The Graphics

[sems4arsenal]

Certainly didn't look like that in game.

Funnily enough, this looks slightly like or worse Madrid/Rome, granted they're not done with this track as the bull shots are probably their target, but they chose to show this track at it's current state, so do they really can't show 5 finished tracks?

 

[sleeprGT]

Certainly didn't look like that in game.

Sure it didn't. It looked exactly like that compressed "screenshot" it you keep posting here.

 

[PzR Slim]

Sure it didn't. It looked exactly like that compressed "screenshot" it you keep posting here.

First time I've posted a picture of Tokyo, compressed or not. What's your point?

 

[sleeprGT]

First time I've posted a picture of Tokyo, compressed or not. What's your point?

You're right, it was the other user, my apologies. The point is that "screenshot" you're showing is not representative of the real thing. I've seen pretty much all videos from the event and in none of the vids looked that bad. Video compression completely removes certain details from games, I've had more than enough experience with this. I even saw some screenshots that made uncharted 4 look like a PS3 game, while it certanly isn't nor it would be possible to run that game on that console.

 

[dacc10]

I think we should wait to see how the track will end up looking like. This might be a similar case to the Nurburgring in the trailer.

 

[Aria]

Looks like modern Tšernobyl.

 

[mister dog]

Looks like modern Tšernobyl.

Nah that has way more vegetation

 

[gtracedriver1]

Not sure from where that tokoyo pic was taken. In the trailer the green hell footage was older build. Someone posted a screenshot of day2 or day3 and the difference is obvious.The game will look better than the pic posted above. Grass is static, no skid marks etc ... these things I am sure will be added and game look better than what we have seen. Which TBH is looking amazing already. The game is not gone gold. It is WIP 💡

 

[Imari]

Tokyo Expressway:

It all looks very well modelled, but it's not exactly an exciting environment is it?

It looks pretty much exactly like you'd expect a race along a vacated motorway through a commercial district to look: grey with shiny bits.

For me, the problem is not so much modelling or objects or anything else like that. It's just a bad place to put a track when you have the entirety of the world and anything you can imagine to choose from. If you look at things like El Capitan or Eiger Norwand and compare them to this, you can start to see how dull it really is. It's only saving grace is notoriety, and there are plenty of such roads to choose from. Transfagarasan for one.

Imagine that set up like a rally stage, with spectators, grandstands, helicopters and marquees. Imagine it in the rain, or at night.

 

[FoRiZon]

It all looks very well modelled, but it's not exactly an exciting environment is it?

It looks pretty much exactly like you'd expect a race along a vacated motorway through a commercial district to look: grey with shiny bits.

For me, the problem is not so much modelling or objects or anything else like that. It's just a bad place to put a track when you have the entirety of the world and anything you can imagine to choose from. If you look at things like El Capitan or Eiger Norwand and compare them to this, you can start to see how dull it really is. It's only saving grace is notoriety, and there are plenty of such roads to choose from. Transfagarasan for one.

Imagine that set up like a rally stage, with spectators, grandstands, helicopters and marquees. Imagine it in the rain, or at night.

If anything, what Kaz wants us is to experience that Wangan feel, just like when he added the SSR11 back in GT5.

The enviroment though is just not populated enough really. And the most dissapointing is that It should have been a drifting central from what my Wangan friend thought about the trailer. Its just that layout is so simple and bland its forgetabble. I hope PD can spice up the track and also offers more layout than this, honestly.

 

[Imari]

If anything, what Kaz wants us is to experience that Wangan feel, just like when he added the SSR11 back in GT5.

The enviroment though is just not populated enough really. And the most dissapointing is that It should have been a drifting central from what my Wangan friend thought about the trailer. Its just that layout is so simple and bland its forgetabble. I hope PD can spice up the track and also offers more layout than this, honestly.

The thing is, the excitement of running the Wangan is that there's actual other traffic on the road and it's illegal as 🤬. The actual road itself is unspectacular, it was simply in the right place and had big straight sections for escaping the police.

It seems to me like something that could be captured and expressed as well in a short film. Driving it in game during the day with no traffic or damage isn't even the slightest hint of what it must feel like to really run that road.

