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MI: Special Edition - A comparison study


parabolee

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I am starting this thread as a place we can post and study and enjoy the new Special Edition artwork, animation and music and compare it to the original. As a digital artist an animator myself I find this fascinating, and I am a big fan of the new art style in SE.

 

Please note: I respectfully request that posters do not engage in arguments over the quality of the SE compared to the original. By all means post your opinions on the quality be it good or bad, but I respectfully ask we all try and refrain from argument. Thank you

 

I am going to kick this thread off with these animation frames for Guybrush walking taken from both the original game and the Special Edition. I will eventually add animated gifs of these and anything else I can put together comparing backgrounds and animations, feel free to add your own or comment.

 

Guybrush-Animation-Sprites.jpg

 

Frame 5 from the original seems to be messed up, not sure if that is a rip error or it is actually like that in game. I will investigate later. Unless someone else wants to try and grab it from in ScummVM for me :)

 

EDIT: I resized all the Guybrush original sprites so they are the correct size to the SE version.

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That frame seems to be broken in this sprite sheet as well... maybe that's where the ripped image came from?/guybrush.png[/img]

 

Yeah that's where I got it from, I noted the source on the image. Seems to be the only sprite animation sheet for Monkey 1, or the only one I could find anyway.

 

So when I get a chance I'll try and grab the right frame and replace it.

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Seems unlikely it was intentional. Maybe they drew it the way it seems it should be and it looked wrong for some reason, although I can't see why. It will be interesting to put it in an animated gif and see how much it stands out with no background and now we are looking for it.

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Well, if I'm not mistaken, all of the original animation was in 16 colors, so maybe it could be the fault of whoever made the game all pretty in 256 colors and they accidentally filled in the white part of the game. I can't really find any references for the 16 color version at the moment without downloading a demo, which I can't really do at work here.

 

Good point, let's track down that 16 color version and find out. I'll see if I can do that in a few minutes.

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Well I'll be a monkeys uncle! Take a look at this -

 

Guybrush-Animation-Sprite5.png

 

EGA cut out on left and uncut on right. VGA in center.

 

Seems that it was the conversion from EGA to VGA that caused this sprite mess up. Looks like whoever upgraded the Guybrush sprite did a lazy copy paste on the legs from frame 2 and never fixed it correctly. How bizarre it went unnoticed for so long. I always thought the Guybrush animation looked fine, but I guess my eyes were filling in what I expected to see.

 

Although even the EGA foot looks wrong, and maybe that is what messed the VGA guy up.

 

Also while I realise my resize is not a perfect 1:1 on the VGA sprite. Looking at the pixels you can see they Made Guybrush taller in the VGA version too.

 

EDIT: Added SE Guybrush too.

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I'm confused... I guess I was talking about the 5th walk frame, not the 5th frame posted. I didn't like the black line on the shin and figured it would look better like something on the right, which I really crappily whipped up because I should really be working, haha:

 

Well that explains why I wasn't sure what you meant. But now that you mention it, you are right that black line is wrong too, wow more flaws in the original animation that I expected!

 

But by frame 5 I meant the one numbered 5 in my sprite image. And as you can see that VGA frame has even more issue's than frame 6's black line.

 

Guybrush-Animation-Sprite5.png

 

The whole front leg should be straight (like the EGA and SE version), but even the EGA version has the leg right but the foot wrong.

 

However since you were talking about a different frame when you checked to see if it was right in the game, maybe frame 5 isn't like that in the actual game and the rip is at fault. I better go check, lol!

 

Although the foot is wrong in the EGA version, no doubt about that.

 

EDIT :-

 

Yep it's the same in the VGA version, not an error with the rip. Couldn't be bothered to find a demo for the VGA version and I don't have the game at work, so grabbed this from YouTUbe -

guy5.jpg

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Could it be that they intentionally "messed" it up after trying some perception tests of the walking animation? Maybe it looks better/more fluid this way?

