Hitboxes: Difference between revisions

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HitboxHitBehindExtendedHurtbox1.png|Relius' punch
HitboxHitBehindExtendedHurtbox1.png|Relius' punch
HitboxHitBehindExtendedHurtbox2.png|These two attacks will trade
HitboxHitBehindExtendedHurtbox2.png|Mai and Relius will get hit in this situation
HitboxHitBehindExtendedHurtbox3.png|Only Mai will get hit if Relius takes a step back before attacking
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A more curious case is when an attack "hits behind" them due to the opponent doing a move with an extended hurtbox. This merits a bit more explanation: Relius' attack extends his hurtbox far forward into Mai's attack, even though he's behind her. Relius is basically sticking his hand into a blender, if he stepped back, then this would not happen.
A more curious case is when an attack "hits behind" them due to the opponent doing a move with an extended hurtbox. This merits a bit more explanation: Relius' attack extends his hurtbox far forward into Mai's attack, even though he's behind her. Relius is basically sticking his hand into a blender, if he stepped back, then this would not happen.

Revision as of 00:00, 18 December 2018

Behind the scenes of a fighting game, the properties of attacks and characters are defined by hitboxes. These show where exactly an attack can hit and where a character can be hit.

Definitions

Hitbox
Refers to all types of boxes discussed in this section such as attackboxes and hurtboxes
Attackbox
Where the attack can hit the opponent. These are typically colored red.
Hurtbox
Where the character can be hurt if struck. These are typically colored blue or green.
Collisionbox
Where the character currently takes up space. Unlike attackboxes and hurtboxes, collisionboxes can not overlap, and will instead push each other from side to side, such as when characters walk into each other. These do not have a color commonly used.

These are just some of the common types of hiboxes. Depending on the game there may be specific boxes for throws, projectiles, assists, etc.


Hitboxes shown are approximations and are not meant to be exact in-game hitboxes

Common Hitbox Trends

Let's look how some common moves behave and see what we can learn.

Extended Hurtboxes

A typical attack extends the character's hurtbox. This means that blindly doing attacks from neutral has some risk as you are briefly making yourself a bigger target. You can be hit out of the startup of your attack or be punished for whiffing. Not all attacks have extended hurboxes during attacks, but it is true more often than not.


Shrunk Hurtboxes

Some moves shrink your hurtbox significantly. This is especially prevalent in Guilty Gear's 6P anti air attacks.

Some attacks only have shrunk hurtboxes before the active frames of the attack. One example of this is I-No's Stroke the Big Tree (4th image). She can go under attacks before her attack becomes active, but that same attack with proper timing can trade with her.


Disjointed Hitbox

While most moves have attackboxes and hurtboxes fairly close to each other, some don't; these moves are typically strong for beating out other moves in that direction. For example, Ky's 6P is strong against air attacks since he's not hittable above his knees, and Slayer's 2H can't be hit below his knees, making it useful for beating opponents using low attacks.

Attacks with shrunk hurtboxes usually have disjointed hitboxes.

Misleading Hitboxes

Hitboxes don't have to make real-world sense. Hurtboxes can even extend to things that don't normally make sense like weapons, capes, or even the empty space around them. Sometimes attackboxes strike more (or less) area than they visually appear.

Attacks that Hit Behind You

Some attacks hit both in front of and behind the character. This is primarily how Crossup attacks work.

Attribute Invincibility

There's usually a distinct visual effect when you are attribute invincible to an attack

While not directly hitbox related, Attribute Invincibility is worth mentioning here since a lot of ASW games use it (such as BlazBlue and Dragon Ball FighterZ). Each attack is tagged with an attribute, such as Head, Body, Foot, or Projectile. Certain attacks have invincibility to certain attributes for a set amount of time.

A common example of this is 2H attacks in Dragon Ball - they have invincibility to Head attribute attacks and almost all airborne attacks are Head attribute. Thus you could say that you effectively have no hurtbox versus airborne attacks.

Games that use Attribute Invincibility typically only have a few moves that shrink hurtboxes significantly since they use the Attributes for the same purpose most of the time.


Common Situations

Some hitbox interactions are easy to explain, while others are more confusing at first glance. Let's review some to gain a better understanding of them.

Hitting an Opponent

An opponent gets hit when your attackbox intersects with the opponent's hurtbox, as shown in the first example. While this sounds easy, certain interactions will appear "strange" without slowing things down or applying the concept of extended/reduced hurtboxes.

In the second example, Hazama's foot barely gets hit by Hakumen's sword as he tried to air dash over him. Players may get surprised when this happens, but this can all be explained if we slowed down the game and inspect it a bit closer.

Hitting an Extended Hurtbox

In the first example, Tager's fists are able to hit Izayoi's sword, which has a hurtbox. Remember, Once again, positioning is important, too close and the two attacks would trade, too far and they'd both miss.

In the second example, we see Jin do an attack with an extended hurtbox, and Ragna positioned to hit him. Once again, positioning is important - if Jin were horizontally closer then his sleeves would hit Ragna's head, too far and Ragna'a fist would miss.

In the third example, Noel positions herself outside the range of Hazama's kick, then attacks the extended hurtbox during his recovery.

Extended Hurtbox Part 2

A more curious case is when an attack "hits behind" them due to the opponent doing a move with an extended hurtbox. This merits a bit more explanation: Relius' attack extends his hurtbox far forward into Mai's attack, even though he's behind her. Relius is basically sticking his hand into a blender, if he stepped back, then this would not happen.


Using Disjointed Hurtboxes

Disjointed hitboxes are a great way to avoid the enemy's attacks since the opponent needs to be closer than normal to hit you.

Clash

Clashes in most ASW games occur when an attackbox intersects with the opponent's attackbox. During a clash, both players can cancel into most other actions, but this varies by game. There is usually a distinct visual and audio effect for clashes. Clashes only occur when two strikes intersect, but there are a few exceptions, for example, strikes like Tager's Atomic Collider or Potemkin's Heat Knuckle can not clash, even though they technically are strikes.


Estimating Hitboxes Without Datamining

Not all games will have hitboxes available - this is especially true with new games on new engines. But that doesn't mean you don't have any hitbox information at all, you can test things yourself and make estimates on the location of hitboxes/hurtboxes.

Observe In-Game

  1. First assume that the hitboxes are exactly where the animation shows it to attack. And the hurtboxes are located in the same space the character occupies.
  2. Notice when unexpected hits/misses happen
    1. Did your move have more/less range than you thought?
    2. How easy/difficult is it for the opponent to hit you out of a specific move?
    3. Did you dodge an attack unexpectedly?
  3. Make a note of it in your mind and experiment in training mode.

Experiment in Training Mode

  1. In training mode, try to hit the opponent from different angles that you don't usually use to get an idea how big the hitbox/hurtbox for any attack are in a specific direction.
    1. For example,

Combining with Frame Data

Judging moves based solely on its hitboxes is not enough, speed is an equally important factor, and many of the situations described above can only happen with specific timing and positioning. This all needs to be taken into account when evaluating attacks.

When people show a hitbox and say that move is too weak or too strong, they may not be telling the whole story - what good is a strong disjointed hitbox if is easily reacted to and punished? A fast move that hits far can still be strong even if the hurtbox extends along with it since the opponent can not easily react to it.

See Also