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XCAR: EXPERIMENTAL RACING
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XCAR: EXPERIMENTAL RACING
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Designing XCar was quite a monumental task. Because the game is a simulation, we had to replicate the feel and the look just right to satisfy the discriminating racing simmer. It's taken us over 2 years to bring you XCar from research, design, programming, testing, production and distribution. This is the only place you will get the behind the scenes look at the making of a racing sim, and just how much hard work (and fun play) it can be. So sit back and enjoy the ride!
XCar is the brainchild of Brent, the head honcho at our west coast office. He is quite a racing buff, having competed in actual race cars in his glory years. He's also quite the tinkerer, having custom built his Porsche (it used to be a Yugo! That's how good he is!).
Brent wanted to make a racing game that focused on the technical and mechanical aspects of the car, something that other racing games have only scratched the surface of, translating the customization into racing excitement. The technology, such as the amount of down-force the wings produce (enough that the car could drive upside down on the ceiling), is incredible. It would be a great challenge to simulate it all. The creative juices started flowing, and the idea for XCar was born. From here, Brent knew that there were several things that would make this game stand out.
The first benchmark would have to be that the cars had to be very modifiable. It had to allow someone enough leeway and feedback that a user could tinker and see the effects of the tinkering. We wanted the user to be able to construct not only their own car, but also their own parts. Through various downloads and other methods, you can add utilities to the game that let you build new tires (modeled from 17 coefficients), engines (modifying the torque curve and other parameters), fuels, and brakes.
The second benchmark would be that the game had to have the fastest graphic speed and quality compared to other games on equal footing. We knew we had a very fast, smooth 3D engine with the XnGine® but no one had tried to do anything like XCar with it before. We knew we could do great graphics but the trick would be getting the great graphics to perform well. Our goal was to get 15fps on a P90.
The third would be that the real tracks had to be as accurate as possible from layout to elevations, and that the concept tracks had to be spectacular in design. We knew we could model realistic terrain because of our experience doing several golf games but this it would have to update real-time.
And of course, we want the whole thing to have a high-tech feel. Not fantasy cars that hover, but cars that can exist today designed from the most advanced technology available.
So in other words, XCar had to be the fastest, most customizable, and exciting racing game on the market. OK, no sweat, piece of cake... I think I'd better cancel my social life for the next two years.
So the game had to be more accurate than anything designed before, from car components, to tracks, to the feel of the cars. We did extensive work with manufactures and suppliers of parts such as tires. Interestingly enough, most people would only provide inside information if they weren't named. The amount of data on simulating a vehicle is very limited, especially when you are trying to simulate concepts that are new and often tightly held secrets. Research on the physics model was a tremendous amount of work. We talked with several race teams, such as Shelby and Callaway, who were building cars and had racing programs in place. We consulted with several drivers of different types of racing (Mario Karts experts don't count.) We also talked with authors and editors of various racing books and magazines, including Carol Smith and Paul Haney. Once we had all the data we could digest, we started to build the game. The real deal was just beginning!
There's quite a thrill in designing concept cars. Taking an artist's wild imaginations and combining them with design models that would fit today's conceptualization of what concept cars should look like was an exciting balance to reach. All of the cars were sketched out on paper.
Once conceptualized, the first cars were built in 3D Studio revision 4 and most of the later ones with 3D Studio Max. The most challenging aspect of the cars was getting the polygon counts small enough so that we didn't kill off the rendering time. Each car had to be built from about 100 polygons. It may sound like a lot but to simulate the curves of a car, it takes a lot of creative work. As a comparison, the latest arcade racing game has car models consisting of 2000 plus polygons.
Each car, from concept to final, takes an artist about a week to build and a programmer about a day to implement. With over 16 cars that were designed and several bonus cars, this whole process took over 2 months to complete. Take a look at the end results!
There was quite a different mentality in designing the real tracks and the concept tracks. For the real tracks, we had to be as accurate as possible. We knew that no other game has done this well, from the exact specs, to the background scenery, to the elevations. The artists studied videos, models, aerial photos to get everything down just right. For the concept tracks, Michael and Shaun, two of our artists on the project, designed the entire layout.
When it comes to actual 3D designing, each track is built in 3D Studio and then split up into the appropriate polygon sizes, a process that takes several weeks for each track. The objects on the track (buildings, trucks, walls, signs, etc.) are built separately. All the pieces are then textured and placed in the "world" using our own proprietary tools.
Once the art is done, the programmers must mark the track with various points and tags so that the program can keep track of laps, times, and keep the AI cars for going cross country. With over 10 tracks including the test tracks, and a little over a week to design a mile of track, this was where the bulk of time was spent in development. No other 3D engine had been pushed in the directions that our has, from Role Playing games to action games, and XCar was the first to break new ground in the racing genre for us. It took a while to get to the point where we were working in harmony. Take a look at the results!
Since the emphasis of the game is on customization of your car and how that affects the racing, we spent a great deal of time getting the feel of the game down just right, and the effect of each adjustment. This was a continual process, changing parameters here and there. As we were designing the car modification menu, the initial design was quite simple. But we wanted more and everyone wanted to be able to see all the components at once to study the balance of cause and effect. And by the time the whole thing was done, there were dozen of components that you could alter. The paintshop was added so you could detail your car. The test tracks were added to push the limits of your car. Initially, the cars got up to over 300 mph, which was a bit over the top, so we had to tweak the mechanics. The current top XCar speed record: 276 mph. Several features were added to help the rookie racer break into the complex world of racing sims, including a racing line, and help menus.
And so the game goes into months of testing. During testing we discovered that we had to increase the amount of memory needed to 12 megs for the game to live up to everyone's expectations. We realized that we had to compromise too much in order to jam pack it into 8 megs. It wasn't possible if we wanted to maintain the graphics quality. In addition, a number of great suggestions and ideas came from the beta testing crew. Quite an extensive set of beta testers played through the game to test the track designs, AI intelligence, program stability, and the gameplay. Since our goal was to beat out top ranking racing sims that have dominated the market, we had to get the thumbs up from the testing group. This was no easy task, and since we knew that we were the new contender in this genre, we had to work twice as hard to prove ourselves. We knew that we had to get it all down just right before we launched. And the result? Strap on your helmets and gloves, cause we're going racing!
Bethesda has become quite well known for designing eye catching boxes and ads, including the eerie Daggerfall box, and the inferno intense SkyNET box. The quality of the game had to be conveyed through everything we did. No cheap box materials, no paper thin manuals. The XCar box design has gone through several design concepts, until the ultraslick car in the high-tech wind tunnel was finally conceived. The box itself is shaped like an outline of a letter X, with the green lines defining the border. Since we do all production work in house, we have great creative control over everything we create. And while sometimes it seems like prime time on the circus channel, in the end, all the work speaks for itself.
Overall, it has taken 8 full time team members, a gaggle of specialized programmers, a host of administrative personnel, beta testers, PR and marketing gurus to bring you this game. In addition, it took long sleepless nights in Seattle, trips to race tracks, speeding like a demon down the highway to "test" our theories, playing the game with U.S. senators and enjoying political smalltalk, and replacing every component in Brent's car. So why are you still reading this? Make it so that we didn't waste our time -- go and play the game!