SolidusDave
Member
Not really. But I wish more PS1 games would have used FMV backgrounds back then, those still look good today (to buy on PSN etc.).
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They should bring back pre-rendered backgrounds
- Thread starter I NEED SCISSORS
- Start date
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Why the fuck didn't anyone do a HD game with pre rendered backgrounds of CG 2010 quality? Game developers are high as hell, especially Square Enix.
At least do em in 2D, Oddworld style
edit, talking about games where prerended background make sense of course
Why the fuck didn't anyone do a HD game with pre rendered backgrounds of CG 2010 quality? Game developers are high as hell, especially Square Enix.
At least do em in 2D, Oddworld style
Oh yeah cause current console situation is oh so much better when talking about high end visualsAmir0x said:
edit, talking about games where prerended background make sense of course
How About No
Member
Terrascape said:
They did, dammit
It certainly has a warmer and more muted palette, though.
Fimbulvetr
Member
If it doesn't effect gameplay negatively and they manage to make 3D objects not look so jarring, sure go for it.
In motion, played at SD resolution (480p) it looks fantastic. The backgrounds, though technically static, are animated. It never feels like pre-rendered background.-viper- said:
Of course it's going to look like ass if upscaled beyond it original resolution. Were it to be re-rendered at 1080p, the detail in it would support it and it'd look glorious.
Teetris said:
No thanks, CG backgrounds look too static, especially lighting and shadowing-wise, even in 2D, and they never stand the test of time. Studios don't do this because CG scenery is simply not needed. Only reason CG backgrounds were used was because current hardware was just that crappy.
About GOW3...goddamn.
No.Suairyu said:
Do you play in a 11-inch screen? The game will get stretched either way. It will not look good.
brain_stew
Member
No where in your post do you mention that both the games you were playing control terribly. I'll stick with 3D games that are actually 3D, thanks. Leave "pre rendered" 2D scenes for skyboxes.
I emulate it on Dolphin at high resolution then down-scale that bitch to a 480p sized window. It looks godly. I appreciate I'm in a minority when it comes to the ability to do this.jett said:
Same thing I do with the PS1 Final Fantasies. Difference there is that anyone with a computer made in the last decade can do that.
Seriously, guys: emulate your classic pre-rendered games and SSAA the 3D character models. Run the thing in a 480p sized window and prepare to have new visual life breathed into your flickery CRT memories. It results are often stunning. FFIX benefits from this a lot.
Emulate the Dreamcast or PS1 version. You'll get IQ that good.Clott said:
Mama Robotnik
Member
KevinCow said:
Does this mean that games that used fixed camera angles also suck?
Mama Robotnik
Member
Suairyu said:
Damn, I guess that means Grim Fandango sucks too. That's a shame because I really like that game.
I wouldn't blow up a 7" photo to fit a larger frame, so why do the same with your games? Enjoy art at its intended size/resolution if it has such a limitation.jett said:
You have no idea how much that game sucks and how you probably suck for enjoying it, too.Mama Robotnik said:
I NEED SCISSORS
Banned
brain_stew said:
They may control badly but that doesn't mean they are bad games, and it doesn't take away the fact that in their native resolution they have aged better than any other game that generation.
Onimusha 3 sort of makes the bad controls argument irrelevant - it fixed the tank controls while still having mostly fixed camera angles.
DodgyGeezerFella
Member
Clott said:
PC version has higher-res backgrounds. The only bits that look cheap and low-res are the bits in the scenery that have transparent areas the characters can be seen behind.
Teetris said:
Jesus fucking christ. Ridiculous. THE ONLY REASON WHY pre-rendered backgrounds were ever utilized is because old 3D was an archaic, pixelated mess. Pre-rendered backgrounds are a functional disaster compared to true 3D. You want those dead, zombie backgrounds with a little flickering light to try to pretend it's part of the world, go back to play PS1 crap titles.
There's a reason why pre-rendered backgrounds are inferior to 3D. 3D backgrounds are seamless with your character, and can provide as much life and vibrancy as is necessary. You can pan around and adjust camera angles cinematically or on the fly. The practical applications are endless. pre-rendered backgrounds are for nostalgia kiddos whose first experience with "good graphics" was in some scruffy looking version of Resident Evil.
we are at the point in 3D where we do not need pre-rendered backgrounds. Please, load up and emulator and stop giving the industry bad ideas.
Suairyu said:
The camera moves around in those games. It's not fixed. Do you not know what fixed means?
Mama Robotnik said:
It can work decently in adventure games since you're not expected to have any sort of precision at all and stumbling around the room geometry won't get you killed. But it's certainly not ideal.
In an adventure game, where there's hardly any gameplay outside of mashing objects together until you make progress, where most of the enjoyment comes from things like the writing, the characters, the world, and the art, can you honestly say you're happy with a fixed camera and wouldn't like to look around the world more freely?
MrFortyFive
Member
My roommate and I recently played through REmake again, and although its age really really shows, it still managed to impress us at times. I'd really like to see what could be done these days with a high budget and pre-rendered backgrounds.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
final fantasy was better in 3d with pre-rendered backgrounds. as mama robotnik mentioned, ff9 at times looks absolutely gorgeous, and packed full of activity. i tried to play dragon quest 8 and thought spaces in the game felt strangely hollow, empty, and dead.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
The Take Out Bandit said:
Pretty much this.
