Interviews of Kazunori Yamauchi: See post 1. Translations, revelations & discussion.

[Black Chamber]

Your couch looks different in early morning sunlight, mid-afternoon sunlight, and late-night halogen illumination. That's not because someone sneaks in and reupholsters it when you're not looking. It's because different lighting can make the same object appear different.

My couch, yes - but this is a game with artificial sunlight and moonlight.

Real-world rules do not apply - it all has to be coded from scratch. There are "step-up assist" programs that can be built into or added to the game engine to handle some of the more complicated and time consuming tasks [HAVOK Physics comes to mind - it is a pre-coded physics simulator], so the programmers have more time to focus on other things.

Everything Polyphony Digital does is all in-house. They create their own software and dynamic lighting is very difficult and processor heavy to implement in any game. It's not as simple as just passing a light map in real-time over a textured object - you have to change the object and texture's color to match the time of day and the relevant position of the shadow as well.

It's very difficult to do properly.

I was surprised that GTAIV had dynamic lighting with shadows! 👍

 

[Sele1981]

Wow played the Shift demo today... the speaker told that there are 18 tracks and 58 variations or so...

GT is known for it´s lot of racing tracks,so I think we get a lot of them... 20 tracks would be ok for a half or one year... but then its going to be boring just like GT5P gets boring after 3-4 months... Never used this variation things in GT5P... because it´s not realsitic to drive a racing course backwards for me...

 

[Slurm]

Guys, this might be a stupid question, but don't we already see evidence of dynamic lighting in Prologue? When cars go through tunnels, the lighting on the car models changes accordingly, does it not?

 

[Obli]

I'm not concerned about the quantity of tracks, especially when compared to GT4 (which seemed to have enough). I also have hope that more will be available as DLC.

 

[serversurfer]

My couch, yes - but this is a game with artificial sunlight and moonlight.

Real-world rules do not apply - it all has to be coded from scratch. There are "step-up assist" programs that can be built into or added to the game engine to handle some of the more complicated and time consuming tasks [HAVOK Physics comes to mind - it is a pre-coded physics simulator], so the programmers have more time to focus on other things.

Everything Polyphony Digital does is all in-house. They create their own software and dynamic lighting is very difficult and processor heavy to implement in any game. It's not as simple as just passing a light map in real-time over a textured object - you have to change the object and texture's color to match the time of day and the relevant position of the shadow as well.

It's very difficult to do properly.

I was surprised that GTAIV had dynamic lighting with shadows! 👍

What you're talking about is referred to as "baked lighting"—the effects of the light source(s) are pre-calculated and then "baked in" to the texture. (i.e. They save a "brightly lit" texture, and also save a "dimly lit" texture.)

However, with a good dynamic lighting system, there's no need to pre-bake your textures. You simply have the texture for the body panels on a Royal Blue Pearl Civic, and then tell the engine, "Okay, the light is here, it's non-directional, and it's this color," and then the engine draws what you see. This is a fairly new technique, because it's very processor-intensive and it wasn't until recently that we really had the horsepower to do it. But as developers figure out how to make proper use of the Cell, it's becoming more common.

Given the quality of the visuals in GT5, I would not be at all surprised if they were already using dynamic lighting, and once you have your dynamic lighting system in place, moving the lights around is trivial.

Guys, this might be a stupid question, but don't we already see evidence of dynamic lighting in Prologue? When cars go through tunnels, the lighting on the car models changes accordingly, does it not?

In my unprofessional opinion, yes, the lighting is dynamic.

 

[Dave A]

My couch, yes - but this is a game with artificial sunlight and moonlight.

Real-world rules do not apply - it all has to be coded from scratch. There are "step-up assist" programs that can be built into or added to the game engine to handle some of the more complicated and time consuming tasks [HAVOK Physics comes to mind - it is a pre-coded physics simulator], so the programmers have more time to focus on other things.

Everything Polyphony Digital does is all in-house. They create their own software and dynamic lighting is very difficult and processor heavy to implement in any game. It's not as simple as just passing a light map in real-time over a textured object - you have to change the object and texture's color to match the time of day and the relevant position of the shadow as well.

It's very difficult to do properly.

