There is more to life than meets the eye.
Video games are amazing. It takes a lot of work to get cars into video games, and that’s not the only thing that makes them so great. Donut Media’s newest video shows us the steps developers take when giving a vehicle their 15 minutes of fame.
Nolan, from Donut, was fortunate enough to have Codemasters – the studio behind Formula 1 and the DIRT series video games – guide him through the development process. It boils down to three steps: vehicle selection, modeling, programming.
It’s not a small deal to have your vehicle featured in a video game. Manufacturers want to ensure that the image accurately represents their pride and joy. It takes a lot of work to get licensing in place. Some Codemasters developers have shared industry experience that automakers have extremely specific requirements regarding the colors, sponsors and structural integrity of their vehicles.
After clearing the initial red tape, the car must be digitally reproduced. While visuals may seem most important, the vehicle’s sound is just as important. While 3D modeling is a very advanced technology, the old days were simpler. Developers used to go to auto-shows to take photos of the vehicles they wanted to recreate and then trace them digitally.
Sound capture has also advanced significantly. Developers will spend hours using advanced microphones to recreate the sounds of each vehicle. This is a powerful tool for selling authenticity in a game. Developers will now even model the sonic characteristics of different environments, such as driving through tunnels or driving around tall buildings.
After a car is digitally modeled and licensed, it must be programmed to give the driver a real feeling behind the wheel. While this can vary from title-to-title, the game engine is responsible for recreating vehicle physics. Metrics like weight, power and grip can be used to distinguish one car from the other. All of these elements come together to create the driving games we love.