Real-time vs. Pre-rendered
The debate over real-time vs. Pre-rendered has been one that has gone on for a while now. Now, no one will disagree that pre-rendered always looks better. I strongly disagree that it offers a better experience in a Myst game.
Let me start off this debate by saying this.
I and I alone express the following views. These views are not the views of Cyan Worlds Inc. or of any of its other employees.
Oh by the way this article will spoil some of the Myst 5 game. Be warned.
First, I will talk why I believe Cyan decided to go to real-time.
When Riven was created the team at Cyan decided then they were going to render everything on SGI machines. Riven was only suppose to take 2 years to make but in the end it took 4. Four years and a boat load of people. Now game publishers and the industry have changed since Riven. It was determined that Cyan Worlds would complete the task of making Myst V: End of Ages by the fall of 2005. We didn’t have time to be late. We didn’t have the time it would have taken to make Myst 5 all pre-rendered, and we certainly didn’t have the money to hire all new artist and programmers to make a new pre-rendered engine. Myst 5 at most had 35 people working on it. It was faster to make something in real-time then to render something out. If you render an animation and something goes wrong in that animation you have to render it all over again. Cyan decided that real-time was the way to go. Let me explain further, In Todelmer when you are on top of the pillar, take a look out at the ring (See picture bellow)
If this were a pre-rendered image half the screen would have to be a movie. Why you may ask? Well, the planet is reflecting on to the ground in real- time because the ring moves and the storm on the planet moves. In this entire image alone would have had 10 movies, and depending on the screen resolution we would have determined, that would have been a lot of data for one image.
Now, I haven’t figured out how many images Myst 5 would contain if each node were any image. Oh and don’t forget that you can turn left and right on most node. If anyone has figured that out, well that’s cool.
Tomorrow, I will mention more issues that pre-rendered games have.
Feel free to post comments on why you think pre-rendered Myst V would have been better so I can crush you thoughts under a bat. I mean reply to them with data to disprove such a theory.
Peace
The debate over real-time vs. Pre-rendered has been one that has gone on for a while now. Now, no one will disagree that pre-rendered always looks better. I strongly disagree that it offers a better experience in a Myst game.
Let me start off this debate by saying this.
I and I alone express the following views. These views are not the views of Cyan Worlds Inc. or of any of its other employees.
Oh by the way this article will spoil some of the Myst 5 game. Be warned.
First, I will talk why I believe Cyan decided to go to real-time.
When Riven was created the team at Cyan decided then they were going to render everything on SGI machines. Riven was only suppose to take 2 years to make but in the end it took 4. Four years and a boat load of people. Now game publishers and the industry have changed since Riven. It was determined that Cyan Worlds would complete the task of making Myst V: End of Ages by the fall of 2005. We didn’t have time to be late. We didn’t have the time it would have taken to make Myst 5 all pre-rendered, and we certainly didn’t have the money to hire all new artist and programmers to make a new pre-rendered engine. Myst 5 at most had 35 people working on it. It was faster to make something in real-time then to render something out. If you render an animation and something goes wrong in that animation you have to render it all over again. Cyan decided that real-time was the way to go. Let me explain further, In Todelmer when you are on top of the pillar, take a look out at the ring (See picture bellow)
If this were a pre-rendered image half the screen would have to be a movie. Why you may ask? Well, the planet is reflecting on to the ground in real- time because the ring moves and the storm on the planet moves. In this entire image alone would have had 10 movies, and depending on the screen resolution we would have determined, that would have been a lot of data for one image.
Now, I haven’t figured out how many images Myst 5 would contain if each node were any image. Oh and don’t forget that you can turn left and right on most node. If anyone has figured that out, well that’s cool.
Tomorrow, I will mention more issues that pre-rendered games have.
Feel free to post comments on why you think pre-rendered Myst V would have been better so I can crush you thoughts under a bat. I mean reply to them with data to disprove such a theory.
