 Cel Damage
Developer:
Pseudo Interactive, Inc.
Toronto, Ontario
Publisher:
EA Games
Description:
Cel Damage is a cel-shaded car combat game created to run on the XBox and Gamecube platforms.
Released in 2001, the game took approximately two years to develop. Starting with the real-time physics engine that was
originally created for the Full Auto project, programmers at PI rewrote the code to use "cartoon
world" instead of "real word" physics models. In addition to real-time physics being used to calculate the movements of all
models in the game world, from the smallest bullet to the biggest boulder or vehicle, the game engine also features real-time
deformation of models which contributed heavily to the "cartoon" feel of the game.
The premise of the game is fairly simple; the main characters of the game are the regular cast in a game show taking place
in a cartoon world. Each character has a signature vehicle and weapon of their own...Violet's tank with mortar, Synder's
ATV with wood chipping attachment, Flemming's hovercraft with laser, and so on. There are also guest stars that the cast
play against, in areas themed to the guest, such as T. Rex the movie star dinosaur in several jungle-based settings. Defeating
a guest in all of their arenas unlocks the guest as a playable character.
My Role:
When we started work on the Cel Damage project the decision was made to move away from our previous level designer based
development model. Instead, the overall game design was passed off to a lead designer and all building of landscapes,
mesh objects, etc. moved completely into the domain of the Art Department. The Art Director and a Concept Artist
worked together to create the proposed "look" of the models and areas, and these were then modelled by the Artists and
passed to a Texture Artist who would create the required textures for the model.
Over the course of our development cycle, I worked on many different types of models, from rocks, plants, mesas, buildings,
and powerups to modelling vehicles, creating terrain layouts based on level design concepts, modelling skybox areas, and
generating specialised collision representations. I also did a lot of the daily upkeep of the X-Ref files that were used
to communicate to the Programming Department what the layout of each level was supposed to be.
I did rough texturing and some final texturing of both terrain and mesh objects, and occasionally created prototype
textures to apply to models before they were passed off to the Texture Artist for good texturing.
Interesting Factoid:
Pseudo Interactive was the first third-party developer to physically sign a contract with Microsoft to develop a game for
the XBox platform.
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