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They should bring back pre-rendered backgrounds

Amir0x

Banned
jett said:
Of course dude. You think the CG used in FFXIII is cheap? You think CG films are cheap? They take years to make. Aren't you an editor? You should know this shit. Advent Children, a CG movie of dubious technical quality, took Square years to make, and they didn't even bother or were able to afford to fucking render the whole thing in HD to begin with.

what...is Himuro an editor of!?
 
I NEED SCISSORS said:
My point was that the camera was still fixed - so that means they could have applied the improved controls to a pre-rendered background just as easily.

The camera was still (mostly) fixed but the game was no longer 2D. That's why the controls improved, because they actually created a 3D action game, not a pseudo 3D action game that was just played on a 2D plane without seemless transitions from frame-to-frame.
 
brain_stew said:
Like what exactly!?

Pre-rendered backgrounds are just bitmaps, nothing more, nothing less. We past the stage of being able to perfectly display .bmp a long ass time ago.

HD playback of pre-rendered background animation, higher poly and overall higher quality 3d objects that fit well into the backgrounds.
It's still a long time till the next console gen, until then something like an RE2 remake with 1080p backgrounds would be something I'd buy.
 
Ogs said:
Exactly, such as this -

We really aren't far off from achieving comparable graphical fidelity in full 3D.

I just don't get why people want this style of gameplay back. Nearly all of these games play horrible and have the most simplistic and mediocre game design. Just like 95% of "3D" games of that era.

jett said:
There's no way that this is a serious post.
 
brain_stew said:
Like what exactly!?

Pre-rendered backgrounds are just bitmaps, nothing more, nothing less. We past the stage of being able to perfectly display a .bmp a long ass time ago.

I think a major point of contention though is that consoles nowadays are just not capable of doing much more. They are maxed out. You won't be able to get environments that do as much as or look as good as REmake, but in real-time at 1080p blah blah without it being on a new console.

I'll definitely say that when a new console comes out which has an equivalent GPU to an ATi 6xxx or 7xxx series card, then pre-rendering may not be necessary because you'll have the technical grunt by that point. But until that time comes, pre-rendering is the only way to accomplish that. And before we start pulling out the upscaled REmake pics again, come on: we can all imagine how good it would look with native 1080p assets.
 
Backfoggen said:
HD playback of pre-rendered background animation, .

Good luck fitting more than a couple of them on a DVD. Unless we all want to play games with nasty compression artefacts!? :lol

The 3D models will never fit correctly in the world, ever. They're going to be lit completely differently and that means they'll always look out of place.
 
Himuro said:
Where did I say CG films were cheap? You are comparing CG film to stills.
.

The (majority of the) expense of CG movies doesn't come from rendering the same background 30 times, it comes from creating the background in the first place and you still have to do that when making a game with pre-rendered backgrounds.
 
Prerendered has passed a lot of games by...but I would really be in favor of it for a new Final Fantasy game. You'd probably end up with a game that looks better than XIII and has way more content. It might also allow a Wii version that isn't completely inferior...which allows the series to make more money.

It will never happen though.
 

jett

D-Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
There's no way that this is a serious post.

I posted a picture of a good-looking PS1 game made by Squaresoft that has "full 3D" towns, contradicting your bullcrap.
The PS1 factually has a higher polygonal throughput than the N64. Educate yourself.
Vagrant Story(and others) annihilates any N64 game you care to mention when it comes to texture detail.

What wasn't serious about my post?
 
I NEED SCISSORS said:
I think a major point of contention though is that consoles nowadays are just not capable of doing much more. They are maxed out. You won't be able to get environments that do as much as or look as good as REmake, but in real-time at 1080p blah blah without it being on a new console.

I'll definitely say that when a new console comes out which has an equivalent GPU to an ATi 6xxx or 7xxx series card, then pre-rendering may not be necessary because you'll have the technical grunt by that point. But until that time comes, pre-rendering is the only way to accomplish that. And before we start pulling out the upscaled REmake pics again, come on: we can all imagine how good it would look with native 1080p assets.

Then buy a PC or a Wii2 when it launches in 12-18 months. You can have better graphics if you want them, no need to completely destroy the gameplay in every console game in the meantime just because you have some irrational fear of PC gaming or Nintendo hardware.
 
Himuro said:
You raise a fair point.

I'd like someone to make a high budget game with pre-rendered bgs just to compare budgets and development time.

If you've got a few hundred million dollars spare, I'm sure someone will be willing to take you up on your offer. In the meantime no one of sane mind is going to risk vast sums of money on such a ridiculous project.
 
brain_stew said:
Good luck fitting more than a couple of them on a DVD. Unless we all want to play games with nasty compression artefacts!? :lol

The 3D models will never fit correctly in the world, ever. They're going to be lit completely differently and that means they'll always look out of place.

