Absolutely interesting topic. I'll go off-topic before getting back to the main point of this thread. I can think of a variety of possibilities with night driving and driving in dark conditions. First of all, I would really like for races in GT5 to let you be able to activate the headlights. I still want to be able to access my lights for stuff like blinking and switching on high beams. With the PS3's power and what kind of magic PD could work, I would love to see darkness as well as rainy days (meaning dark and require headlights). I even imagine racing a course at night. I always say Grand Valley Speedway is the signature race track of Gran Turismo. It is to GT what Alpine Ring (at least to me) is to Forza. The only time lights were used at Grand Valley Speedway was Grand Valley Speedway's reverse configuration in Gran Turismo 3. Imagine a race at Grand Valley taking place at 8:00 PM or 9:00 PM with huge flood lights illuminating the race track at crucial areas. Imagine running Tokyo R246 at night (I'd LOVE to do this!), I think true darkness would make night racing more interesting. As interesting as night racing is, I'd also love for headlights to actually be powerful enough to see through the darkness. "Le Mans 24 Hours" for the PS2 was a perfect example of what lighting should be like. There was no shading in "Le Mans 24 Hours," but the lights were intensely bright to see around the track in dark conditions.
Now on to this topic. I fail to see why not some attention has to be paid to illuminated in-car views. If you're going to introduce driver cockpits, then it would be sad not having illimunated in-car views for racing in the dark or at night. I can imagine those bluish-green colors for the instrument gauges as well as race cars with illuminated data loggers (or at least the ones equipped with a MoTeC ADL). Those of who you have played "GTR" like I have have probably done a night race or a rain race. When you go to your in-car view, you actually note the MoTeC data logger illuminating to a bluish-green color. "Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3" gave you the option to change how the gauges look, though there are no in-car views. I am sure that this is being worked on, but I'd like to see some course at night with an in-car view. I don't think we've seen a night course of any kind. I know I did see a picture of a newer Jaguar in one of those custom backgrounds with the main menu. However, I'd be more than interested to see a nighttime image from some night racing. I'm interested in seeing illuminated gauges or data loggers, as well as anything else that may be lit up. I'm even curious as to how the drift cars are illuminated in car. Do they have silly neons or anything?
So in the end, I'm with you guys and gals about in-car views in dark conditions. I'm not sure if they will actually activate or not automatically when it's dark (like in the Ridge Racer series). It's something we can surely follow in the coming months. I think we'll see an example of this at some of the big video game conventions this year. Maybe E3 (granted it's not dead). Maybe the Tokyo Game Show. Maybe some place else. I think we're going to see some sort of in-car view for nighttime and dark conditions in some sort of way. It would be truly foolish to have in-car views and not have every little nuance or situation put into an in-car view, including darkness.
