Cinematics and FFXIV

[Bluevann]

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.

[TinyMonster]

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.

[Pterois]

the most important thing i'm try to say here is that with in-game scenes we click through, or could conceivably walk away from and come back to later (except a few scenes), the sense of being there and experiencing whats happening is kinda lost because they have to lay down some generic ass background music and sacrifice timing (which is very important in even telling a joke) kinda like if you had to click through the dialog in a movie lol, the impact would be lost on a lot of things. i don't mind reading at all but for scenes that feel like they are ment to be more of a video... just go all out. regardless of how much time it take, this game will be one of SE's bigger money makers soon so it kinda warrants it.

and yes, while the vid at the end of t12 is an "extension" of the ARR intro... it is still the conclusion of the coil of bahamut and is a good example of what i'm talking about. and it wouldn't have come close to that amount of epicness if it were in-game graphics.

[Velo_Vandore]

and yes, while the vid at the end of t12 is an "extension" of the ARR intro... it is still the conclusion of the coil of bahamut and is a good example of what i'm talking about. and it wouldn't have come close to that amount of epicness if it were in-game graphics.

So this cutscene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xOOFCltZuc is actually shown in game after beating Turn 12? I agree this is an awesome treat for completing coil (wish i hadn't spoilered it by watching on youtube). Basically a few more fantastic scenes woven into the game progression like that would be great and in my opinion well worth the time spent working on.

[Pterois]

So this cutscene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xOOFCltZuc is actually shown in game after beating Turn 12? I agree this is an awesome treat for completing coil (wish i hadn't spoilered it by watching on youtube). Basically a few more fantastic scenes woven into the game progression like that would be great and in my opinion well worth the time spent working on.

yep, i have yet to beat t9 myself but the shear amount of study needed to clear these fights kinda spoils themselves which is unfortunate... still epic non the less. pure goosebumps when he goes full DBZ lol

[Pterois]

looks like i'm not the only one asking this question now.... huge Q&A about cinematics at the later half of the letter from the producer live XX

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...67#post2919167

..with a whole bunch of insight on the process.

We will very likely not be seeing any out-of-engine cutscenes for the game ever again.

and why would you want to be even remotely correct in saying this??? it's just depressing Given what im reading in this most recient letter i'm gonna have to disagree with you.

[Felis]

and why would you want to be even remotely correct in saying this??? it's just depressing Given what im reading in this most recient letter i'm gonna have to disagree with you.

Have read it and it is mostly about the 3.0 opening and how they began to work on the 1.0 ending during summer 2011. Expect the next GC movie to be the 4.0 opening, but not a ingame CS.

[Izsha]

Each cinematic they have made takes roughly a year start to finish.

We aren't just gonna get them tossed at us willy nilly. You get one or 2 with the base game. And generally 1 per expansion. Check out the blizzard games cinematics. It's the same deal there.

People see a 1 min pretty clip in a game and don't realize how absurdly expensive and time consuming they are to make. High quality fully rendered cinematics are mind bogglingly expensive to make. How many millions of dollars did it cost to make avatar? And the majority of that cost was CG creation. WoW movie coming out next year was filmed a year ago, but they are doing EIGHTEEN MONTHS of post production stuff.

Requests like this are so unrealistic when you realize what it takes to make them. There is a VERY GOOD reason games use their own in-game engines to create 99% of their cut scenes.

[Enkidoh]

Each cinematic they have made takes roughly a year start to finish.

We aren't just gonna get them tossed at us willy nilly. You get one or 2 with the base game. And generally 1 per expansion. Check out the blizzard games cinematics. It's the same deal there.

People see a 1 min pretty clip in a game and don't realize how absurdly expensive and time consuming they are to make. High quality fully rendered cinematics are mind bogglingly expensive to make. How many millions of dollars did it cost to make avatar? And the majority of that cost was CG creation. WoW movie coming out next year was filmed a year ago, but they are doing EIGHTEEN MONTHS of post production stuff.

Requests like this are so unrealistic when you realize what it takes to make them. There is a VERY GOOD reason games use their own in-game engines to create 99% of their cut scenes.

^Exactly. Pre rendered cinematics or FMV scenes are expensive and time-consuming to produce, time and money that could be better spent developing actual game play, with a scene that could have a pre-rendered cinematic could just have a cutscene rendered in the actual game engine for far cheaper, and pretty much has the same effect. The End of an Era trailer was different, as that wasn't even in 1.0 itself - it was hosted separately on SE's Youtube channel that a link to was added onto the 1.0 launcher immediately after 1.0 went offline.

Also the earlier FF games kind of abused FMVs to the point it kind of made players expect all future FF games to be the same way, not realizing the whole original idea for FMVs in FFVII in the first place was just a clever way to hide data loading off the disc by the console (this is why FFVII particularly had a lot of odd FMVs of mundane events, like a lift going up and down - it was a glorified animated loading screen).

Besides, we're meant to be playing a game here, not watching an interactive movie - you want the later, go play FFXIII.