Peace
30 Comments:
Well, not being a programmer I don't "technically" notice the difference because I don't know what games are pre-rendered or real time (an example of each maybe might help me out). However, Myst V went amazingly smooth for me and I wouldn't have changed a thing about how the graphics were handled. :):):)
Well, while I agree that real-time can be more immersive than pre-rendered and I have thought so since realMYST, so I'm not really trying to argue for it being pre-rendered over real-time...
What about the advanced lighting you can get in pre-rendered that you can't even partially-imitate real-time without using PS2.0, which wasn't used in EoA? Especially around Lakiahn, some of the rocks there could have been made much more realistic-seeming just by having better lighting around them, and creating all the shadow maps for real-time would chew through a whole bunch of memory.
I think the issue isn't the switch to realtime graphics in and of itself. Any sensible gamer would agree that realtime graphics are a superior option from a control perspective and allow for a more dynamic, immersive experience.
The issue, rather, is that the Plasma engine is now dated looking technology. We're at a turning point in realtime graphics. The better looking next-gen 3D engines are producing content that more or less equals even the best videogame CGI. Games from this fall on are using complex shader models and detailed lighting systems and filters to replicate effects that were previously impossible in realtime.
Had Myst V utilized the kind of technology early Unreal Engine 3.0 games are taking advantage of, I think few fans of the series would have hesitated to endorse the switch.
As is, the game is somewhat behind the curve from a technical perspective. The Plasma engine is only minimally upgraded from Uru. And while that technology looked solid in 2003, it looks dated today.
Myst V is devoid of any environmental bumpmapping and uses low-end water shaders. Just as lacking is the somewhat awkward facial animation system. It's a great idea in theory, but mapping a low-resolution, poorly-lit video onto a low-poly, static face with no jaw animation just doesn't look good in practice. After games like Half Life 2 have utilized complex and convincing facial animation systems, Myst V's awkward, primitive looking character models and facial animations marred the game's presentation seriously.
In the context of the shoestring budget, small team, and compressed development cycle you keep referring to, it is understandable that the game isn't quite up to par technically. Existing technology had to be reused.
But Myst V is the first Cyan title that isn't cutting edge from a graphical perspective. It's understandable that fans find that somewhat disappointing.
That said, I love Myst V dearly. I think it's a wonderful piece of gameplay design and narrative. And it's still an attractive game with some solid art direction. It occupies an acceptable middle-of-the-road option. It doesn't hold up to the standard established by current 3D games, but it's playable on low-end machines. That's certainly a viable tradeoff. But it is out of character for Cyan and for the Myst series.
Anonymous - it isn't "cutting-edge" from a technological standpoint, but I think just by looking at that astounding image you'll agree it is one of the more beautiful games out there.
It goes to show - you don't need pixel shaders 3.0 or whatever they use these days, to make outstanding graphics.
In the same way, you don't need V-Ray and fully pre-rendered graphics (a la Myst 4) to achieve graphics of a similar level of beauty.
Melodie - The difference is that pre-rendered games have much more "photorealistic" graphics computed beforehand and stored on the disc for you to view, while realtime games have the information about the world stored on the disc and your computer renders them on the fly.
Examples are:
Prerendered - Myst, Riven, Exile, Myst 4
Realtime - realMyst, Uru, Myst 5
As you can tell from that list of games, the realtime games give you a lot more freedom in where you can go and how you can move, as GD was saying in the original blog.
My views are based solely on having played the demo of Myst V. I disliked it so much that I will not be buying the full game. And for the record, Myst IV is one of my three favorite games on any system, so that should give you a clue of just how disappointed I am.
Real-time graphics are, in principle, better than prerendered graphics. The other two favorites of mine all use direct control, so I certainly have no prejudice against it. With an analog stick, the player can control the game precisely and intuitively. On a keyboard, though, it feels like driving a tank. The four-button movement works in FPSs, because the movement isn't as important as the shooting. But in an exploration game, the movement is the player's interface for the world design. If it is not just right, the player will not be able to enjoy the world design, and therefore will not appreciate the game. To achieve this level of excellence in control takes time, effort, and expertise.
