Racing to the Miami Grand Prix - The FC100 F1 VIP Racing Simulator
The Ask:
Our good friend Jeff Wolfe at Nervy Pictures called one day in late March and asked “Can you make a custom F1 Simulator in less than a month?” It seemed like a ridiculous request, but considering we had just finished a pod racer and just started on a NASCAR simulator, we felt it made perfect sense to make it a hat trick.
But the job was much bigger than just a simulator. Nervy had partnered with The Mayda Creative Co to deliver something truly engaging for their client, FC100. They were after an entire competitive event, with player registration, a digital waitlist/queue, custom backend database, a 22 foot wide video wall showing each player’s game, and a custom video playthrough edited together and shared with each attendee on the same day, as close to real time as possible. And it all had to be designed, programmed, debugged and rehearsed before the F1 Miami Grand Prix started on May 2nd. Start to finish, we had 31 days for the entire production, including weekends (which we needed).
The Solution:
We structured the production in 3 teams: game design, video wall production and app/backend development. All coordinated by Kate Leo and her incomparable team of producers, and designed/engineered by Andrew and myself at MotR.
The F1 Simulator Game:
The game logic was based on Epic Games’ wildly robust UE 5 chaos vehicle system. It was the same system we had been using to develop our Nascar simulator, so we were fairly familiar with the structure. The system provides tons of real world automotive settings like torque and gear ratio, so you can arrive at the correct over vehicle feel. The game hardware (Fanatec) we were using also provided excellent force feedback and haptic options. Our first hurdle, however, was getting that game hardware to work with UE5. There was no built-in support, so we sourced a 3rd party joystick plugin and updated its source code to work with UE 5.6 (It hadn’t been compiled beyond 5.2). With that in hand, our dev team was able to tune the wheel and car performance to be as close to the real F1 feel as possible while still being playable for the average VIP attendee, no matter what age.
The track was another challenge. We needed a track that felt like the Miami Hard Rock track, but it also needed to show off Related Ross’ buildings throughout Miami, and show billboard content that told some of the story of the FC100 Ambition Accelerated campaign; a business development opportunity throughout Florida’s Gold Coast. Our modeling and surfaces team was able to integrate architectural and CAD assets from Mayda and Related into UE for use in our game, while maintaining the high performance demands of the real time game we were developing. We were then able to tune the layout and landscape of the track to meet co-Executive Creative Director Ben Smith’s creative vision through zoom calls and screen shares with Mayda’s London HQ. The final refinement didn’t happen until the last week, however, when we were on site with Nervy and Mayda in the Hard Rock Stadium Paddock Club, where Ben and the Mayda team could test out the game for themselves and make sure it fit exactly what they were after. In one very enjoyable session, Ben was able to color correct the sky, lighting and time of day for the game on the 22 foot video wall where it would be played back for attendees to watch.
The Video Wall:
With the help of Kevin Christopher, our leading authority on LED technology and video wall/nDisplay/Resolume workflows, we were able to quickly stage a massive 22x11 ft video wall to present the experience to everyone who wasn’t in the driver's seat. Our system incorporated live NDI feeds coming from each game pod which we could dynamically switch between during the event. The main feed gave us the players performance from their perspective. In addition to that, we developed a series of broadcast cameras throughout the track which would automatically track the player as they passed them. The cameras were designed to match the actual broadcast angles and follow cams being used in the F1 Miami Grand Prix happening just outside the Paddock club. The result leant an authenticity to the screen and game experience essential to the creative success of the project. Kevin sat in our pit crew on the side of the installation, with a custom control rig that allowed him to choreograph the game broadcast as if it was a real sports event. We even added a selfie camera to the pods, so we could show the players reaction as they barreled down the straight-away at 320km/h. These feeds were simultaneously recorded using hyperdecks and synced with our editors offsite, to be used in the creation of the custom player videos that would quickly be shared back to each player. The end result of all this architecture was a truly vibrant gaming experience that drew plenty of spectators to watch as competitors vied for the top spot on the live leaderboard.
The Back End:
In order to properly manage the 500 players we had throughout the 3 day event, we needed a reliable and robust system to onboard, track and notify each competitor throughout their onsite experience, as well as manage their access to the leaderboard and their personal playthrough video afterwards. With the help of Brian Bird, we were able to develop a robust database using Pocketbase for the backend and Docker for the front. That system was run on a local NUC at the event, to ensure consistent performance. Brian also helped us create a custom UE plugin for the game, which took player onboarding information and race start triggers directly from the presenters iPads, then pulled race times to add to the leaderboard and reported back each player's standing, all for a seamless racer experience that felt bespoke to the player. The system also allowed the presenters to reset games that were started before racers were ready, or place players back in the middle of the track if they wandered too far off course or crashed.
The system also incorporated a digital waitlist, so players would know when their turn came up. It presented an estimate based on the average play time per player and the place of each player in the queue, and sent out a text message alerting them when their turn was approaching. This same communication system was used to send players to a personal webpage which showed their standing in the leaderboard, and had a link to their downloadable, shareable playthrough video.
The Net Result:
In 3 days, we had 487 full playthroughs, and plenty of close contenders for the top spot. The game was played continuously throughout the weekend on two simulator pods, with zero downtime and crashes. The result was exactly the bespoke VIP racing experience Nervy, Mayda and FC100 had asked for, produced in 1 month.
Looking forward to seeing how we can top that for next year's race…
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