Polyphony Digital Inc. (PDI) and FIA to Form Long-term Partnership

[Samus]

Good point about Suzuka, it could've been a new version. I'm also skeptical of what they've laser scanned, I was under the impression they captured tracks via GPS scanning which is accurate, but not quite as accurate as laser scanning. Of course they could have contracted it to someone else or just bought laser data from the tracks but I've not personally seen any evidence of PD laser scanning.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Wasn't it earlier in this thread (possibly another recent thread) that @amar212 noted that PD have been laser scanning the real-world circuits since 2004? I know Amar the "all knowing GT-Jesus sent down by Kaz" that some seem to think he is, but I would consider him a very reliable source.

He went into a little more detail about it, and I would link to his post, but I'm on my phone right nor so it's a little hard.

 

[Snaeper]

It does give a bit of a pioneer aspect in the industry. It's always better to be the first to do something.

It's never better to be the first, it's always better to be the second.

Learn from the mistakes of the pioneer and avoid them to your benefit.

The next person to have the FIA agreement will most likely do a far better job at representing it.

 

[TokoTurismo]

You jumped the fence, started batting for the other team. You don't need me to say I told you so.

There is no team or sides on a fourm buddy. Don't be silly... That's what those who defend things they love saids.

Its amusing to see how many people are expecting a spell to be cast by the FIA and suddenly all cars and tracks that feature in FIA sanctioned events around the world to magically appear in GT6/7.

Each and every car will still need a licensing agreement with it's manufacturer, and meetings with track owners will still be needed before any new tracks will be licensed too.

Formula one will not suddenly arrive as free dlc just because the FIA click their fingers.


But we will get an FIA logo on the GT7 box.

And maybe we will also get some select FIA championships with official rules and regulations of each series, that doesn't mean every single car and livery and circuit in that championship automatically gets added (remember the WRC license in GT5?).

Hopefully this will mean better access for PD to get all those tracks, race cars and championships you always wanted to see in a GT game, but get overly ambitious and you will inevitably end up disappointed.

Took the words right out of month. This!

 

[BLADErunner80]

Exactly Samus, maybe PD just buy laser scans from other publishers (iRacing?) then visit themselves to take thousands of photographs to flesh out the track.

Perhaps they hire people to go do all this for them.

Or they painstakingly laser scan each track and have been doing so for some time.

We just don't know how they choose to model tracks or how they model each car but we seem to trust those to be accurate.

 

[ironman44321]

aaahh yes "laser scanned" the holy grail of buzzwords for racing games. Few know what it actually means as far as track quality, but it's the end all be all of track quality.

I remember someone on here talking about laser scanning (Famine maybe?) and about how it wasn't as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. I can't or the life of me find the posts now though.

 

[BLADErunner80]

Agreed, "laser scanned" is promoted as the greatest thing to happen to racing games by various publishers shouting about it in press releases.

I personally don't have a clue if its the best way to accurately model a circuit, but I would imagine its just a good tool to get a base model and a lot gets added on top of it.

 

[TexasTyme214]

aaahh yes "laser scanned" the holy grail of buzzwords for racing games. Few know what it actually means as far as track quality, but it's the end all be all of track quality.

I remember someone on here talking about laser scanning (Famine maybe?) and about how it wasn't as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. I can't or the life of me find the posts now though.

I feel like it had something to do with the track being accurate only for the day that it's scanned. The road could get warped due to weather, repaved, or have complete layout changes, making that old scan less accurate.

 

[Samus]

Wasn't it earlier in this thread (possibly another recent thread) that @amar212 noted that PD have been laser scanning the real-world circuits since 2004? I know Amar the "all knowing GT-Jesus sent down by Kaz" that some seem to think he is, but I would consider him a very reliable source.

He went into a little more detail about it, and I would link to his post, but I'm on my phone right nor so it's a little hard.

I did see that post but I would like to see evidence before I choose to believe it. The tracks ARE accurate, but as I say GPS data is pretty damn accurate, just not to the mm like laser scanning.

 

[Speedster911]

How you can say this literally 3 days after the announcement of a long term partnership is quite baffling.

Go read the article again; the likelihood of future certifications in high.

 

[ironman44321]

I feel like it had something to do with the track being accurate only for the day that it's scanned. The road could get warped due to weather, repaved, or have complete layout changes, making that old scan less accurate.

It's more than that though. It takes more than just simply scanning an area to get a perfect recreation of it whether it's a room or a racetrack. There are also several different ways to scan a track with varying degrees of accuracy so you could have two laser scanned versions of the same track and they will certainly vary to some degree.

 

[trustjab]

Suzuka shouldnt be too hard to scan or model in terms of the asphalt. With the repavement its one of the smoothest tracks in the world. Elevation change and corner accuracy are the most important.

