Making a Drift Racer’s Dream Come True with Intel Core 14th Gen HX-Series Processors
By Larry Chen
Larry Chen is a world-renowned car culture and commercial automotive photographer from Los Angeles. And now he is sharing with us his latest project, using the power of Intel Core 14th Gen HX-series of mobile processors. . Take it away Larry…
For many years, I've joked with my friend Khyzyl Saleem that it's completely unfair that he can create cars and photograph them in the digital world, limited only by his imagination.
Meanwhile, I find myself doing my best in the physical world, photographing cars that exist in real life.
One of the significant reasons I love working with Khyzyl is that he excels at what he does, and his creations are sometimes out of this world. In the past, I've photographed cars he created in the digital world that eventually became real project cars.
I even commissioned him to design something for the largest gathering of car enthusiasts in the world, The SEMA show—an impressive 750hp Ford Mustang that I absolutely loved. When Intel reached out to me with the idea of art directing a car photoshoot in the 3D virtual world, I knew Khyzyl would be my first call.
We came up with a concept that is very near and dear to my heart: the idea was to build my personal car, a 1970 Datsun 240z, but in another dimension.
I bought my car for $3000 when I was just 20 years old. So much has changed since then, as I've raced it, broken it, and fixed it. Now, after all this time, it's fully restored to a brand-new car.
It has become a significant part of my identity in the car culture world—the vehicle I am most known for.
Right now, it sits in my garage gleaming with all the bells and whistles; it even has air conditioning and a nice sound system. But what if, in this alternate universe, I turned it into a badass drift car?
I've been photographing drifting for about 17 years before I decided to get behind the wheel of my own drift car. I've often said that I'm bummed out that I didn't start earlier because it's just so much fun.
So, what if, in this alternate universe, I started drifting way earlier and actually shipped the car to Japan to drive on those famous circuits where the sport was originally born? The most famous "drift" circuit of all is Ebisu in Fukushima Prefecture. Out of all the race tracks at Ebisu, none are more well-known than the Minami circuit, which featured a drift jump. Yes, there was a feature on the course that allowed drivers to get all four wheels off the ground while completely sideways!
Unfortunately, a few years ago, the track itself was demolished. Now, all that remains is the dirt that was underneath that pavement. While you can still drive on it, the original track that we all fell in love with is not the same.
I picked Khyzyl's brain and asked him if it was possible to build a crazy 240z in the digital world and also recreate the old Ebisu Minami track in 3D, along with a very iconic photo of professional driver Daigo Saito getting massive air. However, in this scenario, it would be with my alternate universe 240z.
He was up for the challenge, using his MSI Raider GE78 HX, which is powered by an Intel Core™ i9 processor (14th Gen).
The project took a few months. We started with the concept while I was in Los Angeles, and he was in London.
He then visited my shop in Los Angeles a few weeks later to see the real car in person and shoot some reference photos.
By then, he already had a basic 3D model sourced online and had started building my car in 3D in its current state. I’ll let Kyza chime in on some of the details:
“To begin, I used 3D Modelling software, Autodesk 3ds Max, to get the car model and basic environment ready; I used this as my basis for everything, starting with the car itself. I always like to start with a solid base and use it as a blueprint, so to speak, to start modeling my own design. In combination with 3ds Max, I used Chaos Corona rendered as my preferred render engine.” -Kyza
He went all out by designing his own one-off body kit for it. Using a wide array of software, including Autodesk 3ds Max and many of my favorite Adobe products like Photoshop and Lightroom, as well as Substance Painter, he created an incredible model of what my car would look like in that crazy alternate universe.
“I took the car body kit design I created into Adobe Substance Painter to paint in the small details like dirt, dust, wear and also for decals to get Larry's car to resemble his real world machine, to which I then imported these textures back into 3ds Max.” -Kyza
He then created the track entirely from scratch.
“For the creation of the environment, I also used Adobe Photoshop and Generative Fill powered by Firefly AI to create the ground texture for the road, curbing, tire marks, etc. This was all painted within Photoshop itself.” -Kyza
The finishing touches were added in Adobe Photoshop once the render was complete, matching our reference photo, which was actually a screen grab from what was shown on television all those years ago.
“Once I rendered out a base render, I then took this into Photoshop to composite together, with the use of Photoshop's latest AI features helping me really capture those detail of the original image. I also used this to create a blurred "action" moment, painting in small details to really bring the image together as a whole. I saved this out as a 16bit Tiff image and put this into Lightroom to grade!" -Kyza
He showed me for the first time when we were both in Tokyo, at a car meet, of all places, and I was completely and utterly blown away.
You can see my genuine reaction in the full video, which is available on YouTube at the Larry Chen Channel here.
Learn more about the MSI Raider GE78 HX at MSI.com.