/vr/ - Retro Games

*/blog

Logical bickering about feasibility? What's not feasible about them anymore?

>>8502842
It's a pre-emptive measure to avoid certain autists who get triggered when they read the words "pre-rendered".

>>8502839
hardware nowadays is more than powerful enough to render any background in real time, the thing is that nobody really makes games in that style any more

>>8502865
>hardware nowadays is more than powerful enough to render any background in real tim
People say this but I see all games looking the samey because they all use the same 2 engines and tools.
>the thing is that nobody really makes games in that style any more
That's the thing, with the pre-rendered technique, style isn't limited to what the engine can do. In some ways it's more flexible, artistically speaking.

I love pre-rendered backgrounds. It allows for so much creativity, style and uniqueness.
It's funny how much we lost with progress.

>>8502839
How resource-intensive is it to actually make pre-rendered backgrounds? Like how large would the team need to be, for say an indie studio?

>>8502839
Me too,just look at something like riven it's beautiful, i guess it's easier to just make some shit in unreal engine

>>8502891
I mean that isometric 3d fixed camera angle

A lot of what I miss about this kind of thing is just fixed camera angles. The way each screen is laid out like a composition creates a completely different atmosphere.

Fixed cameras are just no longer in fashion anymore unfortunately. Shit, even 2D fighting games move the camera every which way during supers now.

>>8502929
>How resource-intensive is it to actually make pre-rendered backgrounds? Like how large would the team need to be, for say an indie studio?

back in the day, the best pre-rendered BG's were produced using SGi workstations. Square used those machines for just about everything PS1 era. Capcom used them for the classic Resident Evil games. Just two examples. To make pre-rendered BG's today, you could go the free route and try to make some using a program like blender. Or spend more on a commercial software package like Maya, or Studio 3D Max, or whatever. Making 'low resolution' 640x480 renders shouldn't be too hard. You just need the talent and the time to do them. I don't know about truly emulating the look of SGi renders though. Maybe with some clever photoshop doctoring?

I'm very salty that the pre-rendered era coincided with HDD storage coming at a premium so nobody kept the uncompressed source files. I'd love a reskinned Donkey Kong Country that looked like the promo renders.

>>8502841
*/fart

>>8502929
All the images in myst were rendered using macs from the early 90s ,I think it took like a week to process 1 image.

Surely it's more feasible to do it today.

>>8502839
>>8502891
The "varied" look of different prerendered games from mid 90s to mid 2000s comes more from the rapid evolution of 3D art resulting in constant new techniques and features being developed and implemented CONSTANTLY than from the actual conscious art direction and stylistic choices. Another factor of course is the different levels of competence of the art department involved: of course your average Resident Evil would look better than a half-assed Clock Tower sequel for example.

At some point the evolution plateaued and slowed down as standard practices solidified into a solid common ground developers could rely on, allowing them to move resources away from "how to render" and into "what to render": less about the container, more about the content. Calling the modern 3D look "sameish" is fair, just like live action movies done in a same time period look sameish really.

There's still plenty developers who focus on distinctive visual styles; it's just that it's not anymore a natural necessity resulting of the teams trying to keep up with the state-of-the-art.

>>8502986
>All the images in myst were rendered using macs from the early 90s ,I think it took like a week to process 1 image.
>Surely it's more feasible to do it today.

From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst
> The game was created on Macintosh computers, principally the Macintosh Quadra 700, using the HyperCard software.[20] One of the first major discoveries Cyan had was how effective 3D rendering software was compared to hand-drawn figures that they had used on their previous titles, making it easy to create the worlds of Myst. Additionally, 3D rendering allowed them to use color, something lacking from their previous titles. Robyn generally focused on rendering out the environment using StrataVision 3D, with some additional modeling in Macromedia MacroModel,[20] while Rand would place those images into HyperCard to link them up and test the puzzle aspects.[12] Overall, Myst contains 2,500 frames, one for each possible area the player can explore.[20] Final images for the game were then edited and enhanced using Photoshop 1.0.[20]

Something like this should be pretty easy to do (not counting the talent) when it comes to rendering at least. Looking up Riven, it seems like they used 'softimage' for Mac.

