ANIMATION EXCELLENCE: Rock Howard
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- A.B.I. talks about the excellent animation of Rock Howard, and how SNK preserved his animation in King of Fighters 14
BGM 1: Character Select (Garou: Mark of the Wolves)
BGM 2: Spread the Wings - Rock's Theme (Garou: Mark of the Wolves)
BGM 3: Emergence - Rock's Theme (King of Fighters 14)
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I find it funny how when i saw Rock i just thought “He’s got a nice jacket”
Same
Same
Same
Same
Same
Rock definitely got that extra animation push due to the current KoF director being the former Fatal Fury/Garou director. He cares that much.
And why shouldn't he care? The old Garou team were essentially canonized as saints at SNK for the amazing animation they were able to pull off on the outdated NeoGeo hardware after they were laid off during old SNK's bankruptcy and collapse. Even after SNK's reformation as SNK Playmore they mostly resisted using Rock again (Maximum Impact 2 notwithstanding,) despite him being a fan favorite character because SNK feared they couldn't do him justice without the Garou team's influence.
And KOF 15 rn is going in the right direction by improving a lot of what KOF 14 did
@@Anomaly188 Snk has been improving a lot since the rough start they had on KOF 14 and soo far KOF 15 is doing a good job of showing the improvements
1:45
When Rock tosses his jacket in Gato's stage,
It gets carried away by the stream?
Thats some fine detail right there
Wow, i've never actually noticed that.
Like, the animation in this game is fine as hell, but the fact that they went that extra mile is a whole new level
I now have the image of Rock chasing after his jacket after he realized he screwed up.
Jordan Smith Rock would be like “...Wait, OH SHIT-“
OHHHHHH ALL THESE YEARS AND I'VE NOTICED THAT
wow
SNK games had something magical.
I still believe they'll reach that magic again.
Nope... SNK is dead
Not the new ones - the magic is with Arc now.
Yeah, the best fighting and action games overall.
KOF series
Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters series
Metal Slug series
Samurai Showdown, etc. Just amazing!
They didn't adapt with the times. They made a lot of their money from arcade titles but tried to adapt by going the 3D route without properly changing their business practices.
I kinda like that Rock has a wing motif, given his father is Geese. Dumb wordplay gives me life.
suddenllybah Don’t discount yourself. If you made the correlation before I did, my friend that was a TERRY-bly good catch.
TheKnightguard1 but see, the names Geese and Rock, are both design choices. Geese's attacks are static and hard, Rock's are dynamic and whispy. Geese's pose is unflappable and unextraneous, but Rock is fluid and revealing.
Just, yes, it's dumb wordplay, but the animators actually make it all cohesive.
Wow, damn. Never thought of that. Good catch.
And of course, if Geese had wings he's not have died when he falls off the building the third time
Also also, fits with contrasting his mother who was basically Geese's 'caged bird' who died imprisoned by her feelings for Geese while Rock tries to reject that and wants use his wings to fly free.
The late 90's: when fighting game animations were artful and character select screens were funky as fuck.
Sir you made me understand color schemes and character designs, I can't thank you enough for this.
@Stanley Maximus
This scam again?
Why do these people keep posting this stupid comment everywhere?
They've even been posting similar responses to their own comments.
@@YowLife just another wave of shitty bots, ignore them
SNK animations were always masterful, especially when it came to the main protagonists of KOF games. You could literally make identical videos on Kyo, Iori, K, Kula, and Ash.
Ash???
Ash Crimson.
Even though I don't like Ash as a character, I can't deny his animations are an absolute work of art. Everything flows perfectly. KoF XIII was a truly beautiful game.
Too beautiful, actually, since it almost made the company go bankrupt. :P
@BEST DOG Yup. I only learned that a few weeks ago.
It's a miracle KoF XIV and SamSho came out.
I said the same thing, I would throw terry in there also
Why Shine Knuckle is yellow? Like said full powered Raging Storm is blue harkens to Geese Howard and his power.
While the full power Shine Knuckle calls back to Terry's Buster Wolf where at start up is yellow then when the power is trusted becomes orange red. Rock's has the combination to Terry's Buster Wolf the Shine Knuckle to go beyond that with his teachings showing the full powered Rising tackle at the end. It's visual story telling as you said Rock is a hybird of two father's, with Raging Storm it's Geese and his untamed powers, while with Shine Knucke shows the teachings of Terry going beyond the limits of one special move.