 

[Speedster911]

I've always loved Suzuka in EVERY single racing game and sim I've played. Can't get enough!

 

[Zer0]

Suzuka on the other hand dates back to GT5P, with fairly minor modifications at best. At that time laser scanning was extremely rare. iRacing was the first "game" to use it in serious quantity that I'm aware of, and it wasn't even released at that point. If Suzuka was laser scanned, then any moderately competent marketing department would have had a field day with that.

iRacing was the first game to promote the use of laser scaned tracks to sell games.

All we know about the use of laser scanning regarding GT it came accidentaly from sources outside PD and that info first leaked with GT5P (2007) with car scannings, also extremely rare because no game was knew to use it.

http://jalopnik.com/238136/from-bucket-to-binary-morrison-corvette-scanned-into-gran-turismo

After that PD never had promoted the use of laser scanning as a selling point, not in cars and not in tracks, even publically knowing that they were using it as their working tool. So the only that you can really extract from all that, is that they don't care to advertise with what tools are working as their goal is the accuracy and that is what they always sells with GT. The results not the tools used.



Suzuka is also one of the tracks available in the GPS Visualizer, so the track accuracy will have taken with the best care.

Other developers maybe are caught on the novelty or see the laser use word as a big deal to sell games. Not PD. The lack of official advertise should not be treated as a proof of nothing, they have been pionering in track and car model accuracy since many years and never have shared publically its secrets.

Now common sense will tell that more than seven year later from the first know use of the laser tool by PD (it's real use can be even older than that) it has been used extensively in their modelling workflow.

 

[Gerarghini]

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I mean FIA certification? That's awesome but with PD?

I mean Gran Turismo? Gran Turismo? GT hasn't been the strongest game in recent years but out of all the racing games and simulators the FIA chose Gran Turismo to best represent them? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Furthermore, only 4 tracks that have gotten the FIA's seal of approval?

For reference, and I might be unsure on some of these but...

(!) = Certified by FIA
(?) = Unsure myself

Gran Turismo 6 FIA tracks:

• Brands Hatch (!)
• Mount Panorama (!)
• Silverstone Circuit (!)
• Suzuka Circuit (!)
• Twin Ring Motegi
• Fuji Speedway
• Circuit de la Sarthe
• Circuit de Spa-Franchorchamps
• Circuit de Monaco
• Autodromo Nazionale Monza
• Nürburgring
• Red Bull Ring
• Daytona International Speedway (?)
• Laguna Seca (?)

So 4/14 give or take a few. Why would the FIA certify very few tracks. Is it because they no longer run at some of these tracks anymore and don't want to approve them and approve only tracks on their 2013 or 2014+ schedules? Or is it because they're not up to the quality that the FIA wants? If that's the case why didn't they go with Forza, iRacing, etc.?

 

[Speedster911]

^^ Good points to ponder...

 

[altid6]

If GT6 is going to be a platform for an online FIA championship, then GT6 needs some serious updates.
First of all fix the unstable servers. Great to be disconnected from the server in the middle of a FIA championship race. Sorry matte, you are not going to Monaco for the price award because you where disconnected from the last race and therefor didn´t win the championship.

Different number and livery on the cars is a must for a championship of this size.

The physics needs to be spot on. Camber settings of 0,0 should not be the best and fastest setup.

Rules for cars. The PP calculation does not work for a championship like this. Even though the cars have the same PP, there is still a big difference in handling, speed and lap times.

And what about time gaps between the cars during the race and not only the gap to the frontrunner. This is also something PD needs to put into the game, before a championship like this.

There are probably many other things PD needs to look into before a championship of this magnitude. FIA must have some demands before they wants to get there FIA brand connected to an online game.

Hopefully this means a lot of new and improved functions for GT6 in upcoming updates.
So PD will sort all of these issues before the championship gets underway.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

Right, because with this deal PD just instantly improved all aspects of the game, licensed every car and track everyone wanted and GT is now perfect, proving us all wrong. No. It's a possibility of some improvement or changes in the future, nothing more yet.

So, I guess we are all just gonna forget about Update 1.09 and keep saying PD is failing to deliver?

Alrighty then.......

 

[Lain]

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I mean FIA certification? That's awesome but with PD?

I mean Gran Turismo? Gran Turismo? GT hasn't been the strongest game in recent years but out of all the racing games and simulators the FIA chose Gran Turismo to best represent them? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Furthermore, only 4 tracks that have gotten the FIA's seal of approval?

For reference, and I might be unsure on some of these but...

