I want to make a 2D fighter.
I'm mostly a 2D guy.
Should I improve my 2D skills and forget about 3D or should I simply say a fighting game needs too much frames, say fuck it and learn 3d?
can 3D look as good animated as a 2D fighter?
Unless you want to create literally thousands of frames to switch animation states for a 2D sprite, you're going to want to use a 3D animation engine.
3D with well made toon shaders often look far better than 2D sprites. What if you ant cinematic shots or close ups? You gona sprite all of those as well? What if you decide you want to change a colour or a detail on a character; Gonna edit every single frame of that character?
>>516421
I forgot to mention, even if you don't want to use a 3D model in your engine, you can create the character in 3D and render the animations as still frames, then touch up in 2D as needed.
>>516421
yeah, that's why I'm considering learning 3D.
there's some shit like this that I really like it.
problem is, it's still renders.
every animation I see on games is trash, literally garbage when compared to good 2D animations.
Simply look at the hair, even AAA games have static hair that simply clips.
How bout making some nice cloth animations like skirts?
Bad of luck, even disney can't into making nice animated folds.
>>516422
>touch up
then it would be literally simpler to simply make the frame.
I can make around 1 finished frame like my pic in one hour.
>>516423
>I can make around 1 finished frame like my pic in one hour.
Thanks for re-iterating my point for me.
>touch up
>then it would be literally simpler to simply make the frame.
>literally simpler
>incorrect use of the word literally
>every animation I see on games is trash, literally garbage when compared to good 2D animations.
You already said you don't know shit about what you're talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGPhKu3jNg
get a load of all those hair clipping issues and terrible cloth physics.
Even if you render without the animated hair/clothing and paint over those parts it's going to be 10x faster than painting the entire frame from scratch.
>>516424
>le guilty gear meme toon shading
nigger, they literally said it made no diference.
good animation is hard as fuck.
you can't simply cut corners if you want pro results.
yeah, at some points it looks good, but at some frames it just looks like cheap toon shading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW0v-NuudQw
It would take literally more effort to make good 3D animations than 2D ones.
3D animation simply looks robotic and can't do those crazy body language motions 2D can.
Feel free to show me good game animations though.
>>516425
Implying guilty gear doesnt have good animations.
>>516426
implying you nigger know about good animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZOsA4UpRow
>>516425
>3D animation simply looks robotic and can't do those crazy body language motions 2D can.
>I can't animate in 3D therefore 3D animation can't accomplish what i want it to.
>>516429
well nigga, show me those AAA 3D game animations that look amazing then.
>>516425
>3d animation can't be good
It can be very good, but not 2d.
Good 2d animation that is made in 3d is the holy grail, nobody can do it, because 3d is perfect, whereas 2d is full of mistakes. Nobody has found a way to produce 2d looking results from 3d animation, except if they do it frame-by-frame and even then the pans look weird. 3d is still better for this purpose, cause it's faster(in the sense, there are no mistakes, you can fix something on the go) and it gives you perfect perspective, but it might take even more time than 2d(if you're not a seasoned artist with this technique). The bonuses are it will give you smoother animation and it will give you perfect proportions always. If you want to take this route, remember to never change perspective on a character or a scene, it will look like ass.
On using 3d(as in 3d models being rendered ingame) for a game, I personally say NO! Just render out all frames. It's not that many frames for a character, I can't say exactly how much, but I guess they can't be no more than 200 and with 3d, 200 frames is basically nothing. 3d is also useful for backgrounds, if we're talking a fighting game, you can do very large, very dense and beautiful, dynamic backgrounds with 3d, I suggest you pre-render those as well, you'll draw them faster even at very big resolutions. The thing is 2d graphics in games are just 2 triangles per image, so basically no geometry whatsoever and if you're smart about image resolutions, even older gpus can fill the screen easily with pixels.
>>516430
A lot of those, this pops right out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXqUl0Fghv8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M3Rj86QSpE
>>516427
implying you do
>>516427
>look I am aware of a video of old, traditional animation, therefore i know about good animation
There are maybe 3 clips in this entire video that don't look dated and boring.
>>516452
Implying it is, go back to ic
>>516420
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGjCzxJV3E
Here, anon. Mite b coo.
>>516420
>a fighting game needs too much frames
using >>516431 for reference,
a 200 frames animation at 60 fps would take over 3 seconds
think of the last time you gazed at ryu's muscles tensing during that 3 second punch he does
I have a mayor boner for guilty gear's shading.
but guessing you don't have that many resources or technical knowledge i'd say stick with 2D
here, have some more GDC now about frames and fighting animations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw0h9WmBlsw
>>516425
You literally have no idea what you're talking about, and you're clearly not a serious gamedev or artist
Literal frame-by-frame matching of their 3D models to their hand-drawn 2D frames, and you say
>3D animation simply looks robotic and can't do those crazy body language motions 2D can.
>yeah, at some points it looks good, but at some frames it just looks like cheap toon shading.
