Apex Legends - Olympus (Bonsai Buildings)
In Season 7 Ascension my coworkers and I took on making a new third big map for our game. We wanted to create a very different, cleaner, higher-end city in the clouds and we called it 'Olympus'.
The 3 Bonsai buildings were a really unique point of interest on the map and a new type of challenge for me to work on. I researched a lot of modern architecture and digital signage to help push this area in 3D. All modeling for the exteriors and some of the interiors were done in Maya by me, and I created some new props large-mid size. Most of the textures were created by other artists on the team and many small assets shared from the Titanfall/Apex library.
This was a big team effort with Eugene Kim laying out a solid foundation for the interior lobby styles at the bottom of each building and me refining, adding details, and taking it to final ship. Jake Virginia made all surrounding exterior terrain for the Bonsai Plaza, and Austin Arnett did the lighting. Brandon Pirruccello made the initial animated Bonsai digital signs and I helped tweak them to get the final look.
Our Tech Artist Mike Cook helped a lot in troubleshooting and getting things behind the curtains to work for the digital signage. The feedback from the Env Art team overall was invaluable.
Environment Art team: Robert Taube, Jose Zavala, Lewis Walden, Mike Altamirano, Austin Arnett, Jake Virginia, Tri Do, Tragan Monaghan, Marcos Shih, Brooke Olson, Paul Tran, Hans Myaard, Eugene Kim, Richard Rude, Leah Augustine, Jobye-Kyle Karmaker
Level Designer: Dave Osei
Using the original concepts from Liam MacDonald we were able to really make these Bonsai buildings stand out on the landscape. Jake Virignia built the exterior terrain in this area. Marcos Shih created the skydome.
I worked on these first two buildings to really get the style down. Exploring with the swooping modern architecture was difficult to design but fun to make in hindsight.
We didn't want players to be able to camp on the covered areas or hard to reach tall walls for long, so our designer Dave Osei had to plan a lot of ways to keep people off of there.
This task started with me working on this restaurant area first. I wanted to add some story into the scene so I consulted with our writing team for a restaurant name. They gave me a bunch of options to pick from.
I chose the name "The Reverie" because it had a calm meaning but also reminded me a lot of Revenant's reveal trailer that had just released at the time.
I was happy to incorporate Brandon Pirruccello's blue digital swimming fish animation into 3D and it really brought a nice focal point to this center area. Mike Cook helped me set up the material.
I wanted to keep the elevator look consistent so I carried over this zooming light speed style from the Oasis buildings I had made previously.
Eugene Kim built this initial lobby interior earlier in the project and I was able to tweak and add more details to the scene including making a unique desk model, world building, adding windows, and walls that were needed for gameplay.
This was the exterior of the third Bonsai building. Eugene had initially blocked in modular geometric shape patterns for the ceiling interior inside so I kept these on the exterior as well because it made the building feel different from the other two.
I added the flower wall patterns, swooping architecture beams and set dressed it to keep the building language consistent.
This is the second interior lobby that Eugene blocked out. I spun off his ideas and finished the area by adding a bunch of world building, details, and other points of interest.
There was a lot of natural lighting coming in from the high windows so I added some modern lattice work and plants to help bring in more color.
I wanted to give a little throwback to the original Titanfall game and this seemed like an ideal spot to put a coffee shop.
Another enjoyable side task I got was to create these bases with the digital "Sky Taxi" sign. Modelshop artist Chris Burks made the vehicles and while they aren't usable in game, it was really awesome lore to show how people on Olympus moved around.