Resident Evil: Behind the Mask [+Hazardous Battle]

[Jimmy_Jazz]

1-3) You're confusing jags around edges with flickering

Not at all, interlaced flickering was always alot more noticable (for me at least) when high contrast pixels met so they can be related to each other. Pre-rendered backgrounds initially rendered at a higher res and rounded down to 640x480 would have all the harsh edges smoothed out and as a result, the flickering alot less noticable on them.

You're confusing jags around edges with flickering. Flickering is an issue the PSX has with interlaced 640x480 mode: the screen flashes like hell due to the GPU not keeping up with everything else. .

Was it a GPU issue? Even the DC/PS2/GC/XB all used 480i. I thought that it was a standard at the time (some games did support 480p) for tvs (tv signals were interlaced, DVD and VHS players would show interlaced on the tv). Flickering in all cases would stand out more on jaggies than lower contrast pixels and thankfully we had texture filtering as standard on that gen.

[Gemini]

1) Is Ark going to react like RE2-3 regarding being injured? Meaning if he's going to be almost in perfect fighting shape when yellow caution health, somehow slower when in orange caution health, and almost crippled when he's in red danger health?
2) Does the team have any thoughts to implement the visible damage done by the monsters on Ark? Like leaving blood stains when claw/grapple him and such.
3) Likewise, are the monsters going to have any visible damage when injured by Ark? Such as severe limbs after numerous shots, reacting slower after being gravelly injured and so on.
4) Is there any possibility to include the grenades, as offensive/defensive weapon? Like in BH2 beta and RE3?
5) Not really a question, just a wishful way to ask you guys to somehow include Neptunes. I mean, who doesn't like mutated sharks anyway?

1-3) Same as in RE2. The simplest I keep it the better. Some visual aspects don't have to be uber complicated if there's good gameplay to back it up.
2) Limping does it already and it was implemented in the first 3 weeks of development.
4) No idea, there are almost no weapons implemented yet.
5) Nope, they don't fit, I told you already why.

No wonky lighting or awkward camera angles? Impressive!

Nor broken normals or non-tiling textures. Yay! Sonic and I spend a lot of time on every single camera.

you don't notice any flicker on the backrounds because they're essentially anti-aliased (rendered at a higher res then scaled down) and you only notice the flicker on harsh edges, but you do notice it on the edges of meshes.

You're confusing jags around edges with flickering. Flickering is an issue the PSX has with interlaced 640x480 mode: the screen flashes like hell due to the GPU not keeping up with everything else. Most games which used "high" resolution back in the day implemented something like 512x240, 640x240, 320x480, or 320x512 (either vertical or horizontal rendering space is doubled). That is what reduces jags, but it's pseudo high and doesn't rely on interlaced mode. It also requires matrix remangling or a scaled unit matrix due to the different screen aspect ratio.

[Renard]

No wonky lighting or awkward camera angles? Impressive!

[Chris' Boob]

VP is insanely good at backgrounds nowadays. Damn.

[DarkSpyda04]

Leo2236 is another RE modding community person that does an amazing job at creating renders in the style of the classics. Check out some of his renders in the link below.

http://re123.bplaced.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=95&start=30

What you might also find it cool is this post from DrainDeimos of Capcom-Unity in a thread titled "What makes Resident Evil so special?"

What made RE special?

RE popularized exploration games that attempted to psyche the player out of exploring. This is different than a game like GTA or Zelda or Metroid. In those games you are invited to explore.

RE dared you to explore. This is a type of game that kids play in real life. Anthropologists call it Legend Tripping and TVtropes calls it Scare Dare. RE popularized it in digital form on consoles.

How did RE do that? By creating locations that were worth exploring, loading them up with atmosphere and by using mechanics and systems that made the player resistant to taking risks and cautious of their choices.

This is what made RE special. The rest is just icing.

I remember when I played Resident Evil as a kid and around the school yard all the kids would talk about Resident Evil and make up spooky stories of what was in the next locked room. I really think this is the kind of thing Resident Evil shot for back in 1996. It's essentially a 3D point & click horror adventure game that creates unique game mechanics in a way that dares the player to explore the environment whilst making it dangerous or uncertain. Sometimes you'd have a journal with stuff written down about a locked door like the prisoner's journal in Code Veronica that mentions spooky things happening behind the door next to the guillotine stand. This DARES the player to enter that place rather than simply inviting them in. It's kind of childish but it is what it is. Sometimes I consider Resident Evil a children's game because adults don't see what a kid sees in it. Adults see it as a game where you pick up puzzle items to unlock doors with bad voice acting and a B-movie story.

Keep up the good work. I'm liking what I'm seeing with this project.

[Getta robo]

I apology if my following questions have already been answered, I've read the thread quite a few times however I haven't seen them stated.
So, here it goes!
1) Is Ark going to react like RE2-3 regarding being injured? Meaning if he's going to be almost in perfect fighting shape when yellow caution health, somehow slower when in orange caution health, and almost crippled when he's in red danger health?
2) Does the team have any thoughts to implement the visible damage done by the monsters on Ark? Like leaving blood stains when claw/grapple him and such.
3) Likewise, are the monsters going to have any visible damage when injured by Ark? Such as severe limbs after numerous shots, reacting slower after being gravelly injured and so on.
4) Is there any possibility to include the grenades, as offensive/defensive weapon? Like in BH2 beta and RE3?
5) Not really a question, just a wishful way to ask you guys to somehow include Neptunes. I mean, who doesn't like mutated sharks anyway?

