Back in 2017 we made a concept for the jungle of our dreams. A Maui with painted trees and dense foliage. Plants that showed signs of the ‘fracture’ just like the mutants running around the world. In closed-alpha our main goal was just to get a stable game that didn’t crash every 5 seconds. Now that we’ve accomplished that, we set our sights on the trees and plants in the world to get closer to the first concept art from back in the day.
This was what it looked like a week ago.
This is where we’re at now, adding bigger palm trees, flowers and tons of ferns and bushes.
Added some grassy vines off the trees as well to add to the post-apoc feel of an abandoned world overgrown and messed up.
This is an example of before the update, standing in front of a bridge near the river in the starting area.
This is the same shot once we prettied up the world a bit.
In our version of Lahaina, it’s been super tough to get trees to show from any elevated vantage point without killing performance. There was a line where the trees ended and the map was just brown dirt before.
But after some tinkering with the Unreal engine, we’ve figured out a way for players to still see the greenery as they take an elevator ride.
It’s crazy how much a difference it makes for the feel of the game, how all the color and plants have brought us closer to the version of Hawaii we wanted.
The plants even react to the wind after the update and when it rains you feel like you’re lost in a dense jungle trying to not die.
