Undercover's main car
Not long ago, Andy Blackmore, a member of the Need for Speed team, detailed on Speedhunters how he created the Hero car in this year's game.
Some of you may know that I work as a senior car concept artist on the car development team for Need for Speed. Our studio is located in downtown Vancouver. The main part of my job is developing cars and body parts; I also help with paint and decals. I'm going to talk about the process of developing a unique body element for one of the key cars in our game. I think this is the first time we've shown the development process outside of EA Blackbox.
At the very beginning of development on Need for Speed Undercover, we started getting acquainted with the cars our characters could drive and choosing the cover car. Since Porsche was on the cover of Need for Speed, we decided to use the iconic Porsche 911 for this game.
A unique aerodynamic kit was needed for the 997 GT2. In short, we needed to create an aggressive but elegant body kit. Yes, those were exactly the words! My task as senior artist was to turn that idea into something visible...
It was important not to disrupt the classic lines of the 911; besides, the kit had to be fully integrated, since in the real world there is a continuing trend away from sharply shaped body kits. Usually it takes about a day to come up with the overall idea for a body kit, so it was nice to have extra time to consider different shapes, which really paid off. I also wanted the kit to remain believable.
The first sketches are sketches of the front shapes. I had a clear idea of the rear and side views, but the front needed more study. For the rear, a large carbon diffuser and a large-mesh grille that holds the license plate were defined. I also designed a new rear wing that mounts on a modified GT2 trunk. The wing supports have large air intakes for the engine.
The Porsche 959 and Carrera GT influenced the side profile. Since the task was to create a wide body kit, I integrated a larger air intake on the rear fender, like on the Carrera GT, flowing smoothly into the joint with the main body. All of this catches highlights along the door. The front was a more complex task. Research showed that we needed not a modification of the old bumper to give it a new shape, but a completely new front bumper. Something striking was needed, something that would be unique to our product. As you can see, I focused on models that use typical radiators and cooling systems.
In the end I settled on a solution that was extreme but believable, with cooling for radiators, an intercooler and brakes, as well as an integrated splitter recessed for front-end aerodynamics. The new bumper protrudes further forward than the standard one, creating an aggressive (but elegant!) look. For believability, we also included the standard side lights and GT2/Turbo indicators. The new hood design for Undercover is exclusive to mid/rear-engine cars. It was inspired by GT1 and GT2 race cars.
Immediately after I finalized the design, it was sent to the Porsche Design Studio for approval. Fortunately, it was approved without changes. Phew!
Next, our modeling specialist Angelo Borrillo created the car model. After that, concept artist Mike Hayes, with assistance from Carl Jarrett, James Lau, and me, began selecting paint and decals. (I don't want to use the term "vinyl," since it's really not vinyl!)
Mike looked at several options, and we decided that first we needed to focus on various finish materials, while Carl checked how those materials would look in the game.
We paid attention to the increasingly popular finish on modern cars - Flat Black (matte black), sometimes called Satin or Murdered, which was inspired by Rat-Rod (decoration in a rusty, unattractive style). There was a smooth transition of this finish from Rat-Rod to the "muscle" cars of the '60s and finally to today's cars. I wanted to take this further, based on the different cars we've seen at SEMA over the past few years. There Flat Black was mixed with Gloss, which was an evolving trend.
This car needed to stand out, so we explored how different shades interact with matte black. Finally we settled on a dark red color that emphasizes the car's lines while not making them too prominent. This color gives the car sophistication and matches the image of the person who drives this Porsche. By the time the paint was approved, the model was complete. We were able to see the finished result in the game.
Article found by: Modeys
Source: http://needforspeed.com/portal/site/nfs/news/details/?contentId=94c8fb70374bd110VgnVCM1000005ce50a0aRCRD