Breaking Down Guilty Gear Strive's Ambitious Story Mode Anime | Animator Spotlight

[@TheCanipaEffect]

Thanks for watching! I should probably clarify that there's one unknown in regards to the animation. I refer to it as having "4 credited animators", and that's based on the Story Mode's specific credits. However, the game's overall credits mention that they outsourced a few more animators from other companies. So there's the possibility that some of these outsourced animators didn't just work on the game, but helped out with the Story Mode as well. Regardless, it's a massively small team whether they had a bit of extra help or not. An impressive accomplishment! Also wanted to thank the sponsor Com2Us (bit.ly/3pGs8JS) for funding this video. All sponsored videos on The Canipa Effect will be extra, so a video on Studio Trigger will be out before the end of June. It's the second part of a video I released in 2017: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIK5nayPotebqJo Look forward to it!

[@KnightsDisillusion]

Guilty Gear Strive is a Video Game, Anime and an Album. What a deal.

[@NBSilentShadow]

And an artbook. And a social network. And soon enough, a doll's house.

[@TheCanipaEffect]

Every track is a banger! I wish I could've included more GG Strive music in the video, but they're impossible to talk over!

[@Aripuni1]

@@TheCanipaEffect relax, you can make another video about that

[@KnightsDisillusion]

@@TheCanipaEffect Right!

[@gnouhp004]

Can't believe we get a free game along with a movie from an Album!

[@gpanthony]

4 animators, no experience, AND during a pandemic... Arc has said that because of social distancing making a lot of the staff work from home, a lot of things they wanted to do had to be scaled back. (I personally believe this is why Destroyed moves aren't in the game.) It would not surprise me if this was part of why the animation team for the story mode was so small, and also why some of the animation was so rough. I think if they could have, they would have made the whole thing look as good as the last two episodes, which is where most of the best animation is.

[@pian-0g445]

Honestly, they did a great job, especially with how bloody long the story is.

[@harrylane4]

That explains a lot, including explaining why the DLC story has such a higher fidelity

[@juufa]

And you're right, they recently said that Instant Kills weren't in the game because they didn't have the time to make them

[@rodffx]

I always knew that this Game series would bridge the gap between good looking 3d models and good animation in 3d anime but never would i have expected that it would happen within the game itself ,i have to buy it and watch it myself,im not a big fan of fighter games but i still like to support devs so that they can push forward and innovate the fighting game genre...

[@Aripuni1]

just play ASW game especially GG and BB just for story alone, they do pretty amazing job in the story aspect

[@prime1773]

While the 3d animation in GGST story are clunky, it's pretty good enough. What spoils it are the loading time between the story.

[@namepending5620]

Or you could just watch the story mode online, without having to spend 60 dollars on a game which you said your not particularly interested in.

[@unknownguy8687]

I'm with "NamePending" on this one. It's a full price game for around 6 or so hours of story with animation that looks a bit stiff and rough around the edges. Just watch it on KZbin, it's much cheaper. But if you do plan on putting some hours into the game, then by all means. Still, at the end of the day, it's your money and your decision. Go for it, if you want.

[@MegaZero16]

They only had 4 ppl working on the story and with no anime experience, and yet they are galaxies ahead on Ex-arm's anime. Sorry just had to put it out there ^-^;

[@gpanthony]

Pandemic probably had an impact on the size of the story animation team too...

[@THB192]

It probably helps that Team Red has experience with the artstyle they were using...

[@randomweeaboo]

Arc system works also helped with production on mushoku tensei. Specifically with the 3d models and shading effects in episode 2, 5 and 7

[@xidjav1836]

Wait what

[@edsonsengo2684]

So that's why I saw an ArcSys logo in the credits of one of the episodes

[@anthonybaloney8874]

I was also wondering about that, cool... very cool.

[@Danyasu]

You can also find jam and dizzy stone figures in one episode

[@xidjav1836]

@@Danyasu where

[@pingpong5877]

I didn't think you'd discuss about Guilty Gear. I'm glad you did.

[@TheCanipaEffect]

It's been much requested!

[@dsngartist9243]

Thanks for this video, very insightful!

[@Nyuu3]

This might actually be the first time I've seen anyone but Ishiwatari get any kind of credit. Obviously, I have a ton of respect for him myself, but people tend to act like he just makes Guilty Gear all on his own.

[@guilhermealmeidacost]

Well, he kinda did for the original GG in the PS1, almost all sections of the credits in that game have him, including voice acting, so people just kept rolling with the meme that Daisuke is GG

[@user-cb4vt3qm3j]

@@guilhermealmeidacost Well, that was 20+ years ago. Now he's not even the main man behind the music as far as I know.

