Resident Evil: Behind the Mask [+Hazardous Battle]

[RetroRain]

It's sad that the fans are putting out good stuff these days, while Capcom sits around and does nothing. The Team IGAS 1.5 mod, your mod, all of the quality fan-made Megaman games. Fans are putting out more stuff, and better stuff than Capcom can do, and Capcom has the money and the staff. It's just mind-blowing, totally mind-blowing.

But yeah, the project looks very interesting. One of the things I was hoping for, aside from the PSX-style backgrounds, was with the PSX-style backgrounds, the RE1-style of lighting, which made its way into the Chief's Office Room of the RE 1.5 Alpha Build. I'm kinda hoping for that style of lighting to be in the Team IGAS mod also. That style of lightning was literally ONLY in RE1 PSX. It gives the game atmosphere and realism.

[Gemini]

I see how it would be fuzz messing around with the SEQ driver. I just hope that the audio will be somehow on par with the visuals, and I'm already blasted with what I've seen. Perhaps a audio PS1 master will join the project and see if you guys can get somewhere around as you mentioned.

I'm slightly tempted to give Sony's SEQ the boot and use Nintendo's SEQ instead (got already some code to play it on a PSX).

I stand corrected again. I was looking some videos of N64's RE2 and I forgot that the models were actually of noticeable lower quality of their PS1 counterparts. The same doesn't apply with some other models of yours, such as the Wesker who looks more like an early PS2 model than a PS1 one!

The N64 models are just like the original assets, the only difference is the textures really. They are rearranged to use a canvas of 4 KB (for example: 64x64 8 bit) because that's what the N64 uses to draw polygons.

Finally, I had this question regarding the re-design of the enemies for some time now. I'm surely impressed from what you guys have done, so I wanted to ask you if you have discussed how Hypnos is going to be. And to be more precise, I wanted to ask if you hopefully model him after the original monstrous sketch instead of the uncle Fester from Adams family on steroids.

He's going to stay pretty much the same, his model isn't that bad, but I won't deny any improvements if they are required. Incidentally, besides Mr.X with the green coat, Hypnos is the only enemy to use a one-skin mesh in his two final forms.

While that is all cool and nice, I was wondering if you planned on having an option to keep the old voice actors as well? I know they were horrible, but there was a certain charm to them, and it would be nice to still hear them in your game.

There is one huge problem why I can't use the original dub, other than quality: the script will be altered and new pieces added to it.

I see you got 8 stealth zombies to essentially run at full speed

Awesome. Really hope stealth mode becomes a thing!

I added some funky optimizations, so yeah, I can draw 8 stealth zombies slightly slower than with regular rendering + light source calculation. I haven't tested it all yet on real hardware, so no guarantees about smooth motion, but at least two accurate emulators seem to confirm this and my code is in general faster than CAPCOM's (and that can move 8 zombies fine). If the benchmarks are confirmed to be truthful, there should be still enough clock power on the CPU to execute the stealth code fine. *crosses fingers*

Speaking of the extra effects, I fixed the chrome effect:

It's now mapping the whole texture range, as it was intended to be. Minor oversights on vector data type mismatch can lead to funny effects (i.e. UV map junk). Don't ask about Chris' position and rotation, it's completely random and I found him like that while I was testing room jump for the other RE1 rooms I hadn't yet added to the conversion.

And Super Gold Tyrant:

Ok, this is not what it seems. This effect is what I originally called "crystal" and it was going to be used for rendering crystal and gems, but during debugging it eventually became a water reflection simulation (it's close enough to the Panzer Dragoon effect).

[Chris' Boob]

I see you got 8 stealth zombies to essentially run at full speed



Awesome. Really hope stealth mode becomes a thing!

[AJM Ruler]

So Gemini, I think you explained earlier about getting an all new voice cast for this game.

While that is all cool and nice, I was wondering if you planned on having an option to keep the old voice actors as well? I know they were horrible, but there was a certain charm to them, and it would be nice to still hear them in your game.

[B.Zork]

Or dinosaurs in space?

this happen.

[Getta robo]

Modding the SEQ driver isn't an easy task (plus most early engines not made with LIBSND just had their own driver, see FFVII and subsequent revisions of the same engine). The original LIBSND code is close source, so first I'd have to disassemble some key parts, then understand what they do, and finally rewrite them just to achieve an effect. It's probably just not worth the effort.

