Brentomonte Circuit - KartKraft [2021]

Brentomonte was the second track I worked on at Motorsport Games Australia and particularly special for being entirely fictional, and the first KartKraft track to be start-to-finish produced using the Houdini pipeline.

Following success in Karting Genk using some in-engine HDAs for fence generation and instance placements, I sought to answer the obvious question of how far we could push Houdini in track creation, and Brentomonte provided the framework for me to develop the first formative steps of what would evolve over the following years into a fully featured Houdini pipeline used across multiple in-development titles.

Working solo over a few weeks, I developed HDAs for producing the track surfaces, terrain, kerbs, and line markings through standalone Houdini, and also extended the existing in-engine HDAs for creating more complex and varied fences, tyre bundles, barriers, and nesting HDAs, such as cabling between speak pole instances. Given the aggressive timeline to coincide with the launch of the KartKross vehicle, almost all the 3D assets and set dressing were from the existing KartKraft library.

While technically exciting, on a personal level as a lifelong motorsport fan - Brentomonte was exceptionally fun and rewarding to work on. Given the freedom of a fictional circuit and the fast iteration times from Houdini, I could fine tune in perfect elevations, chunky kerbs, and bumps in just the right braking zones to create a simple but fast and compelling layout - look close enough and you’ll find inspirations from the likes of Surfers Paradise street circuit, Bathurst, and Barber Motortsports Park.