Blu-Ray/2 DVDs. Modern compression codecs should make this possible.

That's a pretty bold statement considering that the RE1 remake did a relatively good job with it 9 years ago. (don't look at emulated pics)
 
jett said:
I posted a picture of a good-looking PS1 game made by Squaresoft that has "full 3D" towns, contradicting your bullcrap.
The PS1 factually has a higher polygonal throughput than the N64.

It doesn't like. You may have to use custom microcode to achieve it and reduce the IQ over most N64 games (but still above PS1 games) to manage it, but its definitely possible and shipping games (ike World Driver Championship managed it just fine.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
Amir0x said:
Fuck that garbage. Fucking disgusting. We left the era when 3D visuals were so bad developers had to compensate with static, completely fucking dead pre-rendered backgrounds.

Time to move the fuck on.

A-goddamn-men. Prerendered backgrounds were a scourge.
 

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
I've been saying this forever. If you can pre-render the background and make those amazing, then you can focus more power on the character models. The REmake models are still impressive, I can't even imagine what thye'd look lik enow.
 
brain_stew said:
Then buy a PC or a Wii2 when it launches in 12-18 months. You can have better graphics if you want them, no need to completely destroy the gameplay in every console game in the meantime just because you have some irrational fear of PC gaming or Nintendo hardware.

I already do PC gaming - I built my PC a year ago to the spec that you suggested in the budget PC thread. But just because I invest in a piece of hardware does not suddenly mean that the games I want made will come. Capcom are hardly going to make a hypothetical REmake 2, with fixed camera angles, PC exclusive just for the sake of making it completely real-time. Neither are Square going to make FFXVI a PC exclusive for the same reason. They are developed for consoles foremost and therefore have to be kept within the limitations of consoles - sad but true.

And again with people saying this would apply to every game. It's been said time and time again that this resurrection of pre-rendering need only apply to a handful of titles in specific genres where the gameplay would be suitable.
 
Himuro said:
Now you're being ridiculous.

I'm being ridiculous? That's pretty rich coming from the guy asking for someone to fund two concurrent multi million dollar projects just to satisfy his curiosity (it'd be impossible to compare the budget without a placebo). No one is going to commission a project like that, so unless you have the cash spare, then its a silly (read: "ridiculous") request to make.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Kabouter said:
http://www.gamers.at/images/screenshots/screenshot_lost_horizon_hongkong_airport_jpg_16877.jpg[IMG]
Lost Horizon, PC point & click adventure, came out recently.[/QUOTE]
Came to post this, AMAZING artworks.
 

jett

D-Member
msdstc said:
I've been saying this forever. If you can pre-render the background and make those amazing, then you can focus more power on the character models. The REmake models are still impressive, I can't even imagine what thye'd look lik enow.


RE5's character models are several orders of magnitude of higher quality.
 
Backfoggen said:
Blu-Ray/2 DVDs. Modern compression codecs should make this possible.

Nope, not a chance in hell. Games with less than an hour of pre-rendered 720p cutscenes look a garbled mess on the 360. Clean, artefact free HD video eats through disk space like nothing else and you're going to need multiple animations for each and every rendered scene. Sorry, but I'm not prepared to play a game stuffed to the brim with compression artefacts.

Remake was a ~3GB game. So, just offer a game of the same length in 1080p without any added animations, you're talking about 18GB of space and that's before adding multi channel sound and the much better real time assets. Add all those 1080p animations all over the place and the disc space required is going to balloon completely out of control.

This game would have to be PS3 exclusive and use a dual layer BD-ROM, maybe two. Now tell me, how many publishers are creating PS3 exclusive content with huge multi-million dollar budgets these days?

Time to take your fight to Sony, I reckon.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I hope that we eventually see some pre-rendered work on the 3DS, depth and all.
 

Xdrive05

Member
I would love pre-rendered backgrounds for modern JRPG's and old-school, Capcom-style action/adventure games (RE, Dino Crisis, etc.).

Actually, the 3DS would be an ideal platform for this. 3D pre-rendered backgrounds could be tits.
 

DeBurgo

Member
Hey guys I have an idea, let's bring back every single abandoned graphical game development trend from 10-15 years ago, regardless of its actual merit or possible applications in games today. This is how "Retro" actually works in the rest of pop culture, right????
 
EatChildren said:
I hope that we eventually see some pre-rendered work on the 3DS, depth and all.

Any game on the 3DS that used pre-rendered backgrounds wouldn't be compatible with the depth slider and wouldn't pass QA.
 

jett

D-Member
Himuro said:
Of course they are. They're in a game that came out almost a full decade after REmake's release. What exactly is your point?

