3D Games Production (week eight) - Friday

Pre-Rendering Vs Real-Time rendering.

Pre-rendering can link to many scenarios. One of the biggest is 'pre-rendered cutscenes' - this is where all models, assets, textures, scripts etc, have a one time use. When this occurs, it is compiled together in that space for playback later. Another example would be CGI, where the computer compiles the visual effects for playback within games or films.

Whereas Real-time rendering is something that occurs, coincidentally, in real time - that requires your computer hardware to run alongside the game you are playing.

Which requires more graphic processing power, which can end up bottlenecking lower tier graphics cards if not optimised correctly, which can result in, lag, latency, collision problems etc. Real time is where it is rendered as you play, some games don't have much of an issue with running real time graphics.

This is also why games, especially on Steam, have games that have a 'minimum system requirement' and a 'recommended system requirement' - though this is a sign of if you are able to run the game or not, sometimes the model of graphics card they list can determine the graphics. For example a sidescroller indie title may need a lower tier card, whereas a AAA game would need a higher tier card.

One of the biggest culprits of real time tend to be open world games, such as: TES: Skyrim, No Man's Sky, World of Warcraft, just to name a few.

Where the game has to procedurally generate the assets coming onto screen (Which can show visible mipmapping, if not optimised correctly.)

Both rendering types have different purposes as Pre-rendering is normally straight into a highly detailed piece of imagery, normally used to convey story, narrative and give a wider scope of a game. Whereas Real-Time rendering is mainly focused on gameplay, mechanics, design aspects like level and game design.

Real-Time has its limitations which is why things need to be optimised, for the formerly mentioned reasons like lag. Whereas Pre-Render it is possible to get as much detail out of it as possible, which is why sometimes game trailers release at 4K and maybe even 8K quality, but the actual gameplay suffers when running at 4K as it is limited by hardware and poor optimisation.

Pre-Render (Example taken from the Battlefield one trailer)

Real-Time Rendering (Example taken from TES: Skyrim)