Former DICE magicians are combining real-world scanned data with procedural tools to build stunning virtual worlds in UE4.
Embark Studios is a hot new startup from Sweden, founded by former DICE and EA Seed veterans Patrick Söderlund, Johan Andersson, Jenny Huldschiner, Robert Runesson, Magnus Nordin and Stefan Strandberg. The company also recently hired the amazing Anastasia Opara, famous for her outstanding procedural experiments, Robert Berg, and Andrew Hamilton, who worked on Star Wars: Battlefront, and whom we failed to interview! Overall, they’ve hired about 50 people.
Inside their massive office, situated in some historical edifice in the center of Stockholm’s Old Town, they’ve been hard at work on a new project and some new tech. Today they’ve finally published a short new teaser, showcasing a new cool environment. Check out the video.
As you’d expect from former DICE and Frostbite creators the environment looks gorgeous. It features a lot of scanned data (probably some Megascans?) and some interesting procedural placement tools. It also features completely dynamic lighting and weather system. The map size is about 256 square kilometers. The environment was created in 3 weeks by 3 artists.
Images from Robert Berg’s Artstation.
The environment is just a test, so we’re not at all sure it’s in any way connected with the new cooperative free-to-play action game the company is working on. Still, it’s extremely exciting to see a company that features such incredible talent. Can’t wait to see what they come up with.