Artificial Reality: Creating Virtual Cities for PGR2

We began the Project Gotham Racing 2® development cycle by deciding on which cities we wanted to see in the game. There were some obvious choices—for instance, Sydney, with its stunning harbor—and some not so obvious choices, such as Stockholm. We were, however, inspired by a movie called Getaway in Stockholm that showed a group of guys driving round the streets of the city at incredible speeds, and we felt this would make a fantastic circuit. We needed to create a good balance between recognizable landmarks and building styles and areas that would provide good circuits in which to race.

Creating the cities for Gotham was a really exciting job, as we got to visit some of the world’s coolest cities. In one year, I visited Spain, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Australia—all in the name of research! We visited some amazing cities and saw some incredible sights. The highlight for me was climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where the view was just incredible.

In the first stage of the project—research—a team of three people head to a city and spend time photographing and taking video footage of everything on the chosen circuit. We photograph the buildings, roads, street furniture, trees, and plants: anything that you’ll see in the circuit. We often get some very strange looks! By the end of a trip, we might have more than 10,000 images to help us create a city. Back in the office, we collate the information and start creating the city using 3-D modeling. We’ve developed our own software package at Bizarre, tailored to our specific requirements.

Our first task is to create a drivable track surface. This gives us an idea of how the circuit will race and the kind of routes we can create. In Gotham 2, there are between six and 12 routes per location. From there, we block in the buildings, a process that takes about a month and gives us a quick impression of how the city will look and feel. Then we create a detailed building model in each of the building blocks. We take our photographs; remove things like people, plants, and trees; and create textures that we can apply to the models using Photoshop. Gotham 1 featured flat building facades, but in Gotham 2, we added detail to the buildings to give them more realism: cornices, archways, and recessed shop doorways and windows.

Mmmmm ... archways and recessed windows ...

After all the buildings have been created and a detailed and textured model of the track surface is in place, you have the base of your city. That’s when the real hard work starts. You have to create the barriers for all the routes. This involves placing the armcos, as well as making decisions about corners, where to place rumble strips, and where a run-off area is needed. These are all really important decisions because they heavily affect gameplay, and sometimes we have to modify the track to create a better racing line or corner. In Barcelona, for instance, some of the roads were just too narrow, so we had to widen them. We also have to create street furniture for each city: lampposts, post boxes, bins, and benches. These are all quite unique and are an intrinsic part of a city’s character. Finally, one of the most important, and possibly most difficult, considerations is the lighting. Lighting can make or break the whole ambience of the city. Some cities look best on a bright sunny day, while others look better when they’re a little darker and cloudy.

The forecast for virtual Sydney is partly sunny, with a 100 percent chance of high-intensity racing.

All in all, the process of developing a city takes about a year. Some tasks are more fun than others; creating the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a great challenge, but placing hundreds of lampposts around a city can become a little tedious! It’s great to see the city come together, though, and see how it resembles the place you visited. Gamers who live in one of our cities can look for where they live or shop, and, if it’s on the route, it will be there. We worked really hard to make the cities as realistic as possible, and for the most part, the cities are incredibly accurate.

Each of the cities offers something unique; Barcelona is very Mediterranean with its narrow streets, whereas Washington and Moscow are more wide open and sweeping. Sydney has some great corners and elevation changes. And hopefully we have something for everyone.

By Julie McGurren, Lead City Artist, Bizarre Creations