[@nikolaidrago7938]

I'm so fucking glad that guilty gear and fighting games in general are becoming more popular now even though some people don't like it. They quality of these games just keeps getting better and better. I have so much respect for everyone working at arcsys.

[@mikeBH1000]

Knowing know after watching it that only 4 people made this I'm actually impressed. Give them a decent sized team and some more experience under there belt and these story modes could rival some of the better 3d animes out there

[@godzilla4189]

Would love to see you take a look at how CyberConnect2 does its animation.

[@TheCanipaEffect]

I am thinking about it for the Demon Slayer game. That looks great!

[@anthonybaloney8874]

@@TheCanipaEffect can't wait

[@hikarihakai1285]

@@TheCanipaEffect what about Asura Wrath

[@kevinsupreme_ph36yearsago59]

3d animation without interpolation is basically doing stop motion in a computer.

[@user-gk6nt5gi5n]

Great video and I appreciate the ram appreciation

[@Alice-jp1kl]

Arcsys have always been pioneers in 3D animation. The game that proved 3D models could work for a 2D fighting game was 2007's Battle Fantasia, also developed by Arcsys which used a lot of techniques later seen in Street Fighter 4. Seeing them further hone their craft in both the main fighting game and the story mode is truly incredible!

[@xadek821]

I did not know the story mode was animated by just 4 people. What the fuck, these are amazing results for that manpower if you ask me

[@ursmarrings27]

There were instances during the story mode like the car/bike/ninja chase scene that made it feel like I was watching a Newgrounds vid. And I found that particularly charming.

[@activemotionpictures]

Your review is awesome @Canipa Effect! Thank you for sharing this video. 5h anime?! I want it!

[@KindOldRaven]

Honestly this game is the first fighter I've bought since Tekken 3 when I was a kid. And the visual style is *beyond stunning* if you're even semi-interested in anime-style artwork. I'm no diehard anime guy, but seriously - this is worth seeing (and playing btw, it's a great game even for newbies like myself).

[@Dogflamingo]

Ayyy, was waiting for a Arc Sys video

[@ccpIz]

Thank you for timestamping the ad. Godlike creator

[@edwinooi9166]

Ah, the new Daisuke Ishiwatari album that came with a fighting game and anime.

[@Gordthrow]

even tho im a big anime fun, a game (epic seven) got me into learning about animation production. it is truly an amazing experience researching about the visuals of games.

[@inugami1454]

Hello fellow epic seven player

[@wanderingyeehaw]

7:12 "There are things that the team never had to think about." Yes, how is the blind guy hacking a magical computer

[@MASKredTeer]

somehow they made 3D cinematic cutscene better than some anime studios

[@abfloorr]

Great video, sadly KZbin fucking hates recommending anything even slightly related to guilty gear

[@tonyhuwa641]

4 Animators brooo, cant even imagine their work

[@MetaKnuxXbeats]

Glad to see Guilty Gear's story getting talked about more, even if it is just the animation.

[@nauro9187]

i would love for them to cooperate with studio bind, especially since they have worked with them in mushoku tensei, the animation on mushoku tensei feels cinematic and breath taking, similar to what i think strive's story mode tried to achive (and succeed in some extent), imagining the wonders that they can do just invigorates me with joy. if not, i hope they got some inspirations and insight in animation by working with studio bind, that in turn will help them approach the story mode animation with a fresh look and maybe faster and less demanding animation works. all in all high hopes for the future of this game's animation, good luck team red.

[@fycast1957]

I am in love with your content

[@samkasyoki3215]

Great video! Can you do an anime studio spotlight/animator spotlight on Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song by Wit Studio?

[@Dominik-K]

Wow, this is an amazing review and I think it's very amazing! Do you have any pointers about how modern 3D anime are made? I've seen the GDC Talk of Guilty Gear Strive, but like you said, some things changed

[@TheCanipaEffect]

The Land of the Lustrous and BEASTARS videos on this channel are a good look at some of the processes used at Orange, who are considered to be industry leaders.

[@owenkarpp]

LETS GOOO A VIDEO FROM CANIPA ON GG

[@massterwushu9699]

2:05 Street Fighter Plus Alpha had 3D graphics back in 1996

[@171QA]

Great video.

[@S9staryu]

Holy hell who did your intro? It's insanely nice to look at

[@TheCanipaEffect]

Christian Maize! There's some links to his stuff in the description.

[@agogobell28]

This is fascinating! I wonder if you’ve ever thought about making a video about the animation of RWBY; you could probably ask Austin about his past work on it, so that would give you a leg up on other folks :D

[@DareBizarre]

I hope they publish an art book.

