GT4 in Game Cube, how it could be this version?

[London Geezer]

Well, that's my opinion, if I am permitted to have one.

Jak 3 and R&C3 are fantastic too, but GT4 is simply incredible to my eyes.

Oh it definately is sex on wheels, but u have to think how much of the prettiness is due to the design and how much is due to the technicalities.

 

[Devourer]

Well, that's my opinion, if I am permitted to have one.

Jak 3 and R&C3 are fantastic too, but GT4 is simply incredible to my eyes.

Oh it definately is sex on wheels, but u have to think how much of the prettiness is due to the design and how much is due to the technicalities.

Well, the point is that I see GT4 as a good example of a not so easy conversion from PS2 to an overall better system like GC. Design ok, but I think it's a technical bad boy too. Though, I'm not saying it's absolutely the best thing thing ever technically. Because it's not imho.

Point: saying that system X (GC) can do everything system Y (PS2) does because system X has Z (RE4) game on it, is most of the time a fallacious assumption, especialy when considering two completely different game engines. Neo Geo fighters had to be downgraded when ported on the much newer PlayStation, but let's have the Neo Geo replicate the graphical power of a 2D shooter like X2 from Team 17...

 

[London Geezer]

Well, the point is that I see GT4 as a good example of a not so easy conversion from PS2 to an overall better system like GC. Design ok, but I think it's a technical bad boy too. Though, I'm not saying it's absolutely the best thing thing ever technically. Because it's not imho.

Well it obviously does certain things very well, better than most other developers on PS2.
As a PS2 pusher, i see ZOE2 in the top spot. It does everything the way PS2 was design for, that is forget about hi res textures and focus on million of particles and polygons moving on screen at once, with crazy framebuffer effects on top of it. Same for the Jak and R&C games.

GT4 seems... "normal" in comparison, if u know what i mean. Absolutely beautiful, but "normal".

 

[Devourer]

Well, the point is that I see GT4 as a good example of a not so easy conversion from PS2 to an overall better system like GC. Design ok, but I think it's a technical bad boy too. Though, I'm not saying it's absolutely the best thing thing ever technically. Because it's not imho.

Well it obviously does certain things very well, better than most other developers on PS2.
As a PS2 pusher, i see ZOE2 in the top spot. It does everything the way PS2 was design for, that is forget about hi res textures and focus on million of particles and polygons moving on screen at once, with crazy framebuffer effects on top of it. Same for the Jak and R&C games.

GT4 seems... "normal" in comparison, if u know what i mean. Absolutely beautiful, but "normal".

I understand perfectly your point. Those are one hell of engines

 

[London Geezer]

I understand perfectly your point. Those are one hell of engines

And they would be a total nightmare to port to other platforms, as powerful as they are, cause everything would have to be rewritten.

I can only imagine the next ZOE game on a next gen machine.

 

[Phil]

I hope I won't be dragging this more off-topic, but, is Ratchet & Clank 3 really in the same realm as Jak 2 / 3? I haven't played it yet, so I honestly wouldn't know, but I have played Ratchet & Clank 2 extensively and comparing it to either Jak 2 / 3, it really looks severly outdated. IMO, Ratchet & Clank 2 uses probably the same engine (with minor tweaks) as the first part (which shared a lot with the original Jak & Daxter engine) - from the screens of part 3 I've seen, I'd be really surprised if it uses anything else.

I would have to agree with Devourer on Gran Turismo 4 probably being quite technically advanced too. The incredible realistic look might be due to brilliant art-direction, but what is being pushed at the backend is equally astonishing if you notice how spot on the physics and everything is. When each car has hundreds of attributes that influence the way it behaves and moves on the track and accoarding to the drivers imput, you definately have a lot of physic math going on there. Multiplied that by the amount of cars on the track and its 60 framerate.... well in fact, the physics would probably be refreshed at an even higher (frame) rate since driver input is as well...

And then there are the graphics, that while brilliant art-direction, still must have some nifty graphics engine to back it up. You don't get to be the most impressive realistic looking racer on the market simply by having the best art creation. True, Kazunori Yamauchi's passion for cars would be probably unbeatable anyway... but passion alone doesn't do it.

