City Circuits in Gran Turismo 7. Its need to return [+ Suggestion new track for Seattle]

[BrunusCL82]

The success of the Gran Turismo franchise is closely related to its originality and personality. Its original tracks are a main character in the franchise, like the magic quintet (Trial Mountain, Deep Forest, Autumn Ring, High Speed Ring and Grand Valley). The city circuits, which take advantage of real public roads, I consider one of the most brilliant ideas of racing games.

I think it was and is a self-flagellation for PD to ignore his masterpiece (city circuits) in the last two games, GTS and GT7. I know the Tokyo Expressway circuits appeared in GTS and GT7. However, I think it's unanimous that the tracks don't have even ten percent of the personality and fun of the original street circuits of the franchise, like Seattle, Rome, New York and Tokyo (R249), for example.

City circuits, based on real streets, urgently need to return to the GT franchise.


P.S: About famous e dear Seattle Circuit:

Unfortunately, the original track was destroyed, the city has been modified in recent years. But I would have a suggestion that could greatly improve the original layout and give it a better personality. A new track could take advantage of the hook opposite the Seattle Free Walking Tours, using the remains of Western Avenue and Pikes Pi, then taking straight 1st Avenue to Pioneer Square and James Street.

Seattle Circuit

Loved it in older GTs and short version

www.gtplanet.net

 

[NW_Saint]

Love your remake of Seattle.. those stretches are nice, espeically that low-end back stretch next to the stadium (vendors row if you may) & how it wraps that corner next to the hotel & takes off close to the water-front... well done sir!.. now, if you could only get PD's attention.. best of luck, but I respect your vision..


NW.

 

[queleuleu]

It won't happen. All we'll have is a procedurally generated city track with no personality. The studio has lost its magic and probably some of its best artitists. And I'm almost sure the engine can't handle an actual city track like Seattle or Tokyo R246.

 

[alex511]

Kaz has other priorities,
I hope for forza we get some city locations in new title.

 

[Nathan88]

There’s obviously been a focus on tracks that are suitable for online competition. That rules out a number of past city circuits. At least in their original form.

If PD want to deliver for all car enthusiasts, we need these city circuits to return. They’re great for smaller cars. You can have small grid events, Time Attacks, Driting, Drag Racing etc.

That said. If rumours are correct we could be getting an Australian city/street circuit. And I wouldn’t rule out Monaco returning.

 

[NamuGriff]

Love to see the old city tracks from GT 1 to 6 in GT7 at some point

 

[BrunusCL82]

There’s obviously been a focus on tracks that are suitable for online competition. That rules out a number of past city circuits. At least in their original form.

If PD want to deliver for all car enthusiasts, we need these city circuits to return. They’re great for smaller cars. You can have small grid events, Time Attacks, Driting, Drag Racing etc.

That said. If rumours are correct we could be getting an Australian city/street circuit. And I wouldn’t rule out Monaco returning.

Rumors about an Australian circuit? I never heard that rumor. Could you let me know where you read about it.

 

[Nathan88]

Rumors about an Australian circuit? I never heard that rumor. Could you let me know where you read about it.

Melbourne & Adelaide have been mentioned. The latter is still used for V8 Supercars.

 

[TRB1999]

If I want any street circuit to be added for GT7, it would be Monaco (Cote d’Azur). It isn’t really good enough for the long and wide F1 cars these days, but most other race series can easily cope with the narrow layout. Driving around the circuit on old GT games in a car much more suited to the narrow layout was a blast!

 

[BrunusCL82]

Melbourne & Adelaide have been mentioned. The latter is still used for V8 Supercars.

Adelaide and Melbourne would be fantastic in Gran Turismo. Although I think the first very simple and basic. I would prefer the first and the original urban circuits of the GT franchise.

But what is the source of the rumor? If I'm not mistaken, that didn't come out in the press, or in specialized forums.

If I want any street circuit to be added for GT7, it would be Monaco (Cote d’Azur). It isn’t really good enough for the long and wide F1 cars these days, but most other race series can easily cope with the narrow layout. Driving around the circuit on old GT games in a car much more suited to the narrow layout was a blast!

That's exactly what I say to those who reject Monaco in GT7 because of Sport Mode. Well, Monaco would be perfect for Gr racing. 4 and Gr. 3. After all, nowadays the Sport Mode works with the ghosting feature, when there are crashes, wrong brakes and slow cars.

 

[GBalao888]

I for sure want some more city tracks for GT7, and a good idea to start with would be those that were venues of FIA GTC/GTWS events such as:

Spoiler: Tracks

Salzburg (new)
Circuito de Madrid (returning)
Las Vegas (technically returning, but as a full track as opposed to a drag strip)
Cote d'Azur (returning)
Paris (returning, Opera Paris only, George V Paris is impossible to recreate, much like the Seattle Circuit)
New York (returning)
Tokyo (Tokyo R246 - returning)
Sydney (new)
Amsterdam (new)

 

[AmyUD06]

I only want Seattle if the CHOP is represented properly (as a good thing).

