Are pre-render based environments dead?

[user542745831]

yes, final fantasy 8 was very good looking, too, of course.

why shouldn't it be as simple as in the past or why should it be more complicated today to make games with prerendered backgrounds?

it's very unlikely of course, that resident evil 1 will be remade again, yes, but, why should it be more complicated to do a remake of this game with better looking characters, items etc. than on the gamecube and with prerendered backgrounds, rendered in 1080p instead of the resolutions psx and gamecube were using?

that's just an example, it could be a new resident evil game or a completely different game, too.

it's imaginable, that it would be more complicated if the whole prerendered gamestyle etc. would be reinvented or something like that with much more interactivity and so on.

but using it like resident evil 1 and 2 or final fantasy 7 and 8 for example just with much better graphics and 1080p resolution for the prerendered backgrounds and graphics and so on, shouldn't be that much more complicated, shouldn't it?

the game creators would have to pay more attention and put more effort into the background detail at 1080p of course.

at least it worked very well for resident evil 1 on gamecube with a very good result.

and at the start of resident evil 0 production resident evil 0 didn't look as good on nintendo 64 as it did later in it's final version on the nintendo gamecube, too .

seems as if there wouldn't be a problem to produce an awesome looking resident evil game on PS3 or Xbox 360 with prerendered backgrounds and the earlier gameplay.

i'm not a producer, so in the end i don't know something like this for sure.

and, as stated before, this is only an example, of course there could be other games, but resident evil and final fantasy are one of the better examples for very atmospheric and good looking games with prerendered backgrounds.

 

[Dominik D]

MegaRace benefited from pre-rendered backgrounds: http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/megarace-series
I think that pre-rendered backgrounds with some real time rendered details can be a viable solution for handheld devices where high quality 3D is not performant enough but video streaming with overlay is possible.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

why shouldn't it be as simple as in the past or why should it be more complicated today to make games with prerendered backgrounds?

I didn't really understand Fafalada's post but it seems that to properly light a scene dynamically (as in all of today's modern games) you need to keep track of more then just the RGB and z attributes leading to a significant increase in complexity compared to before.

 

[Nesh]

I kind of miss games with prerendered backdrops as well.

Resident Evil used to have an eerie and more cinematic feel I think due to the prerendered backdrops.

I understand that RE needed changes a lot, hence some of them we got on Resi4 and we will get in 5 are welcome, but they came at a sacrifice of the atmosphere and the survival horror which made the series so famous. I doubt the franchise would have been as big today if it didnt begin the way it did.

It is now extremely action oriented, into a degree that it is no longer considered a survival horror title, but a third person shooter

 

[user542745831]

yes, that's what i think and already said, too. the earlier games were much nicer and the prerendered backgrounds were very good looking, too. this whole gamestyle was or is much fun.

it's a pity now.

when i imagine the increase in overall graphics compared from resident evil 1 psx to resident evil 1 gamecube i think there is some loss that there are no similar games or successors to those games on PS3 or Xbox 360 today which are using the same gamestyle and prerendered backgrounds.

i can't stop thinking, that those games would look absolutely awesome and precious if the creators would put as much effort in it in todays generation as capcom did with the resident evil 1 remake for example in the last generation .

many guys on this forum are counting pixels and often find out, that games are running in smaller resolutions than 720p today on PS3 or Xbox 360.

but with prerendered backgrounds it should be more easy to produce really awesome graphics and very detailed backgrounds and characters, items and so on at full 1920 x 1080 with 60 fps, shouldn't it?

it would be nice to see how resident evil or final fantasy games would look today with such specs and this gameplay .

don't you think?

as already stated, somehow it's a pity now.

and nesh is absolutely correct, resident evil 4 and 5 somehow suck. they are no real resident evil anymore. there is no real horror anymore, no real puzzles and the story has become bad, too.

of course, resident evil 5 isn't out, yet, but, everyone should have seen from the trailers that it is like resident evil 4 and not like the earlier ones. unfortunately.

maybe this is no wonder because resident evil 4 has got very good reviews.

unfortunately.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

but with prerendered backgrounds it should be more easy to produce really awesome grapics and very detailed backgrounds and characters, items etc. at full 1920 x 1080 with 60 fps, shouldn't it?

Depending on how they're made, it would be no harder than 15 years ago. An artist draws them in natural media and you scan them in at whatever resolution you want. I guess these days a lot of artists would work with a graphics tablet screen and simulated media, but the time taken is basically the same. Rendering backgrounds in 3D would probably take as long as before as even though hardware has increased in performance, the quality and calculations have too, such that offline rendering still takes an age.

