the alpha sprites are anatomically incorrect, they are very marvel comic, not a fan of that art work huge feet huge hands small head and the colours are less realistic
@@351clevelandmodifiedmotor4 I usually tend to care about style rather than realism. It's just me though but that's why I tend to like this kinda artstyle more. Idk man I'm just a sucker for unique looking characters with creative designs and proportions but still being drawn with good perspective and shading
@@Stephanie-69 alpha sprites are way too cartoonish, street fighter went backwards after the street fighter 2 versions, if they'd kept the art work on the same level as street fighter 2 and added more characters more moves more audio and music the game would of had great success
Personally I prefer SNK's more "solid" gradient shading approach to the cell shading that Capcom used, though I could see both sharing the screen. Such as a character that is meant to be rock solid muscle being more SNK like while a softer character being more Capcom like, looking at the Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2 sprites compared to SNK vs Capcom Chaos counterparts there are a lot of interesting comparisons to be made.
Man, I think you'd love SF3 Especially in regards to animation, they push the design as far as it'll go. Ryus Hadouken for instance has a couple distinctions in those games as opposed to Alpha. His Gi is BLASTED back, making a spiky, sharp shape to his back before billowing down, really conveying the force. Light is also usually directly above, but the lighting shifts to in front of him for a frame or two, really making the Hadouken itself the focus of the animation. That and Red Earth would definitely interest you, I highly suggest checking em out. They're massive inspirations to me as an artist
That late 90s-early 2000s era sprite work from Capcom is the pinnacle of sprite work to me. SF3, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Capcom vs SNK 2, some of those animations they had were just insane, they mastered the craft. I'm not sure how much crossover there was with the sprite artists within Capcom, but Breath of Fire IV also had incredible sprite work
@@knightshousegames gotta check that out then. Honestly, I think MVC2 is kinda visually overrated a tad, most of the characters are weirdly skinny edits of their CPS2 selves Oh check out Red Earth BTW. Red Earth is sexy
@@yoshinpixels9924 I guess to me I just love the way the 2D blends with the 3D in that game, I just love that hybrid style. I just loved the backgrounds in that game more than anything
Something I noticed in the comparison shot at 2:07 is that there's an extremely subtle move from characters being almost entirely profile to more of the sprite being three-quarter. It may in some cases be only a couple of pixels difference in facing, but it's there, and the sprites seem more open and flowing because of it. That transmits more involvement to the player, that they're a third person in this scenario rather than purely observing a diorama.
Just FYI, all of these arcade Street Fighter sprites were meant to be squished vertically and not displayed at 1:1 pixel ratio, making them look much thinner than how they look in the video (as a consequence they would also appear less muscular, RE: the comment about M Bison). The SNES sprites on the other hands were meant to be displayed fatter. The channel Displaced Gamers has excellent videos about the CPS1/CPS2 pixel ratios as well as the SNES pixel ratio.
Ooh that's a good point! I noticed that a bit while reviewing reference material for this, and hopefully the selected sprites are on close enough footing in their 1:1 form for this comparison at least. I'll have to check out that vid, thanks! :D
I was literally just about to post a long form comment about this and decided to look in the comments to see if someone else had already mentioned it. Glad I did. But yeah the Arcade Sprites are rendered for a total screen resolution of 384x224, the SNES sprites are rendered for a resolution of 256x224, and they're both supposed to actually display on a 4:3 screen. You can see in the Guile comparison specifically just how distorted the two SF2 sprites are, they're exactly the same proportions at 4:3, ie: scaled for height they become the same width. The Arcade sprites width needs to be scaled to 83.33%, and the SNES sprites width needs to be scaled to 125% to get them how they were originally displayed. It's one of those things where it really doesn't matter for the color comparison, but it throws off the talk about posing and musculature a bit since they're distorted. It's not really enough to affect the overall point in this case though since both the SF2 and SF Alpha sprites are distorted to the same degree.
There should be more parts to this! * How Alpha handled burning as opposed to SF2 and Final Fight. * The Final Fight characters in general. * The newcomers. * How SNK did something similar with KOF and Real Bout Special.
The Alpha series has the best artwork of all the Street Fighter games imo- with SF3 right behind it. I had the strategy guides for the games and loved looking and the artwork.
Quick martial arts context: The downward pointing of Ryu's foot (at 3:20) isn't just style, it's a karate concept of limiting the surface area of the foot to have more surface pressure and so do more damage, sometimes referred to as the foot sword.
youre missing street fighter alpha 3 gameboy advance sprites and street fighter alpha 2 super nintendo sprites. both were reworked palates for your collage at 0:42 excellent and fun vid man
Sprits got something magical that 3d models don't got idk if that's nostalgia talking but I look at metal slug and that games animations still hold up every well to this day
An interesting martial arts detail on ryu's sprite is that the gi is more blue, suggesting that he's in his competition gi, instead of the worn yellow white gi of SF2.
