Unit 8: Final Major Project Redo

Planning

Overview

The Amazing Drive is a small open world driving simulator. Take in different landscapes throughout the drive. From rural to urban take in the emissive world. The task is to showcase my modeling skills with my knowledge of mechanics.

Project proposal

Let’s start with the project proposal. The idea is very simple as it will have 2 main cars which the player can drive. Each one will be tuned and will allow a different experience in each car.

Time management

Before we jump into the project let’s talk time management. This is an area in past assignments I struggled to stick to, therefore, I am trying something new. I will be using an app called Notion. Notion has brilliant functionality for time management. I have created 3 different views of the same data.

First is my Trello board. This board will help me filter through task priority and as well as contains start and end dates. This will help me the most if time was to run quickly. As high priority is the tasks which I will want to showcase the most.

Next we a calendar. This helps a lot in the planning stage as I can see start and end dates in a node system. Making it easier to understand stand in the long view of things but, this approach will make me struggle on the short term goal as a calendar is overwhelming.

Last is my gnat chart. This is very similar to the calendar with the only difference being the layout feeling less overwhelming and will help keep track of milestone goals.

There will also be milestones which I will be certified after tasks have been complete for example completing a singular car model will be a huge milestone.

I can also store data within these nodes which will further strengthen my time management. As well as go into more depth into what I need to do and notes to myself.

Risk Assessment

Risk	Likelihood	Impact	Control measures
Weather	Likely	Medium	No one can control the weather however, I can check the weather before going to locations to make sure it meets the requirements of being sunny. The impact of the weather can determin how well the video comes out and can effect the road surface.
Getting distracted from camera	Unlikely	High	I will allow my father to drive who has more experience than I do so the risk of getting distracted is lower. As if I was to drive I could get distracted as I have less expirence.
Photography restrictions	High	Low	Although taking photos of cars is not illegal people can have privacy concerns and therefore, things such as number plates will have to be censored.

For me to get better results on how I want my game to function I decided that I wanted to go out and do some recording of how my car interacts with the road surface and to get an overall scale of the length and width.

Contingency Plans

Software: Blender, Unreal Engine 5, or Adobe Premiere Pro could crash at anytime meaning I could lose hours of work. In worst case scenario I might even have to restart my work. In order to avoid this I will create regular backups both on internal and external storage so I will always have a copy with me at all times.

Time Management: I am trying something new for my time management which I haven’t done before this could cause issues as I am not use to it. Some tasks my take longer than expected or shorter. I will priorities the writing first then focus on the functionality of the trailer I plan on creating such as camera movement. There is always a risk of being ill which could have set me back a few weeks.

Scalability: I have been known to over scope my projects in the past leaving last minuet changes in order to get the project done. If this does become a issue then yes I will be having to change things such as making the car even more low poly or making the animation in blender itself.

Photography restrictions: I decided instead of taking pictures of other peoples cars I decided that I wanted to instead use google images as that has a lower risk of privacy breach. It also contains a lot more pictures that what I could ever get myself.

Vehicles

Making cars is a dangerous game when it comes to law. However, throughout my research I have found ways of which the law doesn’t effect this project. Things which most commonly cause issues is:  

A 100% copy: Creating a 100% copy is infringement on their IP and therefore, could cause issues in the future. To avoid this I will be Suttle difference to the model picking things from maybe 1 – 2 different cars and basing it of that. Which makes it legally distinct.

Badges: This is trademarked material. As that will be using their name without permissions. However, removing this will lower the chances of being copyrighted.

Ford Mustang GT 1968

I decided to pick the Mustang GT however, due to the issues above I will also be using Ford Mustang 429 which are both within the same era of car releases making it easier to combine. The old fashioned Mustangs 1960s – 1980s are some of my favorite cars. It is also one of the most aggressive looking cars. Mustang can be eye catchy to my audience due to their look. The Boss 429 is also a limited edition Mustang which exited car ethuest for the Muscle cars. The Mustang 429 was released in 1969 which will give it Nostalgia feel. The Mustang 429 featured in John Wick giving it a history in film. It also featured in some of the Forza games. The Mustang GT is also one of the most commonly known Mustangs due to its starring role in the 1968 film Bullitt.

