Do GT7 cars and tracks really take that long to make?

GTEnthusiast9

GTEnthusiast9

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United States
United States
I would love to get some insight on the reasons behind why it takes soo long to develop one car or track, beyond "because they're detailed". Can anyone provide some more info on this?

I don't work in game development but am a hobbyist in that area and so understand what it takes to model and texture a car or an environment. I would assume PD use something like photogrammetry?

What I find odd in camparison to other games is that you can have open worlds for example, with detailed flora and AI driven fauna, entire cities with weather and day and night cycles, very complex and time consuming to do realistically... and then you have a racing track. Correct me if I'm crazy, but I can't help but think if other dev teams took this much time to create their environments no one would ever complete the development of a game.

Similarly I would assume this 270 days per car would mean not just the modeling / texturing but creating and testing all the physics settings that go along with each one? Still, for comparison in 2014 Ubisoft made the entire notre dame in the time it takes to apparently make 2 cars. That seems bizzare. Or even comparing to characters which also need to look very realistic but also animated realistically, as oppse to a car which has much fewer moving parts and interactivity.

So I suppose the purpose of all this is to consider whether there is a point at which detail becomes excessive to the point that it's negatives outweigh the positives? Is there such thing as too much or unnecessary detail? What are your thoughts
 
Open worlds are largely developed with tools that automatically/procedurally generate an open world before being detailed and populated.

A real life environment is a real environment, you can't just get something to make a random environment, call it "Spa" and call it a day, the environment has to be sculpted and designed to match reality. It will take much longer to do that than it would to have a canvas to paint on creatively.
 
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They laser scan most tracks these days so to create a real one will involve that, plus photographing all the trackside objects, travel, negotiating the licence rights and then converting and testing it in the game. I imagine doing all that would take at least a month.

Fake tracks I guess they could pull out of their a in one drinking session, because it doesn't matter as all fake tracks are crap.
 
There has already been claims they can make 60 cars per year and we have not getting that many at all, the rate is more like 40 cars for a year, so something has to be going on, maybe we get a bigger drop at some point, the cars is insanly detailed so its not surpricing it takes that long to make them
 
I don’t work in the industry, nor am I anywhere close to an expert when it comes to creating cars and tracks for video games, but a few things to keep in mind is the size of PD compared to others like EA and Rockstar. Another key factor is replicating real world objects as accurately as possible takes more time than creating fictional ones or even just being ‘close enough’. Fictional environments are much easier and faster to make if you’re using the right tools and techniques.

There’s so much more work that goes into what you see in the game than just creating the image you see. There’s a ton of work to do before the work that you see can be done. I have a feeling Kaz’s claims on how long it takes is from the very beginning to the point where it’s done and ready to go into the game, it’s likely not just how much time developers spend creating the object you see on your screen.
 
Thanks everyone, some interesting points overall mostly. I suppose based on the dodgy tactics that have taken place since launch I can't help but feel skeptical about any claim PD makes, especially when you consider how PD has taken us for "ride" (pun most definitely intended). Without obsessively doing all the number crunching (I personally have better things to do) it just feels that the numbers on how long this stuff takes doesn't add up, but happy to be proven otherwise. Why this matters I feel is because the more we are informed as fans we can push back from a position of strength, of coarse whether we are listened to is another thing.

From my perspective I would happily sacrafice a ridiculous level of detail for a better overall game, and the fact that many fans are returning to old GT titles over GT7 makes me think others feel similarly. With every piece of hardware a developer needs to weigh up how high fidelity to aim for vs the time required and reward of it to its user base. As such a compromise of sorts is required, you cannot have all the detail and all the content as the history of GT games have shown us. But what is your preference?
 
Question is, what benefit from the supposed ridiculous level of future proof detail is there outside of Scapes if the alternative could well be having more cars to play with at a level of detail the current gen hardware can actually handle?

And by the time next gen hardware comes around, the future proof models will probably need to be retouched or redone anyway (like GT6 to GT Sport for example). Can't boast about having more detailed turn signals or some such than the console can render if it's not true, right?
 
