"Darkstalkers and the Twelve Principles of Animation"

[solidshark]

http://art-eater.com/2010/07/test-1-darkstalkers/

Article about animation as it pertains to Darkstalkers. A lot, if not all the detail of this applies to a few SNK fighters too, especially 13. Agree? Disagree?

[Delta]

That was a good read. It reminded me why i love this series.

Sniff, i miss DS, sadly if Capcom decides to make DS4 it will be with 3D models or something like that.


I think all of those principles apply to most (i won't say "all" because it's been a long while since i played the games) DarkStalkers characters, due to the nature of the series.

But with KOF it's harder to see the application of some principles to all characters, again due to the nature of the games being more "real".

Anyways i think if one game has better or worse animation/fluidity/sprites/etc, it doesn't mean it is a good (or a bad) game. There are other important elements in a fighting game.

[The Fluke]

Good read, when you look at his examples it really is striking what a great piece of art Darstalkers is.. With that it is even more sad that Capcom might never make a sequel that builds on the esthetics of the old games if they ever make one at all..

Kofxiii i hope will prove to be a masterpiece, even kofxii is amazing as is and i really enjoy stuff like how Joes hair moves when he does special moves etc. It is going to be great to see how kofxiii looks in person so to say.

[nilcam]

XII and XIII really nail the volumetric shading. The shading on muscles and clothing is very impressive. I'll have to play some XII today to check out the stretching and mass animations. Obviously, XII/XIII are not as cartoony as DS but I'm curious to look for it now that I know about it.

Good stuff!

[omegaryuji]

Yeah, because DS is done in a cartoonish style, they can exaggerate stuff like this more, but the principles can apply to any style of animation.  Ralf's far C (gathering his arm close to his body and then forcefully extending it to strike) or Raiden's tackle (taking a 3-point stance and then lunging out) use some squash/stretch, many CD's have some start-up animation that works as anticipation, well-animated characters (like anything post-XI) have some distinctly timed movements and secondary animations, etc.

[MUSOLINI]

this was really old read posted many times over the years. that being said DS is thw only capcom series where the character designs are on par or even better than most snk/p games. its almost on par with SS in my eyes, and it doesnt get any better than that imo.