2027 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Global Reveal
UE5 packaged build, pixel streaming to Chevrolet.com webpage
Alberto Rosado | Property of General Motors 2026
Summary
As a Visual Artist at General Motors Design in Warren Michigan, I was given the opportunity to redefine how a GM high-end vehicle configurator could be experienced. With this objective in mind, and within the confines of the ability to deliver by the deadline of the official global reveal, the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport configurator came to fruition.
Utilizing Unreal Engine 5, I lead the development of the project by owning responsibilities such as authoring design and technical documents, creating UE5 project and Procedural Content Generation templates, collaborating with tech artists, art directors, brand managers, and stakeholders. As the primary Visual Artist for this project, I was responsible for leading the art direction, designing, lighting, and polishing the environment, lighting the vehicle, creating vehicle configuration logic, implementing vehicle animations, cinematography, project optimization, and setting up the project for pixel streaming.
Development Information
Role: Visual Artist @ General Motors Design
Tools: Unreal Engine 5, Blender, Substance 3D Painter, Photoshop, Illustrator, Perforce (P4V)
Duration: December 2025 - March 2026
Themes: Automotive, Vehicle Configurator, Environment Art
Status: Shipped
”…we’ve finally summoned the willpower to peel our eyes away long enough to spread the word: …hidden a few clicks deep is the best vehicle configurator the Bowtie Brand has ever unleashed on the day of a major product announcement.” -Alex Sommers, Say Goodbye to Productivity
GIF as seen on Chevrolet.com
Alberto Rosado | Property of General Motors
The 2027 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport configurator includes several build options that allow the user to create bold custom vehicle combinations. These options include body style, body paint, interior color themes, seat options, aero packages, wheel options, caliper colors, and stripes and graphics. Creation of the vehicle configuration logic required me to gain a technical understanding of Corvette vehicle configuration codes to quickly implement custom logic for option dependencies within UE5’s variant manager and data tables. I implemented game events, mechanics, and animations using blueprint scripts and animation sequences created inside Unreal.
Some technical features, like vehicle and camera blueprint systems, were created in close collaboration with a Technical Artist. One of these features includes navigating the user to a customization category’s respective camera angle when switching between different categories, giving the user the ability to pivot and zoom in or out on the focus area. With the responsibility of cameras and composition, I implemented camera framing and movement limitations to ensure a product accurate representation that satisfied General Motors Chevrolet brand guidelines; this was supported through iterations and rounds of reviewing with Marketing Managers, Art Directors, and Product Specialists. Dynamic animations like the convertible rooftop and doors opening/closing allow the user to have a more vivid visualization as to how their custom color selections will read during daily use.
As the primary Visual Artist, I lead the art direction by applying my prior experience as environment artist and game designer to prioritize and execute highest priority tasks, while delegating lower priority tasks to other artists. In Unreal Engine 5, I created project, spline, and PCG templates, which accelerated environment creation and allowed for improved collaboration between artists. Laying down a good foundation by creating floorplans, collecting references, creating and collecting asset lists, and gray boxing the environment, allowed me to elevate the art director’s vision to create a cohesive world that tells a story about the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport brand and customer. One of my goals as the Visual Artist was creating a hyper-realistic environment that didn’t steal the attention from the vehicle or clutter the frame; this proved to be a difficult task when creating visual queues to give the viewer clear context of their surroundings in subtle ways. Using UE5’s post-process volumes, I had the ability to fine tune the colors and lighting on the vehicle separate from the rest of the scene.
With this year’s iteration on the corvette visualization asset, I was given the opportunity to directly collaborate with web developers to host the project on the Chevrolet website, by focusing on meeting performance requirements, project functionality, graphics quality, and QA testing the web deployments. By working directly with the web development team, we were able to retain visual fidelity and represent the vehicle’s paints, finishes, and fabrics as accurately as possible, in the environment’s lighting scenario. As a result of this closer relationship we were able to effectively create the most detailed and customizable real-time 3D configurator Corvette has released on a reveal date. The amount of customization options that were provided allowed users to create a representation of their personality using the vehicle, which enabled many users to share their proud Grand Sport builds on social media.
