Mortal Kombat HD Remix with MUGEN

la_luna said:
Love that Scorpion, here they are side by side;
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Yeah I think it looks close enough apart from the lighting where the vest had some light transmission especially on the left side where some light is shining through. But we already established that'd be too much of a hassle so it's OK. The hood and raised arm seem to be missing some highlights as well as the top of his shoulder under the raised arm... but other than that it looks really great and I have to admit those are nit picky details as it looks awesome otherwise.

At one time at the arcade people where saying KI looks better than MK but now with this project MK is going to beat the hell out of KI in the visual department! XD
 
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^Yeah, did not want to mention the lighting because of this
smoke.tetsu said:
we already established that'd be too much of a hassle so it's OK.
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but anyway, beside things you mentioned, Scorpion lacks some stronger highlights on
the back of his pants, it's not that noticeable in other arenas, but it is in The Pit where
it sets him apart from the dark background:

2wgx6py.jpg
 
I'll move the lights around and get it closer to the sprites. The pants look more baggy in the original sprites also, I think I'll add a morph to it.
 
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Thing, is I just don't agree. This background compliments Bleeds work well. But I'm willing to let someone else try. I just don't see what you see. So the consistency you are talking about is entirely subjective. The point is I've done best I can. If it doesn't meet your standards, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.

jarvis653 said:
Perhaps I could've explained it a little better. Basically, in the original game the devs could get away with unrealistic/flat looking backgrounds, because of the lower resolution and considering their tech and budget, I'm sure it was really the best they could do. I don't believe though that all aspects of their design can hold up in HD, and extra details are needed to reinforce the original idea; you've already included some yourself, such as cracks in the bridge, less uniform texture etc. and I think this stuff is necessary (or a necessary evil) to bring those backgrounds to life. The most important of those extra details is lighting IMO.

But realism isn't actually the point. The point is consistency. However unrealistic the original backgrounds are, they work with the digitized actors. For the most part at least, they were limited by the tech after all. In a HD setting, if Bleed is making his models as realistic as he can, the appropriate thing to do is to make your backgrounds as realistic as his models. Otherwise, they could look disjointed and not function as they should. That's why I believe artistic opinion on this topic is irrelevant, because the goal should simply be to match your work to his work; in this case, match the level of realism. If he was making more illustrated characters, it'd be your job to make just as illustrated backgrounds. That's probably the best I can explain it (after so many edits). I think the cancelled MKAKHD took this realistic approach as well, from seeing the type of work that their background designer did (if that has any bearing).

Of course I am talking within reason though, to just do the best you can with the time you have. If making more elaborate lighting for instance is just not practical for you, then that's fine. However considering the amount of time we have to finish this project, which is a lot, I don't think it's a bad idea to leave it as something to revisit later after all the backgrounds are done. Otherwise if someone else of your skill level approaches us about the project, you could pass the responsibility of lighting over to them if you feel it could be improved.

Anyway I am always open to other opinions so again please share your thoughts on this.

PS: I can send you new mountains if you need them
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smoke.tetsu said:
I like this part couldn't have said it better myself. This is the reason why I did not like the masked guard a few pages back and suggested that maybe Bleed could do that one as well because it just does not match Bleeds models. The cloth on it for example should resemble real cloth.
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This again? Really? After several pages of back and forth, I admitted I'd either let someone else take a crack at it, or redo it later.
 
prstyles27 said:
Calactyte, I think your pit background looks amazing! I wouldn't change anything about it.
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Thanks prstyles, some critique makes sense to me but other things are just splitting hairs. Also if we are talking about lighting, it is such a non specific critique that it is disheartening. Should we start over to match someone's vision of what 'consistency' means? The mountains and clouds I would be willing to work on since that is specific and I can understand the critique. However, saying hey the lighting is off isn't a very useful critique. It's non specific. The moon was mentioned as not looking right, but its a NASA photo of the moon, so I really don't understand.
 
calactyte said:
Thing, is I just don't agree. This background compliments Bleeds work well. But I'm willing to let someone else try. I just don't see what you see. So the consistency you are talking about is entirely subjective. The point is I've done best I can. If it doesn't meet your standards, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.
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I'm definitely not disappointed, I've complimented you many times and this is the first time I've criticized. Like I said if you're doing the best you can then that's fine with me, but maybe now that you've heard what I have to say then you might consider it at some point. I just tried to explain my reasons for giving you the criticism that I did.

