Digital Mercs » Jon

We have cars

Jon — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:47:30 +0000

In game lighting aside, we have three awesome cars that are drivable in UDK.

Here is a quick little video made a day before everyone was fully finished, but it gives an idea of how these guys are working.

Mustang Mud

Jon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:06:35 +0000

I’ve been working on the mustang pretty intensively. With the model complete, I’m deep within Mudbox sculpting away. The reference from the movie shows the car as pretty beat up. With lots of rust and crumbly metal that’s been wielded together. This screen capture is from an earlier stage of my process. I’m hammering my way through mudbox, excited to take everything over to Photoshop and finish up with an awesome looking car in UDK.

Mustang Progress

Jon — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:30:06 +0000

With GDC quickly approaching, I’ve been making a big push to get my vehicle completed. I feel good about it’s current state and am ready to pop it into Mudbox to add some nice detail. Then over to Photoshop for a paint job, and then into UDK. I’m really hoping to have it all wrapped up by this weekend so I can focus my remaining time on making props for the track. Wish me luck!

Custom Cars

Jon — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:12:29 +0000

After a few rounds of “How did I do this before?” and countless crashes from the Unreal Editor, we have two of our three custom cars drivable in game. They aren’t finished being modeled, nor are they textured but they’re setup and ready to go as actual vehicles. Once they’re completed it will be as simple as reimporting the skeletal mesh and driving away.

Frankenstein’s Monster

Jon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:19:32 +0000

Following Johnny’s lead, last Saturday I started on the car that I’m modeling for this project, known as Frankenstein’s Monster. A Fifth-generation Ford Mustang armed with 2 M134′s, smokescreen, napalm and oil slick for defense, as well as a 6-inch thick steel plate on the rear bumper called “The Tombstone.”

After quickly finding front and side line drawings of the Mustang, I started the process using a technique that I’ve learned relatively recently which involves using splines to create a cage of the model.

From there, using a surface modifier and converting it to polygons, I ended up with some pretty rough geometry, but it was a start.

More time working on it (and temporarily borrowing wheels from my Ducati Motorcycle model)

Having the general shape of a 2005 Mustang, I load up my movie reference and realize my front end needed tweaking.

She’s far from finished, but I’ve got her rolling.

Track taking shape

Jon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:10:24 +0000

Since my last post I’ve been working on a number of different parts on the project. One of which is getting the track blocked out in UDK. We’re using Unreal’s fairly robust terrain editor to make up the track it self. The brownish/orange and grey checker is a blend of two materials that are going to make up dirt and asphalt. It’s all roughed-in but it’s a great start and we’re all excited to see this project taking shape.

This is the general shape of the track the Death Race will take place on. We cut it’s length down by a third from the movie because of time constraints, however it is setup that if time does permit we can add in the missing bottom loop. Outlined in red is the path taken (counter clockwise).

Outlined in green are possible short cuts that will be available if certain conditions are met (speed to hit a ramp, destroying enough debris, knowledge of its existence, etc..)

Concrete Barriers

Jon — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:34:05 +0000

I’ve been working on a concrete barrier that will be used in various parts of the race track. It’s a simple prop that needed to be generic enough that it could be tiled without being noticed. We’ll be adding a grim/dirt layer to the barriers using the world offset method Bradd had worked out in his Material Test.

Here are in-engine shots of an undamaged barrier.

We needed to be able to use these barriers to direct the player around the track. Using the red and green channels of a mask, we’re able to flip flop the direction of the arrows. You’ll also notice the large yellowish color parameter that can be changed on the fly, which in turn will change the color of the masked arrows. We plan to use this type of technique to color coordinate sections of the track.

After finishing up the undamaged version of the barrier, I imported it into Mudbox to add a little bit of damage to give us another version of it that we can use in parts of the track where the player might slam into the barriers more often.

The box with wheels

Jon — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:34:04 +0000

After three days of tinkering we’ve figured out all the steps needed to get our own custom vehicles into the Unreal Engine. Above is a short video of our demo “box” car all rigged up and running around our test-bed map that I’ve dubbed “The Playground”.

The Premise

Jon — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:00:18 +0000

What is Project Death Race?

PDR is a small game development project using the newly released Unreal Development Kit. The purpose of this project is to showcase our skills at the 2010 Game Developers Conference.

With the release of the Unreal Development Kit, the opportunity to use the same AAA engine that powers BioShock, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and many other fantastic games was just too enticing to pass up.

UDK allows us to package our work and distribute it freely on the internet. Giving people the opportunity to download a stand alone installer, without needing to have another game installed.

We get to make a real game, not just a mod.

- DM