Overview
Switchgrass arose from one of my Game Level Design assignments. We were tasked with creating a racetrack for an arcade racing game. Later, we used the same racetracks to design and program AI opponents for a programming course.
As I am a massive fan of Burnout 3: Takedown, something that my friends and most of my professors (who referenced it during their slides!!) know all too well, this was one of my favourite level design assignments.
NOTE
This is a modified and expanded version of the project summary for Switchgrass, which I chose to separate due to length.
Brief
We were required to design racetracks in Maya that we brought into Unity, with provided car and camera controls (that we weren’t allowed to modify). This assignment also required the use of several, distinct paths, namely:
- Regular Path: The longest path, considered the ‘default’
- Shortcut: A skill-based shortcut that — if executed correctly — allowed for significant time savings.
- Alternate/Failure: Either a split from the main/shortcut OR a consequence of failing to perform the shortcut.
Challenges
One aspect that I found immediately limiting (but later appreciated) was the time requirement. A single lap (out of 3) had to be about 30 seconds on the ‘regular path’.
Another point of friction was the Maya requirement. I’d been a firm Blenderer since about 2013 (after moving up from SketchUp after several years) and wasn’t too fond of paid, subscription-based software. This assignment changed my perspective on it, however, and I grew to really enjoy the workflow, and especially the plethora of vertex manipulation tools. If only it didn’t cost one billion dollars.
Design Methodology
Arcade racers are like, my thing, so I took this assignment very seriously. Due to two loosely-coincidental factors, the first being that the provided car was red, and the second being that I was watching The Art of Racing in the Rain on repeat, being one of newest comfort movies, I decided early on that the car was going to be a Ferrari. This was of course, not at all asked for in the brief.
Research
Partly due to being in theatre as a kid, and also because I like to really ‘immerse’ myself into any project I dive into, I started by exploring the feeling I wanted to evoke in the player as they played my racetrack.
Since I’d decided on the Ferrari theme early on, I enqued my favourite Italian-American songs (Louis Prima, Tony Bennet, Bobby Darin, and Dean Martin). I listened to this playlist on repeat for a couple of days.
I also found two (2) versions of Quando M’Innamoro, the song Humperdinck’s A Man Without Love is based on, that I really enjoyed. These were the recordings by The Sandpipers and Anna Identici.
What ensued was five hours of listening to these two songs as I played Burnout 3’s Road Rage mode (in a red car, of course). Something that stood out for me immediately is how I felt myself entering a flow state during the turns. I knew I wanted a very flowy racetrack, with curves and undulating ‘waves’, and this led me to explore more nature-based areas.
Shortcut and Setting
Since I had some yarn (for crochet) at my desk in our lab and like using physical tools to aid my design process, I played around with a piece of string, molding it as I imagined myself driving over it, adding turns at the right moment, with short pauses in between. This was also when I thought of having my shortcut be a jump over one of these curved sections, earning you a decent time-save if you were able to perform it correctly.
Knowing this, the Grand Canyon seemed like a no-brainer, and I imagined driving over some more unpaved roads and also having this long straight bridge section, inspired by designs from state park posters.
We were also given a set of texture-mapped ‘base’ pieces we could use to build our racetrack. This was like a stripped down modular kit, and being able to quickly try different layouts really helped in my design process.
Level Design Document (LDD)
Given these constraints and a rough idea of what I wanted to do, I submitted the following as my LDD: