Sprite resolution vs story image resolution

[iNol]

Casual discussion guys. So BB is created with 768p in mind right? The intriguing part is, the combat sprite for characters and their story sprite/image are significantly different. On the story dialogue, the image has very smooth lines (HD), but the combat sprites is noticeably jagged. How come? The screen is equally 768p right?

My first guess, the combat sprite looks like created using 3D models printed into 2D sprites so the jagging is like 768p 3D. But do they really create the sprites that way? What I've heard so far is the sprites being hand drawn.

Example of smooth images (see Izayoi), zoom to actual size: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388750/ss_bfb96daf1cf51ca74684f03bd9d31e03d348f978.1920x1080.jpg?t=1455356421

Example of jagged (see Ragna's hair and sword), zoom to actual size: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388750/ss_d024e349eba0c190287b18c78a77e37128ff596f.1920x1080.jpg?t=1455356421

[Xixott]

The smoothness might be because the image for the character is a static image made more for promotional purposes. I also don't think the any of the characters take their exact character select poses. Sprites are also notably more jaggy because they have to move, so each frame is animated and has to be done in very short order. Think of it as creator discretion.

[Milien]

Originally posted by iNol iGunggung:

Casual discussion guys. So BB is created with 768p in mind right? The intriguing part is, the combat sprite for characters and their story sprite/image are significantly different. On the story dialogue, the image has very smooth lines (HD), but the combat sprites is noticeably jagged. How come? The screen is equally 768p right?

My first guess, the combat sprite looks like created using 3D models printed into 2D sprites so the jagging is like 768p 3D. But do they really create the sprites that way? What I've heard so far is the sprites being hand drawn.

Example of smooth images (see Izayoi), zoom to actual size: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388750/ss_bfb96daf1cf51ca74684f03bd9d31e03d348f978.1920x1080.jpg?t=1455356421

Example of jagged (see Ragna's hair and sword), zoom to actual size: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/388750/ss_d024e349eba0c190287b18c78a77e37128ff596f.1920x1080.jpg?t=1455356421

You're quite right about combat sprites.
http://www.siliconera.com/2012/02/09/the-art-of-blazblue-part-2-animation-phase/

The images that appears in Story Mode are just CGI (if it's what You meant). I guess it's the same for portraits in selection screen.

[Dashiell]

As others said, sprites are animated therefore stuck in their resolution and any manipulation will reflect on quality.
The rest of arts are CGIs which are quite flexible (they even might be drawn as vector graphics which will resize perfectly to any resolution), resizing original image using proper software and techniques will maintain good quality, 768p to 1080p means raising size by 40% which is not that much, more quality loss shows after 100% resize where one pixel becomes 4.

Story Mode uses something similar to E-Mote engine for visual novels but animates only face, shame but I imagine that with Makoto's tail moving around people would have hard time progressing forward :D

[Samus]

You must be new to games in general...
What they used ingame is pixel art, you can commonly see it in old games that had limitations and could only draw a certain amount of pixels on screen at once. The one blazblue uses is really advanced tho.
The portraits are just illustrations, you can't see the edges on them cause they are way higher resolution than the sprites, if you were to zoom in a lot you would start to see the pixels that compose the image and you would probably enter a similar resolution range as the one used for the sprites.
A fighting game that doesnt use pixel art is skullgirls which uses a way different method to create the sprites but you can see they are much higher quality even tho they dont give the same feeling as pixel art which imo suits anime games better.

[Red]

Well, if you check the fan kits on the Japanese websites, it is true that illustrations on the character select screen are more "promotional" since they are reused on posters and ads, while on the other hand characters sprite are HD pixel art. The first BlazBlue came out in 2008/2009 so maybe now they could increase the quality of the sprites (for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions) but it would take time to make it happen and it wouldn't run on toasters anymore.

[iNol]

Originally posted by ebenmes:

You're quite right about combat sprites.
http://www.siliconera.com/2012/02/09/the-art-of-blazblue-part-2-animation-phase/

The images that appears in Story Mode are just CGI (if it's what You meant). I guess it's the same for portraits in selection screen.

So that's how they make it. The combat sprites are created fundamentally from 3D models, printed into 768p 2D, which explains the jagginess characteristic of 768p 3D (no antialias). This is the perfect answer, thanks!

