« A Closer Look At Marvel vs Capcom 3's Character Models »

Click image for a closer look. 

When Capcom first unveiled the art assets for the first six characters to be confirmed for Marvel vs Capcom 3 I, like many out there as well I'm sure, just assumed that they were studio art pieces.  It came as a great surprise to me when Capcom revealed that they were, in fact, in-game character models!

I've been "marveling" at the artwork since that revelation.  I grew up reading and collecting Marvel comics, as did my father.  I also used to be a decent pencil and ink artist myself during that period, and carefully studied techniques that various Marvel artists used in the comics that I loved.  If these are indeed in-game character models, they would truly be comics come to life. 

I would like to now share my appreciation of these models with you, giving impressions of details that I have noticed.  Keep in mind that I am neither a professional artist nor a professional graphics designer or 3D modeler, so my terminology may not be industry accurate. With that in mind, let's examine some details using the model for Wolverine as an example.

OVERVIEW:

The model is a magnificent recreation of the art style used in many modern comic books.  Many comics use a combination of black ink for detail, outlining, and shadow and airbrush-looking color techniques for (duh) color, softer shading or lighting, to add subtle detail and to create more 3 dimentional looking shapes.  This model does all of these things.

EDGES:

Many games that use a cel-shaded art style make very heavy use of solid black lines around everything.  Most comics, especially early comics, did this as well.  However, the models used in MvC3 use a more modern approach, using the ink in areas where necessary to create hard separation between the character and the background (or other character elements) and using color alone in other areas for that separation.  (B) in the graphic above illustrates an area where lots of hard edges are used to bring out details in a heavily shadowed area where (A) shows that Wolverine's back has no black line, using only color to create the edge of the shape.

COLOR:

One of the more stunning aspects of these models to me is the use of color.  These models obviously use cleverly designed shaders to create that "airbrushed look". (D) is a great example of this. That airbrushed color also provides subtle shading on the individual muscles where the absolute black, representing ink, provides the deep shadow. (B) is another excellent example of this.

The color is also used to show lighting.  In (C) you can see blue lighting on Wolverine's face while in (D) you see blue lighting on his inner leg, for example.

INKING TECHNIQUE:

In comic books, sometimes black ink is used to help express a 3D shape on the obviously 2D page surface.  Rapid line techniques are often used to achieve this, allowing artists to use the absolute black of ink to suggest a softer shadow.  The picture on the left of Wolverine's head shows the use of rapid lines to help suggest a rounded head shape coming off the hard black shadow.  The bottom of the bicep muscle in (B) also shows this technique.  This technique has been used in comics for a long time.

"I DON'T LIKE THE ART IN THESE MODELS BECAUSE IT'S TOO DARK (BLACK)/ TOO MUCH SHADOW"

If you are put off by the generous use of absolute black shadows in these character models, do not fear.  The lighting in these character renders was obviously positioned to maximize the "comic book look".  In the actual game, the lighting will be dynamic.  If the scene is dark, there will be lots of shadows.  If Ryu throws his Shinku Hadoken, the screen will obviously be all lights and those shadows will be appropriate. 

CONCLUSION:

As you can tell, I am absolutely amazed by these in-game character models.  Seeing the artistic techniques that I have been studying when I was younger being brought to 3D in such magnificent form is truly an exciting thing.  I still remember being amazed by Jet Set Radio's cel-shaded graphics on the Sega Dreamcast so long ago, and this just reminds me how far both technology and digital artistry has come over the years.