I think the only hope for prerendered backgrounds is stylized artwork. Getting realistic lighting and shading in a composite is hard, but if you overlay cartoon characters, a la Roger Rabbit, it's not a concern. Likewise the Raving Rabbids footage I linked to earlier shows not gunning for perfect photorealism, compromises work. You could use simplified geometry for shadowing and create a convincing composition.

 

[user542745831]

yes, i saw that video. but, don't take it personal, i wouldn't like such games.

it somehow looked bad, too.

realtime rendering maybe would have looked better in that paris scene and so on.

with what is shown in the video it looks cheap somehow and the objects doesn't fit the background .

furthermore it's not comparable to the gamestyle resident evil or final fantasy games were using with prerendered backgrounds. which was precious.

you're maybe right, that there is not much hope for new games which would use prerendered backgrounds like the earlier resident evil or final fantasy games did.

unfortunately.

there was so much detail and atmosphere coming with it.

some time in the future something like this will likely be possible with realtime rendering, but it seems as if it isn't possible today and with PS3 or Xbox 360.

another question:

you said, that the backgrounds would be drawn on natural media and then be scanned. aren't the backgrounds in the earlier resident evil games or final fantasy 7 and 8 for example computermade?

i asked that before in this thread: en.wikipedia.org states that the resident evil 1 remake and resident evil 0 are based on the unreal engine 2 on the nintendo gamecube?

is that really true?

 

[ShadowRunner]

... An artist draws them in natural media and you scan them in at whatever resolution you want...

I have been thinking of this for a long time with regards to a possible remake of FF7 for PSN (if the shocking announcement about FF7 thats supposedly coming out of the square party on 02/08/08 is a remake ill start break-dancing like a madman werever i hear it, most likely at work :smile. I have no real insight into game development but would it be likely that square would have ultra high resolution/detail copies of all the pre-rendered art in FF7 stored somewhere?
If so you would thing it would be relatively easy to create a port of the game using them, and bump up the 3d stuff also. Lighting probably wouldnt be too much of an issue as a cartoon style would fit well with the artstyle of the original (id actually prefer this rather than a move to the Advent Children style).
It would make the tons and tons of cash with relatively little effort! Also i think they could still make a full 3d remake if they plan to and not have a PSN release like that negatively effect sales of it, in fact i would expect it to make even more fans.

 

[user542745831]

yes, that could be possible.

but, not, that they look bad, but they look computermade.

don't you think?

maybe shifty geezer knows more about this.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Yes they do look computer generated but im pretty sure they would have been made at a much higher resolution and then downscaled to 480i (i think PS1 was actualy 240i), simply because it would be much easier to create the artwork this way. I would think the lower the resolution the harder it would be for the artists to get the details they would want on the screen as the amount of pixels they have to play with would be much less. I wouldnt be supprised if the original backgrouds were even greater than 1080p, and possibly of an infinate resolution depending on what was used to make them.
The only issue would be that the artwork would lack detail at higher res as the artists would have known the game would rendered at a specific res and may not have wasted time adding details that would not be seen, not clearly anyway. Having said that im sure it would still look great either way it would just look a little mor cartoony maybe.

 

[Iron Tiger]

Killer Instinct 1 and 2 had video backgrounds for most of the stages. They did some pretty good compositing of fire and smoke on those backgrounds, while the perspective of the camera would seemingly shift when you moved back and forth as the video playback changed direction. Parts of the stage could be interacted with as bitmaps were overlayed on top. Of course, the characters were also bitmaps, so the game was composed of all 2D elements.

When it was translated to the N64, the backgrounds were rendered in realtime, and some of the sharpest textures of any N64 game could be seen mapped to the background objects (while the character sprites were now a low-res, blurry mess). There was more interactivity with background elements and "light sourcing" applied to the player bitmaps. It's arguable whether the arcade version, with low res video backgrounds, looks better than the home version with realtime backgrounds.

I'd love to see a modern usage of video backgrounds. Highly-detailed realtime rendered characters composited on top might seem out of place, but with edge detect AA run via pixel shaders, they could be made to blend. If we're going for a cinematic feel, might as well drop the framerate to 24fps with motion blur and film grain overlays. The blur and noise in post processing should help blend the image together a little better, too.

I think games could be made with fixed or limited perspective using realtime rendered models of medium polycount with higher quality textures, and self-shadowing parallax maps. Limiting the perspective means you don't need to store textures for occluded or otherwise unseen sides of set pieces, so you'd have more available memory for higher res assets. For a unified shader architecture like the 360, low polycounts could balance out to more power for pixel shader effects.

 

[user542745831]

Just recently came across those following two videos for example:

Somehow that just makes you wonder what could be achieved in that regard with current hardware and at 1080p (or maybe even beyond 1080p) ?