McLaren vs Aerodynamics: Behind The Scenes

Light painting has been around for decades – but it has never been put into full motion. Until now. We started by processing wind tunnel airflow data using custom-designed software to produce a 1,000-frame 3D animation. We then sliced each frame into 650 individual frames to produce a 3D space, a bit like a medical CAT scan. Then we filmed it, using two motion control rigs in a large studio. One had a plasma screen mounted on it, while the other was fitted with a digital stills camera. The plasma screen was then used as a moving 3D light printer while the camera shot the resulting footage using long exposure photography. We did this 1,000 times for each frame, moving the camera a tiny amount each time to show movement. We then rendered the images. Twice. Rendering 1.3 million frames takes up a lot of storage space and time: 1.3 Terabytes and 3,600 hours, to be exact. Why did we go to all this trouble? Because we are McLaren. And because it’s worth it…