Fan Turns Bullet Hell Series Into Amazing CGI Dogfight

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Fan Turns Bullet Hell Series Into Amazing CGI Dogfight

If only Gradius or Ikaruga looked this cool.

Some quick background on this one: Team Shanghai Alice [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project]. The series premise is simple: Little girls wearing hats (or other assorted hair accessories) shoot lots and lots of lasers at each other. Lots, and lots, and lots of lasers.

Touhou is infamous for having horrible character art, No, seriously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIop055eJhU].)

One of those insane fans made this video you see here to my right. Skip to about 1:20 for the action to kick in.

The video, which took over a year to make (the first part was originally posted [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVkxDEuUYQ] in January 2010), depicts the final boss fight of Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism as if it were an action series instead of a top-down 2D shooter. It's a bit slow to get started, but when it does? Hoo boy.

It's basically the Japanese equivalent of things like Monty Oum's Haloid [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryH1TB4gEUY], albeit with rougher character models.

The bullet hell nature of the games comes through loud and clear in the video, which depicts the Utsuho Reiuji battle as one part Dragonball Z and two parts Macross (or Robotech, if you want to be like that). For reference, here's what the battle actually looks like in the original game [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLIaZUOnBU#t=02m00s]. Many of the boss' abilities are initially rendered quite faithfully in the fan recreation, though that goes out the window about halfway in when they just start beating each other up in good ol' fisticuffs.

It's certainly not perfect. As I mentioned before, the quality of the character models seems a bit low in comparison to things like Haloid, though this was all done by just one guy - and considering the crazy fight choreography, I'm inclined to forgive that. It's also a bit jarring to not have any sound effects whatsoever, which the creator says was simply a result of not having enough time (according to Google Translate, anyway).

But minor foibles aside, this is a really cool anime-style fight scene. It's clear that over a year of hard work went into producing this video, and it paid off. Now if there was any doubt in your mind that Touhou fans were the craziest in the world, consider that doubt firmly dispelled.

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Desworks

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Nov 18, 2009
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Very awesome. Bullet count is a little low, but accurately portraying that would have just lead to no-one being able to see anything. :D
 

adam5396

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Feb 12, 2010
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Wow, SOmething Touhou related ended up on the Escapist?

Anyway, the video is pretty cool. But it needs Sound Effects. It's just not the same without the sound of a thousand suns being made in a instant.
 

Formica Archonis

Anonymous Source
Nov 13, 2009
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You got Touhou in my Escapist!

What engine is this animation using? Looks like it was made in MMD or something but I'm a philistine when it comes to 3D art.
 

Fenixius

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Feb 5, 2007
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Man, if Touhou games looked and played like this; like insane third-person aerial laser beam brawlers, I would never stop playing them.

John Funk said:
If only Gradius or Ikaruga looked this cool.
If they looked like this, they'd need to defend themselves from Macross/Robotech lawsuits >.>;

Which would be a worthy price for a good Macross game, even if it lacked the label :p

Also, John, where did your View from the Road go? I miss those.
 

Warachia

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Aug 11, 2009
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After watching parts of the Monty Oum videos, I have to say, the guy put effort, in, but to what end? The animation is decent but the finished product fills me with disgust.

That aside, this one is pretty good.
 

SharPhoe

The Nice-talgia Kerrick
Feb 28, 2009
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Awww, I remember when I saw footage of this while it was still in progress. There were sound effects with it then, good ones. It's kind of a shame that it's missing those now. Also, I should really "l2japaneez" so I can understand the conversation at the start. >_>
 

SharPhoe

The Nice-talgia Kerrick
Feb 28, 2009
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Warachia said:
After watching parts of the Monty Oum videos, I have to say, the guy put effort, in, but to what end? The animation is decent but the finished product fills me with disgust.
I would ask why you feel that way, since I love the Dead Fantasy series, but somehow, I get the feeling that the answer would be something in the ballpark of "objectification of women" and such. That seems to be the #1 issue with his work, I've noticed.
 

Warachia

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Aug 11, 2009
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SharPhoe said:
Warachia said:
After watching parts of the Monty Oum videos, I have to say, the guy put effort, in, but to what end? The animation is decent but the finished product fills me with disgust.
I would ask why you feel that way, since I love the Dead Fantasy series, but somehow, I get the feeling that the answer would be something in the ballpark of "objectification of women" and such. That seems to be the #1 issue with his work, I've noticed.
Not at all actually, I can't see the point of it, all I see is wasted potential, It comes down to what each person sees/believes and I believ that there is more value in creating something new rather than taking an already existing creation and inserting your own fan persona over it.

That sounds harsh, but I look at the finished product, and what it's based on, and what the
author has done with it. Yes, the fights seem neat but it would have been neater if the character's were original, I guess I don't have anything against Dead Fantasy aside from seeing it as a form of fanfiction, I'm just really soured out after watching the Haloid video, which I watched before Dead Fantasy, of which I could write several paragraphs explaining what's wrong with it (none of which having to do with the what the character themselves can or can't do.)
 

