they are only rotoscoping, its still 2d, the difference is that they do a 3d model before making the 2d art, and then they make the 2d sprite tracing the 3d model
Yeah, I always thought rotoscoping applied only to liveaction, but I’m hearing it’s applicable when tracing off of 3D models. At any rate, I fricken love the results. It looks so robust and colourful and definitely transfers a lot of the depth of the 3D models.
WHY.jpg
Seriously I don’t understand why spend the time for that at all. What can’t preemptive planning do that making 3D models do??? From what I know of Waking Life and Scanner Darkly, rotoscopping is long ass work.
Yeah, it really looks fantastic. I’m really hoping the scene takes well to KOF XIII, I’ve never looked forward to a KOF as much as this one.
Because it’s likely easier and cheaper to tweak animations in 3D first then simply draw the sprites over them than to have to do the tweaking on the sprites themselves.
That doesn’t mean it’s 3D graphics in a 2D setting.
You draw the 2D, render models for outlines to smooth out your animations, and draw more 2D…
oh wow, this is actually ingenious!
This is down to the art direction and game design, which I am not a fan of either to be honest. Animation in SF4 is pretty bad as well.
Traditional method of making 2D sprites died when HD became the standard.
Disney did it with Snow White (And a lot of animations were then re-used for future films)
But the old method of Rotoscoping was filming a live action animation and drawing over the top of that.
IMO, 2.25D is more stuff like MvC2, CvS2 and BlazBlue where they have traditional sprites (well, as traditional as BBs rotoscoped sprites are) over polygonal backgrounds.
Street Fighter IV is not ugly. You can accept that some people aren’t going to like it. It purposefully used an art style that evoked nostalgia for what people remembered of Street Fighter press material and game art in the early 90s. That’s pretty much what the characters look like. Chunky, solid, practically like action figures.
I think people got used to the much more teenage-oriented Japanese art in Capcom’s later games. (Westerners often don’t realize that a lot of what they see as anime, manga, and Japanese cartoon style is still aimed at teens there. It’s just a lot more sophisticated than cartoons and comics aimed at kids in the west.) For people who grew up with Street Fighter, it’s the other way around. Capcom’s later games were much too “anime like”.
But anyway, the hardware we are seeing these 2.5d games on is six years old. The tactics for creating artistic 3D models will greatly evolve in the next generation. The techniques are already improving. Probably the most visually slick “cartoon style” game out there are the current Naruto fighting games. Sure, it’s Naruto, but those literally look like cell animation in motion. That points the way towards what we’ll see over the next few years.
Naruto’s the best cell shaded, animated game I ever seen. It’s crazy. Far as I’m concerned more games should aspire to that.
There’s also the fact that Ikeno draws them that way as well.
Victor’s booty clap will put both Hakan ultras to shame.
Thoughts like that is how companies start producing broken, crap games. Demanding more from video game devs is what brought about the 3D revolution but we’re at a day and age in technology where things are… Adequate. Instead of asking for the same game once a year, (EA Sports, CoD) there needs to be more diversity in the video game market otherwise even Capcom will drop there bi-yearly shitty war-based FPS.
One other thing, the theory of cancelling and other 2D fighter related technical specialties in a 2.5 SF game just doesn’t seem and isn’t… Cool, for lack of a better anecdotal phrase describing how I feel about the game. I find myself getting lost in hitboxes that don’t make much sense to me. Being outprioritized by moves that should really be smashed. Maybe I play too much Tekken but 3d should be saved for fighting games meant for smooth activity. SF in 3d could be done better but until it feels as fluid and smooth as SF3 rather than clunky, clumsy, and just plain wrong, I’ll enjoy my single plane fighters in 2D please. Sans Mortal Kombat… Midway did a good job there.
On an off note… Capcom, Makoto’s feet…
You do realize SFIV uses 2D hitboxes for collision, right? It’s no different from SFIII, which has it’s own share of silly hitbox shenanigans.
If you really have a problem with SFIV’s hitboxes, it’s more likely due to the fact that you don’t play enough. If you get enough time in, any games hitboxes make sense as you commit them to memory. You stop seeing the animation, and start seeing the spacing for collision, frame advantage and the things that actually have an effect on gameplay.
you do realize that those feet are the same size as they were in her 3S sprite.
The problem with SFIV hitboxes is it’s like some Mugen shit is going on, and actually a few of them are still 3D hitboxes flattened out into weird shifting trapezoids. Like bust out Ryu or Chun Li’s SSFIV hitboxes and compare them to Sakura’s (particularly keeping in mind what she had buffed from SFIV) and try to make any sense of it. They don’t look like they’re from the same game, one character will have these buff SFII looking hitboxes and another will have weak sauce Alpha 3 looking things and a crossup hitbox about an inch thick.
I know some of those characters had basically “we changed hitboxes” on their list of buffs for AE and I haven’t seen those yet, but at least in the first two games they really are an inconsistent mess.
SFIV uses fixed, square hitboxes with no rotational axis or tweens.
I have looked over the hitboxes for almost every character. There’s nothing inconsistent about them.
Normals designated to have a higher priority have hitboxes outside their hurtboxes. Examples are Sakura’s cr.HP, Dudley’s f.HP and Dhalsim’s b.MP. Every character has these in some form and they all look and function the same. Pokes with hitboxes nested behind their hurtboxes get stuffed by the former at range (and trade if they’ve intersected at point blank). This is exactly the same as Third Strike.
If you’re complaining about the sheer size of the hitboxes in SFIV, you’ll find that the majority of them are pretty conservative if you actually take the time to look at them. There are exceptions, but this is usually when there’s obvious balancing applications. Examples are characters who need to rely on normals for anti-airs. You can’t be giving them hitboxes that will trade or lose out to jump-ins everytime. The hitboxes in those instances get a bit beefier.
Hitboxes for air-throws and command grabs are ridiculously gigantic because characters usually have their grab-boxes never leave their torsos for attack animations.
I don’t think so.
Oddly enough, I want to see that now.