The brief
Build a small open world around the pleasure of driving. The scene needed grounded materials and a convincing manufactured car, with free exploration as the default and a timed route for players who wanted a goal.
What we built
- A Mediterranean island with a coastal loop, access roads, hills, a village, a beach and a lighthouse.
- A detailed sports coupe with wheel suspension, speed-sensitive steering, braking, reverse and a handbrake.
- Three driving cameras, keyboard and touch controls, a minimap, landmark discovery and an optional checkpoint trial with local lap records.
Start with the right geometry
The coupe uses the BMW model released under CC0/Public Domain by Mike Pan and Morgan McGuire. Starting with detailed licensed geometry preserved the proportions, body seams, openings and rear shape that are difficult to infer from one reference image.
The import pipeline normalizes the model’s axes and dimensions, separates wheel and brake-caliper pivots, and checks their positions. Materials distinguish painted metal, tires, trim, window glass and headlight lenses. Visual review caught both displaced wheel geometry and a headlight material-name collision that made transparent lenses opaque.
Connect the car to the coast
WheelColliders provide suspension and tire contact, while the visible wheels and calipers follow the physical vehicle. Roads and terrain share a height profile. Photographic CC0 Poly Haven ground textures, vegetation and an HDR sky establish the daylight scene; distant tree detail is reduced to keep browser rendering practical.
Free driving and the timed route use the same world and controls. Returning a stranded car to the road adds a penalty during a trial. The timer, checkpoint sequence and saved best lap were verified by completing the route with ordinary keyboard input.
A browser build, checked in the browser
Unity and C# export to WebGL/WebAssembly, served as static files alongside the site. Review covers the actual car materials and cameras as well as movement, pause, touch controls and rotation. Performance measurements use the browser’s native GPU renderer; software-rendered automation is kept separate from player-facing performance claims.
Where it stands
A compact single-player driving prototype with a playable coastal world. Environment detail and device coverage continue to evolve. Asset credits ship with the game; records are stored in the current browser. The introduction is bilingual, with English in-game menus.