BellowD Gaming that’s an amazing way to put it
Rock is pretty much Giorno Giovanna
@ that makes more sense, well said
Affan Sami unexpected giogio
i see it that way as well
Rock Howard is a pillar of good characterization, not only because of his own and how it is reflected in his gameplay, but how his relationships with the other characters often give them even more development. It's a borderline crime that we never got a Garo sequel and got to see his character progress even further.
I'm hoping Ed from SFV can turn into half of what Rock Howard was
Blackman Whitesuit Do you want to play some Mario? Because that sounds like a pipe dream XD
i actually hoped that ed would have like a geese howard type thing where the madder he gets the more bison comes out
Jonny Guinness That would be cool, its a shame Ed was so boring tho. He's not even a boring character or anything, he's just not explored at all and super under developped (could say that about a lot of the newcomers tho)
yeah but the bright side is that rock howard(favorite fighting game character) was done justice after all these years
1:55 the jacket slowly sinks because they're fighting in a river. That's attention to detail.
Rock definitely got that extra bit of polish beyond even a lot of the rest of the game's cast. Hopefully SNK's next big fighting game release can spread that kind of love to the entire roster.
GooeyHeat I hope so too, Andy needs it bad.
Thst would be SO great!!!
I'm here to praise Rock's jacket and mourn Kim's pants.
One thing I missed earlier, is that I really wished that the collar on Rock's jacket would hide portions of his face at times in kof14, like in Garou. Rock looks so young in the new game. In Garou we see a young confident fighter, that visibly struggles with focus but makes up for it with attitude.
This video series has helped me a lot with my drawing
Pajamapants Jack I would make a joke about hentai, considering your profile picture. But you probably get a lot of hentai jokes.
Isn’t that Sydney from Payday? lol
Post your drawing He's my favorite !
Me too! It helped me fix certain character designs and draw better poses for my comics~
same
Just love SNK characters
They just carry so much personality in both appearance and animation.
Oh
The classic SNK before bankruptcy.
If it didn't bankrupt at 2000 the fighting game scene would be totally different right now.
I don't know... the Capfags would still continue stuck to the old games (as Capcom's inventment drive on FGs was already dropping in the late 90's) even if there was a good number of alternatives around.
6:49 That said I have no idea why sign knuckle is yellow.
Me:It's forshadowing.
Garou: Mark of the Wolves= Perfection
We need a sequel for this, and if SNK dos not do it, God help me I will
Carlos Vásquez SNK said it all depends on KOF 14’s success
It's not viable to keep the FF franchise. Not when KOF as we know it was on the verge of death - and not "death" in the FGC's more or less histerical vocabulary, but real death. Secondly, the only issue with Garou is that it took steps backwards in terms of the typical SNK innovative gameplay direction (in comparison to the development on Capcom's side). Garou got rid of almost all achievements of the FF franchise from half a decade, and simplified the core system to play like a slightly refined SF. Nowadays reviving the series, at least with the Garou parameters, wouldn't be interesting; only if they went back to Real Bout and keep polishing that system - it could be with Garou characters, that doesn't matter. Because only that would be a real refreshing fg gameplay to put in the current market... not a game that's almost redundant to SF.
The problem is the idea of making Garou it's own thing separated from FF and thus - what many people defend - making a "Garou 2" or something like that. That wouldn't be worth the high investment - that they certainly have to put in order to make the very late sequel minimally acceptable. You how demanding and intransigent a group can be, according to the quality of their game (see "exclusive" fans of Smash Melee, Third Strike, even old KOFs, etc). Nowadays there are much delicate concerns, such as the responsibility of producing a new dream match title that manages to compare to KOF98 and 2002. Like it or not, it's only ideas of this level that could make SNK threaten the other FG giants, not "Garou 2"...
Do they know
Well, there is one coming.
6:50 Rock's shining knuckle is yellow because it is a modification his buster wolf and it gets its name from Terry's burning knuckle. Because it's not as strong as Terry's it is yellow instead of red.
Get it?
It shines instead of burns
Yellow shines
Red burns
When I first saw the trailer for Rock in KOFXIV, I squeaked. I'm not a big fan of the character itself, but I can't and will never deny that his animations, his attitude and those energy wings, are fantastic trademarks.
