System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition Update & Community Participation

[66ef3ca5a7f1elogical]

There's always the struggle between fixing things or keeping them faithful.

Sneakily keeping my eye on this thread!

Keeping them faithful is the right idea, but I feel you are being a little overzealous when it comes to keeping them low poly. You can make it look good and still keep it faithful.

For example, his nose doesn't need to be that thin and pointy, does it? You can still keep it faithful and give him a... I don't know, a regular human nose? Also, mitten hands just disgust me, there is absolutely no excuse for it.

Don't get me wrong, I admire your work, but I know you can do better.

Here's another one showing the weird properties of an extremely lowpoly head and choosing which angle you want to recreate faithfully:

I know you are trying to keep it closer to the original model, but the eyes of your model still looks weird to me. Too high up and too close together. It probably wasn't that noticeable with the old model because of how low poly, low res and messed up it was.

To be fair, only Diego got a custom one if we don't count bloome, the rest are using these four.

Janice Polito should get a custom model based on her portrait for sure. I am sure most would back me on this. She is an important character and making her more noticeable would be a good thing.

By the way, this reminds me. I feel like collar of the crew outfits could be based on the crew portraits. The one you made certainly looks cool though.

I almost didn't believe the two with caps are used in the game when I imported them, even though I've already seen them all over the place. They're shorter, they have very strange texturing and I almost dismissed them as early development models that they forgot in the files.

Those modes with caps are a good addition to the already limited crew models we have. I only wish we had a few alive ones early in the game. (You know, behind windows during the training section.) It is not a must, but it would be nice.

By the way, will you implement mouth animation? If implementing real mouth animation is not possible, this game supports texture based mouth animation and that would still work for the very few scenes where we see people talking up close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAyFXP-6NI

Of course you can make it look much better than it does in this video by creating a proper mouth texture set that fits the faces you created.

[66ef3ca5a8a89eldrone]

yes to the Rebirth models height, and the legs do like to break with the current tools, it seems.

also, since you (eldrone) are apparently working on the EE AI meshes, I'll pop the request here as well (originally posted on discord) - please, if possible, the shotgun hybrid's shotgun stub should be a subobject, to ensure compatibility with mods. I can attach the modified vanilla model if reference is necessary.

This was noted down very early, weapons are seperate objects on the hybrids!

The hybrid pipe is even of high enough definition that I hope to see someone make a usable weapon out of it in a mod.

But you still use the 3dstobin front-end to bring them back into dark?  I've had problems in the past with unknown errors trying to bring models into the game and spent hours bringing pieces of the model in to see where the defect was.  An alternative method for importation would be great but what you're showing above is also very handy... I just don't know if I can use it personally because it involves blender and 2 words you mentioned that I never heard of, which means I'm not educated enough in 3d modelling techniques to know what I'm doing with that tool.

It's both export and import, didn't use the 3dstobin for the ai-meshes.

Keeping them faithful is the right idea, but I feel you are being a little overzealous when it comes to keeping them low poly. You can make it look good and still keep it faithful.

For example, his nose doesn't need to be that thin and pointy, does it? You can still keep it faithful and give him a... I don't know, a regular human nose? Also, mitten hands just disgust me, there is absolutely no excuse for it.

Don't get me wrong, I admire your work, but I know you can do better.



I know you are trying to keep it closer to the original model, but the eyes of your model still looks weird to me. Too high up and too close together. It probably wasn't that noticeable with the old model because of how low poly, low res and messed up it was.

Janice Polito should get a custom model based on her portrait for sure. I am sure most would back me on this. She is an important character and making her more noticeable would be a good thing.

By the way, this reminds me. I feel like collar of the crew outfits could be based on the crew portraits. The one you made certainly looks cool though.

Those modes with caps are a good addition to the already limited crew models we have. I only wish we had a few alive ones early in the game. (You know, behind windows during the training section.) It is not a must, but it would be nice.

By the way, will you implement mouth animation? If implementing real mouth animation is not possible, this game supports texture based mouth animation and that would still work for the very few scenes where we see people talking up close.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAyFXP-6NI

Of course you can make it look much better than it does in this video by creating a proper mouth texture set that fits the faces you created.

