Why so many different textures for the same things?

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Nielsen

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I was wondering why PD recrates certain things in different ways. Let's use water as an example.

Cote d'Azur - The ocean looks like hard plastic
Trial Mountain - The lake looks like soft plastic
Suzuka Circuit - The pond looks decent
High Speed Ring - The water looks almost real

...and the list goes on with trees, spectators etc.

Is it because they made sacrifices in order to beautify certain things or is it because they didn't realise that games should have some sort of visual consistency?
 
Nielsen
I was wondering why PD recrates certain things in different ways. Let's use water as an example.

Cote d'Azur - The ocean looks like hard plastic
Trial Mountain - The lake looks like soft plastic
Suzuka Circuit - The pond looks decent
High Speed Ring - The water looks almost real

...and the list goes on with trees, spectators etc.

Is it because they made sacrifices in order to beautify certain things or is it because they didn't realise that games should have some sort of visual consistency?
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Or perhaps there trying capture the different look of water. Oceans and lakes and ponds all have very different looks to them. As with trees and spectators. They all look different around the world. Why make it all look the same if its not?
 
mclarendriver
Or perhaps there trying capture the different look of water. Oceans and lakes and ponds all have very different looks to them. As with trees and spectators. They all look different around the world. Why make it all look the same if its not?
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They should have made it all look like water though, not different types of plastic! If it all looked the same (I.e. High speed ring), at least it would look better than Cote d'Azur.
 
Mike0105
They should have made it all look like water though, not different types of plastic! If it all looked the same (I.e. High speed ring), at least it would look better than Cote d'Azur.
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That is true. They could go with an updated look to the water. But if it all looked the same. Wouldn't someone else complain about it all looking the same saying there's no differences or something like that? Seems to be a theme here. Complaining about everything. And then conplaing about when it gets fixed. Lol. Just saying though.
 
mclarendriver
Or perhaps there trying capture the different look of water. Oceans and lakes and ponds all have very different looks to them. As with trees and spectators. They all look different around the world. Why make it all look the same if its not?
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True that trees and water have different looks in the real world but that doesn't explain why the textures range from great to horrible. My point is that some textures looks autentic while others look terrible and it harms the overall representation. The water texture on High Speed Ring is great and still they failed to keep the PS3 quality of that texture when they were moddeling Cote d'Azur and Trial Mountain. Same with trees and spectators. Some look like trees and people while others look like thin sheets of paper.
 
Nielsen
True that trees and water have different looks in the real world but that doesn't explain why the textures range from great to horrible. My point is that some textures looks autentic while others look terrible and it harms the overall representation. The water texture on High Speed Ring is great and still they failed to keep the PS3 quality of that texture when they were moddeling Cote d'Azur and Trial Mountain. Same with trees. Some look like trees while others look like a flat X.
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Maybe it has to do with them reusing tracks and not revamping them enough? Or something silly like that.
 
mclarendriver
Maybe it has to do with them reusing tracks and not revamping them enough? Or something silly like that.
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It still doesn't make sense. My logic tells me that it is far more complicated to model different textures for each track, even if they did it back in the PS2 days. The water they used on Grand Valley looks perfect. The trees they used on Tokyo R246 and London look perfect and the list goes on. How can it be easier to be inconsistent with these things? Maybe the standard / premium thing really does go beyond the car park.
 
I would have thought it would boil down to different artists or art teams creating each track. They also probably made a concious descision not to re-use assets from one location to another, as this can sometimes bacome really jarring when trees in London look the same as trees in Paris and Tokyo. Same thing with water, if lakes look the same as seas, it just looks wrong, once you notice it.
 
Nielsen
It still doesn't make sense. My logic tells me that it is far more complicated to model different textures for each track, even if they did it back in the PS2 days. The water they used on Grand Valley looks perfect. The trees they used on Tokyo R246 and London look perfect and the list goes on. How can it be easier to be inconsistent with these things? Maybe the standard / premium thing really does go beyond the car park.
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Textures are made via photos and edited in Photoshop (or similar). You can´t model textures, just models.

