Travis Howe -- Halo 5 Animation Reel

Gameplay and Cinematic Animation from Halo 5: Guardians
Music: "Razors.Out" by Mike Shinoda and Joseph Trapanese [cinematic recut by Jeff Clement]

[@hanks_2210]

0:17 I like that Buck rolls here rather than eating the impact with his knees. Goes to show he still has ODST habits despite being augmented to withstand that kind of strain

[@broyogurt3000]

I know right? Lol such a cool detail

[@Jeffron27]

Halo 5 may of been meh overall, but these animations were some of the highlights. You sir did an incredible job. Also props to you for animating my favorite assination. Suplex ftw!

[@travishowe5117]

Thanks so much!! I'm glad you enjoyed that assassination. I remember when the gameplay animators got together and I showed the "blocking" for what was eventually called "Lawn Dart," the lead animator said "most of these animations look like the killer is being efficient. This one looks like he's thinking "F___ YOU!!!" Hahaha!

[@trenchbird4722]

6 years later and this is still some of my favorite animation work in Halo's long history.

[@animatortrav]

Wow! Thanks so much!! I was honored and excited to contribute to the Halo universe!

[@BiomechanicalBrick]

Halo 5 has some of the best animations, hands down

[@retrobat1631]

0:59 My favorite assassination.

[@안경에이스]

I can't believe this is 7 years ago This is very fantastic even now

[@yugene-lee]

I forgot end game taunts were a thing! A shame they ended up removing them, but those alongside your assassination animations are spectacular. I love how much energy and personality you imbued into this.

[@mak_attakks]

Animation goals right here, man

[@arquitensproduction8001]

a Halo animation showreel with The Raid theme!? Damn

[@animatortrav]

Glad you recognized it!! Mike Shinoda is one of my favorite artists - Razors Out is one of his best beats, in my opinion, and with his library, that’s saying a lot!!!

[@Harrowmonium]

Inspired, teach me xd

[@Xaeyneah]

I like how most of it is just buck getting destroyed by chief

[@toozigooti]

Your animations are crisp and energetic. Love it!

[@retrobat1631]

I thought this was a fan SFM for a second.

[@Spartanferdowsrex]

This is beautiful

[@BroeyBroe]

Actually like a lot of the character in the default Armoured spartan IV's animations. Don't know how it would've fit into multiplayer but it looks really smooth and expressive for just someone in a hunk of Armor.

[@CookieLordThe3rd]

I wish i can animate as good as this.

[@travishowe5117]

Thank you :)

[@rasputino3433]

The following audio is 100% reel

[@JuniDoesStuff]

That knife to the forehead one makes mortal combat look like baby stuff

[@volatile5460]

Oh god, that knight assassination…. Brutal

[@The-Ent1ty]

1:27 My personal favourite takedown *picks up* "Fuck" *slams into the ground* "You"

[@animatortrav]

It’s funny you should say that! When I first showed the blocking (rough animation) for “Lawn Dart,” the lead animator said that exact thing. “Most of these look like he’s trying to efficiently kill the enemy. This one looks like he’s literally saying “F*** YOU!” Hahaha! Thanks for the kind words!

[@lancehowe7417]

Those take downs look so good they should've made it into the game

[@animatortrav]

Hahah thanks dude!!!

[@blizzary9369]

That poor black and white spartan

[@Shadow9841]

Assassinations. How Spartans actually fight. Chief vs Locke... something went seriously wrong there.

[@emiisacat4232]

This game was pretty much my childhood

[@animatortrav]

I’m so happy to hear that!! Having several games that helped define my own childhood (basically everything Mario from NES to N64), I’m honored to have contributed to a game that helped define yours!

[@asitfull]

Great!

[@ILLRICARDO]

Halo is an over rated franchise , that being said, your animations are gorgeous and breath taking!!

[@MrSlanderer]

Halo 5 muliplayer outdoes any FPS, period.

[@ILLRICARDO]

@@MrSlanderer it's multiplayer is meh.... Valorant is much much better.

[@CantWant]

@@ILLRICARDO oh.. valorant? aka, an over-glorified cs-go/overwatch hybrid? :I yikes

[@whatdadogdoin3023]

1:27 jhon cena

[@RapidActionAnimations]

Wait did you work on these for 343? Nice stuff man

[@alphaillusion4541]

Good job

[@nandosalazar1516]

Muy buen trabajo animado

[@jannodess]

Hello, I loved the reel, did you do this in Maya? And one last question, are the overlapping of the deaths done with physics, by key or some addons?

