Painted Worlds: The Lost Art of Pre Rendered Backgrounds
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2024
- Like many other artistic techniques, Pre Rendered Backgrounds (and fixed camera angles) were borne of both ambition and limitations. It created worlds for us to explore, painted images that became iconic and served to enhance gameplay experiences in multiple genres, but ultimately it's popularity waned. In this video, we explore what makes it so unique, and why it died away.
Twitter - / cardboardbxitem
The Cardboard Box Podcast: Spotify - open.spotify.com/show/1T9ibZp... - Ігри
It's good to know people are still talking about pre rendered backgrounds these days. I'm making an indie game with them and I have to say that It's been interesting trying to decode some of the challenges behind compositing everything.
It's great to know people are still making games using this technique! I was recently watching a video about Resident Evil clones and there is a very cool technique used in Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare with its 3D lighting on top of the Pre-rendered background ua-cam.com/video/uypx-0iD0oU/v-deo.html I think you may find it interesting.
I'm making my first 16 bit ish game,
Hey I’m a Game Designer student willing to make an entire franchise with this style. Mind chatting? :)
That feeling of being in a living painting in pre-rendered backgrounds is something you really just can't get from any true 3D style.
One thing about the pre-rendered games of the late 90s is the fact that the art stylings used had to adapt to the limited render resolution of the hardware of the time. Look at FF7 and StarCraft. Many of the pre-rendered elements are cartoonish and oversized/simplistic because the target pre-render resolutions were so low (320x240 for FF7 and 640x480 for StarCraft). This is a big part of what made pre-rendered backgrounds look so memorable compared to real time environments.
Limitations in art breed innovation. The same can be said in terms of hardware. Honestly seeing how something like REmake incorporate prerendered backgrounds like hand painted on set background pallets that you'd find in cinema with dynamic lighting to create atmosphere is astonishing. Fixed angles like you said had to be framed much like how cinematographers do so and camera techniques were there to further heighten that sense of fear.
It's often referred to as "the masking effect" where you have a relatively simple character over a more detailed background. It's not necessarily a bad thing as comic books exist in this realm of aesthetic comfortably.🙂
Largely the prerendered background setup had a hard time coping with screen resolution change as the polygonal layer could more easily increase with a options menu setting, while the 2D plate was locked at a certain pixel resolution.
What sucked about that was the original companies that prerendered those background suddenly couldn't be asked to make new sharper images for some unknown reason Eg. late 90s and early 00s PS1 to Windows ports with 240p backgrounds. Idk, they threw the HDDs with the original CGI models into a dumpster, and set that dumpster on fire?🤨
my favorite type of presentation in games. There is meaning lost in FF7R because so much of it was intermingled with the way the shots were composited in the og FF7 next to certain music tracks.
This video is as beatiful as a pre-rendered background, good job
Thank you!
Very well explained. 'undiluted sense of atmosphere' is a perfect way of putting it. After playing Syberia and Myst (nice to see a lot of images from those in the video!) I've become quite interested in this kind of art form. I think it feels very dreamlike.
I really wanted to know / see some proper documentaries about how old 90-98's PS1 games were made, like how the pre-rendered background in Alone in The dark could lit up when flashed light ( i though it was not possible- its rendered) , or the story behind design of FF8's or FF7's cities, or some scary element in RE games and Parasite Eve. You know, just to keep the old games "alive" and appreciate how amazing the developers did when there's tons of limitations! These "pre-rendered" backgrounds and old game developments are ancient relics, and I hope they do not lost because of time.
Great video! I especially like how you emphasised the inherent advantages of fixed camera angles. It's good to see some of that visual style retained in indie games today.
Thanks Remi! I have always loved this style - I replayed Onimusha while editing this video and loved the fixed camera angles. Could you recommend any indies that utilise it?
@@thecardboardboxitem601 The best examples that I can think of are games that are still in development, such as Alisa, which clearly takes inspiration from the original Resident Evil. There is also a really cool Dino Crisis homage called Code:Dino-H. There are a few good examples like these, but I'm not sure that there is any fully-fledged game with fixed camera angles that can stand on its own terms yet.
gem video that should get way more views, never thought about the angle and camera tension, great work man
0:14 hearing you say those words over the footage of Don Bluth's An American Tail, while I'm going to his very school to learn traditional animation, hits a bit different.
Thank you for this loving take on this art form. I enjoyed your use of comparison to Cinema and the similarity of artistic expression used with Camera angles and editing.
This was a beautiful vid. Hope to see more from you.
Fantastic video! Such an effortlessly good showcase of the magic that this long discarded art style can achieve. I tell ya, when FNAF was first revealed and I saw that it was using pre-rendered art, I had to do a double take! I hope this is a style of art that find a new audience again in the future, I miss it dearly.
9:55 “Games started to reach their college party faze” what a line.
wow ! that's the video I wanted to see about pre rendered back grounds ! really we-made video thanks a lot for this 🌸🌺
Thanks for this
I guess the best would be a semi-compromise, especially now that we've got the tech.
Nudge, but give freedom.
I.e. have the camera default to a fixed angle or gravitate towards it, yet make it transition to a more responsive state upon player input, and resume camera gravitation upon lack of end-user camera input.
(Think for instance, character goes through a door, in front of him is a seemingly tiny bridge and a massive TOWER. The camera gets drawn towards that tower by default, panning out, dwarfing the players in the now tiny long bridge. Players can disrupt that flow by moving the camera, camera moves gently then transitions rapidly, but if you let it be, it ough to resume gravitation towards that angle.