(!) = Certified by FIA
(?) = Unsure myself

Gran Turismo 6 FIA tracks:

• Brands Hatch (!)
• Mount Panorama (!)
• Silverstone Circuit (!)
• Suzuka Circuit (!)
• Twin Ring Motegi
• Fuji Speedway
• Circuit de la Sarthe
• Circuit de Spa-Franchorchamps
• Circuit de Monaco
• Autodromo Nazionale Monza
• Nürburgring
• Red Bull Ring
• Daytona International Speedway (?)
• Laguna Seca (?)

So 4/14 give or take a few. Why would the FIA certify very few tracks. Is it because they no longer run at some of these tracks anymore and don't want to approve them and approve only tracks on their 2013 or 2014+ schedules? Or is it because they're not up to the quality that the FIA wants? If that's the case why didn't they go with Forza, iRacing, etc.?

Or maybe, y'know, they simply haven't gotten around to certifying the other tracks yet. I'd imagine that the certification process for a track isn't exactly something gets knocked out in an afternoon.

And IMHO, the reason they went with GT seems crystal clear to me. GT, despite its many faults, is a game with class. It's a series that, even with competition currently running laps around them in some areas, has achieved a certain status that makes it appealing for this type of thing.

I think it really started with GT4 when they started putting in novelty vehicles... prehistoric ones, fictional ones, etc. At the time it was just a cute touch, but it showed the automotive world that GT wasn't just a boring, run-of-the-mill racing game featuring a typical roster of the coolest cars available... GT had ambition. From there, it has just grown bigger and bigger... collaborating with Nissan for the dashboard UI of the GT-R, GT Academy, Vision GT...

It's only natural that the FIA picked GT. After all, when has Forza or iRacing made any sort of meaningful contribution to the real world automotive industry?

 

[VBR]

@Imari - Regarding laser scanning of tracks by PD; the first time I ever heard anything about it was in the Pushing The Virtual Divide documentary. If PD really have been laser scanning all tracks since 2004 like @amar212 suggests, then I'm very surprised that they haven't used it as a marketing tool.

Either way, it would be very nice to know what tracks are & what tracks aren't laser scanned.

Laser scanning is most important in creating an accurate bump map of the track, you can't do that with GPS. The more realistic the bumps in the road surface, the more realistic the cars will look when they interact with them.

 

[RACECAR]

Or maybe, y'know, they simply haven't gotten around to certifying the other tracks yet. I'd imagine that the certification process for a track isn't exactly something gets knocked out in an afternoon.
And IMHO, the reason they went with GT seems crystal clear to me. GT, despite its many faults, is a game with class. It's a series that, even with competition currently running laps around them in some areas, has achieved a certain status that makes it appealing for this type of thing.
I think it really started with GT4 when they started putting in novelty vehicles... prehistoric ones, fictional ones, etc. At the time it was just a cute touch, but it showed the automotive world that GT wasn't just a boring, run-of-the-mill racing game featuring a typical roster of the coolest cars available... GT had ambition. From there, it has just grown bigger and bigger... collaborating with Nissan for the dashboard UI of the GT-R, GT Academy, Vision GT...
It's only natural that the FIA picked GT. After all, when has Forza or iRacing made any sort of meaningful contribution to the real world automotive industry?

It also kinda helps that all the GT Academy Graduates have competed in many events/series under the FIA's santioning.

 

[Grandi]

On the accuracy of e.g. Suzuka & Monza...

Comparing with laser-scanned comparative versions (Suzuka in iRacing, Monza in Assetto Corsa), the track profile itself in GT5/6 seems to be fine. However, what fundamentally breaks the immersion in these circuits are the curbs. You would think that these are not too complex to remodel, but with PD's schedule...

The additional walls etc. are no concern, easy to remove & install some sensible cutting penalty.

 

[Azure Flare]

FIA certified.

Take that Turn 10!

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Well, the first thing to get recognition as a videogame is...to be a good videogame don't you think ?

One might think this should be the first step... and seeing FIA embark on this when PD is at its lowest in terms of reputation shows how little quality matters.

It's all about money.

I think they've already got recognition of that, that is why I think there are so many car manufacturers willing to make their own Vision GT cars.

Reputation wise they're probably highest they have ever been. I agree quality matters and this is why FIA certified the tracks they did.

Even if the tracks were inaccurate, where's the corruption? PD get what they want, the FIA name on the box. FIA get what they want, access to a new market of motorsport enthusiasts.

That's not corrupt, that's business.

We know that not all the tracks are even up to the best standards available today, because they're not all laser scanned. That hasn't stopped the FIA from certifying them, which tends to indicate that they're happy as long as it's a reasonable representation. Which is fine, but it means that it's a business partnership, not the FIA certifying how awesome GT's tracks are.

So for example if FIA passed a real world track which is not deemed safe but due to money then that won't be corruption but business.

