SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
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Fixed Camera Angles appreciation thread
- Thread starter shark sandwich
- Start date
lostinblue
Banned
I see you're a man of cultureMy actual favorite use of fixed cameras are older JRPG's. I think they are one of the reasons Ps1 and Ps2 era JRPG's had some of the mos visually striking and memorable worlds:
Yasuyuki Honne is underapreciated, and to think he hasn't been art director in a game in 14 years a crime.
I'll just leave some Baten Kaitos Origins as well.
Doesn't make it justice though.
Baten Kaitos Origins was better.
Better story, dub, art, character development, etc.
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Apocryphon
Member
Agreed, it has good art. It was particularly impressive at the time.Apocryphon - Fear Effect looks far, far better than it has any right to given how simple the texturing and lighting treatment on the characters is. Fantastic stuff.
Reverend Speed
Member
I mean, I may be showing my biases here, but I think you could make a really great indie low-poly game using similar techniques for the characters today - maybe do some more 'painterly' texture backgrounds (eg. TF2) instead of the harsh renderings they originally used for Fear Effect. Like, most of the time you don't expect cel shaded characters in animation to have perfectly accurate shadowing (and indeed, surface cel shaders can often look more distracting than the static shadows on the characters bodies). And the facial flipbooks were effective. Getting off topic, though, I think...
Reverend Speed
Member
If you're talking fixed multicam ala Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, etc, then 'this, this, a thousand times this'. I mention that idea during the intro to the Fixed Camera Appreciation Society homepage. There's a value to presenting and restricting information to the player using the conventions of filmic cinematography - but it still somewhat conflicts with the control methods we have available.
There are some interesting experiments out there to solve some of those problems, but it remains a somewhat unexplored field in gaming. I'm not saying games need to be linear or tell stories, I'm saying there's still juice in the lemon of cinema that games have yet to begin... squeezing, I feel this metaphor has gone somewhere strange. =/
Fbh
Member
I see you're a man of culture
Yasuyuki Honne is underapreciated, and to think he hasn't been art director in a game in 14 years a crime.
I'll just leave some Baten Kaitos Origins as well.
Doesn't make it justice though.
Baten Kaitos Origins was better.
Better story, dub, art, character development, etc.
This part with the clouds is one of my favorite looking locations in games:
People always say pre rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles are meaningless now because they were just a solution to technical constrains that no longer exist.
But there's very few modern JRPG that artistically looks as nice as this, or Chrono Cross, or FFIX. I really think having limited locations and angles to work with made devs try to make each of them truly stand out
Reverend Speed
Member
Fbh
- So, my bias is more towards the rapid-cut aspect-to-aspect fixed multicam rather than the overview fixed cam you tend to see with JRPGs, but I'd agree that the scenes in some JRPGs are absolutely stunning.I'd argue that this comes from the ability with fixed cams for artists/designers to determine a specific framed composition. I love my third person brawlers and my first person shooters, but outside of a cutscene, those games are usually built around creating beautiful *environments* and objects rather than specific compositions. You CAN attempt to force the eye, you can take partial control of the camera, you can deliver a vista as you exit a tunnel etc. - but players are notoriously unwilling to follow cues - there's many a setpiece which has been unseen because the player is briefly mesmerised by the texturing on a cupboard. The thing is - when you don't have a fixed frame, you really need to also support the player looking in that way... whereas with fixed cams, even if it's realtime, you can put the budget where the player is looking with a little more confidence.
I think. Maybe. This is all theory.
That's a real pretty gif you just posted. =)
lostinblue
Banned
I remember very well testing my PVM's and Plasmas with that scene and how it looked amazing on a CRT. On the plasma as well.This part with the clouds is one of my favorite looking locations in games:
People always say pre rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles are meaningless now because they were just a solution to technical constrains that no longer exist.
But there's very few modern JRPG that artistically looks as nice as this, or Chrono Cross, or FFIX. I really think having limited locations and angles to work with made devs try to make each of them truly stand out
To Honne it was never about constraints or he would go the path of pre-rendering and call it a day. It was instead a means to an end, that scene was most likely roughly modeled in 3D, then painted over. I'm unsure of that part of the pipeline but they might have used After Effects as well for the fog animations and such.
He had this technique of avoiding empty/simple color (which is common in 3D) instead doodling every square-inch, and he was still getting better at it, like I said, I notice huge improvement from Chrono Cross to Baten Kaitos (Katen Kaitos seems like a shorter development period so not as polished as cross in parts, but it uses more background animation and no dithering with were generational leaps from PSone), then Baten Kaitos Origins seemed like was ready for a HD console.