And the big difference of textures and model quality lies in the difference of the track recycling.

Tracks like Tokio Route, Suzuka, High Speed Ring, Grand Valley etc. are completely reworked and improved (new trees, new objects, new environment model).... call them premium.

Tracks like Trial Mountain, Cote d´Azur or Laguna Seca are recycled, but not updated. You have almost the same models and textures like in GT4, but just in better resolution....call them standards.
 
If they 'recycled' tracks from GT4, then it shouldn't be such a big deal to bring every track from GT4. I would love to try the new GT5 rally cars on Grand Canyon or run through Citta di Aria or Almafi in some of the new cars. sigh....
 
mclarendriver
That is true. They could go with an updated look to the water. But if it all looked the same. Wouldn't someone else complain about it all looking the same saying there's no differences or something like that? Seems to be a theme here. Complaining about everything. And then conplaing about when it gets fixed. Lol. Just saying though.
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On a scale of horrible to perfect the only time no one can complain is perfect and that is unattainable.

That is why the argument 'but people would still complain' is ultimaltely useless and never really the actual point.

The point is that given an obvious choice and option to do things different ways, why was one obviously lower on the scale from horrible to perfet chosen instead of one higher?

The question is not why didn't they do it in such a way no one could complain (impossible) but rather why did they do it in the lesser of two obvious ways available.
 
mclarendriver
That is true. They could go with an updated look to the water. But if it all looked the same. Wouldn't someone else complain about it all looking the same saying there's no differences or something like that? Seems to be a theme here. Complaining about everything. And then conplaing about when it gets fixed. Lol. Just saying though.
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Of course someone would! It can't be good enough to please everyone! Some people don't have to do anything other than finding thing that aren't perfect or places to glitch Nürburgring Time Trail for example ;) Unfortunately the background on most tracks is a bit poor, compared to the detail the premium cars have! Why couldn't they balance all a bit more? Less detail on premiums and more for the background suroundings instead? In my opinion it's like that since the first GT, PD never had a great off track graphics...
 
I think PD's emphasis is how things look from the car rather than on replays. I don't have any complaints in that regard.

People who watched the BBC commentary of the F1 Qualifying today would have heard DC being asked if the bridge felt any more narrow to the drivers than the rest of the the track. Not really, said DC, you're just looking at the next braking point.
 
TenEightyOne
I think PD's emphasis is how things look from the car rather than on replays. I don't have any complaints in that regard.

People who watched the BBC commentary of the F1 Qualifying today would have heard DC being asked if the bridge felt any more narrow to the drivers than the rest of the the track. Not really, said DC, you're just looking at the next braking point.
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I heard that D.C comment and agree with how you've used it here.

But then you have to ask "why did PD bother to putting so much detail and attention to quality in some areas (that are not really as visible) and not others?" Surely it's a time saver and FPS saver to keep everything at the lowest quality and have some consistency throughout the game.

Copy and pasting my post, would be quicker than re-typing it and guaranteed to have less mistakes.
 
Nielsen
I was wondering why PD recrates certain things in different ways. Let's use water as an example.

Cote d'Azur - The ocean looks like hard plastic
Trial Mountain - The lake looks like soft plastic
Suzuka Circuit - The pond looks decent
High Speed Ring - The water looks almost real

...and the list goes on with trees, spectators etc.

Is it because they made sacrifices in order to beautify certain things or is it because they didn't realise that games should have some sort of visual consistency?
Click to expand...
Why don't you race instead of watching scenery?
While all your points may be (haven't looked) valid, this is some of the time PD spent instead of producing a better game already.

I have no problem with perfect looking trees and water.
But I do not want to wait until 2020 for GT6, just to have a great background while playing a 15 year old GT game.
Sort of how one could argue GT5 is GT4 with less races and better graphics.... sometimes.
 

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