In most circumstances, the difference won't be that extreme. A room could be seen via a ceiling fan for instance, player input zooms the camera out then in the zone.
In visual art (painting, drawing, sculpting, photography, cinema, architecture, zen gardening etc.) one of the most important aims is quite often "drawing the eye".
Taking the viewer as it were, by the hand, and guiding him towards the subject. It's one of the pillara of storytelling. (Alongside pace).
A good and a bad movie quite often have similar stories (owing to genres, plot structures etc.) The difference lays often im how it's presented, rather than what.
So, I don't see why video games ought to behave any different.
thank you for this wonderful video :)
this was so good thank you
for some reason i thought this was a Dark Souls video because of painted world of ariamis and I was surprised to think that painted worlds were a thing in other games but it ended up being a very interesting video. nice work
This is a great vid, got a new sub right here!
Yo! Nice video. Thanks for the insight !!❤
Great video - I always loved this style.
I was pointed here from Reddit and I want to explore a number of games you show clips of. Any chance on future vids you can sub the source games too?
That was awesome, you got the Resident Evil remake in there as well as that little scene in Zelda Ocarina of Time with the Temple of Time and Death Mountain in the background, all the way up to RE4, I can't wait till the RE4 Remake comes out, I wish they had a way of toggling to fixed camera angles or I wish they did another Resident Evil like the remake but with todays technology but still pre-rendered backgrounds with better interactive elements & character design.
Another game that had pretty cool pre-rendered backgrounds in it was Mass Effect I think..
Good video, I wish when games are shown they would have in the corner what game it's from on all youtube videos. Would be useful for people to find the game they are looking at and intrigued by. I saw a lot of games in this I wish I knew what they were.
great video
Does anybody by chance know the name of game or video that the clip from 2:19 in video came from?
FF8 still got the best pre-rendered backgrounds I've ever seen tbh.
10:58 what game is this?
Final Fantasy 7 will always be my favorite of the style, and Syberia (the first) will also make my heart beat hard. How many times I've dream of moving to Valadilene, I don't know.
whats that ps1 game with prerendered fmvs? think it was co op overhead shooter or beat em up, the fmv moved so much while u play
❤
Anyone know what the first person camera game he showed is called? I remember playing it as a kid but have no idea it's name
Myst
Really well made and presented video. Good job. I adore pre-rendered backgrounds and the atmosphere they create, but there is one problem I have had with games featuring them: disorientation. I feel it is mostly prevalent in games where the fixed camera changes angle (Resident Evil 1-3). Whereas in a full 3d game or one where the fixed camera is 100% fixed (like an isometric Fallout) you have a sense of direction, the Resident Evil games make you feel like you don't know where you're going. Obviously this works in creating a scary atmosphere, but for "game-feel" it's confusing. Take the example you used from Residen Evil 1: you move forward away from the camera by holding up on the stick, reach a door and go through it. Now the camera is angled back towards the door, meaning you need to hold up on the stick to go forwards but towards the camera. Again, the tank controls are meant to convey panic and unease, but I feel it slightly makes navigation confusing.
it is a classic style of devs
It's not *illusion* of 3D. "Pre-rendered" backgrounds **are** 3D backgrounds, they just have been rendered in advance. And the character **is** a 3D model moving in a 3D space, and it's rendered with a 3D camera that has perspective. Everything is real 3D. It's not like isometric 2D textures.
Dudes, seriously, what game is this at 4:19??? Please, I must know!!!
I guess it's Gorky 17 aka Odium.
Black Mirror I
store.steampowered.com/app/292930/Black_Mirror_I/
@@glaucosfedozzi2731 So it seems to be. I thank you friend.
In movie term it is as equal as a matte painting or matte background
04:20 what is the game?
I love TREE_DEE
What's the game around 4:28?
Chrono Cross 🙂
@@michaelpender3508 Thanks so much for letting me know!
Dudes, the game at 4:19, seriously, what is it???
What’s the game at 10:58?
pillars of eternity ☺
What game is 1:43 from?
Final Fantasy IX
Tree D or 3D 😂 im a a black girl from Atlanta but my dad's parents are from Ireland. I know a fellow Irishman when I here one. I'm making a 16 bit game and need all the info I can. Take care
You're from Dublin, ain't'cha?
Final Fantasy needs to go back to how it was, but with epic graphics
Tree-D
Showing Syberia and not mentioning it is a sin XD
It's not pseudo 3d because
1. The World isn't flat
2. The sprites needn't be 2d
3. The space is 3d.
So it's completely 3d
'Tree-dee'
TREE-D????
tree dee
Tree Dee
TreeD
What the hell is TreeD?
I kid, good vid :)
Drinking game idea: Take a shot everytime you say "tree-dee".
I'll let you know if I survive. If I never update you, you'll know too.
🌳D
TREE DEE DOUBLE O FECKIN BOLLOCKS
04:45 nonsense :D an overwhelming power of capitalism? :D WTF? :D It was a traditional fight between the weak and the strong that had been seen in thousands games, books and movies. "and its destructive effect on the environment" ...nah, actually, Kitase-san once said (or it was Sakaguchi-san?) that all this "environment" thing was just a side effect and they actually had not been thinking about it at all during the development
Why is he keep sayin "Tree -D" instead of "three D".
Lol haha
Does anybody by chance know the name of game or video that the clip from 2:19 in video came from?
tree dee