It's in keeping with the previous games where the dialogue portions essentially play out like elaborate puppet shows. I like it, as it does evoke the style and feel of the older games. It's one of the things many fear would be lost in an inevitable remake; when you have all realistic, proportionate characters all the time, you lose those little humorous and charming animations because they don't lend themselves well to that style.
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Why were the Final Fantasy 7 character models so bad?
- Thread starter I'm new be nice
- Start date
yeah yeah yeah, it wasn't running on a dev kit or anything, but you know what I mean. This was supposed to be for the N64.
RPGCrazied
Member
VII, VIII and IX desperately need some sort of update. I'm sure there is something they could do to breath more life into these titles. You guys don't think they have the backgrounds somewhere in a higher res? Surely they wouldn't have to redraw it. Just redo the character models and touch up on the FMV, should go a long way.
They already kinda did that for FFVII. It was called Crisis Core! <3
Senor Kami
Banned
They knew it wouldn't matter so they cheaped out. All of the advertisement and screen shots prior to release were CG cutscenes so by the time anyone figured it out they'd already plunked their money down and were shit out of luck.
I think Vagrant Story topped the PS1 in terms of character models, in terms of pretty much everything graphically actually, but the character models were really great.
Without delving into complex technical details Ecstatica used ellipsoids (ie spheres that can be elongated and flattened) on a conceptual level. The engine, technically, was all doing it though awesome sprite deformations though (specifically, one sphere sprite vith varied palettes). It also was able to render good old polygons the normal way (grouped in boxes so they need the same coordinate/dimension data an ellipsoid uses) which it used for a few specific objects.In ecstaticas case, id say the backdrop aged just as badly.
in ecstatica they did not even use polygons? round balls and oval shapes to make characters.
-The character models actually are a good half of the graphical work, so they don't count as "just".
-All the backgrounds, at least for 8 and 9, went through a 2D post production phase for touch ups which probably wasn't high-res. Also they were cut up in planes for characters to get in front of/behind, which was definitely done at the final resolution.
-The PS1 engines are very tied to the technical limitations of their platform, so you want to bump up the resolution, you need to reprogram a wholly new graphical subsystem.
-This is all assuming they have usable source data. Most videogame companies were notoriously crap at archiving it in an exploitable way before the past few years, and japanese companies among the worst. And even if they still have it it doesn't mean they can still decipher it.
Yes, that was one of the many things about FFVII that blew me away. You had all this very beautiful, static backgrounds and at some points suddently the backgrounds became FMVs, during which you could STILL move your character!
I really asked me "man, how did they do this..." (laughs). It was just too awesome ^_^
And while we are talking about FMVs. Those CGI movies back in 1997 where one of THE BEST CGI in all of the media - including movies. Even Blizzards CGI in Warcraft was no match. Only years later Blizzard manged to catch up to Squaresofts quality in that regard.
lightchris
Member
Battles had 3D backgrounds though, as well as relatively high poly enemies.
I don't see why they would've been that limited in all the screens that had nothing but pre-rendered backgrounds. I say it was mainly an artistic choice.
Misterinenja
Member
Vagrant Story looks so amazing even these days.
Coinspinner
Member
Does anybody else like the gourad shaded look? I like it more than cell shading.
It does. I played it for the first time in like ten years a month ago, and the opening in the chapel with the dragon and the stained glass is amazing.
I think Vagrant Story topped the PS1 in terms of character models, in terms of pretty much everything graphically actually, but the character models were really great.
ooh yeah, that's a looker for sure
littlebirdtoldme
Banned
dino crisis had nice characters on 3d backdrop as well.
greatestjediever
Member
Thing ran at 33.8 MHz man.
littlebirdtoldme
Banned
true. maybe its an memory issue. I dont know.
Vagrant Story is very much a mix of having really talented 3D artists on the team, and having an amazing cutscene director. The presentation is a notch above pretty much everything else, even the direction of Squaresoft's CG movies imo.
we.are.the.armada
Member
Back in those days, people were calling those "deformed" and thought that they were pretty good looking! When FFVIII showed up, it blew people away how more detailed the models were.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
And the game's size is less than 100mb!
I think they did a really good compressing the textures and masking their repetition.
It really wasn't at all. It ran on expensive SGI hardware, using a mouse to control.
Read this : http://www.lostlevels.org/200510/
Semantic Continuum
Member
I think Vagrant Story topped the PS1 in terms of character models, in terms of pretty much everything graphically actually, but the character models were really great.
The thing that killed me was having emotions visible on faces (you can even see it in one of the intro scene, the "i am the reinforcements" one). Something that most games did not do until PS2 and then was a major selling point, even calling hardware emotion engine.
Pyrrhus
Member
And had 1MB of video RAM. On top of that, they didn't have as much experience coding or modeling as people do now and their tools and programming libraries weren't as good or specialized.