Old SNK was really good at making characters very memorable, original yet simplistic. It's amusing to see that the most memorable characters aren't the flashiest ones here.
As much as I love criticizing bad animations and design, applauding good ones is just as important. This deserves a patreon pledge; keep up the good work!
Rock's shine knuckle is yellow because it's a very Terry-esque move.
Mmmhm but I think in this case he just wonders why because it's not the same colour as terry's moves, in this case red-ish.
Very well done video. You know your stuff regarding late 90's fighters and animation quality. From one fighting game content creator to another, keep up the passion and the good work! Subbed!
Thanks, glad you liked it! Most of the sprites I use for reference in these videos come from Fighter's Gen, actually! Thanks for having the largest collection of fighting game resources for decades! -A.B.I.
Ohh awesomeness... it comes full circle! 😁 I just watched a few of your InjustAss 2 character-specific videos and continue to be blown away by your attention to detail. Great examples on how certain animation could've been fixed, too. Is it cool if link to a few of your videos on the website? Thanks man.
Go right ahead!
Sitting back watching this conversation between two of my favorites!
I see many people talking about the art of Garou, Darkstalkers, SF3, but AoF3 was absolutelly amazing!
AOF3 great animations boring designs!
Maybe because the game itself wasn't that interesting
But indeed it was the first game with fluid animations
Rock is my favorite fighting game character for many of the reasons you listed. Great review!
Personally I like Yamazaki over Rock, but he's up there
Sean Watson honestly my favorite is a 6 way tie: Rock, Tizoc/KoD, King (Tekken), Alex, Johnny Cage and Sagat
So glad that win pose got a special mention.
You make me learn things about games that I would never notice in my life, I love Garou and I never realized there was so much detail just by playing
I've never really played a lot of KOF and related games, but i've always loved how these games look.
It's not the over the top style from GG but to me it's like the cool version of Street fighter.
I had a big crush on Rock Howard as a teenager and watching this video made me remember how much I loved him and why I enjoyed playing as this character everytime 💕 great video
the animation for rock howard is one of the reasons why i love garoh mark of wolves very much the detail of the sprite artist put into this game. Also can you do some guilty gear characters one day m god the xx sprties aged wonderfully.
I swear, SNK have the best designs out of all fighting games.
It is something that ties a perfect balance between old school anime with a little bit of western influences. I love it.
8:43
Imagine how underwhelming that final blast would have been if his jacket and shirt stayed perfectly still...
God I love this video because I got into Fatal Fury through smash bros releasing Terry then I found this video and now I love Rock Howard with all my soul. The animation is just so good it's like 2d Sprite perfection. Now I want another 2d Sprite like fatal fury game.
Garou always stood out to me along with the last blade in terms of SNK animation
So there's actually a reason why ive always found him so cool eversince playing this game as a kid.
Same
I would have never thought that Rock's jacket was so esential to its design.
Amazing video, very informative, you really know what you are talking about, I'm gonna pay more atention to your content
Here's hoping we get more Animation Excellence this year, we haven't seen much of that in a while.
I know nothing about KoF aside from a few MUGEN videos, seeing Terry in Smash and thinking "oh hey, I remember that guy, wonder how his playstyle is," and Mai's massive jiggly funbags, but holy hell Rock is a stylish guy and I want to get into this series just to give him a go.
...I REALLY want that jacket now.
So cool...
Fun fact: Rock's theme song has quite a large segment from Robert Miles' song titled Children.
I bought that game on a whim when I was a teenager. Rock Howard was by far my favorite character in all fighting games. Hearing your commentary is bringing a smile to my face. The detail to him.. Somebody noticed...
Rock is back in KoFXV, & he kept his key-framed clothing animations.
I think shine knuckle being yellow is a visual way of showing that Rock isnt just a Geese Terry combo; he's his own man. Yellow is the opposite of purple after all
Rock Howard was one of my favorite SNK characters.
When theirs a feature about a character that the designers want u to look at, they know exactly how to make it stand out. They wanted us to focus our attention to Rocks jacket, and sure enough whenever I’m playing the character and nothings going on I just can’t stop looking at his jacket.
0:51 for a second I thought that that ally area was in actual 3D, Holy cow
Im back because THEY FINALLY MADE GAROU 2!!!!
