Something i have been wondering

# 1 02-10-2006 , 02:16 AM

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Something i have been wondering, in Video Games we have High Quality FMV Movies and what i have been wondering is how do they make those FMV Movies that are super high res and realistic looking?

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# 2 27-10-2006 , 01:40 PM

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not trying to be a smart@ss? but I think the answer is... they render it?

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# 3 27-10-2006 , 02:31 PM

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They would be pre-rendered much like a CGI film. You make all the scenes and animation, shove it into a render farm for a horrendously large ammount of time to get amazing graphics, piece each frame together in some media package then slap it into the game.

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# 4 27-10-2006 , 07:11 PM

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Now that i look at this i see i ddint frase this right. What i ment to ask is. in VG's we have the playable Avatar which is used to not only play but it also sometimes is used in a cutscene.

Dothack is a good example sometimes they'd use just the no mouth Avi and others would be the full CGI avi my question i guess is how do they make one look so high and one so low?

Am i making any sence?

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# 5 28-10-2006 , 06:47 AM

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Most of the time what I see happening is that the in game models (playable characters) are prerendered for cut-scenes. This allows the cut-scene to look more realistic or to have special effects that the game engine cannot achieve on the target machines (although this is quickly changing). The same model is then used in game but rendered using the game engine in real-time.

Some games create special versions of a scene specifically for cut-scenes (many game engines are becomming increasingly good at creating great vfx). They control exactly what you see, allowing them to increase the detail. Then they load a less detailed version for interactive play. These cut-scenes are not prerendered, but are actually rendering out in real-time.

If you mentioned a particular game perhaps we could be more specific. But most games include prerendered cut-scenes that use none of the game engines technology other than being able to play back a audio/video file.

...and that is how I saved the world.

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# 6 28-10-2006 , 07:21 AM

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low-poly (less detailed) model is used for in-game, hi-poly (more detailed) model is used for cut scenes... they just make two models for the same character... however, the scenes with the high resolution models are pre-rendered, so all the game has to do is play the movie file.

take for instance most of the final fantasy games... all the pretty cut scenes you see are pre-rendered movie files on the cd/dvd. the in-game characters are rendered on-the-fly using the game's engine.

as gaming systems get more powerful, however, character and object models can have more polygons, and engines can calculate more aspects (like bump maps, specular maps, per-pixel shading, etc.), thus making in-game graphics look more detailed, which is why lately fully rendered cut scenes have been replaced with animation sequences using in-game models and scenes.

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