I've been told MK 1 through 3 used digitized graphics. Since I couldn't find anything relevant to digitized graphics when I searched for it, I thought I would turn to the Gamedev.net community. So then, what techniques did MK1 use to achieve it's look for characters and environments? I know they used live actors but what specifically did they do with all their content and how was it shot? I've always liked the visuals of MK1 since they look the most photo-realistic, probably out of any game I've played. Even when when compared to today's advanced 3d games, I still feel many if not all of them have a plastic look. Although, I never actually liked the way MK2 and 3 looked. It looks like somebody just turned up the contrast on those making them appear more cartoonish. Is it possible to get the same resulting visuals of MK1 put onto 3d models?

Most likely, they simply had the actors performing the moves in front of a green screen. I'd say they probably did a bit of manual tweaking, given the relatively low resolution the game ran at, but with today's resolutions, you might not even have to do that.

Quote: Original post by SwordmasterIs it possible to get the same resulting visuals of MK1 put onto 3d models?

The closest you can get in 3d is using motion capturing to get realistic animations and photo based textures.

Motion capturing is used a lot these days, but is usually pretty expensive (need to hire actors, rent a mocap studio, get animators to clean, tweak and export all the data).

Photo based textures are also used quite often for environment, but rarely for humans (without serious overpainting at least), because they tend to look washed out or uncanny.
IIRC Max Payne (the first) used photos as textures.

For more academic aproaches, google for "image based rendering".

I'd like to add that making a 2d game MK style would be quite easy and probably fun nowadays, because digital cameras are everywhere. Get a camera (one that also can record (short) movies) and have your buddies act it out in front of a monochrome (i.e. green) background.

There's an indie project out there that does that, but I can't remember the name. Something with "Kombat" or "combat".

Quote: Original post by Rattenhirn

Quote: Original post by SwordmasterIs it possible to get the same resulting visuals of MK1 put onto 3d models?

The closest you can get in 3d is using motion capturing to get realistic animations and photo based textures.

Definitely not true, www.shapeshot.com

It's used by cameras and it not only gets the texture data, but also the 3d mesh. This needs to be retopologized for animation purposes, but get be stuck on a 3D modeled body. Still expensive though, especially for indie games.

Mortal Kombat's sprites were created by filming martial artists and actors in front of green screens, then extracting the needed frames and cleaning them up, and resizing them.

Goro was an exception. He was a clay model for obvious reasons.

This is nothing you can't replicate with a tripod and a digital camera that can take videos (and nice even lighting, and floor markers for consistency, etc..). Set up a sheet with a color that will NOT be used in your sprites, then film the required motions, and edit them into a series of sprites.

If you load up your videos into an editor where you can see all the frames side by side, you just need to pick out the ones you want to assemble to create each move.