Any questions to Taku Imasaki? UPDATE: questions answered

[The Stig Farmer]

PS4 demo? wait what? did i miss something?

Someone tweeted that they saw an early PS4 demo of GT7.

 

[Devil240Z]

So... anyone want to mod in an event creator for us? Since PD wont?

thats something I would hack my ps3 for.

 

[eSZee]

Was there a language barrier in the last question?

No.

 

[glassjaw]

2. This one is difficult to answer, but please understand that Kazunori & team Polyphony has a very specific level of technology/visual quality standard that they stick to, and they don't want to sacrifice it by giving too much freedom in the players hands. They've always struggled with this balance, but at the same time they are very aware that level of customization always comes top on the list in fans' requests. Again, as they work on optimizing the code and as the hardware gets updated, you will see improvements in this area as well.

Can't say I disagree. As someone who has spent lots of time online in Forza, giving a livery editor to the masses almost always results in awkward recreations of Monster Energy liveries and subcompacts painted to look like Pokemon. I respect and appreciate guys who work hard to recreate classic liveries or make something original and interesting that actually belongs on a car, but this is just a small aspect of the community and certainly not the majority. I don't need a Forza-style livery editor, though I would love to see something in the vein of what Grid 1 and 2 have - a large selection of pre-made wraps with full control over sponsors, colors, paint finishes, etc. That would be perfect for me and it wouldn't make online racing a joke.

 

[phil_75]

You make a serious point.

Seriously though, to me, it just seems Kaz has always been limited by technology AND time. I think for every console since the PS2, he overestimates them. He has all these visions, and never able to pull all of them off. For example, back when GT3 (GT 2000 interview) was about to release, he anticipated his game to have A.I. that reacts to your aggressive driving. Till this day, we still haven't seen that. He also mentioned weather/time of day, and whatnot which we haven't seen until GT5.

Just check out this interview and tell me how many of his "visions" came to reality for GT3 or GT4 for that matter?



...nearly none of them. (weather, time of day, online racing, online rankings, simplified damage, helmets, drag racing, etc.)

With the PS3, imagine how optimistic he might've been. For one he gets all crazy with Premiums all the way back in 2007. Till this day, DriveClub, a next generation game, uses about 250,000 polygons per car, which is a similar number to premiums in the PS3 generation of GT. Then we have the whole 1280X1080p in GT5. He just have to have it bumped up to 1440X1080p for GT6! Really?

If he wasn't limited to technology, resource and time, GT would be a monster by now.

Agree with everything you say mate but i'm sure GT premium cars are 100,000 polygons compared to Driveclubs 250,000 but there comes a point of diminishing returns.

 

[lusitanuno]

i desagree GLASSJAW , a livery editor isnt super importante but has great value.
as you said, some users make interesting designs; using Taku words, we shouldnt sacrifice that quality and you see, freedom is a good thing.
in terms of having good looking grids, there could be easy options like:
allow/not allow liveries, allow only liveries pre selected by user(favorite), allow only users liveries, allow only popular ...

i dont own a xbox or played forza but its easy to find pictures like bellow

 

[phil_75]

hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Interesting when he says "other developers make the sound game-friendly"....

He is right, for example sounds in forza MIGHT sound impressive, but in fact they are fake (overdone sounds, too loud)

I'd rather have great sounding fake sounds than rubbish sounding fake sounds.

I can't stand the RedBull cars but i find myself constantly going for blasts in the RedBull JR just to hear that sound, its magnificent!

Imagine how much better each car would be to drive with sounds of that quality!

Would make the game 1000 times more pleasurable.

 

[TokoTurismo]

I can't stand the RedBull cars but i find myself constantly going for blasts in the RedBull JR just to hear that sound, its magnificent!

Imagine how much better each car would be to drive with sounds of that quality!

Would make the game 1000 times more pleasurable.