No other game has models to this quality. Forza is close but their headlight and taillight game is mediocre and that little detail may actually take lots of time to make . A good example is the headlights on the 350Z and the Amuse 350Z . The base 350Z is a model made fairly recently and the headlights look fantastic , the Amuse 350Z was made in GT5 and improved upon in GT7 BUT the headlights seem to have been brushed over and do not have the same level of artistry when it comes to the shaders and light box volumes and looks pretty artificial . This simple process needs to be done for every lense as well . PD do get lazy from time to time but its not the standard .
 
GTEnthusiast9
270 days per car
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That's roughly in line with a figure I saw mentioned for Forza once. One important driver of that is they were creating the different level of detail models independently of each other, I think they said 3 people independently modelled the same car in low, medium and high detail, rather than using an automated process to reduce the detail starting with the most detailed model. They felt the lower detail models were better if done that way.

For tracks, this video gives a lot of insight into track modelling:


Does it matter, is it too much detail? In iRacing they have drivers who will race these tracks in real life, and they appreciate specific little bumps being present in the exact place they are in real life:


It's possible there are markets for both types of game - a more expensive game that strives for the most realism possible, and a cheaper game that cuts corners and makes it clear it's not striving for total realism. But you see players of both GT and Forza get quite upset about small details of cars being wrong, and the makers of those games do seem to be striving for a lot of realism. I've even seen people apparently expect car models in a game like Need For Speed to be absolutely perfect, so I'm not sure how much of a market there is for cheaper games that intentionally sacrifice realism, especially as such a game, but with say 10% less accuracy, probably wouldn't cost all that much less to make.
 
Mind you, any fantasy cars and tracks take longer to build than real ones as it involves heavy conceptualizing, as opposed to real ones where the references are already there.
 
Just looking through the beta testing of The Crew Motorfest, and I must say the environments are looking way better than any GT7 track to date. The foliage, reflections and varied landscape, heck you can even see inside many buildings, compared to the flat, fake grass, empty shell buildings, crowds that look like they are waiting for a coin to be inserted before they move... Ubisoft have made an entire island that breathes excitement and life, while every GT7 track feels so lifeless and dead like it is supposed to be featuring in a survival post-apocalypse game. PD really needs to step up their game or find a better, faster way to develop their environments. I am thinking maybe if I come back to GT7 in 12 months time it may feature the same amount of content as the crew looks it will have at launch, time will tell :lol:
 
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Now that they laser scan cars and tracks to get them accurate to the real world, yes. Was a time they would just put a die-cast car in a copy machine and put that in. No joke, I still have pictures with the Madeso logo on the bottom of the in game car. As for tracks, you could tell they had gone off pictures before and guessed how big that pothole or curb was.
To get things right, takes time.
 
GTEnthusiast9
Just looking through the beta testing of The Crew Motorfest, and I must say the environments are looking way better than any GT7 track to date. The foliage, reflections and varied landscape, heck you can even see inside many buildings, compared to the flat, fake grass, empty shell buildings, crowds that look like they are waiting for a coin to be inserted before they move... Ubisoft have made an entire island that breathes excitement and life, while every GT7 track feels so lifeless and dead like it is supposed to be featuring in a survival post-apocalypse game. PD really needs to step up their game or find a better, faster way to develop their environments. I am thinking maybe if I come back to GT7 in 12 months time it may feature the same amount of content as the crew looks it will have at launch, time will tell :lol:
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That's 'cause racetracks really are like that. After all, they're designed for racing, not staring gape-jawed at the scenery like you would in Motorfest's Hawaii. If you want a track that "breathes excitement and life", wait for them to bring back Tahiti or something.
 
ScottPye20
Do you honestly think that PD are lying to us in regards to the modelling process? The suggestion that they're purposely wasting time in the creation of cars and tracks is a strange take.
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You are surprised that I don't trust the words of a developer that has used sleazy and dishonest tactics since promoting their game prior to launch, and failed to communicate and take on board fan feedback since launch? Not the sign of a good developer in my opinion.

