Over the past few days I' ve been studying the latest screenshots of GT5 and comparing them to screenshots of Forza 2 (as well as studying Forza 2 for myself on the 360).

I just thought i' d share my conclusions as to what makes GT5 (unfortunately but admittedly) look more photorealistic than Forza 2.

1) GT5 has more pronounced self-shadowing on the cars. The shadow maps are crisper than in Forza 2.

2) There is less bloom effect on the cars in GT5 compared to Forza 2. (how often do you see bloom lighting on ESPN broadcasts anyway right?)

3) There is more ambient light on the cars in GT5 (light coming from the sky and other surroundings apart from the sun). Forza has very high contrast lighting, so the dark parts are really dark while the bright parts are in bloom.


First i' d like to get one thing out of the way, just because i think GT5 looks more photorealistic than Forza 2 doesn' t mean that Forza 2' s graphics aren' t good in their own right. The main difference is that Forza 2 looks like pre-rendered CG, which is never a bad thing, but GT5 has everything set in the right place to make it look photo-ish. So it' s just a question of how the artists chose to approach the style (or it could be that Polyphony' s artists still have the edge over most other game artists).

In a nutshell, i could say that GT5 looks like an ESPN broadcast, while Forza 2 looks like a commercial for Volvo or something.

On a sidenote, i' ve always considered the PGR series to be closer to the look of the GT series than Forza. Now if only PGR4 would be 60fps, that would be more than a match for GT5.