Support NeoGAF

[icecold1983]

Ratchet and clank by a landslide

 

[Peltz]

Xrd runs away with this atm, to the point where nothing else released is even really worth acknowledging as a runner-up.



It's not really a matter of time. Wind Waker just doesn't employ the technique as effectively as something like Jet Set Radio did.



Honestly, I think WWHD does the artstyle a disservice actually. It often doesn't even appear cel shaded at all, which object looking very round and claymation-like compared to how they appeared in the Gamecube original.

I agree with you on the lighting. But the textures are better.

 

[inner-G]

You know, i've never been able to put a finger on what exactly CC2 does so well with the Ultimate Ninja Storm games.

The cel shading is certainly godlike, but I always felt like it was the animation which really drove it over the edge.

I dunno if it's because i've become terribly biased against Naruto in the last few years, but Ninja Storm 1 just felt waaaaaaaay more impressive than all of the others.

It's because the team really loves the series and they have great artists to boot

 

[Synth]

I agree with you on the lighting. But the textures are better.

Yea, it's a better game graphically in a technical sense. I much prefer the overall look of the Gamecube game though, and would rather just play that version at a higher res.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

Cuphead. It looks so damn good.

 

[Inuhanyou]

1. Xrd

2. DBZ

3. Ni No Kuni 2

4. Ultimate Ninja Storm 4

5. Grav Rush 2


Does VCR even count? It came out in 2008

Spoiler

6. Lily Bergamo

 

[Dremorak]

If we're limited to cel shaded only its probably Xrd. The way they replicate 2d anime in every way is insane.

If we're not limited to cel shaded...I think splatoon 2 looks inkredible.

 

[Inuhanyou]

CC2's engine is based on last gen hardware, their first Storm game being in 08....

I wonder what they would be able to accomplish with technology created today, its almost mouth watering.

Arc system works does have an advantage in that their techniques are much more modern

 

[BakedTanooki]

CC2's engine is based on last gen hardware, their first Storm game being in 08....

I wonder what they would be able to accomplish with technology created today, its almost mouth watering.

Dude, that is something I'm dying for to witness.
I can't even imagine.
Really hope they will create something in Cel Shading and a completely new engine.

 

[jett]

CC2's engine is based on last gen hardware, their first Storm game being in 08....

I wonder what they would be able to accomplish with technology created today, its almost mouth watering.

Arc system works does have an advantage in that their techniques are much more modern

Actually Xrd was made to run on PS3, on regular old UE3. Hell, DBZ doesn't look much (if any) better, despite being only "next-gen" and UE4.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Actually Xrd was made to run on PS3, on regular old UE3. Hell, DBZ doesn't look much (if any) better, despite being only "next-gen" and UE4.

i'm talking about the advantage in Arc's rendering pipelines being more modern, not the hardware the games themselves were created for, but your right in that Xrd was developed for last gen machines, i should clarified between my first and second statements

A new engine by CC2 with a game displaying anime visuals, exclusively for current gen is something i've wanted to see for a while, as their production values are always top notch and they could definitely go beyond what they've been doing for almost 10 years now

 

[The ๖ۜBronx]

It may not be the best but no graphical animation has made more of an impression on me than the first time I saw an enemy blow up into purple smoke and leave a shiny glowing orb behind in Wind Waker.

 

[BrianRoyale]

What about that Sundered game? It has a kind of Ralph Bakshi animation look to it. While not the best I thought it looked pretty cool.
https://youtu.be/uTr5l5R-kik

That Xrd game looks amazing. Cuphead and Ni No Kuni 2 might end up taking the cake.

 

[LordKasual]

Yeah, its official. I can feel it.

I can't mentally give Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 as much credit as it deserves, because i'm so jaded on how fucking stupid Naruto became lol

CC2's engine is based on last gen hardware, their first Storm game being in 08....

I wonder what they would be able to accomplish with technology created today, its almost mouth watering.

Arc system works does have an advantage in that their techniques are much more modern

The most impressive thing about Xrd is that it was made on Unreal 3.

Everyone complained about how everything on Unreal 3 looked the same. Then ASW comes and just basically says, "yeah, people just weren't trying."

 

[Vital Tundra]

Dragonball FighterZ is gonna take the cake not only because its a beautiful cel-shaded game, but because its cel-shaded and emulates the anime/manga almost perfectly. The 2D trick still blows my mind and looks perfect in that game. CC2 took the cake for authenticity and cel-shading in a 3D space with Naruto last gen.