He also has a crazy good use of color, he always did. Things are subtle "constrasty".
I would like remasters of those, specially knowing that as far as Chrono Cross Honne was drawing in semi-HD resolutions. Never under 1024x768 even back when he made Chrono Cross.
I kinda want to replay Baten Kaitos now. The english dub drives me crazy though, I know there's an undub, but I never managed to track it down.
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lostinblue
Banned
I don't think fixed camera impedes anything on any RPG series or any point and click game.
ADHD kids that started gaming on the 7th gen love their OTS cameras as much as their daily adderall in their lunchbox. That 45 FOV to save rendering time... much inmersion. Really elevated the character action genre as the latest god of war shows. Who needs a zoomed out panoramic view of the action when you can stare at Kratos back at all times? Someone is attacking Kratos from the back? Np! Make some on screen indicators flash. What kind of attack do I have to dodge? Who cares, just spam the dodge button and hope for the best.
Grade A gaming right there.
Grade A gaming right there.
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SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
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01011001
Banned
none of the MGS games have a fixed camera angle... they are simply topdown with some dynamic movements in some rooms and also all have first person views, which can also be used to aim starting with MGS2
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Reverend Speed
Member
Hope folks find this relevant -
The Fixed Camera Appreciation Society will be celebrating it's birthday on the 27th of this month with a raffle featuring keys for some fixed camera classics!
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/fixedcamera/announcements/detail/3378282226091446862
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to order enormous quantities of hopium for the supposed Alone in the Dark announcement this Friday...
The Fixed Camera Appreciation Society will be celebrating it's birthday on the 27th of this month with a raffle featuring keys for some fixed camera classics!
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/fixedcamera/announcements/detail/3378282226091446862
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to order enormous quantities of hopium for the supposed Alone in the Dark announcement this Friday...
tommib
Member
Prepare yourself for first-person.
Reverend Speed
Member
But, but, but that's... impossible...
RetroAV
Member
I absolutely hate fixed cameras in games! I want to see what I want to see, not what anybody else wants me to see! It's a game, not a movie! It's supposed to be interactive! At the very least that should include control of the camera, especially for 3D games! That's just my personal thoughts on the subject though, carry on.
tommib
Member
I absolutely hate fixed cameras in games! I want to see what I want to see, not what anybody else wants me to see! It's a game, not a movie! It's supposed to be interactive! At the very least that should include control of the camera, especially for 3D games! That's just my personal thoughts on the subject though, carry on.
Reverend Speed
Member
That's an absolutely valid opinion, of course. But I think there's value in having the developer being able to control the information available to the player in this way - and the end result can be incredibly atmospheric. Dunno why you'd think it wasn't interactive, though! =) Come along to our raffle and maybe you'll win something that will change your mind. =PI absolutely hate fixed cameras in games! I want to see what I want to see, not what anybody else wants me to see! It's a game, not a movie! It's supposed to be interactive! At the very least that should include control of the camera, especially for 3D games! That's just my personal thoughts on the subject though, carry on.
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RetroAV
Member
To me, it's perfectly fine to do that through cutscenes but not during gameplay. I want full control of the experience and not having that takes me out of the experience.
Reverend Speed
Member
I mean, not to be especially glib, but you probably wouldn't want full control of your health and lives and ammo in a game, right? Constraints can provide form for a game. Fixed cameras provide a different flavour of constraint and challenge. Man, we're getting into design discussions here. Probably off-topic...! Speaking of off-topic, have you heard about this Fixed Camera raffle that's happening soon?
tommib
Member
The restrictive angle and image composition is the experience in this case. Moving around a painting that you know was drawn to scare you and provoke a very particular reaction can be very effective.
Some of my biggest scares in videogames came from moving from one 2D angle to the next. One step forward and you realize that the room you thought was empty actually has a living breathing monstrosity sitting on a bench just looking at you. Full camera control can’t really replicate this in the same way.
My opinion, of course.
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Reverend Speed
Member
Well, I'm always reminded of how the licker was introduced in RE2 1998 vs. RE2 Remake. In 1998, you see it scuttle past a window in the corner of your eye. In the remake (a fine game, btw!), they put that window at the end of a long corridor, so the creepy half-seen moment is reduced to an in-your-face scare. Ehh. It's personal preference, but I know what I prefer.
nominedomine
Banned
It's still a pretty good solution to another constrain, budget.This part with the clouds is one of my favorite looking locations in games:
People always say pre rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles are meaningless now because they were just a solution to technical constrains that no longer exist.
