A good round of applause for Arc System Works
polycounter lvl 9
You may not be a fan of DRagon Ball or even anime but let's give these guys some props for their work here.
As you probably know, these are the guys behind the Guilty Gear and Blaz Blue titles. I tihnk they had already baffled a lotsa people here with Guilty Gear Xrd which completely changed and transcended the anime looking cel-shading game (the previous contenteders were the Naruto Storm game).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seo4lh-rXNg
As you can see, not only the title looks pretty challenging and fun to play, it is a real esthetical and visual tribute form the manga/anime. Every attack, motion is inspired or is a direct reference to a key scene/pose from the manga/anime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJIuKnLexGg
And this has been done for practically every character.
I think projects like this are work we should aspire to do in our life at least once as game developpers...Let's get away from the PBR stuff for a while and actually appreciate stylised titles like these.
If anyone is interested, Arc System had made a panel at the GDC explaining how they managed to get their cel shading look.
They use Unreal so everyone is able to do it. I remember how they litteraly sculpt characters for every key to match a certain pose, they paint normals in odd way to get desired shadows where they want and they have a funnly looking way of laying out their IVS to get straight lines for their character.
As you probably know, these are the guys behind the Guilty Gear and Blaz Blue titles. I tihnk they had already baffled a lotsa people here with Guilty Gear Xrd which completely changed and transcended the anime looking cel-shading game (the previous contenteders were the Naruto Storm game).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seo4lh-rXNgAs you can see, not only the title looks pretty challenging and fun to play, it is a real esthetical and visual tribute form the manga/anime. Every attack, motion is inspired or is a direct reference to a key scene/pose from the manga/anime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJIuKnLexGgAnd this has been done for practically every character.
I think projects like this are work we should aspire to do in our life at least once as game developpers...Let's get away from the PBR stuff for a while and actually appreciate stylised titles like these.
If anyone is interested, Arc System had made a panel at the GDC explaining how they managed to get their cel shading look.
They use Unreal so everyone is able to do it. I remember how they litteraly sculpt characters for every key to match a certain pose, they paint normals in odd way to get desired shadows where they want and they have a funnly looking way of laying out their IVS to get straight lines for their character.
Replies
Photorealism is cool, but it's equally as nice seeing developers push stylized visuals to new limits.
Lab Zero Games and Studio MDHR are possible contenders, though what makes Arksys special is they're literally getting 3D polygons to match 2D artwork.
The West rarely takes risk visually when it comes to AAA or AA games. Seeing big studios coming up with stuff like this is a sour dream. I mean there's still the indies but they're mostly limited to full 2D...
I think with Gaming having moved some time ago from a "Nerd-thing" to a general way of entertainment in everyones daily life: They tried pulling in as wide of an audience as possible with realistic graphics. It's a shame in my opinion, you can get engrossed in stylized-visuals just as much.
Western-audiences seem obsessed with grounded fantasy so we can relate it back to our daily lives while Japan seem to want to move afar from real life as possible to do all kinds of crazy stuff you can't do otherwise, ditching the principle of "Making the impossible seem possible" (Not a criticism of Japan, merely how I observe it.) and its oh so apparent in the graphics of both of their video games.
And its practically timeless