MGS4 Cutscenes: In-game or not?

[greenmedic88]

Okay, have to make a correction after watching the ending again (spoiler alert below)

I'm going to say that any of the scenes that allowed the player to zoom and pan are all rendered by the in-game engine, based upon fine details revealed that cannot be seen normally and wouldn't be created through interpolation, only zooming in on a rendered on the fly image. They are not the same and anyone who has spent and inordinate amount of time editing digital photos could easily tell, even with unsharp masking. I didn't go through every zoom and pan cut scene to confirm, but I see enough consistency to be convinced.

Upon closer look at the fixed angle cut scene leading up to and through the Snake and Liquid final show down, I see no indicators that it was pre-rendered. It's not a particularly processing intensive scene to render, so there would be no indication for that either way.

Same goes for any of the Naval scenes with Outer Haven and the Missouri or the aftermath following the shutdown of JD. Most of them can be zoomed in on specific fine details to confirm.

A second viewing of the wedding scene which was displaying an enlarged square grid pattern consistent with compressed video did not appear during additional viewings. Additionally, it passed the zoom test (sharp but minute details like Drebin's belt buckle and Mei's name plate and award rack). It's possible the initial viewing was a video glitch or possibly even a hardware error (hope not).

So that leaves fried egg close ups (not rendered, but filmed video footage) and the Act III ending, which I'll check a third time. If I can nab one split instance of a cut with fine detail not visible without zooming, I'm leaning towards the opinion that virtually all of the cut scenes are pre-rendered in game.

If not, it's so well hidden that it really doesn't make much of a difference one way or another.

What could be confused for pre-rendered video is the use of static background images (frequently the sky) which, being static images will show signs of compression (stepping gradients and compression artifacts). The characters, environment and objects, however, are being rendered on the fly.

The game makes heavy use of realistic selective focus, just like footage filmed with a camera, for the added perception of realism which makes it harder to find specific zoom points, but they are present.

Now if Konami could only re-make MGS 1-3 with the MGS4 game engine for the PS3.