Talk about something you don’t see everyday. There’s no questioning the expense in securing any number of the available high performance, exotic torpedoes when advertising comes into play. Whether it be an issue of the vehicle’s availability, the location, or setting up everything for the ideal commercial or movie, it can all prove to be very troublesome.
London-based VFX studio The Mill have devised a very clever solution to this problem: The Blackbird.
The Blackbird is the world’s first fully adjustable car rig. It offers the ability to not only match the exact length and width of almost any car, but the appearance as well through The Mill’s mastery of re-skinning with the use of CGI. With a simple button press, the rig can adjust its length by up to 4 feet and width by 10 inches. The four wheels can be swapped out and the suspension can be adjusted to emulate the characteristics of almost any chassis design.
Furthermore, the electric motor can also be adjusted to emulate the driving characteristics of nearly any vehicle. Interestingly enough, this allows the Blackbird to fill the role of next to any car by being on-location, capturing road contact and shadows.
While in motion the vehicle captures high-quality data through a combination of HDR imagery and laser-scanning, allowing a team to build a virtual recreation of the environment around the car. The technology extends to VR applications, in addition to a unique augmented-reality application allowing users to see the intended vehicle dressed over the rig in real-time.
If this sounds at all familiar, then you might be thinking of GT Sport’s new Photo Mode feature, Scapes. The technologies are remarkably similar, save for the Blackbird working with video and any environment.
Named after the SR-71, it was hand-built in the same hangar as the supersonic jet by technicians from JemFX and was completed within two years.
Next GT car? :P
Does this mean they can finally bring the Isdera Commendatore 112i into the modern times??
Cars l would emulate if the BlackBird were available in the next GT:
Pop’s whips…
52 Studebaker
62 Cadillac Fleetwood Edorado Brogham Convertible
62 Ford Thunderbird Roadster
71 Ford Thunderbird
76 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon
76 Lincoln Mk lll
My whips…
75 Pontiac Grand Prix LJ
81 Audi 5000 T
Oh yeah…
Dream cars
late 60s Cadillac Eldorado and/or any big block Plymouth Road Runner
beep beep ;)
Now I wish I could find the button on the Econobox that turns the exterior into a Ferrari 458. Must not be standard equipment…
I wonder what the pp is for this car and which group it’ll race in.
Will be useful for car commercials since most of the cars in them now are CGI anyway, this could make them look slightly more realistic. Or, you know, they could just put a real car in it.
Cool read, I like this kind of interesting stuff.
Misleading lol, I thought Blackbird of Wangan Midnight :P
Same
Let’s get that into GT6, We’ve got track maker, may as well add Car Maker too. Create any car you love and drive it in GT6 via The Blackbird, Porsche 911 or 918 anyone?
This is Premium version,thus wont be released for poor GT6 :D
Unless you can wait till 2019 for GT7…hopefully :D
I thought this is what GT is doing: “emulate [] any chassis design”, “adjust length [] width” The part about a simple button press is the tough part.
@cfc
No offense, but why there are still so many people that believe in a clear GT7 version? They told us ready they could name this game also GT7 but it’s an evolved growth version, so it’s GTSport… I just hope this version will not get a day one patch, not like the disaster of GT6.
Much want!