Step-By-Step Walkthrough of Turn 10 Track Building Process
These are the general processes (with some added background on data) the Turn 10 Studios team follows.
1. Pre-Production: Source Track
- Reference track: Gather on average tens of thousands of photographs for location and color reference, laser scan proposed track route and surrounding area
-- Team captures more than 1.4 billion data points per track, resulting in sub-centimeter positional accuracy for unique surfaces, routes, and surrounding environments.
- Organize reference material
-- Reference material includes location statistics like surface materials, local architecture, vegetation, etc.
- Track story/workbook created
-- Background for track is discussed, to be included in descriptions for the game. Team sets internal build schedule and estimate delivery cadence.
2. Course Mapped: Fully integrated into Forza engine
- Build track outline, test game play
-- Laser scan composites are added into the game
- Create AI splines
-- Determine and build starting grid location
- Create track in database
-- Track will now become part of the official Forza daily build
3. Rough Build: Memory & performance footprint are tested in-engine
- All objects are placed in their foot printed area
-- The team added more than 200 percent increase in the number of distinct objects that make up the body of a track.
- Forza Surface Based Materials properties assigned
-- "Forza Motorsport 5" tracks have 6x more unique materials than in "Forza Motorsport 4."
4. Refine Build: All rough assets replaced with actual models, textures, & shaders
- Make all elements "shippable"
- Licensing – all real-life elements (track signage, advertising, etc.) approved and signed-off by partners
- Extensive bug testing, refining of materials and play experience
5. Polish Build: Bug fixes, visual polish, & performance optimizations
- Work with Environment Leads to prioritize assets to be polished
- Testing by test leads
6. Final Build Finish and Release: Final updates
- Comprehensive bug sweep, preparation for delivery to customers
