The Words of the Winds are Now all Clear

[Austin343]

My last count had GT4 at 53 locales and 74 'tracks'

Hmm. I think I'm right, but maybe I made an error in my calculations. There are 19 world circuits plus Cote D'Azur, making 20 real tracks that don't have a reverse direction. Then there are 11 other city tracks, 12 original circuits (plus Test Course! There's a mistake - I had forgotten that it only went forwards), and 7 dirt and snow courses, all multiplied by two to account for the reverse courses. That gives 19+1+1+22+24+14, or 81 tracks.

 

[Tenacious D]

I really don't believe there will be 600 cars at launch. I hope I'm wrong, but it just doesn't seem like there's been enough time for all that on top of the tracks and the rest of the game.

Yeah, but Amar wouldn't put out a 600 car number as a "target, down the road, eventually" figure. It has to mean around 600 cars at release.

As for GT4's 81 track figure, that's still a whole gob of locations. 96 tracks including variations could mean 65 locations or more, and I'd be plenty happy with that.

 

[mafia_boy]

I'm really curious about the track editor and how steep we can create the hills and inclines.....imagine it, an uphill section like Seattle with all the little jumps up and then all of a sudden going into the steep Trial Mountain downhill section, it would be like taking your car over a supercross jump! Or you could turn Las Vegas into the most bumpy and poorly maintained stretch of 400m ever, making it harder for drag racing.

Also, since we're talking cryptically with birds and skypaths and since I didn't read anything about it I figured I'd ask this way: Will there be "nests" where said birdtamers can get their hands on old birds from the '70s, '80s & early/late '90s, and then restore old bird to new bird?

I can understand if you can't answer that one Amar but I hope you can. And I think I can safely say most of us appreciate whatever GT5 news you can pass to us and can't wait for more, no matter how cryptic it is. 👍

 

[Sele1981]

5 weeks to go

 

[Tired Tyres]

Hmm. I think I'm right, but maybe I made an error in my calculations. There are 19 world circuits plus Cote D'Azur, making 20 real tracks that don't have a reverse direction. Then there are 11 other city tracks, 12 original circuits (plus Test Course! There's a mistake - I had forgotten that it only went forwards), and 7 dirt and snow courses, all multiplied by two to account for the reverse courses. That gives 19+1+1+22+24+14, or 81 tracks.

The back of my GT4 case states 50 tracks. Neither PD or Sony count reverse tracks as additional tracks because they are not. It is not PD or Sony indicating that there are between 91 and 95 tracks though, therefore reverse versions of tracks may be being counted as additional tracks.

By the way, if you add all the different tracks that have ever been in the GT series including the small test track of the first two games as well as the large test track of the last two games, both versions of SSR11 and all the locations listed in the weather reports the total reaches 95.

 

[Rusty*]

Wow good info thanks Tired Tyres, I am thinking that there will be as many as 608-6012 Cars and 93-95 tracks

"there will be more than half of dozen hundreds birds flying in the beginning of the reunion on almost eight dozen of skypaths"

in the Ultimate or Full Edition. This would acommidate all those that are not in favour of having to download to bring the game content up to 100%, but that another addition will be a smaller version where you have the option to download selected Cars and tracks if you want them. I think that this idea is great, it leaves no room for complaint by anyone for anything. 👍
Go PD!

 

[CyborgGT]

They have had more than enough time i think, almost 5 years to be precise. Considering that many of the cars come from previous GT games, the moddeling wouldn't be that difficult. Just the interior design and maybe, bringing up to date (with new textures and stuff) the exterior design.

That's not how game development works. The cars have be re-created from the ground up. In GT4, the cars were basically just textures (see 'Beyond the Apex'). In GT5, we're finally getting polygons making up every detail of the car, and each car takes 6 months to create. We're not given how many people they have working on each car, or how many people are working on cars altogether, just that each car takes six months to create (again, see the movie). I could not imagine how long it takes to create a track.

But we have Amar's posts to go on. You're just being a negative nelly.👎

Yeah, but Amar wouldn't put out a 600 car number as a "target, down the road, eventually" figure. It has to mean around 600 cars at release.

