Are In-Engine Cinematics worth it?

[warped gust]

Hi! 👋 This is more of an open debate question. any sort of feedback is appreciated!

I'm working on a 3D game project in a realistic style where there are multiple cinematics/cut scenes, and we were wondering what would be the best way to go about in Godot 4. So far our options are to either a) render the scenes as videos and play them whenever they are meant to be played with a VideoStreamPlayer (the issue here is that these videos will probably be very heavy if we want to keep them high res), or b) program the cutscenes to be literally happening in the Godot scene and for the player to trigger them the same as they would trigger the video playing.

If anyone has any tips or things to be on the lookout for when doing in-engine cinematics, or anything to share, please do! Thanks! 🫶

[heavy jasper]

FMVs fell out of favor long ago because they are not necessary anymore.
They need to be redone every update to stay consistent and the resolution does not grow with new hardware.
It was only worth it back then when they knew the game looked poopy and only FMVs could display stuff with the quality they wanted.

You will have to rig and animate your stuff regardless of the way you play it.