I mean, really, what did the OP think was the reason? Presentation standards are dictated by the technological limits of the system. This looked damn good coming off the Super NES, which ran at 2.6 MHz and had 64k of VRAM and ran nearly every game at 256x224. Context is everything.
For what it's worth, I think they went mostly with Goraud-shaded, untextured polygons because textures swam and warped like a bitch on the PS1, especially in the early days before techniques were discovered to somewhat mitigate the problem.
The game is beautiful but I don't particularly think 100MB is impressive. Low poly 3D and low res textures does not take a lot of space, regardless of compression.
It has one CG movie that probably takes up almost half that space. All the music is sequenced, there's no voice acting, not a lot of big full screen images or 2D animation. so 100 MB seems plenty enough to me
wat?
FF6 and Chrono Trigger were renowned for their graphical prowess back in the day. Both were near universally hailed for it.
If anything, FF7 was much more divisive, due to the poor looking 3d. Many people, myself included thought FF7 looked like crap compared to the beautiful spritework in 6 and Chrono Trigger.
I think Vagrant Story topped the PS1 in terms of character models, in terms of pretty much everything graphically actually, but the character models were really great.
VG and FFIX. Both had actual modeled facial structure and very intricate detail in the clothing/gear.
Also does anyone remember the beefed up Cloud/Spehiroth models in the post-end battle? Those were mindblowing.
All of the main Final Fantasy games in the PS1/PS2 era were ridiculously expensive.
TheJollyCorner
Member
I disagree strongly.
Squaresoft was already well known for having top-notch graphic and sound design all through the 16-bit era. All the FF games, Seiken Densetsu 2 and 3, the Romancing Saga games, Chrono Trigger, Bahamut Lagoon, Front Mission, just to name a few.
FFVI was the first SNES game to use all of the systems 256 color capabilities, which was a graphic marvel at the time.
I can still remember looking in GameFan in early '94 and being absolutely floored when I saw stills of FFVI.
Compare Sega's Phantasy Star IV to Square's Final Fantasy VI. They came out within 4 months of each other (in Japan, at least)
to
On a similar system to FFVI, here is Quintet/Enix's Illusion of Gaia (released within 5 months of FFVI):
I didn't even post an image of a battle screen, which is where FFVI could really shine graphically.
The amount of colors, texture work, character models (and animation, albeit simple), and effects outclassed any other console RPG at the time- and stood pretty damn well against non-RPGs, too.
How is it not a technical limitation? We all know devs squeeze more power out of a system over time, so that can explain why the later games look better. And they clearly had experience since the battle models look very good.
Manmademan
Member
I think most saying technical limitations really mean square just didn't know how to make use of the ps1.
There's a massive jump in quality between FF7 and just about any other title. If no one told you, you'd swear FF9 and vagrant story weren't even running on the same hardware.
not being able to exploit the hardware correctly or not having the tools to do so is a technical limitation too. They pretty much invented the tools and got the experience that allowed them to make 8 and 9 better. For example, characters in 8 and 9 tend to have lower polycounts than 7 but have the polys better used, topologically speaking. In both cases the poly count is a tech limitation, but in the later games they learned to go around it.
Basileus777
Member
I think the visuals have actually aged pretty poorly. Oh god the jaggies.
But the jaggies and character models is what makes the PS1 ear so much more nostalgic. May no be the prettiest looking back but when it was new, did it bother you then? Probably not because it was what was the style and graphics in that time. We have been spoiled by the superb graphical jump we have seen since then.
R_thanatos
Member
it's quite impressive how they managed to improve the graphical fidelity this much in ff9.
We lost a little in animation but it was quite beautifull at the time.
TimeEffect
Member
Power of the Cloud wasnt there yet
RoninChaos
Member
Chrono Cross still amazes me in the looks department.
Mitsurux
Member
Perhaps someone with more technical info can better answer this, but could it be partly due to the fact the FMV was used in portions of the background? Like an alternate display mode, which limited polys or something..
Regardless the choice was made pretty early i would guess since all of the pre-rendered back grounds appear to be build for that size model...
Regardless the choice was made pretty early i would guess since all of the pre-rendered back grounds appear to be build for that size model...
sixteen-bit
Member
FF7 feels like it has like 5 different art styles for the same characters in the same game. It's all over the place.
H_Prestige
Banned
FFVII has better character models than VIII and IX. Yes, even those lego man models. They can actually show expression.
thomasmahler
Member
A bit off-topic, but I've never seen this image before:
Apparently, they also played around with making Final Fantasy VII isometric without rendered backgrounds. Quite charming.
Apparently, they also played around with making Final Fantasy VII isometric without rendered backgrounds. Quite charming.
legacyzero
Banned
Just another reason why everybody wants a remake.
I still love you, though, FF7 <3
I still love you, though, FF7 <3
What game is that?A bit off-topic, but I've never seen this image before:
Apparently, they also played around with making Final Fantasy VII isometric without rendered backgrounds. Quite charming.