 

Well when I get time I'll create an animated gif and do a fixed version of the frame, and we can see for ourselves I guess.

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One thing I've realized while comparing the walking animations from both versions is that in SOMI:SE Guybrush walks more upright and straight. This is probably the reason why I thought his animation was so stiff. If you notice in the 1990 version (VGA or FM Towns) his walking animation is more loose and free. He also walks faster and less restricted to his pose. Then again it could just be me.

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Moving him faster across the screen probably wasn't feasible.

Some of the puzzles might be timed with his speed. And other stuff like following the storekeeper might get problematic if you could run up to him :)

 

EDIT: seeing those animation sheets, it doesn't seem impossible for 2-3 animators do get this done for a SE. It's a lot but not overwhelming.

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Here is a quick attempt (I am at work, :) ) to fix the broken 5th frame.

 

Guybrush-Animation-Sprite5-fix.png

 

The center frame is my take on what that frame should look like. Again left is EGA version (with incorrect foot) right of mine is VGA (incorrect foot and leg) then the SE version.

 

If we can get a consensus on what the fixed frame should look like, we can see how it works in an animation. So anyone see anything wrong with this one? Wanna take a pop at fixing it?

 

EDIT: Added SE version again.

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So Guybrush now walks across the screen on a 6 frame walk cycle inside a 30 fps tween, which also has a slight added ease in when he stops, none of which was in the original version, so it looks weird.

 

I really don't think they added an ease frame when he stops. That would require forcing in an additional frame in the code. Which unlike the effect on LeChuck and ghosts (which sit behind them) would require changing the original code rather than adding to. The frames I posted in the first post are all the frames from the walk animation that are in the flash, which match up with the original frames. So if there is an ease frame, I don't see that frame. if you don't mean a frame when you say added ease, then I am confused as to what you mean.

 

But I will investigate anyway.

 

EDIT:

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure there are no "ease" frames at all. I grabbed the HD video of the making of/trailer. And slowed the video down to frame. Then extracted the walking to stop animation. No ease frame. I created a GIF from it too.

 

As you can see, it does seem the sliding is caused at least partially by the background moving at a much higher frame rate than the sprite. Because here I have taken out all the frames without sprite animation in them and it looks much better. I say partially because I thought it was noticeable on some of the still screens too, I will investigate that later.

 

GB-nim-SE.gif

 

In the original video, download here -

DOWNLOAD LINK

 

You can see that he seems to slide into place as a result of the additional frames from the scrolling background. Seems to me it would be possible to fix this (although difficult) by forcing the animated sprite to scroll at the same speed as the background while maintaining the same animation frames.

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I hate that they used the voice of Yakko for Bob. Yech, Animaniacs...

 

LOL, thanks for pointing that out! Now I'm going to hear him everytime!

 

But I think that clip is hilarious! Such great writing, "Ye are glad to be dead, RIGHT?!"

 

Brilliant!

 

EDIT: (note I edit rather than double or triple post whe I was the last poster)

 

Stole these from a post by Thunderpeel (but I removed the fan version screens as not relevant to this thread) -

 

I thought it might be interesting to compare the different artwork styles in comparison to the new SE.

 

The original:

Circus-3.jpg

 

The SE:

Circus-1.jpg

 

The original:

LeChuck-3.jpg

 

The SE:

LeChuck-1.jpg

 

Look how awesome LeChuck is in the SE! I think it's time fro some LeChuck comparisons :-D

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Good work!

 

There seems to be no reason not to fix that frame, certainly looks better in the fixed one to me. The original one looks like he's walking with a limp to me now!

 

I also see that the 6th frame with the black line that SythenticGerbil mentioned certainly seems to stand out as a bad mistake too now it's been pointed out!

 

The SE version looks great to me. I see the SE arms don't swing as much, they probably changed it because such exaggerated motions are not needed with such a high resolution sprite. I think a more exaggerated swing like the original could look better and give a bit more character. But it would also stand out more (further each animated thing is in each frame and all).

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