System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition Update & Community Participation

[67d0e35710daeeldrone]

Wasn't Irrational forced to use a pretty restricted color palette, as was the standard at the time?

Yeah, there's a bunch of cases of tone shifting from palletization in the original textures

[67d0e35712a4evoodoo47]

yes, there are bugs to be found here and there. the maintdroid color is not one of them.

[67d0e35712ed9ZylonBane]

Wasn't Irrational forced to use a pretty restricted color palette, as was the standard at the time?

What? SS2 textures can use any 24-bit color. Restricted palettes are for software renderers. SS2 is hardware rendering only.

Now there were some restrictions on how many unique colors be used simultaneously, for example only 256 different colors per texture, but again, that didn't restrict the individual palette choices.

[67d0e35713048Livo]

I know Irrational got a copy of the then still in-development Dark engine to use whilst they were making SS2, the first Thief game could run on a software renderer I believe. Maybe some of the earliest textures they created were palletized for an early build that supported software rendering, but they didn't have time to adjust those early textures when SS2 was switched to a hardware renderer only?

[67d0e357131acvoodoo47]

I don't think the Thief assets contained any SS2 textures at that time.

off the top of my head, the only example of a discolored vanilla texture is the training signs on the earth map, but that is a bug/incorrect rendering setting, not an inability to assign an intended color - as mentioned, this never was an issue, even in oldDark.

so if an object is bright yellow, then you can be 99.99% sure it was meant to be bright yellow.


same goes for the midwife ass - if they wanted to give her more ass, they would have done so back in 1999. so no extra ass, would you kindly.

[67d0e3571335eZylonBane]

This is the palette for the main maintenance bot texture. As y'all can plainly see, it's optimized for the maintenance bot, not for shared use.

I swear to god, some things just bring the knee-jerk contrarians out of the woodwork.

[67d0e357135f3ZylonBane]

Actually now that I compare the two side-by-side, it's evident this isn't just a saturation shift, but a significant hue shift as well.

What was yellow, is now orange. It's not even bright orange, but rather a dull burnt orange, so it loses the aspect of being intentionally painted with a high-visibility color for safety, which emphasizes that it's a non-combat droid. You want high-vis colors to be bold and eye-catching. That's the entire point. Anyone who thinks these colors should "blend into the world" has critically failed to understand the assignment.

Additionally, consider this: Aliens (1986) was still a huge cultural presence while SS2 was in development. And what did Aliens prominently feature?

And yes, it was bright yellow when you can see past all the on-set fog and lighting. Did the power loader influence the appearance of the maintenance bot? I'd lay good odds on it.

So if a yellow mech suit was good enough for one of the greatest scfi films of all time, I'd say a yellow mech is still good enough for SS2. The dull orange take is just change for the sake of change.

[67d0e35713710WhyHelloThere]

So, I take it we're getting a SHTUP-25 mod shortly after release, specifically for this version?

[67d0e35713c52tiphares4]

I think you people are all right, i changed my opinion, give it back the original color :/

Additionally, consider this: Aliens (1996) was a huge cultural presence while SS2 was in development. And what did Aliens prominently feature?

It is even from 1986, and i wanted to post the very same picture here for comparison. It is indeed more similar to original maintanance droid skin.... now i see it.

for the midwife ass - if they wanted to give her more ass, they would have done so back in 1999. so no extra ass, would you kindly.

But new midwife cyborg looks awesome imo, i especially like for e.g. how slim her waist seems to be now - for the extra creepiness - it also looks more "aesthetic" if one dare to say so, but i wished her legs were more akin to the concept art: the outer thighs' ridges. Also her (louise brooks) hair is still blocky, but i guess there is still too restricted polygon count or whatever..

[67d0e35713d5eZylonBane]

Whoops, fixed that year.

[67d0e35713e7bvoodoo47]

observe - this forum is a place on the internet where sound and logical arguments managed to change an opinion.

this should be archived somehow so that future generations could refer to it.

