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

[Saimaroimaru]

Well, I'm not too sure if they can't just grab the models and revamp them, which honestly looks like what they've been doing. Even if that's not the case, designing a new skin isn't that hard, I mean, sprites are much harder to do and it would take about 2 days to design a full set of different coloured sprites, depending on the number of sprites per character. So again, yeah, designing a new skin for polygonal graphics should take a full day.

Oh? Can you go through in detail how to create a model from UT or RB2? I didn't know it took 2 days per character. Sorry if I sound rude but I just want to know where people get their time estimates and stuff.

[DNA]

Oh? Can you go through in detail how to create a model from UT or RB2? I didn't know it took 2 days per character. Sorry if I sound rude but I just want to know where people get their time estimates and stuff.

When did I say it takes two days to build a polygonal model? I said it takes about two days to build a full sprite chart, and I know that because I've got a friend working with sprites. And I also said it takes about a day or so to build a SKIN for a polygonal model; which I can't said with 100% certainty, but with my own experience, plus a fair deal of friends in the business, that's my estimate. What's your estimate? What's your experience?

[TheDevilsCorpse]

When did I say it takes two days to build a polygonal model? I said it takes about two days to build a full sprite chart, and I know that because I've got a friend working with sprites. And I also said it takes about a day or so to build a SKIN for a polygonal model; which I can't said with 100% certainty, but with my own experience, plus a fair deal of friends in the business, that's my estimate. What's your estimate? What's your experience?

Depending on the sprites, it can take significantly more than two days to finish a sprite sheet depending on the size of the sprites, level of detail, and number of poses. This comes from personal experience, as I've done pixel art for most of my life (at least 12 years now). That said, 3D model work is significantly harder, but probably not much for those who know what they are doing. I've tried messing around in software like Blender, and I can't do squat, but that means nothing since I have no clue what I'm doing and Spike obviously does (though some people who don't like their models may debate that, we can agree they have more skill than I do). Dragon Ball isn't a very detail oriented series, there isn't any intricate clothing like in Final Fantasy or anything, so models are pretty basic. They don't even have to start from scratch most of the time, as most characters and their alternate costumes share similar clothes, faces, and hair styles. I'm going to side with it taking longer than a day, but not more than a week to finish a skin, especially now that they have to make alterations for the progressive battle damage for each new and old skin. Though, for characters that share a lot details with each other, you are probably right. I doubt it took them very long to give Goku a belt instead of a sash, or to change the kanji on his dogi, or to cut his hair to make him Ultimate Gohan. lol

[DNA]

*wall of text*

Well, yeah, that's what I said on the previous page, it depends on the sprite chart itself, Street Fighter III sprites for example are much harder. But like you said, with polygonal models, once you know what you're doing, it's much easier, it's not like you have to "draw" everything by hand, most programs that work with polygonals have tools that do most of the work for you, and Spike should have they're own programs and engines prepared for all that, it's not really a case of "redrawing" everything, it's more like "sandpapering" the old stuff. This is exactly why you have more "remakes" of 3D games than old 2D games, it's harder to up the graphics on 2D than on 3D. And again, exactly own you said it, most characters share details, to make a Kuririn, you just have to shorten Goku's polygonal model and give it a different head shape. Once you know how to work with the engine, it's not rocket science, it's mostly copy, paste and manipulate the same base model. How else do you think you had as many character has you did in Tenkaichi 3? It's exactly for that reason.

Edit: Yeah, "a day" was more like a figure of speech, but it really doesn't take that long, a single person can do it. You don't need a whole team do make a skin.

To add to what I just said, this is why you rarely have 2D sprite games with many characters, the two main examples are Street Fighter Alpha 3 with had more than thirty characters, but many where clones, and making clones is easier than from scratch. The other example are SNK's games and they had a rough couple of years in the past.

[Haseowolf]

As a 3d modeler and texture artist I can say that it takes a bit more time than what you're describing. Organic models (characters and the like) are one of the harder projects someone can do. After building the model, one cannot simply make a texture (skin) for the model. First you've gotta go through the unwrapping process to unpack the UV points(coordinates on the model of where parts of a texture will be) on the model. That in itself is quite the undertaking. I've only been doing these for couple of years, but I can tell you its not an easy feat. Only after unwrapping all of the UV points can you start painting a texture in Photoshop or whatever other paint/image manipulation program you use. Sure, you can paint right onto the model in programs like Z-Brush or Mudbox, but you still have to have a properly unwrapped model.

After that comes rigging and skinning. You've got a build a rig for how that character will move. Once that's done you've gotta skin it to the model. This isn't an easy process. After skinning the model you've gotta paint weights to make sure the model moves, bends, and folds at all the right places without some weird pinching or stretching. Then Ta-Da! You've got a finished and animation-ready model.

I'm not too familiar with what the process is for transferring a rig and animation keys from one model to another as it seems that Spike did that between the Sparking! and the Raging Blast and Ultimate Tenka'ichi/Blast games. This process could make it easier for getting characters over from previous iterations as you'd only need to make new models and/or textures.

I'm not a complete expert on getting this all done in a quick and zippy manner, but I know that doing stuff like this does. take. time.

[DNA]

Fair enough, I'll take it from someone who's more experienced than me. I always had the feeling that it didn't take that long, but if you say it does, I believe you; especially since I've never done it myself.

[BobZ]

Wasn't there supposed to be a new trailer coming out today?

[FlpShimizu]

Wasn't there supposed to be a new trailer coming out today?

That list is probably fake since we didn't get one last week too.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Wasn't there supposed to be a new trailer coming out today?

That list is probably fake since we didn't get one last week too.