I was surprised that GTAIV had dynamic lighting with shadows! 👍

Dynamic lighting is not difficult to do properly. Infact, as long as whatever program you're using to renber supports it, it can be incredibly simple. I've used dynamic lighting in 3d projects (real time animated and still) I've knocked together with ease. It's smuch easier than retexturing everything to represent the changes in lighting without actually chaging the lighting. The issue with dynamic lighting is it can be processor hungry, it's easy to implement but to implement it along side all the othe graphical features GT5 has and may have on top of what weve seen such as real time illumination from headlamps could strain the GPU. The real work with dynamic lighting is the optomisation of it to make it work without bogging the game down.

Dynamic lighting does not require any texture swapping to work, serversurfer is spot on with what he's said.

 

[tibiquera]

Wow, that was an epic article an I would recommend everyone to read it. For anyone questioning the journalist, he's a personal friend of Kaz, and his 10-page article shows he really cares about the game (unlike some articles we've seen that have nothing useful in it). The main points in there are:

- 20 tracks and 70 variations once again confirmed.
- Damage hasn't been implemented before because the consoles were never up to it.
- Kaz wanted to do a damage system that's unlike anything done in any game (let there be hype).
- The area of the game Kaz is more proud of is the feeling of the cars (very lousy translation here from my part, but it's related to physics). He said that anyone who picks up this game will notice the difference within 20 seconds (although I'm not sure he meant there'll be any difference between Prologue, or if the difference he mentions is between GT5 and GT4).
- 60% of the time spent in the game went towards the car design.
- it took 5 years for them to do it, but the same happened with GT1, when they began from scratch. That means that this amount of time is expected for a game of that scope.
- the writer noticed in the PD office that they had several smaller models of the cars in the car modelling area of the office. Some of these models were taken apart part by part.
- March 31 was confirmed for release in Japan, the rest of the world is in the hands of Sony.
- night/day cycles will be in the game
- the article mentioned the people who are in charge of the tracks and how detailed their work are.

And that's all I remember. It's not in order, and although my Spanish is pretty good it's not THAT good. But I think for the people who haven't read it, it'll hopefully be good info.

 

[Obli]

Yes the article was great. Very detailed. It even read well with a Google translate.

"Finally, we discuss the deformation and damage in Gran Turismo 5. A burning issue. Gran Turismo has always been known to seek perfection in all aspects. The visuals, the driving experience, and so on. Can we also expect perfection in accidents and consequent damage to vehicles? Sáquenos doubt.

I'll only say one thing. Our team of engineers did not want to do something that has already been seen in other games. No. I wanted something completely different and new.

Yes, expect perfection."

 

[MSH]

It's far more likely that the variations-per-track has stayed more or less the same, giving us 57ish unique tracks, and the "20 locations" refers to places like The Alps, Japan, Western United States, etc.

I think those 'locations' could refer to both tracks and larger scale locations. The term locations in my opinion just unites those. The 'variations' will probably be what everyone thinks it is.

Example:
Suzuka circuit = location (full, east, west are 3 variations)
Rally of Tuscany = location (this can contain many rally stages, counted as distinct variations.)

I think especially the 'variations' within those rally locations could make the 70 variations vs 20 locations look excessive, but suppose they put in 3 or 4 of these rally locations with around 7 variations each, that would already count for 20-30 variations!

I just hope they don't put too much emphasis on Nascar and WRC, 'cause that would make the amount of regular racing tracks very limited...

 

[sejtur]

Wow, that was an epic article an I would recommend everyone to read it. For anyone questioning the journalist, he's a personal friend of Kaz, and his 10-page article shows he really cares about the game (unlike some articles we've seen that have nothing useful in it). The main points in there are:

- 20 tracks and 70 variations once again confirmed.
- Damage hasn't been implemented before because the consoles were never up to it.
- Kaz wanted to do a damage system that's unlike anything done in any game (let there be hype).
- The area of the game Kaz is more proud of is the feeling of the cars (very lousy translation here from my part, but it's related to physics). He said that anyone who picks up this game will notice the difference within 20 seconds (although I'm not sure he meant there'll be any difference between Prologue, or if the difference he mentions is between GT5 and GT4).
- 60% of the time spent in the game went towards the car design.
- it took 5 years for them to do it, but the same happened with GT1, when they began from scratch. That means that this amount of time is expected for a game of that scope.
- the writer noticed in the PD office that they had several smaller models of the cars in the car modelling area of the office. Some of these models were taken apart part by part.
- March 31 was confirmed for release in Japan, the rest of the world is in the hands of Sony.
- weather and night/day cycles will be in the game
- the article mentioned the people who are in charge of the tracks and how detailed their work are.

