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

[Samus]

So I did find some evidence of laser scanning.

“For a single track, we take over 100,000 photos and laser scan the track surface, and we also use images captured from helicopters and satellites,” Mr. Yamauchi said. “The discrepancy of track accuracy is down to plus or minus one centimeter. We do the same for cars; we take several hundred photos for each car, laser scan the surface, the exterior, the interior, the instrument panels.”

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/201...fluence-sports-car-design/?smid=tw-share&_r=0

However we still don't know how far back that goes, of course.

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

It's just the comfort of knowing it's absolutely accurate to the real thing.

 

[Soulfresh_ACV]

So I did find some evidence of laser scanning.



http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/201...fluence-sports-car-design/?smid=tw-share&_r=0

However we still don't know how far back that goes, of course.



It's just the comfort of knowing it's absolutely accurate to the real thing.

But it doesn't mean that PD or even other racing games for that matter will use 100% of the laser-scanned data especially down to the surface detail. They're probably only using half of the data just to keep the framerate.

 

[MidFieldMaven]

I hope Suzuka Circuit was one of the four FIA certified tracks??!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[Dionisiy]

http://www.fia.com/news/conference-q-kazunori-yamauchi

Conference Q & A with Kazunori Yamauchi

Q How did the collaboration with the FIA begin?
A I think it was around two years ago that we heard that the FIA was interested in doing something with us and I went to their headquarters in Paris and I heard there that Mr Jean Todt had a great interest in the project as well. From then on a lot of ideas came up and we’ve shared and traded information.
The people from the FIA came to Polyphony twice to compare their data with ours. We were surprised because they are incredibly detailed about the things they check. It was very comprehensive.

Q How important is it for Gran Turismo to have the FIA seal of approval through using fully homologated circuits?
A To Gran Turismo there are a number of objectives. Of course, one of them is to enjoy controlling really fast cars on the track. At the same time I race myself and I understand the importance of safety in motor sport. I totally understand the FIA’s point of view in placing a heavy emphasis on the safety of the tracks that are used in racing. Reflecting that concern is important for us.

Q When you examined the information about those tracks, was there more information available that helped build more realistic circuits?
A When we actually take data from the tracks we go into a severe amount of detail in recreating and surveying everything that exists at a track, photographing everything. However, we didn’t realise until we got the input of the FIA why things are structured the way they are, why circuits are laid out in a particular way, why corners are profiled a certain way and what influences the shape and layout of the kerbs. In that respect we learned a lot about the protocols that go into circuit design.

Q You mentioned that you race yourself?
A I raced the Nurburgring 24 Hours recently. I’ve done that several times [he has won his class twice) and I race in the VLN Endurance Championship.

Q There are four circuits homologated in GT6, so what does the future hold?
A Today is really just the beginning. I don’t think we can include every circuit, some of them won’t be possible because there are a lot of classic circuits in Grand Turismo that we simply can’t do.

Q So it’s about making the current tracks as accurate as possible?
A We want each and every circuit exactly as it is in real life and the collaborating with the FIA is a big part of it.

 

[cassiusclay99]

??? I wonder what kind of data FIA can provide on a track that PD can't have when they actually go and scan the track.

Again : to me, sounds like bollocks all along...

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.

I so disagree with you. Scores, sales, production problems (like games released unfinished and unpolished)... all this tarnished PD reputation big time, at least in the gaming industry; which is what matters to us.

I don't think PD is such an important brand in car industry. Obviously the biggest videogame brand but not that big in the industry.

All the news we get from the collaborations come from PD or events that are organized by PD...never have I red any mention of GT being a huge deal in any car magazine I read (or maybe once: talking about GT's role in Nissan GTR popularity)

I don't even remember GT6 being reviewed by Evo or Auto passion... at least in France (correct me if I am wrong).

or making the big news. Even GT academy is still very unknown by 99% of people...

The vision GT cars are PR, not real big projects for brands. They have tens of designers that can do the job...
My brother in law works (pretty high) for a big car company who has its car in GT vision....and when I talked about it, he had no idea what I was talking about.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not denying that GT succeeded in being part of the whole car industry....but I really feel that its importance is very exagerated.

 

[Spagetti69]

So would the FIA want there brand associated with jumps at Cape ring for example?

Could this impede on the fantasy tracks that feature in GT?

I'm confused. It would seem some tracks would be FIA approved and some not. Unless PD only featured FIA approved from now on.

