Hello, and welcome to our first developer diary covering the creation of FlatOut. My name is Ilari Lehtinen and I'm a 3D artist working with the car team. My position puts me smack in the middle of things where I can see what's going on … just in case I might have to write about it one day. And here I am! I'll skip the boring jabbering and get right down to the dirty stuff. Being a car modeller, I'll start from cars.

We have just finished the base work for all the cars in FlatOut, and we're now polishing them to their final features. In other words, we have long bug lists and to-do lists in front of us just next to the deadline date.

Looking over the older models done a long time ago, we've noticed lots of little things such as lack of detail in front masks, round bits too angular, or just "not quite right" looking bits here and there. It's mainly due to the inevitable changes during the development, such as engine optimizations which suddenly gave us a whopping amount of polygons to play with, which in turn meant that cars from the number 5 or 6 onwards were far more detailed than the previous ones.


Modelling cars for FlatOut is a breeze, to a point. We design and model the bodyworks and then include a pre-made chassis and engine. After texturing come the in-game tests to check how the whole thing behaves. If they are okay, then work on details, such as crash modelling. Remember when you were kid and had a Matchbox toy car which you hammered flat just for the fun of it? Making crash models isn't any different, really. It's just different set of tools for the same task. We've taken field trips to insurance company warehouses -- where all the wrecked cars are taken -- to observe how metal has deformed in real-world crashes, and how to mimic it in FlatOut. In addition, there are also all the shadow objects, the collision stuff, and other little things to add to the cars, but covering that would just depress everyone.

It has been interesting to follow the discussions about FlatOut in various forums, now that the racing fans have seen videos of the game. In almost every thread there has been someone expressing dismay over how the cars come apart so easily. Cars come apart in the current build easily because it makes things easier for us and emphasizes the wrecking aspect, which we feel is miles above others. So, of course, we love to show it off.

Misty-eyed egoism aside, the final game will have sturdier bodyworks. Right now we can test our crash models on the first telephone pole we come across, instead of throwing the car around the forest like a madman hoping for hefty impacts. Anyways, my space runs out right here, so I'll stop now. Next time, something else -- maybe about the tracks.