Im on the side of Wind Waker HD being phenomenal looking. Only real issue is the gradient they used instead of keeping it flat so when your indoors the visuals literally aren't cel-shaded anymore. I really don't know why they didn't keep it completely cel-shaded. Or perhaps it was an engine issue with the new lighting.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I am saying they have very different visual styles, not that they are not both animators, nor that they both didn't do traditional animation work.

Exactly, and I'm saying that both of their animations used physical, real world cels, and therefore any game that imitates those looks is "cel shaded" by definition.

"toon" as in "much more generic NPR banded shading as used in multiple NPR things like illustrations, comics, and yes in some animations"

What are you basing that categorization on? What is your authority that decided what is cel shaded or not depending on the number of different shades in a surface?

Reasons for considering "games with a limited but more than two shades" to be "cel shaded":
- Real-life cels have no color limitations; countless examples of real-life cel animation use more than two colors.
- The shading algorithm is the same and doesn't care how many colors are in the gradient.

Reasons for not considering them "cel shaded".
- Because LordRaptor says so.

Edit: As for your distinction between "cel shading" and "toon shading":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel_shading

Cel shading or toon shading is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make 3-D computer graphics appear to be flat by using less shading color instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades.

Also the very example from Wikipedia:

 

[thelastword]

Ni No kuni 2
Gravity Rush 2
Ultimate Ninja Storm 4
Dragon Ballz FighterZ

 

[Danjin44]

Ni No kuni 2
Gravity Rush 2
Ultimate Ninja Storm 4
Dragon Ballz FighterZ

definitely this. I wish Tales series would go back to cell shading instead of the current style they using now.

 

[Inuhanyou]

definitely this. I wish Tales series would go back to cell shading instead of the current style they using now.

they only had 2 cell shaded games, one 15 years ago and one 10 years ago, its dead jim

 

[Noboru Wataya]

Kings Quest 2015 is a beautiful game and runs so so smooth.

 

[JohnMatrix]

I'm playing through Odin Sphere on the PS4 at the moment and it has amazing graphics and art style

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

Its GG Xrd Revelator, nothing else is even close - its frankly stunning.

Shout out to that upcoming shedworks game aping Moebius' style though

Holy shot

 

[SolidSnakex]

they only had 2 cell shaded games, one 15 years ago and one 10 years ago, its dead jim

Given that they're going to be dropping the PS3 and may move to UE4, they really need to step things up. I mean even Compile Heart has surpassed them. Yes, that Compile Heart

Then you of course have Gust. Those are two studios that definitely aren't working with the type of budget that Tales can get.

 

[Futaleufu]

This game will give us GIFs for years.

 

[Kremzeek]

Ni No Kuni and Gravity Rush 2 are pinnacles of the art.

 

[sublimit]

Dragon Quest XI (haven't played it yet but what i have seen looks incredible.Even the 3DS version)
Dragon Quest Builders
Dragon Quest Heroes 1&2
World of Final Fantasy
Tearaway
Gravity Rush 1&2
Tales of Zestiria
Rime
Oceanhorn
Yomawari Night Alone
htoL#NiQ:The Firefly Diary
Dragon's Crown
Yonder Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Captain Toad
Zelda Windwaker HD
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Ever Oasis

From what it looks like Ni no kuni 2 will also be in this list when it comes out.

 

[Danjin44]

Dragon Quest XI (haven't played it yet but what i have seen looks incredible.Even the 3DS version)
Dragon Quest Builders
Dragon Quest Heroes 1&2
World of Final Fantasy
Tearaway
Gravity Rush 1&2
Tales of Zestiria
Rime
Oceanhorn
Yomawari Night Alone
htoL#NiQ:The Firefly Diary
Dragon's Crown
Yonder Cloud Catcher Chronicles
Captain Toad
Zelda Windwaker HD
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Ever Oasis

From what it looks like Ni no kuni 2 will also be in this list when it comes out.

I wouldn't count that one. the entire world made of very realistic looking papers. just like how Puppeteer looks like puppet show.

 

[paragonpro]

Not that much blood, but a lot of sweat and tears.

Hey if you worked on the game you guys are doing amazing work, cant wait!

 

[sublimit]

I wouldn't count that one. the entire world made of very realistic looking papers. just like how Puppeteer looks like puppet show.

I think it's the overall artistic style that matters and not how much realistic the texture surfaces look.To me Tearaway's style is cartoony and in a very unique way (same goes for Puppeteer)

 

[Seyavesh]

sounds like a good excuse to post the exact same thing with different color palettes

 

[Shig]

Persona 4 Dancing All Night looks way better than it has any right to.

