Alan Wake cinematics are all pre-rendered video files

http://forum.alanwake.com/showpost.php?p=66276&postcount=

Originally Posted by liuuuuuuu  How many parts of cutsence is in real-time? or all the cutsences are prerendered videos just for playing?

MikkiRMD: Remedy

The actual cinematics are all separate pre-rendered video files. We do have some sequences where we do what I guess could be called real-time cutscenes (like the "reveal camera" moments, for example), but percentagewise, those are definitely in the minority.

All of the cinematics have been rendered by our game engine, though. It's just that we use more high-resolution models because the camera tends to be a lot closer to the characters than during gameplay, and we throw in a bunch of post-processing to make things look very pretty.

I'm sure we've mentioned this before, but it's also worth pointing out that we do almost all of the major loading in the game during the cinematics -- I believe the only instances you will see a loading screen is when you die, and when you come back to the game after turning it off. (Unless I forgot something, but I'm pretty sure that's it.)

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interesting, good job load times are masked by cutscenes. its miles better than looking at a static load screen.

Ohhh boy, better hope selnor or Raz dont see this because this wont end well...=.=

And the in-game results should be great too, especially the lighting effects :

This is why they always make pre-rendered cut-scenes - no loading screens.

like all the others game, right ?

or is it real time for others games ?

whatever, from a player perspective, it doesnt change much ...

Excellent use of the game's real estate...maybe bioware should have considered this for ME series.

^ the problem is, that video-files take up a lot of space, while in-game cutscenes only need a small script, so that's probably not an option for games with several hours of cutscenes

I think Bioware and other developers have learned a lesson from Mass Effect 1. A great looking game which ugly side showed after the loading. Pop ups and low rez textures showed how the game was build up revealing that the game didnt look that good but just had nice textures. Alan Wake probably doesn't look that good or is all that impressive when it comes to the models but nice textures and lightning make it look great. As long as nothing breaks the magic then nobody notices the ugly side, it worked for Mass Effect 2 aswell.

Some games have real time (God of War 3, Killzone 2) and some games have prerendered (Uncharted 2), the only difference is that UC2 is untouched, while Alan Wake is using higher poly models and after effects.

Just like Uncharted 2 then, great.