About Final Fantasy Animation

Final Fantasy is a franchise owned by Square Enix that includes mostly games but also film. The series is most noteworthy for its innovative story lines and beautiful visuals in the later games. Many of the later characters have also become household names among gaming communities. As the series began to include animated films, Square Enix decided to switch from cartoon animation to more realistic animation. Square Enix has pushed the boundaries in the computer animation found in the Final Fantasy series.

History

The first Final Fantasy game was released in Japan in 1987 by Square Enix. The following two games of the main series were released in 1988 and 1990. These games were designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This system used an 8-bit microprocessor with an amount of RAM that is microscopic by today's standards (at 2kb). The system was able to handle 48 kb of RAM. Square Enix had 48 colors to work with, along with 5 grays. Additionally, each line on the screen could only hold 25 colors. The figures or "sprites" had to be 8-by-8 pixels or 8-by-16 pixels. These graphical limitations forced Square Enix to limit itself to creating simplistic little sprites that could really only symbolize characters and events, rather than actually depicting them with very much detail.

For the next three games developed by Square Enix, it took advantage of Super Nintendo Entertainment System's (SNES) 16-bit processor. This game system had two packages, one for video data and one for sprite data. The number of colors available jumped from 48 colors to 32,768 colors. These sprites could be 8-by-8 bit, 16-by-16 bit, 32-by-32 bit, or 64-by-64 bit. This allowed for more colorful characters with more personality. With enough effort, landscapes could be created using SNES's graphic capabilities, such as gushing waterfalls and detailed mountains. By Final Fantasy VI (known as Final Fantasy III in America), many of the monsters and other sprites took on a certain element of style. The incredibly powerful Atama beast had richly textured fur. The three goddesses were as stylized as fairies drawn in modern Gothic fantasy art. The final mass of fused-together religious symbols and steam-punk symbols that formed one enormous sprite was probably the epiphany in innovative sprite art. Still, Square Enix never managed to create realistic faces, and its animation still appeared very flat. Pixels were noticeable and the motions that the sprites made were still incredibly simplistic, with the protagonists' attacks being limited to simple swings and the monsters' attacks showing no motion at all. In fact, the most complexly detailed sprites remained completely frozen at all times, as if the heroes of the Final Fantasy games were combating cardboard cutouts of fearsome monsters.

The following three games of the main series were run on the Sony Playstation. This system had a significant improvement over the two Nintendo consoles. The console jumped from kilobytes to megabytes with 2 megabytes. This console revolutionized the potential of Final Fantasy games by including a geometry transformation engine, which allows 3D graphics. Suddenly, Final Fantasy characters, monsters and environments could come to life in a 3D world. The CD-ROMs were capable of storing much greater amounts of data. All of these differences allowed Square Enix to create brief 3D cut-scenes with details that had never been seen before in Final Fantasy games. Seeing that it could dramatically change forever the look of Final Fantasy animation, Square Enix took as much advantage of the hardware capabilities as it could. Thanks to the beautifully detailed cut-scenes, Final Fantasy has not only set the standard for storyline in an RPG, but also in visual elements.

Final Fantasy X, XI, and XII were on Playstation II. This system includes an "Emotion System," which is very complex. Explained simply, this CPU system contains 8 units, each with a different function. Following this system was the Playstation III, which is more like a computer in that it can be updated. Also, a recent computer animated film called "Final Fantasy: Advent Children" has been released.

Types

The Final Fantasy games went though many different generations of console systems. The original six games consisted of 2D pixel sprites. With most of these sprites, individual characters can usually only be distinguished by the color of their hair, clothes, and the shape of their bodies. These characters were always small and usually had small bodies with enlarged heads, similar to the "chibi" style found in Japanese comics. The resolution of these characters was so low that gamers could see the individual pixels that made up the characters.

Final Fantasy 7 made a drastic departure from the style of the other Final Fantasy games. When exploring the in-game map, gamers still controlled chibi-style characters, though these sprites were 3D, fully colored, and had distinct features. While these characters appeared childlike and cartoonish, they were replaced by fully grown characters. These characters represented the Japanese manga style with simplified features and large, highly stylized eyes. Final Fantasy 7 also introduced cut-scenes to the Final Fantasy franchise. At certain pivotal moments in the game, the player would lose control of his character as a predetermined scene occurs. These scenes moved the plot forward, depicted very complex action scenes, or simply showed main characters in greater detail. The defining feature of these cut-scenes was that they were always far superior graphically to the in-game scenes.

