What is FMV?
 

What is FMV?
I know it stands for "full motion video" but what exactly is that?

I used to think FMV had to be filmed, but recently I've seen the term FMV applied to any cut scene in a game.
So is this another case of people changing definitions to suit themselves or does the term FMV still apply only to video sequences that were originally filmed?

No not my words, I stole them from some web site. Anyway, hope that kinda helps.

FMV has two different meanings I think. When used in modern gaming, it probably just means a pre-rendered cutscene....i.e. A movie that involves something that would be very hardware intensive to do using the in-game engine.

When used in relation to adventure games, I think it's safe to assume that we are talking about a game that has live actors and was filmed.

Hope that clears things up! :)

According to discussions I've read in both adventure gaming and general gaming sites (FPSs, strategies, etc.) the consensus seems to be that FMV involves live actors and/or real world settings in cutscenes. Anything not involving that and instead using computer made models, in-engine movies, etc., would be classified as CG cutscenes.

Nope, whoever stated that was ill-informed.

Here's a slightly different question: How do you define an FMV game?

I think Gabriel Knight 2 would be a good answer to that.

i always describe a game as FMV by the way the game if played. if 70% of the game is motion captured and uses pictures of actual items instead of pre-rendered backgroundds and items

FMV isn't only used in adventure games. Wing Commander 3 and 4 are FMV space-simulation games.

--Erwin

Unless I get you wrong, it should probably be pointed out that motion capture isn't the same as "capturing actors on video". Motion capture is the technique of having actors perform various actions that are then stored as animation files that allow game characters to move.

This thread is a great example of why the games industry needs to get rid of unnecessary terminology. "FMV adventure" could simply be "video adventure", right? "Full motion" doesn't even mean anything. It's not like you tell people you went to a cinema to see a "full motion picture" either.

So is The Neverhood (no people, just clay) FMV?

GK2 has those CGI wolves, though. How much of the game can be pre-rendered before you stop calling it an adventure?
Is Dark Side of the Moon an FMV game? (Pre-rendered backgrounds, live actors).

I was always under the impression that 'FMV' refers to any cutscene that is played out from the game CD/DVD as a linear movie file - so the (live action) cutscenes in Wing Commander 4 qualify, the pre-generated cutscenes in Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango qualify, but things like the 'pirate song' in COMI or the cutscenes in Ocarina of Time (both done entirely through the game engine) aren't FMV.

My logic for this is that the term 'FMV' didn't seem to exist until CD-ROM based systems came along. And if you wanted 'FMV' on your Amiga CD-32, you had to get some kind of 'FMV Adaptor', which was just an MPEG decoder card. As you say, maybe the definition has changed over the years, but I think that this is what it meant originally. And agreed - it's the sort of meaningless jargon we can do without nowadays. :shifty:

Both blue-screen actors and FMV actors.

I've always wondered this and never been satisfied with the answer. In my mind it mostly means live actors like in GK2. But I've seen the movies (not just animated cutscenes, but movie sequences) in the Final Fantasy games referred to as FMV.

-emily

Yes, that's the kind of thing I was talking about.
There's another example here where it says

If you check the screenshots you can see that there is nothing that is filmed.

As opposed to GK3, which would be the CG version of same.

Tim

Part two to the response....Black Dahlia would be a good example of FMV combined with CGI.

Tim

that what i mean, "the act of capturing actors on video" i should of clarifyed that more

A lot of you are simply misinformed. This is not an opinion but a fact from an old gaming veteran:

FMV = Full Motion Video = LIVE ACTORS. Gabriel Knight 2, Foxhunt, Conspiracies, and a lot of Sega CD games (Sewer Shark, Nighttrap, Sherlock Holmes, etc) are FMV.

CG = Computer Graphics = Final Fantasy like "movies".

Cutscene = Cutscene = In game graphics used to show a storyline with or without widescreen, boxing, etc. Think of how the story plays out in GTA or Mario Sunshine for this.

Something like Curse of Monkey Island's "movies" are cutscenes because they use the in game graphics.

Toonstruck is a hybrid because it uses a real actor (Christopher Lloyd) on cartoon backgrounds. Calling it FMV is a bit stretching it since there's more drawn graphics than FMV.

You might be right, but why is this a fact and not an opinion?