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CGI scenes that used blow your mind and now look ugly compared to in-game graphics

K

KittenMaster

Member
Silent Hill 2's FMVs also ran at 60 FPS, which was unheard of for FMVs at the time coming just after the PS1 era. It just felt so real even if it was obvious CG.

Silent Hill 3, while more impressive graphically by having every cutscene in real time and characters much more detailed didn't give that same feeling of immersion.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
jetjevons said:
All Sega CD and 3DO CG. Most PSOne games.
Click to expand...

Off the top of my head, there really weren't that many Sega CD games with CG pre-rendered cut scenes. The majority of them used live action footage or traditional cell animation. CGI didn't really start to become common until 1994-ish or so.

Though, off the top of my head, some bad CGI Sega CD intros are:

Eternal Champions CD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwn9RpfvEPM (so gloriously bad)
Soul Star: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Iwn9RpfvEPM#t=8
Ecco The Dolphin 2 The Tides of Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5VwqUNbSYJM#t=18 (some of this wasn't bad for 1994 if you excuse the grainy ass video)
Silpheed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3zTU7qIwPw (actually I still think this one looks really cool, as it has a low polygon look to everything, the game backgrounds were all low poly CGI FMV as well.)
 
L

LDAF

Member
lazygecko said:
Dragon Lore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQYJUTO4XE

dragonlore02nbuwd.gif


At least that default T pose is handy for something...
Click to expand...

I love how the sword flies into the table like it's magnetized.
 
N

Nikokuno

Member
Squaresoft / SquarEnix's Visual Work GCI ... I was like o_O every time they start blowing me away with their sorcery. And among all of them I think FF IX was - despite the unrealistic chara design (SD after FF VIII was risky back in the day) - their best job, I enjoy every CGI in this fairy tale-ish game. Just remember Garnet & Eiko summoning Alexander to stop Bahamut :eek:
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
The best Intro to a game ever:
Chrono Cross

I remember watching this as a kid and thinking I would be old by the time in game graphics reached that level of quality.
Well, there is still a lot of artistic value in it. And Time's Scar is timeless

jett said:
zidane2.jpg


dat face, dat hair

Even FFX's CGI is starting to look dated
Click to expand...

To be fair.
Steiner and Vivi hold up really well, IMO.
Keep in mind that it has a cartoony art style, you can't go an compare them to Joel from the last of us or something like that
 
H

HeelPower

Member
SolidSnakex said:
The way they did the animation for cutcenes was particularly cool. Takayoshi Sato said that they'd look into a mirror and make certain facial expressions or say a sentence and then try to hand animate the characters to match what they saw.
Click to expand...

yeah its timeless because its so stylized.
SH2mariaLake.jpg

Maria-Silent-Hill-2.jpg
 
S

Superflat

Member
PSX Parasite Eve and Final Fantasy FMVs, though FFIX holds up decently imo. I was impressed with them even during the PS2 era. But for the most part, almost any CG cutscenes from the PS1/N64 period can't hold a candle.
 
V

Vinegar Joe

Member
Ahh...CGI intros. That tinge of excitement every time I'd boot up a new Namco game and hear the sound of my PS1's disc drive straining to load the FMV file.

It was like glimpsing in to the future.

Apart from Tekken 1's intro. That always looked shit.


EDIT: just watched Soul Blade's intro on the Youtubes. Holy crap, that is legitimately balls-out awesome. Every bit as good as I remember it. Nobody could get you pumped like Namco.
 
J

jett

D-Member
SolidSnakex said:
The other factor would be the background. The scale and detail in FFX's backgrounds are insane. I think character modeling has definitely caught up with it, but those backgrounds are still above what we're seeing on current consoles.
Click to expand...

Also true. It's not even about the quality of the CGI, it's just that Squeenix's design teams really can be top tier for devising imaginative locales. I've said before, I'll say it again, the scenery in FFXIII looks more alien, otherworldly and creative than that of actual sci-fi games taking places in other planets.
 
E

evilromero

Member
Resident Evil 2's intro. Goddamn I thought it was so amazing back in the day. I would watch it over and over because there was just nothing like it. The setting, the mood, the atmosphere. It was like a logical extension and evolution of a George Romero movie. Hence my name! Evil Romero.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
crimilde said:
Legacy of Kain Blood Omen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwS_GbMo99Y
Click to expand...
Nah, this didn't look "jaw-dropping" even at the time. It was low budget CGI even for the time. I remember reading an interview with SK where they said they rendered this on 486s, LOL.

Still good stuff though, content-wise. What it lacked in budget or technical prowess, it made up for in good storytelling and excellent voice acting.

Kagoshima_Luke said:
Few CGI movies ever matched the animation of the tip-toeing dragon in Vandal Hearts' Saturn opening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMqMlSTii8

Skip to 1:03 if you want to get straight to the good stuff.
Click to expand...
Hahahahaha HOLY SHIT. This has to be the worst CGI animation I've ever seen. It's not only horribly animated (the dragon does have a vaguely cute stop-motion/claymation feel to it though xD), it's completely nonsensical. WTF is that? :D

But again this isn't something that would have been impressive even back then. On the contrary.

Ottoni_Bastos said:
What is the best CGI from PSone(graphically speaking)?

Maybe Tekken 3? Koudelka? Legend of the Dragoon?
Click to expand...
I vote for Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver's intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DOKzTHaPfM
 
S

Spring-Loaded

Member
The Ridge Racer 4, Soul Edge, Silent Hill 2 and FF IX examples posted look fantastic. That probably due in large part to their animations, but even still. They may look worse compared to modern in-game graphics, but they don't; look ugly in comparison.

The Tekken stuff looks ugly. That is very appropriate here
 
B

Bjoern the Smexy

Member
Final Fantasy VIII's cinematics were awesome back then and look kinda good even today, but I'd be lying if I said that FF13's in-game graphics look worse than FF8's cinematics.

Also WarCraft II's cutscenes were pretty awesome for its time. Nowadays they are obviously pretty ugly compared to what Blizzard puts out today.
 
D

Darkstorne

Member
I still think FFVIII's CG holds up well to this day, but I remember having two very specific thoughts back when I played this game as a kid:

1) One day, in-game graphics will look as good as this game's cinematics. That will blow my mind.

2) *Glances at grey-block GameBoy* One day, I'll be playing games like FFVIII on handheld consoles.

So last gen was pretty special for me, where I played Final Fantasy XIII (and despite not enjoying the game too much) felt a wave of emotion when I zoomed in on Lightning's in-game face and it was more detailed than Squall's CG face below. And around the same time I also played FFVII, VIII, and IX on my PSP Go.

So my childhood dreams for video games are already complete. Everything else, from this point on, is just the icing on the cake.

199722-squall.jpg
 
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