In pre-rendered games, the movement between nodes is not shown by the game, so the player fills in the gap in his head without thinking about it. That is how a prerendered game can feel like a natural stroll through the game worlds, even though it is not. When a game fills in the movement for itself, a lot of effort must be dedicated to making it seem exactly as the player would have imagined it. When the camera is keeping a precise position from the ground, and there are invisible barriers everywhere, and the speed is not quite right on either setting, the player can't say "That's me walking around." So he is completely detached from the experience, which means he cannot enjoy the game worlds. And let's not forget that it's much harder to get a stable framerate when you're asking the PC to render the graphics than when those graphics are ready-made. Although you guys apparently have forgotten that, as the framerate in the demo was erratic. The jerky motion pulls you out of the game even more.
Better games have camera movement which is not as rigidly precise, and control which is more flexible than to allow only two directions of movement. Or one, depending on which control interface you're using. To make up for this limitation, the ability to strafe is added. This makes it so much more intuitive, because honestly who /doesn't/ start strafing as they're going for a stroll? Everyone loves blind movement!
The game does look beautiful in screenshots. They let me know what I ought to be noticing when I'm playing the demo. But I don't notice that when I'm struggling to make sense of the controls, and when I'm constantly being pulled out of the game by the wild framerate, and when I'm walking too quickly. It all distracts you from everything the game is supposed to be about.
And as I said, all these fatal problems could have been corrected if you had spent more time and effort getting the control right. Instead, you made /three/ control interfaces, meaning you only could spend a third as much effort on each one! As a result, the player will spend much too much time trying to find a control interface that works, when there isn't one. I understand, of course, why this happened. Cyan Worlds was, as you say, up against awful deadlines and not enough resources. But rather than cut the game down to its essentials so it would be playable, the management at Cyan Worlds decided it would keep the game exactly as planned, but stuff it into an interface through which no one will be able to appreciate it. Brilliant. Frankly, I don't care how good the graphics are if they come at the expense of playability. As far as I'm concerned, if you didn't have the budget you wanted you should have gone back to 1993-quality graphics, if that's what was needed to let the world design shine through. Instead, Myst V is almost completely unplayable, AND it can't compete in the graphics department. Wow, that's a great pay-off for the money you saved. Good job.
One thing i've noticed in Myst 4, the prerendered environments are getting more and more and more complex and it's really honestly become a royal pain in the butt to find which direction to click in. The lack of true perspective makes some intersections really annoying to even see. Navigating a prerendered world can be highly irritating. Many times i was going back to a certain spot only to find out that it wasn't where i thought it was at all. The game just kinda threw me there (or not there) originally and it became very confusing.
I'm all for prerendered environments simple because you can move in them. Really move. You can see the changes in perspective as you sidestep around things.
Another thing is that with prerendered you get a lot of inconsitencies in scenes. [Myst 4 Spoiler] For instance, when you're in the throne at the very botton, setting the cranks to the proper tension, after you're finished and click the button to return, the movie sequence contains a sort of "fog" in the room you're in. In the prerendered scene there is no fog so it just sort of fades into existence when the scene fades to the movie. There are also countless misalignments in movies compared to the location that you clicked. The whole screen might shift instantly to the left for the move sequence by about a half an inch. Myst4 and Riven were FULL of this sort of problem.
In URU and Myst 5, you of course had none of this. In a world where you're totally immersed and are able to move about with almost the freedom that you could in real life (with respect to the designers wishes anyway), the gaming experience is just much better. With nothing premade, you obviously don't have the transition problems going to "movie scenes" and such.
Sure the eye candy isn't as good as pre-rendered, but it still looks really good. Cyan did an awesome job making the graphics in a lot of cases look better than they were by good use of textures and excellent lighting. I was quite impressed with how URU and Myst 5 looked. They aften create the illusion of High Dynamic Range even though it's not used. The level designers are to be commended.
