Thought this might be a neat idea? Get a lil nostalgic. Think of an old CGI trailer, perhaps ones you associate with a train of thought such as "well by golly that was slightly misleading after all huh those cheeky lil mufuckers"
Anyway just to make a start I'll start with a game, its trailer and then through in examples of gameplay, mechanics or effects used in other games that could be cobbled together in some form to make the pre-rendered CG... plausible.
Motorstorm 2005 E3 Trailer
I'll break this down into three or four major 'features'. Lets say open world, mud effects, damage model and physics. Those last two sorta come hand in hand.
Open world racing - Forza Horizon 2 - Off Road Gameplay The opening of the trailer shows us the cars driving across a vast expanse. Now whilst this is sorta open to interpretation somewhat ie open world, multiple routes/wide track or cinematic running start to races, I think showcasing the above video that summarizes the mechanics of an open world racing game will show people less versed in the racing genre.. that far end of the spectrum (total open world) is possible.
Mud effects - DriveClub - ridiculous windshield wiper physics Just watch that vid and tell me they wouldn't be able to do something similar for mud and dirt. The rain droplets are influenced by the speed and direction of the car for gods sake. This is just a completely unnecessary level of detail and I for one want more of this black magic. DriveClub soon gets buggies which is actually what made me think of this whole post in the first place.
Damage model - Wreckfest - first person damage These last two are very similar but I'll break them apart based on scenes in the trailer. Basically we see a few first person shots of damage obstructing your view which is a different impact on gameplay than impaired handling. Video just shows soft body physics from first person. Theres probably a better example out there.
Physics - Wreckfest - soft body physics ...sorry about the music lol. Best video I could find that was sorta recent, short, concise and demonstrated both the soft body physics and material physics/destruction. Theres loads of soft body physics vids out there, BeamNG is the other one that stands out in my memory. Of course everyones played GTAV and we all know what little cubes your car can turn into.
Just think it might be cool to look back on some forgotten trailers and think "oh shiiiit somebody could actually do that now"
I specified 'old' just because I think the majority of recent pre-rendered material probably won't be attained for a while, in terms of general visual fidelity.
So, anyone have any fond memories of a CG trailer they wished were real? Lets see if it could be possible.