I'd like to know the source of Amar's information. A Polyphony insider? Yeah, they've been real good about keeping their word. Amar's past accuracy good or not, having so many cars and tracks at launch is just not believable for me. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong, but based on all that I've been reading up on GT5 since its announcement, I don't believe it's possible.

The back of my GT4 case states 50 tracks.

Mine (Greatest Hits, US edition) says "up to 100 tracks from around the world."

By the way, if you add all the different tracks that have ever been in the GT series including the small test track of the first two games as well as the large test track of the last two games, both versions of SSR11 and all the locations listed in the weather reports the total reaches 95.

That's makes even less realistic sense. Every track to ever be in GT is going to reappear in 5? Riiiiiight.

I just counted and GT4 has 89 courses. This includes all race tracks and their variations/reverses, driving park courses (2 of the 4 have reverses), the drag strip, 5 coffee break setups (the spiral has two directions), and the slalom set up on one of the race tracks for the IB license.

 

[RedBaron]

My only hope is that, if a GT6 is to be released, please do it on PS3!! I don't want to buy a PS4

I hope that it will be on PS4, because I really want to finally see native 1920x1080p game with much richer track detail than GT5 has, quality antialiasing and high resolution textures, trees shaking in the wind, every human along the track alive and full LeMans starting grid (100+ cars?). I will buy PS4 the day GT6rologue will be in shelves

That's not how game development works. The cars have be re-created from the ground up. In GT4, the cars were basically just textures (see 'Beyond the Apex'). In GT5, we're finally getting polygons making up every detail of the car, and each car takes 6 months to create.

I always loved gran turismo being further in car models than any other company. There were geometric things in GT when everyone else maked all by textures.

 

[CyborgGT]

I don't want to see GT6 on PS3 because there's really no point with DLC. Why waste the time and money bumping the graphics by a slight margin (which would only create a longer development period) when they're incredible as-is, when you can just release more cars, tracks, and features for 5?

I always loved gran turismo being further in car models than any other company. There were geometric things in GT when everyone else maked all by textures.

But GT has always been textures. That's why the small holes and things like that on the cars have never been truly 3D.

 

[nyeboy]

I know that GT5 will be DLC heavy but I can't help but feel a few cars and tracks will be left out on release to add as the first couple DLC packs. A lot of games do it now but I hope Polyphony is different.

 

[II IVORBIGUN II]

As im a fan of hotlapping I can't help but think to myself how long its going to take to put a time in on all the tracks using all the cars. If the leaderboards are the same as prologue just imagine 600 cars/96 tracks with standard/pro leaderboards equals 115,200. This is too many even by my standards and would have to concentrate on either my favourite cars or tracks.

Im hoping the release date is the 1st Dec rather than March and from a business perspective it would be much better for Sony/PD to release before xmas.

I know one thing is for sure come the night before release I won't get any sleep due to being too excited. Im sure many of the other TRC members will be getting GT5 and im sure many of the other top teams from Forza 2 will be coming to GT5 despite Forza 3 being released early next year.

Lets hope E3 provides us with a taster of whats to come.

 

[Japspecvr6]

Come on PD......If Marvel and Capcom can get there act together then you can.......(tu4ar.com). Anything would be nice right about now.

 

[mc959]

Hey Amar + GT Planet, you made it in drivers-republic.com!!!

Congrats guys, this is a great site for car-freaks

http://www.drivers-republic.com/fir...fm?articleid=3359b9c96b964a918f0150cfe97aa59d

And for all GTR lovers you really need to read the article about the face-off against
the GT2(Porsche) on a damp track with semi-slick tyres on the Nürburgring

http://magazines.drivers-republic.com/driversrepublic/thetruth030/?fm=2

And yes i'm a Porsche-lover

See ya,

MC959

 

[Tenacious D]

Amar's past accuracy good or not, having so many cars and tracks at launch is just not believable for me. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong, but based on all that I've been reading up on GT5 since its announcement, I don't believe it's possible.

