Gran Turismo 5: Kaz Yamauchi Interview

We meet with the creator of the Gran Turismo series for a detailed chat about the next iteration on the PS3.

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Yamauchi: Yes that's right. There are two reasons why. For example, in the race, the camera is fixed, so the amount of power you need is measurable. Whereas in a replay, the camera may zoom in, zoom out very wide, so the variables we need are quite wide, so we took the route of choosing in-game 60fps, replay 30fps, but enhanced with more effects, motion blur and so on.

Kazunori Yamauchi, President of GT creators, Polyphony Studios

Kikizo: Another visually striking aspect is in fact humans - the crew that you see in the pit as they change wheels or just chill out before an event presumably - how do you justify so much effort into this exceptional detail? Is it all real graphics?

Yamauchi: These sequences are rendered realtime rendering in 1080p, and you will notice that the pit area decoration and attire for the pit crew and driver - everything is along the lines of the Ferrari image. Right now, because it's Ferrari, it's red. Red is the colour of the direct link with the image of Ferrari, and that will change depending on which car or manufacturer you have chosen. This area itself will take full advantage of the high dynamic range [lighting] technologies - we have taken the extra step to make sure that the qualities are very high in that area, and we think that this is a unique point.

Kikizo: And all these animations on the humans in the pit crew are all seriously real-time as well?

Yamauchi: Yes. The idea is that, for example this is the pit for the Suzuka circuit in Japan, but we will have a number of other circuits worldwide, for which we want to feature the pit area that is true to each of the respective locations.

GT5's pit crews are rendered and animated to a surprisingly high level

Kikizo: How far have you come in terms of adding new vehicles to your line up since the last game?

Yamauchi: [Takes controller to demonstrate] - this is the Nissan GTR Prototype; Nissan will unveil their production vehicle at the Tokyo Motor Show later this October, so between the window of now until the end of the year, we will be featuring lots of new and upcoming performance vehicles.

Kikizo: So this is the first time this Nissan has been seen?

Yamauchi: Yes, that's right - first time in a game.

Kikizo: This must reflect strong relationships with the manufacturers - so on what level will you be incorporating car damage? Forza has fairly extensive car damage; they told us they were able to achieve this because they have particularly close relationships with the car manufacturers. What would you say to this?

Yamauchi: I think they have different levels of damage, perhaps depending on their relationships with each of the brands. What I mean is, there is still a limitation that still exists within the agreements that we have with car manufacturers, even with the example of Forza; one car will be more damaged than another, and that is probably because they are limited with that brand. And that would apply to us as well. To clarify, our main objectives are to raise the bar for AI, physics, car modelling, sixteen cars on the track, 1080p, 60fps, these kinds of things - the core of the racing game category, we want to bring the standards to a high level. Of course, on our road map, yes we have damage, we have changing weather etcetera, but we will get to that once we build our pillars first; those are details that you can add afterwards.

Kikizo: Does the AI make mistakes now? Or is there a dynamic element to the AI opposition drivers, now that you have more power with PS3, so that it is more authentic in a race?

Yamauchi: The simple answer to that is yes. But in reality when you design the AI, the most difficult part is to make sure that all of the opponent cars are driving and trying to keep their positions without bumping into each other, or destroying the race. It is actually easier to incorporate, for example, what a driver would do under pressure and things of that nature, but we need the core bit done first, to allow for that. The AI has also been redesigned completely; it had to be; the new AI drives the opponent cars more smoothly throughout the track.

Your pit crew area is decked out in the colours of your manufacturer

Kikizo: You have redesigned the front-end of the game quite extensively so that it is more sophisticated and perhaps more in-line with more recent rival games. Can you tell us more about how this is set up?

Yamauchi: So, the front end of the game is quite different and unique this time. The standard configuration before was that you would have a title screen and then a game mode underneath, inside the game mode second layer would be to select the track, select the car, but now, it's a big difference. This was our answer when we studied, what happens when we combine the Gran Turismo experience together with the online feature set. In a nutshell, the user has his own 'Mypage' within the world of Gran Turismo. For example, players can collect their favourite cars and their favourite background image to be part of their Mypage.

The one I showed you happens to be a background showing a town in Germany near the Nürburgring track, but eventually we will have background scenes for Tokyo city at night, London, whatever - a variation of locations, and various cars that the users can select and combine to use as the background for their Mypage. Looking at the top of the Mypage, you will be able to put on the global map where you are located, it will display your time zone in your local area, and you will be able to see other players online who you have met - maybe someone in London or so on - and you will see on the map where they are, their time zone, and their weather, and it gives a more intense experience by getting to know them online. The scheduler you see here will help players do their schedule management, remind you of race events that are coming up, and things of that nature.

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