Kaz on shadows...

[MoebiusUK]

Kaz on Twitter answers the questions of "why do shadows look all fuzzy":


"There are several reasons. Camera extremely flexible, dynamic and wide-area lighting needs, it was not cost effective enough. I want to improve it."

I would say it is cost effective. It's a major part of the game's graphics.

 

[HurlingDervish]

I haven't noticed them since the first ten minutes of playing the game.

If you are focusing on racing your eyes naturally blur everything else and the shadows look really natural as they flicker on the dashboard from passing by trees at 200mph.

 

[Scoop2004]

What does "want to improve it" mean?? A patch? Or GT6?

 

[ComposerRyan]

Kaz on Twitter answers the questions of "why do shadows look all fuzzy":


"There are several reasons. Camera extremely flexible, dynamic and wide-area lighting needs, it was not cost effective enough. I want to improve it."

I would say it is cost effective. It's a major part of the game's graphics.

Hey, can you provide a link to this or a source anywhere? I don't understand what he was getting at my saying it was "not cost effective enough" but the good news is he said he "wants to improve it"

 

[RacingManiac]

They haven't been that distracting most of the time, but I really notice it in the AMG school with the 300 SL. The white steering wheel and light color interior makes you see the "checkered flag" shadow running across the dash as you go in and out of the tree line...

 

[marsden1002]

As my other post, try doing a doughnut in something (my example was the LFA) and as the smoke passes over the car, it soon becomes a lego car.

They have spent around $16M on this, how can it not be cost effective?

 

[Sum1s2pid]

I would say it is cost effective. It's a major part of the game's graphics.

Bad translation, I'm sure.

Shadows are very taxing for most older gaming systems and aren't very 'cost effective' in terms of maintaining good performance -- exacerbated by a field high highly detailed cars, weather, and other miscellaneous effects. The game already struggles to maintain 60fps.

Hopefully they can be cleaned up a bit, though -- a points they look quite poor.

 

[Delta-64-]

I said this in the other shadow complaint thread: lots of games have bad dynamic shadows. I'm not a developer and I don't know why it is but look at shadows from other games and they are they jagged (sometimes flickering) shadows. Example, play the first level of Metal Gear Solid 4, and look at the shadows.

 

[Mr Turismo]

HEs actually answering a lot of questions via twitter...

The future, I would .... deal. RT @ fersis : @ Kaz_Yamauchi Could you add a No HUD Option? about 1 hour ago via HootSuite RT @ Fersis : @ Kaz_Yamauchi Could You Add a HUD No Option?


Mechanical damage options in the next update. おそらく１２月上旬あたり。 Probably around early December. RT @ y_mokko : @ Kaz_Yamauchi RT @ damekuma : オプションでダメージ表現を変更できた方がレベルに縛られないし良いと思う。 RT @ Y_Mokko : @ Kaz_Yamauchi RT @ Damekuma : I think Ishi Makoto was not bound to change the expression level of damage in those options.


Source: http://translate.googleusercontent....com.br&usg=ALkJrhit7dH_W3m13hyLQVB13_1xdDLDig

 

[Corrigan]

It's frustrating for me as a PC gamer -- the shadows look to be the same resolution as Battlefield 2 (which is five years old), and the horrible screen tearing would be easily fixed by turning on V-sync, something which can be done to all PC games.

 

[Bigbazz]

What he is saying is, improving it to work smooth on the PS3 would take a lot of time and resources, when he could spend the time working on more important things, the PS3 is already at its limits.

 

[hardvibes]

What he is saying is, improving it to work smooth on the PS3 would take a lot of time and resources, when he could spend the time working on more important things, the PS3 is already at its limits.

Shadows are as important as framerate and cars details, and Kaz knows it.

 

[Devedander]

It's frustrating for me as a PC gamer -- the shadows look to be the same resolution as Battlefield 2 (which is five years old), and the horrible screen tearing would be easily fixed by turning on V-sync, something which can be done to all PC games.

Vsync often casuses a hit to framerate though...

Bad translation, I'm sure.

Shadows are very taxing for most older gaming systems and aren't very 'cost effective' in terms of maintaining good performance -- exacerbated by a field high highly detailed cars, weather, and other miscellaneous effects. The game already struggles to maintain 60fps.

Hopefully they can be cleaned up a bit, though -- a points they look quite poor.