I made a choice to keep the geometry and texel density visually fitting for both vanilla and one where shtup/400/scp is being used, modelled digits just didn't make much sense both when looking at animations and overal complexity of the geometry in the entire game.

When you start adding details to the hands and face suddenly you need to match the rest of the geometry on the model, you'll suddenly need higher resolution textures to match that density. .At that point you've suddenly outpaced the fidelity of the rest of the game.

But basically, the models form the silhuette and the texture carries it the rest of the way, all while still matching the old game.

I know there's a lot of preference in where it should've gone, some wanted way more detailed models, others want a very faithful renditions, I've been trying to find a good middlepoint.

It's roughly 4 times the triangle count for characters, 2-3 times the texel density in textures.


I did look at the animated textures for talking characters earlier on, I think it was a combination of new models having geometry for the mouths making it a problem and there not being too many talking characters in the game which made it time better put into other things.

But it was interesting seeing this done, I'd like to see someone try this out in ss2!

[66ef3ca5a8c3evoodoo47]

all excellent news.

we are actually holding off all experiments with the animated mouths intentionally, because for this to be worth the effort, it needs to work for both vanilla and EE models. if the we cannot make it work with EE models for whatever reason (ex. mouth area having too much polys), then we'll probably leave it alone (basically, it may end up looking silly. should that be the case, then it's better off not done at all).

[66ef3ca5a8da8ZylonBane]

Will the enhanced AI models completely replace the vanilla models, or will they be optional like the included community mods? I'd assume the latter, but I shouldn't assume.

Would be interesting to see the enhanced models with their textures downsized to vanilla resolution.

[66ef3ca5a8f16diego]

@eldrone

Those are just lame excuses and we both know it. Just take older games (from around 2002) that have separate fingers as example, they are not any more higher poly than yours and they do not look out of place at all. In fact, some of them might be lower poly than yours.

That talk about adding details is also nonsense. A human face can still look like a human face without adding too much detail. Nose area doesn't need to be pointy like end of a dagger.

As for mouth animation, just say that you don't want to bother with it. What you gave was a non-answer.

It is true that there are not many talking characters, but those who do are right in your face. It just looks bad and I for one expect better from EE. Not to mention, like voodoo47 mention what you do will effect all mods as well, so not bothering with it is just bad.

[66ef3ca5a946feldrone]

Will the enhanced AI models completely replace the vanilla models, or will they be optional like the included community mods? I'd assume the latter, but I shouldn't assume.

Would be interesting to see the enhanced models with their textures downsized to vanilla resolution.

Yeah, these will be optional!

@eldrone

Those are just lame excuses and we both know it. Just take older games (from around 2002) that have separate fingers as example, they are not any more higher poly than yours and they do not look out of place at all. In fact, some of them might be lower poly than yours.

That talk about adding details is also nonsense. A human face can still look like a human face without adding too much detail. Nose area doesn't need to be pointy like end of a dagger.

As for mouth animation, just say that you don't want to bother with it. What you gave was a non-answer.

It is true that there are not many talking characters, but those who do are right in your face. It just looks bad and I for one expect better from EE. Not to mention, like voodoo47 mention what you do will effect all mods as well, so not bothering with it is just bad.

Just trying to give an insight into my process!

I know some would've wanted more of something, and some would've wanted less of something else, I'm fully expecting people to make alterations and tweaks to these.

The goal is mainly to give people a more refined, polished and slightly more faithful alternative than has existed before.

But as Voodoo47 said, the biggest problem will be that these have facial geometry, not just a flat surface for the lower part of the face. If it was as easy as a request to add an extra bone that controls the jaw, I would've gone for that, but this doesn't work.

[66ef3ca5ab66dlogical]

This was noted down very early, weapons are seperate objects on the hybrids!

The hybrid pipe is even of high enough definition that I hope to see someone make a usable weapon out of it in a mod.

Pipe as a weapon and Pistol hybrid are two things I really wish was a part of SS2 to begin with. It would really improve the gameplay in my opinion.

I wish we could have two versions, or at least an option in the menu for improvements such as these.