It's possible that Kaz feels like he has some connection to the road. He was probably on it or a road very like it when he totalled his R32. But it's just not a very good choice for a motorsports based circuit racing game.

The one thing that I thought might have been interesting was to make it a proper circuit of Tokyo, past proper sightseeing attractions. That way maybe he could include pieces of road that are special to him like the C1, but also include some visual splendour and educate people about Tokyo at the same time.

It might be interesting to have a driving tour where you cruise around the track and a voiceover explains the various sights and history to you as you go. Players would probably only do it once each, but it'd be pretty neat and something I don't think anyone else has done.

 

[GranTurismo guy]

It all looks very well modelled, but it's not exactly an exciting environment is it?

But that's the thing. Does it have to be?

 

[Eager Snake]

Sorry to only quote the lesser part of your post, but one thing that stays with me out of the GT series is playing GT3 for the first few times (early teens), and starting very quickly from the menu in Arcade mode on one of the ovals in the C5R Corvette, the visual quality of the game astounded me.
I'm guessing a mad frame rate, lots of smoothing?

I had the same sensation. But my first time seeing the game wasn't in my house, it was at friend's. I didn't even know that my friend had bought the console, and he was a huge Gran Turismo fan...
I still remember entering his room, and seeing him with a yellow Skyline on Trial Mountain. It was tremendous. I was even afraid to look at the damn thing. Wow it was absolutely staggering. What an amazing feeling.
We even used to joke about God copying Gran Turismo to make reality possible haha

 

[Castrol96]

Some of these buildings remind me of GT2000.

Lets hope the quality will be fair around the track when the game is released.

 

[C_Raccoon23]

But that's the thing. Does it have to be?

Yes. Yes it does. It's silly for a city course to be so desolate and colorless. This Tokyo Expressway track reminds me of the transition of SSR5 from GT4 to GT5. It went from a being track filled with spectators, cheering crowds taking photos, with grandstands lining different areas, to a completey deserted city devoid of life. It just lost all of its charm. If I didn't know Tokyo Expressway was based on C1, I would think it took place in the same abandoned city as the current SSR5 but during the day.

On a related note, one my favorite city tracks in a racing game is the Expert course from Daytona USA 2.

One quality I like about this track is that it takes you through different parts of the city. It starts off in the area in the above picture, then goes past a stadium, through a dockyard, onto the highway, and finally back to the start. And even though this course doesn't have any spectators littered everywhere, there are still signs of life. You can hear ships at the dockyard and you can see a subway train pass by towards the end of the course, for example. Tokyo Expessway has no interesting scenery or signs of life.

Details like this are important because they are what help make a track memorable and help them become fan favorites.

 

[dylansan]

As much hate as Hong Kong got in GT4, there's no denying it was a visually interesting and unique track. GT4 had several interesting city tracks that I think all managed to be interesting, both in appearance and in layout. I think the city tracks since then have been mostly lackluster.

 

[torque99]

Out of all the City tracks I played the ones that stick in my mind are from Codies Grid1/2/AS series PS3/360 even back then they had so much atmosphere and crowds/balloons made you feel like you were in a race and I thought the trackside graphics would never get better than this even back then when I first played the original grid.

 

[FoRiZon]

Out of all the City tracks I played the ones that stick in my mind are from Codies Grid1/2/AS series PS3/360 even back then they had so much atmosphere and crowds/balloons made you feel like you were in a race and I thought the trackside graphics would never get better than this even back then when I first played the original grid.
View attachment 550102 View attachment 550103

It does looks good. Sadly its at 30 FPS.

To really compare the graphics you need to compare to the other games that targeted (not necessarily at constant) 60FPS on console.

 

[torque99]

@FrzGT Yeah I understand, I just like all the crowd atmosphere and saturated colour on a track as @MeanElf said DC also done it well (but again 30FPS)

 

[Imari]

But that's the thing. Does it have to be?

Perhaps exciting isn't the right word. Engaging? Interesting?

I think any fantasy track should be attempting to provide an experience. That experience doesn't have to be "YEAH! RAD! SUPER EXCITEMENT WOO WOO!" all the time. It could be a peaceful drive down a coastal road. It could be anything.