Basically its a transition in style in art. You have to remember that back in the day, when these guys were making games, to make art using pixels was a relatively new art form so they didn't even really know what they were doing. They were just trying to make something.
I've been waiting for a video covering sprites in the 80-100 pixel range. I love the idea of using these for original characters and their animations and was hoping to get pointers on constructing one from scratch. Definitely liking and subscribing and keeping my eye open for more videos on this topic.
I love your depth of analysis. Not only do I appreciate the choices the artists made in rendering the sprites for the game, but you've broken down the concepts to where I can apply them to my own work too.
love to see how you can define why one feels better than the other that way. I couldn't put it into words, and it's amazing to see you verbalizing what my gut was trying to tell me
Really awesome and informative analysis. I'm always happy to see more videos looking at fighting games sprites as someone who loves the genre and the techniques they use in the art department to sell their animations. Looking forward to possibly more fighting game related content in the future!
Great video. I'm designing a game and am hugely inspired by this era of gaming. I think the main thing i take away from this video is that simplicity and readability of design can be better than trying to render everything out realistically. SF2 is a great looking game. Timeless, but your example with M. Bison's cloak, and how they tried to add so much detail to every fold looks good, but when contrasting against a busy background, it doesn't pop the same way a huge block of a single color would. Also the silhouettes of the characters in Alpha are so much more bold and convey the character's personality so much more than SF2. I think this video reminded me to not spend so much time focusing on every detail of a character and just focus on creating bold yet memorable designs with as few colors as possible.
Since I found out about your channel I have been watching it non-stop. You really inspire me to put more effort into creating the sprites for my videogame!
Great video, I think it is also important to acknowledge that the pixels of the sprites were almost never square depending in the console or system. This is why, for example, Guile looks with different proportions in the snes and arcade versions of street fighter 2 when presented with square pixels, the arcade version is actually a little bit thinner and snes version a little bit wider.
I'm of the opinion that Street Fighter 3 ook the ground work laid by the ALpha Series and RAN with it, using that exaggeration and strong use of palette to make incredibly striking character design the likes of which the Alpha games wich they could measure up to. Look at ANY given frame of animation on Hugo or Dudley and you can see how they break the model or create intricate points of motion to convey appeal in everything. Heck, going to your Hadoken example on the shotos. it's not just ryu's headband and belt getting in on it, but it's as if the motion and force of him thrusting his hands forward pulls the whole Gi after him.
I might be a bit biased, due to him being my favorite character; but Vega’s Alpha sprite was awesome! It contained vibrant colors and the animation of his flips and movements were awesome
6:50 really brings out the monstrous quadriceps!! XD That three-color thing you mention has been the basis of the "three color challenge," a coloring thing I've been doing with my kid across various doodle books for characters. If you factor out the skin tones, it's pretty much the premise of just about every fighting game character up until recently.
Just stumbled upon your video due to the TH-cam algorithm. This attention to detail and appreciation for spritework is outstanding. Instant sub after one video. Keep up the good work! 👍
I can't imagine what it would be like to only have school and no youtube lessons, I feel like without youtube I would know virtually nothing at this point except how to make lego military robots. Thanks Brandon
Please make a patreon. The porduction quality on every single video is just astonishing and come out on a regular weekly basis. It's also informative or creative. Each video is like a treat, filled with little effects and cut to the bare minimum of what needs to be said. Compared to 90% of other youtubers who's videos are mostly talking over an unedited timelapse or a power point presentation of static images it's like watching a fun little short. Also you should definitely make some online courses for that extra passive income in case you ever feel you need a break from youtube
I’m not an artist but I’ve always wondered how do some people create new frames for Mugen that look just like the real deal. NowI have a better idea. You might want to explore that in the future. Also, if you like Rolento’s idle animation, I imagine you live every single frame of Chun Li on SFIII. Great video btw.
The bits about exaggerating proportions and using fewer colors to suggest form and shading could be applied to any visual art form. I'm no pixel artist, but I just think it's cool to see the overlap in principles. This video made me further understand what makes the art style so cool. Thanks for that.
Awesome work. I'd love to see a follow-up analysis on the animation of the Street Fighter Alpha games, including the dropped frames of the Saturn and PS1 versions to the GameBoy Color version of Alpha 1 to the GBA version of Alpha 3. I think it would be a great video for you!
