The Shenmue fanbase is one of the most passionate groups of people I’ve ever known. For over 20 years, they’ve campaigned for a third game and never gave up hope. Their work paid off with not only Shenmue III, but remasters of I and II. Most fans have continued to channel that passion through the #LetsGetShenmue4 campaign.
Back in January, we reported on another incredible project from the fanbase. Titled Shenmue: Dragon and Phoenix Collection, this project looks to bring the original two games into a modern day engine. All of the assets are directly pulled from the 2018 Shenmue I and II port. Following that announcement, the team behind the project have slowly released development logs to record their progress.
Each development log gives fans a closer look at their work, and their latest update explains the animation process. Here’s some of what Shenmue fan LemonHaze had to say about the animations:
As for animation, there are generally two ways to approach this in games, Forward Kinematics (FK) and Inverse Kinematics (IK). To put it simply, Forward Kinematics refers to the animation working from beginning to end; this means that the animation data will rotate and move bones in order, such as from shoulder, to biceps, to forearms, and finally on to hands. An animator using FK will have to rotate and position each bone manually in order to achieve the pose they desire. Inverse Kinematics, on the other hand, is the complete opposite; goal positions are provided to the engine and it calculates the rotation and position of the bones.
LemonHaze
They go on explain the positives and negatives of both animation styles. Additionally, they discuss reverse engineering the original Shenmue games, delving deeper into fighting, object interaction, foot planting. They leave the reader with a brief teaser of the animation that’s in the works. You can check that out above!
For more information about this project, don’t forget to sign up on Shenmue Dojo.
