D.Lo
Member
I mean 5 is better than 4, but still a nasty chunky mess with horrible faces, and the animations are still nowhere near the perfection of 3.
The 3->4 comparison here is still true of SFV.
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Street Fighter III and Capcom's Pixel Art Process
- Thread starter Krammy
- Start date
The 3->4 comparison here is still true of SFV.
It's the GDC 2017 Street Fighter V presentation (both slides and video available publically on GDCvault). It's not actually about pixel art though, merely something they mention to contextualize the importance of readability and caricature in character design and how the same principles stayed true going from 2D to 3D. As far as fighting game animation goes I recommend this one by Skullgirls' lead animator, and that Overwatch one which shows the use and importance of elastic character animation in 3D.
kof13 was 720p, but I don't know if that counts.
I love the look of KOFXII/XIII's sprites. Second favorite FG spritework for sure. It just doesn't animate quite as well as SF3.
Not really. KOF XIII sprites were the same size as Guilty Gear sprites. Just much more detailed.
It really annoys me how a lot of SF3 sprite rips are squashed vertically. People pls.
The animation quality is insane. This is actually the one genre that regressed graphically as time and technology moved forward. The new 3D models look nowhere near as appealing. I always thought that we would just come up with super clever way of producing detailed and well animated sprites. GGXRD is visually what I want but the animations aren't nowhere near as smooth as they are here. GGXRD style "sprites" with the animation quality of SFIII... My god...
The Omega Man
Member
Is there anyone left capable and interested in creating a AAA fighting game with this quality of pixel art and animation, or is this a lost art?
petran79
Banned
From an interview some months ago by a developer who took part in the game, Lion King sprites were drawn by Disney's animators and their assets were sent to the programmers. Probably the same happened with Aladdin.
ColonialHawk
Member
AAA? I don't think so.
Its really expensive to do it (which was one of the reasons for KoFXIV's artstyle)
Combine that with how many copies a AAA fighting game sell and well...
SFV has excellent animation though. I don't see a fighter topping it for the foreseeable future.
Rickenslacker
Banned
It's more that CPS games were squished horizontally to be 4:3, so that's how they turn out when put in a 1:1 pixel ratio.
They were intentionally drawn that way so that they look correct when arcade displays squash them horizontally. Most rips don't bother with aspect ratio correction on sprites at their native resolution because on modern displays with square pixels that would mean destroying pixel information or adding scaling artifacts.
Massive waste of time and effort for gg to animate like 3s. You almost never see an entire animation play out. They tried more animation and said it messed with the gameplay.
I know all of this. I'd rather have them in their proper aspect ratio.
3S looks fine on my TV and it doesn't look "destroyed."
This gif is in the proper aspect ratio. Looks fine.
sixteen-bit
Member
are there more like this extracted from the background?
...I know all of this. I'd rather have them in their proper aspect ratio.
3S looks fine on my TV and it doesn't look "destroyed."
This gif is in the proper aspect ratio. Looks fine.
Maybe I'm seeing things but I do see scaling issues, especially on Ryu's hair.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Rickenslacker
Banned
That gif has compression and scaling artifacts present, but yeah, in proper aspect ratio it looks fine (it is the intended viewing afterall!) -- but I guess my point was that it's not the fault of a sprite rip to preserve that as it's not how the art is spit out in the first place, just the nature of the display they're put on.
It''s also something modern NR Studio fighters haven't gotten completely right yet, at least the feeling and sound of impact.
In a way SOTN was that. By the time it came out 3D has become the new hot thing.
Cota and msh are still super gorgeous. The more stuff they added to the games, the more animation got removed due to memory limitations.
RAIDEN1
Member
Just a heads-up to every one, although those who wanted the 3rd strike online edition would have downloaded it by now, something strange is going on the PSN store, the game and it's various DLCs are still available but the actual game itself is clocking in at a file-size of 6kb!!!! Tried downloading it twice today but still the same issue...
Yet the demo is available..fully functioning...
Contacted PSN support about it...hopefully more will be known soon!
Yet the demo is available..fully functioning...
Contacted PSN support about it...hopefully more will be known soon!
New Generation baffles me - it's the least complete version of SF 3, but has the most detailed backgrounds, transitioning backgrounds (day to night), even complete background changes (Elena's stage is incredible).
Even the music is fantastic.
New Generation is a gem in my opinion, but I can see why people consider it poop
Even the music is fantastic.
