Street Fighter V Arcade Edition was released on January 18th, 2018, as an update to 2016's Street Fighter V. In the following three articles we introduce a behind the scenes look at how Shirogumi, the production team behind the opening sequence, managed to retain the classic atmosphere of the much-loved Street Fighter universe while introducing a vibrant new take on the series.
TEXT_UNIKO
EDIT_Hitomi Komura（CGWORLD）
PHOTO_Mitsuru Hirota
TRANSLATION_Shirogumi Inc./Ben George/Yuki Nishimura
the Japanese version is available from following link.
https://cgworld.jp/interview/201803-sfvae-op1.html
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition - Cinematic Opening
<1>Capcom's Seven Vital Components That Ensure the Characters and the Street Fighter Vision Are Clearly Depicted
In 1987, Street Fighter burst onto the fighting game scene, and across the world today the series continues to enjoy a deep rooted appreciation. Beyond the exhilaration common to the genre, the game's colorful and charming international characters have helped to sustain its popularity up until today. Recently released Street Fighter V Arcade Edition (from here on SFVAE) update to Street Fighter V (from here on SFV) offers new abilities and previously unavailable characters.
At the end of last year, at the Playstation Experience 2017 event, eager fans attending the SFV Capcom Cup 2017 International Conference were treated to the surprise preview of the opening movie along with the announcement of the game's imminent release and their cheers of excitement echoed around the whole venue. The opening movie was produced by Shirogumi Inc. Yoshihiro Komori, known for his direction of animated movie Gamba (2015) and other popular CGI animations, was selected as director for this project. The process went extraordinarily smoothly, with no troubles and next to no retakes requested by Capcom, something almost unheard of in the industry. In this article, for the chapter on planning, we will give you a look behind the scenes of production and show you how the two companies balanced effective communication with the task of satisfying and exciting the fans.
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Yoshihiro Komori
Director and CGI Supervisor, Shirogumi Inc.
From the more familiar characters like Ryu and Chun-Li to those that were newly introduced, there are thirty-four playable characters in SFVAE. When creating the movie, SFV director Takayuki Nakayama of Capcom presented this project to Shirogumi with the idea of making a movie that introduces the entire Street Fighter universe and characters. On choosing Shirogumi, Nakayama said, "Capcom worked with Shirogumi on the pre-rendered movie for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (2017) which was received very well both inside the company and among the public. In addition, I personally remember being very impressed with the opening movie Shirogumi made for Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny (2002) and wanted to create something as fantastic as that."
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Takayuki Nakayama
Street Fighter V Director, Capcom Co.
Shirogumi producer Hiromasa Inoue received an offer from Nakayama. Inoue said, "After Capcom explained the concept and aim of the video, they offered this project to Shirogumi, including freedom of direction. I chose Komori as the director because of his fantastic work on the Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite pre-rendered movie and the advanced CGI skills he possesses, and then assembled the rest of the team."
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Hiromasa Inoue
Producer, Shirogumi Inc.
At first, Nakayama set out the seven vital components as: coolness; fighting scenes; clear introductions to each of the thirty-four characters; beautiful stage entrances; boss battles; character visuals (and if they should be in the classic oil painting style or not); and hip hop music. With Nakayama's aims made clear, Shirogumi's team, led by Komori, began researching and experimenting with how to construct a breathtaking vision of the Street Fighter world.
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<2>The Project Progressed Smoothly with Shared Enthusiasm and Trust