Pre-render backgrounds where used as a way to hide not only the graphical limitations of consoles of that era, but also the lack of experience from 3D developers. I mean yes they looked and worked great for JRPG's and Adventure games, but in reality those games were more or less played completely in 2D with the occasional isometric or behind the shoulder view thrown in there.
To explain in greater detail:
I think people often forget how infant 3D gaming was prior to last generation. Super Mario 64 was pretty much the first actual real 3D game ever. Prior to it every 3D game was either on-rails, had shitty fixed camera angles, or some DOOM-like shooter. I mean hell just look at the 3D Playstation and Saturn games at the times: Crash Bandicoot, Panzer Dragoon, Resident Evil, hardly have any (if at all) actual 3D gameplay. Super Mario 64 changed that, it was the first game that actually had 3D movement and design, camera controls, behind the back viewpoint, 3D interactivity, etc. But unfortunately not all was solved. How do you attack an enemy in 3D? How do you attack multiple enemies? How will having one huge map to explore work? How will boss battles work? Or how about complex gameplay that heavily involves 3D? This was once again solved by Nintendo with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Developers just didn't know how to do a lot of basic things in 3D and didn't know until a huge ground breaking game came out (Zelda, Half-Life, etc.)
But another huge problem was the technology at the time. How could the Playstation render a complex city street with a handful of zombies at an acceptable framerate? People may shit on the Nintendo 64's frame-rate, but in reality the Nintendo 64 could run games far better than the Playstation could. It was just that those Nintendo 64 games were actually in full 3D. The slowdown and choppiness was due to the fact that the games were producing more polygons than the RAM could handle. Now if the Nintendo 64 framerate was put on its knees due to Banjo-Kazooie, imagine if the then Squaresoft tried to render full towns in 3D on a far weaker console. It just wasn't going to happen. This is why by the time most 3D gameplay concepts were figured out and new hardware came out, that type of gameplay was nearly completely abandoned immediately.
Backfoggen
Banned
Cause one or two games with static backgrounds would cause all development on 3D graphics tech to stop forever.Amir0x said:
Static backgrounds can be a stylistic device just like everything else (2d games, pixel art, etc)
brain_stew
Member
Suairyu said:
GCN and Wii games were only intended to be viewed on <11" screens, were they? Guess I must have missed the memo.
The assertion was made that pre-rendered backgrounds necessitated a fixed camera. As Baldur's Gate employs pre-rendered backgrounds, but has a moving camera, the natural assumption was that "fixed perspective" was the intended term. If that was not the case, then the original post I sarcastically argued against was wrong anyway.KevinCow said:
Oh come on, man. I was very clearly replacing size and resolution for the photography analogy. I even pointed it out in the post with the "size/resolution" bit. Last-gen pre-rendered backgrounds would look just as shiny on a 30" CRT SDTV. The point was about viewing art in its original size format, whether that size is defined in inches (as is the case with a printed photograph or painting) or resolution, as is the case with games.brain_stew said:
I was making the argument that playing an emulated game in a small window to preserve its resolution is no bad thing.
brain_stew
Member
I NEED SCISSORS said:
So the controls were finally fixed once they ditched the pre-rendered backgrounds? You're not doing your argument any favours here.
RSB
Banned
RE5 DLC (Lost in Nightmares) has an easter egg at the beginning that lets you play with fixed camera angles, and IMO they look much better than those pre-rendered backgrounds from REmake.
So yeah, NO. Pre-rendered backgrounds were a necessity back in the day, due to tech limitations. It would be ridiculous to use them nowadays (on the big consoles, at least)
Bye
So yeah, NO. Pre-rendered backgrounds were a necessity back in the day, due to tech limitations. It would be ridiculous to use them nowadays (on the big consoles, at least)
Bye
Backfoggen
Banned
People are basing their opinions on pre-rendered backgrounds on some old-ass games. RE1 remake looks worse than RE5 hurf. No shit there's been 8 years in between.
Current-gen tech could do much more with pre-rendered backgrounds.
Current-gen tech could do much more with pre-rendered backgrounds.
I NEED SCISSORS
Banned
brain_stew 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.
Flying_Phoenix said:
More polygons than the RAM could handle? Eh. The slowdown and choppiness was because the N64 fucking blows. Xenogears, a Squaresoft PS1 game, has "full 3D towns", btw.
Anyways, I'm fairly certain the PS1 is more capable at generating a higher number of polygons than the N64. N64 games are blocky as all fuck. PS1 games routinely had better texture quality too. The only/major thing the N64 had over it was superior image quality which helped loads, including masking the awful blobs of blurriness called "textures" that its games used.
Man this is dangerously OT.
brain_stew
Member
Himuro said:
There's every chance they'd be more expensive.
To show any appreciable advantage you've got to create those assets at a much higher quality than you would if you were render them in realtime, otherwise, what the hell is the point? Since asset creation is the single biggest part of a game's budget these days and you've just gone ahead and demanded much higher quality art assets, well, I'm not sure how you're doing anything to get the game budget down, you may have gone and done exactly the opposite.
You think S-E went with pre-rendered backgrounds in the PS1 days because they were cheap!?
DodgyGeezerFella
Member
Backfoggen said:
Exactly, such as this -
Himuro 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.
brain_stew
Member
Backfoggen said:
Like what exactly!?
Pre-rendered backgrounds are just bitmaps, nothing more, nothing less. We passed the stage of being able to perfectly display a .bmp a long ass time ago.