Also kim's pants movement are so beautiful
Great video! What makes this even better is that SnK is improving in 3d animation looking at how the latest DLC pack turned out, especially Oswald. I'd love if you could do a video on his animations sometime in the future.
This video was such word porn that I went and bought a real-leather Rock’s jacket.
"Unless you are Arc Systems work..."
Ugh. It's so sobering when you put it so cut and dry like that.
As ever, love you animation analysis. Great stuff.
I mean, he's not wrong.
also, "Arcs Systems Works?" People get confused enough with Aksys games being a publisher of a lot of their games
Gawwwwd I love Rock Howard and his design/animation. Team Rock and his two dads is my go to.
I completely agree with your assessment of 2D sprite vs 3D model animation. This is especially true with clothing. It’s like the is too much starch on 3D models clothes while 2D model sprites from the late 90s to early 2000s flows with each attack
His win animation made me cry alot
It's all about the "in between" animations... the flow is so brilliant.
I'd like to see a vid on K's animation, lots of interesting quirks from 99 up
Devin Friday Agree. One of my favorite FG character design quirks is how if you don't move K' in KOF '99 (not sure the later ones), he drops his hands and then his blinks become slower until eventually he closes his eyes completely until you move him again.
Mark of the Wolves is indeed basically as cloae to perfection as it gets.
Gato's DF-Punch move followed by F-Punch alone has to be one of the most satisfying things in videogame history, especially is your opponent blocks the first attack and then gets surprised by the follow-up.
that being said... GIVE US FUCKIN GATO SNK!
thank you for complexly justifying my simpness towards rock's jacket and movement
I would suggest having one video on GG Xrd for ready reference, as you keep bringing it up except only briefly
This was the video that made me discover and love your channel! That hair flip makes me crack up everytime!
I've learned a lot from this. Thank you for making me appreciate even more how masterfully designed Rock is.
Thats why he is my favorite character
So far seeing the character trailers for KOF XV, I'm really hoping that we can see some of that excellence in key frame and follow through animations. It certainly seems like they're taking the lessons learned from XIV along with the animation patches they made for it and giving the characters their due in terms of their personality coming through in their models. Andy Bogard looks SO much better now than he did in XIV. And if they brought Rock Howard back? I bet he and his key frame animations would look amazing!
8:41 Good job, Rock.
We need more excellence episodes. There's plenty of admirable and artful characters and games to go around.
I literally paused the video right after your criticisms of modern fighting game animation to go on an ArcSys shill rant. Not that I wont anyway. GG Xrd uses only keyframed animations and no physics. On top of that all lighting and shading is baked into the characters and not applied in post. It's insane and even ArcSys admits it's actually more work then animating a 2d sprite. The beauty of that labor tho is that all the characters scale beautifully in high resolutions. 4k GG is a masterpiece.
Dragon Ball FighterZ is the same?
@@voutespancar It was made by the same people
Still, accent core looks much better (excepting resolution) than the newer games.
It does use some phisycs such as in answer's scarf
This video (in combination with the popularly known netcode quality) made me play Garou and be Rock main. Thank you SugarPunch!
Great attention to detail and explanation. I appreciate how your emphasized his jacket and key frames. I look forward to more of your content!
I feel like the hair flip would work better in the new game if they had set it up so that his hair would go into a wilder arrangement after strong hits, and then a quick smooth-out would return it to the normal position.
6:15 I'm mindblown.
I love Rock Howard not just because of his design , how he plays but his animation
Rock Howard gave me the impression of Future Trunks .
Oh Gaaaaaaaawd!! Garou & 3rd Strike are my most loved & played fighting games ever.
Thank you so much for your videos! You talk about the things I love the most! Animation, game design and fihhting games!! Great I am glad I found your channel!
Thank you for covering this, this will help me alot in character designs 😂
I'm glad this exists, sprites are truly under appreciated. Thanks dude.
One of the best videos I've seen on character design analysis. Awesome job!
In my opinion, animating follow through is the most rewarding feeling ever if you pull it off. Love this episode~ real personal to me.
You just reminded me why i love SNK and Capcom fighting games to begin with, the art and animation in those days is superb.
