*Has huge eyes* -
March 27, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
This column explains why I'm leaving home to become a stewardess.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Want to see what I've spent the last 6 hours working on? Sure you do!
if(myid == 2)
{
MPI_Recv(&n, 1, MPI_INT, 0,
2, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
x = (double *) malloc (n*sizeof(double));
y = (double *) malloc (n*sizeof(double));
MPI_Recv(x, n, MPI_DOUBLE, 0,
3, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
MPI_Recv(y, n, MPI_DOUBLE, 0,
1, MPI_COMM_WORLD, &status);
SUMy = 0;
for(i = 0; i<n; i++)
SUMy = SUMy + y[i];
MPI_Send(&SUMy, 1, MPI_DOUBLE, 0,
5, MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
Excellent! Party on Wayne, and party on, Garth!
Onward.
| Isn't animae the plural
of anima? |
| So sue me if I spell animae wrong. I'm on a
twelve-hour Xenogears binge. I don't know why, I
just am.
I think that the most appropriate response on the
question of weather FMV, 3D and 2D sprites or
animae wil dissipear is found in an earlier
column. Namely, "Games will become either so
realistic that is will seem like full
live-action, or a totally personalized art style,
like in the Mana games." I can't say who said
this, but they said it perfectly. Either one or
the other. The two extremes. Or maybe,
intemixed. Say, an anemae fighting screen, and
real-life for the rest of the game. Of course,
someone will rivive games like FFVI, VII, IV, or
IX from time to time, and keep it in the original
artwork and game style. Why, who knows.
Of course, if 3D and 2D and FMV dissapear, what
will take it's place, hm?
- Raveled
|
So wait, it'll be nothing but the two extremes, intermixed? I don't know what'll happen to games or why it'll happen, but I do know that more technical power should give artists more freedom, not less. In the SNES era, all stories had to be told largely through SD sprites, regardless of the content. Now with next-gen systems, we should be able to see anything from the rabid minimalism of Vib Ribbon to the full color spectrum of The Bouncer. And having the right look to complement what the designers actually want to happen on the screen could blow this gaming thing wide open.
| What will take its
place |
| Two words, Chris:
Cel Shading
I don't think the Japanese are going to give up their unique art style quite
so easily. We could either see animé designs on 3D objects or cel/toon shaded
animé characters.
While I love traditional Sprite based 2D, I do think we are on the road to
something different from what we can see now. When (not if) they make a cel
shaded game that looks as good or detailed as 2D animation --- or even yummier ---
a good American comic book cover (oh, for example,
this
) then I, for one,
would be quite happy </graphics-whore>
And if you could play that cover at high-res (1920x1080
in a decade, maybe) at 60fps, Dolby 6.1 (or maybe 8.1 by then?) then I'm sure
it would look a little different from any kind of 2D looking animation we're used to now.
So yes, we are going to see a third kind of animation/game graphics, a hybrid of 2D and 3D,
using the best aspects of both types.
Is the animé style going to disappear, then? No; I don't think the Japanese
are going to give up their art style quite so soon, and as long as they are
making more than three games a year, at least one of them will have animé styles
in it.
Oh, and that idea of Kojima doing a voice-over would just rock! They'd have
to really program it in to make it work well during gameplay though, probably
trigger specific little bits depending on what Snake is doing. For instance,
when Snake is holding someone up for ammo, Kojima could say: "And the motion capture of this guard wiggling his cute behind was done by yours truly, since none of the others would do it without giggling and shaking too much for the computers to capture properly"
"See Olga here? Her underarm hair was scanned from an actual S.W.A.T. team
member named Henrietta..."
¡Vb! |
The 3D models of Bender and other various objects on Futurama are cool, but I've yet to see the style applied to more complex objects, like people. If we're talking comic book covers, then
this, garish as it might be, just proves my point. The image is a careful composition obeying certain rules of illustration - not the kind of thing you'd be likely to get with 3D models of the same thing. In other words, it works precisely because it was conceived as a 2D image, and if you take that 2D away, there might be nothing left.