Mazda MX5 Miata

The Mazda MX5 Miata is my friend Josh’s favorite car and has helped me throughout college therefore, I thought it would be a nice easter egg to add. The MX5 is much more common than the 429 and GT allowing it to be more relatable. The MX5 has a more fun looking design as it looks more like a person which gives it a cool look. It is also one of Mazda’s most popular cars.

Plot

The plot of the game is that you are a low life racer who wants to climb to the top. Starting from a banger car. This is a run down car which the player starts with and has to grind to get points to choose their next car. In order to become the racing champion.

Locations

Unit8-FigmaInspoMap-Here

Before, I start making my map I wanted to create some inspiration for my map which could give me that Scalextric feel. I decided to look at some race tracks from different type of racing like Nassar and F1 mixed in with some Hot Wheels and Scalextric tracks.

Unit8-FigmaMap-Here

This was the final result I could come up with for the game and I think it would be very good as it also has elevations which will add more depth into a 3D world rather than feeling flat 2D.

Research

Pitch style and formats

When creating a pitch I need to think about who is my target audience. In this sense it is for my tutors. With the idea of me selling my idea in order to get the go ahead for my game. The pitch will be submitted via an assignment therefore, I will need to make sure the idea is clear and understandable.

The pitch will be selling the idea to the tutors. I will need to the persuade them that idea is reliable can meet the desired deadlines. However, this is also going to be a sales pitch this is because I am focusing on a particular product. It will also be  explaining how the product will unique.

A pitch should included an attention grabbing title which can get the audience attention. It should also included things such as the core game concept which contains unique mechanics which will make the game stand out more.

It needs to cover the idea such as story art and your audience. This can also involve how you plan on getting the reach to your audience such as marketing strategy.

With game development everything comes at a cost therefore, he need strong planning and to understand your competitors and what they do well and what could be improved.

Lastly is a way to visualize your game for example showcasing what has already been made. Weather this is in format of a trailer or presented as a demo. This is your main selling point.

I managed to find the official Bioshock pitch via internet achieve. Comparing it to the official game to the pitch you can tell that it was changed but still some core elements were kept. Seeing how a team has put a pitch together compeered to my idea has made me relies even if I do pitch the idea it is okay to change the idea but making sure that I keep the key elements such as cars and a road for them to explore.

Primary

Audience

So let’s talk audience. Who is this for? How will I get my reach? Why did I choose this market? These are some of the questions which I ask myself when creating a Audience profile. The goal of an audience is to find purpose for your objective.

My target audience will be for car enthusiasts which, are around the adults and teenage years. Who have an interest in cars. Another interest that my audience may have is the interest of the anime art style. The age group is very active online and spend a lot of time on social media such as YouTube and Twitter/X. My target audience overview is for those that like cars and can be portrayed in a anime style animation . Using a mixture of both worlds realism on cars but the visual appearance of anime.

Unit8-Form

Unit8-FormAns

In my forms I found out that my target audience..

I also deiced I wanted to create the game to be playable on different platforms these platforms such as:

• XBOX
• PlayStation
• PC/Handhelds

A large part of my market games feature on almost or on every console therefore, I deiced I will walk on the same path and make sure that it is playable on most consoles. This means adding controller support as well as Keyboard and Mouse.

Going to location

I decided to leave my house and go outside to get a better understanding on how cars function on road surfaces. However, with this location I decided it was too short for the idea I had. However, this is still a good base as I could scale the roads, how the car interacts with roads and to give it that realism feel.

Building Mustang GT 1968

I am going to be modeling a Mustang and to further greater my understanding on how to model I decided to buy AIRFIX version of the Mustang I want to take inspiration for. It did come with stickers however, I did not apply them as my main goal was to construct the body.

Secondary

Assetto Corsa

This is very well known for realistic physics and it’s modding community this allows a lot of flexibility because they can add cars which aren’t suppose to be in game and can use them. Assetp is more track based than it is open world like Forza Horizon.

