There’s a common misconception about the way MotoGP is updated each year, it’s not a palette swap at all. In fact there is a heck of a lot of work that goes into redesigning, remodelling and making sure everything else is up to date with the current season of MotoGP. And these pics will give you an idea to what goes on behind the scenes.

The riders all have to photographed again, because they’re another year older and possibly wiser and wrinklier. Here (top) you can see the back of Valentino Rossi because, yes, even their backs have to be photographed – well you do end up staring at their backs for quite some time.

The bikes themselves get photographed from every conceivable angle so that the artists and animators can fully replicate them in the game. This is pretty easy though, the bikes are great models and really know how to work the camera.

The same can’t be said about the tracks however, they just won’t listen to direction and don’t understand the concept of smiling with your eyes. But they get photographed anyway, and surveyed and in most cases spirit-levels are whipped out to check the gradients.

Here you can see the intricate wire-frames that go into making the backgrounds. Nice and colourful one minute, then all that gets taken away, coloured in properly and you wouldn’t even know it’s there as you speed round the track. This track is Mugello in Italy.

Every track is built from the virtual ground up and Assen in the Netherlands is no exception. And look at all the tiny people in the stands! You can tell their individually modelled little electric hearts at beeping with excitement!

This is Silverstone in England, but not like you’ve ever seen it before! And that because these pics were taken with lasers! Laser scans of Silverstone’s pit lane! It really doesn’t get much more high-tech than that. Then those laser scans are used to make the most accurate representations of each track in MotoGP 10/11!