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Cutscene lying in the age of photo-realism


Wacky
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We all know that games now are capable of having exceedingly good in game engine graphics, as good as in game cinematics- for example, Mass Effect uses the same models in cinematics as they do in game (or at least, barring certain animations, I can't tell the difference.) Same with Force Unleashed, Bayonetta, etc.

Even games with less dazzling graphics (Dragon Age, Dawn of War 1, Homeworld) still have the greatness to use the game engine to do cutscenes (Homeworld is one of the most beautiful games ever made.)

You know where I am getting now, right?

Observe this Dragon Age trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iFrHRaH0Os

You have a game with pretty awesome graphics as it is and they couldn't use the same freaking game models in the trailer? Sure, it's a trailer, and they allegedly all lie, but this is just... weird. Especially since the voice actors are the same (Claudia Black, I could recognise you anywhere...) I am willing to suspend disbelief to the point that Morrigan can fight hand-to-hand or that Leliana apparently learnt Wuxia acrobatics, but all this effort has been put into a trailer, with the same voice actors, over graphics that aren't actually in the game. But the game graphics are of a sufficient quality to PUT them in the trailer.

Same with all those RPGs that lie completely about the strange abstract numbers that float off people's heads when they get hurt.

Case in point: Lineage 2-

MMORPGs do it worst. Oh come on! Either your game engine is shit, or you're trying too hard to put work in a trailer which you're supposed to be putting in the god damned game!

I think we have reached the stage where we can use in game models for your awesome trailers, don't you think?

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"The game engine can render the cutscenes"

and

"The cutscenes use the the same models as the game"

Are both very different statements.

Yes, Metal Gear solid cutscenes are rendering using the games graphic engine, rather than the a pre-render cutscene. HOWEVER if you think that a close-up on Snake's face is the same face that's when he's running around 20' from the camera, you're fooling yourself. Metal Gear also did a LOT of close-up shots, and very few wide shots, specifically so they can get away with they kind of stuff.

Every shot has a different model, texture, bump map, normal map, that they dial up and down depending on how much is on the screen that they can work with.

A lot of scenes have special models specifically for them. This is the same in rendered AND pre-rendered.

So to answer your question as to whether or not we've reached an age where pre-rendered cutscenes are unnecessary: It depends on what they're doing.

How many characters are on the screen?

How detailed are those characters?

What're they wearing?

Body suites?

Belts, chains, etc?

Long flowing cloth?

Short, static cloth?

Are there explosions?

Water?

Hair?

Fur?

Is the background pre-rendered?

Or a Matte?

Or environment fogged?

Is it a room? A city?

A landscape?

Is their motion blur?

What FPS are we shooting for?

Close in shot?

Far away shot?

Night?

Day?

Direct sunlight?

Overcast?

Rain?

Snow?

Is the snow particles or is it sprites?

How fast is the wind moving?

I could go on forever. So yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa it's not really so cut and dry.

Also, on what seemed to be the actually subject based on the title, but seems to not actually be, I don't know? Photo-realism has never been beyond our grasp as a concept. There are sculptures from the renaissance that had veins and arteries and are practically 1:1 real life. We're just limited by the power of our hardware which.............THAT won't last long.

But then you get into the whole problem where IRL looks so familiar to us that anything that looks even the slightest bit off looks extremely stranger because it looks kind of familiar but...off. Which is when the uncanny valley comes into play.

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Rama's very right. There's a lot that goes into deciding whether high-res models, pre-rendered, or realtime cutscenes should be used. One thing I never noticed until I got God of War I and II on PS3, scenes that I could have swore on an SDTV were in-game scenes are actually pre-rendered (this is because the in-game models were rendered in 720p but all the pre-rendered cutscenes remained in 480i). This also speaks to further the integrity of games like Shadow of the Colosuss, which have no pre-rendered cutscenes that I am aware of (I have about 4 hours of SotC HD footage on my hard drive).

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Cutscenes AND trailers, guys.

Rama puts a good objection forward to the amount of detail you put in the pre-rendered cutscene... but that's entirely my point. The fact that on a small screen you can't tell the difference means that the in game graphics are good enough to handle the cutscene.

Same for trailers.

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