It seems like you get this thread, almost… There IS a reason it was posted here and not wherever you linked in from.
anoon is posting skeletons in his closet to the people that would probably care most about them, and I think we all thank him greatly for it.
Still one of the best reads on the internet, keep it coming, you’re even bringing some old school peeps back, along with the new riff raff.
That sounds like an awesome idea. Actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing the game redone as a homebrew effort.
My friend Ming’s “always look on the bright side!” comments on SF:TM:
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If SF:TM did better than the original SF2, then in theory, a massive nuclear implosion of SF2 games and SF2 movies could have resulted that would have sucked in all money from the universe.
I mean, if “SF2, the Game, Based on the Movie that was based on the game” (aka SF:TM) did better than the original game itself, then they would make “SF2, the Movie based on the Game that was based on the movie that was based on the game.” And if that did better than the original movie, then that would spawn another game, ad infinitum until all the money in the world went into its final incarnation.
This did not come to pass because well, frankly both the movie and game kind of sucked equally, and the earnings on the game (if not the movie) probably disappointed people. I suppose we have the developers to thank for saving us from SF2 oblivion.
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devoted Bloodstorm fan and TimeKillers pro (ask me for a money match),
Seth
10 bucks says my Mantazz pwnz you up. Bet it!
N
This topic is the best thread I’ve read here in like, the last few years. A lot of valuable gaming industry insight.
Plus, I’m a fan pf Sawada. His moveset is too good.
re: s-kill
Please give us Gyakuten Saiban 3.
re: Brandon
I’m a long time reader of insert credit. I love the site and browse it everyday.
re: anoon
Absolutely fascinating. Your posts have been as inspiring as they are insightful and I hope to watch this tragic tale of youth and passion to its bitter climax. An odd question, but what is your own insider’s take on the viability of fighting games today?
Great read. Here are my questions:
Do you think Chun’s 3S quote “No, I’ve never thrown any of my bracelets away. Why do you ask?” is a result of the old rumor, or a way of Capcom trying to distance itself from the SF: The Movie game where she actually threw them?
And for a gameplay related question… who had the idea that using EX moves (great to see at that time) should only drain super meter if it wasn’t full? Apparently it’s cool to be able to do as many EX moves as you want as long as your meter’s full?
Keep up the great posts.
-9
Ironically enough, I asked that question earlier in this thread. I was under the impression that Capcom was ignoring the existence of this game. Someone else insisted that Capcom was doing it to go along with the rumor. I say it’s 50/50. You never really know for sure.
My bad, there was so much in the thread that I only really went over his posts. I guess I missed that. And yeah, I’m thinking 50/50.
EDIT: Wait, where?
-9
Sorry about the lack of updates. I’m still behind on writing new sections as I have just come off of an illness and having been catching up at work, and following up on emails as a result of this thread.
Quick Q/A, then I’ll start writing tomorrow.
I’ve had that daydream a number of times myself. I suppose that technically it could be possible to make a SFTM in Mugen or something of the sort, though the likelyhood of that happening is about less than zero I imagine. I sersiouly doubt that Capcom would see any benefit in releasing that data.
(FWIW: Not to nit pick, but I think it is important to draw a distinction between the digitizing we did for SFTM, versus “motion capture” which typically refers to the capture of motion in 3D space via marker sets and whatnot.)
There were more frames captured than used in general, I believe, but not a vast amount by any means. If I recall, a good deal of the animation was fairly smooth, just not necessarily good. The tools that exist today are vastly superior to those we were using back then. I’m sure a lot could be done to improve the animation. I will address this issue in the forthcoming section on “What Would I Do Differently” in which I plan on talking about things that could have been done to improve the product.
Great question! I could probably fill pages about this topic… Obviously the market is not what it once was for fighting games, but it I still feel it is a viable genre to develop for. The Mortal Kombats sell a couple million each time out the gate. There seems to be some level of interest in each new Virtua Fighter, DOA, Tekken, and Soul Calibur, though I do not know if they reach profitability with each new release. As a fan of the genre, I would hope so.
Actually, I think the current generation systems (360/PS3) are the perfect platforms for a new resurgence in fighters. For many years, fighting games were some of the most demanding games to develop. They often taxed the hardware to the limit. But now, these new consoles have enough horsepower to really do some special stuff. Stuff that could make the fighting fans, but more importantly, perhaps the non hardcore players to stand up and take notice.
