DBZ: Ultimate Blast/Tenkaichi (Pre-Release Discussion)

[The S]

Look at the clipping in the character outfit with the shoulder cutting through the armor. This has been happening for years, and it's because they're still using the same basic models and animations they created back in 2005. It has a shiny coat of paint on top, but the underlying code and rendering is exactly the same... resulting in presentation issues that should have been solved years ago.

Look at Gohan's hand grasping his arm -- because it's not. It's bulky, it's not actually making contact, and it's just kinda floating in the appropriate space. Again, this is because they're using the same shit from 2005 to create this new game.

Um, boss, I don't know what sort of games you play outside of the realm of DragonBall, but every single 3D game has clipping issues of some sort.

Every. Single. ONE.

Don't get me wrong, it makes me livid as shit that SOMEONE couldn't focus on this and get it right, but it's been happening since at least the PS1 days, if not earlier (I think Ballz 3D for Genesis had this problem too).

So yeah... while it needs to be addressed, it's not unique to DragonBall, or even secluded to poorly made/low budget games. I've seen some of the biggest blockbusters have this problem time and time again.

Clipping detection is the least of Spike's worries, I'd say, though.

(And if someone can find me an example of a 3D game with ZERO clipping issues whatsoever, I will totally kiss you.)

[goldsaint13]

Well in Raging Blast 1 and 2 Goku's second costume has the pre-Rosat hair with the big chuncks and he's in his Freeza saga gi.

It's not enough...

That Goku uses also the Yardrath costume and the kanjiless/band costume (and the Battle Suit, to be accurate)...

In Tenkaichi 3 even Late Goku, if given the Battle Suit costume, retains his early SSJ hairs...

As far as Goku's body looking different thats mostly because Toriyama's art style was getting more detailed, so I dont think thats really worth having a seperate character for though I guess it could be a "skin".

I don't think so... When Full Power SSJ are relaxed their hairs are still mostly like those of early SSJ... It's the Full Power boost that changed the heairs greatly...

It's good to have the pre-RoSaT hairs as a skin, but it should be used with any costume...

[ArchedThunder]

Look at the clipping in the character outfit with the shoulder cutting through the armor. This has been happening for years, and it's because they're still using the same basic models and animations they created back in 2005. It has a shiny coat of paint on top, but the underlying code and rendering is exactly the same... resulting in presentation issues that should have been solved years ago.

Look at Gohan's hand grasping his arm -- because it's not. It's bulky, it's not actually making contact, and it's just kinda floating in the appropriate space. Again, this is because they're using the same shit from 2005 to create this new game.

Um, boss, I don't know what sort of games you play outside of the realm of DragonBall, but every single 3D game has clipping issues of some sort.

Every. Single. ONE.

Don't get me wrong, it makes me livid as shit that SOMEONE couldn't focus on this and get it right, but it's been happening since at least the PS1 days, if not earlier (I think Ballz 3D for Genesis had this problem too).

So yeah... while it needs to be addressed, it's not unique to DragonBall, or even secluded to poorly made/low budget games. I've seen some of the biggest blockbusters have this problem time and time again.

Clipping detection is the least of Spike's worries, I'd say, though.

(And if someone can find me an example of a 3D game with ZERO clipping issues whatsoever, I will totally kiss you.)

Most clipping isn't even their fault, for instance the design of the armor does not lend to arm movement, you are going to get clipping no matter what. Also with the way the Character models are done with current technology you CAN NOT get rid of clipping in this generation, and probably not even in the coming generation, it's just the way interactive models work. They have to be restricted in the way they move, they can't be free like CG models.

Also VegettoEX, I noticed you don't know what you are talking about since you didn't even use half of the right terms and most of what you said was completely wrong. I'm not bashing you, it's just obvious you don't know what you are talking about and you should try and watch what you say.

[Patient-mental]

Armor can be animated to shift, the outfit is super flexible and thats how it should react to movement. It shouldn't clip the saiyan armor. ever.

[ShinMassa]

Armor can be animated to shift, the outfit is super flexible and thats how it should react to movement. It shouldn't clip the saiyan armor. ever.

Well, guess what.
Games aren't perfect, nor accurate.

[Taku128]

You're either lying to yourself or only play anime games if you think clipping errors are that common in every game, more-so if said clipping errors are the character's own model clipping into itself during an animation. Plenty of games avoid having clothing or hair clipping through the character models, why can't DBZ?

