Thread 718415979

A fixed camera angle can make any location instantly seem more interesting

>>718415979 (OP)
>pre-rendered backgrounds
SOVL

>>718415979 (OP)
makes me wanna explore

>>718415979 (OP)
looks like Hero of the Kingdom

i wish i could do art.. i don't wanna pay some deviantart troon and ai slop is still not soulful enough yet for making a game

>>718415979 (OP)
I miss this era of JRPGs so much its unreal

Camera rotation has added nothing to formerly pre-rendered genres its been implemented in.

VGH

>>718415979 (OP)
I miss this style.

Legend of Dragoon has the best pre-rendered backgrounds from that era

>>718419790
>a village of 6 fucking buildings needed a major

weird when you think about it, especially since one building is the mill, and another is a shop.

>>718425015
My head-canon was always that there are more houses on the outskirts and you only have access to the town square

>>718424647
lol they are pretty basic and simplistic compared to later PS1 games.

The problem is that companies would have to devote more resources to gameplay instead of graphics if they went back to pre-rendered backgrounds with 2D sprites. They just aren't good at that anymore. Decades of investing in graphics, monetization and identity politics has completely gutted their ability to develop fun games.

Baten Kaitos has some beautiful backgrounds

How did they design these locations? They feel real and believable, yet they're obviously fictional and fantastical, and there's nothing in real life they could've used as inspiration, I haven't seen anything like it

>>718415979 (OP)
That's becuase it can make a small location just feel like a location. You don't see the empty background. Your imagination fills in the blanks. One of the reason Open World ruins multiple genres where it doesn't add anything, such as JRPGs.

>>718429197
I'm guessing they made a sketch, and then modeled the 3D environment according to it. So the unique feeling they have could be from having a good composition from a 2D art viewpoint, combined with realistic detail and lighting from the 3D rendering

>>718429885
But I assume that's how modern game locations are made as well, yet they never feel like real places and always have some obvious fake gamey quality to them

I think Xenoblade looks great, but its locations just don't have that tactile quality

>>718425638
>re-use the exact same cities in the prequel with barely any changes

So fucking lazy

It's also good for jump scares

>>718415979 (OP)
the music also elevates it.

>>718430342
Xenoblade is pretty hugely different by not being pre-rendered.
What I meant is that the picture in the OP is (most likely) planned as a 2D image, and then rendered as a 2D image. It keeps its balanced composition no matter what, because you can't move the camera. And despite this, it has a semi-realistic look to it because of the 3D simulated materials and lighting

>>718426285
>Red Alert 2
It just screams style at you

>>718430973
You mean the style they stole from Warcraft?

>>718415979 (OP)
Yeap.

>>718425175
that's normal for smaller medieval villages, to not be clustered in blocks like modern settlements but more like a cluster of farms with a central strip with a church, market, etc

>>718426285
You should replace one of the Sim Shitty pictures with a Commandos one

>>718431135
No lol cope. Warcraft was cartoony shit, RA had a realistic artstyle.