Under the Hood: How Real Racing 3 Gets Its Motor Running
2015-06-23
Electronic Arts
Racing is all about speed, optimizing for performance, and the drive to win. A finely-tuned engine will push your car to its peak, and there’s always room for improvement.
Firemonkeys Studios put that same passion into Real Racing 3.
Each update has improved and built upon Real Racing 3’s core foundation, and each round of graphical enhancements are immediately apparent. “The engine guys have added per-pixel shadows so that passing under a tree or a building causes that shadow to be cast on the car,” says senior game designer Tom Baker. “And the process of adding night lighting involved implementing this awesome thing called spherical harmonics that I don’t understand in the slightest, but it sounds cool.”
“Lots of huge game features have been added since launch,” explains software engineer Matthew Edmondson. “Including support for larger tracks like LeMans, night racing, replays, car customization, special events, and online multiplayer.” None of this would have been possible without the improvements to the game engine. With each visual advancement, the team is also finding room for new modes.
Asked how the update process works, Baker notes the immense collaboration required. “We establish months ahead of time what we want to achieve based on the timing of real-world events and the viability of licensing opportunities we have,” he says. Design, tech, art, and other teams are involved in the collaborative process, making sure the cars look and feel great. Community feedback is also core to the team. “We try to account for everything that players have requested or objected to when planning our updates,” says Baker.
All updates are not created equal. Some require multiple cycles. “Race Teams is a good example of that,” Baker says. “It took around six months from initial planning to release.”
Real Racing 3 has evolved with each engine update. “It’s a completely different game when compared to the initial release,” says 3D artist Andrew Trawn. “The build process for vehicles is actually getting more complicated as we go. As we encounter new vehicle types, we've had to reassess how some aspects are handled. One example was the need for better suspension once we started on the open wheelers.”
As new hardware is released, the Firemonkeys team plans to optimize the game engine even more. Team Driver, the newest feature that brings Real Racing 3 to Apple Watch, is one such example. “Playing the game right now requires players to focus very intensely on their devices,” says Baker, “so we see a lot of opportunities to add more accessible gameplay that would fit more easily into players’ lifestyles.”
Learn more about Real Racing 3 and download the game here.
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