It isn’t lost on me the amount of CGI renders incorporated into this video (perhaps more than you even usually spoil us with), a true love letter to the art form 🥰
The big question is, despite today Big Budget massive CGI, nothing really touch your soul. there still something missing, PS1 to early 2000 era got that blend of Ambition and Passion, it's something that you feel, even today, working with high polygon model, and software kink is very slow, it's like you're constantly banging your head, the software sometimes become unresponsive. or a manual labor like tweaking Vertices one by one by hand to retopology the model, or placing hair plane one by one until everything is covered up can't imagine how those guy managed to pull all of that with weak hardware from 90s
@@jensenraylight8011yeah today’s games have poor art direction. because of the technical limitations of past games, you needed some kind of real art direction to make everything cohesive. now everything from final fantasy to resident evil 4 remake is just “realism” with various noise and grain filters.
@@jensenraylight8011 I think that today producing a game costs a lot... so companies don't want to take any more risks... they prefer ready-made formulas that they already know will sell: remakes, remasters and open world games with online multiplayer... Whoever lived the magical era at the beginning of it all, lived!
I'm glad you included the brief snippet of "Sticker brush Symphony" for this video. While the obvious main draw for the original"Donkey Kong Country" series is the pre rendered graphics; without the incredible compositions from David Wise, they might not be as great as the culmination of all of these things working in tandem.
@@verygoodfreelancer -resident evil 4 -realism -poor art direction If we're talking about the remake I can see that, but OG RE4? Sorry, but that's a huge boomer take.
Thanks for the great video. I spent these 2d to 3d years at Probe Entertainment as an artist and and then Art Manager. Was an exciting time. We were using the SGI machines for Alien Trilogy and Diehard Trilogy but over a period of a year or so we were transitioning over to 3Dstudio DOS and Lightwave for games like Forsaken and Re-Volt. I was lucky enough to beta test the first version of 3dsMAX. It was an exciting time as all the 2D pixel artists were staying late after work to teach themselves 3dsMAX. All the artists knew it was the future. Shout out to all the physical book authors that wrote unofficial manuals for all the new 3d software. They were crucial in the days before the internet.
Very cool to see comments like this from someone involved professionally at the time! My experience with Probe was mostly playing MK1 on Genesis as a kid but it was amazing to see all the rapid leaps in tech back then. Every year practically felt like skipping several new console gens by today's standard, especially in the arcades.
This was brilliant! I'm an experienced 3D character modeller, and this exact era was where i was becoming hugely inspired and taking my first steps into doing 3D as a job. Back then everything felt exciting and new. I always remember being blown away from segmented characters in games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken 1 became a single skinned seamless body, like in Tekken 3. Thank you for taking me back to that more optimistic time!
The line about artists and having to quickly learn and master these tools is significant. I remember seeing a demonstration of Alias on an SGI machine at the time, while relatively primitive compared to contemporary software it still offered a lot and to suddenly have to learn something like that must have been overwhelming, a lot of artists did though. Next to no real thought had been given to usability with these old tools, baffling user interfaces were the norm and if you thought Blender looked impenetrable now imagine what this looked like in the early-mid 90s, the computer it was running on was worth $30k+ and the software assumed you to be a skilled. No real internet to help either, just experimentation and giant manuals.
I was born in the early 90s so growing up, I saw CGI everywhere. From ReBoot, and Toy Story to Donkey Kong Country and Final Fantasy VII. It was a very interesting time seeing so much happen so quickly with computer animation. You captured it excellently here.
What a fucking era it was to grow up as gaming went from 2D to 3D. I'll never forget that Christmas when I got the first Donkey Kong Country and played it all day.
I’m so glad you pronounced SoftImage correctly. Too many people understandably say “image” instead of “im-aj” (rhymes with mirage). I remember the jab back in the day being “You’re not a veteran 3D artist if you can’t pronounce SoftImage correctly”.
Too bad we don't have a letter to represent that sound. We could have spelled it SoftImaж. No ambiguity. Edit: The 'a' is still wrong compared to what you'd expect, and the 'I' is ambiguous, as well as suggesting the wrong syllable emphasis. Soft-ihmahж. Much better.
I was wondering wwhy it was pronouncing that. Didn't know there was a correct way to pronounce it, I presume it was image given how it was written. Man English can be weird even when you are born using it!
I've been watching your channel for about 4 years now. Your channel is basically the kind of tv show I wish it existed back in the 90s and I thank you very much for making it real. Also, your recent focus on graphics (the 80s video, and this one) overlapped with my recent interest in art. Above all, one thing I realized in this video is that I love the aesthetic of the rendered graphics of the 90s. Many would call them outdated, but your video pointed out to me what an art style it is. And good art never gets old. Thank you, thank you so much for this.
I'll never forget as a kid reading some magazine article about Toy Story while waiting at the dentist. They said it would have taken 27 years to render on the average desktop computer. That blew my mind 🤯.
@@manuelkfc7916 It was around the time it came out on video. So what was that... Late 95, early 96? Iirc we had a 66mhz with 8MB ram at the time, that was slightly below average
@@natecw4164 wow, that's some microgram of specs compared to nowadays. Just look at people doing all sorts of things like Unreal Engine 5 on their own home PCs. How time flies.