Real time is, in my opinion, the only way to go. I can only hope they continue this trend. Assuming They give another crack at the MMOAG scene, it's obvious they would have to. (OT:) Ya never know, under another publisher maybe they'll be able to bring URU back.... Hey, I can dream.
-RV aka ^eleKtron
Correction:
I said in my post "I'm all for prerendered environments simple because you can move in them."
I meant to say "I'm all for real-time environments simply because you can move in them."
to all, thank you for the clear up of the difference...now then, although the movie clips in the other games were cool, I always thought it seemed out of place with the game. I suppose my only experience with real-time is Uru and EoA and I absolutely loved playing them. It felt like I was part of the world.
GD...you guys at Cyan keep up the good work...
Has anyone here seen FarCry on cutting-edge hardware? Drop-dead gorgeous. Screenshots like this one only hint at the amazing visuals possible in the CryEngine.
If that engine were optimized for a Myst-style experience rather than a shooter-type game (visual quality over speed), the results would be impressive. Engine specs are here.
I agree with the view that even though pre rendered images are looking amazingly realistic, too much detail makes them hard to navigate. In Riven directions were pretty clear. In Myst IV much more time is spend looking where to click for the next node.
As far as I know Cyan specifically decided on using dated technology to make Uru and now Myst V work smoothly on older machines. This is more of a usability and marketing decision than a technological one. I'm sure Cyan has tested Plasma on high end systems with more advanced 3D features.
When starting Uru beta I already knew this. One of the things I was looking forward too was the moment Uru would be upgraded for more modern hardware. Which in the end it would have to be every now and then. Both Myst V and Uru look amazing considering the technology used. Using PS2 and PS3 would bring the game pretty much up to par with prerendered, including all the benefits of free movement, etc.
So far, there is only one person here who thinks a prerendered (clickthru) experience is better than full 3d.
I personally don't like prerendered games. I was severely disapointed with Myst4. I like to explore my environments which is something you really cannot do with prerendered. Plus, with prerendered, you can get lost easily.
I can't wait for myst5 to get here.
If this were a pre-rendered image half the screen would have to be a movie. Why you may ask? Well, the planet is reflecting on to the ground in real- time because the ring moves and the storm on the planet moves. In this entire image alone would have had 10 movies, and depending on the screen resolution we would have determined, that would have been a lot of data for one image.
Couldn't the planet be a real time object but the floor a pre-rendered video? That way you wouldn't have to render the reflection in real time, but it would still be there.
Myst 4 had a hybrid of real-time & pre-rendered effects, and it looked great! It's too bad that Cyan didn't choose to advance the photorealistic look of the series (I keep telling myself that it's the gameplay that's important, but I admit that such conjecture is futile. I know my apprehensions might never be allayed).
Anyway, feel free to bat me now.
I think all the people complaining about the fact that EoA doesn't utilize an insanely high-end engine like Unreal 3 or Doom 3 or FarCry have failed to take one simple, yet incredibly important thing into account: Myst is no longer a cutting-edge franchise. It used to be, sure, when Myst was first released, and even Riven pushed the processor requirement a bit, but in the years between 1997 and 2001, nothing was done to maintain Myst's place at the top of the technological pedestal. As such, the game is now much more of a mass-market title than one which appeals to high-end gamers (and it never really has appealed to that crowd much anyway). You don't make money off of a game aimed at the wrong systems. If EoA required the sort of insanity for a system that Unreal 3, Doom 3, or HalfLife 2 require, they wouldn't sell nearly as many units, simply because Myst players are no longer the people who spend 3 to 6 hundred dollars on system upgrades every few months. Literally anybody and their great-grandmother can play the first three games if they have a computer built in the last 6 years. Only with realMYST, Uru, Revelation, and EoA have the requirements actually broken the 400MHz barrier (and the recommended specs for realMYST are around 600MHz) for the processor, and Exile requires an 8 meg video card. These are not heavyweight games. To both maintain a competitive edge in gaming production and actually be able to SELL the title once it hits stores, Cyan has no choice but to make some technical sacrifices to get the game made. Maybe with a fresh start in a new direction, they can implement some higher-end stuff, but as far as Myst goes, you're aiming at the people who have had their computer since 1998. It's rough, but that's unfortunately the present reality of the user base for this series (and I'm not talking about the hardcore Myst fans, I'm talking about most of the average-joe families who have picked up the game in the bargain bin and liked it).
