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One-off visual effects that stand out from the rest of the game they're in
- Thread starter ScOULaris
- Start date
Resident Evil 2 looked great but this beard was insanely detailed and the burger looked great. This is the best pic of it I could find sorry.
For being an early GameCube game that I can't imagine had a large budget, Mario Party 4 had some really good looking water.
Came here to post this, amazing moment!The thing from the end of Inside:
Not sure if anyone knows what I'm talking about but the video game adaptions for Two Towers and Return of the King had this really cool effect of playing clips from the movie and it would seamlessly transition into the game engine. Blew my mind as a kid.
Ash Tray Maze is the first visual effect in ages that's literally made my fucking jaw drop.I feel like Mario has a bunch of these. Whenever the games use a special effect to pull of an NPC or a bright object they always look fantastic.
I also nominate the ashtray maze from Control
It was outstanding.
Holy shit!The windmill lake in Ico:
it has full reflection (you can see the windmill move in the reflection), water refraction, and geometry water surface ripples.
You only see it in that one spot, but you don't forget it. It looks so fresh, and deep, and tangible. It's maybe the most effective "water" in the game, to this day.
Piggy backing off of team ICO, the hair and animation of the Colossi in SoTC and Trico in the Last Guardian are both standouts for sure.
This, and the baby formula in Yakuza 6:
(Kiwami 2 liquor)
(Yakuza 6 baby formula)
RGG loves flexing that Dragon Engine.
Was just revisting those on PS2 the other day. Games look really good, and those FMV to gameplay transitions are really well done. Not quite as seamless as the famous Lost Odyssey transition on X360 posted earlier, but still pretty incredible to see this on PS2. They motion matched certain parts of films with realtime graphics, and do the transition mid-cut:
TTT: (3:13 in case that video won't jump to a correct timestamp):
ROTK: (11:13 timestamp)
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I was watching Macaw45 stream this ultra rare 90s PC game that was only released in Germany (so rare there's no youtube footage of it). The game touts having 50 kilometers of road footage which they recorded with cameras Google style. The way they managed to fit all of this on a CD-ROM is really interesting as they're using some kind of one-off patented technology. If you watch carefully, the footage appears to be interlaced with some kind of quantized/tile-based scaling/distortion technology in order to conserve the amount of frames used. Really interesting "compression" technology that is very of its time and uniquely tailored for such a situation.
Fascinating. If only they made a simple rally racing game with proper 3D cars out of this idea, rather than this sprite-based weirdness. Also, what a missed opportunity to make the visuals 100% better by just timestamping the video with 'shadow intensity' parameter, so that player and npc cars can be lightened and darkened when they move into shadowed areas of the video. How did something so simple not occur to them.I was watching Macaw45 stream this ultra rare 90s PC game that was only released in Germany (so rare there's no youtube footage of it). The game touts having 50 kilometers of road footage which they recorded with cameras Google style. The way they managed to fit all of this on a CD-ROM is really interesting as they're using some kind of one-off patented technology. If you watch carefully, the footage appears to be interlaced with some kind of quantized/tile-based scaling/distortion technology in order to conserve the amount of frames used. Really interesting "compression" technology that is very of its time and uniquely tailored for such a situation.
Resistance: Fall of Man had many visual effects that blew my mind back then like the Chimeran tech and tubes or the airships in the distance giving a great sense of scale...
...but the SNOW! I wanted to stick my tongue out and catch it.
Edit: not sure why the gif ain't working.
...but the SNOW! I wanted to stick my tongue out and catch it.
Edit: not sure why the gif ain't working.
DQXI Luminary hero and the grandpa learn the ultimate technique to destroy the villain, they use it while being threatened in training and then nothing ever happens with that technique again, you can use it all you want but it doesn't look as cool as the cinematic that introduced it and the story never acknowledges it again.
Haha I came here to say Honeyhive.
Also I know it's probably just an instance of the general water tech, but I always thought the dynamically sloshing green liquid in Bowser's boss bowl at the end of Sunshine was cool.
Greninja's substitute doll in Smash is the best graphic in video games.
The beauty of Lambertian materials. When incident light scatters in all directions, it's pretty hard to fuck up. Still, it looks fantastic :)
Bahamut's arrival and casting of Ultima Sword in Final Fantasy XV, coupled with that music and finished off with Diamond Dust from Shiva is an absolutely stunning, 11/10 moment in an otherwise mediocre game.
