was a new gun design for CS or a character model.

If you can model something and then put that model into a game with all the coding then well done. If that's what you want to do when you're older you'll need both proof of work you've done and qualifications. When it comes to anything to do with art it tends to be a lot more important to have something you can show someone when asked rather than a piece of paper saying you have a degree, imo anyway.

For me personally it's often more about what the designer did differently, what they brought to it and what's innovative about it. It's quite easy to take code and tack something on to change what it does (I should know because I've done it with so many games) but it's a whole different ball game to create something from scratch.

So well done to the ppl out there doing this stuff, making their own models and doing their own coding.

[oldsnayke]

This kid c*ckslaps Bungie right in the throat, hands down.