Cinematics and FFXIV

[Pterois]

Final Fantasy as a whole has always pushed the envelope when it comes wonderful visuals. And ever since the days of FF7 we have been wowed with cut-scenes showing our heros in the most bad ass of situations...



or the calm before the storm...



or some of the most heart breaking moments most here would never forget...



We have only a few examples of this in the FFXIV world...



and even those select few have us all wowed with the intricate battles and emotions...



emotions that i think would not have been captured with game-play graphics.

I know there was a shift in the way the FFXIV team deals with high quality situations (ex. the flower pot polygons) but i'm starting to feel like you guys might have gone to far in the opposite direction. You had to go back in order to build the game back up and I understand this. But since cut-scenes are pretty much as synonyms with Final Fantasy as moogles and chocobos I would really hope y'all would start considering rendering the really important, game-changing portions of the main story in this style. All my brain would let me see during the 2.55 cut scenes was how bad ass this could really look as our hero's one by one made their stand. I appreciate all the hard work you guys are putting into this game, and i know this request isn't a small one but i feel as though it is time to up the quality now.

[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.

[Pterois]

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.

I know they are "out-of-engine" (not game play) screen shots... thats the whole point lol, im saying for the huge cut scene events like 2.55 this game would really benefit from it. Also I used to be a motion graphics designer in the past so i am well aware of the time it takes to complete such a task, i just do print design now and im working on stuff for christmas already lol. But it is far from impossible since they knew what was gonna transpire in 2.55 forever ago. Just talking about big events... not every side quest here and there.

[Maleha]

Granted, even taking in engine cutscenes, recently I have had a long conversation with a friend about this: Having had a look at some of the story scenes from 1.0 out of curiosity the quality of cinematography is evident. The way the camera moves, your own character is emoting much more, actually feeling like they have an expression, just a lot of small things that make the cutscenes feel more alive. In 2.0 they scenes for the large part were not up to that standard. But I have to admit that the team has become progressively better, especially in camera work over the 2.0 cycle until now in 2.55. The only thing that is still a bit lacking is our character mostly only expressing themselves with facial expressions and turning their head, making them still feel like a motionless puppet, rather than an active participant. I know for the sake of allowing us to project whatever character we imagine it has to be very general, but a bit less passiveness could not hurt.

[Nuinn]

Lots of the 2.55 scenes have our characters in them. I would find it more "disrupting" (can't think of a better word >.<) to have them alternating from game engine to pre rendered as the scenes changed.

[Felis]

emotions that i think would not have been captured with game-play graphics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXmS...tailpage#t=737
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngv6QaqDIXg

[Pterois]

Lots of the 2.55 scenes have our characters in them. I would find it more "disrupting" (can't think of a better word >.<) to have them alternating from game engine to pre rendered as the scenes changed.

this is defiantly a good point... would only work if they could craete a means to read player data and render then in the scenes.

[Pterois]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngv6QaqDIXg

that's wonderful... i can do it too... Gaius vs. the Scions.

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.

[Kallera]

this is defiantly a good point... would only work if they could craete a means to read player data and render then in the scenes.

Sorta makes me wish stuff like crystal tools was more viable for major cutscenes. Whatever the solution is, I don't want our character to be limited with the same motions and handing invisible stuff over and over forever as their amount of usage gets them stale.

[Felis]

that's wonderful... i can do it too... Gaius vs. the Scions.

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.

And still done with gameplay graphic.