I'm not sure what you've been reading, but I've seen that many of the Polyphony team have been basically living at the studio for years now. And what do you think can be accomplished with laser scanning technology in 400 plus man-years?

Back in the early days before GT HD, I was hoping for 700-900 cars. Then as we got Prologue and I began thinking about it, I thought 450 was more likely, which with race mod would be fantastic. But now, I'm wondering if 600 might even be a little low. As you say though, we'll be seeing in just five weeks.

Remember when it was half a year off? Time is passing, kids.

 

[big dani]

i found that pic on net..

 

[Jay]

Thats an old picture from 2005 or 2006 E3, that keeps resurfacing from time to time.

 

[=ReBeL=]

Im hoping the release date is the 1st Dec rather than March and from a business perspective it would be much better for Sony/PD to release before xmas.

Let's be clear about one thing - doesn't matter what month it is going to be, they will sell lots and lots of copies anyway

 

[Zathra5_]

Let's be clear about one thing - doesn't matter what month it is going to be, they will sell lots and lots of copies anyway

True but I think that a December release would help with PS3 christmas sales. Its easier to justify the purchase of something as a christmas present than as a middle of march present. That may also help sales of other games (bought a ps3 and GT, might as well buy another game). Just a thought

 

[FoolKiller]

That's not how game development works. The cars have be re-created from the ground up. In GT4, the cars were basically just textures (see 'Beyond the Apex'). In GT5, we're finally getting polygons making up every detail of the car, and each car takes 6 months to create. We're not given how many people they have working on each car, or how many people are working on cars altogether, just that each car takes six months to create (again, see the movie). I could not imagine how long it takes to create a track.

I'd like to know the source of Amar's information. A Polyphony insider? Yeah, they've been real good about keeping their word. Amar's past accuracy good or not, having so many cars and tracks at launch is just not believable for me. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong, but based on all that I've been reading up on GT5 since its announcement, I don't believe it's possible.

Why do you not believe it is possible? I believe that you are looking at Beyond the apex too literally. Those 6 months per car can be done in under a week if you look at it properly.

I know that in my company when we refer to man hours in that long of a time frame we calculate it based on five day work weeks. So 6 months would be roughly (averaging 21 business days a month) 126 days or 3,024 hours. Now lets say you have a different guy working on each part of a car and it takes them 3 days to get their single part completed. That comes out to 42 guys using 6 months worth of man hours in just 3 days. If we want to assume calendar months, that is (averaging 30 days a month) 180 days or 4,320 hours. Still, that would only require 60 men to do six months worth of work in 3 days.

I know I am simplifying it for my example, but Polyphony has a moderately sized team and that six months does not mean that the entire team works on a single car for six calendar months. If it did we wouldn't even have Prologue yet.

I am a manager over 15 people, so in a five day work week my department does 2.5 months worth of hours.

So, to me that figure is not that unbelievable, especially as people do a specific job over time they get better at it, make less errors, and work at a faster pace. Efficiency improves over time, and without knowing where in the development cycle that six month figure was referring to, or if it was even just a rough exaggerated estimate to sound impressive I don't know if that six month figure was peak efficiency or early on. If it was early on I would not be surprised to find that they have shaved anywhere from 10%-25% off of that time.

Come on PD......If Marvel and Capcom can get there act together then you can.......(tu4ar.com). Anything would be nice right about now.

Did you seriously compare an HD upgrade of an older fighting game to GT5? The differences in what is required here is staggering.

 

[dzidza]

Why do you not believe it is possible? I believe that you are looking at Beyond the apex too literally. Those 6 months per car can be done in under a week if you look at it properly.

I know that in my company when we refer to man hours in that long of a time frame we calculate it based on five day work weeks. So 6 months would be roughly (averaging 21 business days a month) 126 days or 3,024 hours. Now lets say you have a different guy working on each part of a car and it takes them 3 days to get their single part completed. That comes out to 42 guys using 6 months worth of man hours in just 3 days. If we want to assume calendar months, that is (averaging 30 days a month) 180 days or 4,320 hours. Still, that would only require 60 men to do six months worth of work in 3 days.

