Burnout 3 ran about 110 km/h and felt like 300. None of this makes the
car faster; all of it makes the car feel faster.
Screen pass (src/speed_fx.gd, shader authored in code like everything
else, layer 0 so the HUD stays sharp):
- RADIAL BLUR smearing the world outward from the crosshair
- SPEED LINES, the Sonic trick: 300 radial lanes, randomised phase,
streaming outward, sparse while merely quick and a storm on boost
- CHROMATIC ABERRATION folded into the blur as a per-channel radius
- TUNNEL VIGNETTE squeezing the frame under boost
Camera (game.gd _speed_cam): drops and hugs the boot as speed rises
(2.4/6.0 m -> 1.75/5.1), lags on hard acceleration so the car pulls
away from the lens, aims further up the road, dutch-rolls into the
steering (doubled mid-drift), and gains speed-scaled micro-shake on top
of the impact shake. FOV runs 72 -> 96 with speed, +12 on boost, and
PUNCHES +9 the instant boost lights -- the punch is what sells the
shove.
Plus motes streaming past the lens (Fx.rusher, parented to the camera
in local space -- the radial blur smears each speck into a streak for
free) and a procedural WIND loop whose volume and pitch ride the same
curve, so the ears agree with the eyes.
Everything keys off one number, km/h, with a squared response: nothing
happens at town speed, then it piles on. Effects cut in at 55 km/h and
max at 165.
Two things measurement caught that reading wouldn't: bolting chromatic
aberration on AFTER the blur samples sharp red/blue against blurred
green and fringes every edge magenta (it looked like a broken display,
not a fast car) -- the fix is per-channel sample radii inside the blur
loop; and the first pass was simply too much everywhere, so boost is
now the visual event and cruising fast is merely urgent.
Smoke: at ~160 km/h the lens must open >8 deg, the screen pass must
engage and become visible, the motes must emit, and pressing boost must
kick the FOV further still.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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