2D sprites get massive for the HD generation

by Kyle Orland { Apr 20th 2007 at 11:15AM }

While the arrival of HDTV has generally been a boon to the game industry, it's definitely caused headaches for at least one shrinking but still important sector of the industry -- 2D sprite artists. As the above illustration of the Ryu sprite for the upcoming Street Fighter II HD Remix shows, drawing good-looking 2D characters in HD requires a lot more attention to detail than the old standard-resolution sprites.

This problem is not exclusive to Capcom. Castlevania designer Koji Igarishi remarked at GDC on the labor involved in creating high resolution 2D art and SNK President Ben Herman lamented in an IGN interview that bringing the company's fighters to the 360 and PS3 would require artists to "re-draw every single older game."

The extra work leads to extra benefits, though, as the sleek new Ryu above clearly demonstrates. Still, the proof will be seeing these beautiful high-def drawings come to life. All the graphical fidelity in the world doesn't matter if the animation is on par with Star Wars Adventures.

Tags: 2d, animation, HD, HighDefinition, sprite, ssfiithd, StreetFighter, UDON

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

NeverSage @ Apr 20th 2007 11:21AM

With this higher resolution I noticed Ryu's feet are like a kangaroo's.

Konny @ Apr 20th 2007 11:26AM

Holy smokes... Ryu would take up more pixels than the Wii can display! lol

Kant Wate 4 Thys!

Ken @ Apr 20th 2007 11:26AM

I think the 2nd to the last Ryu looks better than the very last one.

But that's just me....

Ken @ Apr 20th 2007 11:27AM

LOL@Konny

So really, when are you getting your 360 back from Microsoft because of the red ring of death?

Norm @ Apr 20th 2007 11:29AM

Its good that they got Udon to do this for them. I so long as they keep it arcade perfect like they say they will, There is no doubt that SF will become popular again with both the hardcore and the new players.

I used to be impressed with guilty gear- those sprites were so amazing when I saw GGXX running on a PS2 and on a Naomi. Imagine a castlevania game looking like that, or even better, like Super Turbo HD.

hegemonyhog @ Apr 20th 2007 11:30AM

I can't wait until some 2D fighter fanatic gets pissed because their favorite combo was thrown off by a different frame of animation in an HD remastering.

sheppy @ Apr 20th 2007 11:31AM

This... this is coming to PS3 as well, right? Main reason I ask, 360's Dpad blows to me.

Jason Tyra @ Apr 20th 2007 11:33AM

...SNK President Ben Herman lamented in an IGN interview that bringing the company's fighters to the 360 and PS3 would require artists to "re-draw every single older game."

Oh NOES!! Now, to re-issue the same old crap you might have to actually do some WORK!?!?

Puhgete @ Apr 20th 2007 11:35AM

LOL@Ken

So to you walk around with vasaline covering your eyes?

The HD remaster is defintely better.

JodyAnthony @ Apr 20th 2007 11:34AM

fucking slick

Mister Disco @ Apr 20th 2007 11:35AM

Well there a problem I think. The sprites will look great in still frames but the animation will probably be pretty shoddy. The reason is because if they claim it will be arcade perfect they can't add in frames of animation without ruining years and years of expert-level gameplay in the same stroke. Frame counts are vital to high-level gameplay and messing with them even a little could change the game irreversibly. So in the end you gotta weigh what's most important. Good looks or arcade fidelity.

jaysins @ Apr 20th 2007 11:35AM

I don't think the d-pad is that bad. I use it a lot in Castlevania because it's next to impossible to do a downward slash with the analog and I don't mind it. But I seem to be in the minority here so I'll assume it's just me.
@ken
The only time I've heard of the red ring is on the internet, so for most of us it isn't a valid point. Konny and Ken need to stop being fanboys and just enjoy their respective, or in some of our cases multiple consoles.

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 20th 2007 11:36AM

Guilty Gear X2 is my favorite fighter above all.

billychaos @ Apr 20th 2007 11:52AM

You dont need ridiculous resolution to replace raster-based sprites with vector based graphics ones. People are starting to see the letters HD and think that that only the ps3 and 360 can render those images. It's understated BS to say the wii cant do this (hell wii's opera browser can do this already with flash), my pocket pc can do this. This is the same technology. If your going to bash the wii, make a sensible claim.

I do have a degree in Visual Arts and have worked with numourous professional graphics applications, on the job. This has nothing to do with HD. It's recreating the old raster sprites to new vector-based graphics (as in programs like Adobe Illustrator, Flash, CorelDraw, etc). So Yes the wii can do it...hell the DS can and already does do this. This has nothign to do with HD. Tagging the letters HD on the end of something is starting to mean nothing anymore.

