When Gran Turismo meets BVLGARI: From video game to reality

When Gran Turismo meets BVLGARI: From video game to reality

The BVLGARI Aluminium Vision GT is the remarkable fusion of luxury watch craftsmanship and automotive design. Read more about this unique project and the pivotal role of Substance 3D Designer in bringing the digital and physical worlds together through design.

Polyphony Digital, the masterminds behind the iconic Gran Turismo games franchise, have long spearheaded the innovative Vision Gran Turismo program. This ongoing initiative invites top car manufacturers to craft their ultimate grand tourer concepts, merging real-world design with digital prowess. These visionary concept cars are then brought to life as full-scale models and made available in the Gran Turismo game, allowing players to test them on virtual tracks.

In a fresh twist for one of the latest Vision GT series releases, Polyphony Digital worked closely with two design powerhouses - acclaimed automotive designer Fabio Filippini and BVLGARI's renowned creative director, Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani. The result? A stunning concept car that draws inspiration from the bold, modern lines of the BVLGARI Aluminium watch, infusing the sleek aesthetics of vintage Italian sports cars with the timeless design principles of Italian Carrozzeria from the 1960s and '70s.

Fabio: I am an Italian car designer with a long international career in the design business, from advanced design to production, exterior and interior, and product design. After being the VP Design and Chief Creative Officer at Pininfarina for 7 years, I've decided to move to Tokyo to create my own company, ACCAEFFE Creative Consulting, specializing in Design Strategy and Design Advisory.

Asano: I'm Asano, the director of Polyphony Digital's Explore team. I'm in charge of collaborations and new business and have been involved in past Vision Gran Turismo projects. For more information, please visit our website.

Noguchi: I'm Noguchi, a CG artist and technical artist in the car modeling team. My main job is car modeling, but I also create tiling materials for cars and develop our material libraries. As a technical artist, I create support tools for the car modeling team using Substance 3D Designer and Python.

Matsumoto: I'm Matsumoto, a CG artist in the car modeling team. For this project, I oversaw some of the modeling and texturing for the BVLGARI Vision GT. Like Noguchi, I mainly work on car modeling, but I also create tiling materials for cars and develop our material libraries.

Vision Gran Turismo concept cars

Asano: The "Vision Gran Turismo" concept car series was planned as a celebration for GT users to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Gran Turismo.

The same 3D model was used for still renders, the cinematic reveal, and the car that you can drive in Gran Turismo 7. The full-scale concept car was made by an Italian company, and we submitted the game data as it was, solidified and curved. After that, they converted it into milling data and made a full-scale model.

When creating the textures for the BVLGARI VGT, the team mainly used Photoshop, Illustrator and Substance 3D Designer. We use Substance 3D Designer as our main tool, and most of the work can be completed there.

The BVLGARI Vision GT

Fabio: The idea for this BVLGARI VGT project originated from a casual exchange I had with Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani. I shared with him the idea of an unexpected collaboration with Gran Turismo for a virtual car, knowing his passion for car design and the innovative DNA of Bulgari Brand. The collaboration was surely unusual, but the motivation and interest from both companies showed a strong common background to share and fulfill the dream of such an extraordinary project.

From the beginning, the idea was intended to be totally original and coherent with the Bulgari Design DNA, but also matching the expectations of a successful virtual car for the Gran Turismo video game. The design connection with Bulgari watches was fundamental, yet it had to incarnate the essence of a real sports car. We wanted it to be a sort of archetype of Italian Design DNA, taking also inspiration from some of the best design concepts of Italian Carrozzeria from the late '60s and early '70s, a whole bunch of cars that Fabrizio, myself and the GT team, we all adore.

At the crossroads of luxury watch and automotive design

Fabio: The design of the car has been conceived with direct inspiration from the Bulgari Aluminium watch: an iconic product for the brand, originally created in 1998 as a sporty and easy to wear unisex watch. This means that the shapes and the design language of the car had to follow the same criteria of the watch design: pure and clean shapes, interlocking of geometrical volumes, archetypal proportions, and the same material and color scheme (brushed aluminium, titanium, black rubber, yellow and grey dials).

In particular you can find more visible design parallels on the following features: The front/rear interlocking between aluminum body and black bumpers parts have the same principles as in the watch case with the wristband; the wheels have a similar look like the side screws on the watch; the cockpit has a circular design on plan view that recall the watch dial; the seats have the center paddings that are similar to the segmented wrist-band; the instrument cluster is designed exactly as the watch dials. In any case, it wasn't a superficial "styling exercise" from a watch to a car, but rather a conceptual interpretation of design principles, innovations and materials transferred from a different product field to the one of car design, even though for a virtual game.

Lastly, a full-size mock-up was produced in a record time in Italy, by using and transforming all the 3D digital data for milling, and then assembled and handmade finished from the traditionally skilled car modelling craftsmen in Torino. I have to say that it was already so good from the digital design, that no major changes or adaptations where needed, even on the interior (which notably has a strong dependence from physical interactions with the driver), and the final result fully respected our best expectations.

This project was very special for many reasons. First, for its unusual association with a non-automotive company, and the intersection of design references from the watches design field to car design. Yet, the most exciting part was surely to see how these unusual associations could progressively incarnate into a design fully coherent and matching exactly our intentions. Not just a superficial mix of shapes and styling references, but the concretization of an innovative and original design. Also, I have to say that it has its own unique character, disrupting intentionally from the current conventional mainstream reigning on car design business. And that, in my humble opinion, is by itself already a very good quality.