Whenever a new Splash Wave pops up, I stop what I'm doing and watch one of the best Game Documentaries on this website! While I was a kid who wasn't in a hurry for games to go all polygonal, the transformations were happening a lot sooner than I thought, and in the end, it was a natural progression. Pixels and Polys can co-exist, and our old 16-bit favorites showed us the way all along!
I just love those glossy old-school CGI models. Wish they would release Donkey Kong Country 1-2-3 using the original pre-rendered assets, but in HD and not shrunk down.
I love that a lot of the decompiled PC ports of N64 games have texture mods that aim for that original render look. Having Mario 64 actually looking like the manual and box art images is pretty much how it looked to me as a kid before the bar kept going up on 3D visuals
I remember it was insane jumping from silly 8/16Bit games to fully 3D ones, every game looked fantastic back then. Now looking back, most of them look Meh at best and I personally still find the few 2.5D ones to be the more charming ones, and also those who have aged more gracefully than fully 3D games.
@@CerealKiller lol it’s true. The games that aged best from that era are not the ones which are fully 3D. There may be a few exceptions such as Wipeout 2097.
I don't know how younger gamers view it these days but when I was younger, watching a PS1 games Intro movie was such a big part of the games experience. I loved it. It should be appreciated that only the generation before was completely 2D gaming. So to jump into a world of 3D gaming was a gigantic leap. But the pre rendered game intros showcased a graphical advancement that was nothing short of reaching far into the future. It was so exciting to watch those. And when games used multiple pre rendered videos sewed skillfully into their games, such as FF7.... it's hard to convey just how impressive that was at the time. But it's something that has always stayed with me. That time in gaming was revolutionary, more so then probably any other. For a gamer back then, games regularly took your breath away.
The kids ive seen today just skip the cinematic, then 10 minutes in are donfused and dont understand the story or whats going on. Sadly i see alot of adults do the same now.
Cutscenes were used as a reward when the actual realtime 3D looked like some kindergarten cubes but given the graphic quality we have today this is unnecessary
8:55 "The 90's was still an era with a general positive anticipation for the future and rising technology" I will never stop looking forward with optimism
It was the Tomb Raider series that really opened up fully 3-D worlds for me. CORE pretty much instantly figured out how to use it to full effect to produce levels that made the gamer think in three dimensions.
@@strafefox Perfect renders for the time, motion capture, tons of data cause of HDD, antialiasing, no crisp wobbling Playstation-like pixels, all lightings on. A fmv of KI have better shadows and lightning than shamefully magazine still renders of Sony and Sega that backtrack us to the age "close the ray tracing" for faster renders. 21:23 visible polygons in still render on Nina? Really?
It's crazy how much has changed within those few years of early 3D modelling. I will most likely always underestimate the 90s and everyone's commitment to the future. I really appreciated the deep dives on how most of these softwares worked and how difficult it was to adapt to them, again makes me appreciate the stories that much more. 27 minutes of pure visual entertainment and massive knowledge as per usual from this channel!
Thanks! This was an easy one in terms of music, not being restricted to one particular franchise. Adding the music is always one my favorite aspects of production, it really brings things to life.
Once again, I'm in awe as I get lost in the history lesson of 3D art and animation. . That's what made the 90s special in video games, we get to see how much the technical capabilities of gaming evolve. . Something I believe we won't really see again. . But seriously, amazing work! . .
Blown away at how well researched this is and at all the incredible visuals on display here. I lived through this era and it was pretty insane watching arcades and home consoles make so many rapid leaps in just a handful of years. I feel kinda bad for my kids where gaming has been more or less stagnant or the tech improvements are marginal or entirely under the hood for pretty much the whole time they've been alive. Hard to imagine how every Christmas felt like a new generational leap, to see things like NES Mario going to Mario 64 or Sonic 1 to Sonic Adventure in under ten years. It's all quaint now with PS1 blocky polygons being a retro throwback look for indie developers now, but videos like this remind me how cutting edge it all was at the time and how each big jump looked like "real life" to a kid until the next one came along and raised the ceiling higher.
I love your videos, mate. As a graphics nerd, the segments where you talk about graphics in your videos are always the most interesting to me. To have a video FULLY dedicated to graphics- I've never clicked on a recommendation so fast !! !!
Truly the most exciting time in gaming. I feel so sorry for people that will never be able to experience how mind blowing these graphics were at the time.
Another incredible video, and this time on the most exciting period in gaming ever, with perhaps the sole exceptioit's the first or second generation due to sheer novelty. There's certainly never going to be a time like this again.
It's truly a blessing to have a channel dedicated to documenting such compelling stories from the gaming industry. Growing up in the 90s, I read about so much of this in gaming magazines of the era. Seeing so much authentic imagery in this video from those days gives me the feels and helps me relive one of the most special times of my life. The additional insights no doubt enrich my experiences of these games, both my memories of them and the memories I've yet to make. Undoubtedly one of my favorite channels on RUclips!
Excellent work! You always find so many videos and images I haven't anywhere else. On top of that, your videos feel in depth without getting lost in the weeds. Awesome stuff!
we went from simple 2D games to fully 3D games with full CGI cutscenes, CD quality music and with some audio dialogue within a few years. We'll never see that jump again when it comes to gaming.