Always thought Capcom's games around this time were absolutely beautiful. Especially in motion, there's just so much great stuff in there. Animation which I think in many cases hasn't been replicated in the series since. Sf3 Oro, for instance, was and remains the greatest depiction of his character yet. (This isn't nostalgia talking, I promise. I hadn't even been born yet when that game released). And one of Akuma's supers from that game I have saved as a gif on my computer to reference when I animate. Anyways, animation fanboying aside... Great video man! Very high quality. If you're not careful you're gonna get me into doing pixel art again!
This is a great video. As someone that also wants to make an art-related channel, I appreciate your presentation, and your knowledge on the subject is very apparent. I find it inspiring. Indeed, It’s got me thinking about that time when Capcom almost switched art styles to a more realistic aesthetic for Street Fighter V. While I still really enjoy the now established Street Fighter Aesthetic; I do kinda wish we could see how much more realism we could visually inject into the design of these characters whilst still keeping their iconic designs recognizable. Really just as a design experiment more than anything. I think a lot of it would come down to economic color choices and posing as you described, but balanced with more realistic anatomical design and coloring. It does seem like it’d be difficult to make the characters adhere more to realistic anatomy whilst still maintaining clearly defined silhouettes. Im honestly not sure how I’d approach that issue. Anyway, I think it’d be cool to see the results of a such a reimagining at least from an artistic standpoint. What do you think?
Nice video, maybe one thing I would have loved you to focus on are the new moves added to Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (like Honda's special throw), which probably have been done by the same guys also working on Darkstalkers/Xmen/Alpha. A few frames of Alpha art style among the aging SF2 sprites. Not sure why they dropped the original style, it definitely feels weird (I'd love a mod of the game with sprites closer to the original)
The Alpha sprites are so beautiful, I really love the anime-like designs. The character designs and sprites are honestly one of the reasons that the Alpha series is my favourite SF series
Rolento's idle animation is one of the best ever imo. It's got a unique silhouette, conveys quiet menace, and the fingers drumming on the stick draw attention to his defining characteristic--that he has no qualms about bringing weapons to a fistfight. I'm also a big fan of Sodom's sprite--the extreme bulk and roundness of his shoulders and torso contrasts nicely with his comparatively slim legs. It sells the idea that he wants to make himself look bigger and tougher but goes about it in a somewhat slapdash way. On the other hand, I always thought Bison's exaggerated beefiness was a little silly. I know it's meant to communicate that he's stronger at that point in the storyline but myself and my friends were so used to his slimmer proportions in SF2 that we imagined he had padded his uniform in an attempt to look scarier. That works perfectly for Sodom but it turned Bison from a Darth Vader to a Dark Helmet. We called him "fat Bison" or "marshmallow Bison." It grew on us eventually though.
Before watching this video I didn't really like the Alpha sprites, but after this analysis, I think these are now my favorite Street Fighter sprites! I never realized how well designed they are.
Very very cool video. Really well made and very interesting indeed. I am old school, it's interesting to see how such old sprites are interpreted by more modern audiences and pixel artists. Liked and subbed.
Loved this video, thanks for bringing this up!! I hope I can get it into some ideas I have been playing around. I was amazed by the fact that both series used almost the same size
Right?! I expected the Alpha sprites to be appreciably larger, but they match up quite well to the SF2 arcade sprites, more like a re-skin 😅 Thanks, and best of luck with your pixel art!
Basically the Darkstalkers/VSAV series were a testbed to take those interesting concepts to their mainstream games (SFA/Zero series) and the Marvel collabs that were a product of its time (COTA, XvsSF, COTA, MSH and so forth). The cool part is seeing the influence but seeing the series stand out on its own as well. What even helped add to the 'anime' exaggeration of the Alpha were not only the 'bigger' animation effects to some of the special moves. But also the system mechanics that made the game feel faster than SF2 iterations like Alpha Counters, roll recovery, air dodging and custom combos.
Red Earth would also count as a testbed for SF3. These days, SF6 is the only fighter Capcom is making, and it isn’t clear what they would do for a secondary fighter alongside SF.
Subscribed! Love the breakdown. I've always loved pixel art and only really recently am trying to teach myself how to make sprites. Thank you for these type of videos!!
Ryu’s kick pose in alpha his foot angle is more inline with a real karate side kick, using the blade of the foot rather than the bottom. Ace video really nice breakdown of the style
I love this so much, please make more in depth about what goes on during the creation of these sprites the styles the lighting/shading and animation. As a personal opinion I think Capcom was the best at creating very beautiful pixel sprites and animation during 90s and early 2000s.