And that's all I remember. It's not in order, and although my Spanish is pretty good it's not THAT good. But I think for the people who haven't read it, it'll hopefully be good info.

Could I ask where is that interview. It's not in the first post is it?

 

[andrethaiss]

I think there have to be more than 20 tracks. To have proper rally and nascar modes, that would take up around 10 tracks at LEAST. If pd already did around half of them in prologue including the ring and lemans, what have they done?, around 10 more tracks? I don't think thats possible, but either way, we will get more news later.

 

[deep_sky]

The issue with dynamic lighting is it can be processor hungry, it's easy to implement but to implement it along side all the othe graphical features GT5 has and may have on top of what weve seen such as real time illumination from headlamps could strain the GPU. The real work with dynamic lighting is the optomisation of it to make it work without bogging the game down.

Is real time illumination of headlights a possibility in GT5? WRC cars could support it, as they'll only be one car on track, freeing up more memory and GPU/CPU power. Night rally stages would be amazing if PD could get real time headlights to work.

 

[Dave A]

It's possible, cetainly. Kaz mentioned dynamic lighting it in his interview with IGN, he said they could implement it but hadn't yet and he suggested that it's inclusion depended on how it would affect the quality of the rest of the game ie frame rate, draw distance, number and detail of effect (tyre smoke, dust kick up etc). It will be interesting to see how this final stage of development pans out.

 

[tibiquera]

Could I ask where is that interview. It's not in the first post is it?

http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_a...e&idj=cw42893da71ff42&idp=&tipo=art&c=1&pos=0

Edit: also this part is quite important:

Nos comentó que se podrá cambiar prácticamente toda pieza imaginable del vehículo. No sólo los típicos apartados del motor, frenos, etcétera.

My clumsy translation to this part is that Kaz said that you can replace almost any part imaginable in the car, not just engine, brakes, etc.

Edit 2: Considering all the information this article has, I'm beginning to think we should make a new thread for it. Pretty much all the info we expected to get at TGS we have here.

 

[serversurfer]

I think those 'locations' could refer to both tracks and larger scale locations. The term locations in my opinion just unites those. The 'variations' will probably be what everyone thinks it is.

Yeah, I'll buy that.

Kaz mentioned dynamic lighting it in his interview with IGN, he said they could implement it but hadn't yet …

Really? The lighting in Prologue seems like it must be dynamic already. Like, when you drive in to a tunnel, doesn't the lighting change gradually as you enter, rather that your just suddenly being "in the dark"?

Considering all the information this article has, I'm beginning to think we should make a new thread for it. Pretty much all the info we expected to get at TGS we have here.

Personally, I think one thread for the post-TGS interviews is good. It keeps everything consolidated, and we can easily cross-reference stuff from different interviews.

 

[Narasumas]

I was just thinking about the 70 variations...
Maybe the number of Suzuka variations for example are counted like this : track at day, track at dusk, track at night and so on... that would explain why there is an average of 3.5 variations per track...

That would suck as it would mean that day to night cycle is not dynamic...

 

[LoCoArMeN]

I think there have to be more than 20 tracks. To have proper rally and nascar modes, that would take up around 10 tracks at LEAST. If pd already did around half of them in prologue including the ring and lemans, what have they done?, around 10 more tracks? I don't think thats possible, but either way, we will get more news later.

I honestly think they will be more tracks. When you think about it, they will have F1, WRC and nascar tracks. How can they only put 20 tracks for those 3 diffrent catigories.

PS: not to mention JGTC, DTM and all the other classes of cars.

 

[Black Chamber]

What you're talking about is referred to as "baked lighting"—the effects of the light source(s) are pre-calculated and then "baked in" to the texture. (i.e. They save a "brightly lit" texture, and also save a "dimly lit" texture.)

Once you have your dynamic lighting system in place, moving the lights around is trivial.

In my unprofessional opinion, yes, the lighting is dynamic.

I am not talking about "baked-in" lighting and shadows - that is indicative of "last-gen" hardware.

I'm not trying to start an argument here - I am just stating the facts about how processor-intensive Dynamic Lighting is. Changing the angle of an object's shadow, relative to it's location [and also on it's location relative to the given light source] is a very heavy CPU calculation.

Factor all of that, plus the fact that you have to tell the program what color the next phase of the object needs to be to match it's surrounding environment - which is also under the same rules designated to the objects populating it - and you have a very difficult calculation to crunch through. That is all I was trying to point out.

