Listen man, I know you're one busy-ass mother, but y'all got to tell me how the hell did you get that jungle environment to be quite so very gangsta?

I'm glad you asked me that question - particularly in such a clear and concise fashion. So, first up, when the Art team got the brief for the game we made a point to ourselves that since this was going to be Free Radical's first game on for the next-gen, we needed to open with something really jaw-dropping. People have done jungles in games before, and think players instinctively know the places where they're not going to be allowed to go. For instance, if there's a particularly dark area of a jungle, or with very thick vegetation, you wouldn't normally be allowed to go through there. So, we decided that the player would be dropped off in the middle of a clearing, with this dark, foreboding tree line a hundred yards or so in front of them. The idea being that actually being able to enter that space and for the game to exist in there, instead of just some big field with palm trees round it, would be really exciting.

The tricky thing about doing anything based on natural formations is that there is very little repetition. In fact, in most games, re-using assets over and over again is generally the idea. However, we wanted to get a bit more ambitious. We made a point to keep re-use to a minimum, and to make sure that the terrain itself was as varied as possible. So, for instance, there's a bit where you step out of that thick jungle onto a cliff-side. From up there you can look down and see the massive environment that you're about to get to play in. Then, a fleet of dropships fly in and bomb behind the tree line at the bottom of the cliff. You get to watch the rebels running out from the forest on fire, and the smoke billowing out through the tree trunks. And then, you can go right down there yourself. It's great, because it feels completely unrestricted.

Yeah, that's all good, playa. But what about the challenges you faced? Surely it wasn't easy?

Doing something new is always challenging. We literally had to build all our own hardware and tools from scratch. Without that, there's no way we could have achieved what we have.

With the grass, for example, we didn't want to just do little patches of it combined with some ropey green textures. We wanted grass to be like real grass - all over the place. So, we had to create our own system. It meant we were able to create a really lush volume grass that atually moves and bends as you walk through it.
The lighting system had to be designed too. We spent ages looking through possible solutions - from real-time to baked light maps. We knew that our ultimate goal was to create something that looked absolutely real, so we've created a system based on radiocity and bounced light.

Once we had that base, we added all the effects in: filters, depth of field, sun flares, HDR. I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but walking through the thickest, darkest parts of the jungle and seeing the sun breaking through the canopy with that HDR looks absolutely amazing. That, layered up with our animated particle effects brought the environment to life.

Word. Listen man, what've you got in mind for the future? Y'know, HAZE 2 and whatnot?

Well, I'd like to do something based around the idea of Organic versus Inorganic. Something with trees and plants growing through and around buildings. That's all you're getting for now.