New Generation is a gem in my opinion, but I can see why people consider it poop
the androgyne
Member
I don't think art style is really the right choice of words here. They chose 3D over 2D for production reasons sure, but I don't think their art was compromised by the decision. The game's art from the pre-order book looks better than in game. They made the faces a little more anime in the transition to 3D, but the animation captures the distinct look and feel of each character perfectly and the overall effect is quite reminiscent of the older games.
If 2D was economically feasible, I think SNK still has the talent to do it. Some GIFs of 14 since i'm sure a lot people are ready to disagree! It tends to be more subtle than 2D (they go to town on expressive hands) but it's got it's fair share of flowing jackets too!
It's pretty similar to Garou, particularly if you watch at .25 speed on the video: https://youtu.be/0QE25tVaB5k?t=1m6s It's a little obscured by a ripple effect at normal speed.
Whip is a good example of how they stretch and warp things for more effect like the 2D days:
This tumblr has a heap more: http://specta-a.tumblr.com/tagged/kof
Yeah,they were, but they were still basic on the pixel art side of things. The Disney side brought the movement but not its on-screen realization, which was ultimately relatively basic, while Capcom in the Darkstalkers era had integrated disney's 12 principles of animation and combined it with their pixel art craft which, by the time of SF3, was honed to perfection.
And if it's the cel thing you're referred to, then no, they were not using cels. The frames were drawn on paper, scanned and digitally touched up and colored. They threw the marketing term "digicel" around, but Stephen Clarke-Wilson, one of the devs, has clarified that this was just a blanket marketing term for "a whole pile of tools and processes and talented people". The actual notable technical thing of Aladdin was sprite compression to allow for all the frames.
I found this website by accident a few months ago that has the sprites for every move, colour and character in the SF3 games (mainly 3S). It's perfect for those who want to look at all the sprites and animations in one place.
http://zweifuss.ca/
http://zweifuss.ca/
Tizoc
Member
Yo Jett, have you ever played Waku Waku 7? It's a 1996 fighter from Sunsoft with some very impressive visuals.
Not the BEST gif I could but it gets the idea through
Not the BEST gif I could but it gets the idea through
petran79
Banned
Kabuki Klash: Far East of Eden by Hudson was impressive as well. Made in 1995
https://youtu.be/A8kD3hlkPVk?t=763
Yo Jett, have you ever played Waku Waku 7? It's a 1996 fighter from Sunsoft with some very impressive visuals.
Not the BEST gif I could but it gets the idea through
I played it ages ago. The sprites do have an interesting style compared to other fighers of the time. Of SNK's NG fighters I find Garou to be the most impressive.
I know all of this. I'd rather have them in their proper aspect ratio.
3S looks fine on my TV and it doesn't look "destroyed."
This gif is in the proper aspect ratio. Looks fine.
Yes, but the purpose of sprite ripping is to extract and preserve the pixel art exactly as it is stored in the game data, before any aspect ratio correction takes place. Squashing the pixels horizontally wasn't a problem with CRT displays, but pixels in digital panels cannot change size so you end up either losing pixel information or adding "garbage" information to make things fit. Digital scaling looks and plays just fine, but it's not "perfect".
It can't really be helped, most computer monitors having square pixels and all. Correcting it at a 1:1 pixel scale image would either:
1) Distort the image by creating garbage data to fill in the blanks. Here you can see Ryu's face and fingers become wobbly due to extra pixels.
2) Destroy information by compressing two pixels worth of data into one. Notice Ryu has lost his pupils and some of his toes have fused.
Since arcade monitor pixels are roughly 25% taller than they are wide, the only way to accurately represent the sprite on modern monitors as they appeared in arcades is to scale it 400% and then stretch it 25% vertically. This way all the pixels are present and are all the same size.
Mathematical!
tomwhite2004
Member
You neither lose pixel information or add anything when displaying these games on a digital panel.
All is happening is the non integer scaling at 4:3 creating non uniform rows of pixels on the horizontal.
" Distort the image by creating garbage data to fill in the blanks. Here you can see Ryu's face and fingers become wobbly due to extra pixels"
This is incorrect. The sprite becomes "wobby" because of the non uniform pixel rows when displaying the 384x224 content on a digital display without ruining the aspect ratio by displaying square pixels (which would be 12:7 on all cps hardware), there are no extra pixels.
InfiniteCombo
Banned
Yup, this is when I truly became a Capcom fan through and through. Pretty much all of their stuff on CPS-2 and CPS-3 looks and feels fantastic.
There is this great article titled "Darkstalkers and the Twelve Principles of Animation" which I thought some of you may enjoy.
I would certainly consider elongating alternating rows of pixels as added information, at least when it comes to sprite rips.
