The GT5 expectation thread (including preview titles)*

[(((interference)))]

@(((interference)))

You know You're talking about Top Gear Test Track right now? :> You have plenty of gameplay from that track and its really recreated 1:1 with its real counter party [except 3D grass ]. And You can get bad environment fragment from every game [i've seen pretty bad from FM 3 too].

Direct Feed gameplays [guys on gtp planet point out that those are not available for usa yt members]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdr1K1hv_Ak Pilot scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2ZqK0o82Sk Renault Megane on La Sarthe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfKPSrxc5f8 Subaru Impreza WRX on Toscana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpSxUAPXMo0 JGTC on Madrid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0y-lGjQnOU Honda Integra on Chamonix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSyL37jBZk old GT cars on Nordschleife in rain

Particles are 1/4 res of framebuffer, right?

F40 damage
http://images.gamekult.com/blog/imgdb/000/000/533/000_2.JPG
http://images.gamekult.com/blog/imgdb/000/000/533/001_2.JPG

I don't know, similar car in Forza 3, granted the model isn't as good as GT5 but the road surface and track environment are far more detailed - I don't think Forza 3 has any tracks that look so poor


I'm sure GT5 has great looking tracks but the consistency is quite shocking seeing how long we've had to wait.

BTW is this in game:

And do we know how GT5's physics compare? Whats the refresh rate? Did they also move to a more advanced tire simulation model?

 

[KKRT]

I don't know, similar car in Forza 3, granted the model isn't as good as GT5 but the road surface and track environment are far more detailed - I don't think Forza 3 has any tracks that look so poor

Like I said, there is ugliness in every game - check this -> http://strony.aster.pl/kakarotto/4583176551_c0ed367203_o.jpg

And do we know how GT5's physics compare? Whats the refresh rate? Did they also move to a more advanced tire simulation model?

1. Its harder.
2. We dont know.
3. Yes, much more advanced than Prologue - check this movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvrSPJxuck4&feature=player_embedded

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't know, similar car in Forza 3, granted the model isn't as good as GT5 but the road surface and track environment are far more detailed - I don't think Forza 3 has any tracks that look so poor?

GT has always had weak scenery, but has generally been regarded as the better looking games because so much attention is lavished on the cars to make them look realistic. It's a different distribution of resources. GT's philosophy is that most of the time the scenery is whizzing by and you're not looking at it except in the distance, whereas you are looking at cars travelling in close proximty. As such, why spend time modelling plants that aren't going to be noticed excpet in static screenshots? You can also always find weak screenshots from any game, and should get a full range of images. That Gamekult website doesn't particularly explore the city tracks. Lots of random images including

IMO it makes no sense to have such huge disparity in visuals, I'm sure the other tracks (especially the city ones) are far better looking - why can't they make a simple track with just grass and trees look passable, it's hardly a demanding environment to render.

I expect there's an engine issue. The entire GT5 engine won't be set up to render lots of tall grass as you get in the TopGear test track. There's really nothing to that environment to make it interesting. If it's the main test place for cars though, it'd be nice if they gave it special attention though at least when you're only running one car and have resources to spare to making it prettier.

 

[ion]

GT's philosophy is that most of the time the scenery is whizzing by and you're not looking at it except in the distance, whereas you are looking at cars travelling in close proximty. As such, why spend time modelling plants that aren't going to be noticed excpet in static screenshots? You can also always find weak screenshots from any game, and should get a full range of images. That Gamekult website doesn't particularly explore the city tracks. Lots of random images including

sounds like their making an excuse, cause even though scenery is whizzing by, i still notice if its bland or not. Seeing a wall of fence and trees or cardboard cutout people shaking their arms can be noticed at any speed.
theres a difference to how the visuals of a track make it either feel alive or dead regardless how fast your going.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

sounds like their making an excuse...

It's not an excuse - it's a compromise. These are finite boxes with limited resources, so they have to decide where to invest. In PD's case, they always favour the cars, and always have done. On PS2, GT3 and 4's scenery was very primitive compared to other racers, with obvious repeating textures etc. i've never understood repeating grass textures as it's easy to elliminate by just applying a second texture, but it remains common.

The rest of this debate is out of place and I've culled the last outburst. This game is GT, not NFS of Forza or any other racer. It is what it is. If you don't like bland environments, and you've actually seen the full range of GT5's and decided they are bland, then you have the option to express that and to not to buy it and to stick to other games. but then leave the thread to discuss the game, and not don't turn it into a screenshot pissing-match.

Anyone who's serious about discussing the technical issues of rendering a racing game and the various balancing acts developers need to do across titles and platforms can do so in the tech discussion thread.

 

[Karamazov]

are the replays running à 60fps ?