Technically, I suppose it could also be driving on a motorway beside some commercial offices. But if you're going to make something, that seems sort of a waste to me. For starters, half the people with real cars probably do that five days a week already. And while there are some people out there who no doubt think to themselves "Yeah, I'd love to go cruise the motorway around the commercial district" I'd have to think that they're few and far between compared to those who would appreciate a street track through a scenic part of the city, or some spectacular countryside, or near some fabulous landmark.

But if you must do a motorway through a commercial district, how about one that actually has something going on. Like a race. There is no motorsports event on earth that is as dead as that Tokyo track. GT1 tracks had more in the way of spectators and race atmosphere.

So no, it doesn't have to be. But I think if someone is going to spend 2+ years artisanally (that can't be a word...) building a track then there's got to be something more valuable to the players to spend that time on than what we saw. It's a questionable setting for a track to start with, and even then they've done it in the most unengaging way possible. It is literally a road with some buildings beside it. Woo.

Compare to R246, which is hardly the height of track design either, but at least it looks like there's actually a race going on. There's spectator stands, there's signage, there's catch fencing to stop the cars from flying off the track. It's fantasy, but they actually put some effort into thinking "what would it look like if we really held a race around here?"

 

[GranTurismo guy]

Perhaps exciting isn't the right word. Engaging? Interesting?

I think any fantasy track should be attempting to provide an experience. That experience doesn't have to be "YEAH! RAD! SUPER EXCITEMENT WOO WOO!" all the time. It could be a peaceful drive down a coastal road. It could be anything.

Technically, I suppose it could also be driving on a motorway beside some commercial offices. But if you're going to make something, that seems sort of a waste to me. For starters, half the people with real cars probably do that five days a week already. And while there are some people out there who no doubt think to themselves "Yeah, I'd love to go cruise the motorway around the commercial district" I'd have to think that they're few and far between compared to those who would appreciate a street track through a scenic part of the city, or some spectacular countryside, or near some fabulous landmark.

But if you must do a motorway through a commercial district, how about one that actually has something going on. Like a race. There is no motorsports event on earth that is as dead as that Tokyo track. GT1 tracks had more in the way of spectators and race atmosphere.

So no, it doesn't have to be. But I think if someone is going to spend 2+ years artisanally (that can't be a word...) building a track then there's got to be something more valuable to the players to spend that time on than what we saw. It's a questionable setting for a track to start with, and even then they've done it in the most unengaging way possible. It is literally a road with some buildings beside it. Woo.

Compare to R246, which is hardly the height of track design either, but at least it looks like there's actually a race going on. There's spectator stands, there's signage, there's catch fencing to stop the cars from flying off the track. It's fantasy, but they actually put some effort into thinking "what would it look like if we really held a race around here?"

You make very fair points here. I don't think that no tracks at all should attempt to be engaging, exciting etc, but I personally feel (this may sound weird/boring) that it could be interesting to host a race in, as you identified, a regular driving atmosphere. Areas that look dedicated create this huge sense of occasion, which certainly isn't bad, but what if occasionally you don't want that? Sometimes I just look at some roads and think "I wonder what it would be like to just floor it here", and it's more about the road than exciting surroundings. I think that this Tokyo track will put more emphasis on the road and drive itself and could be a different experience maybe, hopefully in a good way.

Does that make any sense? I probably sound like I'm talking bollocks, but I know what I know what I'm trying to say in my head

 

[Imari]

Sometimes I just look at some roads and think "I wonder what it would be like to just floor it here", and it's more about the road than exciting surroundings.

I think that could be fine too, but in that case the focus is on the road to provide the engagement or interest. So it should be a really good driving road. I know I've been on a few in real life that have no particular interesting visual elements to the scenery (like being stuck in a valley the whole way) but are just really, really good roads to drive.

But then, again I'd probably make the point that a motorway is unlikely to be a good drive, and that particular section of motorway that they've modelled is really nothing special in terms of being a driver's road.