@@inceptional AI would be the next big step , especially in terms of interacting with characters and NPC's. I had a good experiment with the Matrix city demo and convincing one NPC that their world wasnt real and they were in fact a video game NPC.
@@purefoldnz3070 Yeah, that's an interesting one too. Right now it's mostly all a facade and nowhere near what the media would have us believe, but it can only keep evolving. And maybe one day it actually will be proper AI as we imagine it. At that point, God knows what's possible. :-o
I know this is mostly about 3D in video games, but I want to give a shout out to Mainframe Studios, who were true pioneers in the field, creating the first all CGI show _Reboot,_ as the video mentions, and continuing to improve the craft as _Reboot_ became more sophisticated, and more shows like Beast Wars and _Shadow Raiders_ continued to push the boundaries.
I said this years ago and I repeat, Strafefox channel is the pearl among all the gaming channels that someone might subscribe to. The documentation, the sounds, the visuals, the narration and the delivery is nothing but high value production stuff.
And it's funny now how we're slowly going back to pixel art. Not only for indie games but for AAA too. Octopath Traveler paved the way to gauge the interest to show studios that pixel art games still have their place. Also, the production value of your videos always blows my mind.
Can't watch this video till later but I gotta give it a like & comment so the algorithm gods take a hint! Love your channel and everything you come out with! I know it's an overused phrase, but you guys really are criminally underrated.
Just yesterday I checked if there was a new video, just to be surprised with one today :) My Strafefox clock is still finetuned 😁 Just started watching it and I already know I'll like it!
8:32 I love synth-based tracks. You can watch how it's driven, the first 2 bars use G and the third bar use F# and G at the same time, closing with G in forth bar. It also uses silent sfx and drums in background, serious stuff for an intro.
I love that, not only do you go in to technical details of early 3D graphics, but (significantly) the toolsets available to actually produce and use them on real systems. It's easy to just look at the hardware and software "on paper" processing power and capabilities, but that is it's own entire other significant development process. Like, it doesn't even matter what a system is capable of if you can't even get your own 3D assets (assuming you've figured out how to even create them in the first place with whatever 3D production hardware/software you have) reduced down to a format that will work on the actual system you are targeting (and that's without even considering optimization!). Thank you.
This channel is so criminally undertated. Thanks for this awesome documentary like video. Loved every second of it. Perfect combination of nostalgia, new information and entertainment.
This video brings back so many memories. The 90s were amazing: videogames going 3d, internet, CDs, CGI intros and extros, cinematic games, memory cards... gaming changed every year for the better
Incredible level of quality in your videos and scripts, like always ! your channel is the best for me in term of video games history! thanks for all your works !
What a journey to the past! I was lucky to be there when the 90s gaming era rised and evolved. Also I've played/seen almost all games showed in this video. Thanks!
"Despite the gameplay lacking any punch" Ladies and gentlemen, the understatement of the decade! ROR really deserves a video of its own, it was quite the snafufest. Also, calling Strafefox awesome is also an understatement! The effort shows in the editing and writing, this is some high quality shit!
Amazing documentary. Top quality as usual! The CGI era was amazing. I love the way developers came up with solutions to fit their game assets into the cartridges.
You are one of those creators that I would mark in the tv guide if this was still in the 80's just to be sure not to miss the episode, and of course also record it on vhs and rewatch it way to many times. Keep up the amazing work
This channel continues to make some of the most audio-visually pleasing documentaries I've ever seen, and this subject matter in particular seems like a match made in heaven for its style.
I think an often overlooked component to the overtaking of 3D over 2D in the early 90s was Atari/Namco collaboration that resulted in beating to the market Sega before they made their deal with Lockheed Martin. They were doing research into the entire field of 3D and even Atari inhouse had created I,Robot almost as a test case for the future of graphics on hardware that was readily available, just needed very dextrous programming to get the bits talking to the bops and so forth. That said, the academic area of research into 3D which began in the 60's at some point realized to further fund research they needed to commercialize some of the results of their projects. A lot of the first developers of 3D tools came directly out of the academic sphere in the research phase.
Just want to say that I absolutely love your videos. It’s some of the best content I’ve ever came across online. This particular episode totally captured my youth. You had to be there during the early 90s during the switch from 2D sprite era to 3D polygons to fully appreciate how huge of a leap it was. Back then me and my friends watched the intro for Tekken and Wipeout and fantasised about if we would ever be able to play games with these type of high end graphics! One thing I’ve thought about in recent years: Did studios like Rare keep all the original assets for Donkey Kong Country, before they were compressed down to fit the 16 bit cartridge? Imagine if they released an updated version of the game but with all the original assets. What a fantastic move it would be!
As an owner of one of the Virtua Figter Portrait Series Discs, can confirm, that the existence of them makes me both cringe but also smile. Such a lovely video. I absolutely adore the sheer amout of gameplay and bts footage
I lived during this transition and it was magical. By the way we kept playing pixel art games normally and of course realized that some of the 3D ones were bad. Still, seeing Virtua Racing, Ridge Racer or any 3D fighting game in the arcades was a mesmerizing experience.
This dude needs a channel and a rich sponsor who love video games for funding him and have him making the history of video games episodes in this great art. Exceptional art i wish your talent to recognize from someone dude cause you deserve it.
