This sort of volcanic canyon, I feel like this could translate to a neat map for Halo 1, not like a Halo 4 Rip map, just basic for someone who hasn't done a TON of work in the past.

So yeah, are there any tutorials that I can't seem to find to make (not rediculously hi-poly) rocks of this type?

It could be for Maya, 3ds Max, or Mudbox as I have those.

Thanks.
Edited by Flipyap on Aug 1, 2013 at 05:33 PM

Well, you could always make high poly models, bake them down onto a low poly, get the textures, and then make it into bsp... but thats a ton of work. If you wanted you could just go the low poly route. The best way to make em would be start with boxes and start cutting away at them probably and transforming vertices around.

Eh, if I had to guess:

Step 1: make a rectangular prism (i.e. a box).

Step 2: chamfer all the edges of said prism.

Step 3: add some randomness in the chamfers and positions of edges.

Step 4: extrude/inset random sized portions of some of the faces.

Step 5: chamfer some of the edges to those extrusions/insets you just made.

Step 6: make a super duper uber awesome rock bitmap, bake some normals into it, UVW it onto your fancy box, and call it a Halo 4 rock.

Now, I'll admit the textures 343 used are certainly of a good quality, but I disagree with the notion that the majority of there cliffs are all this "boxy" and chunky. In fact, their entire design palette for BSPs kinda made a sharp turn, sometimes for the better, but in my opinion, mostly for the worse.

And then there's Halo 4's "Forerunner" palette. Boy, do I have a few words for that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCtjt1qudfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I7P_sHzs8k%20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeFqsfgIWzg%20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrDU1toNV6A

This is a series of tutorials that I found when I was on a tutorial hunt. I haven't seen these myself, but I have seen some of his other tuts, and they were good; so i'm assuming this one is great.

Enjoy!

Keep in mind Halo 4 doesn't follow the sealed world rules so a lot of those rocks are created separately and then moved into place where the developer sees fit. You may be better off making a semi-detailed bsp and then making the rocks scenery.