Warsaw’s ATM Virtual Announces New Electric Driving Platform

ATM Virtual has developed a cutting-edge driving platform that accurately simulates vehicle motion for film and virtual production. Traditionally, stagehands manually rocked cars to mimic movement, but this new platform provides highly precise motion that syncs seamlessly with the camera. It can simulate high or low-frequency vibrations based on road conditions such as potholes, cobblestones, gravel, uneven terrain, and more. Each of the platform’s four corners can adjust 20cm up or down in one second, making it capable of replicating real road surfaces with unmatched accuracy.

While the core technology has been used in flight simulators for decades, ATM Virtual has customised it specifically for vehicles. The platform is mobile, mounted on wheels, and can be repositioned easily within the studio. It allows for quick car loading and unloading—around 10 minutes per vehicle—making it possible to use multiple cars in a single shoot day. The weight limit is about two and a half tons although it has successfully supported a Tesla weighing three tons. The platform also captures a vehicle’s inertia using an inertial measurement unit (IMU), enabling precise motion replication. Additionally, it can extract motion data from pre-recorded footage supplied by clients, ensuring that each car model's physics, including suspension response, is accurately recreated.

The platform integrates with Unreal Engine for real-time, interactive motion simulation. This allows for dynamic adjustments, including surface textures, lighting changes, speed, acceleration, and even the car’s angle and direction. This means filmmakers can modify elements in real-time, enhancing creative control over the scene’s physics and visual effects.

There are a couple of ways of leveraging the platform. Firstly, the team can record or access footage of real-world streets and driving environments. If the client is in Germany but wants an American or Asian roads and scenery, we can use this footage as a video background on our LED walls. Then, we can also use Real-Time Unreal Engine Simulation,  which allows for fully interactive environments at 25 or 50 FPS, enabling real-time changes to lighting, textures, and physics while the platform reacts instantly to road conditions.  The environments can also be AI generated, pushing creative boundaries..