PGR3 Achieves Near Photo Realism

rtt writes "After some accused them of faking screenshots, Project Gotham Racing 3 developer Bizarre Creations have released some more information to prove their critics wrong. Thanks to the extra grunt of Xbox 360, trackside buildings are covered in 1024x1024 textures that are so detailed, they really do look like almost photo realistic. From the article: 'This week, the debate moves on to Textures. Thanks to the extra grunt of the Xbox 360's ATI-designed Xenos GPU, the trackside eye candy is clothed in super-sharp 1024x1024 textures, rendered in astounding detail.'"

Comments

Motion Captured Crowds

[DeadScreenSky]

Other traffic wouldn't make much sense in a PGR-style racing game, but the developers at Bizarre are adding crowds all over the track in PGR3 that respond to your actions (including running in terror if you slam into a barrier they are behind). These are race context specific, too, so that the bigger the race the bigger the crowds you will see. No real photos of these crowds have been released of these crowds yet, but at least the developers are striving to make the world feel less empty than it has in the past.

And one thing a lot of people seem to be missing (presumably because they haven't played any of the PGR games) is that you don't spend all of the race at such high speeds. PGR is really based on skillful driving more than most racing games even, and this is usually demonstrated through taking turns as perfectly as possible. This nearly always involves slowing down quite a bit, and this happens pretty frequently. So players will get plenty of chances to see the environment up close.

Re:Only Pictures

[drewmca]

Right, and pre-rendered CGI movies don't make games, they only make cut scenes.

Funny how everyone gives Killzone 2 the benefit of the doubt in the gameplay department based on a shitty first game, while these guys get the "eyecandy" cold shoulder, despite 2 really good, well-playing games in a row.

Not saying you're looking at Killzone the same way, more responding to the general tone here on /.

Re:Only Pictures

[KDR_11k]

What has that answer got to do with anything in my post except post a troll "OMG you only know a PC!"? Can you name me a game that does NOT use textures in order to fake detail that would have driven the polygon count through the roof?

No, I have no specific knowledge of console or PC APIs but I know enough about the asset creation pipeline and the level where the underlying hardware doesn't really matter anymore (it limits your ressource usage but the details of the platform don't matter). Seriously, there's no difference between working on a PC or a console except maybe for the performance when it comes to asset creation. In fact it matters so little that you can create one set of assets and let the coders port the engine to every system imaginable (look at EA's cross platform games or the portability of the Unreal Engine).