Synapse Roadwork™
Car process, made dynamic: wide shots on stage with the road and wheels moving at speed.
Car process, made dynamic: wide shots on stage with the road and wheels moving at speed.
Barriers Eliminated.
On an LED stage, the vehicle is static, swaying at best, and the ground doesn't move. Roadwork was created to expand the shots we can achieve on stage: no longer limited to close and medium sizes, but pulling all the way out to show the tires, the ground and the surrounding environment. This Synapse Create process replaces the road and ground plane in post, so a static car sits seamlessly within the dynamic, moving environment around it. The in-camera performance, lighting, reflections and camera moves stay exactly as shot.
Real Environments. New Road.
Real-world photography delivers the most convincing backgrounds and dynamic reflections on an on-set picture vehicle and talent, and car process on Synapse's seamless LED volume excels at it, especially with our moving driving plates. Roadwork builds on that realism and extends the environment to show the vehicle meeting the moving ground, complete with turning wheels and the right motion blur.
Road Moves. Wheels Match.
A moving road with static wheels would break a shot instantly. Roadwork replaces the wheels so their motion matches the ground speed, with the appropriate motion blur. The existing lighting and dynamic reflections are retained, and moving road reflections are added to complete the illusion. The static vehicle reads as genuinely driving, not parked.
Lit Like The Take.
Roadwork doesn't paste a road in. The new ground follows the light of the original take: the dynamic light and shadows cast around the car, the road reflections and interactive light across the bodywork, all matched to what the volume threw on set. The performance, the lens and the camera move stay exactly as shot, so the wide reads as one photographed moment.
See For Yourself.
The same performance, the same lens. One version sits still on the stage floor. The other drives, road and wheels moving together at speed.
Road and wheel replacement for wide car process shots, finished in post.
Car process,Road & wheel replacement,Wide framing
Road & wheel replacement.
Static car / moving world
Car process, made dynamic
Wheels that actually turn
Matched to the original photography
Before and after, same take
Talk to us about Roadwork
Send us your driving plates and we'll show you the shot, wide.
Put Roadwork on your next shoot
Car process is a staple use of virtual production. Shooting actors in vehicles on stage against moving backgrounds displayed on LED screens offers myriad advantages over shooting actors in a car on location in the wild: a completely controlled environment for lighting, sound and security, while the actors see the road and react naturally, immersed in the scene. The plates provide real reflections and interactive lighting across faces, windows, chrome, dashboards and the vehicle's sheet metal. The only drawback to shooting on a stage: as soon as you see the vehicle's tires not moving, or the static stage floor, the illusion is shattered.
Until now.
Synapse Roadwork is a live-action and AI hybrid process for expanded driving shots. Roadwork seamlessly replaces the stage floor with an appropriately motion-blurred road surface while animating the vehicle's wheels. The original on-set photography, performance and camera movement are retained; only the parts that shatter the illusion are augmented, with perfectly scene-matched enhancements.
Why wide car process shots break on an LED stage
Virtual production car process can be highly convincing in tight coverage. The actor is lit by the environment, the reflections envelop the car and the performance is real, all captured live, in camera. Go wider, however, and two things quickly give the shot away: the wheels are not turning, and the ground under the car is not moving.
Traditionally that limits the shots that can be achieved on the volume, confining car work to close and medium sizes and pushing the wider shots to a separate location-based unit, with all the cost, permits and safety exposure that comes with driving for real.
A moving background with static wheels and floor breaks the shot instantly.
How Roadwork replaces the road
Roadwork replaces the static stage floor with a moving road surface beneath and around the vehicle, and seamlessly blends it with the content on the LED wall. Everything captured in camera is retained: the interactive lighting from the volume, the reflections rolling across the paint and glass, the actor's performance and the camera operator's move. Only what breaks the illusion is replaced: the ground, the dynamic light and shadows cast around the car, and the road reflections and interactive lighting on the bodywork.
Wheels that turn at road speed
Road replacement alone is not enough. If the ground moves but the wheels sit still, the shot reads as false, a bad composite. Roadwork replaces the wheels so their rotation matches the ground speed, with the right motion blur and interactive contact with the terrain. That is the detail that closes the gap between a parked car and a driving one.
What Roadwork delivers
- Road replacement: the ground plane replaced and blended with the LED wall
- Animated wheels: rotation and motion blur matched to ground speed
- Matched interactive lighting: the new ground follows the source footage's illumination
- Original photography retained: performance, lighting and reflections as shot
- Even wider framing: shot sizes the volume alone could not hold
Where Roadwork fits in the car process pipeline
Roadwork is a post-production, hybrid VFX and AI finishing process, not a capture method. It starts with good source: a vehicle shot on the LED volume with a high-quality driving plate imaged behind it. That source footage then drives all of the road and ground extension, the wheel animation and the matched lighting. When the floor needs the same treatment off the road, see Groundwork under SetExtend.