Kazunori Yamauchi Reveals Gran Turismo's Origins in CEDEC Keynote Presentation

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The stadium itself isn't part of a football game but they sure spend millions making them look pretty instead of just building a bare concrete box.
The stadium itself would be the equal to the track in racing, and the pitch is part of the stadium. In both cases is the equipment needed needed to make the sport happen. The track also includes the grandstands and the central building, forgot to mention.
Both the stadium and the tracks should be highly detailed, and they are.
 
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The stadium itself would be the equal to the track in racing, and the pitch is part of the stadium. In both cases is the equipment needed needed to make the sport happen. The track also includes the grandstands and the central building, forgot to mention.
Both the stadium and the tracks should be highly detailed, and they are.
You need a stadium to make football happen? That's news to billions of people around the world playing football in open fields.

A football pitch is synonymous to the race track, the stadium is synonymous to the "exterior environment" as you put it.

If you want to race around tracks with no environment and claim it doesn't matter, try and find an old build of Project CARS. We were regularly given tracks that were just that, the ribbon of tarmac and nothing else, to test it before they finished the rest.



If you think there is no difference, you're lying to yourself.
 
Not pointless - trees are not part of the track in any kind, they're not part of racing at all, you dont have to look at them, and they dont even need to exist
So the game would be exactly the same if it was just the ribbon of the track with no exterior environment, right?

Of course not. That's silly. The setting a track takes place in matters. Not only does it control important things like lines of sight, lighting, winds, sheltering from weather and so on, the ambience of a place also matters. Eiger is remembered for it's stunning visual impact. The Nurburgring is called the Green Hell because it's setting in the middle of a forest gives an experience that is different to if the same track ribbon was surrounded by desert, or an urban landscape.

As @Samus pointed out, you can try driving bare track ribbons. It's a very different and disorienting experience for most. If you drive literally only looking at the road directly in front of you then you might not notice any difference, but you also wouldn't be a very good driver.
 
So, instead of fixing his product he goes on about the 80s, turns a environmentalist and has a showcase just for himself.

I would love to see him leave PD and create some nature-walking simulator. Make way for people that still have the passion you once had.
 
You need a stadium to make football happen? That's news to billions of people around the world playing football in open fields.

A football pitch is synonymous to the race track, the stadium is synonymous to the "exterior environment" as you put it.

If you want to race around tracks with no environment and claim it doesn't matter, try and find an old build of Project CARS. We were regularly given tracks that were just that, the ribbon of tarmac and nothing else, to test it before they finished the rest.



If you think there is no difference, you're lying to yourself.


So the game would be exactly the same if it was just the ribbon of the track with no exterior environment, right?

Of course not. That's silly. The setting a track takes place in matters. Not only does it control important things like lines of sight, lighting, winds, sheltering from weather and so on, the ambience of a place also matters. Eiger is remembered for it's stunning visual impact. The Nurburgring is called the Green Hell because it's setting in the middle of a forest gives an experience that is different to if the same track ribbon was surrounded by desert, or an urban landscape.

As @Samus pointed out, you can try driving bare track ribbons. It's a very different and disorienting experience for most. If you drive literally only looking at the road directly in front of you then you might not notice any difference, but you also wouldn't be a very good driver.
I said everything else that is not the cars or part of the track don't need to be so highly detailed, unnecessary resources taken away.
Trees being one of the main things that dont need much attention and should not be very detailed in a racing game, because if they're so detailed they can be really stupid resource hogs.
For the tree lovers, there are other types of games far more suited to have them very detailed so those can stare at them in awe
 
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I said everything else that is not the cars or part of the track don't need to be so highly detailed, unnecessary resources taken away.
Trees being one of the main things that dont need much attention and should not be very detailed in a racing game, because if they're so detailed they can be really stupid resource hogs.
For the tree lovers, there are other types of games far more suited to have them very detailed so those can stare at them in awe
You said they didn't even need to exist.

Not pointless - trees are not part of the track in any kind, they're not part of racing at all, you dont have to look at them, and they dont even need to exist
 
I said everything else that is not the cars or part of the track don't need to be so highly detailed, unnecessary resources taken away.
Trees being one of the main things that dont need much attention and should not be very detailed in a racing game, because if they're so detailed they can be really stupid resource hogs.
For the tree lovers, there are other types of games far more suited to have them very detailed so those can stare at them in awe
And we have spinning windmills on Sardegna, isn't that also a waste of resources in racing game?
 
You said they didn't even need to exist.
They dont even need to exist... for doing racing.

