Cinematics and FFXIV

[Velo_Vandore]

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.

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.

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

*smile and nod*

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.

[Intaki]

I would be surprised if ARR had a fraction of the development budget the failed 1.0 did. If you want a reason for why things aren't as pretty as they could be, that's probably your answer.

[AlexionSkylark]

If people did that, we'd have to watch DERPLANDER in place of our characters on key points of the narrative.

I surely would dislike that a lot.

[RyuRoots]

"Final Fantasy as a whole has always pushed the envelope when it comes wonderful visuals."

Uh, no. Final Fantasy FMVs maybe, which seems to be what you want more of, but that's separate from what they do with the game engines which have been respectable, but never bleeding edge. And if you just want more FMVs...why? XIV isn't an ugly game, and there's a lot of story and lore and character here. If you'd rather have more dev time and money spent on cutscenes which couldn't show anyone's character instead then dear *god*, no. Yes, they were pretty and they were novel, but they didn't really add anything to the games other than some (admittedly entertaining) spectacle and are nowhere NEAR as important to final fantasy as moogles or chocobos. Nevermind that both of those two were a part of the series before FMVs even existed in games.

[myahele]

Maybe some action scenes that doesn't involve our character could have a CGI?

But as other's have said, it would be too expensive?

Also:

The cutscene in FBoB was SE's idea and I think Yoshi didn't like want it because it would take too much resources especially for something that not many will see

[Felis]

Maybe some action scenes that doesn't involve our character could have a CGI?

But as other's have said, it would be too expensive?

Also:

The cutscene in FBoB was SE's idea and I think Yoshi didn't like want it because it would take too much resources especially for something that not many will see

If I see it right , FCoB CE are still with ingame graphic, not a CGI. More polished than our standard CS, but still ingame graphic.

T13 CS Spoiler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzymmLPmBiQ

[myahele]

If I see it right , FCoB CE are still with ingame graphic, not a CGI. More polished than our standard CS, but still ingame graphic.

T13 CS Spoiler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzymmLPmBiQ

Oh, I was actually talking about:

The CGI of Loisoix vs Bahamut

[Felis]

Oh, I was actually talking about:

The CGI of Loisoix vs Bahamut

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

[Nyalia]

If I see it right , FCoB CE are still with ingame graphic, not a CGI. More polished than our standard CS, but still ingame graphic.

T13 CS Spoiler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzymmLPmBiQ

T13's opening CS has a neat combat scene done with in-game graphics. But, that's not what's being talked about.

(What I've said below isn't very spoilery, but I'm just going to throw the whole thing in a spoiler tag anyway just in case it bugs someone.)

The out-of-engine CGI cutscene in FCoB is at the end of T12, and anytime someone posts it to youtube, SE sends a C&D to have it taken down. One video managed to slip through by having it embedded at the end of a bunch of other stuff. It's not hard to find, but I'm not going to link it here. I won't deny that it's pretty darn awesome looking, but personally, I don't feel it added much to the game or the story being told. Especially since what actually happens in the scene has to be explained to you in a normal conversational CS that follows it.

In short, the out-of-engine CGI cutscene is totally extraneous and could have been left out without changing much, if any, of the dialogue and none of the plot would have been lost. I would have honestly preferred if they had taken the money they spent on that CGI CS and instead used it to improve the cinematography and overall quality of other story cutscenes in 2.4 and 2.5. Though, in my opinion, 2.5 did have a few good ones near the end.

[Catwho]

Not just expensive in terms of cost, but in terms of disk real estate. MP3 voice tracks can be compressed to about a meg a minute, and utilizing the in game engine means that cutscene content can be done very quickly with little disk space. Whereas high definition FMV content will quickly bloat a 20 minute cutscene into 200 MB, ten times what an in-game rendered cutscene would take. That adds up quickly in a game built on cutscenes.