Cinematics and FFXIV

Having finally seen them, in my opinion, the cutscenes at the end of 2.55 are wonderfully done and those are done in-engine. I hope to see more stuff like that in 3.x!

I like the Hildebrand cut-scenes, they really push the limits of the character models to cartoonish proportions. the story is a fun mix of Inspector Clouseou and Inspector Gadget.

I think the in-game graphics are decent enough for this stuff, but with DX11 they have the chance to use a lot of cinematics effects like depth of field and more advanced AA methods (because frankly, FXAA doesn't look to good) without impacting performance too much.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

Neither FFXI nor FFXIV has done these "out of engine" cutscenes for anything other than bumpers and trailers for things like expansions. 1.0 is actually the exception in that it has an ending cutscene.
These trailers take a long, LONG time to make, and are wholly impractical for MMO development cycles.
And, to point out, every single example you just showed is an out-of-engine cutscene.

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Incorrect. Theres a lengthy CGI cutscene in final coil.

Gameplay > Graphics.

Three important questions I ask myself before playing a game:

Is the text legible? (Assuming reading is involved)
Is the story captivating? (cliff-hangers, red herrings, plot twists, etc)
Is Gameplay interesting? (fight mechanics, abilities, etc)


I get that Final Fantasy is known for its "best" graphics in games, however the MMOs are kind of an exception to this rule...now that being said would I mind a HD texture pack later on down the line for PC players? No, I wouldn't. But do I want them to put graphics as a priority over gameplay and story development? No, that I do not want.

My two cents.

In A Realm Reborn, dynamic camera movements and motion-capture were vastly reduced and replaced with static camera shots, scarce zoom-ins and actions executed through nothing but sets of pre-coded emotes. Lots of scenes involve nothing but the character walking over and staring at the NPC as their mouth flaps open and closed for a minute, to then give the "stoic nod" even Thancred mocks us about.

Seriously, the big nerf of cinematics and ARR is revolting. One has but to youtube any XIV 1.0 cutscene to realize that. I feel my character has been turned into a robot compared to how alive they looked in 1.0 cutscenes. It's not even the graphics, it's the character and camera animation that needs a big rework. That SE didn't even bother until it came to the end of 2.55 cutscenes (those ARE well done, though camera is still static MOST of the time, at least the character animations are noteworthy there) is kind of offensive to me as a long-standing fan.

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Originally Posted by myahele

Oh, I was actually talking about:

The CGI of Loisoix vs Bahamut

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This is an extended version of the 1.23 ending, not a CS ^^

the problem with the ARR CS is not CGI or not CGi, but that they miss the old spirit of the 1.x CS.
Not the graphic, but the camera moves, the action and the animations. The CS in ARR are most time too stiff and too impersonal.

We need something like this again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0UfrACtqdM

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Originally Posted by Pterois

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h8TKeXk5eA

This is about a million times better than any of the cut scenes in 2.55. However this is no longer how things are done, that was back when the curving bullets probably had more polygons than our PC's now lol.

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The ending cutscene of the current storyline is actually more action packed and cinematic than normal and arguably on par with that one. I was also really pleased with the amount of voice acting in the recent story cutscenes. I hope we'll get more of this and less bla bla bla + stock emote cutscenes.

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"Thank you hero of light, thank you, thank you, must needs, aetheric combobulation, prithee, prithee, did i mention you're awsome? thank you... thee"

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*smile and nod*

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Regarding cgi cutscenes with your character in, it's a bit too much. Rendering those high quality scenes takes a farm of high end pcs hours / days to render. Firstly, which pc would render the scene again? The players PC would either take too long or simply not manage this, and if square were to undertake this for every player they would need enormous resources which would be a huge waste / impossible. Secondly, the players the player character models are lower detail than those in the cgi cutscenes / adverts - the models / tetxures in the cutscenes are given much care and attention by some of the best cg artists in the world. They could never create every character combination in such detail. If the player character models as they are were pre-rendered into a detailed cgi scene they would look better than in engine due to lighting and other effects, but still noticeably out of place compared to the rest of the scene.

That said, I share the desire to see more cgi cutscenes!!! Single player Final Fantasy games are speckled with a nice evenly distributed number of these and in fact they are often a big part of the motivation for me to continue to play. It would be great if we could have a few more cgi scenes at parts of the story which don't need to directly involve our character (i.e. a new primal appearing, introduction to new characters / new area's, important events that our character isn't present (or in shot) for). Perhaps the ending story scene of each major patch would be a good point to slip in a juicy cgi scene.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Incorrect. Theres a lengthy CGI cutscene in final coil.

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i'd actually argue that one. It's less an independent cutscene and more an extension of the pre-existing cutscene. It's very clear they made the FCOB out-of-engine cutscene at the same time as the End of an Era cutscene. The fact that some of the details don't completely mesh with the in-engine cutscenes is evidence of that to me. They even have it that way on the YouTube channel now.

I don't think they should spend money on more beautiful cutscenes when they are fine. I'm sure there's other things Yoshi needs to fix which I won't elaborate here since there's tons of threads about issues.