Not sure if this is good or not. Tbh.

 

[cassiusclay99]

They are probably gonna release a GT7 prologue... maybe backed with a Championship...all this approved by FIA (like: only "approved" tracks in the game).

I don't think this deal will have any kind of consequence on GT6...

 

[VBR]

So I did find some evidence of laser scanning.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/201...fluence-sports-car-design/?smid=tw-share&_r=0

However we still don't know how far back that goes, of course.

“For a single track, we take over 100,000 photos and laser scan the track surface, and we also use images captured from helicopters and satellites,” Mr. Yamauchi said. “The discrepancy of track accuracy is down to plus or minus one centimeter.

I think iRacing laserscans down to an accuracy of 1mm (source), 1cm is quite big compared to that. I always assumed that PD didn't laser scan tracks simply because of the way that cars in GT games don't bob up & down realistically. Maybe it has more to do with poor suspension modeling soaking up more bumps than it would in real life.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

Does that mean we might get an updated Monaco?

 

[ironman44321]

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

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 iRacing laserscans down to an accuracy of 1mm (source), 1cm is quite big compared to that. I always assumed that PD didn't laser scan tracks simply because of the way that cars in GT games don't bob up & down realistically. Maybe it has more to do with poor suspension modeling soaking up more bumps than it would in real life.

First and foremost, Wikipedia isn't really a source. It's a good place to find sources, but it itself isn't really a viable source.

Secondly, It's highly unlikely that any racing game uses the raw scar data for a track model. The reason being that the file for the track would be huge. For example, surveyors scan to an accuracy of 1/4 inch (normally) and the file for a scan of two miles of road can be more than 10 gb of data.

Scans are used as references for the track models, they aren't the track models themselves.

 

[Malcolm Tucker]

There has been quite a few comments in this thread speculating about PD approaching the FIA to get their seal of approval for marketing reasons. I think this is wrong, and the opposite is actually true; FIA approached PD. For quite a few years now, the FIA have been faced with an aging demographic of motorsport fans. The 'Millennials' by and large don't care about motorsport, and the FIA have been grappling with this for some time now, various meetings happen every year with the sole purpose of discussing how they can reach out to the youth of today. I think this is a result of those meetings. What it means for actual content I don't know, but this has definitely come about as the result of the FIA's marketing scheme, rather than PD's.

 

[crowhop]

There has been quite a few comments in this thread speculating about PD approaching the FIA to get their seal of approval for marketing reasons. I think this is wrong, and the opposite is actually true; FIA approached PD. For quite a few years now, the FIA have been faced with an aging demographic of motorsport fans. The 'Millennials' by and large don't care about motorsport, and the FIA have been grappling with this for some time now, various meetings happen every year with the sole purpose of discussing how they can reach out to the youth of today. I think this is a result of those meetings. What it means for actual content I don't know, but this has definitely come about as the result of the FIA's marketing scheme, rather than PD's.

Yes.
I think it is directly related to this:
SAFE is Fast: The RRDC/FIA Young Drivers Training Program.
http://safeisfast.com/

I said early on in this thread that I doubt money has changed hands. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.

 

[Malcolm Tucker]

Yes.
I think it is directly related to this:
SAFE is Fast: The RRDC/FIA Young Drivers Training Program.
http://safeisfast.com/

I said early on in this thread that I doubt money has changed hands. It is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Yeh I totally agree. It would be a big surprise if money was involved any further than the FIA paying the costs to run the championship, and maybe the man hours to create any extra content that we may or may not get.

 

[gtracedriver1]

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

I agree. It took them 2yrs to do Nurburgring and it is awesome with variable weather and all. Not sure how can they improve it. What they can do is the amount of detail they can put into PS4 version. PS3 does not even uses 500mb of ram. PS4 can use 5-6gigs along with nice gpu, cpu. Tracks like Laguna seca though need a revamp, Monte carlo too. Way overrated track but it is popular as well

 

[Gerarghini]

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?

Good point, let's only hope the PD and the FIA make something meaningful put of this partnership. They already have the online championship, but they should also make events accessible to all players.

 

[amar212]

Scans are used as references for the track models, they aren't the track models themselves.

I depends on what and how you are scanning, actually. Assetto Corsa is scanning complete tracks, from surface, to surroundings - it is the most demanding, most expensive and overall newest method. However, we will never know how *much* of that data will they use for the final rendition of some track.