Apparently, Chun Li's design with the sweatpants and sneakers was her original intended design from the character designer, but they had him change it. Honestly, I like that design for her more. I wish I could find the video of that designer talking about his work on Street Fighter, they actually show clips of him looking through his original character designs on the graph paper they used to use to design sprites, which is just a cool piece of history
Personally, I prefer the older World Warrior pixel art style. It feels more solid and less "paper-like" than the Alpha variants, although please don't get me wrong, I love the Alpha redesigns too. I just prefer the edge that the old ones have as they feel like they have more depth. I've always preferred a little more realism and the old pixel art style was a beast of its own, whereas the Alpha one feels like it's just copying an already established comic-book style.
It would be incredible if you did a sprite/style analysis of Metal slug. A lot of the animations and styles especially of the bigger ones like huge hermit are just so stylized. It'd be terrific to see the evolution of the sprites as well.
I'd want to see your thoughts and analysis on the pixel art in The King of Fighters XIII, which is some of, if not the best pixel art ever put into an actual finished game. On the subject on SNK, a look at the art for the Metal Slug series would be great too.
Wow, Birdie looks so strange in SF1, barely looks like he belongs in the franchise! Another great video, excellent analysis; seeing how lower color counts forces you to make interesting decisions about your designs is always useful. It's almost counter intuitive, since you don't have as much space to work with for line work, you almost feel like anywhere you can squeeze in extra color is good, yet really that tends to muddy the over all look of your pieces. Also, I tweeted at you about enabling community contributed captioning on your videos; I feel art videos are particularly well suited to those with hearing disabilities, and since yours are so excellent, I think yours would be quite valuable to have well constructed captions available for those who may need them.
I know right?! Birdie's proportions are a little strange in SF1 (I mean I guess they are in Alpha as well, but it works with the art style!). Thanks for watching, and unfortunately TH-cam recently announced they're discontinuing community captions - I think there's been abuse/spam with the option. From what I've experienced, the auto-generated captions do a nice job picking up what I say, and I try to speak clearly to aid the transcription :D
Could you please do a video like this on the KOF 13 sprites I can't find any videos on how to get the lighting right or anything like that and those sprites are super pretty/hd!
I like how you explain professionally and in details your analysis of this art.
yeah!
One question were characters drawn on paper before they were pixelized digitally
I can't believe it was 10 minutes, it felt like it was two or three
Same
Time flies when you're having fun and what your watching is interesting to you. I agree 100%.
Same
Definitely was thinking the same as a reached the end of the video :)
This comic book-like pixel art artstyle was always a huge source of inspiration for me
the alpha sprites are anatomically incorrect, they are very marvel comic, not a fan of that art work huge feet huge hands small head and the colours are less realistic
@@351clevelandmodifiedmotor4 I usually tend to care about style rather than realism. It's just me though but that's why I tend to like this kinda artstyle more. Idk man I'm just a sucker for unique looking characters with creative designs and proportions but still being drawn with good perspective and shading
@@Stephanie-69 alpha sprites are way too cartoonish, street fighter went backwards after the street fighter 2 versions, if they'd kept the art work on the same level as street fighter 2 and added more characters more moves more audio and music the game would of had great success
@@351clevelandmodifiedmotor4 jit trippen. sf alpha rocks, and so does sfIII.
Personally I prefer SNK's more "solid" gradient shading approach to the cell shading that Capcom used, though I could see both sharing the screen. Such as a character that is meant to be rock solid muscle being more SNK like while a softer character being more Capcom like, looking at the Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2 sprites compared to SNK vs Capcom Chaos counterparts there are a lot of interesting comparisons to be made.
Man, I think you'd love SF3
Especially in regards to animation, they push the design as far as it'll go. Ryus Hadouken for instance has a couple distinctions in those games as opposed to Alpha. His Gi is BLASTED back, making a spiky, sharp shape to his back before billowing down, really conveying the force. Light is also usually directly above, but the lighting shifts to in front of him for a frame or two, really making the Hadouken itself the focus of the animation. That and Red Earth would definitely interest you, I highly suggest checking em out. They're massive inspirations to me as an artist
That late 90s-early 2000s era sprite work from Capcom is the pinnacle of sprite work to me. SF3, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Capcom vs SNK 2, some of those animations they had were just insane, they mastered the craft. I'm not sure how much crossover there was with the sprite artists within Capcom, but Breath of Fire IV also had incredible sprite work
@@knightshousegames gotta check that out then. Honestly, I think MVC2 is kinda visually overrated a tad, most of the characters are weirdly skinny edits of their CPS2 selves
Oh check out Red Earth BTW. Red Earth is sexy
@@yoshinpixels9924 I guess to me I just love the way the 2D blends with the 3D in that game, I just love that hybrid style. I just loved the backgrounds in that game more than anything
@@knightshousegames very fair. I personally tbink SG handles the lend better
And Red Earth has some dope ass Rotoscoping, I think you'd love it!