[@animatortrav]

Hi @jannodess! Thank you for the kind words! We did use Maya, yep! In fact, I've worked in the industry since 2006, and only 2 years of that in another program, for which I had tools to make it perform like Maya :D There was no physics used in this reel, nor addons. All hand keyed. One thing I've found true about anims such as deaths, when you're doing the settle, just take like 20-30 extra frames to let the curves come to a more gradual stop. I notice in a lot of "death" animations that the motion hits a wall because the animator just allows the curve to end without easing it out. So using a leg as an example, when the character falls to the ground on their back, add a few slight bounces on the heel of the foot, with offset rotation pivoting on the heel. Allow the rotation to pivot a few more times after the bounce has stopped, and follow like 4 frames behind that rotation with the knee PV. This will create a natural "jiggle" in the leg that will sell the "weight" coming to a stop.

[@jannodess]

@@animatortrav Thanks for the answer, I see the death animation as very natural or physically correct, I find that it is a difficult part since you have to give weight to that overlap and have everything react to the moment of the fall, thanks again

[@Charles-rp4vs]

Would you ever consider releasing the teleporter scene animations?

[@evanfung9683]

O:35 so brutal

[@dadanie5753]

这个真强！！！大佬啊

[@augernaut4923]

Ahahaha! Beautiful email.

[@theprotagonist9290]

With what program did you make this?

[@HybrydATP64]

Are these hand keyed or mocap?

[@Razgriz_01]

Hmmm. Was Halo 5 suppose to have emotes? There are some animations here that look like they would be perfect for emotes.

[@travishowe5117]

Your Honor, I would like to plead the 5th. :P

[@kainey]

0:17 Go go power rangers !

[@KoolMoth]

Can someone list where he got the beat from

[@animatortrav]

Razors Out by Mike Shinoda :)

[@KoolMoth]

@@animatortrav thank you

[@rockkid1412]

*_HOWE_* do you do these animations?

[@casualhour3179]

Hey guys remember Halo 5? Ha me neither.

[@nerdynick314]

quick question was there any motion capture or just hand animated ?

[@travishowe5117]

All shots with a red dot in the corner are motion capture, the rest are hand keyed :)

[@nerdynick314]

@@travishowe5117 wow im blind i clearly didn't watch the beginning thanks for answering :p

[@travishowe5117]

@@nerdynick314 No problem at all, thanks for watching!

[@BallerPlayzBALLER]

I don’t think it’s reel, it’s fake I think..☠️

[@Domibun_]

I’m going to guess they were planning to implement emotes into Halo 5 but scrapped the idea?

[@swiftniss]

Hey, can you animate for my machinima

[@ysh9273]

0:57

[@MMHLINK]

[@randomboi346]

0:50 thixx

[@hobowizard2124]

Thank god i'm not the only one who thought that!!! And I mean dayum

[@rocketsniper8726]

Howe did you make this? What software did you use and Howe did you get it? No offense intended|Pun intended|Serious question

[@animatortrav]

No offense taken :) This was all made in Maya. The software was bestowed upon me by an old gypsy woman when I was camping as a teenager. Ever since then, I've been able to animate competently, but at night I have very violent dreams, and on full moons, I strangely find my pajamas shredded the next morning.

[@rocketsniper8726]

Travis Howe maya eh? Noice

[@米波不吃鱼]

nice！！

[@mushroom-guy]

i love the attention you gave to the fingers!

[@energydie460]

THAT LOOKS AMAZING

[@rafaelfreitas8274]

I really like those animations for the shots hitting in different spots, hope Halo 6 feature amazing stuff like that.

[@tridonstrident6785]

It does with the enemy NPCs! Your wish sorta came true

[@zzong8988]

That's great.

[@AUniqueBot]

Did you record reference for the assassinations? If so, how did you do it? Also how tedious is animating a forerunner?

[@animatortrav]

I did record reference for the assassinations. For most of them, I just choreographed what I wanted and pitched it to one of the other animators, then we'd go into an empty conference room and act it out. Usually, we'd come up with some cool new ideas for it by collaborating this way. For Lawn Dart specifically (the body slam at the end), I took a blue gym mat into the conference room and threw it around a bit. As for the forerunners - VERY tedious, particularly the soldier, since he comes apart like that. Look up Kyle Dahl's reel -- he did some AMAZING work with the soldiers that still makes me scratch my head!