SharPhoe

The Nice-talgia Kerrick
Feb 28, 2009
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Warachia said:
Okay, that's reasoning I can agree with. As an artist/writer, I can also vouch for the fact that it would be nice to see that much dedication put into a wholly original work. Which isn't to say he might not have some OC stuff going on on the side, but I digress. I'm still glad he does the work that we see, and that he uses recognizable characters. Why? Because I know for a fact that, no matter how good the work itself is or how much effort he put into it, if he had done all of this with original characters from the start, it would've gotten maybe a quarter of the attention it does, if not possibly LESS. And that's even more of a waste, in my eyes.

The way I see it, even though fanart or fanfiction can easily be used as an attention magnet, I can easily overlook that if said work is still done very well.
 

Mstrswrd

Always playing Touhou. Always.
Mar 2, 2008
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John Funk said:
Fan Turns Bullet Hell Series Into Amazing CGI Dogfight

If only Gradius or Ikaruga looked this cool.

Some quick background on this one: Team Shanghai Alice [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touhou_Project]. The series premise is simple: Little girls wearing hats (or other assorted hair accessories) shoot lots and lots of lasers at each other. Lots, and lots, and lots of lasers.

Touhou is infamous for having horrible character art, No, seriously [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIop055eJhU].)

One of those insane fans made this video you see here to my right. Skip to about 1:20 for the action to kick in.

The video, which took over a year to make (the first part was originally posted [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVkxDEuUYQ] in January 2010), depicts the final boss fight of Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism as if it were an action series instead of a top-down 2D shooter. It's a bit slow to get started, but when it does? Hoo boy.

It's basically the Japanese equivalent of things like Monty Oum's Haloid [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryH1TB4gEUY], albeit with rougher character models.

The bullet hell nature of the games comes through loud and clear in the video, which depicts the Utsuho Reiuji battle as one part Dragonball Z and two parts Macross (or Robotech, if you want to be like that). For reference, here's what the battle actually looks like in the original game [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLIaZUOnBU#t=02m00s]. Many of the boss' abilities are initially rendered quite faithfully in the fan recreation, though that goes out the window about halfway in when they just start beating each other up in good ol' fisticuffs.

It's certainly not perfect. As I mentioned before, the quality of the character models seems a bit low in comparison to things like Haloid, though this was all done by just one guy - and considering the crazy fight choreography, I'm inclined to forgive that. It's also a bit jarring to not have any sound effects whatsoever, which the creator says was simply a result of not having enough time (according to Google Translate, anyway).

But minor foibles aside, this is a really cool anime-style fight scene. It's clear that over a year of hard work went into producing this video, and it paid off. Now if there was any doubt in your mind that Touhou fans were the craziest in the world, consider that doubt firmly dispelled.

Permalink
To beat a dead Horse; Touhou in Mah Escapist!? Hell yeah.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, I actually kind of like how they went the 10.5 (Scarlet Weather Rhapsody) routa instead of the pure STG route. It seems more blievable.

Oh, wait, people don't know the 7.5/10.5/12.3 route? Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMa4h93LRo4 That actually isn't the best match I've seen (in actuality, it's a fairly bad example of the game), but it is Reimu v Okuu (Utsuho's Nickname), so it fit (and no, I couldn't do much better).

For those curious, the purple haired girl at the end is Satori Komeiji, and the cat is Rin Kaenbyou (Orin). The Gaps in reality (and the arm with the fan at the end) were made by Yukari Yakumo.

Now we just have to wait for KamiNekoYu to put sounds in like last time. Hopefully, the japanese fandom won't get annoyed and make him do a third version with different sounds.
http://www.youtube.com/user/KamiNekoYu

Also, Hell yeah, Touhou.

Edit: For those who post after me, post your favorite songs from Touhou. Here are my two (I have many, but here's the top two).
In Game:
Onigashima in the Fairyland ~ Missing Power: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gP3J--2-HA
Out of Game:
Kid's Festival ~ Innocent Treasures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvkquWS_aMA
 

Torrasque

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Aug 6, 2010
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Wow, that was so good :O
That screamed Macross for me, and I kept on saying "ICHIROOOOOO" and "LAZERBEEM", lol
 

hopeneverdies

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Oct 1, 2008
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SharPhoe said:
Awww, I remember when I saw footage of this while it was still in progress. There were sound effects with it then, good ones. It's kind of a shame that it's missing those now. Also, I should really "l2japaneez" so I can understand the conversation at the start. >_>
I'm sure this is only a finished product in the sense that the animation is finished. Either the original creator or some other party is going to be adding sound effects in the near future. I can't wait to hear my klaxons!