Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores - An Atmospheric Encounter with a Stormbird

For Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores I created a voxel-based storm cloud that the player must enter to chase a Stormbird in an attempt to fight it. The Stormbird toys with the player for a bit before killing their mount and forcing them to fall through the storm and fight it on the ground. After the player defeats the Stormbird, its hold over the atmosphere is released and the cloud dissipates. This is a collection of media that go behind the scenes to show how this was achieved from an Art perspective.

This encounter was a challenging project involving the collaboration of members of the Atmospherics, Quest, Audio and FX teams.

Team: Atmospherics
Additional Support: Elijah Houck, Bart van Osten, (Quest) Nick van kleef (Audio) Mark van Berkel (Lighting VFX)
Project Art Director: Misja Baas

The Stormbird Encounter - Excerpts

The storm cloud itself was modeled in Houdini using our in-house Atlas tools.

Pieces of the storm cloud were simulated using our Aero fluid solver and then those pieces were combined using the Atlas tools to create the cloud.

We cut out portions of the interior using our voxel editing tools to create the space for the cave where the Stormbird would toy with you.

The storm egg at the center of the cave builds up a charge and fires lighting at the ground and the inside of the cave. The lighting and internal flashes were a mix of particles and volumetric lighting effects in our Nubis cloud renderer.

The space was designed to “work” from any time of day. This, so that the player could experience something a little different every time they played the mission.

The cloud dissipates volumetrically after the bird has been defeated and the rain underneath the storm ceases.