[Godot] Galaxy Drift - Pre-rendered Isometric Racer Art Blast!
polycounter lvl 13
Hello!
Just over a year ago I released my first ever solo developed game, Galaxy Drift. A sci-fi isometric racing game based on classics like RC-Pro Am and F-Zero. Built in Godot using pre-rendered backgrounds created in Maya and textured in Substance Painter, Galaxy Drift was a passion project that helped me learn about every aspect of game development. While financially it was a complete failure, the skills and experiences I gained helped me greatly, even allowing me to change career paths from Environment Artist to Technical Artist.
It took a lot of trial and error to finally find a pipeline that worked well for me. While using Godot was always the case, I did try to use Unreal Engine to create the pre-rendered tracks. Unfortunately UE4 at the time had a terrible isometric camera that had shadow and lighting glitches I couldn't work around. So instead I went back to my original plan and rendered it all out in Maya using Arnold.
Game is currently on Steam if your interested.
Some Screenshots:
Created modular track set pieces that I arranged into tracks using curves. The game contains 3 cups, each with 3 tracks each. For the most part each Cup has a similar theme and uses the same modular track pieces. The props and environment around the tracks however are different.
Solar Cup's basic track modules in Substance Painter:
Maya view of 2nd track in Solar Cup, Lunar Lab. White assets are in different layers to make it easier to create masks for Godot.
After creating the modular pieces and laying out the track, the basic process was creating a tiled camera system In Maya using a pymel script I created. Using render layers to separate the racetrack itself from any props that over hang. Once all all the tiles are rendered, I laid out the tiles in Godot using a simple grid layout script.
Zoomed out view of Lunar Lab from Godot
Also used Houdini a bit to generate terrain for some of the backgrounds.
Terrain for the ice theme level, Frozen Valley.
Background for the level inspired by the moon Titan, Crimson Cliffs.
Stay tuned, I'll update with more info and screenshots from across the entire game.
Just over a year ago I released my first ever solo developed game, Galaxy Drift. A sci-fi isometric racing game based on classics like RC-Pro Am and F-Zero. Built in Godot using pre-rendered backgrounds created in Maya and textured in Substance Painter, Galaxy Drift was a passion project that helped me learn about every aspect of game development. While financially it was a complete failure, the skills and experiences I gained helped me greatly, even allowing me to change career paths from Environment Artist to Technical Artist.
It took a lot of trial and error to finally find a pipeline that worked well for me. While using Godot was always the case, I did try to use Unreal Engine to create the pre-rendered tracks. Unfortunately UE4 at the time had a terrible isometric camera that had shadow and lighting glitches I couldn't work around. So instead I went back to my original plan and rendered it all out in Maya using Arnold.
Game is currently on Steam if your interested.
Some Screenshots:
Created modular track set pieces that I arranged into tracks using curves. The game contains 3 cups, each with 3 tracks each. For the most part each Cup has a similar theme and uses the same modular track pieces. The props and environment around the tracks however are different.
Solar Cup's basic track modules in Substance Painter:
Maya view of 2nd track in Solar Cup, Lunar Lab. White assets are in different layers to make it easier to create masks for Godot.
After creating the modular pieces and laying out the track, the basic process was creating a tiled camera system In Maya using a pymel script I created. Using render layers to separate the racetrack itself from any props that over hang. Once all all the tiles are rendered, I laid out the tiles in Godot using a simple grid layout script.
Zoomed out view of Lunar Lab from Godot
Also used Houdini a bit to generate terrain for some of the backgrounds.
Terrain for the ice theme level, Frozen Valley.
Vehicles were a similar process, they just didn't require any tiles. Rendered out about 60 frames of animation for the vehicles from every angle and converted them into a sprite sheet using Texture Packer.
Here's a few vehicles as they appear in the menu when selecting a vehicle.
Stay tuned, I'll update with more info and screenshots from across the entire game.
Replies
These ships were funky and the colors would hurt your eyes. Not a style that I would personally pick but it was a style for a whole decade.