A former developer who worked on the older Grand Theft Auto games has revealed how all the blowing trash and debris in GTA 3 works and why it didn’t appear in San Andreas but did appear in another controversial Rockstar game, Manhunt.
One of the best little details in 2001's open-world classic Grand Theft Auto 3 and its 2002 sequel, Vice City, is all the trash and debris that slides around the various streets and sidewalks. It gives the cities in those PS2-era games so much character and makes them feel like lived-in places filled with real people and all their junk. But all that flying trash disappeared in 2004's massive GTA: San Andreas. So what happened? Turns out, not everyone developing the 3D-era GTA games liked all that trash flying around.
In an August 14 tweet from Obbe Vermeij, a former Rockstar North dev, the creator explained that the digital streets in GTA 3 looked “too clean” so he “added litter.”
“[Trash in GTA 3 is just a] single rectangle that occasionally moves with the wind. It can also be dragged along by passing cars. The artists created four textures for it. Two newspapers and two leaves,” explained Vermeij.
This same system was used in Vice City, but with a small change. After players completed a specific mission, which saw them drop flyers from a plane, one of the four textures was replaced with those flyers. This was a detail I always noticed as a young lad and something I loved about Vice City.
And if you wondered why trash would sometimes phase through the ground in GTA 3 and Vice City, it’s because of how the debris detects the height of the ground while it moves around. It only checks where the ground is when it lands, so it can sometimes slip through the map during animations.
Why GTA 3's trash is in Manhunt but not San Andreas
When San Andreas was released in 2004, I remember being a little disappointed that all the trash from GTA 3 and Vice City was missing. Sure, all the other cool new stuff in Rockstar’s open-world sequel was great, but I did wonder where the trash went. At the time, I thought perhaps moving paper was too much for the game to handle with everything else going on. Turns out it was just because some devs didn’t like all the debris flying around.
“Not everyone on the team liked the litter. I removed it for San Andreas because I eventually lost the argument,” posted Vermeij.
However, the trash appeared in Manhunt, a stealth game focused on murder which was also developed by Rockstar North and released the year prior to San Andreas. So how did that happen? According to Vermeij, it’s because some GTA devs helped out during the “last months of Manhunt’s development.” And he took the time to add back in the “litter code” from GTA 3.
Who knew a few pieces of trash blowing in the wind could be so interesting? If you want to know more about the PS2-era GTA games, Vermeij has also explained why the moon changed size when it was shot and discussed the odd suicide NPCs in San Andreas.
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