Check Final Fantasy X, OP. You'll love how much work was put in every detail of each hut.

>>8502929
It's not really an issue of resources. It's that the type of look people really want is fairly localized to the SGI Workstations of the 90s. So it's kind of like asking a modern CGI artist to deliberately back off on what they could technically do with their modern machines and make stuff that looks "worse." It'd be like asking Pixar to make a new movie that looks like Toy Story 1.

>>8502929
Making low-resolution static renders in the style of mid 90s to early 2000s games now would take exactly the same skill and manpower than producing realtime scenes for even a low-end modern 3D engine.

>>8502968
In the 80s and 90s there was such thing as graphics workstations, but today the hardware is basically the same as any high-end PC really. Just lots of RAM and a decent GPU.

Chrono Cross >>8502956 used almost no "pure" 3D renders by the way; 3D was the starting point since they needed the geometry for the in-game environment/camera computations anyway, but almost every background had a heavy coating of hand-painted detail and tweaking at least.

>>8503019
>It'd be like asking Pixar to make a new movie that looks like Toy Story 1.

In all fairness, Pixar didn't use SGi workstations for their hardware. They used a small army of Pentium PC's with their own 'renderman' software. They could probably recreate that TS1 look using current Renderman. The SGI workstation stuff is probably harder to replicate, just because of the software. Even though there's hardware that far surpasses what the SGI workstations from the past could do.

>>8503023
>the same skill and manpower than producing realtime scenes

ESL-kun, do you mean that doing 90s style stuff would be as hard as doing modern CG? If so, the word you're lookin for is "as" and not "than", "than" does not make sense in this context.

>>8503019
>>8503037
It's amazing how many times the "SGi" thing gets thrown around in these threads as if it meant anything by itself, but in the end it was just hardware really. The "look" came from the state of the art at that time (read: its limitations), as well as the distinctive look of NURBS surfaces versus subdivision mesh geometry, which would become the standard later. Even Pixar didn't switch to the latter until after Toy Story 2 iirc.

Raytracing didn't really implement bounce lighting until much later in the early 2000s; Global Illumination is what really blew up the whole realism thing open, removing much of the "hand crafted" lighting work that was required until then and which resulted in WILDLY different visual styles depending on the people involved (knowledge, meticulousness and good artistic taste weighted more than the render software doing its magic). In that way, it was a fascinating time for the industry, but there's no tragedy in moving beyond that as the technology advances. That same savvy can be still applied on top of what the technology can do by itself to elevate the whole thing even further and dwelling on "the good old times" is just generalized anxiety about change.

>>8502965
There are modern games that do fixed cameras here and there, and I still think they look really neat. Luigi's Mansion 3 and Tormented Souls are probably the best examples.

>>8503089
People are just using shorthand to convey what they mean. I don't think anyone is saying there was something unique about SGI Workstations under the hood beyond just really good hardware by 90s standards. But since most everyone in gaming used those machines the signature look of the era gets linked to them.

>>8502839
What kind of games would you make?

>>8503089
I don't think it can be written off as just fear of change. Technological limitations can create unique artforms that, despite disappearing because of modern advances, aren't rendered totally obsolete by default. Modern cartoons aren't just "better" versions of old ones. They're different enough that it's perfectly understandable why someone could appreciate both as separate artistic subclasses under the umbrella of animation. Cuphead is a great example of this. Just because something like Killer Instinct was the best 90s tech could do at the time doesn't mean it's artistic merit is gobbled up by modern gaming by virtue of CGI being "better" today.

>>8502839
>it's another boomer says that his childhood thing is better with anecdotal evidence thread
do you retards have no self-awareness

>>8502839
High resolution 8K lossless background art AND full motion video animated backgrounds? You're just asking for a fucking huge install size

>>8503145
>It's another "liking old things is stupid" post
>on a board specifically about appreciation of old things
why are you here?

>>8503152
you can still appreciate things while acknowleding their shortcomings this crusty boomer is just nostalgic

>>8503080
Sorry, I just killed Eburu over a zebra leg; my upcoming ritual trial weights on my mind.