From concept to 3D model

Noguchi: Let's take a quick look at each process with examples. First, we read the pattern and structure from the reference. We analyze the actual cars to get references for the cars we plan to include. We take photos of all the materials used and create materials by faithfully tracing the structure based on the information obtained from the photos.

When taking photos, we take photos from various angles and distances, and also take macro photos at the same time. I make a comprehensive judgment based on the impression I get from these and think about the direction of the texture.

First, I create a base height map. I bend and deform simple shapes and noise resembling fur with directional warp, then combined them to create the base braided height map.

By reusing this woven heightmap, we created each of the elements needed to replicate the material. By repeatedly transforming and blending, we build up nodes with a fairly simple configuration.

We use directional warps, mirrors, and more to move and transform it into the shape we need.

We will now composite all three height maps created by deriving from the base. We will repeatedly composite using normal blending and height blending, paying attention to the front-to-back relationship of each height map.

Now that we have the height map, we'll add the other elements to complete it. Normal maps/roughness maps/AO maps etc. are basically created by deriving them from the height map. For this reason, it's important to create the height map without any problems.

Once the data is prepared to a certain extent, it is output to the actual device, and while switching between multiple IBLs, we check whether the texture is created correctly in various environments, while improving the accuracy.

At this stage, multiple people check and adjust the color tone as we proceed. We also compare it with the actual image and adjust it. By going back and forth between Substance 3D Designer and the asset, we adjust each parameter to completion.

Matsumoto: For materials that require a certain degree of uniqueness but can be reused as data, we try save time by making them into templates or archives to a certain extent so that only minimal parameter adjustments are required.

We also have our own material library in-house, where almost all materials we have created in the past are stored, and there are cases where we source from there and use them.

Aside from the mesh expressions mentioned above, the buckskin material and stitching of the steering wheel, the seat belts, the BVLGARI logo on the watch, and the tread pattern of the tires were also created using Substance 3D Designer.

Matsumoto: The clock and meter displays on the top of the dashboard were also created and adjusted using Substance 3D Designer.

The sample data required for creation was provided by the companies, so it was not included in this process, but in most cases it was necessary to create meter textures from scratch, and in that case we also used Photoshop or Illustrator.

Currently, Substance 3D Designer has added path and spline nodes that can be used for these meter textures, so we are exploring whether we can incorporate them into our future workflow.

Noguchi: Carbon fiber is a highly versatile material that is often used in real cars, so we spend a lot of time on creating these materials. Gran Turismo 7 also has a feature called the "Livery Editor," which allows you to select from multiple carbon fiber patterns when custom painting.

For this reason, we started by examining the look development method in order to get the most realistic expression.

Gran Turismo has a function called "SCAPES" that allows you to place your car in scenery photographed from around the world and take photos.

Using this function, we took a photo of a real rolled-up carbon sheet in a park close to our office as reference material and compared it to the actual material for verification. The only tool we used for the carbon material was Substance 3D Designer.

Carbon fiber is a delicate material, so to avoid slight changes in each texture causing the texture to stray too far from the actual thing, we published only the parameters necessary for the changes and made careful adjustments.

Switch nodes are also built in to accommodate variations in weaving methods. The final quality check was carried out in-house, in an environment where the material samples on hand could be directly compared with the data from the physical car.

Matsumoto: When you brush Alcantara with your hand, the nap changes and creates a pattern.

To recreate this, we created multiple variations on the nap and blended them using a mask with an in-house layering material. We've also used this on the dashboard of the BVLGARI VGT.

Below are examples of masks used for vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and blending.

Noguchi: Embroidery is a time-consuming process, so we archive it using an SBSAR file so that any artist in the company can use it. For the archived data, designers prepare multiple grayscale images, and each designer can edit the parameters minimally using the Substance Player.

The direction of the thread is determined by an automatically created vector map, but it is also possible to improve accuracy by inputting a hand-drawn vector map. To make the data easier to maintain, we have separated it into a main function for placing the thread and a function for synthesizing the generated thread patterns. The thread is placed based on the input mask, and the main function of the embroidery generator.

Virtual content creation with Substance 3D Designer

Noguchi: Some cars are old and material samples are often not available, so we take macro photos during interviews and use them as references to create materials by faithfully tracing the structure.

In this way, even materials made completely digitally can be finished with a convincing texture thanks to the ease of iteration through node-based design and Substance 3D Designer's excellent UI.

Also, since variations of similar textures can be easily created by changing nodes and parameters, Designer is a very powerful tool that is indispensable for game production, which requires a large number of materials.

Matsumoto: Cars often have regular patterns to a certain extent, such as fabric and carbon, so Substance 3D Designer is the perfect tool for creating such things.

It is easy to adjust because it can be textured non-destructively and mathematically, and there is a certain degree of data reuse, so I feel that it is effective in terms of cost.

Not only in games, but in recent years, CG and video technology have developed rapidly, and I think that even higher quality will be required in the future, so I think that performance is one of the important points to meet expectations. For these reasons, I think there is no equivalent to using Substance 3D Designer.

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