Mortal Kombat HD Remix with MUGEN

You are so friggin talented. That being said, to me Grid's version sounds closer to the original. Your has such a polish to it though that it sounds like the soundtrack to a movie. Awesome work! I've kept it saved since I think it's soo cool.
 
Sweet! I guess Ducking block will be next?


I've made the cloth hang down straighter, and created a moving loop. If you hold block, he keeps moving a little like he's breathing. I got it in to mugen and it looks good. Aside from a minor shading bug I'm getting from Max.

The shadow on the inside of the back side of the vest flickers light to dark for some reason. I'm not sure why that's happening.


I'll post a gif soon..
 
You are so friggin talented. That being said, to me Grid's version sounds closer to the original. Your has such a polish to it though that it sounds like the soundtrack to a movie. Awesome work! I've kept it saved since I think it's soo cool.

Aw thanks for the kind words, man. Grid's most certainly is more accurate to the original. I took some liberties with the orchestration and tried to think what real instruments might play those parts in the original piece. It's funny, the piece is supposed to last like, what, ten seconds while the player scrambles for a quarter? So everything past the Ten count is kinda unnecessary anyway. :)
 
With this, you'll have people losing on purpose just to hear the track, you got Skills. Man I wanna do a different version of MK1 later, with new ideas like this.
 
k, have a look.

MK1_HD_Scorpion_StandBlock_04.gif
 
@Bleed - He looks great man! I'm seriously gonna feel guilty when I'm ripping his spine out. He looks too damn real! And I agree, in the right hands, a proper re-imagining of MK1 would be sick.

And thanks the rest of you guys for the kind words. I'm glad you're liking the piece!
 
@Justin Slaughter Holy hell man, that music is just damn great. Absolutely love.

@calactyte The stage is looking great. The flames are too cool.

@bleed I love that breath he takes when he holds his hands up. The animation is very well done.

I can't wait to play this game.
 
calactyte, i got the PM, thanks :)

I will try ho have done Goro Lair and Warrior Shrine this WeekEnd. We will need later the statues.
 

Awesome! I think you nailed it, it looks realistic and the tone is faithful to the original. I'd say it's pretty much done.

If there's any last possible improvements that could be made:

* The sky could be a touch lighter. Stripping the black at -100 in the Blues channel in selective color seems to do the trick.
* Not sure about the cast of flames on the wall, maybe they could be toned down in vibrance.
* If you make the pillar flame much smaller than the ones on the gate, I think it'll increase the depth and help the guards look more naturally distanced too.
* A darker/deeper red for the red fences? I'm just comparing to the original, don't know if it'd be an improvement but something to try.
* Flags could be more golden, for me they're too yellowish in color right now.

Other than that, I think it'd be great if you retraced the original dragons on the flags too, these ones look like they were taken from elsewhere.

And that should be it I think :)


Nice work man, I like the style! I've got something much different in mind for the version I'm working on with Grid, so I'm keen to show you a different interpretation of it.
 
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Yeah the background looks pretty golden to me too. Was the swf version supposed to be animated BTW? Because it didn't animate for me.
 
@Justin Slaughter your version is great :) just this sound, which is constant, like the violin must be in the background and quiet:) at least according to me, because mutes much of the main theme.
 
The torches look pretty cool, but will we be able to use alpha transparency? If not, perhaps there could be ways of producing similar effects with a combination of 1-bit transparency and additive transparency.

Some other thoughts:

- The light emitted from the torches is way too strong, and realistically shouldn't be visible at all. Having the wall lit by the torches implies that the torches cast a stronger light than the sun (while still being yellow = darker than the sun's bright white light) and just looks odd. It would work great in a more dimly lit arena but looks misplaced in a sunlit location.

- While on the subject of the right-hand wall, the red colour of the door reflected on the "doorframe" looks odd to me as well. It suggests some kind of polished marble, but the texture and shape of the wall (as well as common sense, I guess) suggests a much rougher stone material, which wouldn't reflect colour that way.

- The statues on the right have a few issues still. The sleeves hanging towards the ground look extremely thin - if this was carved out of stone, wouldn't the sleeve be part of the same solid piece as the rest of the statue? Their hands also look a bit wiry and thin, and the face is still a bit... derpy, in lack of a better word. They look like they have really stuffed lower lips, and the eyes kind of look more like a "T" shape extruded from the face than actual eyes. (Maybe it looks better at full resolution but that's how it reads in the pic you posted, anyway) Of course there could be some degree of stylization and lack of detail compared to an actual human face, but looking at them now I simply can't help feeling they look a little funny. Here are a bunch of references that may be helpful, here's another that looks very similar to the actual statues in the stage.

- Agreed completely on the dragon designs on the flags, they look more like a modern tattoo design than a traditional ornament. If the design is to be embellished I would much prefer something more along the lines of this or this.

- The clouds look very strange to me. The way they look now they kind of read more as exhaust or smoke than clouds. The sky is very bright yet the clouds are dark, with nothing to suggest that sunlight is shining on or through them. I'd think they should either be essentially pure white with varying degrees of transparency, and/or have a strong backlit silhouette to imply the sun shining on them from above/behind. At least part of the clouds need to be lighter than the sky behind them; doing a quick google search for references, I can't find a single picture of clouds that read as a single flat colour, yet appear darker than the sky.

