DeathRace
A multiplayer racing MOD for UT2004.
2005
This mod started as a Carmageddon 2 port for UT2K4, but we slowly changed many features, made all original contents, and generally tried to make it even more fun than the good old C2 was.
I undertook to make some city based maps (along with all necessary modeling and texturing), one or two cars, and I managed the game design and the design documentation.
First of all I made a blueprint of the city, which was based on the proportions of a Carmageddon map. It looked like this:
This changed a lot since, but the basic structure remained the same. The numbers on the map indicate different interactions with the world, like destructible offices or fuel stations. After a series of discussions and tweaks I was ready to implement the plan. I modelled a few buildings based on real houses in Budapest. It turned out that the level of detail I wanted is just too much for the Unreal engine. I modelled 3 versions of each building and after tedious performance testing we settled with the middle LOD. The map was quite empty:
We also tested car physics and collision issues on this chunk. I was experimenting with night and day lighting setups and modelled a few more buildings, road pieces and props. And the city slowly grew from this...
...to this:
We were constantly testing the map and I had to rearrange whole districts to balance gameplay or gain some speed.
I tried several lighting methods, but eventually I faked global illumination using the good old spinning light trick.
We planned many game modes. Testing deathmatch and capture the flag didn't present too much surprise, unlike the more car specific modes. In goldhunt for example, it was interesting to watch how the dynamics of the game changed after small changes: making the gold heavier by 10% (thus slowing the gold carrier down a bit) made a big difference. Certain escape routes on the terrain became inaccesible, because the car was unable to gather enough momentum to drive up on a slope. This drove the gold carriers to the city streets, while the free cars used shortcuts through the park instead of directly chasing the gold.
Unfortunately the project got canned at the end of 2005. It was great working on it, but it presented much more work than what two guys could do.