My main point was that matching your work with Bleeds is the logical thing to do IMO, and that it should be the aim instead of recreating the backgrounds 1:1.
I'm not saying as if what you've done totally doesn't work, simply could be improved. Either way I still think your work looks great and I'm sure you'll continue to impress.

Also I'm sorry I didn't give you more specific feedback about the lighting, I can still try to providing that it won't dishearten you or affect your progress negatively.
 
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Guys, all looks great!

IMO, don't worry now to match the background with the character, the character haven't the final light setting and the high lights.

After have the final lighting of the character i think will be better add some high lights in the stage to match better with the final version of the character.
 
No need to apologize, but from my perspective, we need to be as specific as possible for crits because the investment in time is so great, certain changes are just unfathomable. I'll say that I have considered your crits and I agree that the clouds and mountains can be improved. By the way your opinion is valuable to me because you've demonstrated such considerable talent with the UI work, I really respect your opinion on this stuff. Let me push forward, I'll fix what I can and we can always go back and audit what can be improved. Perhaps by then we will have larger pool of talent to work on this.
 
calactyte said:
This again? Really? After several pages of back and forth, I admitted I'd either let someone else take a crack at it, or redo it later.
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Sorry, I just keep coming back to it because it's a good example of inconsistency in the project. The rest of your stuff looks great to me.
 
Bleed said:
The pants look more baggy in the original sprites also, I think I'll add a morph to it.
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I think the bagginess on your sprite looks just fine as it is. I think some of the bagginess in the orignal sprite comes from the harsh outline having only on\off transparency gives combined with the low resolution when editing a sprite for it. In fact I quite like the way your sprite looks when it comes to the gi underneath.

Either way also if you moved the light to add highlights to the character I think the effect should be less harsh than on the old sprite. Part of the old look is probably again due to the old cameras they used for the game and video taping artifacts which they had to counteract by colorizing the sprites in the computer afterwards. In MK2 and 3 they had better cameras and the sprites turned out better as a consequence and had less harsh highlights. What they did was much like colorizing an old black and white film.

Even if you just used the current scorpion you made as the final one I'd be happy with it here myself though. But you are free to try improving it with the lighting if you wish of course.
 
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calactyte said:
No need to apologize, but from my perspective, we need to be as specific as possible for crits because the investment in time is so great, certain changes are just unfathomable. I'll say that I have considered your crits and I agree that the clouds and mountains can be improved. By the way your opinion is valuable to me because you've demonstrated such considerable talent with the UI work, I really respect your opinion on this stuff. Let me push forward, I'll fix what I can and we can always go back and audit what can be improved. Perhaps by then we will have larger pool of talent to work on this.
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Thanks so much for the compliment, I really appreciate it since I admire the level of skill you've shown on everything here. I think we've got a great team and respectful criticism can make our work even better.

I agree that for the sake of progress, pushing forward is the best thing to do. After the bulk of the work is out of the way, we can revisit anything that could use improvement at ease (if it's practical to do).

I'm also keen to see the changes you have in mind for the clouds, and like I said I'm happy to provide you with new mountains to experiment with.
 
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OK, final corpse added. Now I'll start on the severed heads. I learned a few tricks with creating cloth which should hopefully become apparent in with this corpse. I'm thinking I'll apply this technique to the palace guard to make it look cloth like eventually.

the_pit_HD_g.jpg
 
Looks pretty good, I like it. Keep up the good work on that. I have been liking the way most of this stage it looking for quite some time now especially during this period where you are mostly just adding in the corpses.
 
Bodies look amazing. Only thing I'd change is the color of blood on your last two bodies.
(top one on the middle pillar, and the one you just posted)
I think they stick out too much compared to other blood on the stage,
maybe tone it down just a little.

Oh and one other thing, I noticed that objects on the floor (skeletons and last body)
don't have a shadow across the floor in the same direction as sipkes do.
Don't know if this is artistic decisions, or maybe you forgot to add them?
Anyhow, The Pit overall looks great!
 
Bleed said:
Thank you

I don't mind having the work backed up online, it's a good idea actually.



UMK3 Scorpion HD in mugen, quick test on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp7HZDHH3sQ
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Woah! This one really matches on the background . . ! amazing ! !

calactyte said:
OK, final corpse added. Now I'll start on the severed heads. I learned a few tricks with creating cloth which should hopefully become apparent in with this corpse. I'm thinking I'll apply this technique to the palace guard to make it look cloth like eventually.

the_pit_HD_g.jpg
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Can't wait to see the heads . .
 
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