HUD Mockup

I wanted to keep my HUD light but clear. To do this, I decided to only show the backlit/digital displays of the cars components. Since my car is from the 70s, I made sure to keep the design of the components retro, to avoid it looking like from sort of sci-fi LED display.

I used old technology from the 80s and 70s as inspiration for how it's laid out. For example, the speedometer is based of a tuning dial that was prominent for many old receivers.

Another thing I want with my HUD, is "conditional icons". For example, Health will be shown with a number but also a engine icon that displays normally from 100 -51 health, then on fire with 50 - 1 health and finally showing it explode when the player is killed.

The inspiration for this came from the Doom Guy. 

Exploding Barrel Test

Here is my exploding barrel built in Maya and Substance and programmed in Unreal. For the particle effects, I took the explosion and smoke particles from the Unreal starter content and then manipulated and made them my own. The idea behind the barrel is that it is some sort of radioactive, alien material inside that is kept contained by some sort of electrical mechanism. When the player damages the barrel, the electrical mechanism break and begins to spark, so after that the radioactive material combusts and vaporizes the barrel.

Explosive Barrel Concept

Since my race track level is in a giant foundry that works with an alien metal, my barrel contains the slag waste product that comes off this metal after refining it. It would not make sense to have a barrel with actual explosive material in an environment that contains so much fire and molten material, however the volatile slag in the barrels is extremely active and creates pressure inside. There is a depressurizing mechanism in the barrel but when a car hit is, it will become damages and the pressure will freely build up until the entire thing explodes.

Since it is a alien material, the slag could look like something unfamiliar. So I think some sort of glowing sludge would be interesting and I would like to make it look unstable (maybe radioactive).