| Otuka convention? |
| Hey Chris,
As you can or cannot tell from my previous letters of anti-American
sentiments, as well as my current alias, I'm an otuka [one who favors anime]
with the mindset of "if it ain't anime, it ain't right". No offense to the
hardcore American FPS fans, but I think anime is the best thing
since...well, anime and I would gladly trade in a dozen batch of 60 bucks a
piece Deus Ex, for one free copy of Xenogears anyday, just because of my
preference. Anyhow, with that said, your ominous topic worries me. Suddenly
an unwelcoming thought came to mind, that one day, CGI imagery would be the
main choice and the term "anime" is but a thing of the past. Such a day will
indeed be rather dreadful, but unfortunately, I'm afraid to say, such a day
is but beyong the horizon. As you have already noticed, everything nowaday
is done on computer or either digitized, and it's inevitable that animation
--be it anime or American-drawn crap-- soon follows. Artist, or should I say
execs, seem to have the mindset of improving upon everything, including
things not need improving, but with the case with anime, one should practice
the good old saying of, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it", however said
person(s) do not. It's bound to happen, but I would suggest that artists
everywhere, should leave anime the way it is, but if they did decide to draw
anime using polygons, then it's best that they just apply CGI toward
inanimate objects such as background or mechas while animate beings should
remain in hand drawn form. If more drastic measures were needed, where
anime is required to be done in complete 3D then, I'd suggest following the
foot steps of JGR. Jet Grind Radio is an excellent showing of how
cel-shading can correctly be done with polygons, and with added powers of
upcoming consoles, developers can no longer excuse of "limitation of
technology" anymore. Well that's my two cents, good day.
-Weltall, who has already gone through Xenogears 10 times, adding to a total
of roughly 800 hours, so the letter from yesterday doesn't seem too
intimidating
|
Two things, Otacon - it's "otaku", not otuka, and proper otaku are seen as fairly pitiable inside Japan itself. (Yeah, it probably was just a spelling mistake, but if I don't say it now I'll get 20 letters about it tomorrow.)
That aside, JGR is great, but I again question how that style could be applied to more dramatic settings - you couldn't make Cowboy Bebop or Princess Mononoke in that style, for example. (Yes, I suck for not naming more obscure anime. Fine, let's move on.) But that's the whole point - I'd argue that the strength of those particular works lies more in the ideas and content, and less in how it's displayed. A 3D kodama might not work so great, but I can't believe Miyazaki couldn't come up with something equally nifty that would work, given enough time. I just can't see railing against the death of one particular artistic style so much.
| Size matters |
| Dude! Dolby Digital is compressed, Redbook isn't. You just can't have
"full Redbook audio in Dolby 5.1"... sorry.
-Anson |
Hmm, not so fast. My tech stuff may be a bit rusty here, but just off the top of my head, the sampling rate for DVD isn't going to be that much greater than CD audio's ~45k, and even if the bit depth is twice as much, you're still only looking at maybe an order of magnitude difference between the two, factoring in the extra channels. And since DVDs have nearly an order of magnitude size difference between CDs, it might be possible... if you only wanted to have about an hour's worth of music and had really minimal game code, and could find a system to play uncompressed 5.1 audio on the first place.... um, never mind.
| It's the adorableness |
| Hi hi!
I know I for one will be unhappy if anime portraits and FMV vanish. Sure, there
are lots of gorgeous CGI FMV I've seen and loved, and a ton more that I
haven't seen, but I still prefer the anime style. I guess as an anime-style
artist myself, I appreciate the style because I deal with it whenever I pick up a
pencil or Photoshop. My first PSX game was Wild ARMs, and I loved that
opening. I think pretty much every time I loaded the game up, I watched the
opening. I still do when I replay the game. Lunar is pure heaven for me, with t
wo or three discs full of key scenes done in anime/CGI combined, plus all the cute
expressive portraits that show up with text. If companies could make 3D CGI
characters have the same expressiveness and adorableness of anime-style, it wouldn't
be so bad. Chocobo Racing/Mysterious Dungeon 2 and Evolution are wonderful
examples of this. I just hope more companies decide to do that occasionally, instead
of just plain realism.
As a side note to this, am I the only one perturbed that from Final Fantasies
7 and up, pretty much every character is blonde or brunette (Amarant's a redhead,
and Eiko's hair is blue)? I miss those green-haired girls like Terra and Rydia,
and Lenna and Faris's cute colors...
~Nadia~
lover of the disgustingly kawaii |
Yep, the cuddly factor of most 3D leaves a lot to be desired... if you're in to cuddly, that is.
Which I'm not.
Er, moving on...
| No, it's the humanness |
| I'd really like to see anime stay in games. I mean,
CG is great, and the characters can know like more
anbd more real.. but is that really what we want?
