Why anti-aliasing sucks and why you should hate Capcom. Also I'm an idiot.

[SnowShingo]

Anti-aliasing is not dithering. Though they are close to being the same, you should double check and make sure you're talking about the right one before you make a fucking post, ShoShingo. It can actually be a very good thing on the right type of projects. Game sprites are not included in that group. After having a chance to look at sprites from Street Fighter II HD, I was absolutely appalled by the general lack of effort involved in the sprites in regards to shading and coloring. For an example, I will use this sprite of Ken :




The character sprites alone take up 256 colors on the palette. Big deal, right? Well it kind of is a big deal, not just for Mugen creators, but for game developers in general. While most of the colors are unique, they only have very small differences between them. His Gi alone has about 100 colors, most of them so similar they become redundant to use. The main cause of this, as far as I can tell, is that instead of properly attempting to clean up the sprites, the people in charge of creating them decided to cheat. By anti-aliasing the sprites, they made them seem as if they were more detailed than they actually were and basically ruined the sprites in the process.

Notice the edges of the hairline and gloves. Specks of red abound. The skin tones are a jumbled mix of colors with such minor differences that it almost makes me want to cry. Why is any of this important, you might be asking yourself? Like I said earlier, the idea that newer game developers, specifically homebrew peeps trying to make it by selling on live/psn, will look at sprites from major companies as example of what to do. When you look at these sprites, you see laziness. You see a low standard for quality. It sets a very bad example for the way High Def sprites should/can be done. And it just makes the devs look like complete assholes who tried rushing a game at the expense of that quality.  Gameplay wise, SFIIHD is outstanding. Probably the best rehash of SFII in the history of the franchise. Visually, the game looks like shit.

In an attempt to make myself feel better after getting a soul-crushing look at these sprites, I used my amazing sprite skills to lower the count and partially clean this particular sprite up.



This guy only uses 47 colors, and I could probably reduce it more. I used slightly more contrast with the coloring and cleaned up the horrible mess of stray pixels as best I could. The problem is that there is no consistency between the sprites. Some of the sprites have huge shifts in the which colors are used for which shaded areas. this is almost certainly caused by the dithering of the sprites. I would advise anyone actually paying attention to take note and understand that rushing anything about your projects is going to bite you in the ass one way or another. Rushing sprites causes a loss of visual appeal, which will leave you open to even more criticism than you would normally receive.

In short fuck Capcom and Dave Sirlin for allowing these abhorrent sprites into a final product. I know Capcom has a history of rushed games lately, but they've never really screwed up graphics wise.

[GT]

In short fuck Capcom and Dave Sirlin for allowing these abhorrent sprites into a final product. I know Capcom has a history of rushed games lately, but they've never really screwed up graphics wise.

Agreed 100% fucking percent.

[Thedge]

So, those sprites are not just terrible-looking, they are horribly done too. 

SF3 had that excess of colors issue too, it was "tolerable" since the palletes never reach the hundred colors.

Thanks for the information.

[Makkah]

+1 also

I tried working with these sprites and setting up a palette for them has been a nightmare. Every time I cleaned them I could never catch all the colours. As a result of that I just set up photoshop with a palette from one of the sprites and let it apply a palette to all of them with batch processing. It's hard to notice the difference between them and the unpaletted ones because the approximation photoshop has to make for the colours it can't find directly are so minute. I plan to redo it though, after I manually adjust the sprite I use for the base next time (making 12 palettes for 206 colours is just ridiculous).

[SnowShingo]

So, those sprites are not just terrible-looking, they are horribly done too. 

SF3 had that excess of colors issue too, it was "tolerable" since the palletes never reach the hundred colors.

Thanks for the information.

With SF3 there was a purpose for the extra colors. They actually added more detail and made the sprites look better. I consider SF3 to have the best looking 2D graphics of any Capcom game to date.

[Nucka]

What kind of dithering looks like that without adding noticeable artifacts, like the 'checker board' effect?

