From: ja1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeffrey Wayne Alexander)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.arcade
Subject: Re: MKombat vs. SFIICE
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:41:34 GMT
Organization: Electrical & Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

From: rhett@max.u.washington.edu
>         Graphics: Mortal Combat does have more realistic, and very 
>         well done digitized graphics...

     It's no surprise that digitized pictures of real people look
"more realistic".  Not a flame -- you're just pretty much stating the
obvious.

>                                                     Though SFIICE
>         is more cartoon quality, I think that for standard grahics,
>         it is hard to beat.

     I'm assuming you mean "non-digitized" when you say "standard",
and I agree.  I don't believe MK employs any special display hardware,
like full 24-bit color.

>                             Ever notice the shadow of Ken/Ryu's 
>         Gi on their ankle? Detail...

     Or the fact that Kano's knife handle is missing from his leg
scabbard when he's throwing it through the air...

>         Throwing: This is one aspect of MKombat that I think needs 
>         work. There are really very few measures you can take to 
>         prevent a throw once an opponent is inside, because any move 
>         you do just disappears when you get thrown. Part of this, I 
>         think, is the lack of quicker attacks like in SFIICE.

     Agreed.  There are no fast close moves, because, if you're close
enough to be thrown, Low Punch will execute YOUR throw (which
obviously won't beat your opponent's if he's already started it), and
High Punch becomes a higher-damage but slower inside attack:  Cage
slams his elbow into your chin, Kano head-butts (not a special attack
anymore, in light of this discovery), Sonya does the palm-to-the-
bridge-of-your-nose thing taught in self-defense classes that could be
fatal in real life (or is that a myth?), the two ninja throw a
backhand, etc.

From: shulick@yankton.ucs.indiana.edu (Sam Hulick)
>Is it just me, or does Kano look really really familiar? And isn't Raiden from
>"Big Trouble in Little China?"

     I can certainly see a heavy influence. :)  But the character in
Big Trouble had a MUCH bigger hat.

From: kalex@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Ken Alexander)
>Get a grip.  Apart from their special moves, which are equally as 
>"unrealistic" as SF2's, every single MK character has exactly the 
>same moves.  Not a momentous programming achievement, considering
>that they also saved programming by digitizing actors rather than
>animating from scratch.

     Okay, this is being real picky now:  they saved development time,
not programming time or load.  It's faster and easier to take pictures
than it is to draw.

     What I'm trying to do is dispell a possible myth that animating
these highly-detailed, realistic, digitized images is somehow harder
than doing the same with hand-drawn-and-recorded pixmaps.  It's not.
In fact, it's precisely the same feat: copying a rectangular array of
pixels from one part of memory to another.  And you don't need
particularly high resolution or dozens of bit-planes (i.e. millions of
colors on the screen at the same time) to make a digitized image look
very, very realistic to the casual observer -- proper dithering and
blending of colors, along with the relative novelty of digitized
images in video games (and its lousy implementation elsewhere, like
Pit Fighter and Road Riot 4WD, IMHO), are enough to hide the flaws
that make these characters far from photographic quality.  This isn't
cutting-edge technology.  It's trickle-down.  But it IS only a game. :)


Jeff Alexander              | "INTRUDER!  INTRU>gnignignignignig<" *POW*
ja1r@andrew.cmu.edu (ARPA)  | Totallll carnage!  I *LOVE* IT!
ja1r%andrew@CMCCVB (BITNET) | Was Sub-Zero.  Now, plain zero.
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