The color change for the “in flames” etc animations happens before the actual hitstun starts or you see a hitspark. Both of the characters above have already been hit, the game just hasn’t begun the reeling animations.
See also, super KO below- you can still see Cody doing his crouching Jab animation:
This is the same principle, but in reverse; Akuma is flashing red because he’s already hit Adon (red flash is an obscure feature of the A3 game engine, which happens in rare circumstances). Beneath that, you’ll see a guard crush animation, even though Zangief appears to still be blocking. But, like the super KO above, the screen flash has happened. Also, his guard meter (below his health bar) has already been depleted and reset itself to full. The black space at the end of the guard meter is the portion that it has shrunk, because when that happens in A3, your guard meter gets shorter for the rest of the round.
On the subject of color-change phenomena, there's an issue with FBA that I've noticed while loading up certain games on GGPO. I haven't seen it in a while, but sometimes when I'd start spectating a game of 3S or MvC1, the character sprites would be changed. Lifebars would also be different in MvC, and in the case of 3S, the backgrounds wouldn't load.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/mvsc-02-26-062527.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/sfiii3n-05-17-025313.png
(note that none of these colors are available for selection in their respective games)
Interesting. I’d bet that the timings on the flash screens were timed right on at some point during the dev process and got adjusted to change the feel/sense of impact.
BTW: sorry these are all 16:9 aspect ratio instead of 4:3. But it’s how my screenshots get saved, and I’m too lazy to fix stuff.
Because of the speed of the games, there are a ton of animation frames that you may not notice. Pictured above, Q Bee doing her honey ball move, and you can actually see her reflection in the sphere.
Also from Vampire Savior, though easier to notice, are some of the creepy smiles BB Hood does when performing some of her moves. Also notice how her dog freaks out in the background, and see Talbain/Gallon’s animation after having been burned.
More color change stuff: Sodom getting hit by a red fireball while mid-animation, and also while walking forward.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/sfa3-10-21-084917.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/sfa3-10-21-084827-1.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/sfa3-10-21-084830.png
Also, screen flash when characters are hit by certain special/super moves, and a block damage KO:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/xmvsf-10-22-004024.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/xmvsf-10-22-002553.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/xmvsf-10-22-001952.png
More random cool images:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/xmvsf-10-22-003247.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/xmvsf-10-22-003118.png
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y104/tsdcs/misc1/xmvsf-10-22-003859.png
Counter Hit flash, but in messing with the hitbox viewer I removed the background layers, so the pic ended up in black and white (the Counter Hit flash turns the character sprites white instead of the whole screen).
I’m pretty sure the screen flash desync is an emulator glitch. You can totally see the lifebars flash out of sync with the background, even if you watch it in real time. But if you go to an arcade or play those games on a console and look for the same thing, the flash happens uniformly. Also i’m pretty sure it only happens in FBA and not MAME.
I never noticed this before, or at least didn’t remember it- there’s a very very small period before Sabretooth hands off his jacket to Birdie where you can see him in his suit, and what look like sunglasses:
