Why Aren't There Curves In Any GTA?

[GUCCI_MANE_PIZZA_PARTY]

Curves in the roads are just smaller, angled straight lines. Apples on Micheal's counter are octagons. Why aren't there curved objects? I apologize for my ignorance if the answer is widely known.

[AK47-Mentalman]

Curves are made using things called NURBS in 3D production, and they don't translate well into game engines, as game engines apply collision data and other essential stuff to polygons only. NURBS look better for illustration etc, but don't work in games and real time rendering. Therefore, studios use polygons as it takes up less ram, and they are generally more useful.

 

Polygons can be smoothed but they are flat surfaces, you can only go so far with items like apples, as they don't need much detail. You can do something called 'softening normals', technical term, but basically makes an objects edges look less sharp.

 

 

I do 3D stuff at Uni, should be about right. If anyone can correct me, go ahead.

 

Hope that answers your question

[bensons]

skyrim had curves

[Pigeon420]

skyrim had curves

Yeah. Have you see those warriors from Hammerfell? They’ve got curved swords. Curved. Swords...

[bensons]

 

skyrim had curves

Yeah. Have you see those warriors from Hammerfell? They’ve got curved swords. Curved. Swords...

 

haha

[Drake1212]

Because it takes a lot of power to actually render a sphere or curve in a game engine.
Most game engines nowadays use polygons. Polygons are 2-dimensional shapes which are put together to make 3-dimensional objects (think of it like 6 pieces of quadratic pieces of paper can be put together to make a dice).

However, as polygons are 2-dimensional objects, it is impossible to create a perfect "sphere" or "curve".
However, there are a few tricks to bypass this:
1) Make an object with enough polygons and it will eventually look like it's spherical. This is the most common trick, however, it requires quite a lot of power to render, therefore "good-looking-spheres" are mostly used on things which the player will encounter many times during their game.
Example: Michael, Trevor and Franklin are all made out of thousands of polygons because the player will look at them constantly, while apples are only given a few polygons as they aren't very important to look at.

 

2) Create a 2-dimensional sphere and rotate it as the player rotates the camera. 2-dimensional objects can't be round either, but it requires less power to make them look round than it takes to make a 3-dimensional object look round.
However, this illusion is very easy to "see through" and will most likely not give a satisfying result.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Drake1212

[Ixnay]

That Lindsay Lohan look-alike has curves!

[Andrewine]

Are you bothered about not seeing curves in GTA? Seriously?

[DarkDayz]

Curves in the roads are just smaller, angled straight lines. Apples on Micheal's counter are octagons. Why aren't there curved objects? I apologize for my ignorance if the answer is widely known.

 

Because developers use polygons, which is the jagged edge you are seeing. Now, obviously because they are working on 8 year old hardware, they are VERY limited to how many polygons they can use for certain objects. The more disk space = the more polygons = the more curved round objects will look in the sense you are suggesting. This is why graphics improve over time, because developers either get given new hardware with more space or they find more efficient ways of adding polygons. Rockstar are behind on this definitely, but they have come a long way since the 3D era games.

 

In your example, Apples look more odd when it comes to polygons because they are less important details for us to see, less important than say a characters face, hands or a car wheel. So they spend less time trying to make the illusion of curvature on an apple with polygons as they would the more important things like a car wheel.

Edited December 2, 2013 by darkdayz

[or1]

 

Curves in the roads are just smaller, angled straight lines. Apples on Micheal's counter are octagons. Why aren't there curved objects? I apologize for my ignorance if the answer is widely known.

Because developers use polygons, which is the jagged edge you are seeing. Now, obviously because they are working on 8 year old hardware, they are VERY limited to how many polygons they can use for certain objects. The more disk space = the more polygons = the more curved round objects will look in the sense you are suggesting. This is why graphics improve over time, because developers either get given new hardware with more space or they find more efficient ways of adding polygons. Rockstar are behind on this definitely, but they have come a long way since the 3D era games.

 

In your example, Apples look more odd when it comes to polygons because they are less important details for us to see, less important than say a characters face, hands or a car wheel. So they spend less time trying to make the illusion of curvature on an apple with polygons as they would the more important things like a car wheel.

 

Great explanation

[jonkoroken420]

skyrim had curves

 

Those were just shorter straight lines, looking more like curves.