Forza Horizon

Forza Horizon 6 features stunning visuals, massive and diverse map which Asseto doesn’t have. Therefore, it has many different terrains. One thing I noticed about the FH6 is that the roads are too wide. Therefore, I will try and make them as close together as I can. Enough for room of error but slim enough to still feel that realism like you are driving a car. FH6 hasn’t released yet but the visuals are much better than Assetos.

Visuals

This was a talk with Matt Collins from Turn 10 Studios, discussing the art direction around Forza Motorsport 7.

Lastly they also have Photogammertry which helps creates these PBR materials. This means they take thousands of photos of the same object so that it can merged together to bring a 3D model, with texture details like roughness.

For my visuals I have decided to go with a cel shader this this because I am very passionate about the anime look. This is because I am very formila with how it looks and the ways of achieving it based on previous works. I feel like the cel shader also express more emotion than regular lighting because of the tones used for the story telling.

A cel shader (also known as toon shading) is a way to give a hand drawn look. Instead of smooth gradients and realistic lighting. A cel shader usually contain different bands which often is good for lighting direction. There are many different types of cel shading from stylised from titles like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or the anime games such as Dragon Ball FighterZ. Each has their own unquiet style not just within games but in movies to.

I took inspiration from the GDC talk about how guilty gear managed to achieve their cel shading this is because I believe this is a very polished anime look which I want to recreate. When I looked into the cel shading on YouTube around 90% was post processed material however, I think gilty gear gives better lines and more control. Whereas, post process happends when realistic lighting has been applied and you get a splogy gredient which would ruin the style.

Cel shading is quite hard to get right this is because there is no middle ground between and if it is too inconstant it can very easily be ruined which has happens numerous times before. It is also hard to show a replicated 2D style in 3D. An anime called RWBY is one of the most popular 3D anime however, I still believe that there is still ground to explore.

How to create a cel shader

The cel shader contain 3 main components.

• Threshold – This is the the point between the shadow value and the light value creating the highlights of the shadow.
• Light vector – This is the direction of which the light is coming from. This will work along the side of the threshold as if that threshold is met then shadow highlight will show.

• Normal vector – This is often the way that the faces are facing as seen in the example image above.

After doing a few attempts in with my cel shader I decided to go into further details about a cel shader as I wasn’t hitting the look that I wanted. It felt like I was missing something therefore, I decided to do further research. I felt that my first attempt was closer than my recent attempts people also noticed this difference.

In this tutorial he uses post processing which was mentioned during the GDC however, for the same reasons of Guilty gear avoiding it however, this does make a good contingency plan for if something was to go wrong. As this goes into a lot of detail on how to get the look.

Lighting

Lighting

Another GDC which will impact my game is that of Forza Horizon 3. This is because of their technology in order to create the sky within the game. Although this focuses more on the realism I can still focus on the lighting how it can effect the environment.

Going to the location to capture real time lighting and how it effects the world around it will add to the realism of how the world should look but with the twist of the cel shader. This would consume a lot of time and require data processing. I managed to find a resource which I could use which contained high detailed HDR. Therefore, I will be using that in my production. This method will be more limiting as I won’t be able to use many of their techniques but the idea is much the same. I still plan on using motion however, in a different method.

I didn’t get too much information from it unlike the cel shader this is because although lighting is relevant and this has given me ideas for my lighting and how to do it this will still require trial and error.

Forza Motorsport 4

MX5 gameplay

I was away when making this game play teaser for my primary research of going to the location. In my MX5 game play. I had a feel for the controls and looking at how the AI was competing against me. There are gameplay bugs but I made do.

Mustang 429 gameplay

Production Log

My original idea was to make a cinematic trailer featuring the cars I mentioned in my planning however, due to spending too much time making the cars I decided I had to change my idea as learning cinematics could prove hard and therefore, I ditched the idea. I then moved to my second idea which was to create an open city with moving cars using the cars from the cinematic trailer as I thought creating AI cars would be easy as I have done humanoid AI’s however, after a week I was deeply mistaken and as I had even more limited time than what I had I to mash up what I had. Which lead me to my final idea which was to make a simple racer which will allow me to clutch the deadline in the neck of time.