I would say it doesn't maintain 60FPS and in fact rarely gets close...

 

[TK42OnE]

I have to admit. I'm pretty amazed at how distracting I find the shadows.

I'm not usually one to nitpik things like that, but it does completely take you out of the moment. I'm happy to see he acknowledges the problem and I can only hope it can be fixed.

 

[djanikowski]

It's frustrating for me as a PC gamer -- the shadows look to be the same resolution as Battlefield 2 (which is five years old), and the horrible screen tearing would be easily fixed by turning on V-sync, something which can be done to all PC games.

Fixing the screen tearing is not as easy as turning V-sync on, V-sync needs to run at a set frame rate, which GT5 does not do. Every time the frame rate drops below 60fps, with V-sync, it would drop down to 30fps even if it just needed to drop one frame. At least this is my understanding of how V-sync works, I might be wrong.

 

[vfrmaverick]

Ive only seen them in replay. Almost impossible to see in race.

 

[Viperman240]

Someone should ask Kaz if its possible to implement MLAA (GoW3) so there arent any jaggies during gameplay/replay.

 

[Detroitbb]

The game already struggles to maintain 60fps.

According to the Digital Foundry analysis, the game rarely ever hit 60 fps (only briefly on some rally courses and only when there aren't other cars around). Most of the time, it hovers in the 45 - 50 fps for 720 and 1080 modes, but even drops into the upper 20's at one point in the video.

 

[Bigbazz]

I'm saying that there are huge areas of the game that needed improvement, massive ammounts of work that needs to be done, the ammount of time they would spend on just fixing up the shadows without damaging the performance is just not realistic. You can't even notice them while racing anyway, the resolution/AA is too low for such things to be noticeable outside of replays/b-spec.

PS3 is ancient technology, its already at the limits as i said, i would much much rather they worked on more premium cars, tracks, better online support/ranking system, a 1/4 mile timing event, more endurance events for real racing, improved FFB, better AI, more options in course builder.. the list goes on.

 

[MowTin]

I'm actually impressed by the shadows and lighting in this game overall. You have shadows on the roads and you see the shadows cast by tree branches and leaves on the cars as they drive through and even in the cockpit as you drive.

Shadows are very expensive in terms of processing power. You can't have everything you want and still maitain adaquate framerate.

 

[Mr Turismo]

I am confident in kaz team. Its obvious by now that they´ve released a game with flaws and a little bit rushed by sony´s schedule (ok..not rushed..its five years...i agree its a loooot of time and $ony has invested money in the franchising, so its payback time. ). Kaz will not simple give away gt5... i´m sure we´ll receive plenty of dlcs and bug/fixes patches in the upcoming months.

Write that up.

 

[Antagonist]

HEs actually answering a lot of questions via twitter...

The future, I would .... deal. RT @ fersis : @ Kaz_Yamauchi Could you add a No HUD Option? about 1 hour ago via HootSuite RT @ Fersis : @ Kaz_Yamauchi Could You Add a HUD No Option?


Mechanical damage options in the next update. おそらく１２月上旬あたり。 Probably around early December. RT @ y_mokko : @ Kaz_Yamauchi RT @ damekuma : オプションでダメージ表現を変更できた方がレベルに縛られないし良いと思う。 RT @ Y_Mokko : @ Kaz_Yamauchi RT @ Damekuma : I think Ishi Makoto was not bound to change the expression level of damage in those options.


Source: http://translate.googleusercontent....com.br&usg=ALkJrhit7dH_W3m13hyLQVB13_1xdDLDig

Wow, No Hud possibly in future, and possibly mechanical options coming asap! That's best news I've heard yet, hopefully it's accurately translated.

 

[kyleh613]

I would say it is cost effective. It's a major part of the game's graphics.

Unless you have a lot of knowledge in the game industry especially when it comes to helping ship a AAA game title as big as Gran Turismo 5 you really have no business saying this. So many people like to pretend to be an armchair game developer. Go make a better Gran Turismo then, i'll be waiting.

 

[Sum1s2pid]

I would say it doesn't maintain 60FPS and in fact rarely gets close...

According to the Digital Foundry analysis, the game rarely ever hit 60 fps (only briefly on some rally courses and only when there aren't other cars around). Most of the time, it hovers in the 45 - 50 fps for 720 and 1080 modes, but even drops into the upper 20's at one point in the video.

