kinda OD, would be nice if it was realistic physics >_<
I’m actually going to have to add the SF4-series of games to this. Had a long discussion yesterday with a friend on what made us pick the (many) characters we’ve played over the years, and I have come to realise that the animations on certain moves are a huge part of the appeal of characters for me (whereas for him, it didn’t count for very much), to the extent where one cool move will make me come around to liking a previously-disliked character (point in case: never cared for Dudley as a concept or otherwise, but the animations on his s.hk and s.fwd.hk were enough, after seeing them for months and months, to make me really like the character).
So, SF4- there are some genuinely fantastic animations, it’s just that they’re drowned in a see of mediocrity and a boring visual style in general imo.
plus SF4 made a really bad choice of implementing mostly static 2D anime intro and ending sequences. that doesnt fit with the 3D CGI animation and design at all, especially the rival FMV
Yeah agreed, it does seem odd. It’d be like MK9’s arcade mode having a 2D animated short for each character’s intro and ending.
2D
Skullgirls
3S
Darkstalkers
KOF13
3D
SF4
VF5FS
I chose SF4 for the extra details, like the slo-mo animations during a super flash, and the various facial animations. As for VF5, Final Showdown improved the animations over vanilla, and the camera was zoomed in more so you can see them all. I like that there are unique throw escape unique animations for many of the throws.
Third Strike, Skullgirls
I recently watched some vids of SFIII, and, well…the animation is not as impressive or as fluid as I remember. The exception might be the characters’ clothing.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Persona 4 Arena, and yet there are plenty of mentions of Arc System Works’ other titles. Am I crazy in thinking that Persona 4 has better animation than Blazblue and GGXX?
There’s really not that much mention of ArcSys games other than The new Guilty Gear coming out. The animation for most ArcSys fighters are rather lacking due to the use of cell shaded 3D models. Characters look 2D but tend to be restricted in their movements due to being 3D models which is quite noticable. Persona 4 arena, I need to look that up and see what’s about.
WTH?
ArcSys’s games are all hard drawn with the exception of GGXrd and Battle Fantasia, the latter of which isn’t even cel shaded 3D.
I guess I looked up false information because from what I researched, most ArcSys fighters use 3D cell shaded models. If I’m wrong then show me.
Only Xrd uses 3D cel shaded models, why do you think there was so much buzz around it.
The closest thing to 3D models that BlazBlue and Persona 4 Arena have is rotoscoping, where they render a basic mesh in 3D for animations and then manually draw over them (this isn’t too uncommon, SNK does the same for KOFXIII and Lab Zero also does this few select animations for Skullgirls).
d3v. Ah ok. But that style makes the animation look a lil stiff. Skullgirls for the most part looks hand drawn, hence the quality of the animation.
This million times, it seems that some of you confuse having a lot of frames with having good animation which is not necesarily true.
SG outside some few attacks on different characters has a really meh animation, its only real wow factor is that is not pixel art but hand drawn animation.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
What exactly is so funny Hecatom? I know you don’t like me but if you honestly feel my opinion is flawed then actually respond explaining why I’m wrong about my claim, instead of a pointless response like the one you made.
To Who watches the:
I love the look of the characters of ArcSys games, and gameplay, but the animation is really poor. There is no fluidity, it is like bad stop motion, on top of that idle animations look hyper and unnatural. For attacks there is no connection between point A and B…more like you are at point A, and instantly at point B.
Agreed. For the most part ArcSys games are good. Just animation wise most of’em are meh. Characters look great, just not that great in motion.
Some games that NEVER get a mention for the level of graphical genius they brought to the table:
Samurai Shodown 3 STILL bodies most games you can think of in the animation and general looks department.
Dark Awake/Chaos Breakers had a level of fluidity that’s still mind boggling to this day.
Galaxy Fight is another.
The rotoscoping in the recent ASW games totally contributes to the stiffness in the look of the sprite animations. When you rotoscope, things will look consistent in motion. Consistent to a fault. There’s this term in animation called “off model” which is specifically the act of making the character you’re drawing warp to look better in motion. Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes this is an accident. You can see it a lot in old Disney stuff. When things are in motion they don’t stay perfectly straight, they bend. You might remember seeing an example of this in school with the “magic rubber pencil” trick. When you rotoscope a model this off model bending doesn’t occur, so you have to add it in after the fact, which they are doing in Xrd which you can find examples of with Sol where he is bending to ridiculous proportions and looks ridiculous in still frames, but is kinda lacking in the sprite games they’ve been doing.
Xrd doesn’t just look good because it has really awesome cel shading, it looks good because ASW is actually going back over the animations and adding the imperfections that come with hand drawn animation. Off model warping, improper shading that doesn’t make sense in 3D space (no one’s nose casts a shadow for instance, shadows only existing on one side of the face, etc), they are intentionally making the models inconsistent because it is visually pleasing to the human eye. That’s why people will always love 2D animation.
John Grimm. Excuse my while I look for the blown pieces of my mind. O_O
MvC3 and SF4 actually animate really well.
So does Tekken.
I think it’d be easier to make a list of fighters with bad animation such as anything by NRS.