Oh my god, i just had to watch this before going to bed. I’m going to need to rewatch a few times, so much nostalgia. I remember vividly at least half of these games as well as messing around in 3d studio 😌 thank you so much for producing this world class piece of historic video game documentary, i enjoyed every second of it!
Another incredible video; however, for me, this era is where video games started to nose dive in quality. Games were being made in 3D because they could, without thinking whether they should, and the 3D models were often incredibly crude with larger and more obvious pixels than their 2D predecessors. With a very few exceptions, games from the early 3D era have not aged anywhere near as well as games from the previous 2D generation.
I feel so lucky that I get to watch your videos. It’s always so exciting when a new one releases. The quality is absolutely incredible. This video took me right back to that era and really captures the essence of the art form while educating us on the greater ecosystem that brought it to life.
Early 3D really was a wild blend, 2D artists were still flexing their strengths in vertex shading and strong texture work to work around the limitations which created some truly magnificent looking art.
@@strafefox These look great! When I used C4D I found I had to rely on redshift to get renders to look as high quality as yours. Of course, I also had no idea what I was doing back then 😅
Time to stop everything I'm doing because StrafeFox came out with a new video! I always thought to myself that it was a blessing to grow up and experience this age firsthand. Everything felt so freah and new, you never knew what would come out next. And my preteen self was soaking up all of it!
I'm glad you highlighted FF7. It has occurred to me several times over the years that FF7 really was the biggest leap in gaming tech we will ever see. It was literally jaw dropping not only the first time you saw it, but again and again. I had friends who LOATHED rpg's who were totally addicted to ff7 and couldn't stop talking about it.
Magnifique documentaire, j'ai appris beaucoup de choses. La qualité des informations techniques est absolument génial et ainsi que la qualité des images et des illustrations et animations 3D. Je suis impressionné ! Merci beaucoup pour se travail.
It isn’t lost on me the amount of CGI renders incorporated into this video (perhaps more than you even usually spoil us with), a true love letter to the art form 🥰
The big question is, despite today Big Budget massive CGI, nothing really touch your soul.
there still something missing, PS1 to early 2000 era got that blend of Ambition and Passion, it's something that you feel,
even today, working with high polygon model, and software kink is very slow,
it's like you're constantly banging your head, the software sometimes become unresponsive.
or a manual labor like tweaking Vertices one by one by hand to retopology the model, or placing hair plane one by one until everything is covered up
can't imagine how those guy managed to pull all of that with weak hardware from 90s
@@jensenraylight8011yeah today’s games have poor art direction. because of the technical limitations of past games, you needed some kind of real art direction to make everything cohesive. now everything from final fantasy to resident evil 4 remake is just “realism” with various noise and grain filters.
@@jensenraylight8011 I think that today producing a game costs a lot... so companies don't want to take any more risks... they prefer ready-made formulas that they already know will sell: remakes, remasters and open world games with online multiplayer...
Whoever lived the magical era at the beginning of it all, lived!
I'm glad you included the brief snippet of "Sticker brush Symphony" for this video. While the obvious main draw for the original"Donkey Kong Country" series is the pre rendered graphics; without the incredible compositions from David Wise, they might not be as great as the culmination of all of these things working in tandem.
@@verygoodfreelancer -resident evil 4
-realism
-poor art direction
If we're talking about the remake I can see that, but OG RE4? Sorry, but that's a huge boomer take.
The GOAT of videogame documentary is back!!
He really is. His Castlevania series is something I go back and watch regularly
we are agree clearly
Go watch Ahoy.
I check the Streets of Rage series sosti@@joesaiditstrue
This channel was a find, a true pearl that the algorithm recommended to me
Thanks for the great video. I spent these 2d to 3d years at Probe Entertainment as an artist and and then Art Manager. Was an exciting time. We were using the SGI machines for Alien Trilogy and Diehard Trilogy but over a period of a year or so we were transitioning over to 3Dstudio DOS and Lightwave for games like Forsaken and Re-Volt. I was lucky enough to beta test the first version of 3dsMAX. It was an exciting time as all the 2D pixel artists were staying late after work to teach themselves 3dsMAX. All the artists knew it was the future.
Shout out to all the physical book authors that wrote unofficial manuals for all the new 3d software. They were crucial in the days before the internet.
Very cool to see comments like this from someone involved professionally at the time! My experience with Probe was mostly playing MK1 on Genesis as a kid but it was amazing to see all the rapid leaps in tech back then. Every year practically felt like skipping several new console gens by today's standard, especially in the arcades.
This was brilliant! I'm an experienced 3D character modeller, and this exact era was where i was becoming hugely inspired and taking my first steps into doing 3D as a job. Back then everything felt exciting and new. I always remember being blown away from segmented characters in games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken 1 became a single skinned seamless body, like in Tekken 3.
Thank you for taking me back to that more optimistic time!
This guy continues to set the standard for other youtube channels to live up to. Amazing as always.
I say this on every video, but this really is some of the best produced content on RUclips, amazing work as always
The line about artists and having to quickly learn and master these tools is significant. I remember seeing a demonstration of Alias on an SGI machine at the time, while relatively primitive compared to contemporary software it still offered a lot and to suddenly have to learn something like that must have been overwhelming, a lot of artists did though.
Next to no real thought had been given to usability with these old tools, baffling user interfaces were the norm and if you thought Blender looked impenetrable now imagine what this looked like in the early-mid 90s, the computer it was running on was worth $30k+ and the software assumed you to be a skilled. No real internet to help either, just experimentation and giant manuals.
