Interstellar Racing League
Trailer by David Rasario III
Synopsis
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Interstellar Racing League is a high-speed, 4 player racing experience. Players are racing along gravity-defying tracks through alien planets to compete for the title of the Galaxy’s Best Racer.
Project Overview
This game was made by a team of 56 people to form 60 Strong Studios. We started with a month of prototyping in smaller teams with a week long sprints. We then hand three and a half months of production time with two week long sprints, with the exception of PoCT which was only a week long sprint.
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Our goals for this project were to make a racing game that never drops below 60 FPS in Unreal Engine 4 and to learn how to function as a team.
My Part
During the concepting phase I was thinking of ways to make the alien planets the races take place on more believable and came up with the idea of making an alien language for each of them. I quickly concepted out some ideas for what a language on our city planet would look like. After consulting with my art lead we decided on option number two.
My art lead and I decided adding in lines and giving the letters a more closed in feel would fit better with the game, so I concepted two options. My art lead chose the second one and I turned it into a usable font for easier use. This font was used on signs in two of the levels and we decided against making any more.
Originally one of the levels was going to be covered in signs. I started by making a base modular set that I’d be able to easily arrange into different groupings.
I made two separate types of groupings from the modular set. The first were free standing and were to be placed on the sidewalk. The second were made to be attached to the buildings. Using the alien font I had made, made texture for what the signed could look like. In the end these weren’t used.
The alien font was also used to make neon signs for the alien city. The frames of these signs were splined in 3ds max while the inner parts with the alien font are made up of alpha cards.
I unwrapped and textured one of the level’s hero piece.
For the marketing materials I worked with another artist to make this T-shirt design that ended up not being used.
Personal Post Mortem
What went well
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Working on a Team
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Working on such a large team was an entirely new experience and I learned a lot from it.
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Finding tasks to keep busy
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In the beginning when there was still planning going on, no one had much for tasks to work on. I fill this time by doing concept art and then created an alien language that would work as a font. During later milestones the were times when I had finished all of my tasks, so I would ask around the other artists to see if they had any extra tasks or needed help with anything.
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Adapted quickly to the tasks assigned
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I was often assigned smaller tasks that was cleaning up someone else’s work or picking up something no one had time for. This ranged from unwrapping someone else’s model to fixing the layout of palm trees in one of the levels. Having not worked directly in the levels rather than the artist zoos I would have to quickly learn how to accomplish these tasks by collaborating with another artist or level designer.
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What went wrong
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Communication
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In the beginning sprints I had kept to myself more. Specially during concepting and creating the alien font. Towards the end there were instances of miscommunication where things were changed without anyone being told.
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Sprint Planning
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For a majority of the milestones I only had tasks planned for a small portion of the time allotted. This made it so that I was trying to find tasks a lot.
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Spent too much time on small assets that were being cut
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While the signs were cool, if I had tested them out more in the level I might have noticed that they would be too busy and distracting to be in the level they were made for. Instead I spent a while making them and then making variants of the colors to try making it work.
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What I learned
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Speak up early on when things go wrong
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Waiting to say something can mean it doesn’t get fixed.
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Unreal
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I learned a lot about working in Unreal including the foliage tool and how it works.
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Being critical
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I learned to not be worried about hurting people’s feelings when giving feedback as long as its being constructive.
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