> The art in King of Fighters' may have been done entirely by hand, but if the end results looks indistinguishable from a 3d render at low resolution The irony

> The art in King of Fighters' may have been done entirely by hand, but if the end results looks indistinguishable from a 3d render at low resolution The irony is the particular King of Fighters they reference had character models/animations that were originally produced as 3D renders [1] and then used as the basis for the artists to draw over/fine tune in order to save time during production (since the previous games took so long to finish the animations). So in the context of the article it's an interesting though overlooked detail that could have been a decent bridge into the point about transitioning to 3D. > They complain about the shape of someone's arms in Street Fighter? Who cares about realism, these characters can shoot fireballs from their hands Animations and design are still important even when what's being representing isn't based in reality. It's the same reason CG was for a long time critiqued, and continues to be, for instances where there are 'floaty' characters or the animation/physics seem 'off'. 2D can often take more artistic liberties and isn't so stringently expected to be 'realistic' compared to CG. And while that comparison in the article was a bit out of place, considering the real difference is animator talent and visual style, it showed how mature the 2D animation scene was at the time, and it has to be said the animations of Street Fighter III Third Strike are among the best 2D animations in any commercial game. [1] http://kofaniv.snkplaymore.co.jp/english/info/15th_anniv/2d_dot/creation/ http://kofaniv.snkplaymore.co.jp/english/info/15th_anniv/2d_...