I was born in the early 90s so growing up, I saw CGI everywhere. From ReBoot, and Toy Story to Donkey Kong Country and Final Fantasy VII. It was a very interesting time seeing so much happen so quickly with computer animation. You captured it excellently here.
What a fucking era it was to grow up as gaming went from 2D to 3D. I'll never forget that Christmas when I got the first Donkey Kong Country and played it all day.
The greatest advancements took place between 1995 and 2000
I remember too, wasn't it an amazing time 😊😊😊😊
@@BIGW0RMBest time for games. 100%
So you played 3d games 3 years after the introduction to home consoles? Nintrashdo failed, sad but true
Donkey Kong Country wasn't a 3D game. Not even close.
I’m so glad you pronounced SoftImage correctly. Too many people understandably say “image” instead of “im-aj” (rhymes with mirage). I remember the jab back in the day being “You’re not a veteran 3D artist if you can’t pronounce SoftImage correctly”.
Thanks for educating 🙂
Too bad we don't have a letter to represent that sound. We could have spelled it SoftImaж. No ambiguity.
Edit: The 'a' is still wrong compared to what you'd expect, and the 'I' is ambiguous, as well as suggesting the wrong syllable emphasis. Soft-ihmahж. Much better.
I was wondering wwhy it was pronouncing that. Didn't know there was a correct way to pronounce it, I presume it was image given how it was written. Man English can be weird even when you are born using it!
The narrator pronounced some words (“advertisement”, “era”) in Americanised form, which I found strange for a (presumably) Scottish person.
@@elnoel1220 He is trying to be easier to understand by more of his audience.
I've been watching your channel for about 4 years now.
Your channel is basically the kind of tv show I wish it existed back in the 90s and I thank you very much for making it real.
Also, your recent focus on graphics (the 80s video, and this one) overlapped with my recent interest in art.
Above all, one thing I realized in this video is that I love the aesthetic of the rendered graphics of the 90s. Many would call them outdated, but your video pointed out to me what an art style it is. And good art never gets old. Thank you, thank you so much for this.
I'll never forget as a kid reading some magazine article about Toy Story while waiting at the dentist. They said it would have taken 27 years to render on the average desktop computer. That blew my mind 🤯.
What was the year you read this article?
Just to reflect how far we've come since then.
@@manuelkfc7916 It was around the time it came out on video. So what was that... Late 95, early 96? Iirc we had a 66mhz with 8MB ram at the time, that was slightly below average
@@natecw4164 wow, that's some microgram of specs compared to nowadays.
Just look at people doing all sorts of things like Unreal Engine 5 on their own home PCs.
How time flies.
Whenever a new Splash Wave pops up, I stop what I'm doing and watch one of the best Game Documentaries on this website! While I was a kid who wasn't in a hurry for games to go all polygonal, the transformations were happening a lot sooner than I thought, and in the end, it was a natural progression. Pixels and Polys can co-exist, and our old 16-bit favorites showed us the way all along!
THE BEST CHANNEL ON RUclips. Glad to have Steven back narrating as well.
Thanks so much! Really awesome :)
I just love those glossy old-school CGI models. Wish they would release Donkey Kong Country 1-2-3 using the original pre-rendered assets, but in HD and not shrunk down.
I love that a lot of the decompiled PC ports of N64 games have texture mods that aim for that original render look. Having Mario 64 actually looking like the manual and box art images is pretty much how it looked to me as a kid before the bar kept going up on 3D visuals
Hah! I just wrote a comment here exactly like yours! I wonder if Rare still have those original assets stored somewhere?!
The jump from 16 bits to 32 bits was something to behold if you were a kid in the 90's
We will probably never experience that kind of leap again!
I remember it was insane jumping from silly 8/16Bit games to fully 3D ones, every game looked fantastic back then. Now looking back, most of them look Meh at best and I personally still find the few 2.5D ones to be the more charming ones, and also those who have aged more gracefully than fully 3D games.
@@CerealKiller lol it’s true. The games that aged best from that era are not the ones which are fully 3D. There may be a few exceptions such as Wipeout 2097.
But the most funny thing was to show your parents the screenshots in a magazine and they went "So? I see no difference." LOOOOL
@@MagisterHamid Very likely true. I could only imagine an AGI with quantum computing leaping further in one fell swoop.
I don't know how younger gamers view it these days but when I was younger, watching a PS1 games Intro movie was such a big part of the games experience. I loved it. It should be appreciated that only the generation before was completely 2D gaming. So to jump into a world of 3D gaming was a gigantic leap. But the pre rendered game intros showcased a graphical advancement that was nothing short of reaching far into the future. It was so exciting to watch those.
And when games used multiple pre rendered videos sewed skillfully into their games, such as FF7.... it's hard to convey just how impressive that was at the time. But it's something that has always stayed with me. That time in gaming was revolutionary, more so then probably any other. For a gamer back then, games regularly took your breath away.
The kids ive seen today just skip the cinematic, then 10 minutes in are donfused and dont understand the story or whats going on.
Sadly i see alot of adults do the same now.
