Tommy Vercetti is completely different in cutscenes than in game.

[Luis Vercetti]

 Im sure a lot of people noticed this and its probably old news but Tommy looks completely different in game then when you see him in a cutscene. here is a comparison : Tommy vercetti in game.     Cutscene tommy Vercetti as you can see the cutscene tommy looks a lot more realistic. Anyone know why Rockstar did this with tommy vercetti? it doesn't make sense why they did this. With claude and cj their cutscene and ingame model are practicly the same but tommy has a severe difference.

[H-G]

Cutscenes in most GTA games have far more animation capabilities than those available in the normal gameplay, such as full-fledged facial animations like the characters' mouths actually moving when they're talking, eyebrow raising, eye rolling and even cheek movement. Tommy and all other important storyline characters are viewed up close in cutscenes and they obviously need more details to look good, hence the "realism" in their cutscene models.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Staunton Assassin

[Luis Vercetti]

14 minutes ago, Staunton Assassin said:

Cutscenes in most GTA games have far more animation capabilities than those available in the normal gameplay, such as full-fledged facial animations like the characters' mouths actually moving when they're talking, eyebrow raising, eye rolling and even cheek movement. Tommy and all other important storyline characters are viewed up close in cutscenes and they obviously need more details to look good, hence the "realism" in their cutscene models.

that makes sense. but why did Rockstar make the ig tommy look so.. different and he also looks like an old man who smokes all the time. Its pretty interesting though. What confused me is that in gta 3 and san andreas Cj looks the same in the cutscene as in game just his bones are different and muscular cj in cutscene has really low shoulders. Claude in gta 3 does have a very slight difference in his face but its not that noticable and his entire body isnt different like in vice city.

[LunaMax]

This was pretty normal back in...what, 2002?  If you needed detailed models you wouldn't be able to run them on PS2.

[H-G]

14 minutes ago, Luis Vercetti said:

that makes sense. but why did Rockstar make the ig tommy look so.. different and he also looks like an old man who smokes all the time. Its pretty interesting though. What confused me is that in gta 3 and san andreas Cj looks the same in the cutscene as in game just his bones are different and muscular cj in cutscene has really low shoulders. Claude in gta 3 does have a very slight difference in his face but its not that noticable and his entire body isnt different like in vice city.

Tommy and most other storyline characters' in-game models are intentionally designed to have a lot less details as a performance optimization. As for the muscular CJ having low shoulders in cutscenes, that's just how his cutscene animations were done by the motion-capture actor. The cutscene animations are always the same regardless of CJ's body type.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Staunton Assassin

[Luis Vercetti]

7 minutes ago, LunaMax said:

This was pretty normal back in...what, 2002?  If you needed detailed models you wouldn't be able to run them on PS2.

I was thinking that at first but then if the detailed model works in cutscenes already then it should have worked in game to. yeah their were a lot of limitations back then but if gta vice city couldnt even handle tommy vercetti in game then how did they make gta games . I  it makes sense though i wouldnt know because i didnt play gta vice city until 2009. idiot me.

3 minutes ago, Staunton Assassin said:

Tommy and most other storyline characters' in-game models are intentionally designed to have a lot less details as a performance optimization. As for the muscular CJ having low shoulders in cutscenes, that's just how his cutscene animations were done by the motion-capture actor. The cutscene animations are always the same regardless of CJ's body type.

i knew that about gta sa. I guess it makes sense that they made the models low quality for optimization. Though why is tommy's face so ugly in game.  oh well i cant complain it was made in 2002 so what can i expect. thanks for the answer though

[LunaMax]

29 minutes ago, Luis Vercetti said:

I was thinking that at first but then if the detailed model works in cutscenes already then it should have worked in game to. yeah their were a lot of limitations back then but if gta vice city couldnt even handle tommy vercetti in game then how did they make gta games . I  it makes sense though i wouldnt know because i didnt play gta vice city until 2009

Generally though cut-scene's aren't usually played out in real-time I don't think.  It was more optimized therefore to have a lower poly model for actual in-game rendering.

[H-G]

31 minutes ago, LunaMax said:

Generally though cut-scene's aren't usually played out in real-time I don't think.  It was more optimized therefore to have a lower poly model for actual in-game rendering.

All non-2D GTA games' cutscenes are played in real game time.

[LunaMax]

2 minutes ago, Staunton Assassin said:

All non-2D GTA games' cutscenes are played in real game time.

Thanks for clarifying, I genuinely thought they were pre-rendered in truth.  Strange!

[AutisticTorch]

On 12/12/2020 at 3:13 AM, LunaMax said:

Thanks for clarifying, I genuinely thought they were pre-rendered in truth.  Strange!

It's why VC's cutscenes don't look low-res. Max Payne 3 pre-rendered like half of the cutscenes and that choice didn't age well, you can see the pixels.

Edited December 18, 2020 by AutisticTorch

[wwwwandrarijaz]

On 12/18/2020 at 5:36 PM, AutisticTorch said:

It's why VC's cutscenes don't look low-res. Max Payne 3 pre-rendered like half of the cutscenes and that choice didn't age well, you can see the pixels.

Wait mp3 cutscene are pre rendered?

Edited April 23 by wwwwandrarijaz