Most anime out now must look like cheap toon shading to you, in fact worse even, with less tones and form than GGXrd
Give me an example frame from GGXrd and explain how that strays from a frame of whatever 2D piece you like
Of course, you won't because you can't
How is 3D inferior in terms of animation when we can match 2D pose to pose? ANIMATION wise, it would be the exact same. The only difference in any project would be direction, budget and time given
You're an idiot anyways since you can't even figure out why some media use 2D and some 3D
>>516631
>You literally have no idea what you're talking about, and you're clearly not a serious gamedev or artist
How is this constructive?
>How is 3D inferior in terms of animation when we can match 2D pose to pose? ANIMATION wise, it would be the exact same.
For 2d you only need to animate an image, for 3d you have to manage an entire skeleton hierarchy. 2d fighters can run on potatoes from 1990
>can 3D look as good animated as a 2D fighter?
No, and certainly not on your budget.
How many frames and how many characters are we talking here? What are your 2D skills like and what are your 3D skills like?
Plan out your characters and all their animations. Use stick figures if you want, doesn't matter. Having a total plan for every character and animation will not only help you when you come to animating them, but but it'll help you get a handle on how much time it's going to take 2D vs 3D.
>>516631
yeah nigger, let's forget the part where you need top tier skills in modeling, rigging and an entiret team to produce the same a single 2D artists can make as well.
>>516766
As a director who had used both 2D and 3D, I can tell you're not in our industry, nowhere near it as you can't even think in terms of why you'd want to use either, and chances are you're probably just a kid who bought Dawkin's animation book.
Go ahead and draw 30 seconds worth of a dynamic shot, 30 seconds at, I'm being very kind here, 5 frames per second, that's 150 frames
150 frames of pencils, 150 frames of clean up for it, 150 frames of colouring
Then it's 150 frames of the background (assuming there will be only 1 BG plate, not multiple because I'm nice to you), colouring/painting 150 frames to put behind the earlier 150 finished frames of your character
How long would that take?
That's right, just as long as it takes to model, rig and light this scene in 3D, and we can make it look even more realistic, and with more detail (+we can keep going, not just 30 seconds)
In an actual pipeline, pre-production is slow on 3D, but everything else is much faster compared 2D
>>516643
>No, and certainly not on your budget.
2D is only better than 3D at the upper limits of professional talent. Unless you're are a god at 2D animation there is no reason to go that over 3D.
few animators with lots of animations to create = definitely go 3D. Otherwise have fun creating thousands of frames alone.
Pic related, let geek be 3D and non-geek be 2D.
>>516799
>your image
its cringe at its best
Ori and the Blind Forest had 3D characters rendered out to frames, and in my opinion it has some of the smoothest and free-flowing animation of any games I've played in recent years, it's worth taking a look at how they made the game:
http://youtu.be/m8lOwrWNbEY
>>516802
and yet perfectly representative of 3D vs 2D. The more animating you need to do the more you get out of a 3D rig.
>>516810
>used CAT to rig Ori
>"it's a really clever system"
I need to fucking move country. I could perform this guys job.
>>516814
Then go do so. As he said at the end of the video, his skills were weak in this aspect, but if you're really good, go crazy with it. I'd love to see artists pushing the limit of pre-rendered games again.
Both. Use rotoscoping like GG.
There are a lot of things to consider.
Drawing in 2D will most certainly bring your artistic skills to an entirely new level. On the upside, that means you'll be able to imbue your animations with a lot of character, and you will learn a lot of things you will not learn with 3D animation. It also means you can start animating right now -- with 3D, you'll have to expect to spend a month or two just learning the basics of a 3D program, navigation, modelling/sculpting, then rigging, then animation, then potentially camera work, baking, after-effects etc. On the downside, going 2D means that unless you are already quite experienced, the artwork you will produce now will be of significantly worse quality than what you're going to spit out as you near the end of the project. You can smartly divide up the work to hide that, but you'll probably end up re-doing a few things at least.
Drawing in 2D -- there is no denying this -- produces animations that look way better and have way more charm than 3D animations. Even the best animators and renderers are just slowly starting to figure out how to really animate well in 3D. With 2D, you can just draw whatever you want -- Done! Animating in 3D is much more like bone-based animations in 2D -- you know, those terrible, cheap-looking animations commonly find in mobile games. The rig, the 3D model, the animation system etc are all there, trying to actively "keep things in shape" -- and if you want to do something extra-ordinary, you will have to actively fight against the system. Adding smears, in-betweens/doubling, comical stretching, replacing eye/mouth shapes with different-looking ones, keeping lighting in check for an authentic-looking comic-style -- these all require a huge added effort from your part. For the last item, see e.g. the GDC talk on GultyGearXrds art-style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGjCzxJV3E
>>517907
> literally thousands of frames
It isn't that many frames, and even then, animating a thousand frames isn't really much. Once you get into a good workflow, you end up pumping them out really *really* fast. 20-50 a day for roughs/blocking is totally doable. And for fighting games, most animations will not have that many frames; many attacks will have like 10-15 frames or so. Check out this talk by the lead animator of skullgirls for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw0h9WmBlsw
> you can create the character in 3D and render the animations as still frames, then touch up in 2D as needed.