[@heromedley]

that must be a huge hurdle for a 4 man team to essentially make a whole season of anime condensed in the runtime of avengers endgame

[@fkarenn]

They have turned a game engine into an anime engine. Impressive and very promising Also, I have to salute a Ramlethal-bro o7o7o7

[@chronoplex89]

Imagine Arc system works and the Spider verse animation team join together to make an animated film

[@curupa66]

Never expected to see Guilty Gear here. Glad I did. Good job!

[@Jhitch19]

Yeah, this took me by surprise, never followed GG story but love the gameplay for xrd and strive!

[@Clown-tf8jp]

Make a video on kyoto animation and ufotable(that old vid is expired)

[@lumiaea]

Can you make a video about Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation?

[@Roach_draws_stuff]

You should check out the in game scenes of honkai impact 3rd. It's the best combination of 3d and 2d together.

[@TheCanipaEffect]

I actually covered the Honkai Impact teams in my Genshin Impact video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ip3RqZKHZqythMk

[@popcultureoverdosed]

I feel that anime studios should definitely start studying arc system works cause they definitely mastered the art of 3d animation.

[@AcidiFy574]

I actually want you to check out a cartoon called MotorCity It was created with flash & artstyle basically reminds me of Gorillaz Made by Studio Titmouse (creators of Megas-XLR) & cancelled by Disney You don't have to make a video on it, but I thought that you should know about it

[@danwithaplan3742]

Man I still think that's the best animation I've seen on TV

[@deddrz2549]

I was a bit confused, in the end credits there were white a few more animators including ones credited from outside companies, did they work only on game animation?

[@TheCanipaEffect]

The ones in the end credits are for the game overall. The opening credits that specify Story Mode staff only credit 4 of these animators. (There is a chance that some of those in the end credits did do uncredited Story Mode work though)

[@rory6483]

I didn’t get notified for this!

[@MrLanarana]

Never expected to see a video about my job

[@ponderingForever]

Defo want to see how they'd handle this with shorter episodes, such great quality.

[@Ram_Stan]

I wouldn't want the story to any shorter (even if the animations better) as they already didn't include characters in it. I too hope to see it improve but I like how the current animation gets the job done. I'm just putting my opinion out there, still really enjoyed the video :)

[@biggestouf]

This man flexing on us by getting a review code using his cred.

[@KaitoGlue]

I cannot wait for them to make a new persona fighting game and make a good persona 5 anime.

[@crestofhonor2349]

Now I want to see something on the newest episode of one piece and how great the animation was in that episode

[@zenone9698]

Canipa effect could you do a video on So I am a spider, So What? anime.

[@unholyrevenger72]

the story's presentation is rough, but still better than Berserk 2016

[@bini420]

out of curiosity why don't you do videos related to manga and the behind the scenes and work life as a mangaka and maybe also western comics and the differences between them and korean manga

[@TheCanipaEffect]

The honest answer is actually that it's much harder to edit a video about manga, because it's difficult to make manga look interesting in a video.

[@bini420]

@@TheCanipaEffect fair enough. It does require much more editing for visual apeal.

[@daftcruz]

This will serve as experience for their next game, which will probably have better animation. I still excellent work though because there was only 4 animators without any experience in that area.

[@OblitusAquila]

I'm sure they'll probably update the animation or atleast the dlc story material will be better animated.

[@VeraFX]

some of the animation stops and makes you question if your system froze.

[@Lonipok]

now imagine orange and arc sys had a collab

[@TheCanipaEffect]

Orange animators, Arc Sys model team. A dream!

[@sleipnir_8364]

So what if they got the story assets, and an animation team to polish it up and rerendered into movies

[@TheCanipaEffect]

I think that'd be great. A film is a lot shorter than a series, so if they really wanted to get involved in filmmaking (maybe recreating the original game's story too), it'd be brilliant.

[@taylorbee4010]

The virgin sf4 engine vs the CHAD GG PIPELINE

[@KatanaShojo159]

Guilty Gear did their story mode animation wayyyyyy better than Ex Arm could ever hope to achieve.

[@heshamabdelmaksoud]

Volcanic Vipaaaa

[@drftr6073]

their work in the story mode is astonishingly promising yet terribly limited. just a few people from the industry coming in to give them some pointers and a slightly bigger animation team would help tremendously. the fact that the story mode as it is looked as good as it did at times is absolutely mind blowing.

