GAMENOVA put in a lot of effort to film this amazing CG.
Kojima took his entire crew directly to Hollywood, bringing along most of the Lucasfilm team to film the movie.
Most of the lenses were taken with 35mm film cameras.
A group of photographers were standing on a flatbed cart being towed by a vehicle.
The car being filmed followed closely behind, with the camera shooting from a low angle as the car chased the other.
Without some photography background, this job is really difficult.
For this part of the filming, GAMENOVA even booked several closed roads in California and Arizona.
Based on the demands of this group of lunatics, they directly rejected Lucas's proposed "low-speed fake high-speed" plan.
Lucasfilm, after all, started out making Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars, and has a deep understanding of visual magic.
After listening to Lin Lixin's needs, Lucas immediately proposed a solution.
This is a very common filming technique in car chase movies.
Simply put, it means the car is moving on the road at a very slow speed.
The feeling of high speed is simulated by faking camera angles, creating strong winds, and creating fake backgrounds that appear to be moving at high speed.
But this group rejected it on the spot.
It was changed to stunt drivers performing at real high speeds on closed tracks.
Whether it's cost, difficulty, or risk level, everything has increased significantly.
But the results were indeed remarkable.
The Corvette ZR-1's impressive dynamics and chassis tuning can only be truly appreciated in such high-speed conditions.
Tons of high-definition video footage were compressed into FMV full-motion video, and after compression encoding, Xi Jinping squeezed it into a CD at the limit.
This isn't the first time Gamenova has used a technique that combines real-time CG with motion graphics.
Having gained experience with Command & Conquer and Biohazard, I've become increasingly adept at handling this aspect.
It's not that Lin Lixin didn't want to use CG.
Sometimes, CG can create visual effects that far surpass those of live-action filming.
But the CG technology of 1990 was, frankly, underwhelming.
Instead of going through all the trouble of creating a bunch of cheap-looking, plastic-looking CG animations, it would be better to just use live-action footage and post-production compositing.
A group of crazy artists and cutting-edge Hollywood- level audiovisual technology.
The final result is this opening animation that lasts less than 30 seconds.
Several luxury supercars flaunted their charm in front of the camera.
For a driver like Gordon, who harbors a dream of racing, the allure is no less than that of a group of glamorous women.
It might even be more attractive.
This is where the advantage of using real footage comes into play.
The sound of tires rolling over the road, the deformation of the tires and suspension, the flying gravel and pebbles...
Every detail matched my memory.
It was as if he himself was standing by the mountain road, watching a Chevrolet drive past him.
NEED FOR SPEED
The game's title reappears.
[Single-player game]
[MODEM Local Area Network Connection]
[Network unavailable: No ADSL high-frequency modem detected]
There's really nothing to say about the last two options.
Gordon can only play singles here.
Unlike many early racing arcade games, it doesn't have a fixed, pre-baked car body.
Need for Speed allows players to choose their own vehicles.
The Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 is listed first by default.
This made Gordon feel very welcome.
Although his car is just a Chevrolet production model, not a supercar brand like the Corvette.
But Chevrolet is the pride of United States, a national treasure!
In the field of sports cars and racing cars, the United States has been dominated by Europe for many years.
Without Chevrolet, they really wouldn't be able to hold their heads high.
This is probably a major reason why my family chose Chevrolet as our vehicle.
Gordon looked up at his stepfather, who was still busy repairing the car, and at his somewhat dilapidated comrade-in-arms.
Their attention quickly returned to the game.
Instead of immediately selecting the Corvette ZR-1, he tried switching between models to see which ones were available.
It would have been better if I hadn't looked at it, but upon closer inspection...
This lineup is truly terrifying.
It covers a wide range of performance cars from top automakers in the United States, Europe, and Japan.
It's not just supercars and luxury sports cars; there are also quite a few production performance cars and muscle cars included.
It's as if this game doesn't force players to win, but rather hopes that everyone can truly enjoy the fun of driving in the process.
But what really piqued Gordon's curiosity was the array of options on the vehicle selection screen.
[Overview][Performance][Components] History][Video]
Keep looking in that direction.
The first overview is roughly the vehicle's specifications; there shouldn't be anything particularly unique about it.
With that thought in mind, Gordon tried clicking on it.
But what it contained truly shocked him.
Everything from the price to the weight and dimensions is listed here.
Below is a Close-Up photo taken specifically for it.
Bro, the price is said to be...
The Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, a source of pride for United States manufacturing, is equipped with----
Suddenly, a narrator began to speak, passionately introducing the story and various details of the car.
You can even switch between different photos using the toggle button above.
Several Close-Up photos, including the exterior and interior, fully showcased the car to Gordon.
