BizarreCreations – We Lied About PGR3

There are a few rumours circulating the development community at the moment regarding the polygon count of the cars in PGR3. If you’re not aware, the term “poly count” is a rough measure of detail which artists can use to describe (in loose terms) how detailed their 3D model is. The number refers to the amount of individual triangles which make up a car.

In the past we’ve claimed that each car in PGR3 is made of about 80,000 polygons on average. To put this in perspective, we previously used about 10,000 per car in PGR2… that’s an eight fold increase from our last game. Appropriately enough, some were sceptical about this number, especially given the enhanced shading and lighting we’re incorporating into the game in addition to the increased number of polygons.

So, I took it upon myself to head over to the car artists, and found out for myself exactly how many polys we were pushing per car. The results were surprising… therefore I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to all gamers who were expecting 80,000 triangles in PGR3. I can conclusively reveal that in fact we do NOT have 80,000 polygons on average per car.

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It’s actually closer to 96,000…

Some cars have around 85,000 polygons, but many go as high as 105,000. The McLaren F1 LM (my favourite PGR3 car!) clocked in at over 100,000. Obviously these counts include the car interiors as well as the exteriors, but they don’t include the extra geometry to display car damage, which can add between 10,000 and 20,000 more triangles per car.

Of course, polygons aren’t the only things which matter in the next generation. We’re also using some advanced pixel shaders and other effects to achieve the most realistic look we can muster at this time. I’m putting together a short animation to give you more details about these shaders in the future… so watch this space.”

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