James @ Apr 20th 2007 12:05PM

ummm yes the WII could display them but uhh not at HD resolutions. And who says they are vector art? It would be stupid of them not to do vector art these days so they don't have this problem in the future but they don't say it is. If it was vector the WII would be displaying the hi-res RYU scaled down to Guilty Gear X size (640x480). I would imagine if they were creating vector images they would still export at the proper res to a compressed image format so the CPU's wouldn't be stressed or forced to scale every sprite.

ill trooper @ Apr 20th 2007 12:06PM

billychaos...

Based on every post I've read about this, I think these are actually redrawn raster-based sprites, not resolution-independent vector "flash/illustrator" shapes.

I'm not speculating on whether the Wii can do it or not, I'm just saying I don't think your assertion here is accurate - this is more akin to a 'photoshop/painter" raster file, with a fixed x-y pixel resolution...

Fuji @ Apr 20th 2007 12:06PM

HD is then the new extreme? like "TAKE IT TO THE HDDDDDDDDDDD!" *snaps a slim jim*

FrankTheCrank @ Apr 20th 2007 12:07PM

MKII for PS3 suffers from this.

Anyone whose played the new MKII for PS3 can tell you that the graphics are still 480i. They upscaled the original arcade graphics.

If they had done a HD rework it would have cost at least $39.99 vs. $4.99 it costs now.

GJM @ Apr 20th 2007 12:07PM

"This... this is coming to PS3 as well, right? Main reason I ask, 360's Dpad blows to me."

Get the DOA stick or make your own! It's as easy as updating the PS3 firmware!

PS: The PS dpads are just as bad.

FrankTheCrank @ Apr 20th 2007 12:09PM

@19

I don't have a 360, but I do agree that the PS3 D-PAD isn't all that.

While playing MKII, I couldn't tell you the times I wished I had my Sega Saturn Controller hooked up. Someone needs to make a Saturn 6 button pad to PS3 adapter!!!

James @ Apr 20th 2007 12:12PM

Not sure why HD means nothing here either. The sprites are roughly twice the resolution of Guilty Gear's which had a screen res of 640x480. That's makes the game res 1280x960 but actually 1280x720 or 720p. The WII doesn't display 720p therefore it may run the game and still look better than the original sprites but it still won't be 720p good. On a regular TV they would be comparable but on an HDTV well...

GJM @ Apr 20th 2007 12:15PM

Yeah Frank, I love me some Saturn controller action (still have about 15-20 Saturn controllers in case a Bomberman party breaks out)

haywood jablomey @ Apr 20th 2007 12:26PM

Street Fighter's gonna rock now!

Man, I bet it's gonna play sooo much better now that the characters' physical attributes are slightly more defined.

GJM @ Apr 20th 2007 12:29PM

"Man, I bet it's gonna play sooo much better now that the characters' physical attributes are slightly more defined."

How's that VCR working out for you? Let me guess... EP mode rocks!?

haywood jablomey @ Apr 20th 2007 12:35PM

VCR? Psshh! You kiddin' me?

Laser Disc all the way!

ZamBlam! @ Apr 20th 2007 12:44PM

Am I the only one miffed that they chose "Super" Street Fighter II and not Capcom vs. SNK2 or Alpha 3 or any of the better iterations. Super street fighter II is like the worse one. Champion Edition is even better. Why not Capcom vs. SNK2. Damn you CAPCOM!!!!! lol

Vidikron @ Apr 20th 2007 12:51PM

@26

Right there with you. We already have an SFII on XBLA. Sure, it's not the HD remix, but it's still SFII. They should have gone straight to SFA3 and given it the HD treament.

sheppy @ Apr 20th 2007 12:53PM

To asnwer the question of why I want it on PS3 in regards to the controller...

http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/CS1-0012.html

I have two of those. Of course mine, one is a pure white, the other a Vampire Savior edition, aka Lavender.

ssuk @ Apr 20th 2007 12:54PM

While I agree, it takes more effort now for 2D artists to make attractive HD sprites, but it's about time they put some effort into porting SFII. Kinda tired of seeing it on every console in exsistance with a new suffix added to it to make it seem 'original'.

Vidikron @ Apr 20th 2007 12:58PM

@28

I wish someone would release a good fighting game pad for the 360. I don't want to have to choose between having a better game pad to use on the PS3 and a better online environment and achievement points on the 360.

billychaos @ Apr 20th 2007 1:27PM

It's highly unreasonable for any graphic artist or develper would to take old 2d sprites and redraw them raster based at 1280x720 per frame! A file that big is roughtly 4-5mb, and per frame would make a sprite at about 150 at 30fps. If you redraw those sprites vector based you can get the same resoluction with as low as 50k per frame. Vector graphics are scalable and dynamic, raster is not!

