Where's the next Dragon's Lair?
Joystiq found a complete run-through of the 1980s game Dragon's Lair up on YouTube that's worth a look (there's also a run-through of Space Ace that shows up on the YouTube page). The game was fully animated (by Don Bluth, who made American Tail and Land Before Time), but because of the sophisticated look it wasn't much of a game. You move the joystick or hit the sword button when light prompts flash, and don't actually control anything. Plus the sequences are each very brief and progress randomly.
Every time I see Dragon's Lair mentioned, I wonder when we'll ever see a game that looks so good but is actually playable. Cel-shaded games like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Sly Cooper are a step in that direction, but they're nothing like playing an actual cartoon. I'm really looking forward to Okami, which looks like hand-drawn Japanese art, but that's also a cel-shaded game.
Are there any animators or gaming folks out there who can say what the technical challenges of a fully hand-drawn animated game are, and if those difficulties will be overcome anytime soon? Are the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 powerful enough to support hand-drawn video games? Do we have to wait until the next next-generation? Will there ever be a hand-drawn game, given that even Disney has stopped making traditional animated movies? That would be a shame if we finally reached a point where the technology can support a true cartoon game but nobody bothers to try because 3-D animation is so dominant.
Every time I see Dragon's Lair mentioned, I wonder when we'll ever see a game that looks so good but is actually playable. Cel-shaded games like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Sly Cooper are a step in that direction, but they're nothing like playing an actual cartoon. I'm really looking forward to Okami, which looks like hand-drawn Japanese art, but that's also a cel-shaded game.
Are there any animators or gaming folks out there who can say what the technical challenges of a fully hand-drawn animated game are, and if those difficulties will be overcome anytime soon? Are the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 powerful enough to support hand-drawn video games? Do we have to wait until the next next-generation? Will there ever be a hand-drawn game, given that even Disney has stopped making traditional animated movies? That would be a shame if we finally reached a point where the technology can support a true cartoon game but nobody bothers to try because 3-D animation is so dominant.
1 Comments:
At 02:39, Long time reader, first time poster said…
The Guilty Gear series of fighting games uses an art style that very much resembles Anime cel art. The game also runs at an amazingly high frame considering its all frame by frame sprites (read: not 3D skeletal movement sequences).
That's the closest a game has come to actually using hand drawn art I think. But what you're asking is if it is possible to create a graphics engine powerful enough to render what would appear to be traditionally drawn art as opposed to the cel shading we see today (which is basically a shading trick with an outline). Considering that Photoshop, practically sinces its inception, has had filters that mock different brush strokes and art styles (stained glass, pencil sketching, sponge effects etc) I don't see why this isn't possible today. Especially with the next generation on the horizon, this may become a reality pretty soon.
I'm no professor on the subject, but from what I understand, there are a few ways to go about it. One, and probably impractical, way would be to use a post process. Something like the fade in/out effects before battles in FF games (game action freezing and screen going blurry n stuff). But this would have to be done for every pass that the engine renders the scene (at least 60 times a second), after it renders the entire scene. Hence why its not practical unless GPUs could handle it easily. Cel shading can be applied to individual objects, and not just the whole scene, so it can be sparingly used and help limit strain on processing power. This is why you see world detail usually just flat textures like in Wind Waker and Viewtiful Joe, but characters are actually rendered in Cel Shaded style.
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