CPS2 res. oddities - Which is better?

[FrozenDelight]

Hi guys and girls,

CPS2 games have an odd resolution, this has been discussed online before, so I won't go into too much detail. If you understand it already, skip to my 5th paragraph. I should say a little about it though, because it's relevent to my question - There is a "standard" mode which is 4:3, and a kind of widescreen mode which in some emulators would be called a 12:7 ratio. This aspect ratio is 384 x 224 in resolution and is the actual official res. for the hardware. The 4:3 res. is 384 x 288.

So the official one is the correct one to use in emulators, right? Well it looks like people have argued about this topic online before, so I'll try not to be too judgemental about it. There are users on both sides of the fence. The technicalities go a bit over my head, but it seems that the 12:7 ratio was intended to be squashed into 4:3. Something to do with preserving quality, I think... and scanlines... whatever. Anyway, when running these games on fancy modern monitors, the 12:7 isn't squashed, it's just displayed as a kind of widescreen. Many emulators will run CPS2 games in this widescreen res. by default. This is when opinion comes into it, some people use this res. because it is the "official" one.

Personally I prefer 4:3 standard (384 x 288). It doesn't seem to me like Capcom actually accounted for the fact that the graphics will be squished after processing. In other words, they drew them in 4:3 and then they are stretched out to 12:7. Perhaps they did account for this in some games, but I've only been playing one recently, which is X-Men: Children of the Atom. You can see on one of the first screens, the QSound one, that the Q isn't a circle, it's been stretched.

I said I was going to say "a little about it", didn't I. Oops sorry.

My question is - Which aspect ratio is better for ripped sprites? Maybe it's just my luck, but when I find sprite rips for CPS2 games, they have been ripped in 12:7. I found a link on MFG to a load of rips, I can't remember if he/she has a different name on MFG, but the archive is under the name 'doancm2003'. Here is a link http://www.mediafire.com/?84orz89rc78zg. I haven't checked all of them, but X-Men: COTA sprites seem to be ripped at 12:7. Is there a reason for this? I was thinking perhaps this - When an emulator is "squishing" these games to 4:3, are we losing details? That would be a shame, because I think the characters look fat in 12:7. So would the optimal option be to take the already ripped 12:7 sprites and squish them in an app like Photoshop? Would it be good if these sprites where ripped again from scratch? I'm not sure. What do you think? Or am I just nuts?

Thanks for your time.

Correct aspect but unofficial

Stretched but official

[ShinZankuro]

384 x 224?

That's reminds me about the resolution of fullgame Capcom Universe by Beximus. I confess didn't like much that ratio in some Capcom fighting games, and you show a interesting point:



Looking at that, the chars doesn't looks so stretched.
     Posted: March 25, 2014, 05:05:08 PM
I think is a optional term for rippers/creators choosing specific ratio for ripping chars.

[XGargoyle]

You should always rip them at the original game's resolution: 384 x 224

How the sprites are displayed afterwards is up to the user. If you run them on a 4:3 device, they will be stretched/squeezed, as you mentioned before. Run them on a 16:9 or 16:10 device and the distortion will be even bigger.

[JustNoPoint]

The correct resolution for the sprites is the stretched one. When they are run by the arcade the resolutions of the screen are doubled. Then the screen is squished. In this manner the sprites have slightly more detail than they would have had at a lower resolution had the sprites not been made fat.

In mugen terms you will want to use the fat rips and squish them using mugen's x scale and displaying in double resolution. I'm on my phone currently. When I get back to my pc I'll show you the correct scales. Unless someone beats me to it

[FrozenDelight]

Ok thanks. I need to go out for a bit anyway, will be back online later. So what about screenshots? There is a chance I will be printing screens from X-Men: COTA, perhaps with things like hitboxes. Should I squish them after taking the shots from the emulator running in 12:7?

[Bastard Mami]

you want to do everything in the wise resolution, because of turbo mode and other factors cps data tends to be a bit unreliable, if you add ot that emulator scaling/stretching it will just make matters worse.

[JustNoPoint]

0.8333333333 is the xscale to use in mugen

Whether you wish to code with the squish or without it you should take shots of the CLSNs while they are stretched. MUGEN will squish the CLSN with the sprites using the xscale

[FrozenDelight]

Thanks. How would I emulate this effect on a 384 x 224 wide screenshot (like the iceman one above) in Photoshop? As in the 0.8333333333 xscale in Mugen. Scale the width down to 83.33333333%? Oh wait, that can't be right...

[JustNoPoint]

Why would you need to emulate it in photoshop?

It'd be more like 183.33333333%

You're forgetting that you need to double the resolution 1st. Otherwise you lose details.

[FrozenDelight]

It's just for a little project I might be doing. If I rip sprites from X-Men: COTA, which will be used in Mugen then it's fine. Because of your advice on the xscaling. But I may want to take some screenshots as well. I would rather the screenshots be in 4:3, but instead of taking extra shots in 4:3 (by changing res. in emulator), I could just use the ones I used to rip the sprites (wide), and batch them all in Photoshop to 4:3. Umm I hope that made sense, I'm not good at summorising.

