FMV sequences cost much more than in-game cinematics. Not to mention the casting, light, sound, and props.

If you had a limited budget would you spend it on plywood sets of starship interiors or would you spend it on game engine development?

I recommend de-selecting the cinematic transitions office, and hitting the esc key a lot. That should at least east your pain a little bit.

I didn't notice any flickering textures, either, I've got a Geforce2, what do you have?

ER

Right... I'm talking more CG... Look at the intro. Excluding the sound that is some good stuff there. Then the rest... dissappointing. I would have liked to skip the cinematics but when there is a story being told, I want to hear it.

I guess it's just sad to see the days of prerendered cimematics gone, or at least unpopular. It is such a let down to hear your wingmates say stuff like... "wow, it's beautiful" when in reality it looks like crap. It's great to see money being spent on important things such as gameplay but whatever happened storytelling?? I guess its just the animator in me screaming out to the gaming world.

Sorry for the rant. Just hate to see good productions held back by ugly cinematics.

Yes I agree. DA is very talented in creating FMV. Easily on the same level with Blizzard and Squaresoft.



Aku. Soku. Zan. (Kill. Evil. Instantly.)

After seeing Metal Gear Solid, I think Chris Roberts had renewed faith in non-FMV (more specfiically, machinima) to tell the stories for his games, and not only did he promote a shift away from FMV (hence setting FL up for machinima), but the rest of the industry did as well. Personally I think it's a good idea (works very, very well in NOLF2).

That said, the cutscenes in FL are well produced, but it nevertheless feels lacking in character development. Not to say that the characters don't have character, but I still felt alienated from them in a way that I didn't with NOLF2.

FMV, in addition to costs, has other problems. If a game needs to be changed during devlopment (and this happens A LOT) , its a lot harder to update a pre-rendered FMV than it is to swap models and locations using an in-game cinematic. Additionally, in-game cinematics can be handled "in house" but FMVs in most cases have to be sent elsewhere since many game developers lack the facilities (Digital Anvil I would imagine is an exception).

---

Look at the intro. Excluding the sound that is some good stuff there.

---

What is wrong with the sound of the intro? It's perfect? And i would love to have the music from the intro as a stand alone version.

-------------

"Sorry for offending your delicate sensibilities. Perhaps my next film will be about a talking dog who braves the harsh realities of the world in a heart warming attempt to find his rightful owners, who mistakenly thought he was dead. That way you could watch it and get a fuzzy feeling inside and when it was over you could all go f*ck yourselves." - Troy Duffy, director of The Boondock Saints

Quit whining and just turn it off. Believe it or not some people quite enjoy the cinematics.

I came. I saw. I conquered. And sometimes get conquered.
"I'm Natrunner, I don't really run TLR but I do have an understanding with those that do."

---

(Originally by Natrunner)
Believe it or not some people quite enjoy the cinematics.

---

Yes... especially the part about Juni's behind... which has been a long running subject inducing various admiration and discussions on the forums.

The music in the intro was top notch but I think that the sound effects in the 7 minute trailer released ages ago were better than in this one..

The intro is still very cool though!

I thought the music in the intro sound kinda cheesy; it starts out nice but goes down hill after the battle starts. The end is most disappointing.

I miss the days of the live action cut-scenes. Who can forget Mark Hamil as Blair or Clive Owen as Lev Aris. Haha, there was even that one on Sega, Night Trap that was pretty much about a bunch of babes being chased by vampires, and you had to stalk them! Best idea eVar!

Sure some of them weren't that good (esp in priv2, what was the funky rocking table game on Hermes??? and how happy you were when you scored with Melissa Banks?!), but it made you feel like you were in the game and it was like a little B-movie. Sure, I can understand the whole budget thing, but i'm gonna miss the live action. Oh well, I guess I should watch more B-movies.

Don't agree with me? haha, here's one for you horn dogs out there...

Think live action Juni!

I agree that FMV is awesome. I LOVED Wing Commander 3's story and FMV sequences. HOWEVER, not only is FMV more expensive, but it also takes up a LOT more CD space and such, and for a long story that's impractical. I don't mind in-game cinematics if they're done well (so far, I've been quite happy with FL, though I'm still early in the game). At any rate, just my two cents. I know what you mean, but I also appreciate that in-game cutscenes have a lot of advantages and don't mind them so much personally.

Well, when I saw the intro movie, I was like "meh, yet another pre-rendered intro movie". Plus, the infantry combat made it look like the Alliance and Coalition were playing Tribes

The cutscenes were also kind of boring at times, but I would plot this more to the "screenplay" than the animation. That, and they did have a need to do a lot of plot exposition, and it can be tricky to make that super-exciting. But the cutscenes did a really good job of maintaining the "feel" when you go back to the game.

Course, I am pretty much the opposite of an artist (whatever you'd call that), so my standards of prettiness are quite low

ER