[WHAT HAPPENS?] - Let's face it, why is Polyphony Digital so slow in content production?
- Thread starter BrunusCL82
- 215 comments
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- 2,226
- Bács-Kiskun
Oh, allow me to quote myself, one more thing. I can imagine that people would complain if the game wouldn't feature the stock Atenza, only the Gr. ones. "OMG PD WHY DIDN'T YOU ADD THE STOCK ATENZA?! SIGH, PD LOGIC..."
- 14,423
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
Scapes, and photomodes in general, are a big part of gaming in recent days. It serves as advertisement for the game, basically. You have people running around sharing their hottest new image to all their friends, gaining free publicity from it, likely edging someone else to buy it just because of how amazing some of these photos can be. It's smart. Not only that, but it serves as a side-game for a lot of people, or else they wouldn't have been wasting time on it. Hell, the photomode in GTS is one of my main draws for the game, if anything.
Outsourcing isn't an issue if they don't try to rush them through like T10 does. You can very much find a company and pay them to take their time and produce as much detail as they please, as they are the ones with the money. PD are not the only company with talented people, and as long as there is time and money, it can be done.
I took them 4~ years to develop this. Forza managed a launch with similar set-up, content wise, and churned that in two years and has built up to where its at now in additional 2+~. That's not to take away from what GTS has accomplished with this title, but to act like it's an unfair comparison is what is odd to me.
But they are slow. Whether that be because they are understaffed, or because the way they chose to do something, they are slow by definition. No outsourcing is a horrible call if you're doing nothing on that front to make sure more is getting produced, like you said.
Outsourcing isn't an issue if they don't try to rush them through like T10 does. You can very much find a company and pay them to take their time and produce as much detail as they please, as they are the ones with the money. PD are not the only company with talented people, and as long as there is time and money, it can be done.
It's not unfair that others have been able to churn out games at a relatively good pace, and using that to compare to the relatively slow pace that PD seem to have. It's unfair to the other developers to pretend that they shouldn't be compared. Fm5 did get flack for the same thing, but what you got to remember is that they had a lack of content at the very launch of a new generation of consoles, to rush to get that game out. This is not the same situation at all. They been in development since late 2013, and aren't releasing at a console start. Hell, the game was even delayed.
I took them 4~ years to develop this. Forza managed a launch with similar set-up, content wise, and churned that in two years and has built up to where its at now in additional 2+~. That's not to take away from what GTS has accomplished with this title, but to act like it's an unfair comparison is what is odd to me.
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- 31
- Netherlands
- RFSnake
You might call that fast for the detail they contain, but i actualy find that rather slow. and i cant believe its just 1 person. It would be a nightmare regarding quality ensurance as each modeler can have diffirent methods and quality diffirences. By doing it as a team you can much better guarantee the quality to be the same acros cars. They can even assist each other (the most common quality ensurance is for example setting the same polygon counts for lod levels and making sure all cars always have that same value, even for lower detailed cars to guarantee that the FPS for a game is going to be stable), just giving a developer a number as limit isnt going to cut it, you want to be sure that they optimize it at the correct places (to also ensure cars are going to appear at the same quality level and that a single car isnt going to have excessively much detail on the breaking lights which then can make other cars feel as low quality while they arent).
Knowing from tf2 mapping, you can make a large map within a year as single person when you can spend the full time on it (and these maps can be huge in size!), some even make their own models. But when they do, they often give away some quality in gameplay unless the models are to cover something that mapping technical is impossible (some shapes are too complex for engines to use as collision model, at which a model is used to optimize the basic collision model, where the collision model of the map still exists for optimizing reasons). And then you have playtesters, texture designers, etc. Even here splitting tasks is the better thing. Some can do it alone, but they are a rarity, and in a company, a risk. If he leaves, they create a problem.
Modeling is something that barely changed in the last 20 years. Its still the same basic principles, and tools dont vary too much, many times they can just convert a model to a diffirent type as its still the basic idea of creating a shape out of triangles, some formats being more optimal for certain tasks.