By the way, as we're on a related topic - Are there already Mugen chars from games such as X-Men: COTA which have accurate hitboxes and frame data? I have searched with no luck, but maybe I've missed places. I was just wondering if it would be pointless to rip this data if it has already been done. It would perhaps be easier to also rip the sprites with this data, rather than add it to pre-existing ripped sprite packs?

I have looked at chars such as Astonishing Cyclops by Verz and Loganir, they do not seem to have accurate frame data from the original game. I am aware that this was by choice, but was wondering if the data had perhaps existed before in an older character or some such.

[JustNoPoint]

Oh, in that case then resize the shots you take to 768x576

     Posted: March 25, 2014, 07:05:34 PM

By the way, as we're on a related topic - Are there already Mugen chars from games such as X-Men: COTA which have accurate hitboxes and frame data? I have searched with no luck, but maybe I've missed places. I was just wondering if it would be pointless to rip this data if it has already been done. It would perhaps be easier to also rip the sprites with this data, rather than add it to pre-existing ripped sprite packs?

None that I am aware of. You won't actually add it to a pre existing sprite pack. You'll add it to the air file. The easier way that I know is to use a program to record the emulator running with the CLSNs active. Do everything you can to get all the sprites and CLSN to show up. Open that up in a program like VirtuaDub where you can skim frame by frame. Install a program called ghostwin so you can add a transparency to virtuadub and freeze it above all active windows. In this manner you can easily open Fighter Factory and trace the CLSNs over the sprites in the air file making them perfect.

Related plus it has links

[FrozenDelight]

Oh, in that case then resize the shots you take to 768x576.

Oh cool thanks. I just tried in Photoshop on the wide Iceman screenshot from earlier, and it seems to be working fine.

None that I am aware of. You won't actually add it to a pre existing sprite pack. You'll add it to the air file. The easier way that I know is to use a program to record the emulator running with the CLSNs active. Do everything you can to get all the sprites and CLSN to show up. Open that up in a program like VirtuaDub where you can skim frame by frame. Install a program called ghostwin so you can add a transparency to virtuadub and freeze it above all active windows. In this manner you can easily open Fighter Factory and trace the CLSNs over the sprites in the air file making them perfect.

Related plus it has links

Ah yes thanks. I am already aware of Mame-RR, it's kind of how I ended up starting this thread, because I was wondering if anyone had already used it to get accurate data for Mugen X:Men chars. And I am aware of VirtualDub and GhostWin, your old posts on them also lead to me making this thread.

I've briefly tried VirtualDub before, how do you stop the video from being recorded at super speed? It plays back really fast. Also, if you were to overlay game footage from VirtualDub, wouldn't it be easier to use screenshots instead? To get the hitbox positions, that is.

Hmm, this makes me think. The actual numerical data for where the hitboxes are positioned, is the format the same as it is in Mugen? Compared to the data shown in a CPS2 game. I'm guessing, in Mugen, is it related to the axis position?

[JustNoPoint]

I've briefly tried VirtualDub before, how do you stop the video from being recorded at super speed? It plays back really fast. Also, if you were to overlay game footage from VirtualDub, wouldn't it be easier to use screenshots instead? To get the hitbox positions, that is.

I'm not recording with virtualdub. Does it record now? I just use it in editing mode to go through the frames. The reason I prefer to use it to go through the frames is because I can also get tick information this way. And it's easier to keep the order of frames with a recording than a whole bunch of screen shots. A screenshot from a video and from a regular screen capture is the same thing. Besides there may be some compression artifacts in the video. But for tracing purposes it's not an issue.

Hmm, this makes me think. The actual numerical data for where the hitboxes are positioned, is the format the same as it is in Mugen? Compared to the data shown in a CPS2 game. I'm guessing, in Mugen, is it related to the axis position?

I'm not sure about that. I just trace them in fighter factory so they are exactly the same I don't know if the numeric data in the arcade games uses the axis as a start point or anything like that.

[FrozenDelight]

I'm not recording with virtualdub. Does it record now? I just use it in editing mode to go through the frames. The reason I prefer to use it to go through the frames is because I can also get tick information this way. And it's easier to keep the order of frames with a recording than a whole bunch of screen shots. A screenshot from a video and from a regular screen capture is the same thing. Besides there may be some compression artifacts in the video. But for tracing purposes it's not an issue.

Oh I see! I was thinking differently. I might give that a try, that would be useful. I used to do something simular ages ago, but can't remember what (I never finished actually ripping the char). I think I used QuickTime player because it allowed you to advance one frame at a time. But wouldn't be nessesery in this situation, I would get the tick data from using cheats and stuff instead.

[Jiggeh]

Your use of the words "official" and "unofficial" is puzzling. You seem to have your head wrapped around the basic idea at this point, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate since so many people still seem to have trouble:

All Capcom CPS games were designed to be displayed in 4:3, full stop. That's all there is to it.
When ripping sprites, they should of course be ripped in the original resolution to maintain all detail. However any graphics from any CPS game displayed with 1:1 square pixels (IE how pixels are generally displayed on PC monitors) will look disproportionally stretched horizontally. Converting the image to a 4:3 format (by whatever means you choose) will give the graphics their correct, intended proportions.