My point is vector based graphics will display on any machine with the same results! A vector on the wii at 640x480 would look identical to a graphic on the 360 at 1280x720. It would be like taking wario ware wii and putting it on the 360, there will be no graphical change no matter what resolution you put it at cause the graphics are vector based. You can technically call it HD just cause your displaying it at 1280x720 but it will look identical to the wii.

My argument only holds true if they are using vector based graphics. I find it hard to believe if they didnt, I'd fire the developer if they werent, that's so outdated and a waste of resources. And vector is more dynamic.

Konny @ Apr 20th 2007 1:37PM

The fighting engine is entirely based on sprites.. meaning, the graphics engine need to work with sprites (at least the foreground elements).. not vector graphics that are rendered on the fly.

This aint coming to wii.. you guys get gimped SNES versions.

James @ Apr 20th 2007 1:39PM

What your saying is true to a point but in reality it doesn't work that way. If you play the game on a Wii using a 50" HDTV for example the game will be upscaled by the TV to 1280x720p (or higher). You play the game on a 360 or PS3 and it will be outputting a native 1280x720p signal. The TV can't extract the extra sprite information just because the Wii is using vector based sprites. Once the sprites are rendered to the screen they are confined to 640x480 and that becomes very apparent on a big screen TV capable of higher resolutions.

naib @ Apr 20th 2007 1:43PM

I want to see you build Ryu with vector graphics. 0_o

Some of the Forza paint jobs proved people had the patience to do that kind of thing, but there's no way they have the time/money/workforce to get that done with every frame.

Ken @ Apr 20th 2007 1:44PM

@Puhgete

It was a joke. WTF, anyone can see the difference.

Man... lighten up people!

haywood jablomey @ Apr 20th 2007 2:14PM

Konny musta gotten raped by Mario or somethin'.

He/she/it is always hatin' on the big N.

required @ Apr 20th 2007 2:24PM

Mister Disco, there is no way additional tweening will cause anything but improvements.

joe @ Apr 20th 2007 3:18PM

@billychaos
You're wrong again. 1280x720 would not be the size of an individual character (although it may be the size of a background), so 4-5MB is not a likely memory cost for each frame of each character- each character only takes up a fraction of a screen. In any case, the PS3 has 512MB of RAM-- so there should be plenty of space. I don't see why you are fixed on this vector stuff, although I would agree that vector-based graphics may be more "dynamic," nothing wrong with raster.

Norm @ Apr 20th 2007 2:31PM

The point of them not doing vector art and going with sprite based animation rests on the bad-assness of Udon. They are keeping every frame consistent with the arcade version of Super Turbo, according to David Sirlin.(project manager, tourney player)No frames will be 'messed up', because no hitboxes are changed. its all the same code.

If someone is freaking out about the game being changed, its for a good reason. We already have a new version of Alpha 3, if you didn't know- its in alpha anthology. It includes unlockable modes featuring Marvel and CvS 'isms'.

This will be coming to XBL in the fall, and to PS3 Network within a week from that.

billychaos @ Apr 20th 2007 3:11PM

I guess no one really knows what vector graphics are. Well if you care to know

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics

I'm not really defending the wii, i'm only stating with vector graphics resolution is irrelavant. It will look good no matter what resolution it's at!!

frederick @ Apr 20th 2007 11:06PM

Real SFII player play with the joystick, JUST LIKE THE ARCADE. D-Pad is for sissies.

Rob @ Apr 20th 2007 3:15PM

I know it will never happen. But what if Udon did the Capcom and (let's say) Michael Turner were to do the Marvel Super Heroes characters for a revival of Marvel Vs. Capcom, hell any of the Vs. games.

required @ Apr 20th 2007 3:30PM

billychaos, rendering vector art can be extremely processor intensive especially if it's highly detailed. This is why you will never see things like the psp title locoroco on the ds.

required @ Apr 20th 2007 3:38PM

...or a flash player

required @ Apr 20th 2007 3:39PM

...or a flash player

haywood jablomey @ Apr 20th 2007 4:15PM

...or a flash player

Dylan @ Apr 20th 2007 5:19PM

Don't they make drawings of all the frames so they know what to go by when creating the sprites anyway? So what's the big difference? If anytihng, sprite games should be much easier in the HD generation in a way, since all you really have to do is make lots of good drawings and scan them, basically like making a bunch of very short cartoons, instead of tediously placing each pixel in its own precise spot.

Messing with updating retro games is the hard part, there's no room for creativity and a whole lot of room for insane hardcore angry fanboys.

samfish @ Apr 20th 2007 5:30PM

"rendering vector art can be extremely processor intensive especially if it's highly detailed."

True, but doing it in vector and then outputting it to raster at the size of your choosing makes a more more sense. You could easily scale it to any resolution in the future, if nothing else.