I would expect a company to be able to produce a car model in 2 months at high detail, even faster if they already have a high quality model from the car manufacturer. After which a texture artist can usualy finish the texturing step in a month, and from that point the modeler can probably make LoD models (which with proper tools shouldnt take too long).
So on that, its more logical they have a team of 6 people working on multiple cars, where each individual car takes 6 months to develop and only has 1 developer working on it at a time. But not the full 100% of that time. Each car might only use 2 or 3 months in actual time. That way if a developer falls away, they still have the texture artists and LoD developers, which can still continue on their work, while the waiting line of models isnt empty yet due to spreading the tasks enough to create a buffer.
For tracks its a diffirent story as they depend a lot on the engine, porting a track by that might be totaly impossible. But again, its better to split the tasks to those who learned a single task within that bunch. For tracks that means: track designer (artwork, sketches, measurements), someone who creates the 3d version of the track using basic flat textures (Allows test driving), a model designer to add extra details to the track and optimize them to the track, a texture artist and lighting/weather artist.
All tasks which can be given (and some can do multiple of them), but the spreading of tasks makes it more efficient.
If its realy 1 developer on 1 car for 6 months, they should improve that. I think its more like a marketing statement and if they realy are putting 1 person on just 1 car, it takes 6 months because they are often waiting for other steps to continue (for example while waiting on a render to be finished), and in the meantime of rendering they for example just work on an other car. So its 1 developer, 2 cars, 6 months. And that already starts to sound a lot better and more logical.
- 14,423
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
Because industry standard isn't the only part of the equation. It may take an average of 6 months per vehicle around the industry, but the industry in general is outputting at such a greater pace than PD is. The difference is that other devs seem to put more manpower in that department than PD seems to do. That's what's making them slow. What they need is to speed up the content that gets to us, and that will only happen by outsourcing or hiring more staff. Until they actually do that, they are slow in comparison.
As an aside, they do seem to be upping it this generation, though.
- 252
- Mexico
In PD 110 people work, it is a Japanese study, if you are not involved in the industry you will not understand because this is important: The Japanese developers the last generation suffered because they are making games by hand, the old, very personal, and PD has stayed with that.
Also say that PD has more budget is a pretty hasty guess, how do you know? The money the GTs make is surely reinvested in other studies, because PD belongs to SIE and among them the money is managed.
Also say that PD has more budget is a pretty hasty guess, how do you know? The money the GTs make is surely reinvested in other studies, because PD belongs to SIE and among them the money is managed.
- 1,654
- UK
- JacksHereR
I hope to god they don't release any more fantasy tracks, real world tracks yes please.
Already, when I look for an online lobby, the screen is full of fantasy stuff, where have all the Bathurst and ring lobbies gone?
Already, when I look for an online lobby, the screen is full of fantasy stuff, where have all the Bathurst and ring lobbies gone?
- 28,471
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
The latest figures we have for PD are closer to 200 staff. The 110 figure is almost 10 years old at this point. The budget figures we have from Kaz himself in 2009 who put the development cost of GT5 at $60 million 1 year before it was released and that was with far less staff and lower overhead costs than they have now. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume the current game is well up into the eight figures as well given how long it has been since the release of the prior game and the current staffing figures.
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- 14,423
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
The budget PD has and the Money GT makes are two different subjects.
I think it's higher than 200, no? I think that number was stated even before the Venice, California office was opening. It would also be pretty reasonable to assume that they, along with T10, have the biggest budget on the market right now considering they're backed by their respective console developers. Licensing Fee's alone(more so for T10) must be high.
- 28,471
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
Could well be higher than 200. I'm of the opinion that licensing fees are nowhere near as expensive as we think they are. If you look at the number of cars and tracks in PCars1 for example, on a budget rumoured in the $6million range, it works out to something like $30K per track/car even if half of the entire budget is eaten up in fees. The budget for AC was likely much smaller I think it's safe to assume and they still have a very large number of cars and tracks now. It may cost more for bigger games to license tracks but I doubt it varies much from game to game although that's just a guess.