I made a choice to keep the geometry and texel density visually fitting for both vanilla and one where shtup/400/scp is being used, modelled digits just didn't make much sense both when looking at animations and overall complexity of the geometry in the entire game.
When you start adding details to the hands and face suddenly you need to match the rest of the geometry on the model, you'll suddenly need higher resolution textures to match that density. .At that point you've suddenly outpaced the fidelity of the rest of the game.

With all do respect, I would say you made the wrong choice. Quite obviously. What is the point of remaking the models it if its going to look like it was made back in early 2000's? Is this the "Enhanced Edition" or "Barely Improved" edition? Like I said, I am all for keeping them faithful to the original, but this ain't it. Original models were a melted blob with textures slapped on it. By making models into slightly less melted blobs, you are not keeping it faithful at all. That's not what anyone means by keeping it faithful.

Your point about the animations is quite irrelevant. Many early games that had individual digits for NPC's didn't have finger joints and still made it work. Its not something you would even notice it if you didn't already know. In most of those games, left hand is always open and right hand is slightly closed so when NPC's have a weapon on their hands it still looks right. You could do this also.

Not to mention, we are only talking about face and fingers. No one says you need to add a ton of additional details. Just try to move it more this decade.

But basically, the models form the silhuette and the texture carries it the rest of the way, all while still matching the old game.

I know there's a lot of preference in where it should've gone, some wanted way more detailed models, others want a very faithful renditions, I've been trying to find a good middlepoint.

I would argue what you found is not a middlepoint at all. I am sure everyone would agree textures are good enough, but models did not need to be this low poly. Again, keeping it faithful and keeping it low poly are two entirely different things. You can add a bit more detail to where it makes more sense and still keep it faithful.

Do you think people thought Rebirth models weren't faithful enough because they were high poly? Because I can tell you right now that wasn't it. Rebirth models didn't look like they belonged in SS2 to begin with, it had nothing to do with poly count.

It's roughly 4 times the triangle count for characters, 2-3 times the texel density in textures.

Sure.. But that says nothing when you consider how low poly and melted the original models were.

I did look at the animated textures for talking characters earlier on, I think it was a combination of new models having geometry for the mouths making it a problem and there not being too many talking characters in the game which made it time better put into other things.

But it was interesting seeing this done, I'd like to see someone try this out in ss2!

You could make it work if you wanted to, but if you do not wish to bother that's a different thing.

I know some would've wanted more of something, and some would've wanted less of something else, I'm fully expecting people to make alterations and tweaks to these.

Bethesda approach. Fans will fix it. I got you.

The goal is mainly to give people a more refined, polished and slightly more faithful alternative than has existed before.

Yeah, but what does that mean to you exactly? There is an objective truth you are ignoring here.

I am not saying what you are doing is terrible, I am saying you are being too overzealous. Low poly blob is not a specific style you can keep faithful to. Even if you could, squishing a little more detail into the models wouldn't kill it.

But as Voodoo47 said, the biggest problem will be that these have facial geometry, not just a flat surface for the lower part of the face. If it was as easy as a request to add an extra bone that controls the jaw, I would've gone for that, but this doesn't work.

I don't think mouth part has to be completely flat just flat enough. Seeing what you did with its nose, keeping it flat and bland is what you do best, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Why doesn't adding an extra bone for the jaw doesn't work exactly? It worked well enough for Half-Life 1. This would be brilliant if it could be done.

[66ef3ca5ab894voodoo47]

logical and the other guy, tone it down a notch, would you kindly. it's perfectly ok to express dissatisfaction with a thing or two, but dragging it over through multiple posts is not helpful. especially because the man seem to be right on track with pretty much everything.

also, this is the Enhanced Edition, so "polished and improved", not "redone from scratch". the new assets need to be in line with SHTUP, 400 and other mods EE will be using for them to not look out of place - overdoing one set of resources would make them look weird, improper, and exacerbate other visual imperfections (AIs are an army of clones, for example). wait for SS2R if you want a full redo on everything.


it could work with a bit of facial geometry, if it's only a tiny bit. we'll just have to wait and see - we definitely don't want to end up with Robot Chicken style of facial animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK7e2RV02Ss

//Dark does not support jaw movements of any kind iirc, and even under KEX this would very difficult to add, I'd imagine.