As he switched between modes, the narration recounted the glory and splendor of the Corvette ZR-1.
His passionate explanation was even more professional than the top salesman at the car dealership.
It felt less like playing a video game and more like reading an online version of Road & Track car magazine.
For a car enthusiast, this experience is truly novel.
As for [performance], the situation is similar.
The car's various performance specifications are listed here, along with narration explaining them.
The component options are even more damn awesome.
Each part, including the engine, transmission, tires, and body, has a complete description and explanation, and even thoughtfully includes black and white diagrams.
[History] is the section on the iteration of the car model, which includes photos of the changes in the body of each generation.
Honestly, if you don't consider its price, which is far higher than that of a magazine.
The contents of this car display case alone are well worth exploring.
This is an interactive electronic car magazine!
Is this the allure of new media?
While magazines offer a wealth of content, they can't bring everything to life like in a game.
Gordon's attention was already drawn to this content before he even started the game.
As for the final [video] function----
Just like its name suggests.
GAMENOVA filmed a dedicated 30-second Close-Up video for each car model.
Bro, renting a venue isn't easy, isn't it a bit of a waste to only shoot the opening CG?
Every model!
Thanks to the new engine's top-level texture compression technology implemented entirely at the assembly level, along with Vorbis lossy audio compression and lossy video compression.
GAMENOVA was able to cram a huge amount of live-action content and images onto a single small disc.
I crammed an entire sports car show into a 700MB file.
I carefully reviewed all the information about each car from beginning to end.
Gordon then snapped out of his dazed state.
When I came to my senses, almost an hour had passed.
The sky, which was just dusk, was now completely dark.
And he—he hadn't even started a single game!
"An amazing masterpiece—is this what Game Nova is all about?"
Gordon murmured.
He now understood why everyone rated Gamenova so highly.
The stepfather leaned against the workbench, took a sip from his cup, and stared speechlessly at the guy who had been reading a car magazine for an hour.
"Don't you think you should play a round before giving your opinion?"
"Oh right, I almost forgot."
Gordon slapped his forehead, realizing that this was a racing game, not a car magazine.
Compared to the incredibly detailed vehicle information, the choice of track was rather unremarkable.
Several tracks are loops designed entirely above ground using ground-based paving tools.
Although the textures and patterns heavily utilize real-world sampling, they are ultimately fictional.
Gordon randomly selected a 3- Eri- long mountain road, pressed the confirm button, and finally the game officially began.
The camera zooms in from a distance.
The distant mountains and forests, the other competitors nearby, and my own beautiful Chevrolet ----
Gordon's eyes widened instantly, and he immediately swore.
WTF?!
He did think that Need for Speed would probably be very exciting.
It's a Gamenova game after all.
A 3D racing game sounds awesome.
But he never imagined it would be this powerful.
The camera movement just now brought a realistic sense of three-dimensional space, thanks to the full 3D effect.
The depth of field and perspective effects that pseudo-3D can't replicate even with tremendous effort, and the shadow under the car, though just a black cube, is rendered in real-time.
Isn't the time span a bit too large?
The difference between true 3D and pseudo 3D can be clearly distinguished by the naked eye at a glance.
Those pixels that were blurred due to rendering issues, the incorrect perspective, and the poor sense of depth are all gone here.
The car's modeling accuracy is very high.
You can even clearly see your Chevrolet logo.
This is naturally thanks to the incredible texture compression technology brought about by the completely customized engine.
The entire car is not a true high-precision model.
To ensure smooth gameplay in 3D, the polygon count of the vehicle models is actually not high.
After modeling, the Industrial Light & Magic team performed multiple pruning and face reduction operations on the model.
However, because the new engine natively supports normal mapping, this car has three layers of textures applied to it.
The first layer is the car's own texture; the appearance of the paint, coating, logo, glass, and other parts are all determined by this.
The second layer is the normal map and ambient occlusion layer.
They determine the car's detailed performance.
The light-blocking effect of the door seams, the dark areas between the tires and fenders, and the various textures on the car body are all achieved by this layer.
Finally, there's the color and specular mapping.
Texture itself does not contain color. To color the texture of a car, a separate color layer is needed, which will determine the final color appearance of the car and the highlight effect.
With this technology, the same car can achieve a variety of different visual effects by changing its textures.
Lin Lixin wanted to incorporate modern PBR mapping technologies such as metallicity, roughness, displacement, and self-illumination in one go.
Unfortunately, the existing capabilities are already at their performance limit when handling just three layers.
But that's more than enough.
Even if it were achieved using only one layer of material like other manufacturers, it would still be an ultimate game-changer for the entire industry.