If you can prove what you said in your post then go ahead. I haven't seen anything about it being exclusive to get tracks certified by FIA so it is up to other developers to get approved if they want to and if their tracks live up to the quality that FIA require.

It's not a negative spin, its a spin of skepticism until we know more. They've told us next to nothing what this means for us the players besides a championship next year.

I thought what they told is already quite big. What else can FIA offer that is bigger than what they announced?

 

[G.T.Ace]

aaahh yes "laser scanned" the holy grail of buzzwords for racing games. Few know what it actually means as far as track quality, but it's the end all be all of track quality.

I remember someone on here talking about laser scanning (Famine maybe?) and about how it wasn't as important as everyone seems to make it out to be. I can't or the life of me find the posts now though.

I think you're talking about me.

EDIT:

A 2cm bump might be modeled, but a 2mm bump won't. I don't even know a single racing game were things in this scale are displayed by the graphics engine and I seriously, seriously doubt IRacing is capable enough to notice things with the size of 2-3mm.


The point is: Why bother and spend more money on 2mm accurate scanning, when a slightly less accurate scan is sufficient enough?

People are hyping up this laser-scanning too much.
For me, the biggest advantages from the technology are:
- Accurate corner radii.
- Accurate height data.
- Accurate sorroundings including visual reference points.
Micro bumps in the road you don't notice because the game can't even translate them are definitely not on the list.

 

[Brend]

Go read the article again; the likelihood of future certifications in high.

Other tracks featured in the game are also marked for inspection to receive FIA certification in the future.

True, but at what point does it imply it will be limited to certifications?

We are also excited to be working closely with Polyphony Digital and Sony Computer Entertainment in the future to find new ways to continue to make motor sport more accessible to millions of fans that share a passion for racing,

 

[Imari]

So for example if FIA passed a real world track which is not deemed safe but due to money then that won't be corruption but business.

There are significant differences between certifying and unsafe track in the real world and an unsafe track in the virtual world. If the version of Suzuka they certified is the one that we're currently using, it is unsafe.

If you can prove what you said in your post then go ahead.

The null hypothesis doesn't require proof. That's why it's the null hypothesis.

Without further information, the assumption is that they haven't laser scanned the tracks. There's reasonable evidence that they've scanned one, Bathurst. Silverstone and Brands can be handwaved through a bit due to being made at a time when we know that they were scanning at least one other track, but they're assumptions, we don't have hard evidence that I'm aware of. Suzuka we've got nothing.

Unless you'd like to take a stab at disproving Russell's Teapot while you're at it. That's always good for a laugh.

I haven't seen anything about it being exclusive to get tracks certified by FIA so it is up to other developers to get approved if they want to and if their tracks live up to the quality that FIA require.

I haven't said anything about it being exclusive either?

 

[Samus]

So, I guess we are all just gonna forget about Update 1.09 and keep saying PD is failing to deliver?

Alrighty then.......

Whoa now, where did I say anything about failing to deliver? I merely suggested that PD hardly 'proved the negative people wrong' with this particular announcement. It has nothing to do with a lot of the things people have been negative about for many years, unless there are numerous negative threads about tracks not being certified by the FIA I don't know about.

I thought what they told is already quite big. What else can FIA offer that is bigger than what they announced?

Just read this thread and where several peoples imaginations have run as to what they could offer. This could mean a lot and bring a lot to GT but it remains to be seen if it will.

 

[MatskiMonk]

If GT6 is going to be a platform for an online FIA championship, then GT6 needs some serious updates.
First of all fix the unstable servers. Great to be disconnected from the server in the middle of a FIA championship race. Sorry matte, you are not going to Monaco for the price award because you where disconnected from the last race and therefor didn´t win the championship.

Different number and livery on the cars is a must for a championship of this size.

The physics needs to be spot on. Camber settings of 0,0 should not be the best and fastest setup.

Rules for cars. The PP calculation does not work for a championship like this. Even though the cars have the same PP, there is still a big difference in handling, speed and lap times.

And what about time gaps between the cars during the race and not only the gap to the frontrunner. This is also something PD needs to put into the game, before a championship like this.

There are probably many other things PD needs to look into before a championship of this magnitude. FIA must have some demands before they wants to get there FIA brand connected to an online game.

Hopefully this means a lot of new and improved functions for GT6 in upcoming updates.
So PD will sort all of these issues before the championship gets underway.

I would imagine the championship will be on dedicated servers with dedicated software, dedicated physics, homologated cars and certified tracks, they won't leave anything to chance, but if you think as a casual player you will have access to it, I suspect you will be disappointed.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

Can anyone please explain to me the obsession with laser-scanned tracks as the only true representation of track modelling?