[66ef3ca5abd10eldrone]

it could work with a bit of facial geometry, if it's only a tiny bit. we'll just have to wait and see - we definitely don't want to end up with Robot Chicken style of facial animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK7e2RV02Ss

also, this is the Enhanced Edition, so "polished and improved", not "redone from scratch". the new assets need to be in line with SHTUP, 400 and other mods EE will be using for them to not look out of place - overdoing one set of resources would make them look weird, improper, and exacerbate other visual imperfections (AIs are an army of clones, for example). wait for SS2R if you want a full redo on everything.

//Dark does not support jaw movements of any kind iirc, and even under KEX this would very difficult to add, I'd imagine.

Yeah, combined with the jaw not moving at all while the mouth opens and closes.
But regardless, I'll be around to answer questions or give any tips when it comes to changing these models when it's out.

I'm also here to pick up any more suggestions on things that could be supported, like vhots, more seperate subobjects and such, I know the weapons have a bunch especially related to SCP.

Some of the facial silhuettes as an example, which would make an animated mouth difficult:

[66ef3ca5abe81voodoo47]

vhots are not possible on AI meshes afaik, but 1:1 joints would be amazing (meaning, mods like RealSG would not have to have a separate version for EE models). probably not 100% doable, but I'm certainly not going to stop you from trying.

[66ef3ca5abf8aZylonBane]

Clearly what SS2 is missing is a pistol monkey.

[66ef3ca5ac083voodoo47]

I already made a wrench monkey. guess this is coming next.

[66ef3ca5ac322eldrone]

vhots are not possible on AI meshes afaik, but 1:1 joints would be amazing (meaning, mods like RealSG would not have to have a separate version for EE models). probably not 100% doable, but I'm certainly not going to stop you from trying.

Elaborate a bit on this one please, what do you mean with 1:1 joints?

[66ef3ca5ac4e3voodoo47]

basically, if I take the vanilla model, and the EE model, and place them in the editor T-pose, and then move them to the same coordinates, it would be ideal if the joints would overlap perfectly/end up at the same spots. quick mockup using the sg hybrid and pipe hybrid models standing at the same place/overlapping - note that most joints overlap, you see only one joint even though there is in fact two (one for each hybrid model), the exceptions are the head joint and the finger joints, where you see two joints, as their position on each model is different.

making the EE model NOT do that would be great.

[66ef3ca5ac89feldrone]

basically, if I take the vanilla model, and the EE model, and place them in the editor T-pose, and then move them to the same coordinates, it would be ideal if the joints would overlap perfectly/end up at the same spots. quick mockup using the sg hybrid and pipe hybrid models standing at the same place/overlapping - note that most joints overlap, you see only one joint even though there is in fact two (one for each hybrid model), the exceptions are the head joint and the finger joints, where you see two joints, as their position on each model is different.

making the EE model NOT do that would be great.

We're not modifying the skeletons for the new ai-meshes, so they should be 1:1 with vanilla.

[66ef3ca5ac9c4voodoo47]

perfect - that means all existing joint attach mods for vanilla models will work right out of the box with EE models.

[66ef3ca5ace3bRocketMan]

Eldrone, if your new tool does import and export in addition to the rigging improvements you depicted earlier, could it theoretically be used only for importation?  Could I for example, build a mesh in Max 7 in the conventional way with planes, etc, save as 3ds and run the import through your software just to get the bin file?  Because I'm trying to figure out if there's a chance I could get fewer errors importing models without having to re-learn everything I know about rigging.  Thanks.

[66ef3ca5ad1c8eldrone]

Eldrone, if your new tool does import and export in addition to the rigging improvements you depicted earlier, could it theoretically be used only for importation?  Could I for example, build a mesh in Max 7 in the conventional way with planes, etc, save as 3ds and run the import through your software just to get the bin file?  Because I'm trying to figure out if there's a chance I could get fewer errors importing models without having to re-learn everything I know about rigging.  Thanks.

It's a blender script, so you'd have to bring the mesh into blender, there is however single-click automatic rigging in blender that gives you better results than the planes. Eventually I'll write a guide on how all that works for those not used to blender.