I don't understand why people are so adamant about defending the big video game corporation that makes millions of dollars but can't even be assed to make some new animations to go along with the new character model so it doesn't clip through itself. Shouldn't you as a consumer expect more? Why should you not only excuse the low effort Spike puts into these games, but then also defend this laziness?

[mysticboy]

You're either lying to yourself or only play anime games if you think clipping errors are that common in every game, more-so if said clipping errors are the character's own model clipping into itself during an animation. Plenty of games avoid having clothing or hair clipping through the character models, why can't DBZ?

Uh... clipping hair and clothing is very common in video games point blank period.

[Taku128]

You're either lying to yourself or only play anime games if you think clipping errors are that common in every game, more-so if said clipping errors are the character's own model clipping into itself during an animation. Plenty of games avoid having clothing or hair clipping through the character models, why can't DBZ?

Uh... clipping hair and clothing is very common in video games point blank period.

Maybe five years ago, nowadays hair and clothing clipping errors generally don't happen unless a game either has a low budget (Deadly Premonition) or the developers don't give a shit (Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi)

[mckeg]

You're either lying to yourself or only play anime games if you think clipping errors are that common in every game, more-so if said clipping errors are the character's own model clipping into itself during an animation. Plenty of games avoid having clothing or hair clipping through the character models, why can't DBZ?

Uh... clipping hair and clothing is very common in video games point blank period.

Maybe five years ago, nowadays hair and clothing clipping errors generally don't happen unless a game either has a low budget (Deadly Premonition) or the developers don't give a shit (Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi)

Wrongo matey, the overwhelming majority of games have some form of clipping. It can be addressed by CGI techniques like dynamic clothing physics or soft body dynamics, however realtime rendering doesn't have the luxury of that many spare cpu cycles usually. semi effective realtime dynamic clothing effects are present now, and were introduced way back in the 90's with virtuafighter3.

Guess what though? clipping still happens and can't be avoided totally. It's fairly cpu intensive on my 3.2ghz 6 core PC when I'm doing CGI rendering, I'm pretty sure 5 year old console tech would struggle to do that in realtime on top of all the other workload of running this style of game. VirtuaFighter5 and SoulCalibur4 do it, but the stages are very locked in and more controlled then whats happening during spikes games.

Modern AAA title developers do put the extra care/time into avoiding this by optimising animations and such, but look hard enough and 90%+ of games you spot it here and there.

[Patient-mental]

VegettoEX is only stating that it can be avoidable because it's been a blatant problem (esp the Gohan arm) which should have been resolved 5 years ago and not just had a new set of clothes slapped on top instead of rotating the shoulder padding to avoid connection.

[VegettoEX]

VegettoEX is only stating that it can be avoidable because it's been a blatant problem (esp the Gohan arm) which should have been resolved 5 years ago and not just had a new set of clothes slapped on top instead of rotating the shoulder padding to avoid connection.

Yep, this. Forget other games -- this is about DBZ games, here.

I'm well aware of the problems that games still have to this day (pop-up, clipping, frame rate stutters, etc.), but this is specifically stuff in the DBZ games that I find unacceptable because it's literally the same character models and animations from a PS2 game being shoved in to the new era by a developer whose character models were never a strong point in the first place. It's yearly garbage that could be avoided with time and care; instead, I'm watching the same thing over and over and over.

I get that, to some degree, Namco-Bandai isn't willing to take the risk of a year off from a main console fighting game release to actually "fix" things and expect an audience to still be there two or three years later willing to give it another chance.

On the flip-side, were I not running a site about this stuff, I certainly wouldn't still be playing these games each year based on what they present to me.

A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result at some point down the line. I've been playing this series of games (Sparking!-engine) since 2005. Thankfully I stopped paying for them after three.

[Eddie]

I get that, to some degree, Namco-Bandai isn't willing to take the risk of a year off from a main console fighting game release to actually "fix" things and expect an audience to still be there two or three years later willing to give it another chance.

The best solution to that particular problem would be for Namco-Bandai to do a rotation of some sort. They've shown a willingness to use different developers in the past, and the Dragon Ball franchise is fun in multiple kinds of fighting games. If the "DBZ Simulator" game was a bi-annual project with a full development cycle, it really could be a great series. Fill in the gaps with Budokai style or arcade fighters, maybe even something different from time to time (Bardock Action-RPG), and you still have your annual DB game.

[Jaruka]

A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result at some point down the line. I've been playing this series of games (Sparking!-engine) since 2005. Thankfully I stopped paying for them after three.