Cutscenes were used as a reward when the actual realtime 3D looked like some kindergarten cubes but given the graphic quality we have today this is unnecessary
8:55 "The 90's was still an era with a general positive anticipation for the future and rising technology"
I will never stop looking forward with optimism
A well-researched, enticingly-scripted, nostalgia-inducing, visually-stunning banger!!
amen to that
It was the Tomb Raider series that really opened up fully 3-D worlds for me. CORE pretty much instantly figured out how to use it to full effect to produce levels that made the gamer think in three dimensions.
Yeah, the old TR series was awesome!
The controls in the first 2 Tomb Raiders was rough, even for the time. No analog stick/s didn't leave them a lot of options though.
@@dirtyfrench2926 Nothing is perfect. Still preferable to the freaking reboot series.
@@dirtyfrench2926 That's a pro not a con , I liked more challenging controls , It added to the satisfaction of progress In the smallest ways.
but the real honor will forever belong to nintendo64...
especially to super mario 64 and OOT.
thank you shiggy!! 🤗
I miss the atmosphere of the 90s 😢 it was a pleasure to be back there through your narration 😊
Welcome home strafefox
We’ve missed you
Killer Instinct in the arcade was absolutely mind blowing to me when it was new. I really love that you touched on stuff like Silpheed as well!
Totally agree, KI was so amazing in the arcades. I played it almost at a daily basis for half a year. It's still one of my all-time favorite fighters.
@@strafefox Perfect renders for the time, motion capture, tons of data cause of HDD, antialiasing, no crisp wobbling Playstation-like pixels, all lightings on. A fmv of KI have better shadows and lightning than shamefully magazine still renders of Sony and Sega that backtrack us to the age "close the ray tracing" for faster renders. 21:23 visible polygons in still render on Nina? Really?
It’s still looks absolutely fantastic even today! It was so ahead of its time!
Nah. It was always hacky feeling. Low framerate animated sprites.
To this day I'm amazed by the visuals of arcade KI. The SNES port was good looking, but it doesn't do justice to the arcade experience.
It's crazy how much has changed within those few years of early 3D modelling. I will most likely always underestimate the 90s and everyone's commitment to the future.
I really appreciated the deep dives on how most of these softwares worked and how difficult it was to adapt to them, again makes me appreciate the stories that much more.
27 minutes of pure visual entertainment and massive knowledge as per usual from this channel!
the music in this vid is stellar by the way
love your vids and this one was a rush of nostalgia and knowledge. appreciate you
Thanks! This was an easy one in terms of music, not being restricted to one particular franchise. Adding the music is always one my favorite aspects of production, it really brings things to life.
Impeccable, as always.
Thanks so much! Really awesome :)
Once again, I'm in awe as I get lost in the history lesson of 3D art and animation.
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That's what made the 90s special in video games, we get to see how much the technical capabilities of gaming evolve.
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Something I believe we won't really see again.
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But seriously, amazing work!
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Blown away at how well researched this is and at all the incredible visuals on display here. I lived through this era and it was pretty insane watching arcades and home consoles make so many rapid leaps in just a handful of years. I feel kinda bad for my kids where gaming has been more or less stagnant or the tech improvements are marginal or entirely under the hood for pretty much the whole time they've been alive. Hard to imagine how every Christmas felt like a new generational leap, to see things like NES Mario going to Mario 64 or Sonic 1 to Sonic Adventure in under ten years. It's all quaint now with PS1 blocky polygons being a retro throwback look for indie developers now, but videos like this remind me how cutting edge it all was at the time and how each big jump looked like "real life" to a kid until the next one came along and raised the ceiling higher.
Kudos for getting all of the footage of these old CGI programs. Can't imagine it was easy tracking it all down. Keep up the high quality work!
I love your videos, mate. As a graphics nerd, the segments where you talk about graphics in your videos are always the most interesting to me. To have a video FULLY dedicated to graphics- I've never clicked on a recommendation so fast !! !!
From someone working 40 years in the field of computer graphics R&D: very nice, I enjoyed this greatly. Keep it up. 👍
Truly the most exciting time in gaming. I feel so sorry for people that will never be able to experience how mind blowing these graphics were at the time.
Another incredible video, and this time on the most exciting period in gaming ever, with perhaps the sole exceptioit's the first or second generation due to sheer novelty. There's certainly never going to be a time like this again.
It's truly a blessing to have a channel dedicated to documenting such compelling stories from the gaming industry. Growing up in the 90s, I read about so much of this in gaming magazines of the era. Seeing so much authentic imagery in this video from those days gives me the feels and helps me relive one of the most special times of my life. The additional insights no doubt enrich my experiences of these games, both my memories of them and the memories I've yet to make. Undoubtedly one of my favorite channels on RUclips!
Excellent work! You always find so many videos and images I haven't anywhere else. On top of that, your videos feel in depth without getting lost in the weeds. Awesome stuff!
we went from simple 2D games to fully 3D games with full CGI cutscenes, CD quality music and with some audio dialogue within a few years. We'll never see that jump again when it comes to gaming.
@@inceptional AI would be the next big step , especially in terms of interacting with characters and NPC's. I had a good experiment with the Matrix city demo and convincing one NPC that their world wasnt real and they were in fact a video game NPC.