@@knightshousegames MvC2 sprites are mostly reused so I dont find it compelling compared to SF3. SF3 just has god level sprites man
Something I noticed in the comparison shot at 2:07 is that there's an extremely subtle move from characters being almost entirely profile to more of the sprite being three-quarter. It may in some cases be only a couple of pixels difference in facing, but it's there, and the sprites seem more open and flowing because of it. That transmits more involvement to the player, that they're a third person in this scenario rather than purely observing a diorama.
Not as pronounced for the Shotos, Chun, or Dictator as it is for the characters added back over 2 & 3.
Just FYI, all of these arcade Street Fighter sprites were meant to be squished vertically and not displayed at 1:1 pixel ratio, making them look much thinner than how they look in the video (as a consequence they would also appear less muscular, RE: the comment about M Bison). The SNES sprites on the other hands were meant to be displayed fatter.
The channel Displaced Gamers has excellent videos about the CPS1/CPS2 pixel ratios as well as the SNES pixel ratio.
Ooh that's a good point! I noticed that a bit while reviewing reference material for this, and hopefully the selected sprites are on close enough footing in their 1:1 form for this comparison at least. I'll have to check out that vid, thanks! :D
I was literally just about to post a long form comment about this and decided to look in the comments to see if someone else had already mentioned it. Glad I did. But yeah the Arcade Sprites are rendered for a total screen resolution of 384x224, the SNES sprites are rendered for a resolution of 256x224, and they're both supposed to actually display on a 4:3 screen. You can see in the Guile comparison specifically just how distorted the two SF2 sprites are, they're exactly the same proportions at 4:3, ie: scaled for height they become the same width.
The Arcade sprites width needs to be scaled to 83.33%, and the SNES sprites width needs to be scaled to 125% to get them how they were originally displayed.
It's one of those things where it really doesn't matter for the color comparison, but it throws off the talk about posing and musculature a bit since they're distorted. It's not really enough to affect the overall point in this case though since both the SF2 and SF Alpha sprites are distorted to the same degree.
@@BJGpixel I hope this helps
Capcom Arcade Aspect Ratio (CPS1 and CPS2) th-cam.com/video/LHfPA4n0TRo/w-d-xo.html
@@BJGpixel You should alpha vs cvs (capcom vs snk) style and also sf3
There should be more parts to this!
* How Alpha handled burning as opposed to SF2 and Final Fight.
* The Final Fight characters in general.
* The newcomers.
* How SNK did something similar with KOF and Real Bout Special.
I'd watch a 3 hour long Ted Talk of you just explaining all the intricacies of sprite designs like this
The Alpha series has the best artwork of all the Street Fighter games imo- with SF3 right behind it. I had the strategy guides for the games and loved looking and the artwork.
Dude, you *really* deserve a lot more subs, you're amazing!!!
Quick martial arts context: The downward pointing of Ryu's foot (at 3:20) isn't just style, it's a karate concept of limiting the surface area of the foot to have more surface pressure and so do more damage, sometimes referred to as the foot sword.
Really interesting ! You even could analyse the stylisation of the SFA3 GBA sprites, since they're even smaller, but convey the same informations
Interesting thought.. i hope he sees this post and adds it to a vid later down the line.. good call!
Salut David ! Bonne continuation ! I think the topic of the ports is an entire video subject on his own.
AH BAH QUI VOILA
youre missing street fighter alpha 3 gameboy advance sprites and street fighter alpha 2 super nintendo sprites. both were reworked palates for your collage at 0:42 excellent and fun vid man
Sprits got something magical that 3d models don't got idk if that's nostalgia talking but I look at metal slug and that games animations still hold up every well to this day
3:58 "Chun Li's colors pack a real kick"
I see what you did there
Nice
An interesting martial arts detail on ryu's sprite is that the gi is more blue, suggesting that he's in his competition gi, instead of the worn yellow white gi of SF2.
Basically its a transition in style in art. You have to remember that back in the day, when these guys were making games, to make art using pixels was a relatively new art form so they didn't even really know what they were doing. They were just trying to make something.
I've been waiting for a video covering sprites in the 80-100 pixel range. I love the idea of using these for original characters and their animations and was hoping to get pointers on constructing one from scratch. Definitely liking and subscribing and keeping my eye open for more videos on this topic.
I want to do the same.
I wish you WOULD go on for hours. :p amazing video as always
fr
I love your depth of analysis. Not only do I appreciate the choices the artists made in rendering the sprites for the game, but you've broken down the concepts to where I can apply them to my own work too.
love to see how you can define why one feels better than the other that way. I couldn't put it into words, and it's amazing to see you verbalizing what my gut was trying to tell me
This was really well done, especially comparing the arm of Ryu was cool
Really awesome and informative analysis. I'm always happy to see more videos looking at fighting games sprites as someone who loves the genre and the techniques they use in the art department to sell their animations. Looking forward to possibly more fighting game related content in the future!
