More Ensemble Halo MMO concept art revealed
Dylan Cole an artist who worked with Ensemble Studios on the cancelled Halo MMO has made some concept art and paintings available from the project on his website. The incredibly detailed images show what the game environments may have been like if the project saw the light of day and Ensemble was still with us. Take a look at this outstanding image showing what a Forerunner City may have looked like in game:
![ENS_MPv01[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ENS_MPv011.jpg "ENS_MPv01[1]")
Incredible art
![ENS_MPv01detail2[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ENS_MPv01detail22.jpg "ENS_MPv01detail2[2]")
And another showing a Halo City from a distance:
![ENSlocation2_v04[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ENSlocation2_v041.jpg "ENSlocation2_v04[1]")
If in game graphics were 1/5 as good as these outstanding art pieces the MMO would of been a marvel to play. It is a great travesty that executives at Microsoft pulled the plug on such a promising game. I recommend that everyone check out Dylan Cole’s website for more Halo MMO art plus more incredible pieces from his other projects:
http://www.dylancolestudio.com/
Paul Jaquays blogs about Halo Wars map “Pirth Outskirts”
Paul Jaquays former artist at Ensemble Studios has blogged on the Halo Wars website with some additional concept art from the map design of Pirth Outskirts, a 1v1 Halo Wars skirmish map.
I developed the area as a remote vacation destination with mysterious ancient ruins, modern hotels, and dramatically steep, mist-shrouded cliffs into which breathtaking waterfalls poured majestically. On top of this, I layered the planet’s recent, tragic history. Covenant bombs had cut the area off from the cities and turned the man-made structures into smoking rubble.
It is not unusual for map designs to go through various designs before the final choice. Here you can see one of the earlier concepts for the map. You can click the image below to find text commentary on the image.
![Pirth_Outskirts_concept[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Pirth_Outskirts_concept1.jpg "Pirth_Outskirts_concept[1]")
The end result of Pirth Outskirts appears below, quite a difference in terms of colour, waterfalls and buildings!
![PirthLA_final[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/PirthLA_final1.jpg "PirthLA_final[1]")
Paul Jaquays since Ensemble has moved onto CCP North America as a Senior Level Designer. Clearly CCP recognised the talent of this excellent artist and CCP can now enjoy quality levels and maps just like the one above!
Check out the full blog on HaloWars.com where Duncan Stanley, Community Manager offers some top tips for the map!
Last of the DLC maps “Blood River” is detailed along with more Clash of the Titans from Brad Crow
Justin Rouse and Duncan Stanley are back again on the HaloWars.com website with top tips for players on maps from the DLC map pack “Historic Battles” available for just 800 points on Xbox Live. This time one of my favourite maps in the game, Blood River gets detailed.
With starting positions placed in opposite corners, up on a hills, and a river with only 2 crossings above it, even the inexperienced player can feel relatively safe at the onset of a Blood River match. Then there’s the look, we chose this map to be set inside of the Forerunner shield world simply because we didn’t have one in that location yet. We always intended to make sure players of all game sizes (1v1, 2v2, 3v3) have a chance/choice to play on all our worlds.
Says Justin Rouse, map designer at Robot Entertainment. Community Manager, Duncan Stanley continues with some professional gameplay advice:
If you can hold the middle and keep pressure on your opponent, you can spend some time building armor or flying units which can really turn the tide of a battle, especially against UNSC. If they build a flame thrower army to counter your infantry, some flying units can really tear them up.
Given how small the map is, it’s very risky to try to boom on this map, map control early on is much more important than going for late game heroics with super units.
So beware of the rushers in competitive play! Get the full scoop over on http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/BloodRiver.aspx
In other news we have Brad Crow, an art bot from Robot Entertainments pods with his entry into the Clash of the Titans with Perseus confronting the Kraken:
![Crowbot_Titans[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Crowbot_Titans2-300x153.jpg "Crowbot_Titans[2]")
Looking awesome as always from our favourite Art Bots. Be sure to leave a comment and check out the full blog post on the Robot website!
More art from the art bots and playtesting from David Leary
Its been a busy week so apologies to readers for the lateness of updates here at Remember Ensemble Studios. Good news is though if you haven’t already been on the Halo Wars and Robot Entertainment websites youve been missing out on some juicy blogs and art. Kicking it off we have Robot and Ex Ensemble designer David Leary talking about playtesting which Ensemble was quite famous for in its development cycle. As always theres some cool pictures of the old Ensemble office in comparison to the new Robot play testing labs.
![16thplaytest[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/16thplaytest1.jpg "16thplaytest[1]")
One of the Ensemble playtest rooms on the 16th floor
![fandlc[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fandlc11.jpg "fandlc[1]")
The new Robot Entertainment play test room
David Leary’s blog post is an informative look into just how Ensemble executed its much talked about play testing and is a good read over on the HaloWars.com website. Or here’s a little snipped of the action:
“Managing a Halo Wars playtest session was a lot like herding cats. Some of the playtests were scheduled, but late in the project, a lot of sessions would get called on an as-needed basis. I’d page for testers over the intercom, but since everyone had other responsibilities, I’d often only get four or five people on the first call. Usually a second page would fill the rest of the seats. If that didn’t work, I’d start walking around the office – it was hard for my co-workers to turn down a personal request, especially if I groveled.”