Agreed. I was surprised by the RedBull Jr's engine sound. Sounded soooo amazing. Man, I wish all cars sounded like that! 👍

Since GT6 didn't get new engine sounds, I'm really hoping GT7 get's it. The excuse is the PS3's hardware limiting PD from doing so, but there won't be any excuses on PS4.

 

[phil_75]

Agreed. I was surprised by the RedBull Jr's engine sound. Sounded soooo amazing. Man, I wish all cars sounded like that! 👍

Since GT6 didn't get new engine sounds, I'm really hoping GT7 get's it. The excuse is the PS3's hardware limiting PD from doing so, but there won't be any excuses on PS4.

The hardware excuse is absolute rubbish, it PD apologists trying to come up with yet more excuses why another part of the game is sub standard .
How do they have a track full of Redbull jrs then?

It wouldn't even matter if when in a race, all the rest of the grid had the sounds they have now, as long as the car you are in at the time has the good sound to save on processing.

A little fact: Each one of the SPU's can decode 300 MP3s in real time.
Link

 

[mohammad]

Can't say I disagree. As someone who has spent lots of time online in Forza, giving a livery editor to the masses almost always results in awkward recreations of Monster Energy liveries and subcompacts painted to look like Pokemon. I respect and appreciate guys who work hard to recreate classic liveries or make something original and interesting that actually belongs on a car, but this is just a small aspect of the community and certainly not the majority. I don't need a Forza-style livery editor, though I would love to see something in the vein of what Grid 1 and 2 have - a large selection of pre-made wraps with full control over sponsors, colors, paint finishes, etc. That would be perfect for me and it wouldn't make online racing a joke.

i thought dress code was only in my country
i always wanted a livery editor for gt [ by always i mean since i started playing GT5 ] & not so i can paint pokemon or simpsons on my car , but to make them look like racing cars , have different versions of a car , stock race rally .. that would be cool
but whenever i see people complaining about others painting cartoons on their car i cant understand why it matters , why would it make the racing a Joke?! how does the cartoon on other drivers car make racing a joke for you?
a livery editor will add much more value to the game as you can spend hours painting your cars
but , we got our answer , pd doesnt want to give freedome to players SO i agree with you on that part
they should give us pre-made liverys with ability to paint the car however we like & put whatever stickers we like on the car

if there is anyone out there like me who is disapointed that gt6 does not have a livery editor , we should blame our selves not PD for that
because after playing GT5 i promissed my self i woulndt buy GT6 if they dont include a livery editor [ most of us will be much happy with even a very basic one ]
but then again i went ahead & bought the game because its a good game & we are having fun with it .. i just think livery editor will make it much more fun for me

 

[Davoxx]

Hey guys!

I just got an answer from Taku Imasaki via Facebook regarding trying to answer the top 3 questions about gran turismo from !

He replied "...I'll be happy to look at those questions if I don't have to answer them if I can't"

So, what do you guys want to know?

Edit:

I think the event creator question is very popular

How about this question? -->
1. Is there a possibilty of an "event creator" in an future update for the offline mode in Gt6? For example where you can choose the cars of the opponents, the type of start (standing, rolling, rolling beside), tracks for creating championsships and set fuel and tire consumption, drag intensity and A.I. skill.

So the questions have been asked regarding sound changes for gt6, livery editor and a race creator!

Please note that there is still the possibility Taku cant answer any of the questions because whether he simply doesnt know the answer or he isnt able to talk about

Here are the questions:

1. Kazunori Yamauchi mentioned a few months before the launch of GT6 that he and his team is working on another way for soundreproduction. What is your direction and planning in regards to sound in GT6, can we expect more changes in that area, as the new RedBull cars were a hint of Polyphony's new sound (That one sounds amazing )? Can we eventually expect changes on the sound department in GT6?

2. The ability of customization and adding a personal artistic flair to cars have been mentioned before, specifically a livery editor, can we expect anything in the future for GT6 (or GT7) in terms of editing like creating custom colours, painting different parts of the cars or putting liveries on it?