>do you mean that doing 90s style stuff would be as hard as doing modern CG?
Actually, what I meant to say in answer to >>8502929 is that doing prerendered art with modern tools wouldn't really involve more OR less resources than doing the same scenes for realtime rendering; optimization definitely has a place, but it's increasingly less vital.

>>8503089
>It's amazing how many times the "SGi" thing gets thrown around in these threads as if it meant anything by itself, but in the end it was just hardware really. The "look" came from the state of the art at that time (read: its limitations), as well as the distinctive look of NURBS surfaces versus subdivision mesh geometry, which would become the standard later. Even Pixar didn't switch to the latter until after Toy Story 2 iirc.

I mean, that SGI produced images have a distinct look to them that make them stand out from other software packages from the time. I think it was a combination of hardware and software unique to the system. Maybe it can be replicated in software? But i would imagine a lot of tweaking is needed to make things look 'authentic 90's SGI'.

>>8502865
not only the style but people need to catch on to the fact that an image is a piece of visual art with a point of view, and any other angle on it necessarily destroys the magic feel which comes from meticulously tuning every light and object in the scene to that point of view. Free camera=no magic, okay? Just like an art photo or movie frame vs some footage of the same location

>>8503145
>people articulate what it is they like about a particular thing
>this cunt shows up and starts "muh childhood"ing at people
>never justifies his own stance that the past is bad because "it just hecking is, okay"
Every time.
Fuck off, mate. Alright?

>>8503204
>hardware can let us run some beautiful pre-rendered scene in real time
>the scene in real-time

>>8502891
>That's the thing, with the pre-rendered technique,
What do you mean by "pre-rendered technique"?
With Final Fantasy as the reference point (since you're being vague and making a pile of assumptions otherwise), it means using a 3D model (or perhaps a pixel sprite) to navigate a fixed-perspective image in quasi-3D (it looks 3D, but from a gameplay perspective it is no different whatsoever from isometric or top-down 2D). Final Fantasy used this technique strictly for navigating static environments where you might potentially interact with an NPC, find treasure, or trigger an event. They would also (rarely) blend static backgrounds into Full Motion Video sequences using the same graphical style.

What kind of game would you want made using this graphical approach? Unlike 3D, wanting beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds significantly constrains the viable gameplay options.

>>8503204
>Free camera=no magic, okay?
So again, what kind of game?

>>8503134
I agree that creativity borne of constraints should be appreciated; but the key is that the real worth lies mostly IN the creativity, in the ingenuity of producing a solution that circumvents limitations. The actual solution in formal terms might not be actually imbued of lasting intrinsic value after the limitations disappear, and simply adopting those limitations by choice (and the already existing solutions as simply a method) might not amount to something really worthwhile.

The "solution" becoming an unique standalone art form by its own merit is something that CAN happen though: pixel art is a clear example of this, but I like your animation analogy. Calling Killer Instinct's CG visuals a "standalone" artistic approach on its own right is kind of a stretch though; there's no real insult in considering that sort of thing the first steps of a medium in its infancy.

>>8502839
>>>2357166
>>>8494190
How many threads do you techno illiterates need to discuss the same thing?

>>8503290
Probably the same kinds of games that were made in the past. Games that prioritize building an atmosphere and painting pretty pictures over full player control. RPGs, adventure games, survival horror. You could also apply it to any game that uses a side-on or top-down perspective, like platformers or classic Zelda games.

One game that was inspired by Myst, but is also a horror CGI game, is D (or D's Dinner?) by WARP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7G1NuWciEE&t=2171s

I remember reading in an old issue of GameFan that Kenji Eno said that they rendered the entire game on some Amiga's. Which is very much on the 'low end' of CG back in the 90's. But cool never the less.

I'm pretty sure Cave shmups still use pre-rendering techniques, and they look pretty nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5_jPOaLGFM

>>8503327
>I remember reading in an old issue of GameFan that Kenji Eno said that they rendered the entire game on some Amiga's. Which is very much on the 'low end' of CG back in the 90's. But cool never the less.