However, you can break down all my ideas with the basic list

• Mustang and MX5 as my main cars.
• Cel shading. This is mostly cause of how much I love the artstyle.
• Lighting. This is important for the world to look nice.

These are my top 3 main things I wanted to feature within my projects. Therefore, the concept and ground work was mostly the same. For each it was a matter of how well I could handle my time management.

Below you will be able to find my journal of what I have been doing. My fails on the above ideas and how I got the results I did.

Blender

Sky

To create the Sky I used 2 things which helped me get the results I wanted. This is because finding original anime skies are hard to find and therefore, I had to turn a realistic HDR into an anime sky.

The first resource I used a tutorial done by Comfee Mug. They went very in depth into what I needed to do and why I needed to do it. This helped me understand how to do an anime sky and the fundamentals to making anything from realism to anime. Such as using nodes such as color ramps to create contrasts within the model.

https://polyhaven.com/a/kloofendal_48d_partly_cloudy_puresky

I then used a site called Poly Haven which allowed me to find a sky that I wanted to use. I used the same one as the one in the video this is because I didn’t want to do many changes and believed that it would be good enough for me.

The licensing is classed as CC0 which means it is public domain and you can use the raw file for all purposes, all without asking permission. Can not be trademarked by anyone.

Here is the finished product of what I made imported into Unreal Engine 5. This was a simple process however, later I will have to play with the lighting this is because the default Unreal Engine lighting isn’t great for this sky.

MX5

Making a YouTube Car

This is the tutorial I am using in order to create my car . This is because the final results they got is what I want to achieve. I decided to do the car from the video this is because it would let me get a understanding of the method they used.

Part 1

In part 1 we was laying out the references. They did it in away I have never thought of doing before. What happens is it is a plane that you put the image on you then cut it where you want it spit then parent it and position it to the reference. This is amazing as now you don’t have over sized images and makes it a little easier to follow.

Part 2

Part 3

In part 3 we covered how modeling the Front Bumper, air intake and details and creating turn signal cutouts. I felt unsure however, the positive feedback I got early on from Josh motivated me to keep going and not start from scratch. The hardest thing to do within the modelling process right now is the indents and adding small touches which has always been a weakness of mine however, in this model I feel like I am improving slowly. You can see it is coming along nicely but does lack a little bit of the small details this is something I am working on getting better at.

Part 4

In part 4 we worked on the windshield & Glass. This was the shortest part so far and overall I think I am doing very well with the tutorial series. Mine is a little less detailed and more jagged than his however, for a first attempt at a new method I am doing very well. I have also learned a few new techniques. I feel like I need to play with some vertices in order to best make it look better.

Part 5

In part 5 we worked on the Soft Top & Windows and now it is really coming together. My main goal isn’t to go 1:1 but instead to get it to look very similar. So far this is good but I need to play with it which I still haven’t done this is because I am worried I would break the model therefore, I have now created a back up and should be able to modify it without worry.

Tweaks

I created a backup project and decided to make some noticeable changes such as the grill is no more acute to the model. I also removed duplicated vertices this helped a lot in managing the topology. There is still room for topology improvements. However. this is coming along nicely. I also made the light more pronounced. I now feel ready to do Part 6. I have also decided that I don’t want to do the pop up lights that is a key feature of the car this is because on a time crunch there is no point adding details which don’t matter too much. I enjoyed doing these tweaks because it wasn’t part of the video and was nice to have a small break.

Part 6

I resumed the tutorials and we focused on the doors & side body. However, I did run into a little issue which was my mirror modifier not applying properly. To overcome this I just place it by hand which gave me more control over where the rear wheel fender. I feel very uncertain about the side coming along this is because theirs is much more smoother than mine. I don’t know how to feel about it cause well… There is a huge difference but I think I might keep it so I understand the method then I will work on it again maybe after mustang. However, that is very time consuming and will be the last of my priorities.

This is the most liked post so far for the MX5 this liking has made me more wanting to carry on with this car due to the positive feedback however, the edges are a bit harsh to me so I want to smoother them out some more.