It may be difficult, but Arc System Works (specifically Team BlazBlue) is still killing it with all of their BlazBlue sprite games one after the other, each better than the last
DUDE
MORE
NOW
I wholeheartedly agree. There's a certain magic to these old fighter's that just can't be replicated in 3D. With that, here's one ya won't hear often. Do a video on Red Earth/Warzard. Criminally underrated imo
That is why I still prefer sprite based animation unless its something by Arc Systems Works, cuz they just look... right. Even for newer titles. KOFXIII's sprites were so beautifully maded that when XIV came out I can't help but feel like it was a downgrade even if I knew it was done for budget reasons.
Joe Qiao I mean, it was a downgrade. I'd imagine SNK themselves know that all too well.
SNK did know but this is a company that has died 2 times, First time because of a failed attempt at a snk theme park, and the second was because of XIII. XIII may have been one of the most beautiful fighting games released but it was so difficult and expensive and it didn't make the return they wanted. Unfortunately, they have no choice but to go the 3d route, and as their first try in real 3d(Maximum Impact being ignore) it does a great job and that's with 8 people working on it, they can really go nowhere but up and their next game SNK Heroines actually has good animation if you saw SHermie's reveal trailer. SNK still has it, it's just going to take time.
Functional Simplicity
That is something I really like in character designs.
The fine detail of mark of the wolves are top notch 🤘
I remember discovering mark pf the wolf long after it was released. As I always loved to play the Bogart brother in Fatal Fury I immediatly started playing Rock Howard as a main in Mark of the wolf. The yellow punch instantly gave me a Terry feel. With your video I do understand even more why I was immediatly mesmerizedby those animations.
kofxiii and motw graphic are a timeless work of art 🥰😍😘
Thank you for this series. As someone trying to start up a studio I didn't know much about animation. Now, I have a idea of what to look for when hiring an animator
1999 was the peak of pixel art in fighting games garou,third strike are the best.
KOF XIII?
I love Rock’s version of Raging Storm more than Geese’s version. Sure Geese’s take on Raging Storm is cool and all, but the way the energy wildly shoots out when Rock does it fits the description of a “Raging Storm” better
also they chose not to go with the accursed pretzel motion for the input, which is also fitting for Rock's character.
@@BronzeAgePepper Agreed. It shows that Rock hasn’t truly mastered the power he inherited from Geese
I remember playing SNK, SF, and MVC back then in our arcades. Man those days were the best.
"As the final entry in the Fatal Fury series"
That, uh... that aged poorly.
Rock Howard was my main in MotW and he is a treasure. AND I'm an animator, AND You're right on every single fucking point. Good times.
Awesome vid. I love the Howards.
Another great insight into distinguished design work. As a fan of 3d fighting games I would like to know your opinion on the differences in animation style between Tekken, DOA& VF - like why does DOA look so fluid & why opinions about Tekken's animation vary from being stiff to looking smooth and having a great sense of impact.
I hate people that say "KOF have PS2 graphics!"... and then praise NetherRealm games xD
I agree, but there's a pretty visibly clear difference in graphics budgets between those games though, most of MK/Injustice's just went towards stuff like the fight intros and crazy cinematic supers - not to mention the massive story mode cutscenes. Plus they don't even try to animate any cool and interesting moves because it's all superhero shit and there probably isn't anybody at NRS who knows a damn thing about martial arts
Str0nk_Sad Carlos Pesina is their main motion capture actor and has multiple Black Belts. You should ask him why the games have bad animation.
When Mortal Kombat 9 hit, that put NRS in a very quality bracket.
John McHenry honestly I’m surprised he’s a black belt when he can’t throw a convincing punch, I want to be lenient but.....really!?
But NRS have games with good graphics. It's the animation that is always shit, only animation.
Hi!I've stumbled across your channel recently and it's treasure for me!I couldn't even think that someone will analyse animarion in fightings like that!
Haven't paid attention to those details until now, the explanation was very interesting.
I hope you could do a Street Fighter 3 third strike video, since there were a lot of new characters in that time and the animation was great.
That was a true treat thank you!
Could you do a video of Skullgirls animations? I would like to hear your opinion.
Mega Mix Jam it’s kinder hard since the game is more then 80% censor bar
Kenpai I was talking about the game itself
Ohhhhhh...... I'm sure they could say a few things haha
Kenpai I think he is reffering to the video getting flagged because of using Skullgirls footage due to licensing.
Yes PLEASE!!!
the basis for Ragna and Jin's Wing pose. Also when Blazblue animation videos
Just found out your channel and watched like 5 videos in a row, great content! I miss this attention to detail in modern games.