CBU3 and fade-to-black cutscenes

[CStrife912]

Bad-faith personal attack aside, why is it that other AAA games don't need to do this while FF14 and FF16 do?

FF16 is a $70 AAA game where in half the cutscenes, the models' facial animations were as bad as Mass Effect Andromeda, and while Andromeda was mocked for that, it seems that FF16 escaped that fate because players' standards are extremely low when it comes to FF.

Not an attack in bad faith it’s just sadly we know who you are and you can’t mask that :P it’s why if we knew you were genuine we may take what you say with a more serious approach. To indulge your little comparison mass effect was like that all the time, 16 lip sync only went a little off with what I said before the B scene. Essentially using an unreal style of if audio is played then the mouth moves to be slightly accurate and it works for the most part. It helps where 16 has some very nice models (mainly for main cast) where as ME does not and with lighting etc it looks worse.Mass effect was also mocked for many things and that was just part of it, all games do this rpg wise because of sheer scope. You expect them to motion capture all cutscenes? Witcher 3 and even cyberpunk don’t have great lip sync…lips are a hard thing to make look natural.

It would be worse for the Japanese players where the lip sync this time is tied to the English audio so for them it’s not fitting at all. Doesn’t mean for them it’s a bad game. I play the yakuza games the dub or heck even the sub never matches the mouth. It is what it is in this instance.

Even starfield due out this year has the same level of lip sync mouth movement issues you’re presenting. I think it’s a case of games with a grander scope or way too much audio/dialogue vs something like last of us which is a curated experience where the cutscenes make up like 4 hours of the 12 hour experience so time etc can be adequately placed.

[Catwho]

Bad-faith personal attack aside, why is it that other AAA games don't need to do this while FF14 and FF16 do?

FF16 is a $70 AAA game where in half the cutscenes, the models' facial animations were as bad as Mass Effect Andromeda, and while Andromeda was mocked for that, it seems that FF16 escaped that fate because players' standards are extremely low when it comes to FF.

That example with Blackthorne is part of his optional quest line. 90% of the MSQ cutscenes in XVI are fully mocapped and lovingly rendered.

They just went with the standard pre-baked animations for the side content like this.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

Because watching characters eat in a scene that’s not beneficial or serving the plot really doesn’t need to be animated. The eating scenes in Endwalker were shown because the dev team probably wanted to show off the food graphics and physics, or they wanted to make the meal meaningful to the plot at that given time as they were preparing for the long road ahead.

Seriously, it’s not that hard to understand this, TheDecay. Please stop being negative and get a grip on your life. Not everything has to be complained about. Either you like the game, or just leave. Stop being a troll.

[TheDecay]

Because watching characters eat in a scene that’s not beneficial or serving the plot really doesn’t need to be animated. The eating scenes in Endwalker were shown because the dev team probably wanted to show off the food graphics and physics, or they wanted to make the meal meaningful to the plot at that given time as they were preparing for the long road ahead.

Seriously, it’s not that hard to understand this, TheDecay. Please stop being negative and get a grip on your life. Not everything has to be complained about. Either you like the game, or just leave. Stop being a troll.

What other $70 single-player title does this every other cutscene?

Not an attack in bad faith it’s just sadly we know who you are and you can’t mask that :P it’s why if we knew you were genuine we may take what you say with a more serious approach. To indulge your little comparison mass effect was like that all the time, 16 lip sync only went a little off with what I said before the B scene. Essentially using an unreal style of if audio is played then the mouth moves to be slightly accurate and it works for the most part. It helps where 16 has some very nice models (mainly for main cast) where as ME does not and with lighting etc it looks worse.Mass effect was also mocked for many things and that was just part of it, all games do this rpg wise because of sheer scope. You expect them to motion capture all cutscenes? Witcher 3 and even cyberpunk don’t have great lip sync…lips are a hard thing to make look natural.

It would be worse for the Japanese players where the lip sync this time is tied to the English audio so for them it’s not fitting at all. Doesn’t mean for them it’s a bad game. I play the yakuza games the dub or heck even the sub never matches the mouth. It is what it is in this instance.

Even starfield due out this year has the same level of lip sync mouth movement issues you’re presenting. I think it’s a case of games with a grander scope or way too much audio/dialogue vs something like last of us which is a curated experience where the cutscenes make up like 4 hours of the 12 hour experience so time etc can be adequately placed.

Except Witcher 3, Cyberpunk, and Starfield all have an excuse: they're vastly more open with MUCH more content and MANY more NPCs than FF16.

That example with Blackthorne is part of his optional quest line. 90% of the MSQ cutscenes in XVI are fully mocapped and lovingly rendered.

They just went with the standard pre-baked animations for the side content like this.

