The key to the binary reproduction of the Corvette came in a box with a crew of two. In a darkened room a thin red beam of light shot from the box across the up on the rack Corvette, and relayed data through a three-quarter inch data cable snaking from the back of the black box on a tripod. Art and son Craig Morrison were both amazed.
"The first scan they did was the underside of the car. They did a pan of the chassis. As they were scanning it, in real time, there was a 3-D wireframe model being built of the car on the screen. You could actually see the relationship between the body mounts and the floor. You could see the exhaust and the clearance that the exhaust had. You could see the tread pattern on the tires, the horns, and all the fasteners holding those in place, the whole chassis, the headers, the oil pan - everything", said Craig.
After the bottom half of the car was scanned in the rack was dropped and the interior transferred into binary for a complete 3-D model.
"It was bizzare. A red line swept across the interior. It was sort of a spacey type of a deal. The room was somewhat dimly lit, and you would see this red line sweep across - bzzzzzzzzt. As soon as it finished it was producing a 3d wireframe model to scale on the screen", said Art.
When the scan was complete a full 3d model of the car was soon rotating around on the computer screen. With a click or two of the mouse the entire car began unfolding in three dimensions on a screen in front of Art and Craig's eyes. To fill in the wireframe back at GTHD central a four-person crew took video and still imagery of the car.
"They took video of me going through the gears, and the starting sequence of the car. Turning the wheel. Setting the e-brake. Pulling the hood release. Hi-beam Lo-beam. Everything." said Craig.
While the binary crew is likely to come along for some more work when the Vette goes out for track testing in April of 2007, the method in which actual car handling translates into accurate gameplay remains mysterious. Art Morrison asked the digital crew a question from an analog chassis builder perspective. "Obviously an F1 car handles better than a Toyota Corolla, but how do you make it handle better on the screen"?
The answer will remain a secret, but as the Gran Tursimo faithful know the cars on the screen really do handle like their genuine counterparts. To insure the car handles as it should the Project Manager on hand promised an advance digital copy of the Corvette to Art and Craig for an in-game handling test. Astounding is that it will likely take more hours to reproduce the digital version of the Corvette for Gran Turismo than did building the analog nuts and bolts version.
"They have a crew of 40 people that are going to spend the next six months building our car for the game. That's the amount of detail", said Craig.