Amiga 4000 to be exact. I assume more than one.

>>8503393
>Amiga 4000 to be exact. I assume more than one.

and they probably used something like Lightwave:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeAXARjQbsA

I don't know what they used to create EO, possibly a Windows machine?

>>8503097
>Tormented Souls
Song of Horror also uses fixed angles.

I mean just to play COD these days is over 100gb install size. An actually good game that takes up alot of space would be fine.

>>8503183
As already mentioned, the SGi workstations were "just" the hardware. Back then, the computing power necessary for intensive 3DCG work was way beyond what regular consumer PCs could handle, and these were expensive high-spec rigs intended for the job.

The actual software was PowerAnimator by Softimage (a precursor to Maya), which could run in various computers of appropriate architecture and specs. You could say that it provided the "look", but in the end everything amounted to how 3DCG in general worked around that time after a couple decades of life: NURBS models mostly, only direct raytraced lighting, rudimentary bump and/or other texture submaps etc. Approximating the look with modern software would be mostly a matter of disabling features 2bh.

>>8502839
These can be outdone in real time with ease, the only value they hold is that they are designed as a complete scene where the designer knows the angle you will look at it from and can draw your eye around the scene, the limited display space and camera angle is also used to slowly introduce some features, Xenosaga maintains this and it's real time scenes on the PS2 regularly blow the fuck out of what you get from games on the PSX, the added depth in scenes is used well and what you've really lost is this approach to level design, and not pre rendered art itself.
Constraints do produce better art.

>>8503445
>The actual software was PowerAnimator by Softimage (a precursor to Maya
What the fuck are you talking about, Softimage had only one brand Softimage 3D, later XSI
PowerAnimator was a different company

Great example of how it could have been if pre-rendered made it to prominence beyond 5th gen.

>>8503520
Oh fuck I meant Alias, not Softimage. Sorry, Autodesk gobbled up so many companies that I just stopped telling them apart at some point.

>>8503319
>RPGs
I'll bet if you go digging you can find indie RPGs using pre-rendered backgrounds, although probably most of them are not late 90s Square quality. You're going to get a wide range of aesthetics with a tendency toward popular fantasy art styles (and of course RPG-maker style pixel art). The most recent RPGs I know of to use old school pre-rendered static backgrounds are the Obsidian games (Pillars of Eternity 1+2, Tyranny).
> survival horror.
Resident Evil inspired retro games are a niche within a niche. There are all kinds of dramatic gameplay benefits you can get in a survival horror game by going fully 3D. In general immersion is more important than aesthetics in that genre. So I think it's unlikely there.
>>8503319
>You could also apply it to any game that uses a side-on or top-down perspective, like platformers or classic Zelda games.
You can but a interactivity is important in both of these genres, especially Zelda style games. It's much more natural to have walls and objects be moved and destroyed in a live-rendered environment. Modern indie platform games like Trine and F.I.S.T. look like they rely heavily on interactive environments and a 3D feel that couldn't be conveniently done with pre-rendered backgrounds.

>>8503452
Making 3d world's must be rough. Advertising screenshots are always done way off the ground and can show the beauty of the space. The reality is the player stared at the ground for 4 hours and didn't see half of what you put in the area.

>>8503541
Well, technically that was "rendered previously" I guess.

>>8503520
>>8503542
Square used both PA and Softimage for the PS Final Fantasy games iirc

>>8503549
>stared at the ground
I'd imagine they'd just stare at the quest marker trying to beeline to their next endorphin fix.

>>8503317
Learn2hide

>>8502839
>feasibility
Aren't they far more feasible and less time consuming?
Taking up less time to make sure lighting and shadows are right cos it is basically a painting?

>>8504323
>the irony of little zoomies shitpost was completely lost on him

>>8502839
>feasibility
It's a fucking drawing, how goddamn hard can it be to do in the modern day?

>>8502929
Probably not very resource-intensive at all. I remember mucking about in POV-Ray back in the late 90s early 2000s. You had to wait hours or whole days for full images to render, but it was still possible even for individuals back then. I used to look at other people's renders in the POV-Ray hall of fame (http://hof.povray.org/)) and dream about what life-like pictures would be possible in the future. Those were the days.

