Gran Turismo 5: Kaz Yamauchi Interview

Kikizo interview

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.