 

[Nebuc72]

Assuming a lot of people missed this, but Kaz did an interview in December last year that addressed the lack of city circuits; it just comes down to workload of creating a city circuit for current hardware increasing exponentially. If technology improves to make this easier, we can expect them to return as well.

It's Kaz, so you can assume a little exaggeration - but he said the development time for creating a city circuit is 5x that of a normal circuit. To be honest, I believe it. Getting things precisely accurate is a lot easier when you're looking at rolling fields and marshal huts than it is for recreating the entirety of downtown Seattle.

祝「グランツーリスモ」25周年 ポリフォニー・デジタルのスタジオツアーで訊いた、シリーズ初期の貴重な開発エピソードから最新の開発事情まで

25年経ってなお「シリーズは実験的なタイトルで、それはGT7でも大きく変わらない」という

jp.ign.com

 

[regnar]

It is funny that in 2023 they can't create any city circuits, when it was a staple of almost all racing games on consoles over the last 20 years.

 

[AmyUD06]

It is funny that in 2023 they can't create any city circuits, when it was a staple of almost all racing games on consoles over the last 20 years.

Did you miss the post right above yours? I mean, I know Florida's education system is being bulldozed, but c'mon.

 

[Galvston]

I believe it fully. However, there's some interesting things out there. Recently I randomly found a PD dev or freelancer that worked on Grand Valley, on twitter. He was posting about his procedural barriers being used in the game.

It looks really good and natural, I never thought it was procedural until I saw that. If somehow, someone or even this dude develops a procedural texture solution based on recorded data, we could see the return of city courses.

Tokyo on GT7 looks great.

 

[Dave A]

I believe it fully. However, there's some interesting things out there. Recently I randomly found a PD dev or freelancer that worked on Grand Valley, on twitter. He was posting about his procedural barriers being used in the game.

It looks really good and natural, I never thought it was procedural until I saw that. If somehow, someone or even this dude develops a procedural texture solution based on recorded data, we could see the return of city courses.

Tokyo on GT7 looks great.

The issue with city courses, especially based on actual real road layouts, is they will want the buildings to closely resemble the ones present in real life. That's where procedural generation needs to be intelligent procedural generation based off reference data, photograps and scans etc. But you can't close down a city centre and laser scan it, the cost would be monumental for the time and scope of a job like that.

So the best bet is reference photographs with geolocational data built into the photographs and then use a procedural generation tool to try to build a map based on that data with human intervention to make tweaks and corrections here and there. I don't actually know if the technology to do that is feasible yet to build a convining replica of a real city in a cost effective manner, it definitely exists though and it's definitely the way to go if/when it's ready.

But procedural generation has come a long, long way over recent years, it's quite incredible what it can do. The potential is huge.

 

[tankuroded]

Melbourne & Adelaide have been mentioned. The latter is still used for V8 Supercars.

Adelaide and Melbourne would be fantastic in Gran Turismo. Although I think the first very simple and basic. I would prefer the first and the original urban circuits of the GT franchise.

But what is the source of the rumor? If I'm not mistaken, that didn't come out in the press, or in specialized forums.

There is scape flavor text for Albert Park in GT Sport, spotted few weeks after a video with Ordonez that has Albert Park map with GT logo that he (rightly) dismissed as a studio decor at the time.

Note that this is taken from GT Sport and might as well be not there in GT7 anymore, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[nickf1gr]

Rockstar Games (and many others) made so many urban territory and PD struggles to make a city track??? It's so odd

 

[RobertHammer]

Rockstar Games (and many others) made so many urban territory and PD struggles to make a city track??? It's so odd

Rockstar making the games the longest , also PD has to recreate every single asset from scratch with urban tracks and like they said with that amount of work they can do 2 race tracks instead

Personally i wish for more urban tracks like my fav Tokyo R246 , R11/R5

 

[Nebuc72]

Rockstar Games (and many others) made so many urban territory and PD struggles to make a city track??? It's so odd

Considering the last GTA game in an urban environment released over a decade ago, I'm not sure this makes the point you're wanting it to.
It's a lot of work.

 

[nickf1gr]

Considering the last GTA game in an urban environment released over a decade ago, I'm not sure this makes the point you're wanting it to.
It's a lot of work.

Yes maybe but in HD games (GT5-GT6) there were many city cirquits...
That i want to tell is that city tracks were in GT legacy and with much details in them...
Here they have to recreate smaller area that a whole city...
Anyway....
We will see...

 

[Nebuc72]

Yes maybe but in HD games (GT5-GT6) there were many city cirquits...
That i want to tell is that city tracks were in GT legacy and with much details in them...
Here they have to recreate smaller area that a whole city...
Anyway....
We will see...

