Lackluster Graphics in FFXIV

[Abriael]

The thread is not about an overall lack of graphics in the game. It's about repeating textures, lifeless water tech, and lousy shading. Check the OP

The thread is about "lackluster graphics". The graphics aren't lackluster. It's that simple.

Also, I was comparing a vastly superior tech-demo to another inferior tech-demo that you believe is pre-rendered LOL

Have you ever seen a game that looks nearly as good as a tech demo? Crysis (/and not even what we've seen so far of Crysis 2) doesn't look nearly as good as the cryengine tech demos, and the same works for basically every other game that has been preceded from tech demos of the engine, or of the concept.

Tech demos do NOT have the same restrictions as a full game. Developers can focus the whole resources of the machine on a single scene. That does all the difference of the world.

As for the "vastly superior" tech demo, you confuse superiority with difference. The benchmark demo actually shows a lot of scenes, all separate, and each of them is actually quite a lot simpler and smaller in breadth and number of mobiles/effects than the Square Enix one.

All the scenes also focus on a single element, on very few elements. None of those show a whole city that includes architecture, vegetation, water, moving characters all in the same scene, with an extremely long field of view.

The only scene in that whole benchmark that is comparable in breathd and variety is the last one.
And in that scene, compared to the SE one:
1: the field of view is shorter and/or obstructed
2: the water is reflective, but much simpler in rendering, and reflects only environment and not mobile.
3: both architecture and environment are very simple, not only much simpler than the SE demo, but also of FFXIV itself.
4: there's only one mobile.
5: natural lighting is way simpler.

To put it down simply, it's not only not vastly superior, it's actually vastly inferior.

Yes. Characters cast shadows correctly on themselves, other characters, and the environment. unfortunately, that is not the point of discussion. It's the environment that doesn't cast shadows. If it did, it would drastically futureproof this game.

The point of discussion is that the tech demo shown has several prerendered elements.