 

[DylanEno]

Cel shaded graphics age so well. Ni no Kuni on PS3 is probably the best looking game on the system today imo.

Catherine still looks great too

MAaaan you're right. I forgot how amazing Catherine looked - Altus really knocked it out of the park with their first hd game, goddamn. Literally the only visual criticism I can think of:

fucking ew lol

 

[Danjin44]

I think it's the overall artistic style that matters and not how much realistic the texture surfaces look.To me Tearaway's style is cartoony and in a very unique way (same goes for Puppeteer)

Okay thats fair and don't get me wrong I absolutely love aesthetic Tearaway and Puppeteer. But when I think cartoony/Anime I think graphics that looks like it was hand drawn.

but then again stop motion animation is also considered cartoon, heck there is even a stop motion anime called thunderbolt fantasy.

 

[ambar_hitman]

I just bought Dragonball Xenoverse 2 and it looks pretty good too.

 

[Vigilant Walrus]

Is it only the shading of shadows that make cel shading special or is there also something specific going on with the color?
Sometimes when I look at the classic Disney films it seems that they use a similar form of shading. Solid fill colors with added dimensions being added with one uniform layer of shade.




What always struck me so much about cel shading is how simple it looks. People used to argue that everything was a rip off of Jet set radio. Remember all the cel-shaded games fad we had in the early 2000s?

But TBF, JSR was much more crude than all of them in its own art direction. I think nothing accomplished Cel shaded better than Wind Waker. It truly is a visual masterpiece.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Persona 4 Dancing All Night looks way better than it has any right to.

Yep especially at higher resolutions. P3/P5 dance is gonna turn heads. P5 is actually very good too now that i think about it

 

[fatherKratos]

Ni No Kuni 2 is looking amazing. And Cuphead, well they absolutely nailed the art style.

 

[neohwa]

Idolmaster

Super Robot Wars

<picture not available>
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3

 

[LordRaptor]

- Real-life cels have no color limitations; countless examples of real-life cel animation use more than two colors.

Except they don't.
They aesthetic style associated with hand drawn animation is literally character outlines and duotones.

Yes, its possible to manually create as many tones as you want to illustrate shading, and I am sure there are animations where people went out of their way to go the extra mile to do this, probably for a scene where they really wanted to play with light sources, like a flickering fire or something, but that is not the norm.

Again: I'm not just arbitrarily inventing the conventions that were used in traditional animation for decades; people didn't use more than duotones, because the more detail added that moves between frames, the more work it is for the animator and the harder it is to make animation flow rather than jump or pop.
Its also why conventionally in absence of any visible light source in a scene, light is asumed to be at a 45 degree angle from the top right of the screen, so it is easy to be consistent with shading in any given scene; flat tone for colour, darker tone bottom left for shadow, a light tone or just white for shininess or bloom top right.

Cel-shading specifically refers to attempting to look like a hand drawn animation; not a stop motion animation, not rotoscoping, not CG, not puppetry.

Toon shading refers to attempting to look drawn; it comes from "cartoon", which means a drawing, not an animation. 19th century political cartoonists were not sat around zoetropes.

These are not arbitrary distinctions, even if you don't care to make any distinction at all in what the intended aesthetic is meant to be mimicing.

- The shading algorithm is the same and doesn't care how many colors are in the gradient.

No, there is no "universal shading algorithm".
There isn't even a universal lighting algorithm - phong, gouraud, matcap, pbr, raytracing...
There isn't even only one way of doing cel-shading. It can be done purely in texturework, it can be done purely in shaders, it can be done purely as a post processing effect, it can be done entirely via colour grading.

Is it only the shading of shadows that make cel shading special or is there also something specific going on with the color?
Sometimes when I look at the classic Disney films it seems that they use a similar form of shading. Solid fill colors with added dimensions being added with one uniform layer of shade.

Yes, that is the look most associated with traditional hand drawn animation, whether it is Disney, Hanna Barbera, Looney Tunes, Studio Ghibli or Astro Boys TV series which created the concept of Anime; it is a distinctive aesthetic, even amongst disparate artistic styles.

 

[jizzlobber]

Cuphead

 

[Weltall Zero]

.

We're talking about the definition of cel shading in videogames, none of your tangential and historical arguments have any ounce of bearing on what the term means in this context. Wikipedia backs up the definition of cel shading that every single person in this thread but you is using; at some point it's worth considering if everyone else including the dictionary thinks you're wrong, then you might be wrong.