[@Wanna_Be_Desu]

Felt the same way when watching it. You can tell devs have a great taste and sense of style, just don't have enough money and time to fully realize it. Still, ambitious and unique, all the quirks and "mistakes" make it that more memorable tbh. My favorite shot is that weird, almost silent hill 1 like camera pan when fat Defense guy walks by and shakes the screen. But they definitely need to tone down the amount of dialogs, characters bloody love to yap around wisdoms at every moment.

[@blackpants7385]

Nah, that too is part of the charm

[@chubbysolaireeaterofpussy3192]

i dindt mind them saying really stupid metaphors it feels very guilty gear and that adds alot

[@Wanna_Be_Desu]

After rewatching it a couple of time it grew on me too. Guess I was really impatient and eager to know where the story goes first time around, so the drawn out cheese got to me. Loved it when I came back to recently tho.

[@aelspecto]

2:00 what... so the ex plus alpha series did not exist or what?

[@TheCanipaEffect]

I definitely forgot about that one!

[@Aripuni1]

PPL always asked me is Guilty Gear has anime or movie?, yeah its always has anime its called "STORY MODE" its 4,5 hours long anime movie, so basically they made their own anime and game in the same product

[@unintelgen2510]

I have some disagreements regarding the objective quality of the animation but I otherwise agree with (most) statements in this video. I feel, just considering the highlights, that the team's concerns were chiefly with telling the (frankly ambitious) story and secondary concerns regarding limited animation or "of lesser important" scenes really just feels like they appropriately budgeted, not unlike a seasonal anime really. The seams show worse in 3D, sure, but honestly? Not that much more than the average show. I think it's a disservice to say the animators and Team Red *need* some outside talent from "Real Anime" when it's clear that their problems lie in dividing budgetary concerns of the important aspect of their product (the fighting game, y'know) and a far and away secondary concern being the story mode, for which each successive game is the most expensive visual novel made to date. Which is kinda the thing. Underneath all the fancy pose-to-pose motions and voice acted dialogue and sets built- this is just a *visual novel*, however 'movie-like' and 'animated' it is. A similar divide is shown in both Xrd stories, it's just much more concealed in Strive. It's using the same basic systems, a way to parse movement data, motion, audio stems, and subtitles to progress a linear narrative. Strive mainly just cuts and blurs the 'talky' segments and animated segments until they feel reasonably more cohesive. It's clearly built on the framework from Rev, and has similar limitations. I'd say, given that context, that it's a goddamn miracle and success on their part. Try getting those "anime experts" to fix the issues you're noticing and they would pull their *goddamn* hair out trying to rework the internal workflow ArcSys has developed. It's clear a lot was made with efficiency in mind, and that's not a bad thing considering of all the people paying for GGST, maybe only 10% or 15% legitimately care about the narrative in or equal to the fighting game aspect. And it's probably less, to be fair. I seriously couldn't think of a worse money sink. Now I've only dabbled in 3D as a hobby and know only the higher level abstractions of 'what-how-do' of NPR rendering but if I had to give some 'advice' to a professional studio it'd be this. Bear in mind that I'm not concerned with technical issues (pop-in), just things that'd smooth over apparent cracks. My biggest issue is, weirdly, how lighting is rendered. Their system is ingenious and wonderfully simple and clearly works. It has just one flaw. (and a potential solution) Simply put (character) lighting is appealing, until it isn't- by moving the mesh the normals are recalculated and the flat (fill) surfaces may change causing a flickering effect. In-game, it's an acceptable visual artifact. In a sequence it's noticeably more of an issue. My proposed solution would be to a have a realtime system in place that would allow keyframed data to be used to 'freeze' normals so they consistently track independently of the vertices global normals. Simply put, it'd counter the pos/rot data of the vertices so you can 'freeze' the most appealing lighting shot on a part of the mesh and use it throughout an entire scene. It could easily break lighting as well, but if it's keyframe-able you can avoid that with artistic supervision. I frankly think it's possible, but if Arc's tech artists already thought of it maybe it's just too difficult atm. I thought maybe a render to texture system, but I think it'd be too costly (VRAM) and probably too slow to be of any use (and compression would be a real issue) I have thoughts on the motion/sequencing as well, but shit I'm typing this from my phone and I just... shouldn't done that. ArcSys should be given some serious kudos for the balls to pull off what they've done here, wanting to do things on their terms and keep it in house. Walkcycles be damed

[@platinoob__2495]

What exactly is variable frame rate? I can't imagine, a game that belongs in genre that every frame is important (fighting game genre), to have animations (and with them character movements) happening in unstable numbers of frames.