>>8504468
>>8504342
Looks to me like OP has reading comprehension issues and misread some kind of previous criticism as accusations of not being feasible.

>>8503089
Is there any rendering engine out there that uses NURBS?
I believe the legacy Rhino still does.

>>8504914
NURBS are more of a modeling thing than a rendering thing as they technically still get processed into a polygonal mesh for visualization and rendering; the "look" of these models came from the idiosyncrasies and limitations of a modeling process based on NURBS, which is more suited for industrial design than it is for characters and stuff like that.

All CAD software (including Rhino) still widely use NURBS front and center, but even more entertainment-oriented packages like Blender can work with them.

>>8504968
>they technically still get processed into a polygonal mesh for visualization and rendering
SGI GL had direct NURBS rendering commands and I always wondered if they had plans to make an actual curves based rasterisation system so there were no approximations via. polygons at some point (if they could figure it out). There's so much about that era that I wish you could just wind back the clock and ask them in situ what they thought the future would hold.

>>8502891
i just started playing the ff7 remake and they do a pretty good job of making the areas look like the prerendered backgrounds from the original, and that's using unreal engine 4 iirc
it's more the style than anything else

>>850499
NURBS use very simple and optimized descriptions for curves which make them great for certain use cases, but there's always sampling and tessellation involved in translating them to images: the concept of "curve" doesn't really exist in digital 3D imaging in terms of straight/literal visual output, by the very constraints of what "digital" means to begin with. What you mention was just an optimized/automated pipeline to streamline NURBS processing for "direct" rendering.

>>8504991
NURBS use very simple and optimized descriptions for curves which make them great for certain use cases, but there's always sampling and tessellation involved in translating them to images: the concept of "curve" doesn't really exist in digital 3D imaging in terms of straight/literal visual output, by the very constraints of what "digital" means to begin with. What you mention was just an optimized/automated pipeline to streamline NURBS processing for rendering.

>>8505035
Well, I get that it's all pixels in the end, but the earliest versions of raytracing predates polygons. They were calculating the intersection of a ray and a sphere, plane, cube, torus, cone, and deformations thereof, etc. The objects existed as pure mathematical definitions of the object and so the final render was as perfectly smooth as could be represented by the output res. And later on when it came to modelling more complex objects it was boolean operations on those shapes so there was still no need to tesselate. Unfortunately I don't understand the maths, I tapped out after writing a deforming mirrorball on checkerboard in x86 assembly so I can't say whether the concept extends to NURBS, I just wonder if someone at SGI was wondering the same thing and tried to solve it.

>>8504991
>>8505035
>>8505057
So, which one is it? Did old Silicon Graphics render NURBS without converting them to meshes or not?

>>8505057
>I don't understand the maths
I dont really understand how does deformation works but rendering is simple, you have a function that says if a point is inside or outside so to intersect/combine/subtract you just use bitwise operations on the various objects, at least thats how it works for signed distance fields.
The main problem is getting the function that will output what you want but one could arguagly build anything from spheres, cylinders and cubes

>>8505784
Old raytracers didn't convert the NURBS parameters into meshes of flat polygons, if that's what you mean. Building everything out of polygons is a very modern concept, which is practical with modern graphics card since they're optimized for rendering polygons.

no

>>8506116
>Old raytracers didn't convert the NURBS parameters into meshes of flat polygons, if that's what you mean.
Yes, thanks, that's what I wanted to know.
So the SGI look we are talking about can be attributed in part to this difference right?

>>8503445
>mine cart section
I think they mean "cartwheel section".

I see a lot of people asking for new megahigh resolution prerendered backgrounds, but as a lot of things about retrogaming, part of the appeal was because of the technical limitations that fueled the player's imagination. Being able to visit any part of a gameworld makes it unironically feel smaller than when it limits you, like in those games that used prerendered backgrounds (PS1 Final Fantasies, Grim Fandango, etc).

Of course there's also the artistry that comes when the designers select certain camera angles for the backgrounds and the impact that these have in the player minds.