[@thecatman0w0]

Love the recruit animation scenes

[@purmhy]

The raids soundtrack. You have great taste

[@dukevandygames4856]

Exactly

[@travishowe5117]

Love this song so much!!

[@canzendence]

Why do AI animations melee animations look so badass compared to real players.

[@animatortrav]

Thanks :) The simple answer is, gameplay melee is a lot trickier. You have to make the attack work for both standing still AND moving around, which means it can only use the upper body, not the hips or legs. This results in gameplay melee feeling very stiff by comparison to AI, which is allowed more freedom/ full body motion. The solution would be to create separate animations for movement and standing, but with the same overall movement (ie, a left hook, but in the standing one it lunges more than in the moving one), then have a montage (animation sequencer) that plays both and can blend between them if the player starts or stops mid-attack.

[@oceanside9508]

I didn’t know character models where animated by hand, i thought motion capture took care of that job? I’m sorry if i seem ignorant, but i haven’t got much insight into how this works

[@animatortrav]

The gameplay team worked in keyframe. (I can't remember if any gameplay animators used mocap for any animations, but I don't think so). Mocap was used primarily for cinematics, which was a different team -- everything on my reel marked with the red dot was mocap from my time helping the cinematics team. Hope this answers your question :)

[@oceanside9508]

Travis Howe, yes thank you, very interesting, really nice animation work aswell!

[@animatortrav]

Thank you! I don't post often on KZbin, so if you're interested in animation, my Vimeo page has a lot more work :) You might also follow Kyle Dahl -- he posts a lot of really cool work very frequently.

[@animatortrav]

Oh, and given your user name, you might also follow Ryan Hayford and Justin Rosenthal-Kambic.

[@bertrandlyn7430]

The Fire Osiris scence teleporting was in halo 5!!!

[@dragon47208]

They did motion capture at a rented Warner Bros studio

[@Scythra]

Howe about a job LOL!

[@animatortrav]

A childhood of being mocked for my weird last name has finally paid off!

[@SlickVic5240]

My last name is Coker, getting bullied in school, lol.

"How did you do this?" "Yes, I did this" "No, I meant how did you do this" "What are you saying? I did do this."

[@idk-nm8xr]

1:27 OH OH RKO OUT OF NO WHERE!

[@zachlewis2545]

Shotin FPSuser that's not an rko lmao, that's a suplex

[@policies8534]

Suplex lmao

[@ElderWizardGaming]

Nice video dude i subed :) can you please checkout my channel?

[@SaYJo]

¡Algún día... Algún día este comentario será parte de mi presentación y mi demo reel hecho realidad! 21 Marzo 2017

[@sebastian.2.311]

.

[@ChesterStone511]

what was this animated with

[@ChesterStone511]

and also what program were the models created with? and the models are created with armor already on, correct?

[@xalener]

You can pretty much assume that everything is Maya all the time. Autodesk has a bit of a monopoly going on.

[@animatortrav]

Yeah, I can't speak for the models, but animation was all in Maya.

[@Chanman-un9du]

These animations look amazing 😉

[@animatortrav]

Thank you very much :)

[@CorkScrewDood]

Spartans are so agile, they don't have that armor holding them down like an anvil.

[@TyrannoWright]

1:03 BOI

[@EzioAuditore117]

0:25 looks like some kid is getting mad

[@egg9301]

EzioAuditore117 Ridiculousness lol

[@spooky_4624]

makes sense considering the spartan 4s are younger than the previous spartan generations

[@karenoreilly7951]

Jesus Christ he was shot

[@argo9721]

@@spooky_4624 aren’t most of them late 20s early 30s?

[@spooky_4624]

@@argo9721 That window is younger compared to Spartan 2’s

[@JustinBlade45]

Hello, My name is Torrian Crawford and I am the Lead 3d animator and action director for Deathbattle on Screwattack and RoosterTeeth. I've seen your demo reel and thought your work looks great. We are currently looking for additional animation help with some of our fights and I was wondering if that would be something you would be intrested in. Example of the type of animation I do and that you would be helping with Dante vs Bayonetta kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXfMkIWwqLCUoKM Tifa vs Yang kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3qyl2t8a6ibgdU Thank you for your time. I hope to here from you soon.

