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Pre-Rendered Art Appreciation Thread

Weiss

Weiss

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
64,265
I love pre-rendered CG art. It existed for this brief period of time from the mid-to-late nineties and is unlikely to make a return, but the strange sense of eerieness and melancholy it displays is something I love, and when we get to games like Final Fantasy VIII and IX, it feels like you're walking along a beautiful canvas painting. It's a shame that modern advancements means we'll likely not see much in the way of it anymore outside of specific passions projects.

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I left a lot of great ones out, so post away!
 
SNRUB

SNRUB

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,013
New Jersey
I always loved the 2D painterly look of ND's Crash promo renders. I don't think they were actually pre-rendered, they just took the in-game models and just smoothed them out a bit in Photoshop or Illustrator.
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dude

dude

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,642
Tel Aviv
Are we talking about marketing material or pre-rendered backgrounds?
If the latter, Pillars of Eternity 2 has some beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds, with dynamic lightning and everything.

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Deleted member 4247

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,896
People say it's a shame we don't get this anymore, but there's no reason developers couldn't do stuff like this in real-time.
 
signal

signal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
40,200
Not to immediately turn this into an FF thread but

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Dreamy. Someone post Syberia screenshots pls.
 
zoukka

zoukka

Game Developer
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
2,361
The artistry and amount of assets that went into creating FFIX is absolutely stupendous.
 
Red Devil

Red Devil

Member
Oct 29, 2017
824
Not sure this fits the topic since it's not 3D, but anyway:

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This is actual pre-rendered overworld you can walk over in SaGa Frontier 2. Every place is done like this and it holds up pretty well even after decades.
 
Gelf

Gelf

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,315
I adore the classic pre rendered background look, I should post my own favourites later when I'm not on mobile.

For a long time I've been considering trying Pillars of Eternity just for those backgrounds even though I don't think the CRPG is my genre.
 
Lord Error

Lord Error

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,372
Blade Runner. Voxels on prerendered backgrounds. Dear god do I love the look of this game to this day.
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terminaljeremy

terminaljeremy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,520
Australia
Lord Error said:
Blade Runner. Voxels on prerendered backgrounds. Dear god do I love the look of this game to this day.

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I still think more devs should play this and take some copious notes. Even something as fundamental as the size of your character on screen is really perfect, emphasises both the production design and also the tiny-cog-in-a-big-machine nature of the story.
 
Catshade

Catshade

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,198
Seeing those FF 7/8/9 prerendered backgrounds make me sad that they lost the original renders, so it can't be remastered in higher resolution.
 
Yan

Yan

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,489
I think one of the reasons why these backdrops look so good is because the games had a fixed camera. This way they could make the perfect composition and frame the background in a way you can't do with a controlable camera.
I wish there were more games that still did this. Looks absolutely stunning with the right artists.
 
papercan

papercan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
800
love them all! I know most people hate pre-rendered and want it to stay dead but i absolutelty adore it.
donkey kong country, Remake, resident evil 2/3, final fantasy 7/8/9, baten kaitos, dino crisis, chrono cross, parasite eve, abes oddysee....

I'm dying for indie devs to take up the task but nothing seems to be happening, i'm guessing it requires such a huge effort from the artists intially, not only creating the backgrounds but framing them, that it's a big ask for most big developers now, let-alone indie devs.
 
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Elodes

Elodes

Looks to the Moon
Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,234
The Netherlands
Rain World looks absolutely gorgeous. I can't post too many images due to spoilers, but these get the job done:

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(Edit: Or is this thread only for CG/3D art?)
 
Kinthey

Kinthey

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
22,341
The Commandos series had these amazing maps which I believe were a mix of CG and painting

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Gartooth

Gartooth

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,440
90's pre-rendered art had a big effect on me playing games, as it made the characters and worlds of games feel so much bigger and alive than the technical limitations would allow at the time. I'd imagine it's akin to how the old art for Zelda 1 or Dragon Quest helped give those players a look into the game worlds beyond 8-bit sprites.

Rare's work in particular was really inspiring, as the old DKC games had me awestruck at the backgrounds and character animations.
 
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