Rockstar veteran added litter to GTA 3 because the streets looked “too clean,” but removed it from San Andreas “because I eventually lost the argument” with the rest of the dev team
One Rockstar veteran has recalled how he added litter to the streets of GTA 3 because they “looked too clean” but then removed it from San Andreas when he “lost the argument” with fellow developers.
The ever-chatty Obbe Vermeij, former Rockstar North technical director, has taken to Twitter to share another revelation about the GTA series – it was he who put litter in the streets of GTA 3. This was because Vermeij deemed said streets “too clean,” but GTA 3 houses just four textures for the litter – two for newspapers and two for leaves.
The streets of gta3 looked too clean so I added litter.It is a single rectangle that occasionally moves with the wind. It can also be dragged along by passing cars. The artists created 4 textures for it. 2 newspapers and 2 leaves.In Vice City there is a mission (Dildo Dodo)… pic.twitter.com/XHAH5Wkd7FAugust 14, 2024
It turns out these same four litter textures were used in GTA: Vice City, according to Vermeij. However, after the player is able to drop flyers around the city for Candy Suxx’s show, one of the four litter textures is replaced from then on by a new texture for the flyer.
“Not everyone on the team liked the litter. I removed it for San Andreas because I eventually lost the argument,” Vermeij further reflects in the lengthy tweet. The Rockstar North technical director also worked on Rockstar’s infamous Manhunt, where he added the exact same code base for litter to the new game.
Another Twitter user reveals to Vermeij that a GTA San Andreas mod actually adds the litter from 3 back into the game, but unfortunately, it needs a fair bit of tweaking in order to stop the litter from spawning within buildings. Having taken a brief look around the internet, there are actually multiple mods for this, including one that adds GTA 4’s trash system to San Andreas.
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