Bring back live actors!

[SaberPro]

I rather pay more to have live-actors

 

Kyle Rules!!

 

Looking forward to live-actors in JK3

[Keyan Farlander]

I say go with live action. It's far, far better in my opinion. But I think those days are pretty much over. They reached their zenith in Wing Commander IV, and will never see that greatness again

[Assault3000]

In my opinion I thought the people who acted out in jk were not bad. The actor who did Katarn seemed to fit the role nicely, he did the correct facial expressions at the right time, I mean would you rather have a guy that looks like this ---> or how about a little furry ewok ---> the acting was not as cheesy as most think it was considering the people had no real experience. Should they bring back the live acting? Possibly but with the same actors who did Kyle and Jan, nothing is dumber than a different actor playing the role in a sequal.

[scoobz]

All I can say is "Red Alert 2". Kari Wuhrer in that tight top ... nuff said

[Master Spiff]

CG "acting" is getting better. As soon as your average PC can easily display Final Fantasy (THE MOVIE) quality game animation, you should have no complaints. And the way PC tech is going, that should be around sometime next month.

[mattskywalker1]

The ingame cutscnenes in JO were disappointing to say the least. Why couldn't they at least make them like X-Wing Alliance or Force Commander if they didn't want to use real actors.

[ToiletDuck]

Originally posted by Bacon00

I personally think in-game cutscenes add to the imersion of the game... you are more in "control" or the characters.. you see a cutscene, and then you play out you own "cutscene." With live actors, you watch, then play a game.

100% correct

[thrEEpaGe]

the average pc isnt the equivalent of an average gaming pc master spiff....there will have to be probably a couple or more 3d card generations for that to happen....

[Master Spiff]

threep

 

that was what I like to call .... sarcasm. i wasn't serious.

[thrEEpaGe]

there are video cards out there that render final fantasy at 60fps, about 2.5 times the speed required by movies...so actually i wouldnt be surprised if in a few years we could be seeing something like that...

 

ie D3 w/ i think 250000 polys/char...that would be nice

 

in comparison i think shrek used 1.5 million polys/char...mm...i cant wait....

[Master Spiff]

The problem is that it takes a lot more effort to model and texture with that much detail. That all equals $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

 

But in probably 10 years, games like this will look at least as good as FF (the movie). They'll just be more expensive.

[Sith_Incarnite]

I do think that the live action is a good touch and adds a touch of realism to the game itself but it does take a lot of time, effort and not to mention MONEY to do those live action cut-scenes. If they could get really good and "known" actors to play the parts and have ILM do the special effects....that would be awesome!! But look at it this way, the more money, time and effort that is poured into the live action the less "time, effort and money" will be spent on the actual gameplay and functionality. When given a choice I prefer to pour 110% into the gameplay.

 

Sith Incarnite:cool:

[hughJ]

"there are video cards out there that render final fantasy at 60fps"

 

the final fantasy tech demo they used was not the real final fantasy... poly counts were far far lower in the demo, the effects were obviously stripped down, etc..

 

to be able to play the actual real final fantasy in real time at 60fps... we're probably still at least 5+ years or more away from that..

[Wakizashi]

I join the crowd of live-acted cutscene haters.

 

Really, the actors at original JK were absolutely horrible, and even though these aren't exactly the best thing available, they still were far better, and integrate into the game well.

[Essobie]

Does anyone remember the cutscenes in Interstate '76? The reason those were so good was that they paid top notch VOICE ACTORS to do a really good job on the voices, and then relied on the stylistic quality of the in game engine to emmerse the player into the world of polygons.

 

Now I'll admit that with the bit of knowledge I have of modeling and animating I can see places in the JK2 cutscenes that could have been improved on quite a bit. But here's the main problem with live actors in a game that uses 3D models for the characters OUTSIDE of cutscenes:

 

It makes you feel MORE like you are just playing a game when you aren't watching a cutscene.

 

With Interstate '76, at no time did the graphics of the game and the graphics of the cutscene "disagree" with each other. This meant that even though you were playing a game, you were never REMINDED of that fact when the game paused to give you some story. It just flowed together.

 

JK2 is just like that... JK1 was not. JK1 you were playing with UBER low poly models (pyramids for feet, mind you) and all of a sudden you saw some jackass in a big costume trying to convince us that he, just a few seconds ago, was a 200 poly model. It completely tears you from the experience when you realize "oh, this is where they have to bring in actors to try to fool me into thinking that the horrible model I was just playing with is a living, breathing human."

 

Just tacky. And as many have mentioned before, the acting in JK1 was horrendous. The only thing worth looking at was the actress that played Jan... and I'm sure that the casting director hired her specifically for the eye-candy... not her acting ability.

 

I think that hiring live actors is a complete waste of money, and it just reminds people that they are playing a video game with cutscenes. I'd rather just play a video game and leave the rest to my imagination.

 

Essobie

[thrEEpaGe]

5+ years is hilarious....lol....

 

lets compare the "technology" of 5 years ago...

 

JK vs. U2

 

hahahahaha

[Degas]

Some of the intervals between cutscenes are so long, you forget why your character even cares.

 

For instance, I'm looking for Desann's ship, the Doomgiver right now. I've been having fun in the level, it's very challenging. But I can no longer remember where I am. Is this base on an asteroid, is it IN an asteroid, or what? And why am I here? Objectives show only that I'm supposed to be looking for Desann's ship. OK, fine. Why? I dimly remember running into Luke somewhere in this level, and that he ran off to do something or other. But I have no recollection of what it was.

 

More cutscenes would make this seem a hell of a lot more like Star Wars and less like Quake III Arena. The true artistry of Star Wars was the awesomely entertaining STORIES involved. I get no sense of a story from this game, sadly.

 

I think the majority would like to see live action cut scenes, with live actors. The main ***** seems to be the quality of the actors in JK1.

 

I think the mechanics of the cutscenes using the game engine just reek, sorry. Anyone ever watch Monty Python series on TV? Where the animation scenes show the toons talking with absolutely no change of expression and their jaws as a separately animated piece of the graphics? That's exactly what I see in these game engine cutscenes.

 

So, my first choice would be GOOD live actors. Second choice would be GOOD CG animated cutscenes, not using the game engine. WAY behind the pack is the current method of building the cutscenes for the game. With any of those methods, though, they need more cutscenes to bring the game and the story behind it to life.

 

My $.02

 

Degas

 

Signature:

 

LOSE THE DAMNED POPUPS, PLEASE!!

[Hiteche5]

I personally like the cutscenes from JK but I may have to agree with those that say for this day and age we don't need to do that anymore. We have anough advances in CG rendering to be able to do a cutscene of high quality. Why don't they include live actors? EXPENSIVE. Also if you don't geet the same peeps to play Kyle and Jan (oh mama) then it ruins it for alot of people.

 

BTW those people who say that the engine can't suport the cutscene..remember for a CG rendered scene a MOV file plays..the engine does not do that. So they could have done rendered scenes for all of us to enjoy. Do you think your PS2 is able to render those cutscenes? No. It's an embedded movie file.

 

Now the only problem with a CG rendered cutscene is that they have to have the equipment to do them (Final Fantasy the movie cost 10 million and 20 percent was for the equipment alone.) and the artist that do it. Sure Raven guys are some smart cookies but that is a whole other side of programming. Usually when you see a CG rendered scen in a game it is done by another studio..Again we a re talking money. Hopefully the revenue will allow the expansion or sequel to have some good scenes.