Q&A with Florent Castelnérac on TrackMania

Florent Castelnérac got his start making a game engine and tools for the movie industry. For the past five years, he's slowly converted to game development exclusively. These days, you can find him at Nadeo, as their Director of Development. They're currently working on 2 titles: Virtual Skipper 3 and TrackMania. TrackMania caught my eye, as it's an online racing game where players are able to build their own tracks and then challenge others to ride them. As you can see, throughout this interview, the graphics for TrackMania are stunning, and it stands out as what seems to be a signature Nadeo visually impressive product.

Warcry: Can you let our readers know what you've been working on recently?

Florent: As well as working hard to finish TrackMania, we're also working on our other title Virtual Skipper 3 so the last couple of months have been very busy for us. Specifically, we've been working on optimizing code for single player and multiplayer ready for the release of the official TrackMania demo. We hope to have the demo available for download soon; at the moment we're running a beta demo to work out any final issues we may have with the code. Feedback from the beta demo has been amazing, in just a few days the community has really taken off. At the moment we're also taking some time out to listen to suggestions and where possible incorporate them in to the final version.

Florent: It's a unique, cross genre game which incorporates elements from puzzle games, building games and racing games. One of the most exciting things about TrackMania is that there are so many different ways to play the game, kind of like a virtual toy. For example, if you like puzzles you can work your way through the challenges, alternatively, if you enjoy the building element you can create endless crazy tracks and exchange them with other players over the internet.

Warcry: TrackMania's a brand new title. Can you tell us what the community's been like so far?

Florent: The French community has been really incredible; some keen fans have already launched a site and are in the process of setting up a tournament.

Our English-speaking website and forum has gone just gone live as well, and as I mentioned above the response has been unprecedented. It's always fun for us to go on to the forum and see what the beta demo players have been up to. They're a really dedicated community and have been very busy since the release of the beta demo creating cool custom tracks and recording some of the best game replays.

Warcry: How many players can compete in a race online in TrackMania?

Florent: This will really depend on the host capacities. At the least there will be 10, at the most...I don't know.

Florent: Heh, good question, this one is easy: there is no collision. Some people are disappointed by the fact that there will be no collision in the final game, but to tell the truth although it was fun to throw other players off the track for a while, after five minutes it became a bit annoying and we were back to playing with no collision. In the end we believe that collision really would take away from the game rather than add to it, this way whether you win or lose will be down to your driving skills alone. There have been many discussions about this issue in the TrackMania forums, and after playing the beta demo version the majority of the community agree with us that the collision is better turned off.

Warcry: TrackMania has a unique feature that allows players to design their own tracks, and then hold races on those very tracks, either against other humans or CPU opponents. How is a track that's been custom built by a player measured in difficulty? Is it an arbitrary factor of system analysis, or is it voted upon by the players that have experienced it first hand?

Florent: One of TrackMania's best features is the track building feature. Because the focus of the game points more towards track building, puzzle solving and multiplayer, there will be no CPU opponents. However, we don't think this will be a problem as the net code has been optimized to allow players with both low and high-speed connections to take part, so you'll never be short of opponents. As for the difficulty, this will be set by track builder, and the quality of the tracks will be decided by players.

Warcry: The screens that we've seen from the game development so far have been fantastic. Are you developing the 3D engine for the game yourselves, or are you using a 3rd party solution for the 3D rendering in-game?

Florent: Everything is made in house. As I mentioned above, the Nadeo team go their start creating tools for the movie industry, it was at this time that we started developing our 3D proprietary engine. The fantastic TrackMania graphics have been built on this technology and the experience of the team. Thank you for the compliment about the screens.

Florent: In TrackMania there are three environments: desert, snow and countryside. Each of these environments has its own specific vehicle which in turn has its own driving style.

[li]The desert environment has what we call 'the American' car. The American car has a good acceleration and powerful brakes offering realistic behaviour. Taking curves at high speed, huge jumps and strong braking is where this vehicle excels. But players must beware; its precise suspensions will react to even the slightest mogul so beware to not leave the road!
[li]The countryside vehicle is the 'European/turbo2'. This vehicle mixes fast acceleration with an impressive top speed; the Turbo2's power has to be mastered, especially on the slipping tracks of the countryside environment. It is often preferable to brake before a sequence of curves and to go through each curve skidding rather than count on the grip of the wheels, light accelerator pressure will be enough to keep your speed.
[li]The snow environment uses the 'Japanese/pick up' vehicle. Slow by nature, the Pick up will only increase speed in descent or with the help of boosts. Its large tyres offer a strong grip allowing players to pass any kind of turn at full speed, assuming you have the correct trajectory. You will be forced to keep your speed at the maximum if you do not want to finish the race pushing your car :)

Rest assured, we won't let it rest there: TrackMania looks too interesting of a title to let fall by the wayside. Stay tuned for more great TrackMania features!

If you've like the images you've seen in this interview, you may also want to check out our TrackMania Image Gallery.