I see how it would be fuzz messing around with the SEQ driver. I just hope that the audio will be somehow on par with the visuals, and I'm already blasted with what I've seen. Perhaps a audio PS1 master will join the project and see if you guys can get somewhere around as you mentioned.

It's just vanilla PSX Leon being extremely close to the camera. Also, you might be surprised to know that the N64 version is quite inferior to its PSX counterpart, despite the better hardware (models are 1:1 copies, but textures are remangled to make stuff fit into the N64 4KB cache).

I stand corrected again. I was looking some videos of N64's RE2 and I forgot that the models were actually of noticeable lower quality of their PS1 counterparts. The same doesn't apply with some other models of yours, such as the Wesker who looks more like an early PS2 model than a PS1 one!
Finally, I had this question regarding the re-design of the enemies for some time now. I'm surely impressed from what you guys have done, so I wanted to ask you if you have discussed how Hypnos is going to be. And to be more precise, I wanted to ask if you hopefully model him after the original monstrous sketch instead of the uncle Fester from Adams family on steroids.

[Drake]

Or velociraptors, because as you, uh, know, life...life uh, finds a way.

[Gemini]

Ah that intensive heh?

It's this intensive:

Left graph shows code in regular rendering, right is for stealth. I heavily optimized it by removing all light source calculations and later replaced gouraud polygons with flat ones, but it's still extremely CPU intensive due to the way uv map needs to be recreated.

Currently I can draw 7 zombies in stealth mode with full speed; 8 zombies make frame rate drop to 20 fps when a camera focal point is very far away from its eye. With all collision calculation, billboarded sprites, and mask sprites, the whole thing is bound to slow down a bit even with 7 zombies, I suspect. 6 should be a decent number. Good thing rendering 2 giant alligators won't cause lag, at least - they barely use 1/3th of my performance gauge in the monster database.

Gemini I'm sure there has to be a simple work around to make it less CPU hungry. Is there any other effect you can use to have a similar effect?

There is a way, but it involves losing the distortion entirely, which isn't anything I'd want for stealth Cleaners. I'm quite satisfied with 6 zombies running always smooth and clean.

How about a Xenomorph mode? Replace all the enemies with zee aliens.

Or dinosaurs in space?

[Drake]

How about a Xenomorph mode? Replace all the enemies with zee aliens.

[Ultimacloud123]

I noticed "3" based on the distortion. I "assume" 2 toward the corner in front of Leon based on looking at the painting and "1" either behind or beside Leon also looking at the painting. This is all due to distortion. Now seeing how you are using RE1 assets as placeholders makes me want to see a Mod/Rewrite of the original with the assets of Remake but that's asking too much. I'm half tempted to form a team to start a Gaiden remake. It would be code-named "Flashback". I already have concepts in mind that I need to draw down like a storyboard. I'd also be using recycled but re-skinned material and obviously material from scratch .

Gemini I'm sure there has to be a simple work around to make it less CPU hungry. Is there any other effect you can use to have a similar effect?

[Chris' Boob]

Ah that intensive heh?

Yah increasing health of a zombie or any other enemy and decreasing the number of them would be about the same. Would be a fun challenge for sure I find it really cool considering I only see a slight distortion in that Leon pic.

[Gemini]

I just thought of an idea: I think you should make an extra mode after you complete the game that turns ALL enemies into "stealth" mode, including bosses Would add a nice difficulty ala REmake's extra modes.

It could be an interesting idea, but I definitively wouldn't use enemy formations as-is. The stealth effect is terribly CPU intensive and I can draw at best about 4 zombies before it starts lagging. I guess a simple solution would be bullet sponge zombies+reduced number to compensate and keep the challenge intact. The reduced number would also help with stealth rendered objects being hard to locate, like in this screenshot:

I'm not sure myself, but given the profiler bar almost reaching lag point, it's probably 4 zombies scattered along the corridor on the left and 2 in front of Leon. Even guessing the number is an ordeal.

I'm not aware which method would be ideal to implement on, however re-arranged music tracks in a "higher" audio stream quality, I'd like to believe that are within your grasp of knowledge and capabilities. I mean, later on games, have very impressive audio which clearly overshadows Gun Survivor's one. Would a modified SEQ driver be out of the question?

Modding the SEQ driver isn't an easy task (plus most early engines not made with LIBSND just had their own driver, see FFVII and subsequent revisions of the same engine). The original LIBSND code is close source, so first I'd have to disassemble some key parts, then understand what they do, and finally rewrite them just to achieve an effect. It's probably just not worth the effort.

