Road Rash 3D Interview

In the following exclusive interview, Electronic Arts producer Hunter Smith answers some of the questions we here at GameSpot had about the upcoming PlayStation update to the popular Road Rash series, Road Rash 3D.

GameSpot News: What would you say the biggest difference between the original Road Rash and Road Rash 3D is?

Hunter Smith: True 3D separates this Road Rash from all the others in the design and implementation of the game world, the physics, the characters, the motion, the quality of the interaction, and even the balance between racing and fighting. The other Road Rash engines were a 2D projection, which gave the perception of depth without all the realities and overhead of being in 3D space. Now the bikes and bikers are true 3D objects with their own mass and weight; the terrain and roads rise, fall, bend, and twist like real roads; and the physical relationship between road and bike is much more realistic than ever before. This makes the racing alone a more interactive experience than previous versions. Add motion-captured bikers with over 5000 frames of animation, compared to the 300+ frames in the bit-mapped versions, and the immersive quality and realistic feel of the game increase further. In my experience of the game to date, the nature of the 3D engine gives this Road Rash a unique feel. Your relationships to the bike and biker you control and the roads and opponents you interact with are much more interesting and even more demanding of your attention.

GSN: Unlike other major updates, these two have or will be set on 32-bit platforms. What's behind the extra ability you now have to be able to make these improvements?HS: A couple of years of understanding where and how to push the platform and a little bit of magic. Actually in creating the first 32-bit Road Rash, the team was dealing with the ability to stream data on a console for the first time. Thinking about how to use that space to generate a world with realistic and varied scenes was a huge goal in itself. Most racing games even now load the track in RAM, focusing the action on a repeating track. Road Rash was always about racing on the open roads, so the team focused on pulling that effect off in the previous version. This time around we wanted to pull the open road effect off again but also push the design of the engine for more realism and depth. Now we stream not only a complete 3D world with 100 miles of interconnected roads in which the engine can go in any direction, but we also stream digital music at the same time.

GSN: The original game on the 3DO dealt with pop-up better than most. How are you dealing with it?HS: What creates pop-up is having no representation of data on the screen in one frame and then displaying a large component of that data on the next. The best way to deal with pop-up is to represent the data onscreen as early as possible and scale the size and representation of the data as it comes closer into view. Multiple levels of detail for objects and scaling factors are thus one side of the equation. The other side is careful track design, using curves, close-in objects, and terrain to hide the introduction of data further back in the screen.

In previous versions, we used both of these methods to minimize the pop-up effect. This time around we also add a third tool that allows us to display data much further into the view. Using a proprietary tool to build our complete 3D world, we generate a 360 view of the world in 2D and wrap that around the edge of the lowest level of 3D detail. We then continually refresh this background panorama along with the closer 3D data as you move through the world. This panorama effect gives us a much deeper view down the road as it becomes our changing background screen. Most games have a background screen that reflects a mood or tone of the setting the game is representing. In Road Rash 3D that background is an actual representation of the data in the game world.

So when you see a city in the distance from the top of a ridge, you will actually be able to drive down the ridge and right up into and through that city. The data then is represented in 2D as a panorama, then it appears in multiple levels and sizes of 3D data. Now as soon as the player can recognize the data, it is already represented on screen. The effect helps minimize pop-up while adding depth to the play view.

GSN: Is the feel of RR3D going to be much like the original? Are the FMVs, songs, and characters similar?HS: In order to increase the interaction between the player and the opponent bikers, we've focused on bringing these characters more to life than in previous versions. Our concept being, just like in life when you know your competitors, the more aware you are of their style, strengths, and weaknesses, the more intense the competition with them. The characters are divided into four biker gangs, each with its own style of bike, its own tendencies to fight and race, and its own hangout in the world.

We use FMV in the game to help enhance the interaction you experience in 3D. It's as simple as using the right tool for the job, something every good carpenter or mechanic will tell you. FMV enables us to do things with human characters in ways 3D cinematics don't quite match yet. We use the FMV sequences at the conclusion of races and during the front end to bring the energy and attitude of the bikers more to life. Our approach is brief, big action glimpses of the world and the gangs in it. They're funny, irreverent, and highly stylized. They don't try to tell a story as much as project an interesting and compelling image for each gang. This gives the player a touchstone to hold onto as he encounters these different gangs in the game.

On the music side in the last version, we played one style of music. In this version, four different styles of music are matched to each of the four gangs' style of rashing. Once again, the focus is to use the music, like the video and the representations in the front end, to enhance the player's sense of the world and the bikers he's interacting with. The resulting objective being to make those moments of interaction in the game that much more interesting and intense.

GSN: Who's on the soundtrack?HS: Should be announced this week.

GSN: What about the weapons? There are clubs and chains, but is there anything else? Firearms?HS: There are a number of different weapons and a number of different punches and moves, each of which reflect the fighting and racing styles the different gangs display. Road Rash is not about killing your opponent, but using whatever you can in the heat of competition to win, so no firearms are in the game. Besides, if you killed the guys you're racing, that would make for a pretty lonely race. We're still tuning various weapons so we'll have to see which make it into the final game.

GSN: How many tracks and bikes will be in the game, and how do they differ?HS: Four types of bikes, one for each of the gangs. Three levels of races and bikes. Since the game is a complete world of 100 miles of interconnected roads, there really aren't tracks in the traditional sense; instead, there are race routes or courses on which individual races take place. As we tune and finish up play testing, we'll decide on the ultimate number of courses, but our current plan has over 30 different courses in the game. The four bike types are cruisers, rat bikes, race bikes, and sport bikes. Each is matched to a gang who in turn is matched to a type of terrain in the game and fighting/racing style. The cruisers are big and heavy, with the widest power band, and are good for brawling and straight-ahead power on the open road. Rat bikes, or street fighters, are a combination-type bike like those patched-together bikes you might see a courier on, great for urban cruising around cars and peds. They are solid in handling, with good durability and a reasonably wide power band. Race bikes are pure speed, with superquick handling and tight controls for great lines in turns. With all the power at the top end, fighting on these will be a darting experience. Sport bikes are the most highly refined machines with a wide power band for the smoothest overall ride and with handling advantages in the twisty canyon runs.

GSN: What's left to be done with the game? How far along is it?HS: Overall the game is in between alpha and beta where some components are more tuned than others. The major focus of our attention now is on the fighting opportunities and the racing and fighting behaviors of the AI.

For shots of Road Rash 3D, check out the previous news story on the game through the Related Links.