Great video. I'm designing a game and am hugely inspired by this era of gaming. I think the main thing i take away from this video is that simplicity and readability of design can be better than trying to render everything out realistically. SF2 is a great looking game. Timeless, but your example with M. Bison's cloak, and how they tried to add so much detail to every fold looks good, but when contrasting against a busy background, it doesn't pop the same way a huge block of a single color would. Also the silhouettes of the characters in Alpha are so much more bold and convey the character's personality so much more than SF2. I think this video reminded me to not spend so much time focusing on every detail of a character and just focus on creating bold yet memorable designs with as few colors as possible.
Since I found out about your channel I have been watching it non-stop. You really inspire me to put more effort into creating the sprites for my videogame!
I'm glad to see people doing reviews like this one! Never seen before. Sprites stuff were always something interesting to me. Thanks!
Great video, I think it is also important to acknowledge that the pixels of the sprites were almost never square depending in the console or system. This is why, for example, Guile looks with different proportions in the snes and arcade versions of street fighter 2 when presented with square pixels, the arcade version is actually a little bit thinner and snes version a little bit wider.
those analysis are so good
it helps me so much
please keep doing it
I'm of the opinion that Street Fighter 3 ook the ground work laid by the ALpha Series and RAN with it, using that exaggeration and strong use of palette to make incredibly striking character design the likes of which the Alpha games wich they could measure up to.
Look at ANY given frame of animation on Hugo or Dudley and you can see how they break the model or create intricate points of motion to convey appeal in everything. Heck, going to your Hadoken example on the shotos. it's not just ryu's headband and belt getting in on it, but it's as if the motion and force of him thrusting his hands forward pulls the whole Gi after him.
I might be a bit biased, due to him being my favorite character; but Vega’s Alpha sprite was awesome! It contained vibrant colors and the animation of his flips and movements were awesome
6:50 really brings out the monstrous quadriceps!! XD
That three-color thing you mention has been the basis of the "three color challenge," a coloring thing I've been doing with my kid across various doodle books for characters. If you factor out the skin tones, it's pretty much the premise of just about every fighting game character up until recently.
I realize I've always somehow thought the Alpha sprites were higher resolution. They LOOK more high res than originals just due to the art style.
They actually are slightly bigger.
Just stumbled upon your video due to the TH-cam algorithm. This attention to detail and appreciation for spritework is outstanding. Instant sub after one video. Keep up the good work! 👍
LOVE the constructive approach and how the visuals are displayed.
Keep the great work coming.
I can't imagine what it would be like to only have school and no youtube lessons, I feel like without youtube I would know virtually nothing at this point except how to make lego military robots. Thanks Brandon
One of the best channels I've ever had discovered!! Great content!
Please make a patreon. The porduction quality on every single video is just astonishing and come out on a regular weekly basis. It's also informative or creative. Each video is like a treat, filled with little effects and cut to the bare minimum of what needs to be said. Compared to 90% of other youtubers who's videos are mostly talking over an unedited timelapse or a power point presentation of static images it's like watching a fun little short. Also you should definitely make some online courses for that extra passive income in case you ever feel you need a break from youtube
i'd also like to see you talk about Third Strike's sprites, i think they're the best art style street fighter has ever had!
I love coming back to this video and feel inspired to create my own pixel work :) Great commentary!!
I’m not an artist but I’ve always wondered how do some people create new frames for Mugen that look just like the real deal. NowI have a better idea. You might want to explore that in the future.
Also, if you like Rolento’s idle animation, I imagine you live every single frame of Chun Li on SFIII.
Great video btw.
Thank you for this video! Please keep making more about the CPS2 fighters, I'm really interested in analysis and breakdowns on their sprites!
I love catching the puns lol. "set of vibrant colors that pack a real kick"
😁
Also "Cape Fear" for his Bison window. I also got a nice chuckle out of Ryu's window name.
The bits about exaggerating proportions and using fewer colors to suggest form and shading could be applied to any visual art form. I'm no pixel artist, but I just think it's cool to see the overlap in principles. This video made me further understand what makes the art style so cool. Thanks for that.
Awesome work. I'd love to see a follow-up analysis on the animation of the Street Fighter Alpha games, including the dropped frames of the Saturn and PS1 versions to the GameBoy Color version of Alpha 1 to the GBA version of Alpha 3. I think it would be a great video for you!
Always thought Capcom's games around this time were absolutely beautiful. Especially in motion, there's just so much great stuff in there. Animation which I think in many cases hasn't been replicated in the series since.