Now, the team upload this Leon's screen on their twitter.

I daresay that his details and whole design are a lot closer to the N64 that to PS1! it's truly amazing!

It's just vanilla PSX Leon being extremely close to the camera. Also, you might be surprised to know that the N64 version is quite inferior to its PSX counterpart, despite the better hardware (models are 1:1 copies, but textures are remangled to make stuff fit into the N64 4KB cache).

[Getta robo]

Dolby or similar effects can be created with phase inversion, but PSX voices would still be playing as mono sounds with left/right channel volume levels. I'm using a custom sound driver for samples, so this effect could be achieved for environmental SFX, but since Sony's SEQ driver doesn't support such a feature, music will stay as is... unless I rewrite the whole SEQ driver (ugh).

I'm not aware which method would be ideal to implement on, however re-arranged music tracks in a "higher" audio stream quality, I'd like to believe that are within your grasp of knowledge and capabilities. I mean, later on games, have very impressive audio which clearly overshadows Gun Survivor's one. Would a modified SEQ driver be out of the question?

Chrome will be used just on a very specific elements (metallic items you can interact with, water, can't remember what else). Weapons are not among these because they'd look like crap. Quick knife is planned, melee attacks not sure - could be interesting to have for larger weapons such as shotguns.

Doors should look like nice too I guess. And as about water, you just made me super curious seeing how the new code looks to manipulate water effects! I can't even imagine so.
And as for melee attacks, a quick knife (meaning without having to spend a slot on your inventory) seems just. The though you propose with the shotgun as a melee weapon is simply excellent. I imagine using it when out of shells, and acting like the pipe from the first Silent Hill. I even had this idea about the effect when used upon an enemy, making being knocked down for a while, without having him dealt a great amount of damage.

Now, the team upload this Leon's screen on their twitter.

I daresay that his details and whole design are a lot closer to the N64 that to PS1! it's truly amazing!

[Chris' Boob]

I just thought of an idea: I think you should make an extra mode after you complete the game that turns ALL enemies into "stealth" mode, including bosses Would add a nice difficulty ala REmake's extra modes.

[Gemini]

Nice! That effect would mimic the Bishop Golem nicely. Translucent Cleaners would be cool. Are you planning to give them unique AI from the other Cleaners?

That's the plan. There should be regular cleaners and stealth units fought much later in game, exactly like the various types of Golem in PEII. This is what the stealth Cleaners should more or less look like in game:
YouTube video:

Show YouTube video

Given the nature of this effect, I'll be applying it just to a few enemies. Those uv remaps are CPU and rendering intensive like hell.

I stand corrected. My intended word here is dolby surround. According to various lists, while a handful of PS1 games featured Dolby Surround sound, Gun Survivor wasn't one of them.
What I really wanted to say is, that I hope the audio in general will match the outstanding visuals you have made as well. I do believe that Gemini's magic code will be more than capable to handle a "remastered" soundtrack, which will surely overshadow the quality of the original release.

Dolby or similar effects can be created with phase inversion, but PSX voices would still be playing as mono sounds with left/right channel volume levels. I'm using a custom sound driver for samples, so this effect could be achieved for environmental SFX, but since Sony's SEQ driver doesn't support such a feature, music will stay as is... unless I rewrite the whole SEQ driver (ugh).

Are the weapons going to be rendered with those effects? I hope so!
And as for weapons, do you have any plans to include a knife / quick knife? Or do you have any thoughts to include any sort of melee weapons which will not require some sort of ammunition?

Chrome will be used just on a very specific elements (metallic items you can interact with, water, can't remember what else). Weapons are not among these because they'd look like crap. Quick knife is planned, melee attacks not sure - could be interesting to have for larger weapons such as shotguns.

^ Nice. I saw Claire's name on the list of characters there hehe .. awesome effects.

There's also Chris. Claire is in the thumbnail of the video. Both she and her brother were removed from the video because the recorder went out of sync and started doing funny stuff.

Random question..
Will this game have any extra scenario's or mini-games.
Ark was cool enough, but I missed that traditional RE style of having two characters to choose from - one male and one female.
Do you think something like this could be implemented - either as main game or as an extra unlockable (scenario or outfit/voice change)

Mini games are planned, extra scenarios maybe. Main scenario will still stay Ark's exclusive, unless I decide to go Pokémon route and add the familar-to-everybody "Are you a boy or a girl?" question. If you pick up "girl" you'll play as Patricia Arkette disguised as Vincenza Goldwoman.