GameInformer magazine’s interview with Kazunori Yamauchi (a small part of which was quietly posted on their website back in September) was just included in their latest issue, and is now, of course, getting quite a bit more attention. Here’s what Yamauchi had to say regarding damage in Gran Turismo 5:
“The damage physics are going to be applied to things like a bent suspension arm, tires hitting the wheel wells of a car, deformation of the body affecting alignment, the loss of power to the engine. We’re still working on setting the sensitivity level of of the damage. You can have it so if you have a single hit your car isn’t going to be able to be driven anymore. It’s a matter of adjustment.”
We’ve known about damage affecting the car’s handling for quite some time now, but his comment suggesting an adjustable range of sensitivity is raising a few eyebrows. Although adjustable damage could certainly make it into the game, I think Yamauchi’s (or, more precisely, his translator’s) use of the word “you” could refer to himself and the development team, as he suggests their software is flexible enough to provide them a wide range of options. It can certainly be read the other way, however, and I hope I am wrong – adjustable damage would make the game demanding for hardcore racers, yet still approachable for casual gamers.
Photomode fans also get new details on GT5’s implementation of the popular feature:
“I think the quality of the image that you can get is going to be not even comparable. We’re trying to make it so that at a minimum you’ll be able to take 8 megapixel pictures. We might be able to raise it up to about 20 megapixels, but I can’t promise anything.”
Similar to his quote on damage, we can’t say for sure if resolution will be a user option, but the ability to produce your own screenshots like this is a very exciting proposition. Yamauchi made another noteworthy statement regarding the challenge Polyphony Digital has faced with the inclusion of NASCAR:
“The most difficult part is actually NASCAR. Their rules are really, really complex. It’s almost the difference between soccer and American football. I’m not quite sure of just how much of NASCAR’s rules we’ll be able to implement but we’re going to try.”
It’s exciting to learn that the NASCAR events will present at least a subset of the unique challenges that come to racing in the popular series. If anything, it at least suggests it won’t simply be a regular GT race with NASCAR vehicles and drivers. Perhaps the same can be said for WRC… point-to-point rally stages, anyone?
Thanks to Justin for sending this in!
See more articles on Damage, Kazunori Yamauchi, NASCAR, and Photomode.
I think they should just leave GT GT. and make a completly new game for just nascar. thats the only thing EA did right. no offense i like GT but this whole nascar mix thing is kind of a joke. i mean let me guess were going to have to unlock the nascar part, which sucks. the graphics look great though. 1 more question does this mean we have to wait for GT 6 for more nascar? o yeah what about the stupid wings are the going to still have those or going back to the spoiler? Go Denny Hamlin #11 my champship pick…. $cr&w johnson #48
gives up something new already Jordan!!
well nascar and WRC are brilliant features without a doubt but we need some clarifications on the damage really confusing also can we expect a demo or a dlc for christmas
Release date in Denmark is set to 5th March.. Even though I doubt it. But all danish stores says that its gonna release at march 5th.
@Sam__ NY
I didn’t diss anybody…that’s why I started with ‘no offence to anyone’
@DaveTheStalker
Totally agreed, noted and understood.
@ 8@No$
+1
8@No$
I agree with the last part of your comment.Hill climb/point to point races would be sick, and full stage wrc stages would be very nice (like dirt one) added to the already tracks would take this game to a whole new level,Add that with a ridiculous amout of sick ass cars and deep tuning and this game will make out light bills go up for a long time to come lol. Pd give us the tracks/circuts/stages in full lengths !!! no matter how long,tough etc
Well the damage news are great !! I would love to adjust the damage level but i am not quite sure that he meant players will be able to adjust it, i think that was for programmers. Anyway if a fixed level of damage was to be included, then i would like the real level of damage, in which a hard crash gets you off the race, this is fair. Real damage, or no damage at all. But adjustability would be awesome with rules like in the hard races there would be full damage etc.
So much about the Nascar! Focus that time in WRC instead! Nascar is boring, the tracks are boring and the cars are boring. It may be a super-hard championship in real life with too much of a heat and the cars are very difficult to drive under these conditions, but they are like RC models with a cover and the tracks are all like the same.. (except if there are races on the road tracks too, in which case it would be far more exciting)
Give us special stages, give us hill climbs, give us gravel, snow, dirty slippery asphalt… Yes… Well if you could give us both the nascar and the wrc to satisfy everyone it would be great, thank you :-)
@TIGA If you’ve been paying attention, you know that NASCAR is not holding GT5 back from being released NOW. It’s the DAMAGE mongers. They [the media] were not satisfied with the first stage of damage presented at Games Comm., forcing PD to put the game on the back burner and focus on a more substantial damage model [at release]. Patching the game was not good enough. So, now we have to wait until April at least, maybe a global release on March 30, but I’m not banking on it. Thank you damage mongers.
Nascar? i thought it was just 40 generic cars racing in a dumb oval circuit… :|
The way I understand it, it sounds like the level of damage will be set in the game and that PD are trying to find out where the sensible level is rather than it be adjustable by the player. I reckon they should just allow the player to set it but in certain races/challenges it should be fixed at a certain level, so easy events have minimal damage but pro events have very real damage. I know nothing about NASCAR so I’m hoping it reflects the actual races. GT is now a simulator with the official NASCAR licence so it should get all the rules in there, it’s not just a few of the cars racing round ovals, it is now THE game for NASCAR and it has to do it properly.
They gave out PSN Shirts i am going to wear one in college whilst I win the fm3 competition on 360 at college. Any decent gt player will make mince meat of the top FM3 players imo
Ben-
It’s the same guy that told me GT5 is coming out Dec. 1st, 2009 :)
went to playstation HUB at the metro-centre, gateshead today. Asked the guy re: GT5 release date…
A few months after JAP release he said. I said how many = a few, he is like 3 or 4.
I am like. :(
@Tiga, You basically just dissed the most competitive motorsport in the world.
I’m getting tired of everything.
Oh for God’s sake…..don’t tell me that what is holding GT5 from its release is Nascar rules.
No offence to anyone, but car going around an oval with no corners isn’t really that much of a deal.
Looking forward to the damage effects and the WRC, though.
I’m getting tired of NASCAR and damage.
I think that in as usual all depends on the words Kaz’ translator choose. If he says ‘I’ and it is translated into ‘you’ everything can get a different meaning. So all we gotta do, I suppose, is diligently wait till it’s March and see what we get. All we know now (or do we) is that the Long Wait for its successor might be shorter than the interbellum we live in now :)
z06-
Get a bigger screen or better still if you like the pic enough- print them- the whole point about higher pixel is that it allows to print. If it’s close to 20mb, even poster size is possible without much degradation. But if all you do is show it on your monitor, resize it- downsizing a bigger photo can only mean good thing.
Haha Congrats Jordan!
YES!!!! PHOTOMODE! PHOTOMODE!!!!!!! Finally! Some info on photomode(unless some breezed over without me knowing) I spent countless hours with photomode, but I think 8mp is excessive…personally I don’t like pictures that I cannot see fully..Thanks Jordan, you’ve made my day.
One rule that is prominent in NASCAR Sprint Cup is the caution flag when there has been a crash. So then the safety car comes out after every crash or if there is debris on the track. But when the caution flag comes up the pits are initially closed. If you try to come into the pits when they are closed you get a penalty. It seems that once the cars are all stacked up behind the safety car the pits then open. I really doubt this caution flag will make it into the game
As long as EA isn’t doing the nascar games anymore IM HAPPY :)
This is all really encouraging news. Most of my uncertainty was based on the fact that I had no idea what kind of level these guys were at. But, given the information here, I am really impressed to see PD’s efforts being so advanced as to include things like the tyres hitting their wells. This is terrific.
As interested as I am in Nascar, I really want details on WRC. That’s where I’m going to spend most of my time, and I really hope PD has fixed both off-road physics and the off-road tracks to point to point stages.
Finally, I get front page news!!!!!!
I am interested as to how many rules they include for NASCAR. I have a feeling it will only be the rules for the cars and maybe some track rules for the NASCAR only races.
Nice read. I honestly believe we will be blown away when GT5 arrives.
I can’t even play another racing game besides GT PSP now..
from what i’ve gathered from NASCAR, it’s pretty complicated…i mean without a spotter and your crew chief on the radio, it’s tricky to know everything around you in a race.
plus NASCAR has the whole bonus for a lucky driver who happens to be a lap down. if selected, they get to return to the lead lap while the grid in under caution. i’ve heard crew cheifs refer to it as a “lucky dog”, but it could be called something else.
it’ll be interesting to see if GT5 makes any groundbreaking (for the series at least) changes such as a crew chief jabbering away on a radio, or the addition of a pace car etc…
I think it is : tires which hit the wheel well. So, the wheel well, seems to be breakable. Maybe it happen after some big jumps. Tire deformation could be good and would make sense, but isn’t mentionned here.
Is this tyre deformation??Or am i wrong?
tires hitting the wheel wells of a car,
I was answering to Daniel.
Don’t know if by “rules” Kaz meant what you said but I think that you are digging a very good point.
Why ? Because collisions appears with a slight delay, sometime you bumped someone then about a second later, damage suddenly appears. Recent games like NFS Shift (maybe I think that it’s the case even for Grid), have an engine calculating your line and behaviour when you are about to bump into an other car. So to prevent delay, it activates damages maybe 0.5 second forward to make collision and appearance of damages matching together.
Sometime it works, but I witnessed several time that this system wasn’t very reliable. Especially when you are a clean driver, used to avoid other cars at all cost even in the worst conditions. Where average drivers would bump/crash, clean drivers kind of trick the game which produces a bump sound and may display damage even if there was no collision thanks to luck or skills (maybe both).
It’s not because it’s Shift or Grid, even GT5 Prologue Spec III has got this issue. In GT5P, I hear sometimes crashs or bumps that didn’t happened but that were quite close to happen. I also noticed in Prologue’s replay mode that cars that are pushing each others don’t have ther bumpers connected. There often is a tiny gap between the two cars. It’s not very noticeable, you have to be careful to this detail to witness it and it depends on shots and angles of the replay cam.
With the gap between car in Nascar races being very small, the drafting and the unexpected crashs, it has to be very subtle. I hope PD will fine tune it to be as perfect as they want it to be.
Sam, I think the rules that are causing problems are the same tiny box rules that are causing nightmares for crew chiefs trying to get the POS COT to handle well. Sure, the POS COT is safe, but safety does not require sacrificing handling and speed. F1 and IRL cars have no roofs! Plus, safety is meaningless in the virtual world. PD (apparently) wants to stay pure to the NASCAR experience. Unfortunately because of NASCAR’s tyranic mentality, the car may not be fun to drive and even MORE not fun to tune.
he could mean by “rules” in nascar about how close a race driver gets to the other cars, and stays in that possition, millimeters from the other car, with gt at the moment you see a massive increase in speed while drafting, can’t have to much of that in nascar. small bumps with the other cars should see them flying into a wall, when you get up real close with the other car it makes the front car light at the back, making the driver spin for no apparent reason.
I’m thinking thats hard to make look right. especialy when you are making a game that don’t have those features in the first place.
Not really anything new we had this article months ago
i like this, i like it a lot.
Well, I’d be in the pits a lot if the rough driving rule was enforced. I dislike some drivers, and GT5 will let me imply it! Anybody up for smashing Kyle Busch into the wall at Daytona?
finally some new info, or at least something worth while on the homepage, makes a good read.
Ah didn’t read about this yet so good thing, Jordan! :D
Nascar rules really aren’t that complicated. The only necessary rules would be
1. Pit road speeding penalty
2. Rough driving
3. That stupid yellow line rule
4. Double file restarts
5. And green white checkers.
I’d be more than happy if PD has all of these.
finally some mention of photo-mode…one of my faves in gt4
cool!