Sf3 Oro, for instance, was and remains the greatest depiction of his character yet. (This isn't nostalgia talking, I promise. I hadn't even been born yet when that game released). And one of Akuma's supers from that game I have saved as a gif on my computer to reference when I animate.
Anyways, animation fanboying aside... Great video man! Very high quality. If you're not careful you're gonna get me into doing pixel art again!
simplifying the colours for alpha was interesting! :o cool stuff m8
I've been a gamer since the late 80s and I teach art for a living. That combo really drew me into your video. Love what you do here. New sub 👍
This is a great video. As someone that also wants to make an art-related channel, I appreciate your presentation, and your knowledge on the subject is very apparent. I find it inspiring.
Indeed, It’s got me thinking about that time when Capcom almost switched art styles to a more realistic aesthetic for Street Fighter V. While I still really enjoy the now established Street Fighter Aesthetic; I do kinda wish we could see how much more realism we could visually inject into the design of these characters whilst still keeping their iconic designs recognizable. Really just as a design experiment more than anything. I think a lot of it would come down to economic color choices and posing as you described, but balanced with more realistic anatomical design and coloring. It does seem like it’d be difficult to make the characters adhere more to realistic anatomy whilst still maintaining clearly defined silhouettes. Im honestly not sure how I’d approach that issue. Anyway, I think it’d be cool to see the results of a such a reimagining at least from an artistic standpoint.
What do you think?
i originally thought the title was "Fighter analysis: sprite" and I was like 'mf a can of sprite got inna smash bros????'
lmao his intro line: "...anyone order a can of whoop ass?" 😎
@@BJGpixel Very gamer doe ngl 😳😳😳
@@BJGpixel lol
cant wait for the rolento video
third strike was my favorite style, but alpha definitively established the "hip" and modern art style 2d street fighter was known for.
man i love sprite art and its great to find such good content about it!
Nice video, maybe one thing I would have loved you to focus on are the new moves added to Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (like Honda's special throw), which probably have been done by the same guys also working on Darkstalkers/Xmen/Alpha. A few frames of Alpha art style among the aging SF2 sprites. Not sure why they dropped the original style, it definitely feels weird (I'd love a mod of the game with sprites closer to the original)
New Legacy does redraw some of them.
The Alpha sprites are so beautiful, I really love the anime-like designs. The character designs and sprites are honestly one of the reasons that the Alpha series is my favourite SF series
Your work is amazing, elegant and well explained! thank you for this analysis !
Rolento's idle animation is one of the best ever imo. It's got a unique silhouette, conveys quiet menace, and the fingers drumming on the stick draw attention to his defining characteristic--that he has no qualms about bringing weapons to a fistfight.
I'm also a big fan of Sodom's sprite--the extreme bulk and roundness of his shoulders and torso contrasts nicely with his comparatively slim legs. It sells the idea that he wants to make himself look bigger and tougher but goes about it in a somewhat slapdash way.
On the other hand, I always thought Bison's exaggerated beefiness was a little silly. I know it's meant to communicate that he's stronger at that point in the storyline but myself and my friends were so used to his slimmer proportions in SF2 that we imagined he had padded his uniform in an attempt to look scarier. That works perfectly for Sodom but it turned Bison from a Darth Vader to a Dark Helmet. We called him "fat Bison" or "marshmallow Bison." It grew on us eventually though.
Aweome work, thank, I though that I was the only one obsessed with the sprite details
Before watching this video I didn't really like the Alpha sprites, but after this analysis, I think these are now my favorite Street Fighter sprites! I never realized how well designed they are.
Very very cool video. Really well made and very interesting indeed.
I am old school, it's interesting to see how such old sprites are interpreted by more modern audiences and pixel artists.
Liked and subbed.
Loved this video, thanks for bringing this up!! I hope I can get it into some ideas I have been playing around. I was amazed by the fact that both series used almost the same size
Right?! I expected the Alpha sprites to be appreciably larger, but they match up quite well to the SF2 arcade sprites, more like a re-skin 😅 Thanks, and best of luck with your pixel art!
love this video! Could you make a video on SNK sprites from the King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown as well?
Basically the Darkstalkers/VSAV series were a testbed to take those interesting concepts to their mainstream games (SFA/Zero series) and the Marvel collabs that were a product of its time (COTA, XvsSF, COTA, MSH and so forth). The cool part is seeing the influence but seeing the series stand out on its own as well. What even helped add to the 'anime' exaggeration of the Alpha were not only the 'bigger' animation effects to some of the special moves. But also the system mechanics that made the game feel faster than SF2 iterations like Alpha Counters, roll recovery, air dodging and custom combos.
