STREET FIGHTER!

A recent inspiration in texturing for me has arisen from Capcom's work on the Street Fighter series' recent incarnations, most notably Street Fighter 4 and Street Fighter X Tekken. While I enjoyed Street Fighter games as a lad I have pretty much ignored them for the last ten years or so (perfection was reached on Street Fighter 3: Third Strike in my humble opinion)

Recently a friend invited me to play some of the latest releases, and while they did not exactly blow my mind gameplay-wise I was amazed at the graphical style that Capcom had achieved.

Big for more detail

Capcom are a company that has always had my respect for understanding how classical techniques can inspire and create. The older (2d) street Fighter games looked much better than any of their rivals, because Capcom took the long (and a bit mental) path of hand animating all characters before digitally transposing them into the game. For their later games they have perfected the hand-painted 3d model style. The pictured game in particular is a fantastic example, when characters stop moving, you could swear they were simply painted in their position rather than being a 3 dimensional model (maybe not in the example pictured)

I will look into this form of texturing, as I feel it brings an organic beauty to 3d models that most  models lack - my own models of Lucy I felt were too clean, and her style didn't allow much time for detailed work. Hand painting her textures using Sai Paint Tool or Corel Painter could give her the detail that the model desperately lacks and hopefully make her appear a little bit more alive.

I will not be using Mudbox or Photoshop's 3d paint tools however, as they are absolutely awful and a real let down considering how amazing both of the programs are at other aspects.