Article Intro
Angel Valley
What was this track based on?
Damien: Well, as the name suggests, we set Angel Valley in surrounding landscape of downtown Los Angeles.
This track went through a huge metamorphoses - originally, the environment was based more around coastal roads, taking influences from the O.C, Venice Beach and Beverly Hills - but we overhauled all this, made it less "plastic-fantastic" and introduced a gritty, urban art style.
What were its stylistic influences, and how do these differ from the other tracks?
Damien: We aimed to recreate California's famous hazy skies, utilizing our bloom tool to the full and lighting the world in such a way to make harsh patches of light and dark. We created a feeling of heat and smog arising from the distant city to give the track a distinct and recognizable style.
The trademark smog of Los Angeles
What makes the gameplay individual on this particular track?
Damien: Angel Valley is great for interlinking shortcuts that flow from one to another; in fact, it is almost possible to do an entire lap without actually driving on the proper race route.
Its also has a series of deadly alternate routes that really do epitomize the phrase "risk/reward" - getting locked into a tight back alley or the storm-drain will test even the most experienced Burner.
Take a chance in Angel Valley's back alleyways and storm drains...
Inspired by the real-life, dirty gritty details that is Los Angeles.
How did you translate Angel Valley into a Crash course?
Richard: We decided to hone in on the freeway section, and aimed to create the biggest spaghetti junction ever seen in Burnout. This was extremely difficult to pull off for the same reasons as in Motor City - it was on a corner and very wide, so we struggled to get it all into the engine without any slowdown. Look out for the Crash junction with the 3 level slip roads. It's a killer!
What were the challenges in creating this track (given restrictions of hardware, game engine, etc.) and how did you get around them?
Damien: The sheer amount of short-cuts and alternate routes on Angel Valley meant that we often had a minimum of two routes running parallel with each other, each requiring detailed environments surrounding them.
For example, take the dense 8-lane freeway with the storm-drain at the side and the service entrances running down the center plus all the surrounding land and cityscapes - having all of this visible at one time is asking a lot of the hardware and our engine.
Couple this with all the traffic and other loveliness we throw at the screen, it took a lot of hard work to pull it off for this course. But we got there and as with all our tracks we push them to their limits, then we push them beyond that - then we figure out how to make them run at 60fps!
Any cool "what to look for" / tips / tricks?
Damien: It's always good fun to shunt a rival into the alleyways - these shortcuts are not easy to navigate and most people avoid them as the chances of getting out in once piece is slim.
I just wish I had a tip for perfecting the Signature Takedown on the "Burger Sign" - but sadly I don't - it's the only one I need to get my achievement so if anyone has a failsafe plan for this please let me know!
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