But there's very few modern JRPG that artistically looks as nice as this, or Chrono Cross, or FFIX. I really think having limited locations and angles to work with made devs try to make each of them truly stand out
Look at how FFVII was able to tell it's story pretty well in 1997 yet for the "same" story to be told again in the way games are made now it's going to take more than a decade of development.
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Reverend Speed
Member
That's actually a really interesting game - fixed multicam Metal Gear Solid. I'm not usually a huge fan of pivot cams in fixed multicam games, but it's used to good effect here. Trying to remember if I've seen other fixed multicams using that trick... I should check our collection of the most complete lists of fixed multicam games known to humankind.One interesting example was Covert Ops: Nuclear Dawn. Could be the first "Alone in the Dark" clone ever to feature rotary cameras? (without using FMV like Time Commando, of course) Using a very weird implementation.
Where did you get that footage from, by the way? That's a really interesting demonstration of the tech in operation...!
emivita
Member
One interesting example was Covert Ops: Nuclear Dawn. Could be the first "Alone in the Dark" clone ever to feature rotary cameras? (without using FMV like Time Commando, of course) Using a very weird implementation.
Oh I remember this one. It's called Chase The Express in Europe for PS1. I have great memories of it, it's kind of MGS+RE's child.
Moses85
Member
Still love itI loved it back in the days.
I mean look at this shit
stranno
Member
It is the wireframe mode of the gpuBladeSoft plugin. Basically the plugin that did every single PS improvement (texture replacement, PGXP and many other stuff) like 10 years before the new emulators. Its wireframe mode has yet to be surpassed in any emulator/plugin.
ProgenitorCastle
Banned
Moss for VR is an intriguing concept for fixed camera because to me, it's like the evolution of it in a way because your head controls the fixed camera with the headset! It still feels fixed because there are limits to where you can look within the game, but you can still look and zoom into the scenes and such with your head movements, it's a great way to make the fixed camera interactive without sacrificing what makes the fixed camera great to begin with
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
I feel insulted
I love fixed camera angles, especially in ps1 rpgs and resident evil
Moving the cameras through the environments isn't the same as getting an amazing angle or shot every screen
Reverend Speed
Member
stranno
- Thanks for the reference for the plugin!
ProgenitorCastle
- I do like the idea of fixed camera and VR... there's a lot of potential for experimentation there. On the other hand, I'm really not a fan of leaning too hard on pivot cameras in fixed multicam games, so I'm a little conflicted there...! =D
solidus12
Tormented Souls is GREAT! I mean, there's a LOT wrong with it, but it does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of what made Resi1&2 & Silent Hill 1&2 so much fun to play. Maybe take a look at Alisa too - or perhaps wait for the approaching giant update...! (And if you're looking for more, well, there's always the Fixed Camera Appreciation Society lists...!)
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
I also like fixed camera angles because they very easily allow both 2d and 3d illustrations, which is great since it allows for more variety with the aesthetic. It isn't just 3d visuals, you can create hand painted drawings that can easily look better and have more artistic detail than most 3d environments out there.
RE and FFs 3d cgi illustrations are very well made and shot, but 2d illustrations have this charm to them that elevates the aesthetic of the rpg.
RE and FFs 3d cgi illustrations are very well made and shot, but 2d illustrations have this charm to them that elevates the aesthetic of the rpg.
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ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
I have a soft spot for fixed cameras or director controlled cameras. They can frame a scene in a completely different way to the standard first person or behind the shoulder/arse cams. Its even more refreshing these days as 3rd person games camera control is usually so boringly standardised now.
I miss the old Resident Evil and Final Fantasy pre-rendered backdrops as they framed the scene in a completely different way to how the modern games do it. I'd like to see it more.
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX:
REmake(taken by myself in Dolphin so a bit blurry as not in original res):
Final Fantasy's pre-rendered backdrops were so fundamental to its genre. I think this is one of the reasons that I regard FF X as the death of the franchise, a misstep so gigantic that it still hasn't fully recovered.
I still think fixed camera angles on FFVII Remake would have been even better than the game we got (and turn-based battles, but that's another topic).
That's amazing, time to follow this guy's work.
