Article Intro
Sunshine Keys
What was this track based on?
Barry: Florida! It was chosen as a location mainly because it would serve as a visual and gameplay contrast to the other tracks. So, where Motor City (Detroit) was packed tight with urban alleyways and multiple-choice routes, Sunshine Keys offered long freeways and driftable corners. Where most of Motor City's tracks were urban, dull and grimy, Sunshine Keys would be low-lying, open and bright.
Although a generic "Florida" look was the initial plan, after we sent our artists there to investigate, we decided to focus mainly on Miami Beach with elements of Florida Keys.
The long freeways and driftable corners of Sunshine Keys
In building the track, where did you start?
Barry: At the very beginning of Revenge, Steve (the chap in charge of the Track art team) called a meeting and presented a shortlist of possible locations for tracks - around 20 in all. Every member of the track team was then given two or three of these locations and asked to research visual reference for each. This involved hitting Google, photography books and websites for photographs of locations, keeping certain criteria in mind:
- Visual beauty - can we recreate this breathtaking vista in our game?
- Visual contrast to other tracks - does the location have any iconic or standout physical features?
- Gameplay moments - does the area present any potentially interesting Burnout-style driving moments such as jumps, bridges, unusual land formations?
- Suitability - did the location fit the "style" and mood of the game?
An artist's job, when carrying out this task, was rather like a barrister's: I had to collect evidence (photographs) to prove in court (the Track Team art meeting) that my client (the location) was not guilty (of being rubbish). We had to collate our evidence together, choose our best shots, present our location as a potential Burnout Track and sell the idea to the whole team. This was great fun and was a smart way to start the long task of creating a track for Burnout.
So...Florida won the case, then?
Barry: The wonderful beach scenery coupled with the iconic Florida Keys bridges gave the whole team the impression that Florida was workable, and in fact it was seen as a no-brainer choice.
Iconic Florida Keys bridges
In an ironic twist, though, Sunshine Keys was destined to have many birth pangs before it shone as a fully fledged track.
I was actually originally working on a track based on San Francisco, while another artist was working on Florida's. His version of Sunshine Keys wasn't quite working but given that it was a month or so ahead of the San Fran track, we decided to ditch San Fran and Sunshine Keys was handed to myself and another artist to "mature" it. In the end, we had to totally rebuild the track from the ground up to get the playable layout that you see in the final game.
What were its stylistic influences?
Barry: Sunshine Keys went through many "looks" before we settled on its final one, but more of that later. Initially we all wanted it to look like the Florida we all know from the movies and TV - beaches, calm seas, a laid-back vibe. Influences ranged from Miami Vice to any number of movies to retro-50's stylings (taken from the Art-Deco architectural features of Florida's coastline towns and cities).
We even looked at old postcards from Florida and saw how the coloration of the place hadn't changed much from the pastels of the 1950's.
However it wasn't until I went there myself on a research trip that I realised how hugely the look was influenced by something else - Florida was all about tropical plants!
Foliage, foliage everywhere
Everywhere I looked in Florida and Miami there were palm trees and huge tropical plants - down alleyways, on rooftops, under bridges, by the sides of the roads. Now this filled me with dread for two reasons:
- Organic material is the hardest for an artist to reproduce digitally in 3D - in most games, let's be honest, the trees look crap. And those that manage to do it, such as MGS, are graphical stand-outs because of it.
- Trees, plants, grass - in fact, anything that involves layers and layers of small shapes to make up - are terrifically difficult to reproduce in 3D while keeping the frame rate up. Consoles like to draw simple shapes, and anything complicated is an optimization nightmare. If you look closely at any Burnout track that features lots of trees, you’ll find that it draws far fewer buildings and other details than the other Burnout tracks.
So I spent a lot of time very carefully designing and placing every single tree, bush and blade of grass on the level, checking the frame rate, deleting and moving them around as necessary, then checking the frame rate again. This process went on for days on end. People may think it's tedious work, but ultimately if you don't get off on the craftsmanship and perfection of your art, you're in the wrong business!
Painstakingly placed palm trees in-game
Besides the foliage, what were other technical challenges you faced?
Barry: Florida's style actually got off to a weak start as it was the one track that nobody could decide how it was supposed to look - should it be at night, or twilight? Is it a clear day, or an overcast evening? Is the track's Iconic Theme the bridges? The ocean? The Art Deco buildings? Additionally, what lighting would most accentuate all these iconic Florida "moments" in the minds of our players?
All of these questions had to be asked, and all needed an answer. However we were getting into the later stages of development and, clearly, these questions should have been answered much earlier. For weeks, we struggled to get the track ship-shape.
The difficulty in making Florida was a masterclass in teaching us why in games development you need to make strong decisions early in the process and stick to them. Ordinarily before even a single poly is built, there is a moodboard. As an artist, the reason moodboards work is that from the start you know what you are making - when visual or gameplay decisions need to be made, you simply refer to the moodboard and ask "does it fit?"
Due to its early teething troubles, Florida lacked a moodboard and therefore a strong visual base, which made it much more difficult towards the end.
So we ended up in the position of developing the style, theme and look of the track while we were actually building it to final quality - not an ideal situation. However we all really believed in it and thought it would be criminal to fail.
And the final decision?
Barry: We decided to shoot for a twilight/late evening lighting setup, and unfortunately as we had no solid concept art or reference for it, we put our heads down for what we knew would be a tough battle ahead. At this stage we had 4 weeks to go to build the entire track and we were effectively designing the look of the track as we went. Lighting was going to be a nightmare.
So, a few words about lighting: On Burnout Revenge there was a concerted effort to light the tracks in a distinctive, stylized manner that would set the game visually apart from the previous Burnouts. In fact, you could rightly argue that this was the first Burnout game that overtly went after a high-concept "style" to the visuals - each track was lit individually in a style that suited the location. Previous Burnout tracks had all been lit in a similar manner. (In Burnout 3 it was always a bright sunny day no matter where you were or on what track.)
I imagine it's risky to do otherwise...
Barry: It massively affects the overall visual look and is a huge risk! However the benefits are definitely worth it - many reviews of Revenge commented on the new direction in the visuals and all were positive. To our delight, when we unveiled the game to the public we got many comments along the lines of "Is this really running on a Ps2? It looks Next-Gen!"
What people didn't know or guess was that Burnout Revenge was pretty much the same team, tools and technology that created Burnout 3 - it was the heavy imprint of the new stylized lighting (combined with expert environment modeling designed to show it off) that made people think that they were looking at something truly new. Florida was no exception - except that with mere days to go we were still struggling as a team to find the right "look" that we wanted for the track.
Then something happened that makes you realize why you love making games and why, in particular, Criterion is a great studio to work for.
With less than a week to go to final, Richard and I stayed up all night and completely re-did the lighting for the track, changing the late-evening lighting to a very bright sunny day, but using pastel colours instead of "realistic" sunlight.
Smooth sailing ahead with pastels
Next morning as the rest of the team shuffled in, we presented it to the rest of the team and got the thumbs up - Florida had got it's groove back! With minor tweaks, the lighting remained the same until we shipped. Job done!
Gallery