Red Earth would also count as a testbed for SF3. These days, SF6 is the only fighter Capcom is making, and it isn’t clear what they would do for a secondary fighter alongside SF.
Subscribed! Love the breakdown. I've always loved pixel art and only really recently am trying to teach myself how to make sprites. Thank you for these type of videos!!
This could be on Netflix. Amazing content.
My mans gushed about Alpha sprites without even getting into how well they're animated, impressivs!
Ryu’s kick pose in alpha his foot angle is more inline with a real karate side kick, using the blade of the foot rather than the bottom. Ace video really nice breakdown of the style
I love this so much, please make more in depth about what goes on during the creation of these sprites the styles the lighting/shading and animation. As a personal opinion I think Capcom was the best at creating very beautiful pixel sprites and animation during 90s and early 2000s.
I could legitimately watch a 3 hour version of this video
ive only recently gotten into pixel art. its amazing the amount of quality you can fit into such a limited amount of pixels.
Awesome video as usual! I've been taking a lot of tips from you while designing my own characters lately!
Some amazing stuff right here, definitely subscribing.
Great video.
Your content is awesome! Would love to see more character design vids.
This video was awesome, exactly what I was looking for today. Thank you!
Love these Sprite analysis videos.
Truly fascinating stuff. Thank you!
I kinda want to see a sprite analysis of the gba Kirby sprites
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror would be a fun one to look at :D
Very interesting analysis, inspiring as well!
my day is always a little better when u upload :D
I've always loved the alpha series - but I could never put my finger on why. the analysis was really eye opening.
More street fighter analysis please!! 💖💖
The alpha series of sprites are also my favorite, and these were super interesting!!
Awesome video Brandon!
I'm playing SFA again, thanks to this video. Excellent Work Dood!
Brilliant analysis, and entertaining too.
Apparently, Chun Li's design with the sweatpants and sneakers was her original intended design from the character designer, but they had him change it. Honestly, I like that design for her more.
I wish I could find the video of that designer talking about his work on Street Fighter, they actually show clips of him looking through his original character designs on the graph paper they used to use to design sprites, which is just a cool piece of history
Personally, I prefer the older World Warrior pixel art style. It feels more solid and less "paper-like" than the Alpha variants, although please don't get me wrong, I love the Alpha redesigns too. I just prefer the edge that the old ones have as they feel like they have more depth. I've always preferred a little more realism and the old pixel art style was a beast of its own, whereas the Alpha one feels like it's just copying an already established comic-book style.
It would be incredible if you did a sprite/style analysis of Metal slug. A lot of the animations and styles especially of the bigger ones like huge hermit are just so stylized. It'd be terrific to see the evolution of the sprites as well.
Back in 1995, I remember being insanely mesmerized by X-Men COTA, Darkstalkers and SF Alpha sprites
I'd want to see your thoughts and analysis on the pixel art in The King of Fighters XIII, which is some of, if not the best pixel art ever put into an actual finished game. On the subject on SNK, a look at the art for the Metal Slug series would be great too.
exactly what I needed, thank you so much
wonder if you could do a sprite analysis on an indie game like enter the gungeon or shovel knight
Wow, Birdie looks so strange in SF1, barely looks like he belongs in the franchise! Another great video, excellent analysis; seeing how lower color counts forces you to make interesting decisions about your designs is always useful. It's almost counter intuitive, since you don't have as much space to work with for line work, you almost feel like anywhere you can squeeze in extra color is good, yet really that tends to muddy the over all look of your pieces.
Also, I tweeted at you about enabling community contributed captioning on your videos; I feel art videos are particularly well suited to those with hearing disabilities, and since yours are so excellent, I think yours would be quite valuable to have well constructed captions available for those who may need them.
I know right?! Birdie's proportions are a little strange in SF1 (I mean I guess they are in Alpha as well, but it works with the art style!). Thanks for watching, and unfortunately TH-cam recently announced they're discontinuing community captions - I think there's been abuse/spam with the option. From what I've experienced, the auto-generated captions do a nice job picking up what I say, and I try to speak clearly to aid the transcription :D
I could watch hours and hours of this!
Great video! I really learned something new!
This was a treat to watch
Could you please do a video like this on the KOF 13 sprites I can't find any videos on how to get the lighting right or anything like that and those sprites are super pretty/hd!
A look at Jump Ultimate Stars would be a good episide idea.
Man, I'm learning so much from your videos! Also really cool to have SF Alpha as a topic, since I played the crap out of that on my GBA as a kid!
crazy that these are running on the same hardware too, that being the cps2 system
I'm so happy I found your channel.
the alpha sprites look so much better than sf2. i never saw the huge difference