Gran Turismo 3 would have been a different topic - but Gran Turismo 4 is really that significantly improved that I can only assume how good it does run. The results are astonishing.

 

[rabidrabbit]

It sounds a bit funny when everyone brings "art direction" as an argument when comparing GT4 to inferior racers on "more powerful" platforms.

After all, as I think someone already said here, they are just cars.
For example, if GT4 and for example Forza had a model of Humpy GT-XXS 2500Zr, and say Forza had a less accurate (not measured by just polycount) model of it compared to GT4, and thus had worse "art direction".
But (<- a big but) as few people would really know what the Humpy GT-XXS 2500Zr looks like in real life, how could they tell GT4 art is closer to real, thus better?

Same goes with many of the cars in both games, not many know so well what the cars look like... if the form is a bit off compared to real life car can you tell?

Textures: In a realiyty based car game texture art should not have much effect on which game looks better, as a car (the centerpiece of these games) has relatively little texturing. The xbox should be capable of much better texture art than PS2, but even though PS2 GT4 textures are less crisp as Forza's it still manages to look better.
Environments, PS2 has less crisp textures in environments, but they still manage to look better. Can they just "artify" the environments to make them look better?

Lighting? Does texturing have a lot to do with GT4 lighting looking so much more realistic, but PS2 is crappy at textures, it shouldn't be able to all that just because of good texturing art if GT4 looks better just because of art direction??

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well I think that cars in Forza are technically better than in GT4, are they better looking? it's hard to say.

 

[London Geezer]

It's not only art direction. Those 80 million dollars went towards the whole game. the whole thing looks and feels better than most other racing games out there.
The design, the physics, the graphics, the sound, and one major thing is the way the camera moves, and the nice camera effects in the replays.
Art direction, design choices, colour choices, it's the whole package that makes GT4 as cute as it is.

I don't think anyone could single out a single feature, and it would be unfair on the creators of the game who spent the last 3 years thinking about every little detail and making it as good as they could.

It's all in the little details.

 

[Phil]

I think "art-direction" in the case of Gran Turismo 4 is better named "passion".

I think where many developers simply concentrate on a simple thing (i.e. the cars) and slap simple textures onto buildings, Polyphony went through the effort to get it to look right, believable. Certainly this takes time and a lot of effort.... and it also needs passion and the necessary motivation. Gran Turismo 4 offers a brilliant package - I'd say great game engine combined with the right effort to make it look good too.

For the fun of it, we could do some math and figure out what exactly is needed to be calculated every single frame (lets assume a 120 framerate per second for physics) to show how complex a 'realistic' racer such as GT4 can become...

Lets start with fixed attributes for each car that would have an influence of how it drives (of course, not all fixed attributes would be used to be calculated each frame, but we can use this to figure out what would need to be later on each frame):

[m] = mass of the car (i.e. 920Kg)
[W] = Power (i.e. 260Kw)
[c] = Friction Force Constant for tires (various values for slip / durance)
[a] = Acceleration... althought this one would vary depending on RPM of engine / Nm etc
.......


variable values would include...
downforce, weight distribution (depending on cornering, accelerating, braking), tire heat/usage, speed, a/de-cceleration, surface grip, surface angle, engine power [F] at x RPM, selected gear, wind [F], cornering etc etc...

just some ideas of what is actually calculated...

 

[see colon]

I think "art-direction" in the case of Gran Turismo 4 is better named "passion".

is there an hour long minigame where you take your favorite car to a chop shop and gut it.... and then gut it some more.

 

[Farid]

in my experience the retail markup (what the store makes) is about 20% of the msrp, so about $10 on a $50 game. i haven't checked in years, so it could be closer to $15 now.

As a matter of example, here's the datas for France (Consoles et PC only, no handhelds):

                  PC               Console
 
VTA               16.40 %          16.40 %
 
Retail            32,00%           28.50 %
 
Royalties         -------          18.90 %
 
Wholesaler        19,00%           14,00%
 
Publisher         12,00%           10,00%
 
Development*      20.60 %          12.20 %
 
TOTAL             100,00%          100,00% 

 *Incl. licencing rights

Source: CLVE

Note that the console manufacturer fees are lower now (~17%), the datas were collected in 2002, and Nintendo GC fees were higher than what they're now.