It’s probably the result of the old rumor. I don’t think Capcom needs to make any extra effort to distance itself from SFTM; on the whole they seem to disavow any knowledge of its existence already! Seriously, of the Street Fighter data I’ve seen out of Capcom, the SFTM games are never mentioned.
Wow… I don’t remember that. That was in the arcade version? I seriously need to play it again. I couldn’t tell you whose idea that was.
I regret not being around to sticky this.
Doesn’t another one of Chun’s 3S win quotes say “I’m a fighter, not a news reporter!”? That’s obviously a reference to the movie.
And only an overseas quote.
I do know that. I wasn’t feeling well, and realized it after submitted, but was too tired/lazy to go back and fix it. I figured you get what I meant. 
I am kinda of curious if you were capturing down to targa files, tiff, mpeg, or whatnot. So far as the rights, I didn’t know if Capcom owned the rights to that kinda stuff, or if IT does.
Started playing SFTM Arcade again today, meh still crappy. But I kinda like guile, he plays enough like 2D guile i guess and his kicky-super is kinda neat.
However- WTF is with Guile’s win pose?
This thread has roused me to register and join the forums as well.
What an excellent read this has proven to be! I’ve never experienced the game for myself, but I wrote it off as a joke the minute I saw it in an old Babbages flyer, years and years ago. It really answers a lot of questions, to read about the lament of a developer and the sub-par game he helped to create.
…Although, I suspect the team behind the Big Mother Truckers (sp) franchise knows what they’re getting into when the time comes to work their magic every so often.
This is an incredible thread, keep it coming man
I have just written up a few more short sections on digitizing characters, then I’ll mention backgrounds a bit. After that I think it’s probably about time to delve into my analysis of the final product.
Enjoy.
TWO GUILES
Guile was captured twice: Once with Van Damme and once with his double. As previously mentioned, the actors had originally agreed to a full shoot with us which was part of their contract for the film. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, Van Damme could only provide us with four hours of his time. On the upside though, his double really was an incredible likeness, and we were afforded the opportunity to do a full session with him, which ended up being a very good thing. In our haste to try and capture a full shoot with Van Damme, we largely ignored many of our digitizing hardware restrictions, namely that the actors had to perform their moves as slowly as possible. The end result was that a good deal of the Van Damme footage was extremely difficult to clean up, so we mixed and matched parts from the takes with his double to make a complete moveset. To Jean Claude?s credit, he did work extremely hard while he was in our studio. Though he didn?t quite understand the whole speed limitation of our hardware, he did four hours of rapid paced action, nearly non stop and his improvisation during the shoot led to a few new moves for Guile.
TWO CAMMYS
Cammy was another character that had two digitizing sessions. We were originally slated to be in Australia to digitize for two weeks of daily shoots, then a trip home to begin work on the character data. For whatever reason, our shooting schedule didn?t work out as planned with the actors. We were nearing the end of the second week and we still had a large number of characters to shoot. One of them was Cammy, and we were afraid we weren?t going to get Kylie up to our set. As chance would have it, we met Kylie?s double, Emma Kearney, at one of the after hours parties. It turned out that she was very interested in helping us out, so we scheduled a session with her and went down to wardrobe.
Like Sawada, Cammy?s costumes in SFTM are the khaki officer?s uniform and the blue camouflage field outfit. At the time we felt that the officer?s uniform was not the best choice for a fighting game costume, and the field outfit was fairly boring and blue to boot, (which would have made clean up difficult, due to the blue screen.) In the end we opted for a costume more true to the Cammy?s SSF2T look.
I am not sure that Emma knew what she was getting into when she agreed to the shoot, but she was a trooper and did a fantastic job. I don?t imagine too many young actresses would relish the thought of standing around an old warehouse in a skimpy leotard, covered in baby oil under a bank of hot lights, all the while surrounded by a bunch of video game nerds.
Not surprisingly, shortly after we had our successful Emma shoot, Kylie?s schedule freed up, and she was eager to do a digitizing session with us. Seeing as she was one of the big ticket names in the film, we had to digitize her as well. In retrospect, we probably should have devised a different costume for the Kylie shoot. That way, we could have had a Kylie Cammy, and a third female character hidden away in the game, (assuming we had the time to clean the Emma data up.) Maybe it was all for the best ? I suppose if we put Emma in, that means that Blade wouldn?t have made the cut, and we all know what a tragedy that would have been!
Alan Blade not in the game?!
NNNNNOOOOOOooooo!!!