Skip to 3:00 for Bahamut
Skip to 3:00 for Bahamut
The end of that game was whatever for me. Cruising on the highway with my Bros though? That was special.
yeah it's pretty underrated. the fur effects on the queen bee are even more impressive that Rare's fur work on starfox adventures and conker reloaded, which is quite a feat!
Gruntilda's fingers in Banjo Kazooie. I don't think I had ever seen individually animated digits in a 3D video game before, just big Christmas Ham fists.
Not even that common post Banjo release either.
Not even that common post Banjo release either.
I'm not sure if a patch did any alterations to it, but playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla on Xbox Series X, the fire effects look soooooooooooooooooo out of place with the rest of the surrounding assets. It's such a distracting effect.
Totally. It feels... kind of black and unknown the way a real lake does. Amazing to see team ico just flex super hard there (and it serves a gameplay purpose, as it's easy to fall off the windmill and the water provides safe padding)The windmill pond in Ico:
it has full reflection (you can see the windmill move in the reflection), water refraction, and geometry water surface ripples.
You only see it in that one spot, but you don't forget it. It looks so fresh, and deep, and tangible. It's maybe the most effective "water" in the game, to this day.
FYI folks there is a whole excellent thread on these one off cool visual elements in older games, put together by Phediuk
GIFs of cool visual effects in old games
How about a new installment of this old classic thread. I'll start us off. Dynamic lighting in Ranger X (Genesis, 1993) T. rex chase sequence in The Lost World Jurassic Park (Genesis, 1997) Vector cutscenes in Flashback (Amiga, 1992) Pretty much everything in The Adventures of Batman...
www.resetera.com
The zero gravity alien ship of the original Crysis.
The volumetric light, the shadows, the particle effects. This thing was so cutting edge only one small level in the most advanced game of the time had all of it at once.
The volumetric light, the shadows, the particle effects. This thing was so cutting edge only one small level in the most advanced game of the time had all of it at once.
i remember reading back in the day that the GC was specifically optimized for water effects (there was a reason it was called dolphin and super mario sunshine was heavily water based).
The smoke/mist effects in S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky were something else at the time. They wrapped around the world, collided, grouped, billowed and spread. Light and shadow would also affect it, giving it an amazingly realistic appearance for it's time.
The next time I'd see smoke as good as this was in Mafia 2.
The next time I'd see smoke as good as this was in Mafia 2.
The thing from the end of Inside:
One of the greatest animated characters in gaming. It's really amazing. The entire time I was in awe that this is possible
The liquid shader in Half-Life Alyx
Best thing about this was that I was so immersed in the game that didn't even stand out.
That's a compliment.
Heavy spoiler but the visual effects in this fight for Lightning Returns always impressed me. Fits everything about the fight perfectly. A mixture of warping, ethereal effects and said enemy partially merged with the stage.
Flashy spells, hell, flashiness in general is something the series was always good at, even going back to the first game in the trilogy, it's nice to see those effects hold up.
Flashy spells, hell, flashiness in general is something the series was always good at, even going back to the first game in the trilogy, it's nice to see those effects hold up.
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What is LR? I'm hesitant to blindly click something you called a heavy spoiler!
edit: Er, Lightning Returns?
Lightning returns! oh you edited before I responded haha. Sometimes I forget using abbreviations expecting everyone else to know isn't the smartest thing to do.
To be fair this effect was added after release so that may be why depending on when you first played it. Definitely an impressive effect nonetheless.
In no particular order as for my examples, Morrowind water, metal Mario in Mario 64 (plus that metallic ripple posted earlier in the thread), Waverace 64 wave physics...I like water effects as you can see :P
Is it just me or did Nintendo sorta abandon the better looking water effects/physics from their Gamecube and before days? The only one I think looks similarly is Pikmin 3 water but iirc it doesn't have as much reactivity. Even Wind Waker's cel shaded stylized waves had some impressive stuff going on, I remember a post years back breaking down all the different layers working in tandem to achieve the effect. Bring back the water focus Nintendo!
Wow!!
this looks fantastic!!
it made me remember this from RE2 Remake. Game looks amazing but this is CGI quality for me.
I feel like Vectorman 1 + 2 were games made entirely of stand-out tech demo proof of concepts.
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I'd post a video of Space Giraffe, level 64, but they all look terrible. That was the level where the visual feedback was such that it was almost unreadable, except for being perfectly readable. If you were good enough to survive that far then the distortion was just a different challenge, and a surprisingly approachable one once you got over the initial shock.
