Grand Valley Highway 1 vs. Real Life [More added Pg. 2]

[AmyUD06]

TBH, the amount of work, effort and love PD put in this new track is absolutely incredible. I gotta say I respect it and admire it.

BUT. And it is a big BUT...

Why bother to mess around with an iconic track of the series and make it a Frankenstein of a Real/original track? If you really wanted to create a seaside circuit of Californian roads with tons of landmarks, why don't make something 100% unique?

Also, why bother naming it "Grand Valley" if, you know... THERE IS NO VALLEY AT ALL. The name does not feel right.

I don't hate what they did to GVS. I'm just incredibly confused with the approach they took to bring the circuit back.

If there are no valleys, what is it that those bridges are going over? Seriously, some people have no grasp on the language.

 

[GhostChild]

I like the track, but as someone metioned this could be a different track instead of Gran Valley. I like the environment, even if it feels a bit sterile or lacking vegetation. It' really fun to race. I tried at night race with some 70s road cars in a custom race. The only thing I dislike from most road race tracks in recent GT games is that the road is too wide at some segments. Each lane is like 2 car wide at some points and that is unrealistic. However they have some parts with the right size, strange.

 

[coryclifford]

Absolutely good job.

Beer clink.

 

[jonoholland29]

There's nothing between Monterey and Morro Bay on highway 1 that I would characterize as a "Grand Valley". There's a smallish valley south of Molera Point, but that doesn't appear to be used as inspiration for this circuit which is almost exclusively along the cliffs. Grand Valley would easily apply to Sonoma or Napa Valley or maybe Salinas Valley (dunno how grand I consider Salinas..). Grand Bluff would have made a lot more sense.

To be clear, I'm fine with the retcon, it's just odd to call something that clearly isn't a valley a valley.

I mean its a V shaped valley? What is a valley to you?

The red area in this map is a very large V shaped valley and you get them with pretty much all landscapes with mountain ranges and rivers.

The yellow area are the larger U shaped valleys formed from glaciers

Also here’s one with the famous Bixby Bridge this GVH1 is based on

 

[deviln3]

Thanks for the impressive effort. Drove the track last night, but didn't slow down to appreciate some of these details.

 

[tofuhero]

As much as I want Monaco back, Kaz said in an interview that city circuits are unlikely to be added to GT7 because of how much time it would take to recreate all the details to current-gen standards. I actually made a side-by-side comparison back in the PS3 days and the track looked pretty dated.

Would be neat if they added another original circuit based in the French Rivera though.

Well there's definitely a difference between "current-gen standards" and "Polyphony standards" as evidenced by the details in this thread. There's absolutely no reason to fully model a hamburger on a plate but they did it anyway. Whether or not this kind of thing is unnecessary obsession that slows down Polyphony's production pipeline is a debate I'll leave for another thread.

 

[Quakebass]

I need me a Gran Turismo borgar. 🤤

As a SF Bay Area resident who has driven the SR1 a few times, the amount of details PD got right for Grand Valley Highway 1 is truly impressive, especially for things 90% of players would never even notice like the Big Sur Lighthouse that's way out of frame.

Here's a side-by-side comparison for you to appreciate all the details PD replicated.
(Decided to make a new thread as to not flood the other ones with photos)

Tracy Cove Bridge vs. Bixby Bridge, Monterey
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Grand Valley Bridge vs. Coronado Bridge, San Diego (pier columns) / Limekiln Creek Bridge, Big Sur View attachment 1233162
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Unnamed bridge (ft. easter egg) vs. Willow Creek Bridge, Monterey View attachment 1233165

Ocean Rocks Shelter vs. Rain Rocks Rock Shed, Big Sur
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Hurricane Point, Big Sur
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Elephant seals, San Simeon
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Big Sur Lighthouse
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Kirk Creek Campground, Big Sur
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Portal to Big Sur, Ragged Point
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Doge Point vs. Ragged Point
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Doge Point Inn vs Ragged Point Inn
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Los Padres National Forest sign
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Fish and Wildlife Area sign (Interestingly, these are found in Indiana irl)
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Nacimiento Road
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Other signs
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EDIT: Bonus
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​

I may be road tripping to SoCal this summer, I’ll see if I can do some “GT Tourism” on the way.

 

[Yui-san]

Here's some more.

Notice how even the rocks in the water are accurately modeled.

Californian condor

Southern sea otter​

 

[Galvston]

wth... we are getting eerily close to reality. To think these graphics are playable on VR, albeit at a slightly lower fidelity. Just Craazy

 

[Dietmoey]

Cant get enough of this track!