Yeah, and GT5 and GT6 came out about a decade ago as well.

Graphical fidelity and customer expectations have skyrocketed as technology has improved - where it might have been a smaller ordeal to create an urban environment 10+ years ago, nowadays it is not. You can't have cars with the fidelity of GT7 in an environment from the PS3. People will notice, and you would too.
I mean again, use GTA as an example. From 2000-2004 Rockstar put out three mainline GTA games with completely unique environments (3 cities in the case of SA!) - but put out 1 between 2004-2008 and then one from 2008-2013.

Larger tasks require larger amounts of time, and you can't cut as many corners because expectations increase. We're at a point now where photorealism is pretty much achieved - creating a photorealistic city environment is a hell of a lot harder now than it was back when they could make a large rectangle and put a photograph of the building on each side.

 

[pedrocor]

Melbourne & Adelaide have been mentioned. The latter is still used for V8 Supercars.

Talking of city circuits and the first one to mention is Melbourne, which is more like a conventional circuit with a park around. Is so much a city course as Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Canada, which usually gives a lot more entertaining races.
Apart from Adelaide, in Australia there are at least two other proper street circuits with a lot of character, Surfers Paradise and Newcastle.

That said, I don't believe we will see many street circuits added to GT7, even Tokyo is included because most of the work was done for GT Sport, unless the change the focus apart from online racing. Online races in walled circuits are a mess, no other way to put it (on that matter so real world Touring Car/GT races on street courses, like GTs at Macau, WTCC at Pau or Vila Real, Supercars at Surfers Paradise,...), so I believe they will avoid adding salt to the wounds (penalty system, wall riding,...) by adding more city courses

 

[Fezzik]

The problem is the obsession with photo realism and nitpicking any little flaws in the graphics. A game like Grid Legends has some great fun street circuits - they aren't completely accurate but who cares, it's just a game.

 

[tankuroded]

That said, I don't believe we will see many street circuits added to GT7, even Tokyo is included because most of the work was done for GT Sport

Also because the tracks itself are condensed versions of the actual Shuto Expressway with tactical use of reused/reusable buildings.

 

[pedrocor]

Also because the tracks itself are condensed versions of the actual Shuto Expressway with tactical use of reused/reusable buildings.

Not on that sense I was referring. Online racing in Tokyo Expressway was always a mess, with the idiotic AI, single player isn't much better. If the design wasn't done for GT Sport and was just a matter of "Copy & Paste", PD wouldn't put any significant amount of designers time on a city course package that would result on a bump festival, even if is a loop of polygons.

 

[MIE1992]

I'd love to see the Manhattan circuit show up again from GT4, but it'd likely need to be entirely redone since there's likely been tons of development and new shops added since ~2004. Rome Circuit - or alternatively, the Circuito di Roma from the PS3 era - would also be splendid. But I think I could go without the London and Madrid circuits, as I feel that they were mostly best for lower-powered cars - as in, not even Gr.4-pace machines.

Monaco could be good, too. People say it'd be bad for Sport Mode, but I think we're able to have courses like Tokyo Expressway just fine. Plus, it's a pretty venue, as I can personally attest.

And speaking of Tokyo, I'd love to see a potential West and North layout. Maybe even a broader "outer" loop to contrast with the central loop. But R246 is an iconic circuit, too...

 

[Dave A]

Considering the last GTA game in an urban environment released over a decade ago, I'm not sure this makes the point you're wanting it to.
It's a lot of work.

It's not about just designing an urban area. PD are clearly trying to replicate real areas, look at the new Grand Valley. I'd wager that they'd want a city track to reference the real buildings you would see in real life exploring the same streets. Of course, they could create an entirely fictional city circuit much easier, but that's not the design direction PD appear to be going in at the moment. In order to recreate an actual real city, with buildings and streets that mimic those you see in real life, takes considerably more effort than creating a fictional city area. Not that that isn't high in effort itself, but it can be much less so than recreating a real place.

 

[BrunusCL82]

Since I was a kid, I dreamed of a Formula 1 race on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The streets of Rio de Janeiro with some slight structural changes would be entirely possible. Visually, the track would be stunning, comparable to Monaco, including the layout.

As for the production/digitization of the site, I believe that due to the excess of green tunnels in the avenues and streets of Rio de Janeiro, and due to the fact that half of the circuit is on the beach, there would not be as much need to digitize architectural details of buildings. The place has a lot of greenery, a lot of rocks, which could shorten the work of the PD.

I drew the path and selected some images. I put the proposal of the "Suggestion" session.

Comment the proposal:

Rio de Janeiro Street Circuit

Considering that South America only has Interlagos representing the continent. Considering that Brazil is a country with a strong tradition in motorsport and a country endowed with beautiful landscapes, highlighting the city of Rio de Janeiro, known as the "Wonderful City" for its peculiar...

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