04-21-2012, 06:24 PM
Careful how you throw around "pre-rendered". 
The only things in the game that would be pre-rendered movies are the (beautiful) opening movie and all of the demonstration previews for each event.
The reason for using low-poly models is not because the Wii can't handle it, but for performance. Putting a lot of high-poly models on the screen means risking slow-down, which will have a negative impact on gameplay. Also, keep in mind that for every split-screen view port, the system has to render an entire separate copy of the scene. Four player multiplayer means you have 16 characters, 4 stadiums, and 4 of everything else. With the difference between High-Poly Eggman and Low-Poly Eggman being 3,561, that's 14,244 polygons saved from detail you can't see very well anyway. And if all four characters had the same polygon difference, that's 56,976 polygons saved. That's almost as many polygons as two copies of the Subspace Gunship from Brawl, and that's only just for the players' characters.
By the way, great job on the rip.
The only things in the game that would be pre-rendered movies are the (beautiful) opening movie and all of the demonstration previews for each event.
The reason for using low-poly models is not because the Wii can't handle it, but for performance. Putting a lot of high-poly models on the screen means risking slow-down, which will have a negative impact on gameplay. Also, keep in mind that for every split-screen view port, the system has to render an entire separate copy of the scene. Four player multiplayer means you have 16 characters, 4 stadiums, and 4 of everything else. With the difference between High-Poly Eggman and Low-Poly Eggman being 3,561, that's 14,244 polygons saved from detail you can't see very well anyway. And if all four characters had the same polygon difference, that's 56,976 polygons saved. That's almost as many polygons as two copies of the Subspace Gunship from Brawl, and that's only just for the players' characters.
By the way, great job on the rip.