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Congrats. You just missed the whole point of retro game development.


Definitely, but I also think it's impossible in real life to jump over someone else... unless you start from the top of a wall or something. Without any running up, you could barely jump to a heigh of 50 cm, 1/3 of a very small person's heigth.

Okay, so this is super rough, but I wanted to post something productive on this topic. I'm on hold on doing anything for Vigilante Ninja so I'll work some on the animations for this project in hope it gets to going.

I wanted to start with a template for a character. This is what I came up with:



Then I wanted to attempt a punch animation, and my very first step for animation is usually to make some super rough outlines to make sure I get the motion I want. That's the point that I'm at right now and here's a super rough punch animation:



So, I'm hoping to get some feedback before I go further. Any feedback or edits would be appreciated. If there's stuff we want to change about the first frame of the template, better to do that before fleshing out the others.

Also, is it worthwhile to have a template or will every character have a unique stance?



I love it how rainwarrior's post reads like a TL:DR for the whole discussion.

The first problem I see here is the legs, they're really not convincing. They are also proportionally too short.

Yeah, the legs are really weird, and especially so in the animation. He's bending forward and moving his butt back, nobody punches like that. Generally you move your whole body forward a little bit, and step forward with one foot to keep the balance after throwing your arm forward.

What if he is supposed to be a little teenage?

Proportions don't necessarily mean much in videogames, where a wide range of deformities are considered normal and even cute.

Maybe the whole reason you want to do it, but not me. I wanted to prove how powerful these old systems are without the things that constrained developers from back in the day, like cartridge size. I mean, I'm not going to be a jackass with it and make really bloated code, but if I had to choose between processing power vs. memory, I'd choose memory. That's why I'm probably not even going to deal with compression, because the CPU will be busy with handling objects, and I like shooters and games like this were the only limit to the amount of objects is CPU time or PPU bandwidth.

Basically, I want to see how well the SNES would look if it got the Neo Geo treatment. I don't think that's "missing the whole point of retro game development."

A literal "Neo Geo treatment" would make Mario Paint, Jurassic Park, Wolfenstein 3D, and Qix impossible. While all existing MVS/AES cart boards use CHR ROM for sprites and fix layer tiles, these four games render to CHR RAM in real time based on user input. The moving objects in JP and Wolf3D could be drawn with sprite shrinking, but not the walls. But they'd work on Neo Geo CD, which uses CHR RAM, or on a custom MVS or AES board that links the PRG and CHR boards with a ribbon cable and a bus arbitrator that connects CHR RAM to PRG address space during downtime (e.g. vblank).

And the Super NES is known for playing music through ADPCM channels. How would that work on the Neo Geo, most of whose ADPCM channels are fixed to 18 kHz? A Mellotron-style setup where each pitch gets its own sample? Perhaps music would still have to sound like Genesis music. Or would you just do it MSU1-style and make the whole soundtrack a single 18k sample?

Ha, ha, ha...



What you've said is correct, but I don't see why so many people say it's "impossible". Star Fox on the SNES is possible, but 1080p video isn't. That's the way I see "possible". When it's "impossible" is when you actually have to change electrical components inside the system.

CHR RAM on Neo Geo MVS/AES is "possible" in the same way that a grainy approximation of GameCube graphics on an NES is "possible" through a TV tuner that outputs CHR data. It's possible in theory but probably too expensive to bother.

Well, it would be cool as a test. I imagine Neo Geo carts are already expensive though.

I'm derailing this even further, but I've always wanted to know, are you the only one who's been making the "240 pixel suite" programs? I just wonder because they're on so many different systems, and I wonder how you did it on things like the GameCube.

Most of the 240p test suite ports are by Artemio Urbina and his friends at shmups.system11.org. Mine was a complete rewrite from scratch, optimized for space (48K vs. about 512K for the SNES version).

Definitely, and a fightin game doesn't have to preserve the typical 1/3/4 proportions (where the head is 1/8th, the body 3/8th and the legs 4/8th).

Typically the head is much bigger, for the simple reason is where we need to show detial, but I believe the body/legs ratio of 3/4 should be preserved, even in SD graphics. Here it's clearly not the case, the legs are smaller than the body. Or maybe I just say something wrong, I don't know, but something looks wrong about the legs, I cannot say what exactly.

I could send you the model I used for my fighting game, but only if you're interested.


Why not, but that feels like having a sport car with tractor tires, that is, two things not adapted to eachother.

I'm pretty sure the body of Manny Garcia from Disney's Handy Manny is longer than three-fourths of the legs. The legs are also a bit shorter in anthropomorphic "funny animal" characters, as humans tend to have some of the longest legs (relative to body) in the mammal class.

I definitely don't mind to make the legs longer. Let's try to get a first frame for a first character that we like.


Please do. I was going to use some more realistic images for reference before the next edit.

Edit: Also, I'm curious whether or not it's worthwhile to even make a template. It might be common that there are a couple very similar fighters (eg. Ryu and Ken) but for the most part, fighters tend to have very different stances and movement. I wonder if it would be more fitting to start with designing a character.