Mean while over in Art Bot corner the Clash of the Titans is continuing with two entries from grand artists Won Choi and Bart Tiongson. First up we have Won’s Poseidon and Perseus almost painting look a like art below:
![Clash_of_Titans06[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Clash_of_Titans061-300x185.jpg "Clash_of_Titans06[1]")
Bart Tiongson is next with his take on Medusa:
![Medusa_Post2[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Medusa_Post22.jpg "Medusa_Post2[2]")
She’s looking much more “chilled” than she was in Chris Moffit’s scary picture!
If this outstanding series of art is anything to go by we can expect grand things from Robot Entertainment’s currently un announced game. But will it be mythology.. or something else all together?!?
Watch out Medusa’s about!
Wait dont leave! I know thats a scary looking image but its nothing to worry about! Medusa hasnt escaped from Age of Mythology either. This is infact and outstanding art piece from Robot Entertainment’s Chris Moffitt as part of the Clash of the Robots theme “Clash of the Titans”. Its amazing how the above came to light from starting out like this:
![cmofMedusa01th[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/cmofMedusa01th1.jpg "cmofMedusa01th[1]")
It goes to show just how talented the ex Ensemble artists are at Robot Entertainment and we look forward to seeing more excellent pieces from the Art Bot team! Be sure to check out the blog over here! :
http://www.robotentertainment.com/Blogs/Detail/ClashOfTheRobotsPT3
Nate Stefan adds his entry in Clash of the Titans
Nate Stefan, artist at Robot Entertainment has added his entry into the Art Bot Clash of the Robots. Hot on the heels of Dave Kubalak, Nate takes a more comic book approach with his very Age of Mythology looking entry below:
![clashfinal_large[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/clashfinal_large1-300x227.jpg "clashfinal_large[1]")
Your comments are very welcome in the Art Bot blogs over on the Robot Entertainment website. I encourage you to leave a comment with what you think! Plus check out the blogs to read about the stages Nate went through when designing this art piece
Stand by for more entries in Clash of the Robots (Titans)!
Justin Rouse details Barrens, David Kubalak talks Clash of the Robots
In another action packed week of Robot blogs we now have more information detailed about a Halo Wars DLC map, the 1v1 Barrens.
Barrens has some interesting gameplay for any leader but Forge is my favorite option. The layout and hooks play into Forge’s strengths exceptionally well. Barrens forces you to leave you expansions more secluded from each other than normal, early game this can allow a Forge player to gain a bit more advantage from his boosted supply pads while other players have to spend their early game resources upgrading pads if they don’t want to risk the far away expansion
http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/Barrens.aspx
Barrens is an excellent DLC level and if you haven’t yet had a chance to pick up the Halo Wars DLC I encourage you to do so! DLC gets you four maps for just 800 Microsoft Points. Be sure to check out some of the other map information pages to sharpen your strategies on the Halo Wars map page.
In other news Lead of Art Bot Central David Kubalak is back to reveal details on “Clash of the Robots”. This is where a theme will be picked and each of the Robot artists will be posting art on the chosen theme over the period of about a month. Hopefully at the end of each theme there will be a poll or vote for us to select the best submission. Dave kicks off the first theme “Clash of the Titans” with his cartoony model “Perseus” below:
![Perseus[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Perseus2-225x300.jpg "Perseus[2]")
Impressive
Check out the full blog on Art Bot central for the full details and be sure to leave a comment!
Official Robot Entertainment blogs go live!
The Robots at the spacepod like office in Plano have launched their official company blogs with Dave Pottinger and David Kubalak. Dave Pottinger shares with us his dream of having the Robot Entertainment logo in Lego form much like the Google logo shown below:
![00-Google2[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/00-Google22.jpg "00-Google2[2]")
It is infact a deadly serious project and Mr Pottinger has been spending his free time experimenting with Lego base boards to get them a suitable size for the Lego Robot logo – here he is, in action!
One might wonder if Mr Pottinger spent too much of his childhood playing with Lego! It does seem like a fun project though and if Google can do it why not Robot? You can stand by for updates on this by following this website or by subscribing to the Robot Blog RSS feed.
In other non Lego news..
David Kubalak lifts the curtain on the faces behind Robot’s art team:
![Art-Team-final[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Art-Team-final1.jpg "Art-Team-final[1]")
Please note: The above picture may not accurately represent entire appearance!
You can click the image to enlarge and from left to right you will find:
Bryan Hehmann – Environment Artist, Nathan Stefan – Concept Artist, Gene Kohler (bottom) – Character Artist, Dion Hopkins – Visual Effects Artist, David Kubalak- Art Director, Charles Tinney (bottom) – Animator, Rob Walden – Hard Surface Modeler, Juan Martinez Technical Artist and Animator, Brad Crow (bottom) – Art Director, Paul Slusser – Environment Artist, Duane Santos – Hard Surface Modeler, Won Choi (bottom) – Concept Artist, Chris Moffitt – Character Artist, and Bart Tiongson – Concept Artist.
All of those people are Ex-Ensemblites! Its interesting to read about the individual roles each artists has. David Kubalak is the Art Director and has his own blog where you can find some of his artwork at: http://www.davidkubalak.blogspot.com/
Clearer Robot Art picture discovered!
You may remember a previous post where I mentioned Age Community were studying Robot Entertainment pictures closely for any hints on a new Age of Empires game. David Kubalak’s blog contains an image extract from a news article which shows a picture of Gene Kohler working on some textures. Check out the image below and be sure to enlarge!
Discussion on this can be found on the Age Community forums.
Further reading..
I encourage all fans to check out the Robot website to read the full blog posts from the two Robot Daves! Looking forward to seeing more posts from them soon!
Lets see how this Lego logo develops!!