I'm not going to waste more time on this unless you provide some authority that backs up your assertion that "cel shading does not cover videogames with more than two tones".

Also there are indeed several cel shading algorithms; most of them don't care how many bands there are. Off the top of my head the simplest one would be to clamp the pixel's color to the closest value by brightness (since hue is not a factor), and this is as easy with two colors as it is with ten (if you order your hues by brightness, you could even binary search so that you only need log comparisons).

 

[LordRaptor]

Wikipedia backs up the definition of cel shading that every single person in this thread but you is using; at some point it's worth considering if everyone else including the dictionary thinks you're wrong, then you might be wrong.

Holy shit dude - it doesn't!
Actually read the article!
That one user submitted image says what you think it does, nothing else does including the other images on the article.

In fact, look, here is the definition as provided by one of the cited authorities in that article:

Q: What is "celshading?"

A: In the world of 3D graphics, "celshading" is a subset of non-photorealistic rendering, a.k.a. NPR. While NPR covers a much broader range of rendering styles, celshading's more specific. In celshading, the artist uses tools to make his or her 3D models look more like a hand-drawn animation cel when rendered.

If you want to circle back to saying how hand drawn cel-animations don't have a specific look - outlined characters, duotoned colours - which you decided to drop arguing when presumably you went looking and found out - holy shit - I am actually saying things that are grounded in reality, not arbitrarily inventing shit then whatever, I really don't care enough about this, but it is insne to me how badly you want to mangle the definition to fit your head canon when at this point surely you must be at least entertaining the possibility that your personal definition is not correct.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Holy shit dude - it doesn't!
Actually read the article! That one user submitted image says what you think it does,

"User submitted" as opposed to... what? The image materializing spontaneously? It's the image used in the goddamn wikipedia article, if anyone, let alone the majority, thought it was wrong, someone would have changed it. If you're so sure you're right, why don't you change it and provide your reasoning for it? Want to guess how long until your change is reverted back?

nothing else does including the other images on the article.

The very first paragraph in the freaking article does!

Cel shading or toon shading is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make 3-D computer graphics appear to be flat by using less shading color instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades.

"Less shading color". Not "Two shades of color".

Next!

The cel-shading process starts with a typical 3D model. Where cel-shading differs from conventional rendering is in its non-photorealistic illumination model. Conventional (smooth) lighting values are calculated for each pixel and then quantized to a small number of discrete shades to create the characteristic flat look – where the shadows and highlights appear more like blocks of color rather than mixed in a smooth way.

"Small number of discrete shades". That's quote a mouthful when according to you they could have just used "Two shades", don't you think?

In fact, look, here is the definition as provided by one of the cited authorities in that article:

If you want to circle back to saying how hand drawn cel-animations don't have a specific look - outlined characters, duotoned colours - which you decided to drop arguing when presumably you went looking and found out - holy shit - I am actually saying things that are grounded in reality, not arbitrarily inventing shit then whatever,

What the hell? I stopped digging the stupid "it's like animation" hole because that is going to take us nowhere fast when we can't even agree what means "to be like animation" in the first place.

Also I hate to break it to you, but preempting the incredibly obvious, glaring flaw in your own argument by exposing it before the other guy does, then appending "whatever", might not be the dazzling dialectical move you think it is.

I really don't care enough about this,

Oh man. Of all the lies you've been spewing this is by far the most hilarious.

but it is insne to me how badly you want to mangle the definition to fit your head canon when at this point surely you must be at least entertaining the possibility that your personal definition is not correct.

It is not my personal definition, is the definition used by everyone, including everyone in this thread but you. They are simply smarter than me and bailed sooner out of this batshit hilarious madness. But my stupidity indeed has a limit so this is my last post on the matter. Congratulations, you win by literal ad-nauseam.

 

[Forsaken82]

Thats not cell shaded.

The OP said "Cartoony/anime Graphics" (and clearly misrepresented what he thought as cel-shading)

Cartoony doesn't mean Cel-Shaded and when your game art is based off one of the main guys behind Dragonball Z, i'd say that very much qualifies as "anime"

 

[PleaseDontBanMe]

here because i like art

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

Should have called the thread "best stylised visuals".

There's so many to chose from which is amazing after last generations obsession with greys, browns and "gritty realism".

Persona 5, BotW, Cuphead, SFV, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Dragon Quest and Splatoon 2 all look unbelievably fantastic this gen!

 

[TropicalFish]

The atelier games' in-game character models are gorgeous (graphically. The designs themselves have gone downhill since Shallie imo) tbh.

Love the hair especially.