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Thursday,
June 2nd, 2016
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Early SFV
Prototype Screenshot, Concept Art, & Interview With Producer Koichi Sugiyama
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 Some
interesting early concept images from the official Japanese SFV
artbook have surfaced online. Included are early character concept art,
plus a prototype screenshot of what SFV might've looked like under
a different art direction. In fact, Capcom's Koichi Sugiyama recently told
Game Spark that an early build of SFV featured
"photo-realistic graphics". Sugiyama further explained the
design process behind SFV's visuals... scroll down for the full
interview!
Big thanks to @Itsumobasho
for posting these images on Twitter. If we come across higher quality
versions of these artworks, we'll update this article (and update
respective TFG character profiles, of course). 
And below is the interview with SFV producer, Koichi Sugiyama.
Thanks to Eventhubs for the English translation from Japanese.
Game
Spark: To
kick things off, please briefly introduce yourself.
Koichi Sugiyama:
Hi, my name is Koichi
Sugiyama, and I'm the Producer for Street Fighter 5 at Capcom.
What that actually means is that, for the most part I'm in
charge of promotions and operations for the title, and that
includes taking care of the project's financials.
Although the actual Street Fighter 5 creative work is overseen
mostly by the game's director, as I do need to know everything
about the game for promotional and operational purposes, I'm
nonetheless quite well-versed on the subject.
Game Spark:
When were you first involved with
the Street Fighter series?
Koichi Sugiyama:
Previously I was also Producer
on Ultra Street Fighter 4 [and that's about it]. This is fairly
rare, I think, but prior to being involved with Ultra Street
Fighter 4's production, I was actually someone on the management
side of the company, handling administrative and enterprise
projects.
Game Spark:
When did Street Fighter 5's
development first begin?
Koichi Sugiyama:
The actual development work
first began in the summer of 2013. But the idea for Street
Fighter 5 itself, however, was something we've been kicking
around since 2011. At the time we thought that we should work on
an Ultra Street Fighter 4 first, as it would allow us to foster
a much stronger Street Fighter community that would lead into
SF5.
Game Spark:
Since there was an 8-year gap
between the development of Street Fighter 4 and 5, were there
any difficulties you faced in making the sequel?
Koichi Sugiyama:
Well, we really had to work
very hard on the game's visuals.
Up until SF3, the series had been rendered in dot-matrix pixel
sprites. But for SF4, the graphics were all done with 3D models,
and so we had to go through many phases of trial and error in
order to nail the same sort of visual impact that the series is
known for.
For SF5, as this time around we were working with Unreal Engine
4, which is known for being particularly good at rendering
photorealistic visuals, we had to work really hard to try and
recreate that same anime-esque look for the game -- so once
again we did a lot of experiments, before finally settling on
adding "oil painting-esque touches".
In fact, in the very early stages of development, we actually
put together a build of SF5 that was rendered in photorealistic
graphics. But when we did, we realized that it just wouldn't be
Street Fighter without the bold, anime-esque look and feel to
the game, so we decided to shelve the whole photorealism idea
altogether.
Game Spark:
Street Fighter 5 with
photorealistic visuals? I'd love to see that.
Koichi Sugiyama:
Actually, you can. In the
booklet that comes with Street Fighter 5 if you ordered from the
e-Capcom store, you can see a single screenshot of that
photorealistic build we were running at the time. At this point
in time, Ryu had just gotten back from training in seclusion in
the mountains, so he's grown a beard and is covered with all
these cuts and bruises. The idea to make a "Hot Ryu"
battle costume came from this photo-realistic build of SF5.
Game
Spark: Another unique visual aspect in SF5 is the
"fluid trails" visual effects (that appears during the
V-Trigger activation animation). What was the process that led
to the visual effect's inclusion?
Koichi Sugiyama:
In Street Fighter X Tekken, we
had this "water" effects motif. In Street Fighter 4,
it was "ink". So when we began making Street Fighter
5, we thought about what sort of motif we could replace this
with.
We tried various different effects, such as "powder"
or "light". But everything we tried either made things
too difficult to see, or too plain, so we couldn't really find
something apt. At this point, we began examining why we even
wanted to implement these visual effects in the first place.
And the result was that, we realized that we wanted to, for
instance, have these rainbow effects appear in Rainbow Mika's
case.
We realized
that we wanted to bring out the characters' individual image
colors and use it as a representation of each fighter's unique
aura. That led us to settle on the "fluid trails"
visual effect. By the way, since the effects are a
representation of the characters' aura, even if you pick a
different costume color, the fluid trails do not change colors.
Game Spark:
Was it decided from the very
beginning that Street Fighter 5 would be developed using the
Unreal Engine 4?
Koichi Sugiyama: No, we were considering a
number of different engines at the time. As the Unreal Engine 4
was also still under development at the time, and their team was
looking for help on extending the engine's possibilities, we
ended up forming a tag-team with Epic Games to help one another
out.
(Thanks to Eventhubs
for the translation)
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| Sources: CFN
Portal, Eventhubs,
Translations by MajinTenshinhan
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(2-22-2016): SFV Ken Masters Pop Culture Shock Statue,
(2-15-2016): TFG Presents: SFV Necalli "Beast of
Divinity" Combo Video,
(2-10-2016): New Japanese SFV Trailer Teases Glimpse of Alex,
(2-8-2016): SFV CG Movie Includes Epic Throwback to SFA2,
(1-30-2016): Street Fighter V Game Modes Trailer,
(1-29-2016): SFV Director's Edition Colors Preview Video,
(1-23-2016): SFV Cinematic Trailer, Bengus Story Art, Final Beta,
(1-23-2016): SFV North America Special Edition Breakdown,
(1-21-2016): Sony Reveals 4 Limited Edition PS4's For Japan
Related TFG Links: SFV, Ryu,
Charlie Nash,
Birdie,
Chun-Li,
Karin | TFG NEWS
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