Sidepodcast

3D Formula One Goes Virtual Insanity

There was a brief moment during the coverage of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix when our minds were completely blown, and it wasn't when the fancy hotel changed from a dark blue hue to a slightly more orange one.

A few laps into the race, during the usual start replay sequence, the screen froze and a graphical representation of the field replaced the real video. A virtual camera then began to fly through the scene, from the front of the grid to the very back, passing every car as it did so.

Christine and I sat through the whole 20 second sequence with mouths agape, stunned at what we'd just witnessed. The live comments covering that moment retell the story rather well. There's no doubt in my mind that this will significantly kick Formula 1 coverage up a gear.

Unfortunately, nothing of any huge significance happened at the first corner, which is a shame. This meant a number of people were left scratching their heads as to what the point of showing it was. My guess is we were looking at a proof-of-concept that needed some real world testing before the season was done. On that front the technical execution was carried out flawlessly, and subtly dropped in amongst the standard replays.

To make the effect happen, I'm guessing a fixed camera was mounted high above the circuit and GPS data used to place the cars relative to each other. The scene was rendered with the correct liveries assigned and a camera flown through it. Not a cheap effect to produce, but well within Formula One Management's budget I'm sure.

At the moment, with such a brief look at the possibilities, one can only raise more questions. For example:

• Can the virtual camera be controlled manually, or will a predetermined path be assigned pre-race?
• How is the direction of a driver's helmet obtained, and was Webber really looking so far to the left?
• Can the initial overhead camera be positioned anywhere on the circuit or will it be limited to first corner action?
• Will broadcasters have any access to this technology beyond simply commentating on what they see?

Questions aside and looking at the bigger picture, if this technology gets a full rollout next season, imagine how much easier it would be for stewards to make judgement calls if they could fly around the scene of an accident at their leisure. How useful this could be for teams during post-race debriefs, and then imagine how much easier it would be for us watching at home to figure out what in the world happened during a moment of chaos.

If you didn't catch it the first time, or wouldn't mind seeing it again please watch the following video with an open mind. It's not so much what you are seeing, as what you could potentially be seeing.

If that footage was created at Monaco, you could see instantly who'd cut the chicane and penalise them appropriately. It no longer matters if a television director misses an incident, so long as the data is accurate (and we can only guess at measures of accuracy right now), the calls should be straightforward and more importantly, they should be almost instant.

I mentioned earlier that F1 needs to improve its coverage online, and I do think on that front it has a long way to go. However, in terms of the visual experience from the World Feed, the sport is heading in the right direction. This year we saw the return of ghost car overlays, we saw thermo-cam go mobile as it wandered around the pits in a predator-esque fashion and we saw more detail in the on-screen graphics that get shown during quiet periods.

No doubt further improvements can be made, and it's hard to know if FOM or FOTA are driving these changes. I do know that I like what I see, and I'd like to see even more of it in 2010 please.

Breaking Virtual Ground

Back in February, Red Bull Racing released an F1 season preview animation entitled Rip Through the Rule Book which featured tour guide Sebastian Vettel covering the important changes in the 2009 regulations. The video was not only massively popular and but also of such quality that we ended up using it twice before the season began.

Recently Maxon, the software company whose Cinema 4D tools were largely responsible for bringing the animation to life, released a behind-the-scenes look at what went into making the production. Tomorrow, AixSponza the creative force that assembled most of the 3D motion for the project, are hosting a workshop at the FMX09 conference in Germany, dedicated to discussing the rendering and compositing involved. That's a lot of talk about a 110 second Formula 1 video.

Initially, we thought the team had hit upon a pretty neat way of explaining a complicated set of rule changes, but the more we learn about the project, the more groundbreaking it appears to have been.

While AixSponza handled the majority of the animation work, Peter Clausen Film & TV oversaw the project's production. The two had previously collaborated on Red Bull's Singapore preview film back in 2008, and managed to reuse much of what they'd created back then. Additionally, RBR were able to provide original CAD data to form the basis of the car. However, during production, the look of the '09 chassis was continuously evolving as 3D work got under way. By all accounts, the problems associated with having the single focus of attention in a continual state of flux, required some innovative use of technology to overcome.

It's a credit to Red Bull that Formula 1 is able to innovate just as much off track, as it does in head-to-head competition. Hopefully the success of the production will inspire the team to invest more time and money into similar ventures in future, although it is a shame that the team who did the best job of explaining how KERS works, have yet to offer that same technology to its drivers.

As a final point, it's nice to see the Cinema 4D software scaling up to create such fantastic looking projects. The spinning earth and various animated flags used within last year's Inside Track videos were created using the very same toolset. If only the creative talent was as easy to come by.

Formula 1 Telefónica Grand Prix of Europe

The Valencia Circuit Blog today reports that this year's European Grand Prix will be sponsored by the Spanish telecom giant Telefónica.

The company are already title sponsors for the proper Spanish Grand Prix, so it doesn't come as a massive surprise that they'd be interested in a second race - especially after more than 38,000 people turned up to watch a test session last week.

Of note, it does appear that not everybody is as thrilled about the prospect of a race through the Spanish streets as we are though. Earlier today hundreds of protesters arrived in the city on bicycles, protesting about the necessary port redevelopments. The arguments against the race included:

• There's a perfectly good circuit just up the road.
• Construction congestion is making eveyone unhappy, and costs are impacting on public service expenditure.
• Formula 1 isn't a particularly green sport and they'd rather not be associated with it, ta very much.

At least I think that's what they were saying, you can read more on the aforementioned blog. If your Spanish is better than mine, please feel free to correct or add anything I've overlooked (or got plain wrong).

Alonso originally argued that Ricardo Tormo would be a better place to hold the GP when the street circuit was first announced, and seeing as 10 Formula One teams just spent 3 days driving around the place, it can hardly be said to be in bad shape.

Regardless, what Bernie wants, Bernie gets and a street race it shall be. Indulge yourselves then, with this gorgeous 3D taster of a quick lap around F1's latest circuit:

Of note, the simulation lap time runs in at 1:43 which is a touch slower than the predicted 1:37, but not bad considering it's a 5.473 km track consisting of 25 corners and this orange beauty corners like a Challenger 2 tank!