As for losing pixel information that would only happen if someone decided to squash the display horizontally rather than stretch it vertically, though I realize most people have high enough monitor resolutions that this is unlikely to be an issue.
Nice cab! Love this game! I went a different route using a supergun:
Real talk, that's one of the best designed "consoles" I've ever seen.
Apples and oranges. Skullgirls is a tradigitial handdrawn animation. Blazblue is pixel art. You're comparing something utilizing Toon Boom that was drawn and filled in with paint, brushes, etc. And that was made dot by dot by something like Microsoft Paint.
I do wonder though if Skullgirls sprites will be a problem in the future. I mean did they use vector lines and paint so that the graphics would scale for 4K (8K?)?
Skullgirls comfortably surpassed it. The animations are way more complex and detailed. The game literally pushed 2D animation as far as it could go the point where the developers were taking OUT frames to make the animations more smooth.
This post is insane. Skullgirls animation is fluid as hell and all of the animations connect. Try doing moves in training mode and pausing the game multiple times during an animation.
This looks very mediocre. Sadly these are the absolute BEST animations in the game.
Even Xrd isn't that good animation wise when comparing it to 2D. Comparing it to other 3D games it is the undisputed king in imitating 2D animation. But it still falls flat.
Case in point: https://media.tenor.co/images/803d3afce56fc5bfa6c1e764a17ab259/tenor.gif
Why do you guys keep posting mediocre animation gifs?
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm really talking tech here. Blazblue struggled on PS3 with two 500 frames 256 colors characters and later games had to cut some frames to fit new moves. On the other hand on the same console Skullgirls manages six fighters of ~1500 frames each with more color depth and sprites that are two to three times as big with lossless compression. That's solely because Arcsys are still designing their 2D engines like in the early arcade days and that doesn't scale up in terms of memory efficiency, while Lab0 developed an engine that's a much better fit for 2d gams on modern hardware.
Skullgirls' not vector data. The sprites were authored at a high resolution so that's how they scale up. Current versions of the game don't hae the sprites at original resolution and look fine in high res. But of course the hand-drawn style ensures it'll look good at any res, unlike pixel art.
The only pixel art game that comes close to being even in the same ballpark to SFIII's animation is Martial Masters.
Unfortunately, not all the animation is as consistent as the above.
I don't mean animation by frame count, but animation by squashing and stretching, which my gif demonstrates. Though the game does have it's moments.
Unfortunately, not all the animation is as consistent as the above.
I don't mean animation by frame count, but animation by squashing and stretching, which my gif demonstrates. Though the game does have it's moments.
ZeroTheShadow
Member
Can't sell DLC costumes for sprites. 2D Animation in fighters is dead & buried after BlazBlue's run ends.
People keep saying this but so many upcoming fighters are graphically 2D. Pretty much every fighter that isn't NRS, SNK, or Capcom uses 2D animation. Outside of the upcoming Punch Planet, I can't think of an upcoming 3D animated fighter with 2D gameplay. I guess Fighter Ex Layer?
I guess I can include ASW with SNK and Capcom, but it's still too early to say. And if costumes are the argument, mind you Xrd style makes it pretty difficult to make costumes as well due to it all being animated key frame by key frame, hence why only Elphelt is the only character with an alt costume.
Stone Ocean
Member
KoF12 sprites are kinda cheating since they were basically made in 3D.kof13 was 720p, but I don't know if that counts.
UnemployedVillain
Member
This is DRASTICALLY minimizing the amount of work and effort put into them. There's nothing wrong with using reference models. Pixel art is primarily about using individual pixels/colors to convey detail and movement in a model. Whether the base is someone coming up with the anatomy and lighting from scratch or starting with a model, sketch, etc, it's still a difficult and complex process.
Well they upped the resolution significantly while maintaining the exact same number of frames, to maintain parity with the original, which was incredibly jarring. Not to mention, the Udon artstyle was kind of shitty and a huge step down from Capcom's internal artists, Kinu Nishimura, Bengus, and especially Daigo Ikeno who did the excellent portrait art for SF3
For me it's a real shame that ArcSys decided to imitate the same low-frame/budget-looking animation of GGX in Xrd. It does animate slightly better than the 2D games at least.
They used 3D models mostly for lighting/shadowing reference. It's all pixel art. It's not cheating.
They used 3D models mostly for lighting/shadowing reference. It's all pixel art. It's not cheating.
Tizoc
Member
While you can't fault UDON for being SF fans, their art just didn't do it in HD Remix.
I do agree that seeing the characters in any of their artists' styles (AKIMAN!) would've been an interesting thing to see.
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