King of Fighters 94: Remake

[Hero]

looking at those sprites, it seems SNK is going from 94 MVS graphics to...2003 MVS graphics. And?

[Gymkata]

I was expecting more. Oh well, it seems like SNKs MO nowadays.

How much work is it to redo the sprites anyway? Can anyone shed some light here?

[rezo]

Redoing sprites is simply a matter of redrawing them all. There are hundreds of frames for each character, so overhauling an entire cast is a lot of work. You'll notice that there aren't many fighting games that come out right off the bat with 20+ characters to choose from.

It's interesting though. All of KOF 94's sprites were new, right? And there are 25 characters in it.

looking at those sprites, it seems SNK is going from 94 MVS graphics to...2003 MVS graphics. And?

If you look at the pixels on '94 Athena,and realize that 2003 runs at the same resolution,then you would understand that it's sharper than "2003 MVS graphics".

[Bacon McShig]

Yeah, the difference in resolution between those two examples is huge, people. I'm quite surprised to see SNK devoting that much work to this.

How much work is it to redo the sprites anyway? Can anyone shed some light here?

What rezo said. The standard width/height for low-res fighting game sprites like those in KOF is around 100x100 pixels. The second Athena looks to be at least 4x that. I'm sure it's not as time-consuming to bump up the resolution using existing sprites as a template as it would be to do them from scratch, but it still would take a hell of a lot of time to convert everything, overall.

MAJOR props to SNK if they're truly gonna increase resolution by that much.

Sprite work is hard-ass work, I've tried my hand at it on a 100x100 sprite, and it took me at least 4 or 5 hours. That was just one frame, though of course I'm sure the time decreases as you do it more (but probably not by too much). Multiply that times at least 150 frames of animation per character (that's a low estimate), that's a lot of work.

[galvatron]

Redoing sprites is simply a matter of redrawing them all. There are hundreds of frames for each character, so overhauling an entire cast is a lot of work. You'll notice that there aren't many fighting games that come out right off the bat with 20+ characters to choose from.

Don't forget redoing all the hit boxes for each frame so that it all looks/plays okay.

[FuryFox]

Sprite work is hard-ass work, I've tried my hand at it on a 100x100 sprite, and it took me at least 4 or 5 hours. That was just one frame, though of course I'm sure the time decreases as you do it more (but probably not by too much). Multiply that times at least 150 frames of animation per character (that's a low estimate), that's a lot of work.

Like I said earlier, most fighting game sprites are not drawn at the pixel level. They're drawn on paper like any other traditional animation. I know old-school stuff like Darkstalkers or what have you is essentially drawn on an "animator conveyor belt", each guy doing his part (arm, hair, leg, etc) and passing it to the next guy. Therefore, whenever the company decides to input the original artwork, they can make it as hi-res as they want. I don't even think SNK is redrawing anything in this case, but it would depend on whatever resource artwork they have...I assume all of it.

[Frogacuda]

For those of you wondering about the level of the graphical update:




Yup, that should be it... nothing special, but still promising. These are straight from KOF's 10th anniversary site btw, check properties for the link.

Alright then. Hi-res visuals, in the same style as the original. I think we can all be happy with that. They're clearly drawn over the originals, but whatever. My only worry is that they're not going to beef up the animation any.

[kedawa]

Like I said earlier, most fighting game sprites are not drawn at the pixel level. They're drawn on paper like any other traditional animation. I know old-school stuff like Darkstalkers or what have you is essentially drawn on an "animator conveyor belt", each guy doing his part (arm, hair, leg, etc) and passing it to the next guy. Therefore, whenever the company decides to input the original artwork, they can make it as hi-res as they want. I don't even think SNK is redrawing anything in this case, but it would depend on whatever resource artwork they have...I assume all of it.

Exactly. Nobody draws large sprites at pixel-level. They just digitize the artwork and clean it up, which is actually less work for hi-res than for lo-res. Drawing small sprites at pixel level is an art unto itself, but I doubt it's been done much since the GBC days.

And all the people bitching about lo-res sprites in 2D fighters need to realize that RAM constraints are just as much to blame as laziness is. Doubling the height and width of a sprite requires a chunk of RAM four times as big. That's why Guilty Gear may look nice, but it can't touch Third Strike or even MOTW in terms of sprite animation.

[Cheebs]

High res sprites?! Whoo-freakin'-hoo!

'Bout damn time.

Doubling the height and width of a sprite requires a chunk of RAM four times as big. That's why Guilty Gear may look nice, but it can't touch Third Strike or even MOTW in terms of sprite animation.

SFIII was what, 1997? Systems these days better have 4 times as much RAM as a CPSIII. I can't see RAM being a limiting factor to high res animation anymore.

[Taito]

Exactly. Nobody draws large sprites at pixel-level. They just digitize the artwork and clean it up, which is actually less work for hi-res than for lo-res. Drawing small sprites at pixel level is an art unto itself, but I doubt it's been done much since the GBC days.

And all the people bitching about lo-res sprites in 2D fighters need to realize that RAM constraints are just as much to blame as laziness is. Doubling the height and width of a sprite requires a chunk of RAM four times as big. That's why Guilty Gear may look nice, but it can't touch Third Strike or even MOTW in terms of sprite animation.

Where do you get your information from? I've heard people swear up and down that fighting game sprites are made pixel-by-pixel.