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WipEout Quantum Levitation Video – Why It’s Fake

I recently posted about the Controlled Quantum Levitation on a Wipe’Out Track video that appeared on YouTube over the Christmas period which I think signalled the start of Sony’s advertising campaign for wipEout 2048 on the PS Vita. I asked our resident graphics expert who has worked in the videogames industry for 13 years to comment on the video.

Expert Opinion:

I had seen convincing footage of quantum levitation a previous YouTube video which was doing the rounds in 2011 so I wasn’t initially suspicous of this being fake at all. Also being a big fan of the wipEout games I really wanted this to be real. But there were a number of triggers that broke the illusion for me:

  1. The grey track – The way this was shadowed was a dead give-away. Anyone who has rendered grey objects in a 3D modelling program with ambient occlusion would recognise the way the shadows look. In some shots you can see white trim to track edge against the shadows below. This is probably a compositing issue where theres a gap in the alpha, with the white colour of the table showing through.
    2. wipEout Quantum - White Track Rim

    Look for the white rim around the outside of the track

  2. The smoke – It can be seen to render on top of track parts that it should be under at certain times. For example, at 0.51 the smoke goes over archway. At 1.02 the smoke is on top of track wall and at 1:14 again on corner, smoke under the wall appears over it.
    wipEout Quantum - Smoke Through Walls

    The smoke trail goes right through the track

  3. WipEout font – At 0:12 there is a great cross section drawing of the track which had the words wipeout:quantum at the bottom using the wipeout font. This isn’t a standard font you have lying around on your computer.
    4. wipEout Quantum - wipEout Font

    Here is the wipEout font

  4. Ship placement – At 0.45 the way the ship is placed on the track looked very weird.
    5. wipEout Quantum - Ship Placement

    It's like he's not really holding the ship

If you get really picky then there are lots of other clues in the video to show that this is not real. There is some poor fake `Engrish` which doesn’t match how a Japanese speaking person would normally misspell english. Why were the nametags blurred out? That doesn’t really make sense. Also why is someone taking notes on a clipboard while the track piece is being shown? Were they trying to make it look all sciencey.

One thing I really did like was the seemingly hand-drawn wipEout text on the table, that was a very nice touch. Still, it’s a lot of fun and a great idea for a toy one day once they really work out how to do it. Based on this video, that might not be too far away.

There you go. Lots more evidence pointing to the fact that the video is fake. Adweek also thinks it’s fake. Still, I can’t wait to play wipEout 2048 on the PS Vita next month.

I also chatted with some of the wipEout 2048 developers on twitter about the video. You can read their responses here.

Update 21st Jan 2012: This video has now been confirmed as fake on the WipEout 2048 Facebook page.

WipEout 2048 is released on the 22nd Feb 2012 in US and Europe and on the 19th Jan 2012 in Japan for the PS Vita.