[67d0e35713f71voodoo47]

NDA has been signed - set your toasters to 6 months and keep your fingers crossed.

[67d0e35714058Dingus]

6 months? As in it'll release in six months? Did you just break your NDA?

[67d0e357141c5voodoo47]

no, I just gave you my estimate. the one I've been mentioning since forever - once the internal beta test starts, a release in 6 months is not impossible.

if I knew for sure, I would NOT be able to tell you what it is.

[67d0e357142efDingus]

Okay, thanks for clarifying, you had me there for a sec 😅

[67d0e357143efZylonBane]

Seems more like you had yourself.

[67d0e357144ebeldrone]

Yeah as you've all seen, NDAs have been going out, we'll let anyone involved know when things start rolling!

[67d0e3571467bValet2]

"within 6 months"

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

[67d0e35716668Livo]

Stupid question: how does the process of making/porting animations for both the Anniversary models, and the vanilla models, work exactly with the two different types in the 25th Anniversary version?

If you make say, a two-handed shotgun hybrid carry animation for the Anniversary models (a la early SS2 screenshots), is making it also for the original models, fairly easy with the updated model tools you've developed? Or do you have to do vastly different rigging, joint bones etc for "25th Anniversary" vs "Original models"? Ditto for weapon model animations.

In Half Life 1, there's the HD pack models, which have different joints compared to the original ones, different animations and infamously, different timings for certain stuff like running: some mods back in the day had their scripted sequences messed up if the player was using the HD pack. Fans had to make custom HD pack models with correct speed/timing to fix this, many years ago. 

[67d0e35716d28eldrone]

Stupid question: how does the process of making/porting animations for both the Anniversary models, and the vanilla models, work exactly with the two different types in the 25th Anniversary version?

If you make say, a two-handed shotgun hybrid carry animation for the Anniversary models (a la early SS2 screenshots), is making it also for the original models, fairly easy with the updated model tools you've developed? Or do you have to do vastly different rigging, joint bones etc for "25th Anniversary" vs "Original models"? Ditto for weapon model animations.

In Half Life 1, there's the HD pack models, which have different joints compared to the original ones, different animations and infamously, different timings for certain stuff like running: some mods back in the day had their scripted sequences messed up if the player was using the HD pack. Fans had to make custom HD pack models with correct speed/timing to fix this, many years ago.

The motion format and database is still unchanged, it's a whole complicated thing so anything there for the nightdive mod will be updated motions.

There will be a better set of blender tools for importing and exporting both meshes and motions though, so characters are set up using just a regular armature with weight painting.

It's a breeze compared to limit planes.

Both mesh and obj has had a new version update, similar but with a few new features.
Kexdark supports both old and new.



Static mesh animations such as with the weapons is where it gets interesting: it's all implemented using a squirrel based animation system.

So static mesh joints and object positions can have animations triggered just by sending a specific object a message, and if a certain animation script is attached to it, it will know what to do.

So the shotgun for example: it has a bunch of animations set up for shooting, reloading, equipping etc. And in shooting you have the motion for shooting, the kickback and the shell ejection at the end, it can even trigger the ejection point and where to eject from.

Sounds can be triggered in the animation too.

Weapons are also procedurally animated via camera movement and and player movement.


This system could be used to set up something complicated like the shodan reveal scene using keyframes in a table inside a .nut file. Or have very fine control over a static mesh made up of a bunch of joints, like a robotic factory arm.

[67d0e35716e4fWhyHelloThere]

So, it's officially called KexDark now?

[67d0e35716f35voodoo47]

what else would you expect?

[67d0e35717030WhyHelloThere]

Fair point.

[67d0e3571714bvoodoo47]

also, KexDark (or rather, KEXDark) was mentioned for the first time on discord, almost exactly 4 years ago, by yours truly. just in case you'd want to know.