Part 7

So I did some refining on the sides as feedback from both myself said it looked too lumpy on the side to fix this I added a sub division modifier. This has a lot of vertices as it is and that the sub division is X2 there is going to be a lot of geometry. I feel like there needs to be more attention to deal and to optimise the amount of vertices on the mesh. In this part we spent a long time refining the side as well as adding the door handle. Part 7 was mostly a 2nd segment of part 6 however, this was good as I think the pacing of the videos are amazing. This is honestly breath taking on how this is coming together.

Here is a wireframe view as you can tell it is mostly made of quads which allows better topology however, there are way to many varices to manage so when the sub division is applied by 2 then it will be very dense. This is NOT how it looks in the tutorial as his wireframe is minimal but I added more cuts to give more control to the mesh but in reality it has made it much hard to work with. I feel like I need to have a play with it before it gets too late to make it match the blueprint the best as I can.

Part 8

In part 8 we worked on the rear fender, trunk & taillights which turned out alright this took a long time to get right as I realised that my topology was getting too different to the tutorials making it harder to follow step by step. However, putting that aside it is coming on well. I am now approaching the half way mark and this is worth it. I have scanned a lot of it and he makes a higher poly version of this soon. However, I will not be wanting this as I don’t think that it is needed for the project I want to create. I also do not want the pop up headlights as they won’t be need for the trailer therefore, if I don’t need it then I won’t make it.

Part 9

I have now reached the half way point rear bumper & undercarriage are now complete. Although there are imperfections and things that don’t look right to me in this model this is something that I am proud of. My topology still sucks but I think I will amend it once the car has been made to the best I can do it. This is important to do as I plan on UV wrapping the model this is because it will benefit it in the cel shader. As I hope to get a physical based cel shader to work.

Part 10 + Tweaks 2

I decided to do some tweaking to the wireframe at this stage. This is because I felt the wireframe was too dense and was making it hard to work with. I then decided to cary on with the tutorials which now added the mirror and antena. It is coming along nicly however, there are still a lot of inperfections which it part of the learning process.

Part 11

This is where I was doing things in a rush this is because time is running short however, based on the feedback I was getting from Twitter and from friends I was doing very well.

Part 12

We are nearing the end however, out of everything I have had to model for this car I found the wheels the hardest. I don’t understand why I found them hard because in my head it was simple. But this is the final version of the car this is because if I progress any further I won’t be able to make the Mustang which I want to make.

Mustang

Ford Mustang Boss 429

After watching the YouTube video I feel like my understanding of blender and how to model has grown. I will be using the same method they did but for the Ford Mustang.

First I used Figma in order to help me scale and organize the plans this is because this was a issue when making the MX5 therefore, to prevent this I used figma. I then imported it into Blender which looked very aligned. This was something I relied when making my MX5. Though I tried to fix it I never found a decent scale to build the car on.

Road

The road was very simple to do it was just a cube which was scaled down and wide. Then with a bunch of cuts. Why cuts? Well this is because in order to get the road to deform it needs geometry so the splines can blend the mesh. The more cuts it has the smoother the transformation will be along bends whereas, less will be more sharp. This is what the mesh looks like in Unreal Engine with it’s texture as the blender preview didn’t look exiting.

https://freepbr.com/product/highway-lanes-pbr/

For the texture of my roads I decided to use PBR materials which is physically based rendering. This is often with realistic type of games. However, I believed that it would match my game.

The licensing for this is free to use unless I plan on using it these commercially. For a college project this will be fine as it is free to use with no plans on releasing it and making money from my product. However, for those who are intreased in doing it commercially there is a $16 fee which will allow you to use all PBR materials.

Unreal Engine

Map

https://freepbr.com/product/stylized-grass1/

https://freepbr.com/product/pine-forest-ground/

For my map I wanted to use a landscape that had PBR materials on them. This is because I wanted the world to feel more natural and that it the player blends into the world. This also made me learn about landscape layers this is because I wanted to hand paint the ground myself to make the world feel stylized as humans often see realism as perfect whereas, in stylized art which I mentioned in my research there is room for human error.

Now I want to do my track before painting this is because I can get a sense of scale and structure. I wanted to add elevations to the roads as well for a more styled track. I also made this track in my planning in figma. This is a great start.