I make no restrictions on what the interesting or engaging characteristic of a track might be. It could be any of the things we've talked about or something completely out of left field. I think the only important thing is that every track should have something that stands out about it, or else why model it?

I just happen to feel that that particular track in that particular configuration doesn't do it for me, and is really pretty unlikely to do it for very many people at all compared to any of the myriad of other choices that could have been made. At best, it's a choice that will please a tiny minority, if that. It's a little disappointing that Polyphony has made so many tracks in the past that have become classics beloved by pretty much everyone, yet this was the best they could do.

In general, I prefer new content to rehashes of older content, but I think that in this case they would have been better off making an updated version of Deep Forest, Trial Mountain or El Capitan. However, if they wanted something Tokyo, my choice would have been something involving the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Big Sight.

The roads around there would probably allow either a fast an flowing motorway-esque track, a tight and twisty city track or any combination of the two. Especially if you got creative and used some of the elevated tram lines, there's a nice bit that spirals off one end of the bridge, and there's actually a second layer of roadway that goes underneath the car lanes on top.

That would have been my pitch for a Tokyo track that industrial, commercial feel and would be recognisably Japanese but with some stand out talking points. Everyone is going to remember blasting across that bridge at night in the rain, and they'd want to tell all their friends. I reckon it'd be a great selling point, and probably great photomode locations as well. I'll be surprised if Big Sight isn't one of the Tokyo photo locations as it is. It's very iconic.

P.S. Sorry for wall of text, I waffle on for far too long.

 

[Griffith500]

I wonder if the expressway isn't part of the (potentially stillborn) "free roam" area hinted at in the past. The Special Stages on PS3 were unfinished in a similar way.

In that regard, this might just have been a rough cut out of a larger whole. There may be time to tart it up a bit.

 

[gtracedriver1]

Out of all the City tracks I played the ones that stick in my mind are from Codies Grid1/2/AS series PS3/360 even back then they had so much atmosphere and crowds/balloons made you feel like you were in a race and I thought the trackside graphics would never get better than this even back then when I first played the original grid.
View attachment 550102 View attachment 550103

Grid has good atmosphere in street racing. I wonder when codies will make another grid. I love street racing and GT fictional tracks so hopefully they will have more in GTS. GT6 has the best smoke affect I have seen. I really hope the smoke remains for longer time in GTS. In GT6 it looks great but disappear in 3secs

 

[torque99]

Grid has good atmosphere in street racing. I wonder when codies will make another grid. I love street racing and GT fictional tracks so hopefully they will have more in GTS. GT6 has the best smoke affect I have seen. I really hope the smoke remains for longer time in GTS. In GT6 it looks great but disappear in 3secs

I wish I could drift like that I can in NFS (by accident!) but nothing like this video in GT6!

 

[citroengt1]

That hexagonal exhaust on the 4C....

And the "barely-even-a-pipe" exhaust on the Jaguar.....

 

[ImaRobot]

That hexagonal exhaust on the 4C....

And the "barely-even-a-pipe" exhaust on the Jaguar.....

It's not just the exhaust, that looks almost intentional. However, most any rounded edge on the car is blocky.

 

[ArR29]

That hexagonal exhaust on the 4C....

And the "barely-even-a-pipe" exhaust on the Jaguar.....

That's adaptive tesselation, I think

 

[SlipZtrEm]

That hexagonal exhaust on the 4C....

And the "barely-even-a-pipe" exhaust on the Jaguar.....

That's strange. It looks more like a screengrab of a replay than a dedicated Photomode shot, considering the curves are all pretty rough on the 4C. Like @ImaRobot mentioned, the exhaust might be intentional.

 

[OHM_fusion]

That's strange. It looks more like a screengrab of a replay than a dedicated Photomode shot, considering the curves are all pretty rough on the 4C. Like @ImaRobot mentioned, the exhaust might be intentional.

I'm sure it's just tessellation because that's exactly how exhausts looked on some of the cars in GT6 until you get close when it turns totally smooth. Check 0.57 and 03.31 in this video:



The technology is cool and all but PD really needs to make sure that when you enter on-track photomode the cars are loaded at their highest quality even if that takes a extra few seconds of loading.