Rain is nothing compared to everything required to pull off Dynamic real-time day and night effects in a photo-realistic game.

1). - it took 5 years for them to do it, but the same happened with GT1, when they began from scratch. That means that this amount of time is expected for a game of that scope.

2). - weather and night/day cycles will be in the game

1). That means we will not see GT6 until 2015!!!!!

2). Let's hope so - not only for the betterment of the Gran Turismo series; but also to assist in the ongoing fight for the Gran Turismo brand name to be truly appreciated as a simulator.

 

[tibiquera]

1). That means we will not see GT6 until 2015!!!!!

Well, it took PD 2 years to make GT2. I think what he meant is that it is normal for a game of that scope to take that long to be built from scratch. But once it's done, the next in the generation should be fairly quick. He also said that designing the cars took 60% of the time, so for GT6 the great majority of them will be ready. So I wouldn't be surprised if it takes them 2 or 3 years to get GT6 done (unless Sony wants them to start developing for the ps4).

 

[sejtur]

I think that if GT5 is ready at 2010, GT6 will be at 2012-2013.

 

[RAVELLRON]

I think that if GT5 is ready at 2010, GT6 will be at 2012-2013.

is it important???? with all this features i would play GT5 until death

 

[irnbrutwinturbo]

In my own wee bubble im still convinced we're going to see

20 Locations : This will be point2point, especially for WRC, and drag racing. Maybe also for drift, if GT5 is taking drift seriously.

70 Variations : Im looking at GTPSP here, that game has 72 variations, ie something like 35 actual tracks.

 

[PureAwesomeness]

In my own wee bubble im still convinced we're going to see

20 Locations : This will be point2point, especially for WRC, and drag racing. Maybe also for drift, if GT5 is taking drift seriously.

70 Variations : Im looking at GTPSP here, that game has 72 variations, ie something like 35 actual tracks.

And I'm pretty sure we're gonna see 20 tracks and 70 variations (short, long, reverse etc.) thereof.

 

[irnbrutwinturbo]

And I'm pretty sure we're gonna see 20 tracks and 70 variations (short, long, reverse etc.) thereof.

Time will tell im sure 👍. So tell me, where does WRC fit into this ? Or are you thinking it will just be the WRC cars, not WRC races?

WRC has always been point to point i believe.

 

[ST-2]

On the track count subject, my take on it is:

20 locations, i.e. Japan

70 Variations, i.e. Fuji, Suzuka, TRM, etc

 

[irnbrutwinturbo]

On the track count subject, my take on it is:

20 locations, i.e. Japan

70 Variations, i.e. Fugi, Suzuka, TRM, etc

I like the sound of this the most, hopefully it's not wishful thinking.

 

[PureAwesomeness]

Time will tell im sure. So tell me, where does WRC fit into this? Or are you thinking it will just be the WRC cars, not WRC races?

WRC has always been point to point i believe.

Hmmm, not having any insider knowledge I really can't say with any certainty. I would imagine the WRC events will be point-to-point and qualify as locations rather than variations. I remember reading the wording '20+ locations' somewhere. If GT4 is anything to go by, I reckon that rally events will represent a relatively small portion of the game and therefore only a few tracks.

 

[sejtur]

I have counted the locations that were in GT5P, and also showed up with the weather thing in the main menu. From that, I get 14 "locations"/countries.
Here's the list:
Italy
England
Belgium
France
Japan
Monaco
Spain
San Marino
Germany
China
America
Portugal
Swissland
"PD"

So that's 14 countries. Now, we have the rally stuff also, so that means maybe some real locations like Greece and Finland too. Maybe some more lociations for normal tracks. The PD "country" will have alot of tracks, which will also be El Capitan, I think. When you think of it like this, 20 countries, and 70 tracks is very imaginable.

 

[Guffaluff]

Hmmm, not having any insider knowledge I really can't say with any certainty. I would imagine the WRC events will be point-to-point and qualify as locations rather than variations. I remember reading the wording '20+ locations' somewhere. If GT4 is anything to go by, I reckon that rally events will represent a relatively small portion of the game and therefore only a few tracks.

Well, in GT4 they didn't have the WRC License, and since they advertised it seperately in the E3 trailer I think/hope that Rally Racing will be a bigger part then it has been before *crosses fingers*

 

[wkhnky]

●收錄賽道
・20條以上
・70種以上組合

In GT HongKong website:
Over 20 tracks
Over 70 Variations
WTF