@@purefoldnz3070 Yeah, that's an interesting one too. Right now it's mostly all a facade and nowhere near what the media would have us believe, but it can only keep evolving. And maybe one day it actually will be proper AI as we imagine it. At that point, God knows what's possible. :-o
another splash wave during a heatwave what timing hell yeah!
So interesting. I always assumed that Sega developed their tools in house as they were behind the hardware too but this makes a lot of sense now.
Well they did make Digitizer still, and probably various other late 80s tools for in house video game development.
Yeah, making inhouse 3D tools gave convicted criminal Yuji Naka a chance to sabotage his own company and gain leverage from within.
I know this is mostly about 3D in video games, but I want to give a shout out to Mainframe Studios, who were true pioneers in the field, creating the first all CGI show _Reboot,_ as the video mentions, and continuing to improve the craft as _Reboot_ became more sophisticated, and more shows like Beast Wars and _Shadow Raiders_ continued to push the boundaries.
I said this years ago and I repeat, Strafefox channel is the pearl among all the gaming channels that someone might subscribe to. The documentation, the sounds, the visuals, the narration and the delivery is nothing but high value production stuff.
I've always wanted a video from you covering this topic. Can't wait to watch!
And it's funny now how we're slowly going back to pixel art. Not only for indie games but for AAA too. Octopath Traveler paved the way to gauge the interest to show studios that pixel art games still have their place. Also, the production value of your videos always blows my mind.
not only that but CG that mimics the look of 90’s render is starting to become vogue again
The most underrated channel I've seen on RUclips , it should have a million subscribers
I have been craving a Strafefox fix! 😊
Thanks so much! Really appreciated :)
The production value is just out of this world,
good work!
I do not understand why these videos don't get more views. It's genuinely puzzling.
The fucking youtube algorithm is blocking great videos like this and keeps recommending the same old names
Out of all retro gaming channels I watch, I feel that Strafefox is a real hidden gem
Another great video from a great channel 🔥❤️
Can't watch this video till later but I gotta give it a like & comment so the algorithm gods take a hint! Love your channel and everything you come out with! I know it's an overused phrase, but you guys really are criminally underrated.
Just yesterday I checked if there was a new video, just to be surprised with one today :) My Strafefox clock is still finetuned 😁
Just started watching it and I already know I'll like it!
Ha :) I was actually one day late, so your clock works perfectly ;)
@@strafefox Oh wow! That's awesome haha 😆
Great video by the way, thank you so much!
8:32 I love synth-based tracks. You can watch how it's driven, the first 2 bars use G and the third bar use F# and G at the same time, closing with G in forth bar. It also uses silent sfx and drums in background, serious stuff for an intro.
Yes yes yes! I've been waiting for another episode! Let's grab some coffee and enjoy another video of Strafefox. Best channel on RUclips!
Masterfully done production! I was entranced by every minute of this documentary. Thank you!
I love that, not only do you go in to technical details of early 3D graphics, but (significantly) the toolsets available to actually produce and use them on real systems. It's easy to just look at the hardware and software "on paper" processing power and capabilities, but that is it's own entire other significant development process. Like, it doesn't even matter what a system is capable of if you can't even get your own 3D assets (assuming you've figured out how to even create them in the first place with whatever 3D production hardware/software you have) reduced down to a format that will work on the actual system you are targeting (and that's without even considering optimization!). Thank you.
This channel is so criminally undertated. Thanks for this awesome documentary like video. Loved every second of it. Perfect combination of nostalgia, new information and entertainment.
I’m hitting like and it hasn’t even started yet - the best gaming documentary RUclipsr returns 🙌
The production quality of this channel will never not amaze me. Surpasses every netflix gaming doc.
This video brings back so many memories. The 90s were amazing: videogames going 3d, internet, CDs, CGI intros and extros, cinematic games, memory cards... gaming changed every year for the better
Incredible level of quality in your videos and scripts, like always ! your channel is the best for me in term of video games history! thanks for all your works !
This is the first thing I've seen from you and wow, the quality of this documentary is insanely good. Subbed!
Yes that opening is fabulous!
What a journey to the past! I was lucky to be there when the 90s gaming era rised and evolved. Also I've played/seen almost all games showed in this video. Thanks!
"Despite the gameplay lacking any punch"
Ladies and gentlemen, the understatement of the decade!
ROR really deserves a video of its own, it was quite the snafufest.
Also, calling Strafefox awesome is also an understatement! The effort shows in the editing and writing, this is some high quality shit!
Ha :) Believe it or not but as a rental it still provided me enough fun for a couple of days :) I was really into the CGI hype at that point.
@@strafefox Oh yeah, I waited for *days* to download all 8 disks for Amiga with my 14.400 baud 😁.
Amazing documentary. Top quality as usual! The CGI era was amazing. I love the way developers came up with solutions to fit their game assets into the cartridges.
The presentation and selection of music in this channel never disappoints. I love the major production value these videos get.
One of the few channels that are worthy of having notifications turned on.
You have any idea how long I've been waiting for one of these epic videos from you again.....
So good to see a new video again!
After many years I still this is one of the stylish channel on RUclips. Thank you for your work, care and dedication
Proud to be an early Patreon supporter of this kickass channel !!!
You are one of those creators that I would mark in the tv guide if this was still in the 80's just to be sure not to miss the episode, and of course also record it on vhs and rewatch it way to many times. Keep up the amazing work
Thanks so much! Really cool to read :)
This channel continues to make some of the most audio-visually pleasing documentaries I've ever seen, and this subject matter in particular seems like a match made in heaven for its style.
