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GuiltyGearXrd's Art Style : The X Factor Between 2D and 3D

31 videos recommended on HN
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2 HN users recommended this talk2 months2019–2025 score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN points to it as the definitive example of making 3D rendering look like 2D animation through cel shading, outlines, and framerate tricks.

A GDC 2015 talk by Arc System Works technical artist Junya Motomura on how Guilty Gear Xrd rebuilt a classic 2D fighter in full 3D while keeping a hand-drawn look. It covers the art and programming R&D and the stylistic decisions behind it.

“showing the lengths they went to achieve a high-res hand-drawn look while developing Guilty Gear Xrd.” (HN, 2020)

2 recommendations · 2 citations · Talks · intermediate

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@flobosg Dec 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Designing 2D graphics in the Japanese industry
Nice resource. While not strictly 2D, it brings to mind this GDC talk [1,2] from Arc System Works showing the lengths they went to achieve a high-res hand-drawn look while developing Guilty Gear Xrd. [1]: [this video] [2]: [link]
Lengths taken to achieve a hand-drawn look in 3D.
@nathan_compton Aug 2025 Recommends
on HN thread Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines
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This is an artistic choice with a variety of film precedents. Its not exactly the same thing, but if you watch this GDC talk about the way that Arc System Works uses 3d to simulate 2d animation, it gets some of the ideas across: [this video] Artists might want to produce a lower framerate just to make something look filmic (eg, 25 frames per second) or hand animated, but it can also be a deliberate stylistic choice for other reasons. Eg, the recentish Mad Max films used subtle undercranking to make action scenes feel more intense, and part of that effect is a more noticeable frames and I think there is a bit of that in the Spiderverse films too.
How 3D simulates 2D animation and stylistic framerate choices.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@corysama May 2019 Cites it
on HN thread 3D Game Shaders for Beginners
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A very simple implementation of cell shading is to run the result of traditional lighting through a lookup table in the form of a 1D texture. Having runs and steps of solid color posterizes the smooth lighting input so that it resembles painted cell artwork. A very simple implementation of outlining is to draw the object a second time solid black, with the vertex positions extruded out in the direction of the vertex normals, and with backface culling flipped so that you see only internal faces. Those black, internal faces peeking out around the edge of the regular mesh form the outlines. That's a good starting point. Many iterations and improvements from there gets you to this: [this video]
End result of iterating on cel shading and outlines.
@grumbel Nov 2022 Cites it
on HN thread AI and the Future of Pixel Art
Only if you keep it really low resolution and low framerate. If you want something higher resolution, multiple camera angles or fluidly animated doing it in 2D quickly becomes impractical. Guilty Gears for example started out with 2D sprites and then went 3D with Guilty Gears Xrd[1][2], but with a lot of trickery to keep it looking 2D'ish, though that always was more anime-style than pixel art. [1] [link] [2] [this video]
Example of 3D with trickery to look 2D.

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