Some are scanning only the surface and then combine such data with other data (GPS maps, official layouts, photos, videos, reference tools, etc).

Some are using laser-scan pointer technology on-the-site to determine measurements of the tracks with highest possible accuracy and they are simply imputing that data when they are building a wireframe model.

All of those are "laser scans" to interpretation extent - and all of those "scans" are 100% worthless if particular game developer can't transfer that data to the usable virtual track and to the properly working in-game sensation (mainly programming the surface mapping to provide sensation of bumps and elevations on some input slave device)

If I had enough money, I could go today and knock on the doors of the Smart MultiMedia Company and buy their laser-scans of US tracks, in the same way Turn10 did for the FM5. But, without proper game-engine, those laser-scans would serve no single purpose than being great eater of my HDD space.

 

[Zer0]

I so disagree with you. Scores, sales, production problems (like games released unfinished and unpolished)... all this tarnished PD reputation big time, at least in the gaming industry; which is what matters to us.

I don't think PD is such an important brand in car industry. Obviously the biggest videogame brand but not that big in the industry.

All the news we get from the collaborations come from PD or events that are organized by PD...never have I red any mention of GT being a huge deal in any car magazine I read (or maybe once: talking about GT's role in Nissan GTR popularity)

I don't even remember GT6 being reviewed by Evo or Auto passion... at least in France (correct me if I am wrong).

or making the big news. Even GT academy is still very unknown by 99% of people...

The vision GT cars are PR, not real big projects for brands. They have tens of designers that can do the job...
My brother in law works (pretty high) for a big car company who has its car in GT vision....and when I talked about it, he had no idea what I was talking about.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not denying that GT succeeded in being part of the whole car industry....but I really feel that its importance is very exagerated.

Videogames forums and sites talk about videogames with a generic gamer mind. A motor industry reputation is builded in the real world by real enthusiasts and by people that lives turns around it.

Nissan GT Academy and the project achievements. Kaz racing in prestigious championships. Kaz test driving prototypes before public releases. GT Concours d'Elegance. Goodwood Festival. Sema. Motor Trend Power List. Historic brands introduction in new markets. Car prototypes designed by major brands for GT to a real stage. Nissan GT-R user interface. New cars unveiling to play in real-time at their real world presentation. Toyota GPS visualizer. Association with biggest actual motorsport names (Vettel, Loeb, Newell, etc). Association projects with motorsport legends (Sena and Andretti). Mercedes, Coulthard vs GT5. Unprecedent FIA partnership. Etc.

All the above builds real-life reputation at its highest level. There isn't anything comparable to the GT brand or Kaz as its spokeman, the last FIA announcement is just another big step in their unique goal of blurring the virtual and real world. A natural evolution. No game with a better matacritic score, could be close to compete in that camp or be in a better or the same position as is now GT for this projects.

 

[MatskiMonk]

So would the FIA want there brand associated with jumps at Cape ring for example?

Could this impede on the fantasy tracks that feature in GT?

I'm confused. It would seem some tracks would be FIA approved and some not. Unless PD only featured FIA approved from now on.

Not sure if this is good or not. Tbh.

Simple, the FIA wouldn't certify those tracks, then those tracks won't be used in the FIA sanctioned series. This isn't a certificate for the game, it's sanctioning of a series. Simple.

 

[Imari]

I think iRacing laserscans down to an accuracy of 1mm (source), 1cm is quite big compared to that. I always assumed that PD didn't laser scan tracks simply because of the way that cars in GT games don't bob up & down realistically. Maybe it has more to do with poor suspension modeling soaking up more bumps than it would in real life.

GT and Assetto Corsa have scan units mounted on trucks/vehicles that drive around the track doing the scanning. The accuracy of that method is limited by the stability of the platform.

iRacing places fixed scanners on tripods, with marker objects to stitch the overlapping areas together. The accuracy is much greater, as each piece of ground is covered from several angles from a fixed position.

The iRacing method is much more work, and presumably more expensive. For the sake of racing games, I think centimeter accuracy is sufficient. I doubt that the physics model in Gran Turismo would be capable of making use of track detail in the millimetre range.

 

[G.T.Ace]

I doubt that the physics model in Gran Turismo would be capable of making use of track detail in the millimetre range.

Not even iRacing can do that. Heck, you don't feel millimeters in real life.

 

[NICKname]

Just like GT Academy, more features for the fastest drivers.

