[WEC] Porsche Prototype Discussion

[Richard C]

I love this speculation so I will jump in as well.

Overall, and as others have mentioned, I think this is about using CGI to wrap a different livery on the video they shot that day.

I think the small dot are registration marks. The "color palette" is not a proposed palette for the livery, but a rather a color correction palette (similar to what you would see bolted to the exterior on a Mars lander). I don't know the technical details, but while I think you can do that type of color correction from a known grey sample, I think having specific known colors makes it easier. Or easier when the lighting parameters are not controlled like they might be in a studio.

I can see two likely scenarios...

First, for sponsors who would like to see what a proposed livery would look like, they can see the car in motion, with color correctness, etc. but without having to physically paint the car. They can use this and they can also illustrate an infinite number of potential variations of livery under the same exact lighting scenarios. It would be great for A/B comparisons. Note how they shot video that did slow pans over the entire car so you can see the entire thing. I expect they also have a mixture of close up and distant shots. They could even use this to shop around for additional sponsors (here is what the car would look like with your logo, your color palette used in the livery...)

Second (and maybe in addition to the first), they can use this for future PR movies much like the one we just saw. Imagine one with a voice over of "we are moving from the garage to the track" and having the car change from the testing "dazzle camouflage" to a photo realistic livery, on the fly right before you eyes, but with such quality, that you can't even tell it was CGI. That same PR could be used by both Porsche as well as by whoever is the primary sponsor.

Richard