The Yard handled over 380 high-quality VFX shots across the season’s eight episodes, working closely with overall VFX supervisor Wojciech Zielinski. Their focus was on seamlessly integrating CGI while preserving the visual quality of the series and staying true to the video game legacy.
Unearthing the Lost Forerunner City
In episode 7, the Forerunner City is revealed as a vast, multi-leveled metropolis hidden within a cave. Designed to evoke awe and mystery, the ancient yet futuristic city spans nearly 4 square kilometers, making scale a key challenge. Harry Bardak explained that The Yard team kept this strongly in mind when designing and crafting the diffferent assets of the environment. To enhance grandeur, the team chose to illuminate the environment from below, reinforcing its expansive nature.
Procedural design was used to construct the city’s repeating structures, including the light bridge—a central feature requiring intricate animation and interaction synchronization.
The light bridge, composed of energy-powered panels, posed a significant challenge. The team used Houdini proceduralism to animate its activation while practical light panels on set ensured realistic actor illumination. This hybrid approach allowed seamless blending of live-action and CG elements.
Shaping the world within the Halo Ring
Filmed at Predil Lake in Italy, the Halo ring environment faced unexpected hurdles, including drought conditions that altered the landscape and inconsistent lighting across different shooting times. The Yard tackled 104 anamorphic-lensed shots in just three months, overcoming these challenges through strategic VFX planning.
The concept art envisioned a lush mountain lake with futuristic structures, but the key requirement was ensuring the environment felt like the inner edge of a colossal ring. The ring’s curvature, matching Earth’s radius (6,371 km), had to be visually adjusted for cinematic appeal and to fade naturally into the atmosphere. Extensive discussions determined its dimensions and elements like mountains, hills, and vegetation.
To reconstruct the landscape while correcting on-set inconsistencies, The Yard employed a « divide and conquer » method. Foreground elements were rendered in full 3D, distant ones used digital matte paintings (DMPs), and intermediate areas leveraged 2.5D projections. Addressing lighting disparities from live-shooting, the team adjusted overcast plates to appear sunnier and carefully manipulated close-up shots.
One of the most demanding sequences involved a close-up fight between an actor and a fully CG creature developed by another studio. Erratic camera movements and multiple angles added complexity, requiring precise integration via deep EXRs and USD scenes.
‘Halo – Season 2’ – Fight sequence VFX breakdown published by ‘Befores & Afters‘
Harry Bardak’s PIDS 2025 presentation highlighted The Yard’s meticulous approach to crafting these environments, showcasing their expertise in merging technical precision with artistic vision to elevate Halo – Season 2. Discover the work of The Yard on the show by watching the VFX showreel below :