I never understood why people get excited about GT Academy, and I'll never understand why they would get excited about this. Are you the .001% thats actually fast enough to matter in these competitions? Otherwise whats the point?

Free stuff.

 

[MatskiMonk]

GT and Assetto Corsa have scan units mounted on trucks/vehicles that drive around the track doing the scanning. The accuracy of that method is limited by the stability of the platform.

iRacing places fixed scanners on tripods, with marker objects to stitch the overlapping areas together. The accuracy is much greater, as each piece of ground is covered from several angles from a fixed position.

The iRacing method is much more work, and presumably more expensive. For the sake of racing games, I think centimeter accuracy is sufficient. I doubt that the physics model in Gran Turismo would be capable of making use of track detail in the millimetre range.

I think the physics model is perfectly capable of dealing with measurements in the µm range... whether the system could stand calculations down to that number of decimal places is pretty much a no though!

I'm only puzzling this out, I'm not stating this as fact, but cm accuracy would take 10,000 x & y co-ordinates per m² of track, and each of the would have a z value too. A 1km stretch of track 10m wide would have 100,000,000 data points (300 million co-ordinates). Obviously when making a wireframe you only need to include points where there is a deviation from the surrounding points, but I suspect no system uses such high resolution track surface scans. And there's no point in having mm accuracy on the z axis if you only sample once every metre (for instance), and if you're relying on GPS to get the x and y... how accurate is that? mm?, cm?, I doubt it.

 

[Speedster911]

So I did find some evidence of laser scanning.



http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/201...fluence-sports-car-design/?smid=tw-share&_r=0

However we still don't know how far back that goes, of course.



It's just the comfort of knowing it's absolutely accurate to the real thing.

GT's track accuracy has always been good. Boy oh boy if they redirect some of those resources to sound design and engineering...

 

[CTznOfTime]

... hmm, i don't think so. iRacing isn't a game IMHO - it's a simulation (physics, not graphic)
when i'm tired, i still can do some laps in gt6 ... but never in iRacing. r.

Fair enough, but the point i was trying to make was :

In terms of sanctioned virtual racing... you would think iRacing would be "chasing" the appropriate authority for association and approval in order to gain more credibility...

And in this case, it would seem that, not oonly:
1) The FIA was the one making the "first" step and showing the interest of associated itself with PD (my guess is that they have seen what GT Academy yielded..)
2) A car racing game got a label as formal as the FIA before A car racing simulation...

Looks like an underdog has made a quick pass ahead of a leader in simulation...

 

[Samus]

Fair enough, but the point i was trying to make was :

In terms of sanctioned virtual racing... you would think iRacing would be "chasing" the appropriate authority for association and approval in order to gain more credibility...

And in this case, it would seem that, not oonly:
1) The FIA was the one making the "first" step and showing the interest of associated itself with PD (my guess is that they have seen what GT Academy yielded..)
2) A car racing game got a label as formal as the FIA before A car racing simulation...

Looks like an underdog has made a quick pass ahead of a leader in simulation...

It's all about the brand, as of today the GT name is far more well known to the wider world than iRacing, which most non gamers probably think is something to do with Apple. For the FIA, Gran Turismo is a far better name to attach to, irrespective of the quality of racing simulation.

I doubt GTA had much to do with it, it was probably more just a case of wanting to partner with what is still by far the most recognisable brand name in driving video games.

 

[CTznOfTime]

Exactly...

 

[MatskiMonk]

I doubt GTA had much to do with it

Maybe not a lot to do with it, but I think it gave GT and PDI and big dollop of credibility to get the ball rolling.

 

[GTPorsche]

It definitely helps out some to have a successful driver training program, which is something no other racing game has.

 

[Samus]

It definitely helps out some to have a successful driver training program, which is something no other racing game has.

But i'm pretty sure the FIA would also see the success mostly comes from the 90% real world training, not the 10% done in GT .

 

[carracerptp]

If I had enough money, I could go today and knock on the doors of the Smart MultiMedia Company and buy their laser-scans of US tracks, in the same way Turn10 did for the FM5. But, without proper game-engine, those laser-scans would serve no single purpose than being great eater of my HDD space.

I would also like to add, not all laser scanners are alike. I could build one for ~ $600 that could be inch accurate.

Also, even if the engine can load the data, if the physics engine can't refresh fast enough all that data would be use less over 20 MPH.