Sakurai discusses "drawing light, not objects" when working on Smash Bros. Ultimate

Sakurai is back with yet another Famitsu feature this week. In this article, Sakurai goes into detail about some of the work that goes into the creation of various aspects in Smash Bros. Ultimate. Check out a summary of the article below, courtesy of Sephazon.

- during development, microphones are used to talk about dozens of check items for supervised projects with dozens of people
- there is often a need to repeat the explanations from the beginning, regardless of whether the staff is new or old
- occasionally items he points out are where staff get caught up in development
- writing it all out is ridiculous, but if he were write a column once in a while, it may help other developers
- there is terrain and the distant background, and an element of “drawing light, not drawing objects.”
- the terrain where the character fights and navigates is composed of polygons
- by pasting a texture on it, and applying light, it looks like the real thing
- most modelers can do a good job of getting polygonal shapes and textures at the object level
- it's not as simple as putting the item under the same light source or applying the same perspective for every object and texture
- game consoles are sometimes not as powerful as developers would want them to be
- tricks and techniques are used to make games look as good as absolutely possible and move realistically
- you can modify the design through material composition, diffused reflected light, highlights, contour lighting, drop shadows and self-shadows, bump map, fog and more
- artwork first checked by each artist tends to be closely related to the object
- Sakurai feels Japanese people tend to be slightly insensitive to subtle changes in light and dark because their eyes are typically darker than westerners
- Sakurai says when drawing trees and forests, instead of sticking solely to designing the colors and shapes of the leaves correctly, try drawing light as it interacts with the leaves
- it is important not to see a tree as a singular entity, but instead as a group of individuals