Ryan, I've actually used Todelmer as an example of an Age that would have been impossible to create in a pre-rendered environment before, and I'm glad to see that the official voices on the matter feel the same way (I like to think I know what I'm talking about... it's sometimes nice to know I actually do ;)). I loved all of the Ages in EoA (Todelmer especially gets mass props because I'm an astronomy buff), and I think, personally, that you guys ride the fine line between surrealism and photorealism better than anyone else in the industry. It's not always about how accurate your water shader is, or whether you can compute HDR in realtime... sometimes the environment comes through just as well, if not better, when it's stylized.
On the subject of rendered stills, just count up the number of nodes and multiply by 6 if you want to calculate based on an Exile/Revelation interface... otherwise, yeah, there's a lot more counting involved ;). Given the scale of some of these Ages, though, I'd say you would have needed at least 3,000 stills.
Having only seen Todelmer as screen shots, I cannot accurately comment as to how it shall look like in game. However, I do know that my graphics card doesn't do those nifty 'Dynamic Reflections' that others handle. So, if you were to cut out all dynamic reflections, such as the floor in your Todelmer shot, you'd cut a large portion of the video required to make the game in pre-renderedness, and still have a game that would look the same on my computer (except it wouldn't be realtime 3D)
I'm not saying that those 'Dynamic Reflections' are a bad idea; use what you can when you can if you can. You had a realtime engine, you had the idea to make a floor reflecting a changing background planet, and you ran with the idea (well, not you specifically. eric says he did Todelmer). But if you were constrained by, say, the pre-rendered engine of Riven, then you'd design Todelmer differently.
The engine probably came first. I can't imagine you Cyan guys running around, trying to find a new engine, when you had an available, already tested, with 3DS Max plugins in place, ready to utilize. So you had a realtime engine, and you made use of it. Yes, people harrangue you guys for it, and yes, with a different engine, Myst 5 could have been much different. Todelmer could have been much different. But you guys had limited time, limited budget, a list of tragedies currently biting your heel, and Ubisoft going, as it has a right to go, "Where's the profit?". What you Cyanists pulled together in that time is remarkable. And this is one of those remarkable remarks, one that says Cyan did a good job, better than anyone expected. Myst 5 was not a tiny last flicker before the fireworks ended, it was a tremendous FLASH and a ground-shaking BOOM of total creative sparks.
But forget Myst 5, for a second. Forget the horrors of what bad engines can do, forget Plasma's previous shortcomings. Heck, if I were you, I'd forget Plasma, or most of it. Come up with something entirely new. Blow the critics out of the water, blow your minds out creating the technology to create and display things that even the most advanced realtime engine couldn't render. Use what you can when you can if you can because you can!
um...
yeah... there went my train of cohesiveness.
- Quahog42
I prefer pre-rendered click though, but it has nothing to do with the graphic quality of either, it has to do with personal limitations. Would I have been happier with EoA being prerendered? Yes. Would it have been 'better'? I think it's comparing apples and oranges. They both have their pros and cons. Some things might have looked more polished, other things might have looked less. *shrug*
I'm just now getting around to playing URU. But so far my experience leads me to prefer the 3d environments over prerendered. URU has some interface controls that are infuriating (like no picking things up...kicking stuff around trying to line things up is so frustrating), but these things can be "fixed" in later games. I like the ability to walk anywhere and will trade some scene complexity for freedom of movement.