I know I am simplifying it for my example, but Polyphony has a moderately sized team and that six months does not mean that the entire team works on a single car for six calendar months. If it did we wouldn't even have Prologue yet.

I am a manager over 15 people, so in a five day work week my department does 2.5 months worth of hours.

So, to me that figure is not that unbelievable, especially as people do a specific job over time they get better at it, make less errors, and work at a faster pace. Efficiency improves over time, and without knowing where in the development cycle that six month figure was referring to, or if it was even just a rough exaggerated estimate to sound impressive I don't know if that six month figure was peak efficiency or early on. If it was early on I would not be surprised to find that they have shaved anywhere from 10%-25% off of that time.

i think you nailed it alright. And knowing Japanese workforce they will improve efficiency :-) over time even more. So 3 days per car with 60 working people, 600 cars would require 1800 days, which is 4,9 years, and with improved efficience it's 4 years + plus a year or two for extra features. So we come to 6 years :-), simplified of course.

Don't they have a team of 100 developers in PD!?

 

[Japspecvr6]

Why do you not believe it is possible? I believe that you are looking at Beyond the apex too literally. Those 6 months per car can be done in under a week if you look at it properly.

I know that in my company when we refer to man hours in that long of a time frame we calculate it based on five day work weeks. So 6 months would be roughly (averaging 21 business days a month) 126 days or 3,024 hours. Now lets say you have a different guy working on each part of a car and it takes them 3 days to get their single part completed. That comes out to 42 guys using 6 months worth of man hours in just 3 days. If we want to assume calendar months, that is (averaging 30 days a month) 180 days or 4,320 hours. Still, that would only require 60 men to do six months worth of work in 3 days.

I know I am simplifying it for my example, but Polyphony has a moderately sized team and that six months does not mean that the entire team works on a single car for six calendar months. If it did we wouldn't even have Prologue yet.

I am a manager over 15 people, so in a five day work week my department does 2.5 months worth of hours.

So, to me that figure is not that unbelievable, especially as people do a specific job over time they get better at it, make less errors, and work at a faster pace. Efficiency improves over time, and without knowing where in the development cycle that six month figure was referring to, or if it was even just a rough exaggerated estimate to sound impressive I don't know if that six month figure was peak efficiency or early on. If it was early on I would not be surprised to find that they have shaved anywhere from 10%-25% off of that time.



Did you seriously compare an HD upgrade of an older fighting game to GT5? The differences in what is required here is staggering.

Are you serious about just an HD Upgrade........Check the history on that game. First game to get a seize order because of trifling gaming company's (EA).......it is the pinacle of all fighting games and it took more than 9 years for the drought to be finally over. That's why I can wait for PD to develop that game to perfection, All I want is a few screenshots and a feature chart.

 

[G.T.Ace]

But it took them so long because of stupid licensing and stuff like that, not because of developing the game. Its really not comparable.

 

[FoolKiller]

Are you serious about just an HD Upgrade........Check the history on that game. First game to get a seize order because of trifling gaming company's (EA).......it is the pinacle of all fighting games and it took more than 9 years for the drought to be finally over.

Are you talking about the Marvel vs Capcom 2 HD re-release? Because the difference between the original and now is tiny in comparison to the difference from GT4 to GT5.

EDIT: And I should add that Capcom also now has experience from the SF2 re-release.

 

[CyborgGT]

I'm not sure what you've been reading, but I've seen that many of the Polyphony team have been basically living at the studio for years now. And what do you think can be accomplished with laser scanning technology in 400 plus man-years?

I've been reading things like Kaz being quoted as saying 500-600 cars would be "impossible" just a year ago.

Why do you not believe it is possible? I believe that you are looking at Beyond the apex too literally. Those 6 months per car can be done in under a week if you look at it properly.

