You can find a short video walkthrough of my level here: http://vimeo.com/17016824

Summary

I really enjoyed creating my own level, modelling and texturing objects, fitting them in, and putting details in to my level, as well as the particle effects, lighting and skybox, all designed and created by me. The effort and obsession that goes into getting the placement of objects, and details in the surrounding environment is both exhausting and fulfilling. things can look out of place, or dodgy if you dont put effort into the details around them and their placement. particle effects have to be accounted for in your design, such as in my desert level, I put sand piled up behind objects, just like it would realistically be. Researching the environment can yield some amazing finds, from concept art, to incredible photos. It would have been amazing to have a year or two to really get into the design and keep working on it until it becomes amazing, with heaps of effort put into the design, and creation of objects and textures, as well as enlarging, and expanding upon the level itself.
Hopefully in the future, I will remember the design process that went into this level. Hopefully this will help me design levels if I need to.
This has been my reflection, my last look at my process, now that everything is done, it has been a wonderful experience.

Equality

To help the blind, audio instructions could be relayed through the headset, about the track ahead, and enemy vehicles around them.

To help the deaf, subtitles, and visual guides for certain important audio events could be set up.

Ive been looking at the idea of VR, and thinking about the controls in more detail, the suit would really only need hands and feet, to control driving, shooting or secondary weapons. They would work via some kind of motion sensor, and this would affect anything that the projected limb collided with, also rendering them in 3d, visible to the player, through their visor. The visor would change direction of view according to head movement, and relay sound to the player via a headset.

Here are a couple pics from my level, I like the sun through the broken fence palings. the skybox really works with the lighting and the level.

This is my UI:

Its simple enough to not confuse the player, but at the same time, has enough appeal to not be boring, it gives information about health, power, all three abilities, speed, NOS, race position, laps and map psition.

Here is my menu concept:

The background is of my level, but stripped of all objects, so its simple.

The battle track title is large and prominent, and the options are backed by white so their more visible.

If Battle Track was developed and released, the target audience would probably be ages 12 - 20, preferably with a interest in team effort games. The genre would be somewhere in between an fps, and a racing game, a little-known genre called Vehicular Combat. Vehicular Combat is more about full battle in an arena type field, it doesnt generally include racing, this is one mode of gameplay in Battle Track, another mode is Race mode, which while including the weaponry, puts it in a back seat to the racing. as a vehicle becomes more and more damaged, it gets slower and slower, and easier to overtake. Battle track would work well as both a PC or console based game, but the best possible medium would be Virtual Reality. A combination of a headset, which allowed the user to see and hear the virtual world around him/her, communicate with others via a michrophone and detect the angle and direction in which the user was looking, as well as a suit to control their facet of the game, be it driving, shooting, or the use of abilities. This link shows wikipedia page concerning Virtual Reality.

Here are my rocks, and their textures:

Heres my Wheel, and its texture:

Heres my Concrete Block and Texture, (just a 2 second box :P)

Heres my Cover, and its texture:

Heres my cactus, and its texture:

Here is a picture of my broken fence, and the texture it uses:

This is my texture for the sand, the texture for the cliff, and the road, as well as the finish line. For all I just took existing unity textures and edited them in photoshop, to get the right colour.

Ive put in the dust effect, lighting, and skybox, all thats left are the 3d models.

This is my level completely textured.

This is my level, now with the mesa, and desert dunes created in 3d, no textures yet.

This is my newly created terrain, I have big ideas for this little square.

ASSET LIST

Terrain
Sand Texture (desert and top of mesa)
Cliff Texture (sides of mesa)
Dirt road Texure (Dirt road)
Start/Finish line Texture
Dust particle effect
Cacti
Cacti Texture
Broken fence
Broken fence texture
Concrete Block
Concrete Block texture
Old tire
Old tire texture
Rocks (multiple)
Rock textures (multiple)
Shack/Wooden cover
Shack/Wooden cover texture

GUI design

This is my concept for the GUI, I think it would work well, its simple, easy to understand, yet has all the information needed, and has simple art in it too.

GUI design

The GUI should be simple and easy to understand, but at the same time be attractive and not boring. It needs a health or armour bar, possibly both, and a power bar. But at the same time, all the things needed for a racing game, speed, nitro stocks, position and map. On top of that, a bar showing available abilities, and uses remaining. Unfortunately all his makes it rather complex, i'll have to think about it and draw it up later.

Details

I have been thinking about the gameplay, my basic idea, a battle race, team-based game sounds awesome, but I really havent gone into much detail. I think that the races should lastquite a while, possibly 15 laps - 50, and the amount of special weapons and durability of the craft would perhaps be increased to accomodate for the increased length of the race. The racers should also be able to leave the track, therefore the inclusion of ramps and shortcuts is a possibility. a full race, even with just 2 vehicles would require 6 people, so ai should also be considered, and whether vehicles respawn, are destroyed for good, or simply get slower and weaker until a limit is reached is also an important decision.