[@cruzthesasquatch]

imagine if halo 5 had emotes..thatd could suck unless its a pre-lobby thing or some kinda communication thing

[@TJVBernal]

1:30 a spartan wouldn't die from that but he'd sure be out of the mission, for getting knocked out.

[@TJVBernal]

but... but. the muscle density and virtually unbreakable bones... and, and.. yeah, I guess it is a broken neck.... could also be just a disconnection to the mjolnir that makes them go armor lock.

[@spiffypop7700]

Dog God pretty sure the weight of the suit would kill him

[@TyrannoWright]

A spartan has enough force to break another spartan's neck.

[@CyberneticSoupp]

also chief is a spartan 2, that dude that got dunked on is a spartan 4, and while they are good, its like pitting a tier 1 Spec ops vs Tier 2 Spec ops

[@TJVBernal]

one is a spartan II and one is a spartan IV is too generalized of an explanation, but I get your point.

[@Rick.Colver]

So you're the guy that made my favourite Assassinations... Also, those contextual laser strikes on a Spartan were awesomely epic! 😄

[@icymist937]

My artist Squillo would love to link you some of his music, we really admire what you are doing and this could be a great opportunity for our campaign. We are an up and coming international media group known as lnlywifi. We are based currently in Atlanta and New York but we also have affiliates in Italy, Germany, UK, Switzerland and Canada. We would like to submit one of Squillo's recent most popular songs: 100K prod. by Mateo. This song should transmit evolution, unity, creativity and honesty. soundcloud.com/chilloutsquill… Here are the artists instagram and twitter links: twitter.com/Squillopurp instagram.com/lnlysquillo/ We would love to work with you. Contact us by email: [e-mail] or on twitter @LnLycayno

[@lasereyesstudios]

Nice stuff! This is what I strive to make when I'm animating.

[@KoolMoth]

Lasereyes Studios same

[@Ceratosaur]

I love some of these actions/emotes! I wish they were kept tbh.

[@chrismagovern]

Chief and Locke

[@animatortrav]

I don't even remember what this was about....

[@chrismagovern]

@@animatortrav Me neither, what the...

[@chrisposey9476]

this is funny

[@tylergubitosi2117]

Was thinking how much of this music reminded me of a live Linkin Park jam session. Then I read it's Mike Shinoda.

[@周洁-p6y]

COOOOOOOOL!!!

[@ShibaInuMochi]

It's a shame to see that the generic spartan recruits never made a cut to the final game. They certainly would have made a very fine asset.

[@ilove9540]

+Shiba Inu Mochi Im waiting for master chief to be a robot again. I FUCKING HATE A PROTAGONIST WITH EMOTIONS! ttahts why i have friendly fire on multiplayer.

[@theanimatedflame]

Absolutely fantastic stuff! The teleporter scene with team Osiris had to be one of my favorites. Shame to see some of the Spartan emotes were trashed by 343i.

[@chris-wv9yl]

They were supposed to have emotes?

[@animatortrav]

Thank you :) I had seen the layout for this scene several months before, and was very excited when it was assigned to me!

[@gregdalek]

Nice work Trav !

[@zackfabiano2540]

None of those animations made it to multiplayer. ;-; It would have been a nice detail...

[@georgerose1252]

+Zack Fabiano Some of them are unused, but a a few got added in recent updates.

[@GeoJJx]

Most of these arent in the game? why? They are so refined and rich in personality

[@Astro_8352]

@Mark Patino but its halo

[@dud5606]

@Mark Patino Halo was M for Mature up until Reach I believe. So pretty violent. I mean, flood bursting out of bodies, mutiliation, lots of blood be it human or alien. I certainly wouldnt say it was never violent. It just got toned the fuck down to reach that Teen rating just to sell more copies.

[@osoboyz0883]

I’m pretty sure some of these aren’t just n the game due to budget cuts.

[@kainey]

@Mark Patino I don't think they are too violent, they are too fast. You just can't understand what the shit is happening

[@thenegromancer4695]

0:33 is a good one

[@exxennexx]

So much personality in these, love it.

[@DogbrainSean]

were most of these unused in the final?

[@tylergubitosi2117]

+VKMT MEGASEAN Besides the getting shot animations, all of those animations are in the game.

[@Firex00]

Probably because there aren't any Spartans in campaign other than Blue Team/Fireteam Osiris