That we don't need CG backgrounds to have character models that all kinds of violate those in REmake?
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
brain_stew said:
Any game on the 3DS that used pre-rendered backgrounds wouldn't be compatible with the depth slider and wouldn't pass QA.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
 

luka

Loves Robotech S1
It disappoints me that my PC gaming brethren seem too closed minded to appreciate the kind of technical leverage and potential prerendered BGs could have for certain types of games. Almost every background in RE for gamecube was filled with tons of subtle animations and the 3D elements like water and characters blended seamlessly. Of course it's going to look like shit when you render the game at 1440x1080 on an emulator, the gc can't output more than 640x480 so why would they waste space rendering HD backgrounds? Why even bring that up?

I'd kill to play a heavily stylized adventure game (like TLJ) or something with 1080p prerendered backgrounds. Of course it's not economically viable and it's not going to happen, but it would allow an extreme level of detail in both the characters and environments and make it playable on even low-end machines. Is it wrong to want things?
 

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
REMake looks astonishingly good, to this day. Since the backgrounds were pre-rendered, pretty much the ENTIRE console's power could be used on character models, allowing them to be a full console gen ahead of everything else out there.

Additionally, one of the more subtle things Capcom did with REmake and RE: Zero was implement FMV in the pre-rendered backgrounds themselves, to make them feel much less static. Yes it was smoke & mirrors, but it was EXTREMELY effective. Wind blowing through trees and bushes, lightning strikes out the window, fan blades turning, the motherfucking SHARK, etc.

At the time, I literally didn't know how they were pulling it off.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
This thread has convinced me that it probably depends on the genre.

If we're talking about a budget point-and-click adventure game, RTS, or any type of game with an overhead or isometric camera, I think pre-rendered backgrounds are acceptable.

If we're talking about a shooter, action game, or anything that actually benefits from or requires a dynamic camera, then pre-rendered backgrounds would just be a step back.
 
Suikoden Treikreis (I think that's how you spell it) had some beautifully illustrated backdrops.

It was a nice combo of 2D illustration with polygon characters. I'd love to see a 2D Zelda-styled game like that with beautiful 2D backgrounds with cel-shaded 2.5D characters.
 

luka

Loves Robotech S1
Suairyu said:
The amount of Raichus I see posting seems to go up every week.

Week 1: Gravijah gets dumped
Week 2: Gravijah gets fired
Week 3: Gravijah under house arrest
 

Goldmund

Member
The Take Out Bandit said:
Pre-rendered backgrounds are as abhorrent as non-game engine cut scenes. It's an artifact of a dead era, and also conducive to terrible camera use.

See also: Devil May Cry 1

Pre-rendered backgrounds + terrible camera placement = game breaking.

In addition that that, it doesn't immerse me in the game world. I just feel like even more of a rat in a maze.
Exactly. Fixed perspectives were an exceptionally useful tool to communicate meaning and intent of space. A grammar of the visible.

It doesn't matter how static they are: fixed perspectives guide attention in a very active and continuous fashion and by that evoke and affect emotions. It's difficult to create an emotional memory of space, if the player has accurate control over its perspective. If you had been able to swirl the camera around in Lindblum (Final Fantasy IX) or inside Raccoon City police station, I'd argue they wouldn't have made the same emotional impact.

In the "real world" social norms act as our guides. If you could look at your loved one's naked body in any fashion you would like, from every conceivable perspective: sexual appeal would soon cease to exist.

I'm not arguing for more pre-rendered backgrounds in games. They are a thing of the past. Just like the emotional depth of games. Bringing them back would feel like grave desecration. Developers have found new means of communication. We now have "good writing".
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
I don't care if they are prerendered or realtime, I just want more fixed-camera angle games. I hate games that force me to nurse the camera while playing (i.e. a lot of over the shoulder type games). Fixed-camera angle games are much more 'cinematic' I feel.
 

ScOULaris

Member
Don't flame me for resurrecting an old topic with such a short post, but I just wanted to throw in my two cents.

I fully support the return of prerendered backgrounds for certain genres, namely RPGs and Adventure games.

If there's one thing that this generation of games has been SORELY lacking, it's quality JRPG's. How many times have people said, with regard to Final Fantasy 7-9, "They don't make JRPG's like this anymore..." Well, they're absolutely correct! Games of that scale simply cannot be created in this climate of HD, stereoscopic 3D, surround sound gaming.

Prerendered backgrounds (with animation and lighting effects ala REmake), to me at least, can be livelier and prettier than anything in Final Fantasy XIII.

I don't have the time or the stamina right now to give my full thesis on this subject, but I just wanted to let any lurking developers know that I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see high-quality prerendered backgrounds make a return in slower-paced games.
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
Actually I think FFXIII still uses prerendered backgrounds. The skies and backdrop look like prerendered images to me.

There's this particular place in Sunleth that looked like it was totally prerendered. Hence the "you only see it from a path" ness of that area...

I'll add screenshots if i can find any.
 
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