AI

After doing the landscape spline method I found out that Landscape Splines are designed to modify terrain, while Spline Components are designed for positioning actors. However, recreating the map this late on meant a possibility of not finish on time. Therefore, I decided to dive into the the dark side of Unreal Engine and do C++.

https://medium.com/@werysgamestudio/unreal-engine-landscape-spline-to-spline-component-3733d97f33ee

This was inspired by a post I found on Medium which made the fundamentals to my spine system. I did also find a plugin however, it was out dated to Unreal 5.3 and was uncomeatable to 5.7 therefore, I decided to make my own. Which gave me amazing results as it is very customizable.

 I attempted some of this work myself, following the medium post  and having Claude on the side if I had any questions. Which came in handy as it was teaching me where I was going wrong and answered the questions in a easy to understand way. The reason why there are so many spline points is because of how dense I made it. I made it this dense because I wanted the AI to be as smooth as it could. This is bad for optimization but for the fact there won’t be a lot for the project optimization isn’t a huge worry.

Cel Shader

Attempt 1

I tried to use the unreal mannequin a test subject before making my own models and importing them this is because I want to create. However, this did not work well and in attempt 2 I changed my test subject. I used a material function however, it didn’t adapt to the lighting well.

Attempt 2

I decided that I wanted to add the P3 character from my research this is because it would give me a better test subject before importing my own models. This was a choice in order to try and get it as close as I can to the original product.

This is what I got for my second attempt this is slightly different from the first attempt. I decided to take a very similar approach this still uses a material function but this time it is blended between a regular material to. Which basically gets the material function + texture allowing it to be more optimised than having to redo the same function in multiple materials. In this I still think I need another version this is because it lacks in signifcant characteristics to that guilty gear has.

Attempt 3

Instead of using a material function I have decided to do it for each as the only thing that changes is the texture which allows duplicating easier. Material function also had different effects to the cel shader. This is also three banded giving it more of a anime look however, it doesn’t look as nice on the character. I feel the more I attempt the cel shader the further away I am from achieving it.

Attempt 4

For attempt 4 I decided to have a break and work on the MX5 so then I could actually have a game ready model so I could test it on. It was also at this point I began to run out of time. Therefore, I went with an easier option and used Post Process this is because it was an all round way of it being quick but good results.

I decided to use this YouTube tutorial in my final attempt this is because I was running out of time and I needed to get something done quickly. I was able to understand the tutorial and have comments which allowed me to greater my understanding of it. Post processing wasn’t the way I wanted to go however, I am pleased with the results I got and therefore I could start working on something else.

Car mechanics

I found a video which was very useful this is because it went into much depth on what I was supposed to of done and therefore, I was able to set up the car perfectly however, something felt off. It was the values so I decided to do further research into cars and how I could make my MX5 feel better.

Here is what the event graph looks like it was very simple as most relied on another plugin called chaos vehicle plugin which is great because it mean I didn’t have to do too much to it.

This lead me to discover throttle curves. Why did it make a difference? Well this is because it controls the engine’s power and speed which allowed for nice acceleration. However, 2 things still remain off which was suspension and wheels. But I decided to move on as I still have another car to do.

References

Guest, G.Z., Jarod (n.d.). Kloofendal 48d Partly Cloudy (Pure Sky) HDRI • Poly Haven. [online] Poly Haven. Available at: https://polyhaven.com/a/kloofendal_48d_partly_cloudy_puresky.

Facebook.com. (2019). Forza Horizon 6 Official Community | a genuine question i’d like to ask the devs for Horizon 6… | Facebook. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3662750987162018/posts/25766383699705430/ [Accessed 8 May 2026].

‌Gumroad.com. (2026). Unreal Engine Vehicle Rigging Addon for Blender. [online] Available at: https://continuebreak.gumroad.com/l/uYsaQ

http://www.automobile-catalog.com. (2018). Horsepower and Torque curve for 1990 Mazda MX-5 Miata (man. 5) offered since mid-year 1989 for North America. [online] Available at: https://www.automobile-catalog.com/curve/1990/63530/mazda_mx-5_miata_export_usa.html

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