In story mode I mean the visual novel part, not the movie part, the image looks like the ones on character select. I guess those images are not as many as the combat sprite so they can make hand drawn images for them, which don't have the jagginess characteristic from 768p 3D.

Originally posted by Dashiell:

The rest of arts are CGIs which are quite flexible (they even might be drawn as vector graphics which will resize perfectly to any resolution), resizing original image using proper software and techniques will maintain good quality, 768p to 1080p means raising size by 40% which is not that much, more quality loss shows after 100% resize where one pixel becomes 4.

Story Mode uses something similar to E-Mote engine for visual novels but animates only face, shame but I imagine that with Makoto's tail moving around people would have hard time progressing forward :D

I mean the visual novel part, not the movie part. My screen is only 768p so I can't tell if it's vector or simply hand drawn 768p animated with visual novel engine. My best guess is simple 768p hand drawn 2D because the game is based on japanese arcade machine.

Originally posted by Tatsumaki:

You must be new to games in general...
What they used ingame is pixel art, you can commonly see it in old games that had limitations and could only draw a certain amount of pixels on screen at once. The one blazblue uses is really advanced tho.
The portraits are just illustrations, you can't see the edges on them cause they are way higher resolution than the sprites, if you were to zoom in a lot you would start to see the pixels that compose the image and you would probably enter a similar resolution range as the one used for the sprites.
A fighting game that doesnt use pixel art is skullgirls which uses a way different method to create the sprites but you can see they are much higher quality even tho they dont give the same feeling as pixel art which imo suits anime games better.

Been PC gamer since Presitorik 2 lol. I'm familiar with sprite games, my original pondering is that why the BB sprites that afaik hand drawn has jaggy characteristics of 768p 3D, which ebenmes have answered above. Skullgirls is more traditional 2D in a sense each sprite is hand drawn without the use of any 3D models, so no 3D jagginess on the sprites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VkDXBsIXso

Originally posted by Red:

Well, if you check the fan kits on the Japanese websites, it is true that illustrations on the character select screen are more "promotional" since they are reused on posters and ads, while on the other hand characters sprite are HD pixel art. The first BlazBlue came out in 2008/2009 so maybe now they could increase the quality of the sprites (for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions) but it would take time to make it happen and it wouldn't run on toasters anymore.

Not gonna happen until japanese arcades have higher res lol. Besides I think they will move to Xrd's engine for future games, which can efficiently satisfy any resolution.

[iNol]

Originally posted by Antoni:

My graphics card is a Sapphire R9 380X Nitro (4GB)

I could easily run this game at 1440p without even breaking a sweat.... but after BBCSE looked so horrible and jaggy at 1080p, i will be staying with 720p settings for Chronophantasma

I'd suggest 768p windowed mode, which is the true sprite size of the game.

[Dashiell]

I suggest 768p full screen with GPU scaling because we're playing on PC for reason.

[Red]

Originally posted by Antoni:

My graphics card is a Sapphire R9 380X Nitro (4GB)

I could easily run this game at 1440p without even breaking a sweat.... but after BBCSE looked so horrible and jaggy at 1080p, i will be staying with 720p settings for Chronophantasma

Are you sure the game is not running on your processor's GPU like an Intel HD Graphics? Check that in your GPU's control panel. Also you can run the game in any resolution, I don't think it will change much. But play with the arcade display, even if there are black borders the image is not stretched this way.

[Red]

Okay, just ignore what I've said :

Originally posted by Dashiell:

All my friends using Radeon cards have the same problem. Opening as the only movie without subs plays fine but every other cutscene has stuttering on video, ofc I can play them fine out of game so it has to be subtitle render.

As he said, there's probably an issue with AMD cards. What's strange though is that Taito Type X2 arcade stands can use either AMD or Nvidia GPUs, and consoles are built with AMD GPUs, and it seems to run well...

[Milien]

Originally posted by iNol iGunggung:

In story mode I mean the visual novel part, not the movie part, the image looks like the ones on character select. I guess those images are not as many as the combat sprite so they can make hand drawn images for them, which don't have the jagginess characteristic from 768p 3D.

I know what You meant. The visual novel part is made of computer generated images, like this[vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net]. It's the way how it's done in VN genre.

[Dashiell]

I just remembered that these are buyable in CSE gallery http://i.imgur.com/fGEEFMG.png