How many polygons does it take to make Naruto look so good?
Chances are, if you're an anime fan, you've picked up the PS3-exclusive Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm. The most recent game by Namco Bandai has rightly deserved its fair share of attention due to the fantastic graphics crafted by the CyberConnect 2 team. The secret behind the new graphics is surprisingly simple: add more polygons.
Take for example the Naruto character model. In the PS2 Naruto games, the rascally ninja contained 3,723 polygons. However, for the PS3 iteration, he's made up of 16,927. His face alone takes 4,013 polygons, making his face more complex than the entirety of the PS2 model.
As hardware gets more powerful and tech gets better, we wouldn't be surprised if animation studios just used game engines to render episodes. Heck, we wouldn't mind watching real-time generated episodes of Naruto using this game engine.
