Virtual Mechanix specializes in crafting completely realistic 3D representations of vehicles for racing car videogames, such as SEGA Rally Revo © SEGA of America.

Guys and cars. Guys and videogames. It's an obvious fit, and for Chris Wise, founder and president of Virtual Mechanix -- a company that specializes in creating 3D cars for video games and simulations -- it's also a passion and a calling.

"I've always been interested in art and once 3D became available on the PC, it quickly got my attention," says Wise. "Combining this medium with my love of cars, I found the perfect outlet to get my creative juices flowing. Around this time there was some great racing titles starting to appear on the PC and I knew that I had to be a part of it. It's really grown from there."

Wise adds that the dream 3D car that he would like to design "would have to be some kind of road-going F1 car... one where the driver is a part of the car." In real life, Wise drives a Mazda MX5 and a Honda Civic Type-R. "I love small go-kart-like cars that handle well," he insists.

Wise first began modeling cars as a professional at Torus Games, where he created cars for a racing-combat game called Carmageddon TDR 2000. A short time later, he started freelancing and founded Australia-based Virtual Mechanix.

As the name suggests, Virtual Mechanix specializes in crafting completely realistic 3D representations of vehicles for racing car videogames, such as Atari/Milestone Studios' Racing Evoluzione (a.k.a. Apex in the U.S.), Microsoft Game Studios/Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 2, 3 and 4, and SEGA Racing Studio's SEGA Rally Revo. After Wise began to freelance, Bizarre Creations noticed his skill with SOFTIMAGE|XSI (Wise's software of choice) and asked him to produce cars for its then-upcoming game, Project Gotham Racing 2.

As demand for his 3D car-designing skills continued to accelerate, Wise realized that he could not continue to do all of the modeling on his own. Wise turned to the global marketplace to find other modelers with game experience, knowledge of SOFTIMAGE|XSI and a passion for cars. He recruited colleagues and XSI artists with whom he had networked through other jobs, and he also turned to contacts that he had made at industry trade shows such as SIGGRAPH, GDC and fmx. Wise connected with professionals through XSI Base.com as well.

Chris Wise is able to combine his interest in art, 3D and cars with Virtual Mechanix. When racing titles began to appear on PC, it became the perfect outlet for his creative juices.

Virtual Garage
While Virtual Mechanix is based in Australia, it can be described as a virtual garage -- and a virtual studio.

"I guess you could us a virtual studio," agrees Wise. "The number of artists working at any given time can vary due to our workload. We generally have around 15 artists working full-time, four to five of whom are based here in Australia, and the rest are located in various parts of the world, including the UK, the US, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Germany and China."

James De Colling, who worked for Atari Melbourne House in Australia and now resides in Japan, is one such member of the team. "I can work whatever times I want, which gives me flexibility to do things with my family whenever we choose," De Colling comments in company material. "Also, the fact that Virtual Mechanix is centered on cars brings together very like-minded people."

Still, with many Virtual Mechanix artists scattered around the globe, a key challenge for Wise is to maintain uniformity in the output. Wise says that he no longer personally designs cars; instead, he spends his time supervising and coordinating the work of his team.

"Uniformity is extremely important when operating in a virtual studio environment, so we have guidelines that we must adhere to in order to maintain uniformity and consistency," Wise continues. "First and foremost is working with artists who are not only capable of producing the quality of work we expect, but who are self disciplined, know how to organize themselves and possess a high level of maturity. Good communication and sharing of information and techniques is vital."

On average, the Virtual Mechanix team produces 50 to 100 cars per game title. To minimize the complexity that that volume of work can create, Wise tries to ensure that each project starts with detailed information from the client. This usually consists of a game design document, a list of cars to produce for the game, deadlines for producing each car and the platform constraints to which each model must adhere. In addition, each car comes with digital reference material, such as photos, CAD models and blueprints.

"Internet access is obviously the most important aspect of this type of business, for both communication and delivery of art assets," Wise notes. "The car-building process is pretty straight-forward, in that our clients supply us with all the reference material we require."