And we have spinning windmills on Sardegna, isn't that also a waste of resources in racing game?
It maybe is, maybe not so much. Likely far less complex structure than a tree though. Trees are highly complex 3D structures even if people dont realise it
 
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They dont even need to exist... for doing racing.


It maybe is, maybe not so much. Likely far less complex structure than a tree though. Trees are highly complex 3D structures even if people dont realise it
So you would be fine racing on that version of the Nurburgring I posted, would you?
 
So you would be fine racing on that version of the Nurburgring I posted, would you?
I didnt realise it was Nordschleife, the track looked far too smooth and no bumps.
I'm more than fine with what we have now in GT7. I dont think there's any need for more improvements
 
Right. That's sort of the point. Even you, someone who claims that the stuff around the track doesn't matter and doesn't need to exist, can't recognise what is arguably the most famous track in Gran Turismo if it's just the ribbon.
You seem to have a hard time reading properly. I didnt say stuff around the track dont need to exist in a videogame. I said trees dont need to exist for racing because trees aren't part of racing.
 
Hopefully Kaz will retire very soon. Not really sure why need to know his back story. Very odd to see so much talk about a guy who has been making the same video game for 25 years with very little change. The Kaz love is very odd.
 
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You seem to have a hard time reading properly. I didnt say stuff around the track dont need to exist in a videogame. I said trees dont need to exist for racing because trees aren't part of racing.
Hm. This you?
Not pointless - trees are not part of the track in any kind, they're not part of racing at all, you dont have to look at them, and they dont even need to exist
If you watch a football game, you stop watching the game and go outside the stadium to watch the building next to it, or the parking lot? So that's my point.
You said they don't need to exist. Just, they don't need to exist. Even if we accept that's not what you mean and amend that to "they don't need to exist for racing", that's still wrong. They're part of the racing too.

If you can't identify the track you're on without them, that seems relevant for starters. It's important in racing to know where you're going and which corners are coming next, and landmarks help with that. In a long race or a tight battle it's not unheard of to lose sequence of where you are, especially at night. Likewise, objects near the track but not on it can be used for things like braking markers, turn in points, apexes and sight markers, which are all quite relevant to racing.

When trees and other trackside objects change sightlines and block visibility around corners, that changes the racing. It matters whether or not you can see the big crash around the next corner before you're in it.

When they're the difference between seeing clearly and getting blinded by low lying sun, that changes the racing.
A track lined by trees and buildings doesn't see the same wind speeds as one that's open, and that changes the racing.
There's a bunch of other stuff as well like track temperatures and drainage that probably don't even come into a game like Gran Turismo, but they apply in real life and they can apply to other more complexly simulated games.

The bottom line is that for a ton of reasons, a plain ribbon like the one in the video @Samus posted simply does not race the same as one with a properly detailed surrounding environment even if the road itself is exactly the same. Changing the external environment of a track changes how it plays and races, and that's what you'd learn if you ever bothered to try and race on a plain ribbon with no surrounding environment.

And so given that all this stuff needs to exist for a track to race the way it does, and given that actually a good driver spends some non-trivial amount of time using these environmental cues to help them drive well it's relevant that they look appropriate. It's why it's actually fairly cool that Polyphony bother to try and locate vegetation in roughly the correct spots around their tracks, and to model trees and such that are pretty close to what appears in real life.

And if the player is going to be looking and and using this environment in this way, it's also meaningful if the environment both fits in with the high quality of the rest of the track and the cars so as not to be jarring or distracting, as well as just being pleasant to look at in general. Yeah, you could put up a bunch of cardboard cutouts and get largely the same physical effect, but the sense of realism that the game is going for would be substantially diminished. Gran Turismo prides itself on realism and providing an experience that feels realistic, and so that alone is more important to the game than it might seem.

Still, I know there's bad players out there that never look up from the track just in front of them and would never bother looking beyond the fenceline. They exist in real life too. They will not understand this, but good racers use all the tools available to them and that includes stuff beyond the driveable surface.
 
Hm. This you?

You said they don't need to exist. Just, they don't need to exist. Even if we accept that's not what you mean and amend that to "they don't need to exist for racing", that's still wrong. They're part of the racing too.

If you can't identify the track you're on without them, that seems relevant for starters. It's important in racing to know where you're going and which corners are coming next, and landmarks help with that. In a long race or a tight battle it's not unheard of to lose sequence of where you are, especially at night. Likewise, objects near the track but not on it can be used for things like braking markers, turn in points, apexes and sight markers, which are all quite relevant to racing.

When trees and other trackside objects change sightlines and block visibility around corners, that changes the racing. It matters whether or not you can see the big crash around the next corner before you're in it.

