Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[BelgianRofl]

There are several levels of prerendering.
You can prerender a whole movie, you can preprender just the effects, you can create a scene with an engine and then prerender it with additional effects.

In all those cases a movie is considered prerendered. That tech demo is evidently prerendered, just looking at the effects and how they interact with characters and environment shows that.

The vast majority of posters in this thread has evidently told you that you're wrong. The graphica of the game look fantastic. Even reviewers that you brought up so many times (erroneously) disagree with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgtZvn5c4e4

I see what is causing your confusion. The FFXI Characters being relatively low-poly combined with not casting shadows makes you believe that the background is superimposed pre-rendered CGI because the lighting effects lead you to believe that that level of detail was unattainable real-time in 2005. Am I correct in assessing your (albeit wrong) position?

Unfortunately for your argument, the structures in the demo don't cast shadows either. There's just nice water reflection effects. Which just furthers my point that water reflection make the game look a WHOLE hell of a lot prettier, and is an effect which uses minimal resources (think waverace 64) - especially compared to ambient occlusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xrReCeiZPc An example of what a modern tech demo looked like in 2005.

Edit: ^this 2005 3dmark video makes one wonder where SE got the idea for Limsa's cutscene