Shrek was made by having dozens of computers work for days/weeks to render the movie in full 3D. Games on the other hand have to repaint the screen 30-60 times per second with a completely dynamic scene. The "prerendered technology" in AoK just meant they took 2D images of objects that were originally 3D and moved them around the screen, it's a completely different thing from what movies do (which is to have everything in the movie in 3D at that level of detail). 2D images mean:
- Choppier animation (no interpolation between frames)
- Fixed animations (no ragdoll death animations, no building destruction physics)
- Fewer units or animations (it takes less memory to store a unit and its animations in 3D than to store hundreds of images of it in 2D)
- No zoom (except by changing resolution, sort of)
- No rotation/pitch
- No dynamic lighting effects (can't move the sun around or change its color)
- Harder to take advantage of video hardware (which is required to have realistic shadows, water reflections, etc - ES is not just requiring you to have a graphics card because they're friends with Nvidia, it really speeds up those things)
I used to think the same thing when I moved from AoK to AoM. In AoM you can sometimes see bluriness and polygon-ness if you zoom in. When I tried playing AoK after having played AoM for a while though, I couldn't believe how much worse the animation and special effects looked in AoK. IMO it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
[This message has been edited by Matei (edited 09-20-2005 @ 09:25 AM).]