This is a flat out lie. There is just as much filler in the MSQ (like finding ship components for Mid) where the character animations are just as dead as Blackthorne's. The filler quests, both in the MSQ and in side quests have vastly poorer camera work and animations compared to the "highs" of FF16. The quality is extremely inconsistent even if you only look at the MSQ.

[Atelier-Bagur]

This is honestly nothing new with the gaming industry, in regard to the manually rendered vs pre-animation rendered animations and lip sync in cutscene heavy games.

Remember the PS2 days? Back in FFX and Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 (as well as other games), they'd swapped models constantly during cutscenes in order to save resources and time. Basically they'd give scenes with higher plot priority and presentation the high poly models where they're lip synced and all and then swap to the lower poly models where the mouths are just textures that flap when they talk along with pre-baked animations.

You also see this all over the place too once you actually start acknowledging this technique; Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil etc.

I think the issue is that during those games, the stylization of the models helped with making the quality somewhat consistent, while in modern era where we have much higher graphical fidelity in animations, the cost-effective method is a lot more jarring to notice because of the bigger dip in quality in the models and animations with cutscenes.

Also we were all dumb kids who didnt give two shits about such things probably so we didnt complain about it as much back then.

[DiaDeem]

And when we do animate Garha eating a Hamburger everyone complains about how resources are being wasted that could have went towards content.

Wasn't there someone also whining about the Buuz scene with Zero and Juluis?

[TheDecay]

This is honestly nothing new with the gaming industry, in regard to the manually rendered vs pre-animation rendered animations and lip sync in cutscene heavy games.

Remember the PS2 days? Back in FFX and Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 (as well as other games), they'd swapped models constantly during cutscenes in order to save resources and time. Basically they'd give scenes with higher plot priority and presentation the high poly models where they're lip synced and all and then swap to the lower poly models where the mouths are just textures that flap when they talk along with pre-baked animations.

You also see this all over the place too once you actually start acknowledging this technique; Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil etc.

I think the issue is that during those games, the stylization of the models helped with making the quality somewhat consistent, while in modern era where we have much higher graphical fidelity in animations, the cost-effective method is a lot more jarring to notice because of the bigger dip in quality in the models and animations with cutscenes.

Also we were all dumb kids who didnt give two shits about such things probably so we didnt complain about it as much back then.

This whataboutism occludes the key issue: FF16's normal cutscenes feel far more budget and low quality than other AAA games. Every game studio cuts costs, sure, but FF16 does it in a way that is incredibly obvious and in-your-face about it. Like the fact that no city is explorable, the fade-to-blacks, the insane amount of texture swap enemies, the dialogues where the NPC is only voiced for the first few words...

[SenahPanipahr]

This is honestly nothing new with the gaming industry, in regard to the manually rendered vs pre-animation rendered animations and lip sync in cutscene heavy games.

Remember the PS2 days? Back in FFX and Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 (as well as other games), they'd swapped models constantly during cutscenes in order to save resources and time. Basically they'd give scenes with higher plot priority and presentation the high poly models where they're lip synced and all and then swap to the lower poly models where the mouths are just textures that flap when they talk along with pre-baked animations.

You also see this all over the place too once you actually start acknowledging this technique; Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Resident Evil etc.

There are plenty of modern games that render their cutscenes in realtime that limit the number of shortcuts they take; Death Stranding and Marvel's Spider-Man are about half as old as FFXIV, and do some pretty fancy things -- the former limiting itself and picking and choosing when to spend extra resources. I don't think anyone truly takes issue with items disappearing into a magical, infinite backpocket, but them rarely existing at all feels a bit cheap, as does the same old prop being recycled time and again (the same old book model appears time and again, even when it's core to a story element of Heavensward).

The weapon animations are evidence enough they can handle this but seemingly choose not to do so in most cases. For every forgettable piece of levelling gear there's many unique quest items with recycled models, or no model at all.

[Atelier-Bagur]

This whataboutism occludes the key issue: FF16's normal cutscenes feel far more budget and low quality than other AAA games. Every game studio cuts costs, sure, but FF16 does it in a way that is incredibly obvious and in-your-face about it. Like the fact that no city is explorable, the fade-to-blacks, the insane amount of texture swap enemies, the dialogues where the NPC is only voiced for the first few words...

My brother in Christ did you not read what I posted here? You are so annoying, I literally said the exact same thing and have agreed that it's very jarring for that particular reason.

[TheDecay]

My brother in Christ did you not read what I posted here? You are so annoying, I literally said the exact same thing and have agreed that it's very jarring for that particular reason.

Yes, and you made it sound like it's an issue with all modern games. It's not. FF16 did it far worse than other modern games.