Many people are so accustomed to looking at those horizontally stretched sprites and screenshots that it looks natural (thus "correct") to them. But just try to rotate any uncorrected sprite or screenshot by 90 degrees (compare to a corrected one) and the problem should become very apparent.

[Cobra Caddie]

Dumb. Keep them their original resolution.

Here's why. Do you think there are any stages from those games that have been artificially stretched to be the 4:3 resolution? If you wanna squash your game to look ugly do it with localcoord afterwards.

[FrozenDelight]

Spoiler (click to show)

Your use of the words "official" and "unofficial" is puzzling. You seem to have your head wrapped around the basic idea at this point, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate since so many people still seem to have trouble:

All Capcom CPS games were designed to be displayed in 4:3, full stop. That's all there is to it.
When ripping sprites, they should of course be ripped in the original resolution to maintain all detail. However any graphics from any CPS game displayed with 1:1 square pixels (IE how pixels are generally displayed on PC monitors) will look disproportionally stretched horizontally. Converting the image to a 4:3 format (by whatever means you choose) will give the graphics their correct, intended proportions.

Many people are so accustomed to looking at those horizontally stretched sprites and screenshots that it looks natural (thus "correct") to them. But just try to rotate any uncorrected sprite or screenshot by 90 degrees (compare to a corrected one) and the problem should become very apparent.

You make it sound like I didn't understand it and was asking for someone to explain it, but I understood it from the start. That's not what I was asking. I only explained in the first post, so that users who hadn't heard of the resolution differences would understand what I was talking about. My question was which do people think is best for ripping. I may have said in the first post that the technicalities had gone over my head, but to be honest, I said that just because I couldn't be bothered to go into more detail here. I understand it just fine, I just couldn't be bothered to go into more detail, I was prattling on too much as it was.

To be honest yeah, I probably went on about it too much. I understood about the whole square pixels thing from when I read about it somewhere else, but didn't explain it as simply and to the point as you did. I hadn't thought about what I was going to write in advance, so my text explaining it was too long - You explained it in a clearer, shorter fashion.

I don't know why "official" and "unofficial" is puzzling, the CPS2 has an official resolution, so anything other than that could be classified as unofficial.
      Posted: March 26, 2014, 06:48:36 PM

Dumb. Keep them their original resolution.

Here's why. Do you think there are any stages from those games that have been artificially stretched to be the 4:3 resolution? If you wanna squash your game to look ugly do it with localcoord afterwards.

From 'Just No Point's posts it's been explained to me why it's best to rip from the official wide resolution. But it would be interesting to here from a different point of view. I don't know if you're from that different viewpoint though, because I'm a bit confused by your post. Is this because of a typo? Did you mean to say squished, not stretched in this line? - "stretched to be the 4:3 resolution?". Because if it had been stretched to 4:3, it would have to be an even shorter res. before hand.

But anyway, I guess you just mean rip it from the wide res, because you said "original" in your first line. By the way, are you saying you prefer to play it in the wide res? Because you said it's ugly when it's squished.

[Bastard Mami]

capcom sprites are pixel art, therefore they should look their best when there is one pixel painted per original pixel, by squishing the sprite, pixel detail is lost, but if you don't squish the sprites, everything looks fat and the horizontal distances are not what were originally intended in the arcades/original format.

squishing was a big problem before because pixels would be lsot and the sprites would look bad, either washed out or had some weird pixel detail, that should nto be a big problem nowadays, as with higher res the don't really need to be squished but stretches, just not in a 1 to 1 fashion. stretching them to 2 times the height and 1.6666 the width gives you the proper ratio with less pixel noise, or if you want pixel perfect and have a high enough res (720p min) you can stretch them to 4 times the width, 5 times the height, that ratio of 1 t 8 is close to 1 to .83 original ratio and it is pixel perfect.

[Cobra Caddie]

I meant stretched inward. With Mugen I always try and emulate the original game from the way it is displayed from a software perspective. If you play a CPS2 game on a modern tv or monitor, you're getting the "fat sprites". That's the way it should be. People who squash sprites to try and emulate old displays while using newer displays are doing it wrong.

It makes no sense especially since none of the stages that have been converted to Mugen have done that. So you're getting ugly sprites ontop of pixel perfect backgrounds and why am I even saying anything. I don't have any hope for people who do things like this or emulate crt scanlines.

IT LOOKS DISGUSTING

[JustNoPoint]

Capcom squishes the sprites for CVS2 and MVC2. CVS2 is done before they are put into the game. MVC2 is scaled in game. The arcades of CPS2 were not wide screen either. It seems a little odd to say that the games were intended to be wide screen when they are always 4:3. Heck even when the games are remade on PS3 they have 4:3 res and you can select different side bars. That makes me think 4:3 is the intended resolution.