- The shadows coming into the picture seems to have been reduced which is definitely an improvement (although you know I'd like to see them completely gone ;)), but some shadowy areas like the one around the statue in the background (right underneath the torches no less) are a bit befuddling still.



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Bleed, the blocking animation look much, much better now. Good call on adding a loop for the blocking pose, I was thinking of it myself and would suggest doing the same for the crouching idle/blocking pose as well.



Justin, great work on the music. Sounds fantastic. I don't really have anything else to add.



A thought on the "Goro Lives..." screen - why not add a bit of animation? Nothing huge of course, but I think it could look really cool if Goro was actually breathing and blinking (ie, being a LIVING thing ;)) as opposed to just being a cardboard cutout. On the same note, the backdrop always seemed to me like some sort of lights/laser/etc shining through smoke, like at a concert or something - maybe that could be animated as well? Just a thought.
 
Hmm, I can pull out the lighting effect. My thinking was that this light source being closer to the stone would cast some reflections. But perhaps you are right. Maybe this is too strongly lit of an area for that to be visible.

Since both you and Jarvis mentioned the dragons I can redraw them. I may need the original flags from Badmouse though.

I disagree about the bounced light coming from the big red door. I think you are assuming that rough objects (the stone) could not have any reflectivity. I can tell you that realistic stone does have reflectivity although its probably more subtle then what you are seeing here. I've made the red a bit more visible which is the way the arcade is as well. To be fair the arcade stone looks smoother but surface roughness doesn't entirely determine reflectivity.

I agree about the shadow being reduce a bit just underneath the torch light. I was intending to fix that.


EDIT: actually in thinking about this, if the bounced light is present and there is some reflectivity to the stone then there would be some reflected light coming from the torches. Maybe I can tone it down instead of removing it completely. Not sure what I'll do about this yet.


The torches look pretty cool, but will we be able to use alpha transparency? If not, perhaps there could be ways of producing similar effects with a combination of 1-bit transparency and additive transparency.

Some other thoughts:

- The light emitted from the torches is way too strong, and realistically shouldn't be visible at all. Having the wall lit by the torches implies that the torches cast a stronger light than the sun (while still being yellow = darker than the sun's bright white light) and just looks odd. It would work great in a more dimly lit arena but looks misplaced in a sunlit location.

- While on the subject of the right-hand wall, the red colour of the door reflected on the "doorframe" looks odd to me as well. It suggests some kind of polished marble, but the texture and shape of the wall (as well as common sense, I guess) suggests a much rougher stone material, which wouldn't reflect colour that way.

- The statues on the right have a few issues still. The sleeves hanging towards the ground look extremely thin - if this was carved out of stone, wouldn't the sleeve be part of the same solid piece as the rest of the statue? Their hands also look a bit wiry and thin, and the face is still a bit... derpy, in lack of a better word. They look like they have really stuffed lower lips, and the eyes kind of look more like a "T" shape extruded from the face than actual eyes. (Maybe it looks better at full resolution but that's how it reads in the pic you posted, anyway) Of course there could be some degree of stylization and lack of detail compared to an actual human face, but looking at them now I simply can't help feeling they look a little funny. Here are a bunch of references that may be helpful, here's another that looks very similar to the actual statues in the stage.

- Agreed completely on the dragon designs on the flags, they look more like a modern tattoo design than a traditional ornament. If the design is to be embellished I would much prefer something more along the lines of this or this.

- The clouds look very strange to me. The way they look now they kind of read more as exhaust or smoke than clouds. The sky is very bright yet the clouds are dark, with nothing to suggest that sunlight is shining on or through them. I'd think they should either be essentially pure white with varying degrees of transparency, and/or have a strong backlit silhouette to imply the sun shining on them from above/behind. At least part of the clouds need to be lighter than the sky behind them; doing a quick google search for references, I can't find a single picture of clouds that read as a single flat colour, yet appear darker than the sky.

- The shadows coming into the picture seems to have been reduced which is definitely an improvement (although you know I'd like to see them completely gone ;)), but some shadowy areas like the one around the statue in the background (right underneath the torches no less) are a bit befuddling still.



-----


Bleed, the blocking animation look much, much better now. Good call on adding a loop for the blocking pose, I was thinking of it myself and would suggest doing the same for the crouching idle/blocking pose as well.



Justin, great work on the music. Sounds fantastic. I don't really have anything else to add.



A thought on the "Goro Lives..." screen - why not add a bit of animation? Nothing huge of course, but I think it could look really cool if Goro was actually breathing and blinking (ie, being a LIVING thing ;)) as opposed to just being a cardboard cutout. On the same note, the backdrop always seemed to me like some sort of lights/laser/etc shining through smoke, like at a concert or something - maybe that could be animated as well? Just a thought.
 
Hey Jiggeh, I actually wanted to do that. I wanted him to walk into the light, growl at the screen then relax back into a pose. This will be done for mostly fun, and I'll see if it'll make the cut.
 
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