At a closed door meeting during this year’s E3 conference, Gran Turismo franchise creator and Polyphony Digital founder Kazunori Yamauchi gave a few more details pertaining to his latest installment.
Though the game we recently sampled was a close-to-production version, it’s still not finished, the car-crazy executive said. Startup times are promised to be shortened from their current few second leads. Even some fine tuning of graphics engines is expected ahead of the game’s November 2, 2010 release date.
As you probably know by now, Yamauchi-san and his teams are some of the world’s most meticulous people. Just look at GT5’s details and you’ll understand. There’s so much detail, in fact, that the game’s BluRay is almost completely filled with data. Exactly how much is left wasn’t revealed.
Among the exposed details are:
-- Two types of cars: Premium and Standard --
- Over 800 Standard cars; mostly gathered from the franchise’s previous four editions.
- Over 200 Premium cars
- Total cars available: 1000-plus (final amount has yet to be determined)
-- Premium cars get --
- Full interior recreation
- Physics damage
- Scratches, dents, dirt accumulation
- Deformation and separation of body panels
-- Standard cars get --
- Physics damage
- Scratches, dents, dirt accumulation
- Premium cars’ interiors are created with the minutest of details
- Harnesses, buttons, carbon fiber weave, wiring all virtually made
- Undersides are detailed as a result of vehicle overturning
- Textures have been especially focused on during rendering
-- NASCAR --
- 9 cars revealed at E3 demo
- More are currently under development ahead of release
- Ability to race NASCAR racers on numerous world circuits (i.e., Nurburgring, Le Mans, etc.)
-- New Tracks Revealed in E3 Demo --
- Urban Madrid
- Tuscany, Italy
- Top Gear
- Le Mans (2009)
- 24 Hrs of Nurburgring
- Madrid and Tuscany took 2 years to complete
- All graffiti on Nurburgring was recreated exactly
- Sony of Europe did delete any profanity
“While racing the 24 hours of Nurburgring, you can smell people’s barbecues -- we couldn’t recreate that.” -- Kazunori Yamauchi
-- Photo Mode --
- 2 Modes: Race Photo and Photo Travel
- Race -
- Take photos of cars racing
-- Photo Travel --
- Situate vehicles at prescribed locations
- E3 demo includes: Kyoto, Japan; Italian countryside; Red Bull Hangar 7
- Full replication of real world wind, weather, and sounds
- Allows for Full Manual and AUTO mode usage, just as with professional DSLR cameras
- White Balance, focal length, shutter speed, F stop, etc.
-- Online --
- Community connectivity allowed
- Each user gets a “My Lounge” to connect with fellow racers
- Once in lounge, users can chat, watch racing, race each other
- Lounge can be password protected for certain friends
- Every user gets a viewable profile that shows game progress, status, and ability
-- 3D/ Face Tracking --
- Two technologies combined for first time in video game
- Gives full perspective of vehicle interior for an immersed experience
-- Visual Effects --
- Night, day, shadows, sunset, sunrise all simulated
- low/high beams
- lights will illuminate dust, fog, smoke
- Collision sparks
- Kicking up debris
- Horn
Yamauchi-san also mentioned:
-- Users will be able to race a full 24 Hours of Le Mans or Nurburgring.
-- Full NASCAR races available
-- There will be an available virtual driving school for GT beginners
-- In addition to Ferrari, more Formula 1 teams are expected
-- GT5 will be produced in 12 languages