I think this is my 1st time seeing a video from this channel. Holy Sh%t the production value of this is truly amazing.
Welcome back!!! is a Masterpiece!!
I'm so glad you're still making videos- absolutely one of the best channels on RUclips!!
I think an often overlooked component to the overtaking of 3D over 2D in the early 90s was Atari/Namco collaboration that resulted in beating to the market Sega before they made their deal with Lockheed Martin. They were doing research into the entire field of 3D and even Atari inhouse had created I,Robot almost as a test case for the future of graphics on hardware that was readily available, just needed very dextrous programming to get the bits talking to the bops and so forth.
That said, the academic area of research into 3D which began in the 60's at some point realized to further fund research they needed to commercialize some of the results of their projects. A lot of the first developers of 3D tools came directly out of the academic sphere in the research phase.
Honestly, this is one of the most underrated youtube channels. Great work!
I've been there... went from 8 bit and pseudo 3D to accelerators... 90s was a crazy time in PC gaming
Just want to say that I absolutely love your videos. It’s some of the best content I’ve ever came across online. This particular episode totally captured my youth. You had to be there during the early 90s during the switch from 2D sprite era to 3D polygons to fully appreciate how huge of a leap it was. Back then me and my friends watched the intro for Tekken and Wipeout and fantasised about if we would ever be able to play games with these type of high end graphics!
One thing I’ve thought about in recent years: Did studios like Rare keep all the original assets for Donkey Kong Country, before they were compressed down to fit the 16 bit cartridge? Imagine if they released an updated version of the game but with all the original assets. What a fantastic move it would be!
As an owner of one of the Virtua Figter Portrait Series Discs, can confirm, that the existence of them makes me both cringe but also smile. Such a lovely video. I absolutely adore the sheer amout of gameplay and bts footage
that video was just nuts. Such a presentation and also all the essential facts. This video is required viewing.
Following this Channel since It had 30k subs....still top of the line!! Keep on going pal
I lived during this transition and it was magical. By the way we kept playing pixel art games normally and of course realized that some of the 3D ones were bad. Still, seeing Virtua Racing, Ridge Racer or any 3D fighting game in the arcades was a mesmerizing experience.
Congratulations Stratefox ! You have 166K subscribers! 😉✌
Thanks! I never imagined I would pass 100k subs when I first started :) and thanks for sticking around for all these years Limhour! Much appreciated!
This dude needs a channel and a rich sponsor who love video games for funding him and have him making the history of video games episodes in this great art. Exceptional art i wish your talent to recognize from someone dude cause you deserve it.
Oh my god, i just had to watch this before going to bed. I’m going to need to rewatch a few times, so much nostalgia. I remember vividly at least half of these games as well as messing around in 3d studio 😌 thank you so much for producing this world class piece of historic video game documentary, i enjoyed every second of it!
Another incredible video; however, for me, this era is where video games started to nose dive in quality. Games were being made in 3D because they could, without thinking whether they should, and the 3D models were often incredibly crude with larger and more obvious pixels than their 2D predecessors. With a very few exceptions, games from the early 3D era have not aged anywhere near as well as games from the previous 2D generation.
I feel so lucky that I get to watch your videos. It’s always so exciting when a new one releases. The quality is absolutely incredible. This video took me right back to that era and really captures the essence of the art form while educating us on the greater ecosystem that brought it to life.
Great vid! Those were exciting times.
Early 3D really was a wild blend, 2D artists were still flexing their strengths in vertex shading and strong texture work to work around the limitations which created some truly magnificent looking art.
Another well-written, superbly researched, and absolutely gorgeous video. I know you use Cinema 4D but out of curiosity, which renderer do you use?
Thanks so much! I actually use one of the basic renderers (physical)
@@strafefox These look great! When I used C4D I found I had to rely on redshift to get renders to look as high quality as yours. Of course, I also had no idea what I was doing back then 😅
Time to stop everything I'm doing because StrafeFox came out with a new video! I always thought to myself that it was a blessing to grow up and experience this age firsthand. Everything felt so freah and new, you never knew what would come out next. And my preteen self was soaking up all of it!
Strafefox giving us another banger of a video, your visual presentations really know how to deliver the message in the most concise way possible. ✍🔥
You've made my day off! Thanks for another great video, as always!
I'm glad you highlighted FF7.
It has occurred to me several times over the years that FF7 really was the biggest leap in gaming tech we will ever see. It was literally jaw dropping not only the first time you saw it, but again and again.
I had friends who LOATHED rpg's who were totally addicted to ff7 and couldn't stop talking about it.
Before i watch the video, i wanna say how much I'm excited to watch 🎉❤
As a Sega Kid for life i felt they were always pushing 2d and 3d to the max and why i always leaned towards their games back then.
This channel makes some of the best documentaries on games I've seen.
this is a work of art. thanks for taking the time to make it!
Magnifique documentaire, j'ai appris beaucoup de choses. La qualité des informations techniques est absolument génial et ainsi que la qualité des images et des illustrations et animations 3D. Je suis impressionné ! Merci beaucoup pour se travail.
Any day my favourite channel uploads a new video is a good day indeed. Thank you for the continued awesome work!