href="http://www.capcom-unity.com/kramez/gallery/view_gallery.one?pid=88727786">
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/>Little known fact is
that I am actually on my second tour of duty with Capcom,
having joined straight out of college in 1993 (yes, I am
actually that old). I began my original rotation with the
company shortly after the first game with the words
“Super” and “Street Fighter” appeared on the SNES, and
was in the office for only a few weeks when the test
board for Super Turbo arrived. James
Goddard (aka the creator of Dee Jay) and Dave Winstead
were still with Capcom at that point, and I got to know
them a little bit before they
boogied.
A few days before announcing
Super Street Fighter IV, I managed to
track down Mr. Goddard (who is currently working on one
of the two MMOs being produced in Austin, TX, worth being
excited about) and asked him to share with Unity his
recollections from the olden days, as well as his
feelings about now seeing his creation come to life in
3D.
Take it away,
Goddard:
Back in the early 90′s, I managed
an R&D support group comprised of myself and 2 other
Capcom USA apprentice designers. Our job was to
support Capcom Japan’s coin-op team with getting more
info on the Western players likes, localization, licensed
games and any crazy ideas we could pitch them
style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size:
x-small;">J.
We had great success with getting
SFII Champion and Hyper editions being USA initiated and
played key design support roles, but during the
development of Super SFII something really rare happened-
we got a chance to pitch a new Street Fighter character!
style="font-family:
Calibri,sans-serif;">
I remember receiving 4×6 pictures
of 4 new characters for SSFII- Cammy, T-Hawk and 2
Chinese
(Bruce Lee inspired) twins (Fei Long).
Immediately we loved them but had concern about doing a
head-swap for the 4th
character since Ken and Ryu already owned that.
Luckily Japan was open to ideas for a 4
style="font-size:
xx-small;">th
original character and Dee Jay was born!
style="font-family:
Calibri,sans-serif;">
I was inspired by Billy Blanks in
King of the Kick Boxers, and sent Japan
style="color: #1f497d;"> the movie plus a
really rough sketch (I am a cartoonist at best) with a
description of personality and fighting style (a mix of
Western Kickboxing and Capoeira).
style="font-family:
Calibri,sans-serif;">
We received the first picture of
him and he was buff and mean looking, but needed to feel
a bit ‘lighter/fun’. I did a revision sketch to
capture the subtle happier tweaks (see pic)
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style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">and added the
“double dread tails” to allow for a bit more life in his
animation. I was a total noob at this back then, I had no
idea why these things seemed important but I was very
fortunate to get to present these ideas in-person on a
trip to Japan where Akiman (Akira Yasuda) liked the vibe
and incorporated that direction into the
design. The final challenge was to come up with
a fitting name and after Japan thankfully shot down
Mantis, JJ Bam (I know, really bad) but the loved the
name Dee Jay – a spin off of my design pen name DJAMES
J
style="font-family:
Calibri,sans-serif;">
Creating a fighting character is
a ton of work and I am very fortunate to be a co-creator
of this character- the first USA initiated Street Fighter
character.
I am so excited to see his
transition to 3D coming in SSIV and his ultra looks
frigging awesome (love the exaggerated standing uppercut
pose!). Dee Jay looks to be even more of a high flying
powerhouse than I ever dreamed
possible.
My thanks to Capcom Unity for
running this and I look forward to playing Dee Jay online
when SSIV launches!
James “DJAMES”
Goddard,
Principle Combat Designer |Star
Wars: The Old Republic
BioWare
Austin
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