At least this time we actually have a different fighting engine this time.

[Patient-mental]

Eddie, so COD mk II. With Infinity Ward (The good one) and Treyarch doing the games bi-yearly.

[Saimaroimaru]

I get that, to some degree, Namco-Bandai isn't willing to take the risk of a year off from a main console fighting game release to actually "fix" things and expect an audience to still be there two or three years later willing to give it another chance.

The best solution to that particular problem would be for Namco-Bandai to do a rotation of some sort. They've shown a willingness to use different developers in the past, and the Dragon Ball franchise is fun in multiple kinds of fighting games. If the "DBZ Simulator" game was a bi-annual project with a full development cycle, it really could be a great series. Fill in the gaps with Budokai style or arcade fighters, maybe even something different from time to time (Bardock Action-RPG), and you still have your annual DB game.

I agree a rotation would be smart. Let Dimps take one year and then Spike or whoever is gonna take the contract the year after that. In todays standard 1 year development time just doesn't cut it.

[mystic trunks]

I vote for a Dimps/ Cyberconnect2 rotation.

[ShinMassa]

You're either lying to yourself or only play anime games if you think clipping errors are that common in every game, more-so if said clipping errors are the character's own model clipping into itself during an animation. Plenty of games avoid having clothing or hair clipping through the character models, why can't DBZ?

Uh... clipping hair and clothing is very common in video games point blank period.

Maybe five years ago, nowadays hair and clothing clipping errors generally don't happen unless a game either has a low budget (Deadly Premonition) or the developers don't give a shit (Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi)

Big games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Gears of War, and especially Call of Duty have clipping errors on the character models and environment interacting. You obviously don't know much about games.

[VegettoEX]

I think my presentation criticisms are being taken as something they're not.

I'm well aware that even "big games" have tons of problems. I'm not denying that.

My complaint isn't that there are presentation issues AT ALL, but that it's the same set of problems that have been there since 2005 because they're still using what appear to be the exact same assets that they developed... err... back in 2005. I'd have to go back to some stuff in Raging Blast 2 to check, but I'd wager that some of the new characters (well, new for them) don't have a lot of the baggage that staples like Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, etc. all have because they're new creations rather than what the dog dragged in from the PS2.

I mean, seriously y'allz -- by all accounts, this seems to be the same game that it's been since 2005. Sure, now it's in HD and runs at 60 fps (oh, and like I mentioned, now you can double-tab "X" to dash behind your opponent!), but every single trailer and every single announcement and everything else seems almost laughable at this point in how much what's old is new. There was that thread a while back asking if HD remakes of some of the PS2 games would be interesting, and I know some people already stated this, but we *are* playing HD remakes of the Sparking! series!

[Taku128]

Maybe five years ago, nowadays hair and clothing clipping errors generally don't happen unless a game either has a low budget (Deadly Premonition) or the developers don't give a shit (Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi)

Big games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Gears of War, and especially Call of Duty have clipping errors on the character models and environment interacting. You obviously don't know much about games.

I never said it was non-existent, I said it wasn't as common as people are making it out to be. Yes those games have clipping problems, but you don't see them nearly as often in those games as you do a DBZ game. Most animators would notice when making that animation that the character's shoulder pads clip through their body and fix it.

[ArchedThunder]

VegettoEX is only stating that it can be avoidable because it's been a blatant problem (esp the Gohan arm) which should have been resolved 5 years ago and not just had a new set of clothes slapped on top instead of rotating the shoulder padding to avoid connection.

Yep, this. Forget other games -- this is about DBZ games, here.

I'm well aware of the problems that games still have to this day (pop-up, clipping, frame rate stutters, etc.), but this is specifically stuff in the DBZ games that I find unacceptable because it's literally the same character models and animations from a PS2 game being shoved in to the new era by a developer whose character models were never a strong point in the first place. It's yearly garbage that could be avoided with time and care; instead, I'm watching the same thing over and over and over.

I get that, to some degree, Namco-Bandai isn't willing to take the risk of a year off from a main console fighting game release to actually "fix" things and expect an audience to still be there two or three years later willing to give it another chance.

On the flip-side, were I not running a site about this stuff, I certainly wouldn't still be playing these games each year based on what they present to me.

A popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result at some point down the line. I've been playing this series of games (Sparking!-engine) since 2005. Thankfully I stopped paying for them after three.

Yet again, you don't know what you are talking about.