Last memo we had about the trailer last week was that one was definitely supposed to be released, but apparently it contained stuff some people didn't want to show off yet (I guess?), because they were having trouble getting the okay to put it up.

[samuraix123]

Anybody know when they're going to tell what the Achievements are? I like getting them

[TheDevilsCorpse]

This may be a bit odd, but I've been playing RB2 a lot recently, and been getting a lot of perfects in my matches. I admit it'd be rather pointless, but I thought it'd be funny if a voice clip of Perfect Cell saying "Perfect" (for whatever language option) was played along side the text when it popped up after the match...

[sangofe]

Wasn't a new trailer supposed to come out today?

That list is probably fake since we didn't get one last week either.

Just fixed your grammar a bit. Please don't take it personal.

[InfernalVegito]

This may be a bit odd, but I've been playing RB2 a lot recently, and been getting a lot of perfects in my matches. I admit it'd be rather pointless, but I thought it'd be funny if a voice clip of Perfect Cell saying "Perfect" (for whatever language option) was played along side the text when it popped up after the match...

I approve of this! I can already hear him saying it in my head.

[FlpShimizu]

Wasn't a new trailer supposed to come out today?

That list is probably fake since we didn't get one last week either.

Just fixed your grammar a bit. Please don't take it personal.

No problem.

[Cold Skin]

Confirmed cutscenes for Ultimate Blast/Tenkaichi

Bardock special
-Bardock vs Freeza
-Goku meets Gohan

Saiyan arc
-Piccolo's sacrifice
-Vegeta turns into Oozaru

Freeza arc
-Goku's arrival
-Freeza's wrath
-Goku becomes SSJ

Cell arc
-Gohan becomes SSJ2
-Goku's sacrifice

Majin Buu arc
-The heroes' celebration

As you may already saw, a few previous cutscenes were not included in this games in animation form, most notably Goku's Genki Dama against Freeza as well as Kid Buu's death. Now as I already have mentioned above that these old cutscenes were less than 20 minutes, it will be interesting to see what scenes will be added.

I was already amazed by the fact of having a few remade scenes, but you make me hope that there will be a lot of great moments reanimated! I didn't know about the new trailer before I saw your post (since it is not yet available as a regular trailer, but only as filmed by people), but seeing that even little moments like Piccolo's sacrifice will be included makes me hope that there will be a good amount of reanimated scenes!

But most of all, it's your comparison with Infinite World and your analysis which makes me even more excited!! Apparently, 30 minutes can cover quite a number of scenes (even though one of the scenes will merely be the opening video for the game as a whole, outside of the story mode itself).

Questions remain that can only be answered when the game is released (I will buy it on the very first day, but I might not be able to connect to post answers on that day):

1. What scenes have been reanimated?
The main question to satisfy everyone's curiosity, cause I guess everybody would like their favorite scenes to be reanimated.

2. Is there an English dub for these scenes or do they automatically switch to Japanese?
Being French, I don't care about the English dub, but for those who do, it might seem like a clash if the story largely unfolds with English voice actors and then suddenly the voices switch to Japanese for a couple of minutes.

3. Are the scenes available on their own once the game is completed?
For example, Burst Limit featured the possibility of watching the pre-rendered videos once they had been seen (though there were few of them). And the reanimated scenes are pre-rendered.

4. Do they stick to the length of the original scenes?
We already saw that there are a few changes, but it seems they try to stick to the original anime rendition. For example, does this mean that we'll spend two minutes watching Goku being surrounded by lightnings before going Super Saiyan or will they shorten it similarly to Burst Limit? After all, some fans will think that it's better to have the original scene's length left untouched so that it's a true and faithful remastering keeping with the original emotion of the scene, while others will judge that not spending too much time on unnecessary moments will be more pleasant and save some time for other moments to be included in the 30 minutes.

5. What about the music?
It could be regular music used in the game and by the composer of the game, or a totally different and independant set of tracks similarly to the Raging Blast 2 movie conceived by the team in charge of the anime videos.

So here are good questions that can only find an answer in due time, it will be quite interesting to find out about these elements.

EDIT:
By seeing that video again, I just noticed that there are two other reanimated scenes confirmed at the end which are not on your list:
- Polunga disappears after the death of the Great Elder. (but this may be part of "Freeza's wrath" - after all, why make two videos when these events are just seconds apart?)
- Goku and Gohan hug when meeting again in the world of the Kaio Shin.

[Rocketman]

some fans will think that it's better to have the original scene's length left untouched so that it's a true and faithful remastering keeping with the original emotion of the scene

That emotion being "boredom".

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Another image of the opening animation which will be shown with Cha-La Head-Cha-La:


And the rest of the pages. They don't really show anything new, but there might be some minor details revealed. (BTW, seems to show confirmation of only 3 body types...) There will be a link to a bigger version of this image linked below in case someone can translate anything...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DFDN-kuGCb0/T ... C07260.jpg

[DNA]

Three body types huh, that's cheap... I'm not too interested in making variations of Saiyans and Humans; well, maybe if I change skin tones and shit I can make aliens, maybe I'll be able to make a member of Bojack's crew, although I don't think they would include that type of clothes, just because.

The re-animated scenes look wonderful although I shed a single tear because I wanted some Baby arc moments re-animated.

[Jaetinh]

So disappointed Saiyan Elite wasn't included in the opening nor have we seen anything from him in the pictures/trailers so I guess he won't be in the game, damn it. How hard would it had been to make all three of them instead of just including two.

Trio > Duo.

[goku the krump dancer]

Almost thought that we could mix and match clothing with the bottom left image but then I just remembered that its just Kuririn's gi .