 

[JustMac]

Amazing! The amount of effort put into this is incredible, hats off to PD.

I'm genuinely disappointed that Lago Maggiore isn't a real track....maybe the next increment of "Vision GT " will be to design a racetrack?!

 

[GlamFM]

Great work OP! Makes me appreciate this amazing track even more.

 

[A_Higher_Place]

Very fun comparison to look through, thanks for sharing Curious if you had a comparison for this one!

 

[Yui-san]

Very fun comparison to look through, thanks for sharing Curious if you had a comparison for this one!

View attachment 1234400

Glad everyone is enjoying it! That sign is actually based on Australian wildlife road signs (with a different layout though).

 

[Famine]

The two sexes: albatross and gull

Edit: Actually, it'd be a condor, wouldn't it?

 

[debunix]

Great!

What we can see here is tail polishing by PD developers. Great work though. Wish, they would have invested so much time in a nice career/single player mode.

Now I can put my PS5 on, press "Pause" and enjoy the view on the screen. I think it's time to buy me a new TV - Samsung The Frame!!!

 

[Galvston]

Seein this track. I wish every other one got this grand valley/trial mountain treatment. I'm talking about the real tracks. They should have this minute polishing

 

[danthespaceman]

The “Sophy - You can sleep when your dead” takes on an incredibly dark meaning being that it’s AI. 😂

 

[juanffy18]

Great but please in the next original track don't change everything, something like Deep forest, trial mountain is enough no more than that.

 

[slthree]

@Yui-san What a delightful thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning. I was mesmerized by those comparison pics.

It really sheds light on the way PD obsesses with reality. Makes me appreciate Kaz and his team all the more.

And thank you, Sir! This must have been very time intensive for you to put together and it's appreciated 👍🥂

 

[karelpipa]

I now have completely different view on the change of the trackside theme. Some funny things here and there too

I would love to see the original theme too

 

[STINGer71]

Beautiful track but I have no idea why they decided to call it grand valley. All of the remade tracks from the past have some sort of resemblance to their original layouts but this track looks completely different than the original grand valley. I just don't get why we couldn't have called it something else.

My guess is they already planned this location for new track, but since fans constantly asked them for GV they make simillar layout using real life locations and name it Grand Valley.
New track is great, but this is not GV. Old track was much better for racing

 

[karelpipa]

Great but please in the next original track don't change everything, something like Deep forest, trial mountain is enough no more than that.

On these 2 tracks, they completely destroyed the layout. In Grand Valley its a minor change here and there + elevation change. Still better to have more or less the same layout than creating tilke hairpins.
Would love if PD wouldnt change the theme also. but what the heck. Its PD

In other words, This Grand Valley feels like its a mod made in BeamNG and its Utah setting.

 

[brockie]

Great article

 

[PletdeKoe]

I am absolutely hooked on this track. It drives great. It looks mesmerizing and it is just so much fun. Doing a morning to night race (15laps) and setting the weather and opponents (japanese 600pp) and I have the time of my live this GT7. Seeing the colour of the see change due to the clouds or sun and seeing the sun dip into the ocean with all the colour changes in the clouds is just pure art.

Yes it is different than the old Grand Valley but after driving numerous laps, not that much different. The flow is almost similar.

The track just feels alive and that so awesome

 

[antispaghetti]

Wow! Thanks for this great comparison. Now, one can really appreciate the effort they put into making, a new Grand Valley track. Even though I loved the OG version, the new one keeps growing on me every day, especially now after seeing this comparison... Damnn

 

[paulpg87]

Yeah good but the old version was better and a proper race track.

 

[Keef]

wth... we are getting eerily close to reality. To think these graphics are playable on VR, albeit at a slightly lower fidelity. Just Craazy

At first I thought the draw distance on this track wasn't quite keeping up but then I saw the real-life photos. The whole landscape is mostly grassland, just a few pockets of trees, and it literally looks like an incomplete model in real life.

 

[toastet]

Interesting. I could imagine taking a real place and turn it into a fictional racetrack, but I could never have imagined taking a fictional racetrack and turn it into a real place.

Quiet the same for Dragon Trail which is kind of placed on the location of a real world racing track in Croatia near Rijeka but the track is completely fictional and has nothing in common with the real world track.

 

[pringaling]

I think the one think that pulls me out of it being an immersive track is how bland the road textures are and how they don’t seem to really be connected to the landscape. Kinda like slot car track being laid through the landscape.

Kinda wish they also didn’t choose to go so brown on everything as well.