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Reverend Speed
Member
64bitmodels
- You can certainly create some fantastic visuals by painting on top of 3D layouts... see the original Alone in the Darks, see the Boku no Natsuyasumi series... and there was a Thai game from 2017 that I think has a really interesting '2D' style. From a gameplay standpoint, I think there's a few problems... but it's a really striking 'look', I thought.
Sadly, the images and videos on their sales page don't really communicate the style brilliantly... =/
I'm as big a booster as anybody for static cameras, but do you really think they were fundamental to that genre? That said, I'd love to see more games like Koudelka or Chrono Cross nowadays...!
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
I'm as big a booster as anybody for static cameras, but do you really think they were fundamental to that genre? That said, I'd love to see more games like Koudelka or Chrono Cross nowadays...!
Yes, for a couple of reasons.
- the fixed angles allow the kind of cinematic and narrative framing that made the games work so well in the transition to "3d" starting with VII and stretching to IX. Once they gave it up, we had mediocre and dull 3D worlds just like any other game... until maybe FFVII Remake where the tech finally caught up enough to make free-3D a bit more cinematic, but even with that remake it would be better to give up the over-the-shoulder view and let the camera be dictated by the narrative.
- fixed rendering was what allowed VII through IX to be massive and capture the scale of adventure one expects from the franchise. The FFVII Remake is a good example of how using fully live 3D environments necessarily means that the adventure has to be scaled down or split into a decade's worth of games in order to even come close to the original scope of adventure. FFVII Remake should have done something like RE Remake (the one that first debuted on Gamecube), if you ask me. They could have given us the original massive scope with beautiful prerendered backdrops.
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
FFX's camera angles were static though with very few exceptions, and console hardware is powerful enough that we can replicate the beauty of older cgi backgrounds in real time. Even ignoring that FFX had some prerendered backgrounds too (you probably never noticed, though)
Reverend Speed
Member
ResurrectedContrarian
- I'm definitely in favour of fixed cams as a means of framing shots in a dramatic fashion - and I can see how you might feel that losing that framing contravenes the spirit of the earlier 3D games. I do think some of the later Final Fantasy games look very pretty, but honestly... I don't play Final Fantasy games, so I can't really contribute here. =D Thanks for your points, they're interesting to consider...!
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ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
But we don't really get that outcome when the player is allowed to roam freely.
It's like the production of stage design: even if you do live rendering, having 100% fixed camera angles allows you to create the scenery to be viewed only from a specific angle, which permits all kinds of great tricks and optimizations, and stops from wasting time filling in out-of-frame ceilings / walls / other details. You can have amazing visuals if you treat it like a stage and use all the effects (lighting, movement, etc) you want from the specific angle alone.
Since they aren't bold enough to fully lock the camera and give us the stage play approach where every shot is calculated and nothing is wasted outside, games like FFVII Remake end up spending 5 years of development to give us only 1/20th of the original game's scope, and so much of that is useless filler areas where I walked down repeated corridors that looked all the same in order to give the "feeling" of adventuring even though it was just dull assets over and over through those areas.
Reverend Speed
Member
ResurrectedContrarian
- This is basically why I don't like pivot cameras in fixed multicam games. Fixed Multicam games which lean heavily on automatically panning the camera to follow the main character (often with the main character smack bang in the centre of the frame) tend to look very cheap to me.I love me some trucking shots, a creeping follow or a tense zoom, and I really dig carefully chosen static camera angles... but pivot cameras everywhere give me the impression that the 'cameraman' has no deliberate, intentional 'vision' of the scene. It looks like haphazard sports footage, rather than an authored interactive cinematic experience, employing the language of cinema for gameplay purposes.
Fixed multicam angles gives the developer the opportunity to entirely direct our eyes. Lean into that, and show us something beautiful...!
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
It still provides advantages over prerendrred like aging better thanks to being able to me more easily upscaled in emulation and rereleases. I never meant to say that free camera angles are better, just that prerendered backgrounds are useless these days, because when the consoles themselves can render them with ease whats the point? They only make sense for 2d illustrations.
There are 3d games that only model what you see- Sonic Unleashed is actually a really good example, seeing as how the camera angles are all determined by what section of the stage you're in. If the game had a free camera it'd take way more time to make as they'd have to accommodate for players looking everywhere.
It's also how the game is a looker despite being 14 years old- cutting down on all the unnecessary details allow devs to put all of the emphasis on the best looking parts. It's not exactly a fixed camera game, but it's such a good example where it manages to retain the cinematic angles of a game like RE while having the benefits of 3d (and being much faster paced too)
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SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
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