Firstborn is the ugliest, part 2
Part 1 is also available.
Reality always hits from your blind spot
Update: Day 2 on the car. One constant rule of graphics is that you grow blind to what you're doing if you look at it too long. Have a small pause from the project, and you'll see it with fresh eyes again. So why am I saying this? I just removed the splitter from rear window, and it looks more sensible and real now. Too many games these days have over-designed grotesque horrorvehicles (in my personal opinion, don't go sueing the company for slander), and the split rear window was bordering on such. Away it went in 10 seconds, and my personal world seems just a bit better place again. However, now the whole rear end looks too different from the nose, so I'll have to have a go at it as well. No problems at that, but downside is that it means more work for the texture guys later on, adding to their already busy schedules. Yes, they have to make a whopping lot of texture maps, and while I'm not telling the number of cars we're having, needed textures are around the numeric equivalent to "veryverymany".
Tools of the trade
I'm sometimes asked what's the workflow, what programs we use and so on. We're mainly a 3DS Max house, with car artists being an exception. We have 3 guys modeling cars now, and 2 of us use Lightwave to model the actual models with their bits and pieces before importing it into Max and making it into game specifications. We're just used to LW's modeling flow and for us it feels more natural. Max'ers have it their way. It's just a matter of which tool feels more personally suited for getting things done quickly, and a major part of it is the workflow habits formed over time. This works for us, and the guy using Max from start to finish has it working for him. Hammer is a hammer, just pick the one that has a handle your hands feel comfortable beating things with. I believe some track object artists are currently experimenting with Sketchup as well, and it seems really quick for buildings and other (relatively) simple objects. We now also have an extensive editor gadgetry where we can adjust almost everything from particles to physics in realtime in the game itself, including object placements and so forth. However, actual mesh work is still done in Max for the tracks and objects.
I believe I'm bordering on overshooting my "suggested article length", so I'll stop somewhere around here. If you have questions, mail them to us at 
and we'll see which one of us has the answers.
Meanwhile, I'm off to check if the damn dishwasher is finished so I could actually have a plate to put my lunch on.
Cheers!
your polygon hooligan -- Ilari
