![]() ![]() "The assets that we end up with 1.2TB of photography for every shoot," says CG supervisor Jamie Wood. With each switch between seasons, there's a hard cut, but from Playgrounds extensive outdoor shoots, you get the best-case from each. Time-lapse photography sessions lasting 24 hours were carried out, to capture the ideal skyline for each season, each time of day, and weather as well. The sky also had to be accurately modeled, along with the lighting properties that come with it. This impression of the UK wouldn't be complete if it were only focused on terrain though. "For example, if we were painting down a corn field, we could say what a cornfield would look like in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and then also how it handles, what type of pick-up you get, whether there's 3D corn on there, or whether it's all been cut away, whether it turns into deformable snow what type of grip levels you get." We came up with a material system that allowed the artists to choose which material to paint down once, and then it would just reflect in all the different seasons," Hardwood says. "With seasons we needed a new way for them to be able to paint down all of the new materials throughout. The notion of the four seasons also provided a challenge for the team. "This automatically creates LODs, it creates collision for the artists as well, and it gives them more time to be artists, rather than having to worry about technical constraints in having to build our world." DF's in-depth technical analysis of Forza Horizon 4 - it's a beautiful release. "We built on the system that we had in Forza Horizon 3, a height field system that allowed us to create terrain very quickly and very easily for the artists to iterate on," he explains. ![]() Technical art director Gareth Harwood says that this provides a ready-made base for the team's artists to work from. ![]() That's a lot of data to work with, but it's translated to more options for the art team. In the UK though, you can get satellite DEM data to a resolution of five metres, and what that gives you is a much, much higher resolution height map which almost gives you hedge rows." What that gave us was kind of a spongy height map, so you could see what was a mountain and what wasn't. "In Australia we could only buy it to a resolution of 30 metres. "We base our original world map on DEM data, which is basically satellite height map imagery," Ralph Fulton says. The landscape of the UK is carefully replicated too using a digital elevation model, giving its rolling pastures an authentic look. ![]() The location choice is a big starting point, and it meant visiting and meticulously rendering landmarks across the country using physically-correct properties. Moving away from the Australian heat to a distinctly seasonable UK impacts development in many ways, providing a suitable challenge for Playground's art and tech departments. Our processes and our art techniques become more refined, so I think you naturally see that it's a team who has a huge experience making horizon games, are growing in justified confidence in the way the way that they go about making a game." But I also think that with every run at the tech we get better at using it, we get better and more efficient at using it. It allows us to just go into more detail. "Part of that is kind of natural because Xbox One X is our lead platform. "I definitely think there's a leap in fidelity in Forza Horizon 4 over Forza Horizon 3," creative director Ralph Fulton says. The series' evolution has been a long but often spectacular journey - a vibrant racing celebration that's given Horizon its own distinct identity and in Forza Horizon 4, Playground Games aims for something even more special from a technical perspective - a game that builds substantially on the last entry's technical strengths and focuses on Xbox One X as lead platform. The Forza Horizon franchise has carved its own path, veering away from Turn 10's mainline series with its emphasis on arcade racing set within a massive open world. ![]()
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