When they're the difference between seeing clearly and getting blinded by low lying sun, that changes the racing.
A track lined by trees and buildings doesn't see the same wind speeds as one that's open, and that changes the racing.
There's a bunch of other stuff as well like track temperatures and drainage that probably don't even come into a game like Gran Turismo, but they apply in real life and they can apply to other more complexly simulated games.

The bottom line is that for a ton of reasons, a plain ribbon like the one in the video @Samus posted simply does not race the same as one with a properly detailed surrounding environment even if the road itself is exactly the same. Changing the external environment of a track changes how it plays and races, and that's what you'd learn if you ever bothered to try and race on a plain ribbon with no surrounding environment.

And so given that all this stuff needs to exist for a track to race the way it does, and given that actually a good driver spends some non-trivial amount of time using these environmental cues to help them drive well it's relevant that they look appropriate. It's why it's actually fairly cool that Polyphony bother to try and locate vegetation in roughly the correct spots around their tracks, and to model trees and such that are pretty close to what appears in real life.

And if the player is going to be looking and and using this environment in this way, it's also meaningful if the environment both fits in with the high quality of the rest of the track and the cars so as not to be jarring or distracting, as well as just being pleasant to look at in general. Yeah, you could put up a bunch of cardboard cutouts and get largely the same physical effect, but the sense of realism that the game is going for would be substantially diminished. Gran Turismo prides itself on realism and providing an experience that feels realistic, and so that alone is more important to the game than it might seem.

Still, I know there's bad players out there that never look up from the track just in front of them and would never bother looking beyond the fenceline. They exist in real life too. They will not understand this, but good racers use all the tools available to them and that includes stuff beyond the driveable surface.
That video was an appeal to the extremes
If you try to understand the context then you'll get my point. Landscapes are secondary in closed tracks, no need to be extremely detailed unlike cars. Cars are extremely detailed because they are the lightspot. Trees on the other hand, arent
 
You seem to have a hard time reading properly. I didnt say stuff around the track dont need to exist in a videogame. I said trees dont need to exist for racing because trees aren't part of racing.
Tell me you've not driven a track without telling me you've not driven a track.

The sheer number of times I've used tree's and other (fixed) trackside items as markers, brake points, etc. I have literally lost count of.

Snetterton's Scary Tree (RIP) also disproves this claim.
 
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Tell me you've not driven a track without telling me you've not driven a track.

The sheer number of times I've used tree's and other (fixed) trackside items as markers, brake points, etc. I have literally lost count of.

Snetterton's Scary Tree (RIP) also disproves this claim.
I rarely ever use braking points.
PD: I'm curious to know how the scary tree serves as braking point.
 
So you brake consistently how?
By practicing in each car you memorize the braking points depending on the car, these are never the same if you play a game like GT7 with so many different cars, many sorts of power and braking capabilities, so you just memorize the places instead of looking at markers or such.
 
By practicing in each car you memorize the braking points depending on the car, these are never the same if you play a game like GT7 with so many different cars, many sorts of power and braking capabilities, so you just memorize the places instead of looking at markers or such.
You literally just described a braking reference point/marker!

"memorize the places"

:lol:
 
That video was an appeal to the extremes
If you try to understand the context then you'll get my point. Landscapes are secondary in closed tracks, no need to be extremely detailed unlike cars. Cars are extremely detailed because they are the lightspot. Trees on the other hand, arent
Just because the cars and the tracks are an important part of a racing game, doesn't mean trackside elements like trees and vegetation aren't important.

Your point - that trees are unimportant, irrelevant to racing, and don't need to exist let alone detail - was simple, easy to understand... and wrong. So please don't deflect a rebuttal by saying we didn't get your point.

Trees and scenery around a track are part of what gives a track context and personality. Deep Forest Raceway wouldn't be much of a Deep Forest without trees. The Nordschleife's trees are integral to the track's personality. Does it help you race better? Not always, not necessarily. Is it any less important because of it? Also no.

Whatever helps make a racing game more immersive is worth pursuing. Game development and resource assignment are not a zero-sum game, studios can and do work on multiple things at once.
 
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There's no braking reference point or marker involved. I memorize the exact track spot.
Oh, dear. Read what you just wrote back to yourself, slowly.

If you have memorized a spot on the track to brake at, then you have memorized a reference marker for braking.

Take a screenshot and show us an example, please.
 
Oh, dear. Read what you just wrote back to yourself, slowly.

If you have memorized a spot on the track to brake at, then you have memorized a reference marker for braking.

Take a screenshot and show us an example, please.
I just look at the visual distance to the next corner, that's it.
And I think this thread has been derailed so better stop here
 
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