SNK Opens Up Their Own Motion Capture Studio In Osaka Headquarters

On their official X account, SNK just announced that they will be opening a motion capture studio at their headquarters in Osaka, with the explicit goal "to further strengthen game development capabilities."

The studio is supposedly fitted out with state-of-the-art technology and a multi-camera system that should enable both precise performance capture alongside the usual motion capture.

While it's not uncommon for major game companies to have their own mocap studios, for many other companies it's a rather significant investment. Which means they either have to settle for budget mocap solutions at their own place, or rent out a place with pro equipment. 

Naturally, having a personal studio is a massive boon for development even if you disregard the equipment. Purely in terms of logistics, your company no longer has to rely on 3rd parties and favorable schedule. Now if someone has a new idea or something needs to be changed, it can be done so much faster, and likely with more oversight to ensure it comes out great.

And if you're wondering why a company that makes highly stylized fighting games full of impossible moves needs a mocap studio, keep in mind that even highly exaggerated motion is often built from some sort of reference.

If you've ever watched an animated movie or TV show, regardless if it was 2D or 3D, you likely saw hundreds of scenes that were made with the help of animators filming themselves doing silly things and grimacing in the camera.

The same goes for fighting games. As crude as early Tekken games might have looked, they still used mocap as reference. Street Fighter 6 might look more realistic than the series ever looked before, but it still has a lot of crazy motions that utilized mocap at least to some extent.

Actually SF6 and CotW might be a great comparison here, as Capcom long has their own mocap studio, while for SNK it's rather new.

Even though the timings are not too far off from each other, you can see that Terry in SF6 is looking a lot more fluid. Even though mocap actors can't defy gravity, some of the motions can still be isolated and preformed to give you an idea of how a human body would move in those situations.

Only time will tell, but we might see a noticeable difference in SNK animations going forward, with the new Art of Fighting game potentially serving as an example.