I found a manhole marked on the radar right next to the staunton hospital (Unused Mission Content?)

[4Kant]

After driving around randomly i realized a very tiny dot on the road that actually marks one of the manholes next to the staunton hospital for unknown reasons.

 

Here's a video about that:

 

I often heard about cut missions and characters.

Maybe this has something to do with cut missions because i think Rockstar would not simply just mark a random manhole for fun.

 

I was first thinking about that it has something to do with the unused multiplayer maps that were found on the android version of GTA 3 (the sewer one) but it would not really fit because that one map is connected to a bank.

Maybe the hospital was a bank at some point?

Just a wild quess...

Strange indeed is that the hospital, if looked from another city changes its colors to red so maybe there was something entirely different planned.

 

I don't know if there was ever a discussion or video about that since i never really found something about it.

The only thing you find in the internet are about the smoking manholes back in 2012 (also visible in the video).

 

I just wonder if no one ever realized the tiny dot on the road.

Maybe it is helpful in finding out more about beta mission processes so i just simply made this video.

 

[Ray Carter]

Good eye! They might just be errors in the texture though.

I looked at the texture files for a clearer image and also found another dot in Chinatown.

Can you go there and see if there's another manhole there too?

 

[Stahli]

@4Kant interessting

@Ray Carter There is no manhole... more interessting

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Stahli

[Silver]

I think it's just a coincidence honestly. The devs probably forgot to erase those easy-to-miss dots and this one just happened to be on top of this manhole.

[4Kant]

Not sure if those are actually texture (or pixel) errors.

I mean, the general radar textures do not really look that "glitched" and pixelated.

 

I didn't saw the one in chinatown.

Maybe they actually removed that one in chinatown (by using a different road model) since swapping models for the devs was really easy back in that time

and the road models are simply just tiny pieces + the pixel on the radar looks a bit too symetrical.

 

Even it may sound absurd but what if those 2 were actually connected in early development.

The unused multiplayer sewer map from the android version is the only map that does have no real location on were it would take place.

Maybe there was some sort of mission planned that used them as entrance in some way.

So it could be possible that the sewer system did look similar to the one to the multiplayer sewer one.

 

Possible removal would be the bad collisions and getting out of the sewer system.

(It also could have been some sort of interior under the map were you spawned in while (only?) being on that mission)

Since the multiplayer sewer map looks like it is built out of multiple tiny pieces it could be possible the actual sewer used them also.

(Maybe the pieces were too many and they did not wanted to make new models so they had to remove the sewer in mid development because it caused performance problems)

 

I have the feeling that there was something planned even if it just looks like forgotten pixels but i'm not sure.

Maybe it has something to do with the "bank part" of the multiplayer version of the sewer map. (a heist or something)

 

It would make sence if it was used for a mission, but not sure how the mission would have been designed and what mission "person/ped" triggered it.

[Lioshenka]

That's a really cool find. And also that the hospital was red!

[stef_92]

These are obviously artifacts of the TXD compression. The UI textures of the PC version of San Andreas also have color issues due to compression and I remember a mod that fixes them.

[4Kant]

After a few weeks now, i looked into this again and i can say that these dots on the radar are no artifacts.
GTA SA's radar has more colors and is more complex so it is indeed possible that there there are some artifacts here and there but III's radar is so simple that it's almost
impossible that those dot's are actual artifacts.

Not sure how they made the textures for the radar but you should realize that most roads are simply just a grid (simple lines) so i think making horizontal and vertical roads on the radar should indeed not make artifacts like a bright pixel in dark background and even if i would try to mess up the texture's quality, i'm sure i would not really be able to get a sharp bright pixel on a black background like that.

If you open the radar textures with tools like TXD Workshop you will realize that these dots are indeed very sharp and no additional artifactical blurry pixels are around.
The road indeed has some noise (on purpose) so it is still visible ingame vs invisible areas like bridges going over water.
Ingame the radar is indeed very blurry so it makes you think it could be a texture artifact.

The strange part here again is why does this only happen to orange/yellow dots on black (road) background and not (for example:) black dots on orange/yellow background?

 

I wrote above that they might have simply just replaced the road model with a different one.
Turns out it actually happened if you look at the 2 corners of that piece of the road in Portland.
It is the only road that has sidewalk texture corners that does not fit with the other parts (what have a grass texture) + they even added a new custom road piece right next to it because the new road model would have been to short.
This small road piece also has a different UV for the side grass (what is very noticeable).
This also explains why the dot at Chinatown is more on the side to the water because that road model was replaced actually.

 

This can already be seen in the pictures Stahli posted above and i made another video here:

 

[cant remember]

That's kind of interesting. Perhaps they were the locations where you get a mission from Darkel? If it's a cut relic i theorise you walked over it and then it cut to a scene of darkel in a sewer telling you to klil X targets in Y seconds.