 

[KKRT]

are the replays running à 60fps ?

Nope, locked in 30fps with added DoF and Motion Blur and a little enchanted lighting.

 

[-tkf-]

I think the dirty secret is that some tracks are just simple and plain in real life, and we just have to accept that. And simple and plain tracks just translate to simple and plain graphics, there is nothing to work with within the constraints of the engine/poly/texture budget.

To suggest that polophony is being lazy or something like that is really to simplistic. Lets say that Polophony spend and a lot of time, money and energy on Laguna seca, in a quest to make that boring looking track "great looking". It would be like polishing a turd, instead of spending that time on making something that would really show effort.

Laguna Seca in real life (almost)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...&ll=36.583116,-121.759801&spn=0,0.020599&z=17

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think the dirty secret is that some tracks are just simple and plain in real life, and we just have to accept that.

The complaint isn't that they're simple, but unconvincing. This is the real TGTT. Despite being a dull location, it has visual interest in the variety of the grass, track-edge, trees, etc., even without the jet. If it were just a matter of being simple, simple tracks would look photorealistic, which they don't. I'm sure if someone went out of their way to model the TGTT to get it as photorealistic as possible, the results would be stunning, but you'd have no resources left for running a game and rendering 16 cars.

 

[AlNom]

I'd be curious to see their RAM usage breakdown as well as their streaming model. Keep in mind the 16 cars will also have LODs.

 

[Arwin]

@interference: yes that shot is in-game.

Comprimise and limited resources? Where was that a problem on all the other detailed tracks? It just simply does not explain why some tracks have great detail and very convincing of the real thing in life while others lack very much of the same detail despite the real life photo comparisons...in other words its very obvious they focused more on certain tracks than they did on others. They could have called them Premium tracks, but they didn't and its misleading.

I think it's a bit early to judge these things. Be assured at the very least that yes, resource limitations will be in effect. And yes, I actually believe Premium and Standard could be a fitting description for some of the tracks - the new tracks are going to be better looking than the old ones, just like in some other racing games I could mention, which incidentally also have a lot of models that have been 'reused' (either as a sligtly tweaked full model or as a certain LOD level).

There are some important things to be aware of though. In contrast with GT4, where the locations from which you could take photos were carefully limited in range, in GT5 you can free-roam basically everywhere and turn your camera at anything. GT has always been about budgetting resources to the stuff you see while driving, so you're bound to be able to find something that looks ugly.

However, I don't think that's all of it either. PD isn't perfect - I think they haven't always spent their resources wisely. They probably shot for the moon in detail, and found out that this detail can't be delivered most of the time, and took too much time to implement in other cases at the cost of being able to cover enough ground. They've said as much themselves, and this is why they're now finding themselves in a position where they'll be reusing assets from GT4's photo-mode lod detail in order to provide a more significant number of cars.

However, where PD have in fact spent their energy fully, they're clearly not just about 'repeating grass textures'. I think Photo-Mode shots show this best:

 

[Arwin]

Photo-Mode is really something else in this game, isn't it? And it kindly lets you export your images at a high quality level too, thankfully:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4103/5193344096_dec6b1d1e5_o.jpg

Nice picture of the colosseum in the background ...

http://i.imgur.com/fpsbe.jpg

 

[KKRT]

High quality direct feeds movies and screen grabs.

http://www.taxigamer.com/gameplay/sony-playstation-3/gt5-gameplay/

Le Mans have really big shadow aliasing issues, but all shadows there are dynamic [world objects too] and they're changing with sun movement.

 

[Clerigo]

Night with rain:

 

[JB9861]

Night with rain:

Can't see the game because the HUD is blocking my view.

 

[nightshade]

I remember Quaz mentioning that the GT Academy demo used some sort of temporal effect along with 4xAA to give a look roughly equal to 8xAA.

 

[N_B]

Low res transparency really hurts some of the rain scenes . The stuff kicked up by cars turns them into a pixelated mess.

See here, especially noticably at 0.34 on the car directly in front.

 

[patsu]

I remember Quaz mentioning that the GT Academy demo used some sort of temporal effect along with 4xAA to give a look roughly equal to 8xAA.

Yeah well, if the demo is close to the real game, I don't think you need to worry about the visuals. The GT5 online servers are not turned on yet, so no one (even PD folks) has experienced a live run with so many real players. I suspect they will have some growing pain there.

 

[nightshade]

Very poor video quality to judge anything.
Anyways GT5: Prologue used alpha to coverage for transparency, I guess its the same for GT5....the effects would be a grainy mess instead of pixelated mess.

 

[-tkf-]

And as for the simple and plain tracks arguments - they should be easier to make look realistic right?

I think those pictures look great, but i don´t consider them more realistic looking than this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-BxfiPgTSk