You *can* bake your 3D characters to 2D and include as sprites, and many games do this, but there are HUGE drawbacks to it. Not being able to incorporate procedural animations, not being able to adapt to terrain (you end up having to rotate the sprite in-engine -- looks cheaper tho). Check out this talk by the lead animator of "ori and the blind forest" who used this technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8lOwrWNbEY
OTOH, touching up in 2D is a HUGE no-no. NEVER do this, unless you can somehow automate the touch-up (basic color-grading and other postprocessing effects). Otherwise you will end up wasting an infinite amount of time re-doing the touch-ups many times as requirements for formats change, as you want to tweak animations, create variations etc.
When baking to 2D rather than using 3D models in-engine, you will need to consider how to bake and include lighting. You will probably either need to export normals (huge amount of extra assets) or find a cheaper way to fake lighting on characters (acceptable if characters are small on-screen.)
When using 3D models in-engine, you will be restricted in terms of poly-count, texture resolutions et cetera, so you will need to find creative solutions (or use other peoples) for things like hair et cetera. You buy much more freedom in other respects though; like procedural animations, ragdolls, ... become possible.
>>517908
> Simply look at the hair, even AAA games have static hair that simply clips.
There is nvidia hairworks and TressFX now, which AAA games use. It works pretty well and makes hair not clip. If you really care though, you will need to hand-animate the hair as well. Also, unless you have a really really strong technical support, integrating with hairworks/tressfx is not exactly going to be childs play.
> cloth animation
Doable, same caveats apply. Multi-layered self-colliding cloth is still beyond what's generally feasible in games, though.
I think in summary; 2D animation lets you start RIGHT NOW and has a much smaller amount of technical challenges (although still some; how to deliver the huge amount of sprites efficiently etc), whereas 3D (in-engine) has a way bigger amount of technical issues that need to be solved if you want things to look really polished.
My personal opinion is that unless you have a BIG and really competent technical support, doing 3D is probably not the best option. Will you cry many tears while animating frame after frame in 2D? Yes, absolutely, but at least it's steady work, steady progress forward, no big risks involved with whether it will run on the target hardware or look as you intended on the target hardware; and it's pretty easy and cheap to find and/or train help for doing inbetweens and/or coloring (all those starving animation students), since basically zero knowledge is required. Technical staff eats way more money, since they are used to being fairly well-paid. Before you start animating in 2D though, you need to STREAMLINE STREAMLINE STREAMLINE your characters and also spend some time streamlining and establishing your animation style!
Damn, this post got a lot longer than I thought. Had to split it in three...
You have to draw many frames for a 2D fighter. Look at Skullgirls and KOF. It's very difficult to do. You could partially trace over models to make the animation easier and add smears and stuff like that.
>>516425
>3D animation simply looks robotic and can't do those crazy body language motions 2D can.
I'm a 2D fag but this is just wrong, dude. You can do as much squash and stretch as you want in 3D these days. It's not 2000 anymore.
>>516431
>3d is perfect, whereas 2d is full of mistakes
The amount of faggotry in this thread
>>516424
source on song?
>>517937
This thread has both 3Disperfect faggots and 2Disperfect faggots
Any sane artists would weigh utilizing either thoroughly without bias
>>518023
As do some earlier posts as well, I'm just saying you get a full spectrum of faggots, not just 3D wankery
Look you artist need to start looking towards the future. Soon 3d will be able to emulate all styles. Anime, manga, comic book, anything you want it to do it will.
So ditch the 2d art approach and learn 3d now and be ready when 3d can do these things.
>>518202
there isn't much to "learn", the basic skill needed between 2D and 3D animation, drawing/sculpting and painting is the exact same. The rest is just details that you can get it over with in a week.
Composition, values, colors, shape & form, anatomy, dynamic poses, scene-depth, ... are the hard part.
>>516423
>every animation I see on games is trash, literally garbage when compared to good 2D animations.
You're not going to be able to make good 2D animations anyway.
>>516420
2d animation is only hard because you're doing it all yourself. The best kept secret of old-school animation was how many peeps were needed for a project. The minimal team consisted of a key-framer and filler. The keyframer made the pivotal poses while the filler followed through making shabby, but proportional tween frames. Sad not a lot of people know this. Great source of jobs. Now we outsource to korea to make a shitty model, rig and animate it.
the time it will take you to create 2D or 3D fighter (at quality aside from pixel/stickman) is too long for a single person to make.
by too long i mean years, unless you can somehow make bone animation look good and have understanding of how layers/timeline works.
so no i don't think its possible
>>517908
The guy who did Valdis Story Abyssal did it retouching 3d sprites. Looks pretty good. There was a making of video but I cant find it.
If you want to do something 2D style, maybe do what rayman did, which is basically taking sprites and putting them on 3D planes and then rigging those planes puppet style.
I did some of this recently and it was pretty decent compared for the effort between 2D and 3D by themselves
>>516420
Learn to program.
Pay artists
There is no way you will be good enough to make these 2D or 3D (they take just the same amount of work) on time to make what you want let alone putting them in game.