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Thanks for the info, I thought ED & AIND were higher res too

From what I remember of TBA, and possibly Time Commando (made by the same people as TBA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL8c-2nTNEA), you don't notice any flicker on the backrounds because they're essentially anti-aliased (rendered at a higher res then scaled down) and you only notice the flicker on harsh edges, but you do notice it on the edges of meshes.

[Gemini]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of impact on perforamance would running the game at a higher res and using higher res backgrounds to match have on native PS1 hardware? Obviously there are memory implications for this that correlate with the resolution increase . I seem to remember a few games that mixed polys with pre-rendered backgrounds running at a higher res (Little Big Adventure, either Evil Dead or Alone in he Dark)

Other than using a bigger buffer for clearing the screen with the actual background data, a bigger resolution makes polygon rendering slightly slower (surfaces get bigger and you need to manage view matrices a little differently to account for the scaling). On real hi-res (640x480) it becomes even worse because it needs to run in interlaced mode, which tends to flicker a lot if not handled correctly either with optimized fast drawing or "odd/even line GPU draw flag". AFAIK, Evil Dead and Alone in the Dark simply use 320x240, no idea about Little Big Adventure.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

I prefer to use the Edit button to just amend old posts and the two above are a couple of days apart, but if it's better etiquette to merge whole posts with the Edit button then I'll give that a shot

[Zombie_X]

Gemini, my comment about Sasha was not directed at you. I was merely saying he looks the part.

Jimmy, why don't you ever use the edit button? I always see you do multiple posts in a row rather than just edit your comment with the new stuff.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of impact on perforamance would running the game at a higher res and using higher res backgrounds to match have on native PS1 hardware? Obviously there are memory implications for this that correlate with the resolution increase . I seem to remember a few games that mixed polys with pre-rendered backgrounds running at a higher res (Little Big Adventure, either Evil Dead or Alone in he Dark)

[Jimmy_Jazz]

I misunderstood your message, thinking it was about BTM, not the coding suggestion. Still, I wouldn't recommend Unity, Unreal Engine, or even Cry Engine. None of those really get you into what's needed for coding a game, while they still provide a solid base. A book definitively would help much more, I have a bunch covering both design and code management which are quite decent.

No problem, I should have been clearer about who it was directed to.

However regarding engines, you will be learning about core systems required for games even if you're not creating them from scratch yourself. And the option is always there to do so yourself. It's just about which methods do you prefer to use to learn (and books are usually good regeardless of which option you use) and which areas do you wish to specialise in.

Just don't go near CryEngine. It's messy, poorly supported, and wrapped up in some horrible copyright agreements if you want to release a game with it.

[Gemini]

Yeah, but Sasha looks identical to Ark.

That's not the point. Please read again my post.

I'm not saying he's making the wrong choice, but I want to understand the reasons behind his choice before providing further information and suggestions.

I misunderstood your message, thinking it was about BTM, not the coding suggestion. Still, I wouldn't recommend Unity, Unreal Engine, or even Cry Engine. None of those really get you into what's needed for coding a game, while they still provide a solid base. A book definitively would help much more, I have a bunch covering both design and code management which are quite decent.

MIPS and 65c816 are necessary for PSX programming?

I used 65c816 to learn hacking game's code after my x86 training: the processor has a small set of opcodes and it's not terribly messy to manage (contrarily to x86). MIPS is what I still use more, but for coding reasons. If you know what GCC does with the compiled code, you can easily optimize it with some strategies, which is why knowing MIPS (or the target architecture, more in general) is terribly important for critical procedures.

About other models, is there any chance you'll include the DS counterparts of zombies? Their design is considerable better than the PS1 ones.

No idea, but I already have them converted. The horribly high polycount will require a few sacrifices, I suppose.

So if you guys wanted to you could re create resident evil 0 (N64 STYLE) or Make that canned game News bot spoke about, about hunk being on the ship with plant style B.O.W.S or just create any new resident evil story the possibility is endless right ?
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Could you guys also make a new Dino crisis game if you wanted to ?

Too much stuff to chew on.

will you be adding the little Easter eggs like the street fighter posters in the arcade room little things like that ?

Nah, those were horribly lame fillers. We'll have something slightly slicker.

[chrisliam2]

So if you guys wanted to you could re create resident evil 0 (N64 STYLE) or Make that canned game News bot spoke about, about hunk being on the ship with plant style B.O.W.S or just create any new resident evil story the possibility is endless right ?

It's amazing how far people are coming with these resident evil fan projects it's getting better and better as the years go by.

I hope this project goes smoothly for you all and wish you all the best with it

will you be adding the little Easter eggs like the street fighter posters in the arcade room little things like that ?

Could you guys also make a new Dino crisis game if you wanted to ?

[Zombie_X]

Yeah, but Sasha looks identical to Ark. We all thought it was Ark when the first full trailer was shown and it's disappointing that it wasn't. How cool would it have been for Leon to find his old pal Ark stomping around Europe fighting BOW's?