Apotheosis City, Revealed!
As you’ll see, we are using the Unreal Engine tools to experiment with different levels of saturation, times of day, and other post-processing effects in these shots. But this is actual game content, no post work or Photoshopping. We have a lot of work in front of us to complete the level, including a lot more texturing, more architectural details, and material tweaking. But this level is more than three square miles of area, and the art style we’ve chosen is already looking pretty good.
In-game shot of the Apotheosis City from across the large lake that separates the city from the Hazard Zone. It’s very similar to the concept art on which we based the city. The blue-and-white Arch is an iconic location in the city.
A close-up of one of the more expensive apartment buildings in the waterfront area of Apotheosis City. It’s a good start, and it’ll look even better once we add textures. The waterfront area will most likely consist primarily of condos and stores, etc. You can just see the top of the Arch, and the bridge across the lake to the Hazard Area is in the far distance on the right hand side.
A little further down the waterfront, at sunset.
This is the warehouse area on the west side of the waterfront, looking back at the city. You can expect several missions to take place in and around the warehouses.
On the east side of the Heroic Plaza, looking away from the main buildings toward the downtown in the morning.
Many buildings, like the big one in the distance, have landing areas for flying heroes to land on. These could provide for places to hide collectibles, and provide access to some indoor missions.
Increased color saturation – the city hall is on the left. The UE4 roboguys help us establish scale and are useful in testing for collision, etc.
That robot looks purposeful!
The view from one of the elevated platforms near city hall, looking back at Apotheosis City.
The central boulevard of the Heroic Plaza in Apotheosis City. This picture captures the artistic vision for Apotheosis City pretty well.
A shot showing the scale of our hero statues in the main city hall plaza. The statues memorialize two of the first heroes who revealed their identities to the public back on Earth.
City Improvements
Game developers often share videos among themselves as a way to convey progress. These videos are generally not very polished – they’re simply intended to show the current progress in a part of the game.
Day and Night in Apotheosis City
This video shows off the current state of the game map, especially the new day/night cycle effects on the look of the city. In order to give you the best sense of just how good this change looks in-game, we’ve sped up the total day/night cycle from 3 hours to about four minutes.
Civilians and Cars Video
In this video Dr. Strikewell takes a little jog through the Arch Park in the center of Apotheosis City, and shows us how immersive an MMO can be once there are civilians walking around and cars driving along the streets.