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[rockman zx]

Sol design is from the pachinko machine they released not long ago. I like that design way more than the actual design to be honest.


Extensive report about how they make the game look the way it looks.

http://www.4gamer.net/games/216/G021678/20140703095/

is in japanese but they have some cool pics.

 

[8 X 11 Printer Paper]

I do love me some broken images.

 

[Wishmaster92]

I do love me some broken images.

love me some fixes then.

 

[Jinroh]

Copy image URL, paste and go.

 

[Bleep]

A lot of sites don't like you stealing their bandwidth, try rehosting on www.abload.de.

 

[mullet2000]

This model better be in the full game.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Really lets you appreciate the in-game art seeing the natural shading

 

[raven777]

This model better be in the full game.

no!

 

[xillyriax]

clickable gallery (hopefully)
http://www.4gamer.net/games/216/G021678/20140703095/screenshot.html?num=001

 

[Wishmaster92]

visually it looks spectacular.

 

[Antiwhippy]

That better be an alt outfit.

Hilarious face included.

 

[sixteen-bit]

That better be an alt outfit.

Hilarious face included.

are they taking the piss out of SF4?

dat shin shoryu

 

[i-Jest]

I prefer Sol's Overture design more than any other. I'm disappointed they didn't go with that one. Oh well, maybe we'll see it as a costume unloc....I mean DLC offering.

 

[That Dude John]

This is some sorcery, right here.

 

[Astarte]

Rare screenshot of Axel being a death star

 

[tauke]

Love how they managed to get the cel-shaded look in Softimage with the ToonShader.

More impressive is the UI language for both Softimage and Unreal Editor is in English for a Japanese developer.

Edit: It's great to see more in-depth articles on the development of the Non Photo Realistic (NPR) look as while newer consoles/PC keep getting more powerful, it is often tied to more photo-realistic visuals instead.

 

[baphomet]

Rare screenshot of Axel being a death star

Lol

 

[Azure Dream]

XIII being referenced in an article about Xrd is kind of funny.

 

[DSix]

I wish I could read the article. I'd like to know what sorcery they did to make their outlines and cell-shading so damn good.

 

[ACESmkII]

Wow! Nice Shots. Arc System Works have been putting in work. No pun intended.

I haven't played a Guilty Gear in some time. The last one I played was the one that I imported years ago on DC. Which I assume was Guilty Gear X if I remember correctly. All I remember back then was being blown away by the sprites while I was playing on a VGA monitor. This looks to the same but with 3D models mimicking sprites.

 

[turcy]

beautiful.

i'll never forget how beautiful GG was on the DC, but this is looking more & more like a live / playable cartoon [and a well-animated one at that!].

 

[ponpo]

Editing texture coordinates of vertical lines by hand? Article 2technical4me

 

[Chev]

It isn't a prototype in the game prototype sense, it's a movie they made as a proof of concept. Anyway, I translated bits of the article on polycount, for those who might be interested in technical matters: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2099538#post2099538

 

[rockman zx]

A summary of the article:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2099538&postcount=229

Team of 25 that includes four programmers, three planners in charge of game design, 12 artists. Add to that a hundred persons they outsource work to.

First concept emerged in 2008, production started in 2011. They made a prototype movie that convinced them to use 3D graphics. Production ramped up to full scale mid-2012 and continued until the end of 2013. They'd experimented with 3D graphics since 2007 but hadn't found them to be expressive enough and there wasn't much of a point in using them over sprites while screen resolution remained low.

for those who like tech talk, go to the link.

 

[manual4]

looks like an anime dope

 

[JMTHEFOX]

That face... It wants to devour my soul...

 

[Dictator93]

A summary of the article:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2099538&postcount=229



for those who like tech talk, go to the link.

God I want this game on PC. Best anime look to a 3d game ever made. Quite awesome.

 

[BHK3]

Seeing the normal badguy and pachinko badguy reminds me of this

 

[jtenma]

Arc has always been ahead of their time with their sprites. Hell, they were so good that they were compared to for years (even against sf2hdr).

Now it seems like they are leading the way again with their hybrid 2d 3d cel shaded look.

Im glad they saved this tech for gg and not bb. I freaking hate bb.

Spoiler

Yea. I said it.

 

[Varth]

Dan, is that you?

 

[JordanN]

Backgrounds are not fake. It's all 3D yo.

Now if it had some higher res textures/better texture filtering, it would be indistinguishable from anime (you can see extreme blurring on the ground).

 

[wwm0nkey]

I want this to be out right now, going to play A LOT of it on my PS4.

Hope it also gets a Steam release down the line since a few Arksys games have made their way on there.

 

[ichtyander]

It isn't a prototype in the game prototype sense, it's a movie they made as a proof of concept. Anyway, I translated bits of the article on polycount, for those who might be interested in technical matters: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2099538#post2099538

Many thanks for this! Some of the stuff they're doing sounds pretty painful, like adjusting the local light source of every character on a frame by frame basis or making sure all inner dark lines are axis-aligned in the texture. I suppose they couldn't really get away so easily with the line aligning if the characters didn't have clear colored surfaces. For the same reason, the textures feel a bit unoptimized since they could've probably saved a lot of texture space because of the one color surfaces, but it looks like they still need a fairly high resolution texture simply to have sharp enough details and lines. I'm far from anything nearing an expert on these matters but it sounds like they've managed to pull off this high quality cell shaded look with some tricks, huge amount of painfully and manually tweaked details and a lot of work. I wonder how much more effective did they really get by transfering to 3D. I'm sure the freedom to always be able to tweak anything you want instead of redrawing it and not worrying about the 2D resolution of characters is immensely beneficial but I'd be interested to see if they actually cut down on time requirements to, say, fully create and animate one character.