Irrespective of what I think and whether it is true or not, the point is that a game developer needs to strike a balance between realism (if that is the goal) and sufficient gameplay, and based on the lack of gameplay (and the enormous amount of complaints regarding it) this balance has not been met. There are many things that could be done by PD to easily provide more content to players, but PD apparently cannot because it "takes too long to develop" or they deliberately choose not to. Either way it is a bad decision on their part as it leads to upset players and a bad game.

hyperspeed980
That's 'cause racetracks really are like that. After all, they're designed for racing, not staring gape-jawed at the scenery like you would in Motorfest's Hawaii. If you want a track that "breathes excitement and life", wait for them to bring back Tahiti or something.
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I disagree. When you attend a motorsport event or take your own car to a track day, the atmosphere is much more exciting and engrossing than the atmosphere in GT7. In previous titles I could accept this since there may have been technical limitations but nowadays there is no excuse. Especially since many racing games have and do capture this atmosphere very well, and isn't that the point of a realistic racing game? To make you feel some of the adrenalin of actually being there? At the moment the only realism GT7 appears to capture for me is that of a car museum. But each to their own
 
There's no point in trying to have a constructive discussion here. The opinion has already been formed. If you want to find something bad, you will find it.
Exactly the opposite.

Of course GT7 isn't perfect. what game is?
But it's still not bad. I've already spent 350 hours + with it and none of them are bad. I can't say that about many games.

If it's so bad and all the others are so much better, why not leave it behind and go for the great stuff?

I often have the feeling that people forget that it's an entertainment product and not a vital thing. There is no basic right to content replenishment or improvements. But of course it's great that they exist.
Generally, you buy a game as it is, there are many ways to get information and even the possibility to return the game. Why is this not being used? I assume that people either have totally wrong ideas about life or simply want to get rid of some of their everyday frustrations.
 
GTEnthusiast9
I disagree. When you attend a motorsport event or take your own car to a track day, the atmosphere is much more exciting and engrossing than the atmosphere in GT7.
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Laugh at my post all you want but you're just wrong, What @hyperspeed980 says below:
hyperspeed980
That's 'cause racetracks really are like that. After all, they're designed for racing, not staring gape-jawed at the scenery like you would in Motorfest's Hawaii.
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is correct, for some weird reason you think streets of Hawaii are a kin to a race track... almost as if you've never been to a race track...
GTEnthusiast9
Especially since many racing games have and do capture this atmosphere very well, and isn't that the point of a realistic racing game?
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Which games are you referring to here? you mean Grid Legends with constant fireworks that are completely unrealistic?
GTEnthusiast9
To make you feel some of the adrenalin of actually being there?
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Yeah when driving a car on a racetrack you get that from driving the car, not looking at people in the stands and fireworks going off... again I don't think you know what you're talking about and you're not comparing apples to apples
 
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Driving a real car or spectating a race in person will always feel more engaging than playing a video game, the sound, smells, forces, vibrations, no game can really replicate feeling of being there.

That’s a fact, but in terms of track modelling and detail, PD do a very good job.
 
What intrigues me is that studios like Reiza and Slightly Mad get licensing for multiple circuits, and build multiple circuits very easily. Of course, many of them lack Polyphony's quality, but it's still impressive work, as these two studios don't have Polyphony's budget, merchandising prestige, or headcount. By the way, Renato Simioni said that the most expensive license he was asked for was 30,000 dollars. He did not confirm whether he paid.
 
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BrunusCL82
build multiple circuits very easily.
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And you know this how?

Ps I already know the answer… you don’t know, you’re making it up

jergto
It takes that long when kaz is at the helm and they're focused on the latest GTR/Supra/Miata variation. The ABCDEFG... editions. Everything else takes a backseat, newer non Japanese cars, good luck, wait till GT9.
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What are you on about.. the last update added 2 generations of Japanese cars that weren't in the game, these aren't variations and then PD added the Aston Martin Valkyrie.
You've been watching too many rant videos on YT jumping on the "PD bad" bandwagon you've forgotten what's actually in the game.
 
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