3. Is there a possibilty of an "event creator" in a future update for the offline mode in Gt6? For example where you can choose the cars of the opponents, their tuning, the type of start (standing, rolling double-file), qualifying on/off, order of tracks for championships, and set fuel and tire consumption, slipstream intensity, and A.I. difficulty

ANSWERS
Taku just replied to the first question, here it is:

1. Ronald we are aware of our fans view on sound in the GT games. My view is that the GT team is trying to force delivering authentic sound thru the playstation console, whereas usually game developers would simplify or filter to make the sound 'game-friendly'. Kazunori & team are putting effort in this and you will certainly see changes in the future.



And the nexefarding custumization:

2. This one is difficult to answer, but please understand that Kazunori & team Polyphony has a very specific level of technology/visual quality standard that they stick to, and they don't want to sacrifice it by giving too much freedom in the players hands. They've always struggled with this balance, but at the same time they are very aware that level of customization always comes top on the list in fans' requests. Again, as they work on optimizing the code and as the hardware gets updated, you will see improvements in this area as well.

3. 3. Much more updates to come over the next weeks/months for GT6, with regards to the online community feature updates!

My first impression of this answer is : they have to get down on the ground !!!!!!! I can't understand how they can speak to fans like this , they are kidding us right !!!!!
It is like a girls who is thinking she is a Top Model instead she look like Merkel !!!!

 

[Davoxx]

My first impression of this answer is : they have to get down on the ground !!!!!!! I can't understand how can speak to fans like this , they are kidding us right !!!!!
It is like a girls who is thinking she is a Top Model instead she look like Merkel !!!!

Here is a good representation of PD : What they look like and what they think about us !!!

 

[Conza]

The guy should run for office, perfect politician, stays somewhere on topic without ever answering the question, perfect balance...

If he doesn't have authority to give a straight answer, I wish he'd have just said that, all this fluff makes this pointless, Taku has disappointed a lot of people, he should feel ashamed.

 

[Griffith500]

The hardware excuse is absolute rubbish, it PD apologists trying to come up with yet more excuses why another part of the game is sub standard .
How do they have a track full of Redbull jrs then?

It wouldn't even matter if when in a race, all the rest of the grid had the sounds they have now, as long as the car you are in at the time has the good sound to save on processing.

A little fact: Each SPU can decode 300 MP3s in real time.

It's not rubbish at all. Personally, I have a good first hand idea of what kind of computational complexity is involved in the type of synthesis the Junior appears to be using, and I am frankly astounded that they have 16 of them working in the game. That's some serious optimisation, with not too much quality degradation.

What's even better, and something I keep repeating, is that the Junior seems to have been deliberately designed with a bit too much rasp and an unequal length exhaust manifold - both things that wouldn't be on the real engine in that car, and not something inherent to the technique.

What that tends to do, though, is compensate for missing layers, namely intake. The intake is almost always unequal length, especially on longitudinally mounted race engines, so there is a nice amount of lumpy meatiness to its sound. That in turn modulates and blends in with the exhaust sound, which should usually just be a hollow parp for a four cylinder, and gives a nice balanced sound. (E.g. these, notice the stark difference between the Audi and the others; the Mondeo is a V6)

Without intake, that hollow parp sounds ridiculous and just not right, hence the "required" over-amping. Trying to do the same thing with a single turbo, uneven firing V6 (as should be in the bigger X-cars), doesn't seem to work as well in my synth, and there's a similar "thinning out" at high revs in GT6, too.


You have to remember that the playback of sampled sound loops involves more than just decoding an MP3. You have to resample that decoded sound, too, for pitch shifting (which is either expensive or awful sounding, depending on how you "window" it), and blend it with other samples from the same car (e.g. high / low rpm). You then have to localise that blended sound as a directional point source into the output bus (which is multi-channel, duplicating work), according to its distance and angular location in the soundscape, then there's also the reverb send to deal with, and the sound delay model is in there somewhere, too (probably as a delayed control buffer).

