Authority

The world of Authority is an alternative version of our own where everything that can go wrong goes wrong. Petty wars have consumed many nations of the world; trade links have been severed and economies have collapsed. Pollution has made the air itself toxic and most farmland is no longer usable. Years of humanity struggling with new challenges has led to unrest and collapse with very few governments and organizations managing to survive the turmoil, those that have are corrupted by this new world brutally enforcing their authority.

The UK weathered the new world better than most, with it still having a government however in order to preserve what it could draconian measures had to be taken, called "The Adjustment“. What was left of the UK would be organized into ‘’The Authority’’, whose purpose was to preserve humanity through authoritarian means. Many tried to protest but were lobotomized. Any ideological belief that contradicted the Authority’s Mandate was banned; The symbols of the old world died. The Authority has brought order and is seen by those that uphold it as the only way humanity can survive.

Authority is inspired by games like Half-life 2 and Bioshock. Half-Life 2's Combine Inspired the guard, our games enforcers of the Authority. The games both feature ruined cities in the hands of autocrats who claim to be helping humanity. Threads informed the bleakness of our world however we never get to the threads level of bleakness (understandably). Children of men also played a role in our project, seeing a dystopia closer to home were symbols of a police state are common helped form our level.

The environments, tech art and lighting are the work of Louise Oliver.

Here is one of the buildings in the scene. These modular building assets make 3 variants.

Some of the assets that are used in the scene. Not all is on display because we could be here for a while.

Some assets used in the Authority environment are borrowed from Quixel and Unreal Marketplace (DefectPropsVol1 and Modular neighbourhood).

This environment was originally meant to be playable, so optimisation was really important. I created a universal material. The material has the basic UV size and UV offset as well as colour shifting. On top of that, I needed the material to not seem repeatable so I used a micro-macro variation mask with 3 levels to it. It overlays 2 materials. It can also project in tri-planar with a switch. I gave the option to add moss to the final texture. With a variation in the repeating texture, I could use smaller texture sizes. - Louise Oliver

variations of the pub:

APC by Jack Lamb Wales

Characters:

Concepts: