Pre-rendered Cinema

[Austin Manning]

I know people like to complain about pre-rendered footage especially in trailers, but I don't really get why. Sure they don't show you gameplay footage but if someone's just a bit observant (and the developers aren't run by bullshot artists) then you can figure out a lot about how the game will play just by watching.

Example: The Last of Us. This game isn't out yet, but going by the E3 demo footage it looks and plays exactly like the trailer did. Melee combat is uncomfortably brutal, players can stealth through a level, and it really feels like you'ree in constant danger.

Example 2: The Black Ops 2 villian trailer. While this trailer seems to have been created with the in game engine it doesn't show any gameplay. While there is about a second that might be gameplay, it looks more like one of those pre-directed first person segments that we keep seeing in these games.
Now forget the title being advertised, what can we see in the trailer? There are lots of explosions and talk about a Bond villain stealing weapons so we can guess that it's an action game.The fact that it's been narrated by a military officer not to mention the emphasis on military equipment and the fact that most of the people in the trailer are in the military, implies that the military will be the central focus, from this we can guess that the game is a shooter of some sort. The pre-directed first person segments would seem to mean that the game will happen around a first person persepective.

Do you see my point now? we've gone through two pre-rendered trailers and figured out how they will play , without the use of gameplay footage. So again, why all the fuss about pre-rendering?

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

So again, why all the fuss about pre-rendering?

In respect to developers showing nothing but pre-rendered footage in a trailer, I can't get an idea of how the game world will look, we can always expect the cut scenes to look beautiful so they aren't a good way to judge a games graphics.

Final Fantasy 9 has some beautiful cut scenes, but the game world looks dated. Imagine if a developer these days has a game which looks like the ff9 game world (out of laziness), no one would be able to know if all they show is pre-rendered footage.

 

[XMark]

The Last of Us and Black Ops 2 both used actual in-engine footage (and The Last of Us had actual real gameplay). Those two games aren't really the problem. The problem is when pre-rendered graphics far better than what a game can actually offer are presented as gameplay footage, like the infamous early Killzone 2 trailer.

 

[oplinger]

Alright, I'll stick with example 2, because it's much more verbose than the first one.

We know it's an action game because of explosions and talk about a bond villian. That's nice, means there will be action, and explosions.

It's got military equipment, so..we can assume you'll be in the military.

SO..a military-themed action game.

So what? like Full Spectrum Warrior? FEAR? GRAW?

How does the game handle? what's the UI like? Do the controls seem coherent? What about the sounds in game? The animations? Does everything flow or look like chunky vomit? Is there going to be a cover system? Health packs? Regenerating health? Is the combat going to be close quarters focused? or more medium ranged sniping?

There's a lot you CAN'T get from a pre-rendered trailer. It just looks pretty and maybe gives you the themes of the game, it doesn't tell you how it will play.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Sure they don't show you gameplay footage but if someone's just a bit observant (and the developers aren't run by bullshot artists) then you can figure out a lot about how the game will play just by watching.

No you can't, that is the issue, more often then not a trailer has absolutely no bearing on the actual game which makes it pretty much a lie.
Usually this happens when trailers are outsourced to an animation company, their aim is to make shit look cool not to represent gameplay.

 

[Austin Manning]

Remember the amazing pre-rendered trailer for Dead Island?


Yeah, that turned out great.

I actually made reference to that with my "bullshot artists" comment. The bullshot refers to game footage or screen shots that have been tinkered with to make the game look better than it actually is. Dead Island is actually the first game I saw to apply that to a trailer.

 

[Austin Manning]

Alright, I'll stick with example 2, because it's much more verbose than the first one.

We know it's an action game because of explosions and talk about a bond villian. That's nice, means there will be action, and explosions.

It's got military equipment, so..we can assume you'll be in the military.

SO..a military-themed action game.

So what? like Full Spectrum Warrior? FEAR? GRAW?

How does the game handle? what's the UI like? Do the controls seem coherent? What about the sounds in game? The animations? Does everything flow or look like chunky vomit? Is there going to be a cover system? Health packs? Regenerating health? Is the combat going to be close quarters focused? or more medium ranged sniping?

There's a lot you CAN'T get from a pre-rendered trailer. It just looks pretty and maybe gives you the themes of the game, it doesn't tell you how it will play.

Most of the things you mention are what you watch a review to find out. The purpose of a trailer is to raise awareness and interest in the product. That's normally accomplished by showing the themes, characters, giving us things beyond the core mechanics.

One can still reason out more from the Black Ops trailer. In my opening I showed that it would be a first person shooter based around the military. The large number of vehicles (and past experience with FPSes) implies that we'll have a vehicle section at some point. Being a military FPS the emphasis will probably be more on mid to longrange combat, especially with the Bond villain apparently having robot drones and mechs to fight for him.

 

[Austin Manning]

No you can't, that is the issue, more often then not a trailer has absolutely no bearing on the actual game which makes it pretty much a lie.
Usually this happens when trailers are outsourced to an animation company, their aim is to make shit look cool not to represent gameplay.

Would you please provide some examples (besides Dead Island) and not just generalizations? Not that I'm trying to sound like an arse, but I want to be able to check for myself.

 

[Austin Manning]

The Last of Us and Black Ops 2 both used actual in-engine footage (and The Last of Us had actual real gameplay). Those two games aren't really the problem. The problem is when pre-rendered graphics far better than what a game can actually offer are presented as gameplay footage, like the infamous early Killzone 2 trailer.

What you described is an example of bullshoting, where the graphics are cleaned up to make the game look better than it actually is. Having checked out that trailer one can acertain many things about Killzone 2 that are in the final game. In this case: it is a sci-fi military FPS about the hellish war between people and red-eyed space nazis, with the nazis' home world being invaded as the central plot.

 

[oplinger]

Alright, I'll stick with example 2, because it's much more verbose than the first one.

We know it's an action game because of explosions and talk about a bond villian. That's nice, means there will be action, and explosions.

It's got military equipment, so..we can assume you'll be in the military.

SO..a military-themed action game.

So what? like Full Spectrum Warrior? FEAR? GRAW?

How does the game handle? what's the UI like? Do the controls seem coherent? What about the sounds in game? The animations? Does everything flow or look like chunky vomit? Is there going to be a cover system? Health packs? Regenerating health? Is the combat going to be close quarters focused? or more medium ranged sniping?

There's a lot you CAN'T get from a pre-rendered trailer. It just looks pretty and maybe gives you the themes of the game, it doesn't tell you how it will play.

Most of the things you mention are what you watch a review to find out. The purpose of a trailer is to raise awareness and interest in the product. That's normally accomplished by showing the themes, characters, giving us things beyond the core mechanics.

One can still reason out more from the Black Ops trailer. In my opening I showed that it would be a first person shooter based around the military. The large number of vehicles (and past experience with FPSes) implies that we'll have a vehicle section at some point. Being a military FPS the emphasis will probably be more on mid to longrange combat, especially with the Bond villain apparently having robot drones and mechs to fight for him.

Do you see my point now? we've gone through two pre-rendered trailers and figured out how they will play , without the use of gameplay footage. So again, why all the fuss about pre-rendering?

You forgot your own question. You're saying you get the themes for the game, not how it will play. A review comes later than a trailer, not any sort of bearing on why trailers get so much fuss. You're also using things outside the scope of the question, your past experience with CoD or FPS shouldn't be what the trailer is going for. If it was it could have just said "HEY GUYS COD AND STUFF" fade to black and be over. None of that tells us how the game will play. You shifted that unto reviews, so even you figure trailers don't do a good job of that.

A trailer should be a short clip of what the game will be like, or what they're aiming for with the game to get us interested, not an absolute lie. It is supposed to be like a hands-on demo video? No. However, it should at least show us in-game footage so we can extrapolate fromt hat as to weather the game will be a good fit.

Also, bear in mind FEAR is a military FPS, it's main focus was CQC, and its trailers showed that brilliantly, as well as the horror/suspense aspects of the game, all in under 2 minutes.