For all 16 cars, two-to-three engine / exhaust sound samples and four tyre sounds (turbo sounds and "backfires" are probably injected into the existing engine and exhaust sources respectively, but are still an extra blend step) have to be localised in this way, and we're now well over the usual "hardware limit" of 64 channels - but the PS3 doesn't have that limit, although it still has a bandwidth cap in whatever portion of the SPEs is allocated to sound, which is what they'll be working to instead.


With that in mind, it's likely PD are working on a way to select a smaller number of sounds to play so that the bandwidth isn't exceeded (there is no "engine" sound on the X-cars), and they want to do it slightly better than simply turning off the good sounds for every car but your own (which was jarring enough in GT2). That has the added benefit of allowing them to add more layers, like intake, which works well with the same synthesis method as the exhausts appear to use.

Such selective sound source playback systems are very difficult to design, test and tune, but the direct synthesis method adds extra ways to reduce computational load without dropping sounds out entirely, much like LoD systems for geometry.

 

[phil_75]

It's not rubbish at all. Personally, I have a good first hand idea of what kind of computational complexity is involved in the type of synthesis the Junior appears to be using, and I am frankly astounded that they have 16 of them working in the game. That's some serious optimisation, with not too much quality degradation.

What's even better, and something I keep repeating, is that the Junior seems to have been deliberately designed with a bit too much rasp and an unequal length exhaust manifold - both things that wouldn't be on the real engine in that car, and not something inherent to the technique.

What that tends to do, though, is compensate for missing layers, namely intake. The intake is almost always unequal length, especially on longitudinally mounted race engines, so there is a nice amount of lumpy meatiness to its sound. That in turn modulates and blends in with the exhaust sound, which should usually just be a hollow parp for a four cylinder, and gives a nice balanced sound. (E.g. these, notice the stark difference between the Audi and the others; the Mondeo is a V6)

Without intake, that hollow parp sounds ridiculous and just not right, hence the "required" over-amping. Trying to do the same thing with a single turbo, uneven firing V6 (as should be in the bigger X-cars), doesn't seem to work as well in my synth, and there's a similar "thinning out" at high revs in GT6, too.


You have to remember that the playback of sampled sound loops involves more than just decoding an MP3. You have to resample that decoded sound, too, for pitch shifting (which is either expensive or awful sounding, depending on how you "window" it), and blend it with other samples from the same car (e.g. high / low rpm). You then have to localise that blended sound as a directional point source into the output bus (which is multi-channel, duplicating work), according to its distance and angular location in the soundscape, then there's also the reverb send to deal with, and the sound delay model is in there somewhere, too (probably as a delayed control buffer).

For all 16 cars, two-to-three engine / exhaust sound samples and four tyre sounds (turbo sounds and "backfires" are probably injected into the existing engine and exhaust sources respectively, but are still an extra blend step) have to be localised in this way, and we're now well over the usual "hardware limit" of 64 channels - but the PS3 doesn't have that limit, although it still has a bandwidth cap in whatever portion of the SPEs is allocated to sound, which is what they'll be working to instead.


With that in mind, it's likely PD are working on a way to select a smaller number of sounds to play so that the bandwidth isn't exceeded (there is no "engine" sound on the X-cars), and they want to do it slightly better than simply turning off the good sounds for every car but your own (which was jarring enough in GT2). That has the added benefit of allowing them to add more layers, like intake, which works well with the same synthesis method as the exhausts appear to use.

Such selective sound source playback systems are very difficult to design, test and tune, but the direct synthesis method adds extra ways to reduce computational load without dropping sounds out entirely, much like LoD systems for geometry.

But why would GranTurismo more processor intensive than any other game for sound
Why can Forza do it or Shift 2?
Yes i know they are not technically accurate but neither is what we have now so i don't get your point?