 

[Busaiku]

Hope it also gets a Steam release down the line since a few Arksys games have made their way on there.

The only games among the 100+ in Arc System Works' 26 year history, were Guilty Gear Isuka and BlazBlue Calamity Trigger.
Neither of which were handled by Arc System Works. Neither of which have online.

 

[Huw_Dawson]

Thanks for translating the tech article! I might use that Motomura Lines technique.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Looks like Sol if he aged 10-20~ years...

 

[Falk]

Backgrounds are not fake. It's all 3D yo.

Now if it had some higher res textures/better texture filtering, it would be indistinguishable from anime (you can see extreme blurring on the ground).

Higher res textures wouldn't hide the fact that it's an image pasted on a flat surface, especially in motion at 1080p+.

Tessellation on the other hand.

 

[gngf123]

I would really like a PC release as well, but it isn't going to happen. ArkSys have only ever released 2 games on the platform, neither were handled by them and both were complete disasters.

I'm really interested in the technique they are using.

 

[wwm0nkey]

I would really like a PC release as well, but it isn't going to happen. ArkSys have only ever released 2 games on the platform, neither were handled by them and both were complete disasters.

I'm really interested in the technique they are using.

Want Kiss ltd going to talk to them about bringing more of their games over though?

 

[Retro_]

Looks like Sol if he aged 10-20~ years...

Sol is already over one hundred years old tho

 

[delSai]

I am really bad at fighting Games but damn i can't wait to Play this

 

[SAB CA]

A summary of the article:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2099538&postcount=229



for those who like tech talk, go to the link.

I'd imagine much of this is pretty similar to the CC2 games way of handling shades and the like, but with the added benefit of per-frame lighting and inner linework modifications. And a Static-in-battle camera.

The Cel-shader outline effect is even similar to the one used by Aztez, as posted a few days ago here.

Still makes me wonder why a lot of these techniques weren't attempted years ago on smaller-scale projects. Especially with a PS3 version coming out as well. I always like seeing 3D used as a compliment to the creation of 2D works. It just feels good to see it as "part of a toolset" in such a way.

I'd love to see a version with the interior shadows, lines, and outline rendered as faux stairstep-pixel edges. I wonder if you could accurately fake "High rez sprite art" in such a manner...

 

[sixteen-bit]

Have we seen how this looks on PS3 yet?

 

[Guymelef]

Have we seen how this looks on PS3 yet?

Nope, only PS4 at E3

 

[sixteen-bit]

Nope, only PS4 at E3

IIRC it was PS4-only at Evo as well.

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

This model better be in the full game.

Yes please lol

 

[Tain]

A summary of the article:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2099538&postcount=229



for those who like tech talk, go to the link.

holy shit this is great.

Also, sounds like the arcade version is 720p, so there we have it. The PS3 version will probably be fine.

 

[Chev]

Have we seen how this looks on PS3 yet?

Runs at the same resolution as arcade so should be fine.

I wonder how much more effective did they really get by transfering to 3D. I'm sure the freedom to always be able to tweak anything you want instead of redrawing it and not worrying about the 2D resolution of characters is immensely beneficial but I'd be interested to see if they actually cut down on time requirements to, say, fully create and animate one character.

There'll be a second article about animation and the topics covered are basically the same as a print article that's already out so you'll see their animation process is quite full of crazy time consuming tricks in itself (step animation, multiple meshes and fake 2D deformations through complex rigs) so they don't really cut down on anything for the initial character creation. Their gain is on longer-term stuff, like changing the model but keeping the animations (ie costumes and updated polygon counts for sequels) and also something they've mentioned in a gamasutra article long ago, that it is much easier to find 3D videogame animators nowadays. Pixel animators have become a rare breed, which is why they already were rotoscoping models for Blazblue.

Still makes me wonder why a lot of these techniques weren't attempted years ago on smaller-scale projects.

Some of them were. Like, the basic principle of the outlines has been around for a long time, but on the other hand the things that really bring them to life, the variable width and z-offset, are pretty much unheard of. But one big difference with other cel-shaded games which drove a lot of their decisions, is they were specifically going for looking as 2D as possible. Something like the Naruto games is still designed with a 3D game in mind, so it has to look good at all angles, while many Xrd tricks are dependent on strict camera control. The local character lighting alone would be a lot less convincing with a free 3D camera, and some other things they don't talk about like how characters don't intersect even when the occupy the same spot would be a lot harder.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Let ugly Sol be in the game. Everyone loves joke clone characters.

 

[SamuelSupreme]

Can't wait until this releases! I mean injustice is great but I've been waiting for some eastern fighting game greatness on my PS4, Loved P4A too.