FIRST Video Game: What should be prerendered?

[Mike Ciance]

it has been mentioned by several people, including JVN, that we need to keep this game simple if it is going to happen. i think we should definitely have some things be prerendered, instead of realtime, to simplify things. here are some ideas i have for pre-rendered things:

a prerendered crowd:
i mentioned this in another thread, but i will go into much more detail here. we should have a bitmap image with small blobs that look somewhat like people. we can tile this on a large plane, which we slant to look like filled bleachers. to add some attitude to the game, we could make a second image that looks like people standign up with their hands up in the air. we could switch the whole crowd to this when a close or important round ends. at random points during the match (say, when an important move is made) we could have the images alternate in a pattern to give the illusion that the crowd is doing the wave.

prerendered balls:
if we use a game with balls, they should be prerendered. this would even be more beginner-friendly, because we would have the "5" or "2x" labels always face the player.

prerendered drivers, refs, human players:
i think this is a must if we are going to included people in it. we could have a few sprites for each character (ex. a ref standing, throwing flag, motioning for pin).

the robots should be realtime without a doubt, but what are some other opinions on what should and should not be prerendered?