Now...the trend toward such high end 3d engines is troubling. I have a laptop with a FireGL 128mb graphics card. It's the same as an ATI 9600 mobility. There are many modern 3d games that won't play on this hardware, but URU is flawless. The next Bethesda game (Oblivion, RPG) probably won't play on this computer, but I've always counted on adventure games not requiring the latest greatest hardware in order to run.
Uru and Myst V have splendid graphics and sounds for the player to experience. I find the games to be very immersive. So, if a few interface quirks got fixed, they'd be more than fine for me.(myst V may have fixed the problems that are hassles with Uru)
I'd hate to become unable to play adventure games because they got caught up on the graphics upgrade hamster wheel to nowhere.
Honestly, I loved the way Myst V looked. Considering the circumstances, this is more than expected. My issue was when they set it in the New Mexico Desert. This world was a fantasy world, and even though we all knew it was supposed to be “on Earth,” the fact that it became a part of this actual world was hard for me to swallow. I wish they hadn’t done that…somehow it loses its magic when I can walk to the place where EoA happened.
Well I have nothing against real-time, but I feel strongly that if you're going te make the switch you must go to very high end real-time graphics. The reason is that only that calibre of graphics, like we see in Gears of War, MGS4 or the real time FF7 intro, does justice to offline rendering of the previous Myst games. Sure it's a long ways off from Maxwell Render or MentalRay, but it still looks damn good. At least as good as Riven or Myst 3, and encroaching on Myst 4 quality. Hell, they've even got fairly scalable real time caustics now (http://graphics.cs.ucf.edu/caustics/), so you can definitly match the quality.
Anyways, I think that unless you can do the previous pre-rendered stuff justice, then you shouldn't go real-time. Part of the attraction of Myst was the jaw dropping visuals, and for me anything less then that isn't good enough.
Of course, I realise that Myst doesn't really attract that hardcore crowd with high end enough computers. However, there's a little thing called LOD. So long as you make sure the core gameplay elements can run on any garbage computer, you can scale up the rest to infinity so long as you maintain a fallback. I really don't think the market is an reason, just an excuse. And honestly, half those hardcore folks are graphics whores anyways, and are getting sick of the countless FPS. If you made a Myst that looked incredible, you would still get the sales.
I think there's some truth there, DudeMiester. Myst may not be a cutting-edge franchise any longer, Alamnahat, but in my opinion, it should be. Of course, the sales issue/Ubi problem/time constraint didn't help matters, and you guys did do great under the circumstances, but I think ideally M5 should've utilized a higher-end engine. So your grandma and the computer-illiterate guy across the street couldn't play it today, but in a couple years when prices drop they can. Meanwhile, the rest of the gaming world slaps themselves silly over a breathtakingly realistic realtime world with an amazing story. It wouldn't take some awesome gaming rig either. My system isn't top of the line (2GHz Athalon, NVIDIA GeForce FX5200XT 128mb), yet demos of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and the Call of Duty 2 look amazing and play fairly well (the latter at an astonishing framerate despite fairly high performance, 1024x768 resolution and 4x antialiasing). FarCry isn't exactly my game, but those a graphics a Myst fan could drool for...:-D...
Good luck, all you Cyanists!
...but I must add that that shot of Todelmer is just absolute sweetness...
Add me to the list of those that prefers the real time 3D. I just couldn't believe the thrill when I first played RealMyst. I had thoroughly enjoyed the original version of Myst, but with RealMyst it was like being somewhere familiar but seeing so much more.
I still love playing Uru, both offline and online with Until Uru. The beauty of Eder Kemo especially demonstrates the 'aliveness' of the 3D. Now Myst V continues that experience for me, although I have not made it too far yet due to RL time constraints.
I agree that the best idea was to create a gorgeous game that could be played by a larger audience. Although I was one that had to significantly upgrade for Riven, then again for RealMyst. Come to think of it, I eventually upgraded a ways through my Uru experience too.
Y'all done good, keep up the good work. Lots of us are very happy with the way Myst V turned out.
It is really amazing how this issue, above all others I've seen in Myst, has POLARISED the community.
