Topic: Rumour: Third Party companies are shifting many of their projects from the PlayStation 3 to the Wii

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: cubist
I agree...the PSP is hardly failing as a system.  It may not have DS numbers, but the PSP is still the preference of the mainstream gamer.

I believe Sony is losing money on each PSP, coupled with the fact that UMD is dieing and their games are selling like crap, I think that statement can be easily disputed.

[Kairon]

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Originally posted by: Spak-Spang
Cubist:  The PSP may be the preference of the mainstream.

I hardly believe that the mainstream is equivalent to the market of gadget hungry tech addicts who need a multimedia player... and even in that market, I think that apple has the PSP beat.

Don't let Sony confuse you with the term "mainstream" here, the people who buy PSPs are really a niche.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[wandering]

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Don't let Sony confuse you with the term "mainstream" here, the people who buy PSPs are really a niche.

But that would mean the people who buy DSes are niche too....

[Kairon]

Oh, sorry. I see where you're confused.

I was trying to say that the term "mainstream" does not describe the PSP buyer AT ALL.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[KDR_11k]

Both the PS3 and XBox 360 minimum standards require a game to be HD compatible. Obviously that makes no sense for a 2d game and  have a feeling Sony won't like it if you show them how beautifully you can scale a 320x240 image to 1920x1080. That's what SNK mentioned as their reason to cut XC and PS3 support, they don't want to draw their 2d in HD resolutions (especially since that'd have to be redone for each resolution).

I'd call the PSP buyers mainstream. After all they aren't bothering with niche products like games.

[thejeek]

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especially since that'd have to be redone for each resolution

Couldn't they just draw their 2D artwork using a vector package (e.g. Illustrator or similar) and then they can produce as many raster versions as they need for the different HD and SD target resolutions?

[wandering]

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Oh, sorry. I see where you're confused.

I was trying to say that the term "mainstream" does not describe the PSP buyer AT ALL.

I'm still confused. How can the PSP be a "niche" product and the DS be a "mainstream" product when they have comparable sales?

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: wandering

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Oh, sorry. I see where you're confused.

I was trying to say that the term "mainstream" does not describe the PSP buyer AT ALL.

I'm still confused. How can the PSP be a "niche" product and the DS be a "mainstream" product when they have comparable sales?

Because PSP isn't selling any games (or UMDs for that matter) and DS is.  

[Spak-Spang]

KDR:  That is pretty funny.  Niche products...such as games.

Sad but true.

[KDR_11k]

Couldn't they just draw their 2D artwork using a vector package (e.g. Illustrator or similar) and then they can produce as many raster versions as they need for the different HD and SD target resolutions?

If they wanted to do vector graphics, yes. But vector graphics aren't as flexible as full sprites, partially because the shading isn't nearly as elaborate and partially because you don't have as much pixel control (which is crucial for details like the head, unless you want to make these parts extra large).

[Smash_Brother]

Sprites actually take longer than many 3D models.

My friend who's a 3D modeler once thought that sprite-based gaming was wussing out until he actually tried making a sprite set himself.

Once a 3D model is completed, you can generally edit it to do whatever you want, in whichever pose or animation you choose. In the case of sprites, you need to create sometimes hundreds of sprites for every animation.

Now imagine being forced to create HD sprites for every animation. Case closed.

[KDR_11k]

Depends on what you're going for. Painting a texture takes a few weeks on average, depending on the size and frame count a spriteset may be faster to do.

[Smash_Brother]

Simple RPG style 2D sprites with a maximum of 50 frames wouldn't be so bad, but the SNK fighters where each character literally has at least 1,000 frames would be a nightmare to redo in HD so the graphics didn't look like ass.

Also, each sprite animation would likely need to be done by the same person/group, whereas many more people could work on a single texture.

Take Leon from RE4, for example: there were probably separate people working on his hair, face, clothes, and all of his animations. I'm not the best one to be guessing this, but I don't see how multiple people could work on the sprite animation of, say, Chun Li being knocked backwards without some inconsistencies arising.

Like I said, I'm REALLy guessing about the whole process now so if anyone knows what ACTUALLY happens, feel free to enlighten me.

[Spak-Spang]

Smash:  Actually.  They probably had several animators working on the sprites and they probably didn't just work on a single character.

Cell Animation, and thus Sprite animation us head animators that animate the extreme animation positions.  

Then "Inbetweeners" come in animate the character inbetween the two states.  So a head animator doesn't have to draw all 24 frames or what not for a single reaction.  Just the beginning and end results.

It takes alot time still.  But you don't have to have your head artists stuck animating every single sprite of every single character.

[Smash_Brother]

I guess the question, then, would be which takes more time and manpower to do in HD?

[The Omen]

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I own Minidisc products.

No one had to rebuy their music collection because CDs could be recorded quickly and easily onto Minidiscs and you could take them with you.

I do too.  They're a great way to record sound for movies.

[thejeek]

Thinking about it, it's suprising that people don't use the same computer aided techniques used for doing cartoon animation to draw the various frames of sprite animations.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

cel shading = win

[thejeek]

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cel shading = win

Cell shading is cool but I was thinking more of the sort of software that's used to make modern 2D animated series and movies - it lets you do stuff like draw key-frames and then it will fill in the intermediate frames for you. The result would still be 2D sprites drawn offline by artists, but the drudge work of animating the individual frames could be done with animation software.