TECHNICAL DEEP DIVE INTO APOLLO HEAT GAME

Hey squad,

Here's a technical breakdown detailing how we built the world of Apollo Heat Game in UEFN. Read on to find out how we made the world look and feel so accurate! 🔧

ALL IN UEFN?!

First thing's first: yup, everything was made in UEFN. This means that any creator can build something just as advanced as our project, with enough time and dedication!

UI ELEMENTS

The first thing you'll notice upon start-up is the new User Interface. We've created stylised UI elements, changed the heads-up display (HUD) to be more accurate, and more.

Read the info-graphic below to find out how we designed each element:

NIAGARA AURAS

What is a Heat Game without...Heat? Enter Streak Auras! We use Niagara systems -- a powerful, node-based VFX system that allows for highly customizable particle effects -- to display Streak Auras that lock on to your player character when you're dominating the battle.

FOLIAGE SET

The natural foliage in the new world has gotten a face-lift, utilising Unreal's advanced material graphs to create better nature...

We completely rebuilt the Apollo foliage set from the ground up, complete with unique animations, sounds, Impostor LODs and hit effects (a world first for UEFN!), giving us greater customisation to set up game features like dynamic biomes.

TERRAIN LANDSCAPE

We've got greater customisation over the visual design of the landscape, with individually modelled flowers, grass blades, and pebbles. We've ensured the terrain looks and feels exactly as it did in Chapter 2!

With some clever materials, our landscape features "fake RVT", creating a similar effect to Epic's own runtime virtual texturing system, which is currently unavailable in UEFN. This allows for efficient blending, terrain decals, and better performance optimization in Apollo.

VOLUMETRIC CLOUDS

Volumetric Clouds are a rendering feature that simulates realistic, three-dimensional clouds that interact dynamically with lighting and atmospheric effects. Basically, this allows for more realistic depth, shadowing, and scattering effects - and you can skydive through them, too. And yup, we got 'em! Not a world first for UEFN, but pretty close.

CINEMATIC SEQUENCES

When rifting between zones, you'll see a really cool sequence play out. These cinematics play in real time for all players, maximising efficiency by having all actors shared between every sequence variant, snapping into place when called.

MISC. MATERIAL WORK

There's cool materials all over the project. The Storm wall that surrounds each zone, and the healing water at Slurpy Swamp, are both the result of good material work! Even the smoke stacks at the power plant!

OVERVIEW MAP IMAGE

Even the map capture was taken in UEFN – kinda. We had to migrate a more advanced capturing camera from Unreal 4 and play with the ambience of the world a lot to make it juuuuust right. But it came out okay in the end!

None of this would have been possible without the help, support, and hard work of the insanely talented AllyJax. His commitment and importance to the project cannot be understated. Go and check out his work!

Thanks for reading this deep-dive into the Unreal tech that makes Apollo Heat Game work! We worked super hard to push the boundaries of what's possible in UEFN, while working with a large world. All devices, no Verse - but it's complex behind the scenes! 🛠

You can play Apollo Heat Game today using this direct link or by using Island Code 4969-0568-5309. Drop in!