GTA 6 is set to feature Rockstar's most physically diverse NPC population yet, with pedestrians varying significantly more in height and body shape than any previous Rockstar game.
Speaking to IGN, Rockstar studio co-head Rob Nelson explained that the developer has created a new system that enables GTA 6 to have a wide variety of NPCs, and this new system hinges on dynamically retargeting character animations on-the-fly to accommodate different body proportions. In previous games, characters with different builds often shared the same animation sets, limiting how much Rockstar could vary their height and shape.
Popular Now: Rockstar's next game after GTA 6 is already confirmed, but it isn't Red Dead Redemption 3That becomes particularly important when characters physically interact with objects or the environment within the world, because if the NPC's height exceeded the animations, they wouldn't line up on screen. An animation designed for a 5-foot-6 NPC, for example, may not correctly line up when applied to someone who is 6-foot-2 during a fight, while sitting inside a vehicle, or when interacting with the environment. GTA 6's new system dynamically adjusts those animations to better fit the character performing them, enabling a wider variety of possible NPCs.
"One of the coolest things about this game being developed from the ground up on this generation of hardware is taking advantage of all the memory that we have on the latest consoles combined with our teams' experience doing this for so long together," says Nelson
The technology lets Rockstar populate Vice City and the wider state of Leonida with a much broader range of body types without creating completely separate animation sets for every variation. We can see evidence of this in the above and below screenshots, with many NPCs having very different body shape types. With this physical diversity now in mind, rewatch the Extended Look and take notice of all the different NPCs. Very impressive stuff.
"NPCs have more height differentiation and body shape differentiation than ever before, we could never have had this variety before because different body types had to share animation sets. So, if you had the same animation on the 5'6" person and the 6'2" person, they wouldn't line up if they're fighting or sitting in cars - basically any interactions with each other or the environment. But on this game, the team worked out a system where they now retarget those animations on-the-fly. Now we have a huge variety of heights and shapes and it all works together because of what this team was able to pull off," said Nelson
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The increased NPC diversity forms part of Rockstar's wider effort to make GTA 6 its most ambitious open world yet, and having an incredibly diverse NPC population is only going to add to immersion levels. Nelson described the game as the studio's "largest, deepest, most densely populated and complex world" to date, with current-generation hardware allowing the team to push population density, character variety, and animation complexity further than before.
