The MotorStorm ‘X-Movie’

Controversy and Sony-bashing aside for a sec, this was the world’s introduction to MotorStorm, a promo movie designed to encapsulate everything we wanted the game to be, provide a strong visual reference to developers (who didn’t even have first-gen PS3 dev kits at the time) and, of course, build hype for the game. All of which it did very successfully, even if (ahem…) we didn’t quite manage to squeeze 200,000 poly vehicles, 4k per channel vehicle textures and interior views into the game.

I built the yellow dune buggy in 3dsmax as my first proper task after joining Evo late in 2004, I’ve always loved Beetles so jumped at the chance to define the Buggy class. We established during production that licensed vehicles were not an option so my Baja Beetle evolved into the most aggressive looking, super-modified version of a Volkswagen I could imagine, a Baja Kubelwagen on trophy truck suspension.

I quickly involved myself in the visual feedback process during production of the promo, a job I increasingly did during my time at Evolution and later SCEE. Originally delivered at 720p, this version is from a 1080p re-render that management requested. I deconstructed the project files backwards from the After Effects comps and then re-rendered every pass (probably hundreds) in 3dsmax/V-Ray. It was a logistical nightmare that took about a month but taught me an awful lot about compositing, V-Ray, data management and Heath Robinson render farms.