Cut Scenes

[Longport]

I have to say that in all of the PC games that I've ever played, the first Jedi Knight had the best transitionals and end scenes ever! I've played many a game where you fight your way through a TOUGH game only to come to a disappointing, anti-climactic end scene. The cinematic cut and end scenes in JK were AMAZING and very satisfying.

 

I loaded up JKII and was disappointed to see that the cut-scenes are now just animated and (I know it's sad) I was also disappointed not to hear the original actor's voice portraying Kyle.

 

Anyone else find that wanting or is it just me?

[StormHammer]

Welcome to the forums. Here...*hands over a chocolate Jedi Medallion*

 

I also liked the FMV cut-scenes in Jedi Knight...and I thought most of the actors did a very good job - especially Jason Court who played Kyle Katarn. Boc and Jerec were too cheesy, though, IMO. (Sorry, Christopher Neame (Jerec) and Time Winters (Boc) ...you were a bit OTT.)

 

As far as JKII goes...well, I have to admit I like the CGI cut scenes better than the in-engine scenes. Make no mistake, I think Raven have done a fantastic job pushing the engine to deliver some really dynamic scenes...it's just that when it comes down to the level of human interaction, only real-life actors can really capture the physical and emotional nuances of their characters. CGI still has a way to go - i.e. the quality of Final Fantasy, or Shrek have to become more mainstream and budget-friendly before CGI characters can truly play a greater part, IMO. Luckily, the game engines are getting better all the time, and with recent advancements in in-game facial animation, the potential is certainly there to provide even greater realism in the future.

 

I felt the voice-acting throughout was superb, and managed to convey the necessary emotion that the in-engine characters could not quite achieve.

 

The key problem with using real actors these days, however, is that you have to place them in locations that do not exist. Building actual locations (sets) to shoot in, costs a great deal of money, so the only resort is CGI...which JK used for it's backdrops. Even then...you need to do a lot of compositing to merge your real characters with the CGI world...and that CGI world has to be very detailed and realistically lit so that your real-life characters don't glaringly stand out.

 

I think I read somewhere that the FMV cut-scenes in Jedi Knight were very, very expensive, taking a huge chunk of the overall development budget for the game. Add 4-5 years, and the costs would probably be prohibitive now to deliver the same visual impact - let alone the extended development time to render the environments and shoot the actors playing their parts.

 

I'm just glad they tried it on Jedi Knight, no matter the cost.