My first PS4 and XBOne project as Senior Vehicle Artist, F1 2015 was the biggest and most challenging project of my career so far.
A new generation of consoles, a new game engine, new specification, three sets of cars and less time to make them all. Good job I enjoy a challenge!
With 2014 and 2015 seasons on disc the cars from F1 2014 needed to be brought up to the new specification. These cars would then be used to benchmark performance and visual targets. Several improvements were made to the F1 2014 cars with the extra performance available from the new generation of consoles, I will introduce some of these below.
The biggest challenge was the content and time scales. 2014 cars were not too bad, there was plenty of time to get these running in game. However the 2015 cars also needed to be on disc but there was not enough production time available to create all of the cars accurately, so "hybrid" cars were created. These took the 2014 cars as a base and the nose cones were updated to the new rules brought in for 2015 regarding nose proportions. The 2015 launch livery was added and these cars were placeholders for the 2015 season. Once the appropriate 2015 car reference was available we were able to create the final 2015 cars and these would replace the on-disc assets. So three sets of cars as opposed to the usual one set was the requirement, all needing their own polish work, testing and bug fixing.
The Ferrari below is a hybrid model, the 2014 base mesh with a modified nose cone and 2015 launch livery:
F1 2015 used PBR (Physically Based Rendering) for the first time, which allowed us to use much more advanced materials that would be used across all lighting types without the need to swap the shaders out for "night shaders" for example.
Below is the Ferrari in clear day, clear night and in stormy conditions.
Singapore really showed off the materials best, in particular the McLaren with chrome livery. This livery was only used for the first part of the year until Spain when the livery was updated, and the update was included in the release patch - so here is the original chrome one for you to see in Singapore.
The new PBR materials really move the cars forward visually from previous generations and several visual updates make F1 2015 cars really stand out.
A new anisotropic carbon shader with a layered lacquer effect is new to F1 2015, allowing us to recreate the specific carbon weave patterns seen on the different cars more accurately than ever before. But not just carbon, all materials have been created from scratch, paint, metal, rubber and decals have all been updated.
Damage received a complete overhaul in F1 2015. With years of available reference, impacts on the car are represented much more realistically. If a car has a light impact with another car wheel then you will see rubber transferred onto the paintwork. A little harder and the decal may rub off the car, or a crack appear in the carbon. Paint will chip away from the cracks and eventually you will see holes in the larger panels. All progressive, the damage will get worse the more or harder you crash.
A subtle but effective update in F1 2015 is the addition of a ripple effect in the paint that matches the relief of the carbon base material. This is something that adds realism to the paintwork, especially on large areas of paintwork that would otherwise appear perfectly flat. You can see this effect below on the top of the Sauber nose cone.
As a first current gen project with all of the challenges along the way, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. The game reached number 1 in the charts and the cars have been overall very well received.
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