Everyone either loves realtime or hates it. And it seems fairly evenly split too.
It probably doesn't help that every second game since Riven has been realtime, and every other prerendered.
I think there's a balance here of waiting for technology to fulfill what users want, and that is Riven type quality imagery from games. When playing Riven, I always thought it would be cool to move 3D, but after playing Cyan's games since, Riven is still the best game in my view, and believe it's down to...
'The feeling the whole game provides as a product'.
The feeling in my view is the most important aspect, and right now I think Cyan's challenges are down to producing games that just don't have much feel. Certainly, Myst 3-5 don't.
The answer then really is (IMHO) if you can't provide a product with feel through current 3D technology, look at 3D panaromas instead - Riven would certainly have been better with this. If this doesn't provide the feel factor then pre-rendered is a viable route. It would make a lot of sense to do a lot of user testing on this before the next project!
While writing, I honestly believe Cyan needs people like Robyn or Richard back who can embody a future project with a sense of the Myst and Riven feel, and believe it's definitely time to make new worlds away from Myst (but again, of the same feel). [There may be people at Cyan who have the necessary skills, but are being lead by the technology?]
Furthermore, Cyan's recent troubles 'may' have been caused with their relationship with Ubi and bastardising the games with a West Coast feel. Moreover, the music used has also gone the way of 'relaxation tapes' and doesn't have the same 'feel' as Myst and Riven.
"It's all about feel" :-)
mail@awarenessengine.co.uk
I think there's a balance here of waiting for technology to fulfill what users want, and that is Riven type quality imagery from games. When playing Riven, I always thought it would be cool to move 3D, but after playing Cyan's games since, Riven is still the best game in my view, and believe it's down to...
'The feeling the whole game provides as a product'.
The feeling in my view is the most important aspect, and right now I think Cyan's challenges are down to producing games that just don't have much feel. Certainly, Myst 3-5 don't.
The answer then really is (IMHO) if you can't provide a product with feel through current 3D technology, look at 3D panaromas instead - Riven would certainly have been better with this. If this doesn't provide the feel factor then pre-rendered is a viable route. It would make a lot of sense to do a lot of user testing on this before the next project!
While writing, I honestly believe Cyan needs people like Robyn or Richard back who can embody a future project with a sense of the Myst and Riven feel, and believe it's definitely time to make new worlds away from Myst (but again, of the same feel). [There may be people at Cyan who have the necessary skills, but are being lead by the technology?]
Furthermore, Cyan's recent troubles 'may' have been caused with their relationship with Ubi and bastardising the games with a West Coast feel. Moreover, the music used has also gone the way of 'relaxation tapes' and doesn't have the same 'feel' as Myst and Riven.
"It's all about feel" :-)
mail@awarenessengine.co.uk
Has anyone actually replayed Riven lately? Perhapss you rather keep the "it looks so great" nostalgia. But oh dear.
Even the oh so detailed Revelation has terrible moments with the full screen movies and the poorly made transitions. Some cutout movies are also not very good.
Now that planet motion in Todelmer is pure perfection.
Myst V pwns prerendered, even in looks. :)
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I kept wanting to add more & more to my comments so please forgive the deletions! I started a thread quite some time ago... out of frustration that MYST V was going to be in 3-D and similar to URU. Alahmnat just keyed me into this blog (thanks Alahmnat!). The thread over in the MYST V forum basically touched on this very issue and explores other avenues as well… as it has grown considerably. It's shown people on both sides of this debate as well as people who don't have a preference either way as long as the story is there.
To keep things simplistic...for me...the MYST series just isn't the same when rendered in 3-D. I don't think that the 3-D MYST games are more immersive than any of the 2-D games experienced in the MYST series. The 3-D constantly BREAKS the immersion for me. MYST V did have some solid moments though…namely Todelmer and I did enjoy the game. But MYST V... for being the End of Ages just fell short to me in too many ways. I won't delve into it any further as I have spent most of my time in the other thread doing so...so I will just place the link here for anyone interested in visiting this topic as it has been approached in different ways and could only enrich this blog as this blog can enrich the other thread...I've linked it from the most recent full page...
