Dynamic weather and Time for all track courses in GT6

[Manasseh257NSX]

I always wondered why they hadn't added this feature sooner. I always wanted to race Special Stage Route 5 at dawn, Trail Mountain at night, and Deep Forest ib the rain! Would be cool and give you a wider selection of tracks to have endurance races on.

Does anybody have any word if this will be a feature on GT6? Or if they have talked about enhancing it at the least?

 

[MeanElf]

The was talk from PD about adding more tracks with time/weather but it would be a long process before all tracks had this. It wasn't specified how long.

 

[Conquerer]

"It's technically possible."

 

[Griffith500]

"It's technically possible."

As any engineer will tell you. 👍


I hope they can make as many locations (including photomode) as they can full-featured in this way. I think there's an issue with the quality that is possible with the "dynamic" lighting for time change that may mean some tracks look a bit rough - I expect this to be due to the shadows and will vary in unpredictable ways from track to track, depending on the sizes of shadow-casting features and their locations relative to the the track (player's viewpoint).

The weather appears to be easier; the only challenge seemingly being to get the right sky textures and blending etc. since all you do is turn up the ambient term (or whatever equivalent they're using for "ambient" lighting) and turn down the direct lighting portion when it clouds over, then turn on the fog when it rains. The problem with the ambient lighting is using a diffuse / baked shading in the scnery that has ambient occlusion-like properties that works in both the sun and under cloud. There might also be difficulties with the wet / dry surface shaders and certain tarmac textures etc.

The tracks would have to have been built for time change from a low level, though, certainly. That might mean some returning tracks from GT5 especially won't get the treatment, whilst more of the new ones will. Perhaps.

 

[HuskyGT]

As long as they add as much tracks like these as they can, I'll be happy. But hey, if they want to do it in all of them, then I won't complain

 

[Tenacious D]

The tracks would have to have been built for time change from a low level, though, certainly. That might mean some returning tracks from GT5 especially won't get the treatment, whilst more of the new ones will. Perhaps.

I hope this isn't the case. With "everything" in the GT5 engine being torn wide open and reworked - and this is an impression I get from Kaz's interviews - I'm hopeful that they did the same thing with the track builds to modify them for this. It would mean a lot of work for both the software guys and texture/skin artists, and that work might well be better used on new race course content, and refurbishing old assets from the previous games. But I'm crossing my fingers for a pleasant surprise in this regard in GT6.

 

[another_jakhole]

Because they'd have to add lamp posts to Trial Mountain .

As any engineer will tell you. 👍


I hope they can make as many locations (including photomode) as they can full-featured in this way. I think there's an issue with the quality that is possible with the "dynamic" lighting for time change that may mean some tracks look a bit rough - I expect this to be due to the shadows and will vary in unpredictable ways from track to track, depending on the sizes of shadow-casting features and their locations relative to the the track (player's viewpoint).

The weather appears to be easier; the only challenge seemingly being to get the right sky textures and blending etc. since all you do is turn up the ambient term (or whatever equivalent they're using for "ambient" lighting) and turn down the direct lighting portion when it clouds over, then turn on the fog when it rains. The problem with the ambient lighting is using a diffuse / baked shading in the scnery that has ambient occlusion-like properties that works in both the sun and under cloud. There might also be difficulties with the wet / dry surface shaders and certain tarmac textures etc.

The tracks would have to have been built for time change from a low level, though, certainly. That might mean some returning tracks from GT5 especially won't get the treatment, whilst more of the new ones will. Perhaps.

It's confirmed that Silverstone and Willow Springs will have time change and weather, but nothing about a full 24 hour cycle. I would assume that their won't be??

I wonder what they're going to do with certain tracks that were new to GT5. Have a different set time of day and weather for a location like Cape Ring while adding time change to Eiger Nordwand layouts (and maybe time change to the dirt layouts)?

 

[MeanElf]

The only problem with time/weather change on Eiger rally would be the extra handling parameters needed for dirt during rain. Gravel such as Liege is one thing, but mud is a huge difference.

I'd like to be wrong, but I don't think GT6 would cope well with that. It'd be great for the future though.

 

[Tornado]

How would they do time change without having it be a 24 hour track?

 

[Griffith500]

Autumn Ring clearly has time change going by the shots we've seen, but jagged edged shadows aren't as visible when they're cast from jagged-edged trees
I wonder if incomplete time changes (they're not all 24 hr) are deliberate to avoid worst-cases with the shadows and / or scenery (Toscana, for instance). Perhaps they can squeeze some more memory out of the system and use that for more shadow detail and make fewer tracks marginal. Which is a point; I was struggling to see just where all that memory that tessellation freed up actually went (so far; not seen anything like a full game yet).

Time change may need to be considered per layout (seems extreme, though), but I think (going by my previous post) weather can be done per location.

 

[another_jakhole]

Oh yeah. I forgot about Autumn Ring. I'd agree about weather on any track, but I wonder if PD will account for any real world track's surface (which seems unlikely).

The only problem with time/weather change on Eiger rally would be the extra handling parameters needed for dirt during rain. Gravel such as Liege is one thing, but mud is a huge difference.

I'd like to be wrong, but I don't think GT6 would cope well with that. It'd be great for the future though.

I was more thinking about only time change for those dirt tracks and ONLY because they're at the same location...just different spots.

How would they do time change without having it be a 24 hour track?

I'm only not sure about Silverstone but mostly Willow Springs not have a full day/night cycle, because I'm not aware if there are 24 hour races held there. I haven't checked to see how night time looks like at Willow Springs and now having gone on youtube to find out that you can use the track at night, what I said before is irrelevant. YET STILL, 24 hour time change wasn't specifically confirmed, only that time change is.

 

[J-KiLLA24]

Yeah I'm pretty sure silverstone will have 24hr cycle, I'm not too sure about Matterhorn or Willow though.

 

[MrWednesday]

There's been a 24 hour race at Streets of Willow. Not the same track (and no indication it's in GT6), but same site.

http://www.mylaps.com/en/events/639124