At least they sound good and exciting.

Like you said you are astounded they did it with the RedBull JRs, so they can do it!

 

[Davoxx]

But why would GranTurismo more processor intensive than any other game for sound
Why can Forza do it or Shift 2?
Yes i know they are not technically accurate but neither is what we have now so i don't get your point?

At least they sound good and exciting.

Like you said you are astounded they did it with the RedBull JRs, so they can do it!

Because it is too much job for them, PD did this game not for charity or for fun but for earn money !!!
They don't have any serious competitor except forza which is in another platform so what they are looking for is a acceptable game which mean doing the less is possible ( reduce cost ) in order to earn the maximum.
Why ???? Because customers don't have any choice, it is GT6 or ....... GT6.
That is simple , this is Business ! They don't even care on what we think or who we are !! PD don't care of the game but on Benefits.

Stop dreaming and believe what PD say and will say because they spend more money on the marketing
than in the game.

Soon Project Cars will be available ( at the end of the year normally ) ! And this new game is going to change every things because Gt and Forza will have a serious competitor and so they will start work on games seriously because benefits will be in Danger !!!

 

[Davoxx]

l

 

[The Stig Farmer]

Because customers don't have any choice, it is GT6 or ....... GT6.

Customers do have a choice, 360s are getting pretty cheap now.

Stop dreaming and believe what PD say and will say because they spend more money on the marketing than in the game.

Mustn't have spent that much on the game then, if I didn't have an internet connection I'd have no idea GT6 existed!

 

[JackC8]

Love how he phrases that engine sound answer as if they're already totally authentic and we're asking for more arcadey sounds or something. Just watch a Youtube video of any real car and compare it to GT6 and tell me how anyone could possibly think that's authentic. Heck half my cars have identical engine sounds.

 

[DSkywalker01]

Boy I sure do hate the customization I have when I play Forza 4... such as.

The ability to do a proper Group C race, set up by me with the opponents I choose.


Forza319 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or maybe the proper 2008 American Le Mans Series?


ALMS 2008 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or maybe a proper V8 Supercar duel?


Forza207 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or participate in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans?


Forza239 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

With a proper multiclass structure?


Forza339 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or maybe just kick back and create a racing livery for some street cars.


Forza219 by dskywalker01, on Flickr


... but no, PD, we shouldn't be allowed customization. That would be too much freedom in the hands of the players.

 

[raceworld]

Plz fix the online bugs on GT6
lap times after your first pit stop are slower whats wrong
car feels difrent after your first pitstop
fix NASCAR tyre wear and all other cars included with this bug
Expand the people in a room to 32

 

[eSZee]

But why would GranTurismo more processor intensive than any other game for sound

Not a priority?
Most plausible excuse that people would believe?
Poorly written game engine?
If you mix the first with the last, it does indeed make it a hardware limitation.

 

[raven214]

Boy I sure do hate the customization I have when I play Forza 4... such as.

The ability to do a proper Group C race, set up by me with the opponents I choose.


Forza319 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or maybe the proper 2008 American Le Mans Series?


ALMS 2008 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or maybe a proper V8 Supercar duel?


Forza207 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or participate in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans?


Forza239 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

With a proper multiclass structure?


Forza339 by dskywalker01, on Flickr

Or maybe just kick back and create a racing livery for some street cars.


Forza219 by dskywalker01, on Flickr


... but no, PD, we shouldn't be allowed customization. That would be too much freedom in the hands of the players.

Is that for real!? I know nothing about Forza, but when it comes time to get a next gen system, I would have to seriously consider switching platforms - and this is coming from a lifelong Gran Turismo/PS supporter! When GT7 comes out I am going to take a good long look at it versus whatever Forza is out there, and if PD doesn't really step it up with a real career, custom races, and good AI then I might be forced to switch. It's the last thing I want to do but at this rate PD will leave me know choice.