After all, if the goal is to become more and more
realistic, then you lose a lot of the creativity
involved in the process. Anime characters, for some
reason, always appeal to more than CG characters.
A friend and I were talking about this the other day.
We decided the main reason is just that the anime
characters, even though they are less realistic, have
more of a human feel to them. They don't have to obey
any rules, and somehow its easier to connect with them
than it is to connect with a CG character. Besides
that, I've always liked games that favored stylistic
graphics over realistic graphics. And anime just has
more personal style than CG does, and probably ever
will.
-Saragar, an anime freak as well as RPG freak...and
former Lunar 2 obsessee. |
Stealing a page from McCloud's "Understanding Comics", any drawing has power over a photorealistic image because it can represent a general idea, rather than a specific thing. That has a place in games, especially when you're trying to make a hero generic enough for the player to say "hey, that could be me!" But visual flair, warmth, charisma - all these are possible with 3D models, and I think we'll see greater measures of it as designers become more comfortable with high resolution tools. Also keep in mind that 3D models can show more actual animation than most cartoons, which has certain strengths we haven't even touched on here.
| Cubism now! |
| Hey Chris,
Anime styles leaving? This is a bad thing? Not to imply that it's the best
thing to happen; anime style is one way of drawing characters, but there are
many others and there is no such thing as a best style.
On that note, I have to say that it thoroughly annoys me whenever I hear
someone going on about how the super-deformed style should be abolished now
that we can do better in 3d. If that's true, then why is the SD style still
used in anime?
Each style has its own strengths and weaknesses, conveys its own set of
themes (i.e. you're not expecting something deep and serious from SD-style,
and you're not expecting total wackiness from a realistic style), and should
be used in different places.
On a side note, about prerendered FMVs... all it really means, them being
able to be done in realtime, is that developers are having a harder time
using their 3d software ;)
Seriously though, I think after a bit we'll start seeing FMVs that can't be
done realtime. Then again, perhaps developers will take the extra time
needed and make a better engine. Who knows.
--Chris G. |
Amen, brother, as far as your style comments are concerned. As for FMVs, I expect it'll be a lot like film. Some directors value a very realistic, unpretentious look, some value lots of lighting tricks and special effect work. Realistic games probably won't move much outside what their engines are capable of, but more grandiose games may still rely on FMV, and all the rendering tricks that implies.
| The beat lives on |
| Dear Agent Jones,
Only the form anime takes in games is has changed. In games like Oni, Hots
Shots Golf, the Bouncer, and the Fear Effect series, there is a general
anime feel, or at the very least a heavy influence is seen. Even in the
latter Final Fantasy games (VIII, X), the character designs borrow heavily
from anime, while adding "realism". These games may not be classic anime,
but the the fingerprints are unmistakeable.
This style adaptaion moves "the anime style" into 3-D without losing the
look. While the titles I have mentioned so far do still contain such things
as the character portrait, losing it and other 2-D cues would not make them
"un-anime".
Does this mean that very stylized anime titles will no longer be seen? I
highly doubt it. With games like Z.O.E., Front Mission III, Xenogears, and
others regularly making it to U.S. shores, I would expect more to
follow.
Moreover, the style is making its way into other areas, becoming a useful
tool to artists, game or otherwise. Have you seen the new Vampi comic?
Practically a manga. How about baby Tarzan in the the Disney flick? Tell me
that there's not a "My Neighbor Totoro" influence. With this new tool, we
should see it invade, and hopfully improve, many projects.
In short:
1) The form may change, but it will always be anime.
2) Increasing demand for anime styled titles will increase supply.
MrNick_RadioLegend
- The real challenge facing creators now is getting good voice talent and
direction. |
I agree with this too - Chrono Cross, especially the FMV models, is probably about as anime as straight 3D is capable of getting... and that ain't bad.
| Synopsis |
| I'm not worried. As popular and beautiful as anime is, and as connected as
it is to the video game industry (on many levels), I'm confident there will
always be a fair amount of anime-based material floating around, on whatever
console. Still, any slipping away of that style of games is to be regretted,
but maybe that will just make us appreciate it more when a game does include
such elements. I know I will.
Super Saiya-jin |
I'd just look stupid if I tried to add anything to this, right? Right.
Closing Comments:
ZOE (and the MGS2 demo) is either out today or tomorrow, depending on how quick you get games in, so let's hear some impressions. See you then.
-Chris Jones, gets a wee bit
loopy when he's programming
|