[SnowShingo]

I meant anti-aliasing and put dithering because I am retarded. I will fix this mistake, then go to the bar and drink myself to death in shame.

[Cobra Caddie]

I tried to do the pose that Ken is doing in that sprite and I broke my arm in 3 places.

I noticed the antialias on the sprites when they first started showing them off and the only thing I could think was "man that's gonna be hard to make palettes for".

While the stills have their faults, the fix isn't that noticably better. I figure they left it with antialiasing and stupid palette inconsistancies that are barely noticible(if not unnoticible) during gameplay in exchange for a faster release time. The palettes coulda been better though, I definitely like the contrast better in the "fixed" sprite.

Edit: Also I personally don't think the sprites are gonna have much of an influence on homebrewers or new developers, I think you were just grasping at straws there for why this is important.

[PotS]

Aww Capcom didn't make these sprites for Mugen. Let's egg their house!

[NiO ErZeBeTh]

so you could actually reduce the colors on the sprites!!
anyways... lazyness or need of a "new" SF?

[Makkah]

I got it down to 60 something colours today, including effects. It's not that hard in the end, really. Takes about 10 minutes to do everything.

[Formerly Hoshi]

Tried reducing the color count a couple of weeks ago.

Spoiler: From a 256 color palette (click to show)

Spoiler: To this (click to show)

With almost no detail loss. And this was a rush job too.

[CookDaXapper]

capcom probably wanted these particular sprites to be "dirty". they do know about our hobby, and perhaps want us to really work to lift their artwork. maybe.

[SnowShingo]

Aww Capcom didn't make these sprites for Mugen. Let's egg their house!

hey good job simplifying what i said to make it come off as a whine about not being able to use them in mugen, which is not something i brought up at all. stop posting.

[Makkah]

capcom probably wanted these particular sprites to be "dirty". they do know about our hobby, and perhaps want us to really work to lift their artwork. maybe.

But it in fact doesn't take a lot of work. Just nab the 3 base colours of everything (skin, clothes etc), then grab the transition colour between each shade (so that it doesn't end up looking rough). After that, build a palette with it and apply it to all your sprites via batch processing. It only takes a few minutes, and you'll hardly notice the difference.

[Cobra Caddie]

Tried reducing the color count a couple of weeks ago.

Spoiler: From a 256 color palette (click to show)

http://hoshi.hyperionx.net/guile.png

Spoiler: To this (click to show)

http://hoshi.hyperionx.net/guileindex.png

With almost no detail loss. And this was a rush job too.

To me the detail loss is noticeable. Most of the edges of the shading were much smoother in the original and look bumpy in the edited sprite.

[qed murkr]

IMO it can be debatable, cuz if used correctly anti liasing can actually make your sprite look alot smoother.

[F. James Fernandez]

OMG  what garbage work is that? and people paid to get that game  we make better sprites for HD than that crap.

[_Kronos_]

Well if we viewed this sprite with a pc monitor, all the small detail are very noticeable. But view on your standard TV non of this can be hardly noticed. SFHD was rush like hell for the masses. Look at the animation for the damn game its base on the original frame rate.
 
Another thing you can say is that sprites artist are almost gone. Can you image how KOFXII artist must feel after seeing the sale of the game for all there hard work. While SF3 artist took there time to make a master piece in sprite  and animation wise  and what did they get nothing. Even for its time the game was very impressive.

The truth no one cared about it. The game became a sensation years later when people started to find out more tricks to it. It gained more  fame as people wanted to prove them selves.   Companies(CAPCOM) only need to mass produce games now they forget about details. There is no money in it.

Look at BlazBlue it has anime quality to it but no one is rushing to the stores to buy it just a few(100,000+) Hard core gamers that like fighting game.

oh yeah and Capcom is not trying hard enough.

[CookDaXapper]

i bet if they dangled the promise of a job to mugen artists; they would get MAD LOVE!