I know that in my company when we refer to man hours in that long of a time frame we calculate it based on five day work weeks. So 6 months would be roughly (averaging 21 business days a month) 126 days or 3,024 hours. Now lets say you have a different guy working on each part of a car and it takes them 3 days to get their single part completed. That comes out to 42 guys using 6 months worth of man hours in just 3 days. If we want to assume calendar months, that is (averaging 30 days a month) 180 days or 4,320 hours. Still, that would only require 60 men to do six months worth of work in 3 days.

I know I am simplifying it for my example, but Polyphony has a moderately sized team and that six months does not mean that the entire team works on a single car for six calendar months. If it did we wouldn't even have Prologue yet.

I am a manager over 15 people, so in a five day work week my department does 2.5 months worth of hours.

So, to me that figure is not that unbelievable, especially as people do a specific job over time they get better at it, make less errors, and work at a faster pace. Efficiency improves over time, and without knowing where in the development cycle that six month figure was referring to, or if it was even just a rough exaggerated estimate to sound impressive I don't know if that six month figure was peak efficiency or early on. If it was early on I would not be surprised to find that they have shaved anywhere from 10%-25% off of that time.

But then why would they say it takes so long to make a car if it doesn't? Why not just say it takes, say, a week, to make the car? They don't say six months of man hours, they say six months. Add that onto Kaz's claim of 5-600 cars being impossible, and six actual months makes sense to me.

Polyphony has 110 employees, for the record. I'm not sure what that means in terms of productivity; I've no idea how many people are stationed on car design.

 

[Vaxen]

But then why would they say it takes so long to make a car if it doesn't? Why not just say it takes, say, a week, to make the car? They don't say six months of man hours, they say six months. Add that onto Kaz's claim of 5-600 cars being impossible, and six actual months makes sense to me.

It's quite possible that the process has been refined after literally spending a few years on it. Also, like auto manufacturers, who will tweak models from year to year rather than completely redesign from scratch; it is likely that similar models are adjusted to make a related model, rather than build from scratch.

Finally, a clue from Amar's initial post:

Second wind says there will be more than half of dozen hundreds birds flying in the beginning of the reunion on almost eight dozen of skypaths, and some of the birds will come from the past reunion just resembling the looks of the newborn birds.

I take this last bit to mean that some of the models will be imported from GT4, with upgraded graphics (but likely no cockpit camera mode). Skipping interior modeling alone would drastically cut the polygon count and modeling time.

Of course, 600+ cars is an impressive claim, and if that is the goal, then PD is definitely reaching. But to claim that it is physically impossible is also a stretch.

 

[Antti-san]

Skipping interior modeling alone would drastically cut the polygon count and modeling time.

And also be lame. 👎 It'd be pretty stupid IMO if only some cars had detailed interiors. I use the cockpit view almost exclusively, and for me it is one of the biggest selling points of the game.

 

[C-ZETA]

But it took them so long because of stupid licensing and stuff like that, not because of developing the game. Its really not comparable.

...So PD did struggle to get licensing after all? And I thought that most companies allowed licensing in the last GT.

 

[G.T.Ace]

No, i didnt mean PD, but the guys working on MARVEL vs. Capcom 2.
It took them so long because of several reasons while PD is taking so "long" because the development of GT5 is very complex.

 

[FoolKiller]

But then why would they say it takes so long to make a car if it doesn't? Why not just say it takes, say, a week, to make the car? They don't say six months of man hours, they say six months. Add that onto Kaz's claim of 5-600 cars being impossible, and six actual months makes sense to me.

Because if they meant six calendar months then it would mean that Prologue shouldn't have even been ready. Thus, I can only assume that either Kaz is greatly exaggerating, or he meant man hours. Personally, I know we talk like that at work all the time when referring to productivity. It's just the way you talk about productivity. Either as man hours or FTEs (Full-Time Employees).

 

[Kryz11]

i found that pic on net..

Yeah I've been posting this pic as referance..

Altho Kaz always had hopes and dreams about many features... GT3 suppose to have ONLINE Time Tirlas (Just like Prologue) and GT4 suppose to have Online racing/private lobbies..

But now that PS3 has really good online services, its way easier for PD to achieve Kaz's dream.. So 100% each and every of the features from the PIC will be in FULL GT5 game from day one.