[@guilhermealmeidacost]

He doesn't explain well but what he is calling variable frame rate is not vfr (global variable frame rate, where the whole game goes up and down on the refresh rate) it is reducing the frames in animation of some attacks to look more anime, although the game itself is still locked at 60 fps

[@SeaSerpentLevi]

Arcsys and mihoyo hype me so much

[@KenBladehart]

Guilty Gear is anime, its not just a game

[@DarKaoZ]

I feel REV 2 did a better job in Animation, feel and story compared to STRIVE, STRIVE Story animations feels less Anime compared to REV2. Not saying STRIVE is bad, but it felt less impressive. Also it's funny that amazing animated "Opening Movie" isn't in the actual game. Yet the fact that 4 animators were the only ones working on it is amazing, also no doubt COVID affected the production pipeline. I wonder if using motion capture for the story and modifying those movements might had helped look more "movie like" as Daisuke wanted. 🤔

[@terrydubuisson4209]

Can you do a dragon balls super video. I think the show would allow you to make a really intertaning video.

[@dragocrafterr8286]

algorithm please

[@guythatawkward7293]

Still can't believe the creator is south African

[@Tanteikid94]

Better than Netflix rangnarok anime

[@ponderingForever]

Yessssssssssssssssssssss

[@Edward_Ardy4671]

Lol, even this game had better facial expressions than any polygon pictures anime.

[@devarshbhatt5612]

KnY Mugen Train's Animation breakdown when?

[@TheCanipaEffect]

I'm wondering if people would actually want that. It would basically be repeating everything from my video about the TV series

[@devarshbhatt5612]

@@TheCanipaEffect so maybe something about deca-dence, It was a great show with amazing animation and no one talked about it

[@SystemBD]

Mmm... I can not "like" the video because of the ad in the beginning (something I do on principle), but seeing the excellent video, I wanted to say that analyzing the (2D-inspired) video game animation is a good direction for this channel.

[@begobogo2583]

I mean he can continue making these excellent videos because of adverts, not sure what's so wrong about that

[@Antronix3]

So wait, they have animators with no experience working on anime, working on a game that's supposed to look like an anime? 🤔

[@chrisrey0018]

Noice

[@purpletea3807]

You see everything else could have looked bad and I still wouldn't have given a damn, if Jack-0 and Ram still stayed the same cinnamon rolls they are now; 100% waifu materials.

[@dragunov815]

Ok.

[@FLXEP]

even the worst part in Strive animation is still better than Ex-Arm disastrous attempt

[@glowtail3744]

The basic summary is that they brute forcie 2d techniques into the 3d animation simulation

[@electricant55]

They've been doing that ever since Xrd but this time they finally learned they can put more than 12 fucking frames per second.

[@TheCanipaEffect]

@@electricant55 It's still all 12fps (or rather 15fps, because of how games work). But they've just improved their skills. You know they're doing motion well when you can't tell that it's animated every second frame.

[@returnedtomonkey8886]

This whole story mode feels like wasted potential. But I can understand this is the best tehy could do given thier finacial limitations and the pandemic. The story itself is still kinda weak imo

[@killerqueen4558]

Ufotable but full 3d

[@Aripuni1]

their opening animation is very good and its just made by four ppl man, they truely pioneer of 3d animation, and its not animation studio but freaking game studio

[@killerqueen4558]

@@Aripuni1 Thank you sherlock

[@nootnootman6353]

noot noot

[@jkchannel3149]

But the question is does the team really want to improve the animation of the anime? I think this is clearly a choice of focusing resources on fighting gameplay so I don't think there will ever be improvement for the anime in the future. Still, I do enjoy the cheesiness of the plot and have a good laugh brought by awkward animations. Trust me, I had worst

[@KingKien95]

Like he said Xrd was a like a sideshow for the most part. If they didn't want to improve the animation in story they would've just kept doing the same style they've done in the past. But they tried something new this time. So it's possible.

[@openlink9958]

hear me out: free dlc with chapters of the story

[@keybladesrus]

They do have "Another Story" listed on the season pass roadmap. Really hope Ramlethal gets something in that because her absence in the main story was a real bummer. Would also like to know what the hell happened to Faust.

[@Aripuni1]

I wish, they has more short story after this in every update, just short story is enough

[@coleburns362]

note: please do Not go to maximillian for anything GG-related. Go watch an actual GG-player like LordKnight or DEB.

[@CornishCreamtea07]

I much more prefer it when you talk about video games. Your early videos on Anime were great, but as you talked more and more about CG, it got boring as I, and from the sounds of it a lot of other people, are not interested in how the ugly Mech was modelled. With video games, there is a lot more interest in the 3D because we expect that from a video game.

[@kalremist4898]

Ambitious ? I though the story mode was supposed to be a meme.