 

[TokoTurismo]

I'm kinda annoyed when he said "they don't want to give too much freedom to their fans". What's that suppose to mean? You know having a sandbox game is fun, right?

The hardware excuse is absolute rubbish, it PD apologists trying to come up with yet more excuses why another part of the game is sub standard .
How do they have a track full of Redbull jrs then?

It wouldn't even matter if when in a race, all the rest of the grid had the sounds they have now, as long as the car you are in at the time has the good sound to save on processing.

A little fact: Each one of the SPU's can decode 300 MP3s in real time.
Link

It really does make you wonder. Of how they got the RedBull Jr and other RedBull cars to sound good.

 

[NA]

Is that for real!? I know nothing about Forza, but when it comes time to get a next gen system, I would have to seriously consider switching platforms - and this is coming from a lifelong Gran Turismo/PS supporter! When GT7 comes out I am going to take a good long look at it versus whatever Forza is out there, and if PD doesn't really step it up with a real career/custom races and good AI then I might be forced to switch. It's the last thing I want to do but at this rate PD will leave me know choice.

Yes, that's for real.

 

[Lawndart]

Rule #1 in PR and politics: don't answer the question you were asked, answer the question you wish you were asked.

 

[Youngun]

Its companys and attitudes like that that lose your customer basis. "Na were never give you livery editior" - 20% leave, "custom races, why bother" - 10% leave, "whats wrong with the AI, races are fine to me" - 15% leave, "Standard cars....." - instant 5% vanish. Thats half there customers gone and haven't even mentioned bugs and features that are wrong or missing.

Almost digging their own graves atm. GT7 needs a fresh start with new insight not the same OLD staff.

 

[DSkywalker01]

Is that for real!? I know nothing about Forza, but when it comes time to get a next gen system, I would have to seriously consider switching platforms - and this is coming from a lifelong Gran Turismo/PS supporter! When GT7 comes out I am going to take a good long look at it versus whatever Forza is out there, and if PD doesn't really step it up with a real career, custom races, and good AI then I might be forced to switch. It's the last thing I want to do but at this rate PD will leave me know choice.

That is Forza 4 dude, current gen stuff. I jumped ship to GT after the Forza 5 fiasco but I would definitely suggest picking up a 360 and Forza 4. Well worth the money.

 

[raven214]

Rule #1 in PR and politics: don't answer the question you were asked, answer the question you wish you were asked.

Unfortunately by going completely off topic on the custom race creator question, I can only conclude that he either: A. Has poor comprehension skills, or B. Deliberately evaded the question. If his answer was deliberate, then I have to take it as a no. This evasion could reflect a larger view on PD's part toward singleplayer in general. Namely, that they don't care what the community thinks or wants.

I'm not ready to make that jump yet: it's only one person's comments on one question, after all, but when combined with the lackluster singleplayer options we have so far in GT6 I find it highly troubling going forward. I just want us, the community, to have the tools (full custom offline race options) so we can create the content PD refuses to make.

 

[TRC GeorgiaDawg]

why would it make the racing a Joke?!

Well, by itself it won't make racing a joke. But, if PD implements a full livery editor, then gets obsessed with it as Turn 10 has done with Forza the racing does indeed become a joke. Countless things racers liked gone. Countless other things racers wanted haven't even been given a thought. But the number of vinyls you can stick on a car increases every game so the virtual anime boobies can get more realistic.

So you end up a game where racing is a afterthought. And it shows in the various lobbies on Forza. One of my favorite things to do is listen to others play Forza....you'll never hear such a collection of swear words and angry phrases anywhere. And that's because things racers wanted like online rules/rating system that would weed out the crash noobs doesn't even get a look. No time for that when you're trying to figure out how you can stuff more vinyls on the side of the car so they'll look sweet in photomode and Autovista.

A limited livery editor wouldn't be bad though. A few simple shapes and some sponsor logos would be enough to make quality racing liveries.