It was never going to be a matter of "only" improving textures and lighting, because better textures and lighting make primitive models and rigging look even more obvious.

A really extreme example is, say, that time during the PS1/N64 era where developers decided to make a whole face a single texture on like, two triangles, so you get these monstrosities:



A less extreme example is how you can always tell it's Minecraft no matter how many shaders you throw on, because it's all pixelated blocks by the end of the day. :laugh: And slapping on "realistic" textures in Minecraft makes everything horrifying because it's still squares all the way down!

Quote Originally Posted by OgruMogru View Post
Most compelling reason I heard [but I am now paranoid I dreamt it!] is Yoshi P said that aside from aesthetics or appearances, it wasn't fair for him to gimp his developers progress/professional development by forcing them to stick to antiquated systems with no prospects to learn new technology.
actually now that you mention it, rigging bare-bones 2011 models ad-nauseum and handing those off to animators who then struggle really hard to get them to look good with bespoke animations and facial expressions in their old system is not very appealing for hiring graphics artists either... and on top of that, wasn't it A Thing that the hildebrand cutscenes were in large part for their animators to experiment with how hard they could push the game's current tech for use in later cutscenes? why even do that if they weren't severely limited by their current technology?