The objective of this studio was to make a video game that would incorporate music. We soon decided that instead of a mobile musical game like we were originally tasked with creating, we wanted to create a racing game that would still have a musical aspect. We split up into different group not limited to the environment, track model, physics, and car model. Using Unity, Rhino, and Garageband we were able to create all of the aspects of our game.

TRACK & CAR MODEL:

Rhino was used to create both the track and to manipulate an already created car. As a group, we decided on a BMW Z4. We had to pull the car apart so we could animate each individual piece. The wheels needed to spin on their appropriate axis, the steering wheel would have to rotate realistically, and if we had enough time we could have made the doors, hood, and trunk open at the push of a button.

The track and the NuVu Studio sign were also created in Rhino. We would have liked to incorporate more of a 3D track the bended into downward curves, but problems arose between Rhino and Unity. They didn’t cooperate, so we made due with a mostly two dimensional track. A tunnel and rollercoaster style pylons made it more realistic so it wouldn’t have the same universal lighting, and not look like it was floating above valleys and mountains.

ENVIRONMENT:

Having an aesthetically pleasing environment is what makes or breaks most games. The track and car might be solid, but without an immersive environment, the game feels empty. The environment was based in mountainous island. The terrain was created by a game engine called Unity. Unity is a game engine that gave us the ability to create all of the basics needed for a realistic game. We could manipulate the terrain, for instance we could add mountains, water, light, textures, physics and many details that would make it more realistic.

In our final, the terrain had two planes instead of just one, making the space we had to work with bigger. This gave the user more track to go around, and more places to explore. Of course, this put a lot more stress on the computer, and some of them could not even run the the game without having terrible frames per second. The terrain had a couple bodies of water. One of these was a small lake, which was more like a pond. The other body of water was a very wide river, which was surrounded by tall spiky mountains. Directional light that looked like the sun made it much more realistic and not just a light coming from nowhere.

We also added a waterfall that we used a particle dropper for. This works by gameobject that drops a ton of particles at once, and because they all have physics they drop down to the ground making a waterfall. You can tell that it is a waterfall because each one of the particles had a texture that looked like water.  You can change the particle size if you want to which can make it more realistic, because you don’t want a drop of water to be huge.

This whole terrain works by a ton of physics that were added into the game. You can customize these physics to say, hold the car if it runs over it. Our car stays on our terrain by a bunch of mesh colliders that are both on the wheels of the car and the the environment that was built. When the car runs over the terrain all of the colliders hit each other which keeps the car on the surface, not sinking beneath the surface.

MUSIC SCORE:

Lastly, we created a music score that would immerse you into the game. The music flowed with the visuals and enhanced on the island-like feeling of the map.

OVERALL DESIGN:

In the end, we had a semi-functioning racing game that was controllable with a mouse and keyboard. It could still use the polish of a professional game designer, but for beginner level experience the physics, environment, models and music came together to create an immersive experience.