- 28,471
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
- 1,089
"If PD doesn't make them, they're not relevant."
TBH I would take Scapes over opening a car hood. I am glad they did not waste time on such a stupid thing. In fact I and most people with 1080P TV would be happy with this itself. But I guess the HDR implementation or 4K support or due to some technically reason they cannot use GT5 and GT6 stuff on GTS
I just hope the next game they will use everything from GTS and build on that. Not start from scratch again
- 4,500
- Australia
For a game marketed on online racing with FIA affiliation I cannot believe there are over 1000 photo scapes with such a scant track list.
Someone was asking about licencing costs on the PC2 forum a while back, Ian responded with this (understandably a little vague, but it gives an idea)
Ian Bell
- 28,471
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
- 28,471
- Windsor, Ontario, Canada
- Johnnypenso
Yes, it's stupid to model an entire car
. Because no one ever looks under the bonnet. Not sure what your point is anyway since scapes had nothing to do with the point being made which was about how detailed the models were in GTS. I didn't realize scapes got into the game because engine bays weren't modeled.
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- São Paulo
- Corredor_Y
See? So predictable!
Now someone will say that Scapes are more important than dynamic weather and time, physics, sounds, damage, custom parts…
- 14,423
- Los Angeles, CA
- Lma_robot
- lImaRobotl
Try harder next time. Conjectures without sustenance indeed, how ironic200? Conjectures without sustenance, ok. Better we go to objectivity, with source and everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphony_Digital
http://www.isrtv.com/gran-turismo-series/get-tour-polyphony-digitals-headquarters-kazunori-yamauchi/
Hell, there's even an article on this very site
are we to pretend these are not true?https://www.gtplanet.net/gran-turismo-spin-off-series-would-be-unthinkable-says-kazunori-yamauchi/
Not only that, but these articles where before the Venice, California branch opened, like I said.
Which has nothing to do with the point that the models are more detailed, because by that fact alone, they literally are not. However, these games have a very huge photomode community, so tons of people would actually use that. That's just as ridiculous as someone saying that the rims look badly modeled in game because they're always moving and no one looks at them.
It's ridiculous that someone tries to spin it as a bad thing that Forza has dedicated it's time to fully modeling a vehicle.Not only that, but going this far can hopefully lead to some nice visual damage models in the future, maybe on a next generation console.
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- Netherlands
- RFSnake
Even by barely taking part of it, i would prefer it a lot if they would allow people to make '5 second' movies which can be played in slow motion to a 30 seconds one. Even better would be if those could be used within the main menu.
Its those details that give the game a finished look. Artwork is more important than many realize. Its why NFSU was such a huge success as game.
Unclear, though I would guess cars personally.
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- Laserbeak43
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- Australia
"Polyphony Digital currently has 200 employees, of whom everyone has a different job which cannot be done by anyone else. As a result, every single employee is irreplaceable, according to Yamauchi."
If he isn't lying then this is really bad business practice. What happens if someone is unable to work?
If he isn't lying then this is really bad business practice. What happens if someone is unable to work?
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- Laserbeak43
It sounds like he treats his employees like family to me...
- 28,471
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- Johnnypenso
You think each member of his family is only capable of doing certain things around the house and if they aren't there they don't get done? That doesn't sound like a good way to run a family
- 181
- Columbia, MD USA
- Laserbeak43
Hey I'm not saying they're a well-oiled machine!You think each member of his family is only capable of doing certain things around the house and if they aren't there they don't get done? That doesn't sound like a good way to run a family
Heck, I've even decided to take a break from GTSport, hoping Fanatec support and the official FIA Races get some regulation that makes racing feel less like Mad Max. What I am saying is that people work better when their boss truly cares about their well-being rather than under the sword.