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/5811098262/m/7851012033/p/15
If you don’t want to copy & paste the link… the name of the thread is “IS ANYONE ELSE BUMBED OUT THAT THE FINAL MYST IS GOING TO BE URU STYLE?” in the general discussion & speculation section of the MYST V forum.
Lastly... I'm not sure who kept writing the point that the MYST series has been well balanced between 3-D & 2-D but something just isn't adding up there to me. I think whoever thinks this...is not taking into consideration that realMYST (not even numbered) was a "copy" of the original MYST and shouldn't be given credence as its own separate game thus making up the erroneous “balanced” 3-D vs. 2-D aspect of the series. URU & MYST V are their own games which makes = 2. MYST V is the only one with a number which then makes the number of 3-D games in the MYST "NUMBERED" series if you will = 1. So...that's not so balanced when you then think that MYST (I) - RIVEN (II) - EXILE (III) & REVELATION (IV) were all pre-rendered. URU wasn't given a number nor was it even included or found worthy enough to be included in the collector's edition "Making Of" video for MYST V.
The majority of games in the series have been pre-rendered and I feel it was a HUGE mistake to go with 3-D in the MYST series. I understand CYAN’s current hardships & URU’s cause in it. In acknowledging everone's blog here...I enjoyed reading all of the comments. I've learned even more! Good luck CYAN & thanks for all the incredible games that have enriched my life! Make something like RIVEN again P-L-E-A-S-E!
Okay -- realize for starters that the last genuine Cyan pre-rendered game was Riven. That was a LONG time ago in the game world. It should be obvious that Cyan's long-range development plan has been to transition to realtime and stay there. Say what you want about Exile and Revelation, but those were built by other developers while Cyan was devoting all their energies to Uru, which they saw as their future. RealMYST was a preview of what was to come. Cyan was finished with pre-rendered, and the ONLY reason we continued to see 2D titles was that Cyan wanted to keep the saga alive, and keep some cash flowing in, during the lengthy period it would take to finish Uru. Yeah, the 2D games were gorgeous, but that was "then". To Cyan, 3D was "now," and they put all their eggs in the 3D basket only to find that the world wasn't ready for Uru Live. So what were they to do then? They weren't going to return to 2D. They had been there, made their mark, and moved on. As for 3D, that path had unexpectedly been blocked when Uru Live proved to be unworkable. So -- theorizing here -- Cyan, innovators that they are, and unwilling to re-hash old formulas, decided to produce End of Ages to complete the entire cycle. Was it a compromise? Yes, but under the circumstances it had to be. It needed to recapture the flavor of the classic Myst titles, while using the 3D engine that was now their stock-in-trade. And it had to close out the Myst line with a finality that would show beyond the shadow of a doubt that Cyan was moving on to something else entirely. It appears very plain to me that if Cyan can't innovate and be on the cutting edge, they would rather regroup and find a way to get back to that cutting edge.
Regardless if computers have evolved to the point where you can ape the original Myst game in real time, it doesn't mean that it necessarily should be so. Pre-rendered graphics have grown with Myst as well as expanded upon its core gameplay. It wasn't like Myst 4 was made up of a bunch of bland static postcards - they were beautifully rendered postcards teeming with life in 360 degrees. There was nothing backwards about the presentation in either Myst 3 or 4 despite unfair comparisons to URU.
I think there may be truth to the idea that pre-rendered environments better lend themselves to a game like Myst than a real time environments. Which isn't to say URU should have been prerendered, only that URU should be realtime and Myst should be prerendered because those delivery methods are simply better suited to the gameplay. I'm not trying to insult Myst V here, only that when some people try to come up with excuses for what we have, and grasp at what could have been... well, they're just avoiding the issue. Making a game in realtime 3D isn't automatically going to make it a better game.
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