[66ef3ca5ad2ffRocketMan]

What a swell guy we got here

[66ef3ca5ad7b4diego]

Yeah, combined with the jaw not moving at all while the mouth opens and closes.
But regardless, I'll be around to answer questions or give any tips when it comes to changing these models when it's out.

I'm also here to pick up any more suggestions on things that could be supported, like vhots, more seperate subobjects and such, I know the weapons have a bunch especially related to SCP.

Some of the facial silhuettes as an example, which would make an animated mouth difficult:

So... would adding bones for the mouth like you mentioned work? Maybe combining that with the animated texture mouth thing to get the movement? What I mean by that is, if we could get that code that controls the animated texture mouth to control a jaw bone instead, you could add jaw and upper lip bones and still have same facial silhuettes.

I don't care about anything else, but this is something unless you guys do it, no one else possibly can and it will effect every mod as well.



I can't help but ask, how will you handle cutscenes? I assume in engine cutscenes are out of the question.

[66ef3ca5ad9a3voodoo47]

the original cutscenes are actually just prerecorded in-engine sequences (most of them don't even have any additional effects applied), and recreating them in much higher resolution certainly is doable. EE would be an excellent opportunity to make it happen.

as far as object vhots go, as long as the original vhot setups are preserved, all should be good. if the (vhotted) object exists in the SCP/Fixed Objects packages (and its vhots differ from vanilla), then that object should take priority over vanilla. I'm guessing we are talking about weapons here - those are the only objects that need work as the Tacticool package is incomplete.

[66ef3ca5adfbediego]

The original cutscenes are actually just prerecorded in-engine sequences (most of them don't even have any additional effects applied), and recreating them in much higher resolution certainly is doable. EE would be an excellent opportunity to make it happen.

What I hate about pre-rendered cutscenes is, you can mod the game to the brink, but the cutscenes will not reflect any of your changes. I wish in engine cutscenes were an option.

They could do a lot even with pre-rendered cutscenes, there was a few cool ideas about it on discord the other day. (I think you were one of the guys who replied?)

as far as object vhots go, as long as the original vhot setups are preserved, all should be good. if the (vhotted) object exists in the SCP/Fixed Objects packages (and its vhots differ from vanilla), then that object should take priority over vanilla. I'm guessing we are talking about weapons here - those are the only objects that need work as the Tacticool package is incomplete.

I have been wondering, what are vhots? (I searched around and it seemed like a particle of sorts but I couldn't be sure.) And if we could utilize them for NPC's, what would they be used for?

[66ef3ca5ae163voodoo47]

vhot is a spot on the object to which other objects (or particles and other effects) can be attached. this is important especially when modding, as the modded objects can have different shapes and sizes than the originals, however if the vhot is set up properly, the effect will end up attached to the correct spot at all times.

well, EE will already be modded, and the cutscenes will be reflecting that, so problem solved? anyway, switching to in-engine would not be trivial, I'm guessing.

[66ef3ca5ae71adiego]

vhot is a spot on the object to which other objects (or particles and other effects) can be attached. this is important especially when modding, as the modded objects can have different shapes and sizes than the originals, however if the vhot is set up properly, the effect will end up attached to the correct spot at all times.

I asked because you said it wouldn't be possible to use vhots on NPC models. If SS2EE allows it somehow, I am guessing more things would be possible. Like applying a ghostly particle effect on ghosts or glowing eyes on robots etc.

Well, not a great example but I guess you understand what I mean.

well, EE will already be modded, and the cutscenes will be reflecting that, so problem solved? anyway, switching to in-engine would not be trivial, I'm guessing.

That sure solves the problem right now, but you know how you guys talk about tweaking the models and textures to improve them if necesary? None of your changes would apply to pre-rendered cutscenes. Or take any number of mods that conflict with what's depicted in pre-rendered cutscenes, with in-engine cutscenes that never becomes an issue, any models, textures you edit just appears in the cutscene. You can edit a map and see same changes in the cutscene.

I am sure nothing about this is trivial, even if KEX would allow them to do so, it might not be easy to do, but since they already have to redo the cutscenes anyway, I am just asking if they could do it in-engine which is the best kind of cutscene hands down.