Struggles. As Digital Foundry showed, it can and will hit 60fps with muliple cars on track with effects -- mostly in 720p. Struggles. It stands to reason that it could maintain it with less going on on the screen, albeit not consistantly. Struggles.

 

[Devedander]

Struggles. As Digital Foundry showed, it can and will hit 60fps with muliple cars on track with effects -- mostly in 720p. Struggles. It stands to reason that it could maintain it with less going on on the screen, albeit not consistantly. Struggles.

I think the very definition of maintain is to do it consistently... the very fact that the game does not provide many situations where not much is going on (thus 60FPS) kind of makes it not maintaining. Struggling to HIT 60FPS is perhaps more accurate...

 

[Sum1s2pid]

I think the very definition of maintain is to do it consistently... the very fact that the game does not provide many situations where not much is going on (thus 60FPS) kind of makes it not maintaining. Struggling to HIT 60FPS is perhaps more accurate...

Just a different way to say the same thing -- the key word being 'struggles'. It implies that it cannot.

 

[MoebiusUK]

Unless you have a lot of knowledge in the game industry especially when it comes to helping ship a AAA game title as big as Gran Turismo 5 you really have no business saying this. So many people like to pretend to be an armchair game developer. Go make a better Gran Turismo then, i'll be waiting.

I don't have to be a game developer to know that a game which boasts photo-realistic graphics should be able render shadows. You can't have beautiful scenery, beautiful cars and not so great shadows.

http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/1/3/0/4/5/7/0/Dodgy_Alpha1.jpg.jpg <-- This, for example, looks like PS1 graphics.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Gran Turismo. I have owned every single one. So I'm not hating on Kaz or his team, they've done incredibly well.

So don't assume I created this thread to complain. I created this thread to let people know that Kaz agrees that shadows aren't finished and that he's working on them.

 

[Mr Turismo]

Some more information via twitter... someone with more knowledge should check the translation. Now its about the youtube feature and online xp...

# Online "credit and experience" is prepared. &#12418;&#12358;&#12385;&#12423;&#12387;&#12392;&#24453;&#12387;&#12390;&#12390;&#12290; To wait longer. RT @ wwr_nitrous : @ Kaz_Yamauchi XP and Credits be available online soon? 5 minutes ago via HootSuite RT @ Wwr_Nitrous : @ Kaz_Yamauchi XP and Credits Online Be Soon available? five Minutes ago via via HootSuite

# &#20316;&#12387;&#12390;&#12415;&#12383;&#12435;&#12384;&#12290; I tried it. &#12391;&#12418;&#12289;&#12381;&#12428;&#12399;&#29467;&#28872;&#12395;&#12524;&#12531;&#12480;&#12522;&#12531;&#12464;&#12395;&#26178;&#38291;&#12364;&#24517;&#35201;&#12384;&#12387;&#12383;&#12290; But it was desperately needed time to render. &#29702;&#30001;&#12399;&#31777;&#21336;&#12391;&#12513;&#12514;&#12522;&#12364;&#12385;&#12423;&#12387;&#12392;&#36275;&#12426;&#12394;&#12356;&#12290; The reason is simple enough memory a bit. &#12414;&#12384;&#26908;&#35342;&#12375;&#12390;&#12427;&#12369;&#12393;&#12397;&#12290; I'm still considering it. RT @ miguel_duarte : @ Kaz_Yamauchi "YouTube Video Upload Function" ? 19 minutes ago via HootSuite RT @ Miguel_Duarte : @ Kaz_Yamauchi "YouTube Video Upload Function"?

 

[Bigbazz]

Kaz needs to be asked if he can implement a 1/4 timed event at the top gear test track, and a top speed record event at the SSR-7 tunnel straight.

 

[CeeJay]

Almost every PS3 game I own that has lighting effects similar to GT5 has crummy shadows. There really is no way to fix it unless the PS3 gets more RAM. I really doubt there is any way to patch it since it's a weakness inherent in the hardware (What is it, 256MB of video RAM? It's quite low). Some games are able to cover up this weakness through some clever tricks but with GT I think there is just too much that needs to be rendered on the screen with so many cars and smoke effects & now damage and weather. We're stuck with crappy shadows until the PS4 or they make GT for the PC.

(This is all just guessing on my part I'm not a programmer so I could be wrong but again, judging from my PS3 software library I can't see there being much they can do to improve this)