This level was created fall 2009 during my internship at Beyond Ascension. This level was first drawn, planned out and then created as a prototype using Unreal Tournament 3. The level was also used in a video promoting Conquest of Heroes, the game which the level is intended for. The level was planned and created by me as group leader during the project as well as by Andreas Larsson and Magnus Andersson.
The level is divided into two major areas, the surface and the underground. The surface is very open and divided into two bases, the statue of liberty and the tourist area in the opposite side of the island. There are a multitude of paths and roads to choose between when covering the ground between the two. The short paths are mainly open roads, but there are also some alternative paths leading through woodland and hills. The underground part of the level is divided into a multitude of sections. First off, there are three floors below the statue of liberty itself. The most upper floor being the museum. The First basement floor holds a number of offices and work desks along with two kitchens, a locker room, storage room and some restrooms. This floor has been abandoned and fallen into a state of chaos with flickering lights, broken furniture and papers spread across the floors. Below the office floor lies a bunker which is used mainly for storage but has currently been converted into a weapon storage, sleeping quarters and field hospital. There are two exits here to the underground caverns that reach almost all the way across the island. This tunnel system is also connected to another bunker and an underground power station.
"Make it look like everyone just suddenly left in a hurry!" - With those words in mind, Magnus, Andreas and I set out to create a worn down liberty island with a large underground network. It was tricky since we didn't have the luxury of custom meshes and models. As such, we had to make due with what we could salvage from UT3 and our own creativity. Turns out we had to make a ton of small custom meshes and materials ourselves to get the look somewhat right. Computer monitors, tables and office chairs, all these and much more were created out of basic brushes within UnrealED instead of an external modeling program. We also created a ton of custom materials for the interior sections and the buildings. Some textures were found just by googling and we then proceeded to create normal and specular maps using Crazy Bump. Sometimes we had to create certain materials almost out of scratch which was very challenging seeing how I didn't have much experience from it previously. It was a very fun level to work on as it really forced me to stretch my imagination and explore new areas where I had never before set foot.
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