Final Fantasy 8 took another step in drastically changing the visual aspects of the Final Fantasy series. Final Fantasy 8 abandoned the cartoonish character design for a more realistic look. The chibi look was abandoned completely. Instead, the same sprites that were used in the battle scenes were also used in the in-game map. Even though the characters were more realistic-looking, the faces in the in-game map were difficult to make out. The faces were more easy to make out in the battle scenes. The cut-scenes in Final Fantasy 8 are used the same as they were in Final Fantasy 7, though they were more frequently used. The motions of the characters was far more realistic than the motions in Final Fantasy 7 because motion capture technology was used (movement was recorded by actual actors in order to enhance the realism of each character's movements). The graphics in the cut-scenes strived to be photo-realistic, though the skin textures were often too smooth and unblemished to seem real.

With Final Fantasy 9, gamers were able to return temporarily to the more nostalgic days of deformed characters and simplistic music. Characters were again done in a cartoonish way.

Final Fantasy games after that stuck with realistic character design. Over time, cut-scenes were merged together graphically and cut-scenes and in-game scenes became more difficult to distinguish.

Features

Final Fantasy sprites were often frozen or were capable of only a handful of frames of animation. For instance, Cecil in Final Fantasy IV could make simple sword swings that consisted of having one of his hands up, and then having one of his hands down. As this happened, an image that was meant to represent a slash appeared on the screen. These slashes were similar to the magic images that would appear when magic spells were cast. Final Fantasy VI magic had some of the most visually impressive magical spells for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This complexity was probably due to the fact that the magic was more easily animated because there was no need to worry about anatomy.

Final Fantasy VII was the first game to include fully realistically animated movements. While Final Fantasy VII animators had to guess how the limbs would move, Final Fantasy VIII and beyond used motion capture in order to achieve the highest level of realism.

Final Fantasy X was the first Final Fantasy game to have facial expressions. The Playstation II had the capabilities of creating fully realistic faces, and each character was capable of facial expressions that could shift and change as realistically as a real face.

Geography

Each of the Final Fantasy games had different styles and influences.

Final Fantasy I to III had an exclusively medieval fantasy theme. These games all included typical knights, princesses and mages. The monsters were the typical type found in fantasy, such as goblins.

Final Fantasy IV was also fantasy themed but included some strange advances in technology such as airships, CPUs, robots, tanks and cannons. Also, some of the dungeons in the game were heavily technological and filled with computers.

Final Fantasy V had a more Victorian look, yet it still included swords and knights. Much of the technology found in Final Fantasy IV was not found in Final Fantasy V, but the game still included airships.

Final Fantasy VI took place in an unusual steampunk setting. High technology had once existed but was lost in a 1,000-year war. Technology is similar to that of the second industrial revolution, though many more advanced types of technology exist. Opera, fine arts, railroads and coal mining are common. Several modern tools exist, like the chainsaw and the drill. Castles are able to submerge and burrow underneath the ground. Most important to the storyline, the most powerful government in the game controls giant magical robots called magitek armor.

Final Fantasy VII takes place in a technology-saturated dystopian world. The setting is mostly dark and full of old, rusted machinery and decaying, neglected cities. The world also seems to be culturally lacking, with more of an emphasis on technology and industry. The characters dress in modern clothes and have somewhat of a rebellious look to them. Though some technologies are highly advanced, other technologies are highly neglected, such as space technology.

Square Enix made an effort to give Final Fantasy VIII a more exotic theme for Japanese gamers. Inspirations for Final Fantasy VIII were drawn from European and Aztecan architecture. The atmosphere was more bright, full of color and designs. Many of the cities appeared more utopian than dystopian in nature, and relatively high technology reigned. One particular city, Esthar, was highly technologically advanced.

Final Fantasy IX attempted to break away from the technologically advanced settings of VII and VIII by returning to the medieval theme. Final Fantasy IX strived for a more adorable look. Much of the game is very whimsical and enormous, gorgeous castles powered by hydropower and wind power. Much of the game was also inspired by Norse mythology.

Final Fantasy X created a world of opposites. The world of Spira consists of a highly technologically advanced world called Zanarkand and a primitive, spiritual island society inspired by Southeast Asia. This world is more highly detailed than the previous worlds.

Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer online game, which is a departure from the other Final Fantasy games. As a result, this game has the potential to change. Originally, Final Fantasy XI was modeled after older medieval-themed games.

Final Fantasy XII was inspired by Mediterranean medieval societies, with some influence also from India and New York City. To a degree, Final Fantasy XII seemed like a cross between ancient Rome and "Star Wars."

Potential

With the Playstation 3, a system capable of near lifelike detail--hopefully, the ground-breaking visuals found in Final Fantasy animation--will continue to evolve.

Photo Credit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/p50310p/363132112/

[apexminder]

on 4/8/2009 Cool, Very informative.

[chameleon]

on 12/27/2008 I've bookmarked this so I can read up on it when my son starts trying to explain FF to me! Thanks for the deep detail!