For the definitive edition of the game, I’m assuming Grove Street Games used some form of AI scaling for the character models and textures, and then manually tweaked them to make them look the right way. While both games might look just as primitive today, the improvement in visual quality was very noticeable, especially given the game’s sunny and bright aesthetic that didn’t allow darker color palettes to obscure the lack of detail.
City of vice It also offers significantly better facial animations, however rudimentary they are. According to Rockstar, polygon budgets for character models in City of vice have doubled compared to Grand Theft Auto 3. As an engine is optimized over time, the developers can essentially cram a lot more polygons to make environments and, most importantly, character models look believable.
Grand Theft Auto 3The character models of were certainly impressive for the time, but Rockstar was able to outdo themselves for the sequel as they got to grips with the hardware of the PlayStation 2 era. Given how essential lighting is to the neon-soaked ’80s presentation City of vice, an updated lighting model with smart tweaks seems to do a lot of work to make the game’s presentation pleasing to the eye. The cars have bright exteriors and reflect sunlight with precision, making them look pristine. To maintain an authentic feel reminiscent of the original, it seems the developer has increased the intensity of the neon lights in order to cast appropriate shadows on the roads. Reflections are more precise and have higher resolutions, and buildings have appropriate ambient occlusion. In the Definitive Edition of the game, a whole new lighting system has been implemented, and the difference is night and day. Buildings, on the other hand, appear to have embedded self-reflections that are particularly noticeable at night, giving the illusion of ambient occlusion. There is still no form of indirect reflection on most surfaces, although the surfaces of cars and character models will light up and therefore reflect some light sources such as traffic lights. The shadows seem sharper for the most part, and given the setting of the game, there are a lot more light sources present in the surroundings. It still uses the same techniques, although that doesn’t mean there aren’t improvements over Grand Theft Auto 3. In the lighting department, little seems to have changed. Let’s take a look.Ī little like Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto Vice City also uses Criterion’s RenderWare engine.
While it sits comfortably between a full-fledged remake and a low-effort remaster, a lot has been changed this time around. With less than a year away from the game’s 20th anniversary, Grove Street Games released an updated version of the game in its latest Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition. Rockstar would find success again with this version, proving once again why this is one of the best in the business. Ditching the dusty, drab streets of Liberty City, the game would instead take place on the sandy shores of Vice City which is, of course, inspired by real life Miami. A little over a year later, the team would send a sequel to its genre-defining open-world franchise in the form of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. After the unprecedented success of Rockstar North’s first Grand Theft Auto 3D, the team quickly began to make a sequel.