Tool for converting Ultima Underworld and Shock 1 Levels into Unity.

[673ffa32d5d6aicemann]

*Bump*

[673ffa32d60dchank morgan]

*Bump*

I get the hint... 

I was quiet there for a while but I'm still working away. I've been meaning to write up a status update and I'll do so by the end of the weekend but I did start making my first pass at SS1 level conversion last week and it's going well so far.

I also recorded a video a few days ago of an UW1 level that shows off pretty much nothing exciting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HerNpJMdk

[673ffa32d6201icemann]

That looks great. Very authentic to the originals also. Me likey likey.

Item throwing looks exactly like it was in SS1.

[673ffa32d63a0Join2]

Excellent progress, Hank. I'm really excited for this. My primary hope for mods for this port would be music mods: new music for Ultima Underworld especially, as the soundtrack whilst great is not varied enough, and for System Shock new music for the two decks that recycle tracks from previous levels.

Edit: well, it isn't strictly a source port, nor is it strictly a remake. You're porting the levels, but writing all the code yourself it seems.

[673ffa32d651dhank morgan]

Thanks for the kind words.

I deliberately shy away from the concept of remake.  The reasons being I want to both avoid legal difficulties and not to get peoples hopes up to an unreasonable level.  I view my work as more of a putting together tool-set and roadmap based on the original game-file research for someone brave enough come along and tie everything together into a playable package. As such I've tended to focus my work on the duller small details that don't comprise game-play.

I'll report back in a couple of days on where I am with things in general but what I'm currently in the middle of doing is sorting through the critter animation frames for SS1 into sets. I'm sure everyone already knows this but I didn't realize until earlier on that the humanoid mutant has an alternative kick attack.

[673ffa32d65fficemann]

The question is, what will you do when all the small tasks are completed?

[673ffa32d69fahank morgan]

The question is, what will you do when all the small tasks are completed?

There are a lot of small tasks... To me the big item is really the question of game-play. In over a  year of working on the tool I've come no closer to actually having tangible game-play elements. That said I'm very happy to just continue implementing the small (and not so small) things that I can implement.  I think the things I will struggle with will be recapturing the feel, satisfying gun-play, AI & behaviour, 3D models, lighting and rpg elements. Doing the small items will build up to those in the end.

Switching to Unity was a big move at the time and I'm happy with the results so far. For instance the SS1 doors were a massive pain in the arse in Dark Mod that I never got working to my satisfaction. In Unity I got the basics down in a couple of hours. Similarly a bunch of other things are proving simpler to implement than before. Of course I have the advantage of the DarkMod experience to draw upon. A lot of the hard object research is carried forward. The game object system in Unity is pretty similar the way game objects outwardly work in UW/SS1.

At the moment it takes about 5-10 minutes to get a level imported from scratch to populated with objects and playable. That is a model export brought in to the dev environment, collisions calculated and the object generation script built and run. Importing objects only (without redoing the model) has a turnaround of about 30-45 seconds so iteration and experimentation can be a speedy process.

I've spent most of my time working on UW1 and I'm fairly close to being back to the level of detail and level scripting I had in Dark Mod before I switched. I switched back to SS1 last week to freshen things up and to get away from brick textures and so far I've implemented the doors, some button and triggers types & some basic script actions, computer screens and live surveillance screens. I've matched most objects to their artwork. I'm staying away from the HUD and inventory system for SS1 at the moment. I've matched most of the animation frames for the monsters and I'm hoping to have them populated in the near future.

All in all I'm happy.

[673ffa32d6b5aicemann]

Quite impressive all in all. End of the day, trial and error tends to work best with getting elements working. Whilst it may not much *exactly* the same, a near approximate can still work well. Community feedback helps as well.

[673ffa32d6d74hank morgan]

Some pics of a familiar place. A few  things out of place. I'm not exactly there yet on vertical positioning and scale.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/Tyvr3nr.jpg
Image: http://i.imgur.com/kuhfPdl.jpg
Image: http://i.imgur.com/aR27Ubt.jpg
Image: http://i.imgur.com/E72JHh2.jpg
Image: http://i.imgur.com/X65MkEx.jpg
Image: http://i.imgur.com/t2qWWaP.jpg

[673ffa32d6e7bCarrot]

Looking very cool Hank!  Will you release a little walk around demo like you did for UU?

[673ffa32d70adhank morgan]

Looking very cool Hank!  Will you release a little walk around demo like you did for UU?

I will but probably not until the weekend after next.

[673ffa32d71ccWhyNott]

I would recommend you to disable texture filtering for world textures. It makes them look waaay too blurry, and it actually looks nicer this way.

[673ffa32d72f9hank morgan]

A quick video as promised. No sound unfortunately but it does play computer voice messages at various points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHlh9o8aomc

[673ffa32d7400icemann]

What's the framerate like? noticed a bit of choppiness in the video.

[673ffa32d74e3hank morgan]

Quick enough. The choppiness was due to the recording.

[673ffa32d7610Nash Muhandes]

"This application has failed to start because libfbxsdk.dll was not found".

My OS: Vista x64

Also just as an addendum to the UDMF format someone posted a few posts back: the level geometry in UW is 100% do-able with ZDoom and/or GZDoom and the UDMF format. 3D floors, slopes, dynamic lights, swinging doors are all supported.

[673ffa32d7735hank morgan]

From the sounds of that error you will need to install the Autodesk FBX SDK.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775847

[673ffa32d7c06Join2]

"This application has failed to start because libfbxsdk.dll was not found".

My OS: Vista x64

Also just as an addendum to the UDMF format someone posted a few posts back: the level geometry in UW is 100% do-able with ZDoom and/or GZDoom and the UDMF format. 3D floors, slopes, dynamic lights, swinging doors are all supported.

Please stop lumbering this guy with MORE engines to do this conversion for. If he had just focused on idTech3 we'd probably have the conversion done by now and the majority of assets in place, including upper-level game systems coding.

Also ZDoom's swinging doors are inferior to even Underworlds. For example they are comprised of 3 frames max: closed, half-open, fully open. Underworld's doors had four or five frames and SS had even more so, if I am remembering correctly.

[673ffa32d7dd8hank morgan]

Even though this is primarily a fun thing that I do for my own enjoyment I can safely say no more engines!    

Besides I've probably achieved more in a short time on Unity then I had on IdTech where to be honest I was just about to hit a brick wall on progress. What I really took from the IDtech era (my sloppy code stills supports IdTech)  was the research/knowledge of how the original games work and a better idea of what not to do.

I'm just dropping in to say I'm going to be absent and not updating for a few weeks due to work commitments. However if any of you have any questions or comments just post them and I'll try and respond in due course. I'll probably come back with a new thread when I do to reflect the current status of the project.

[673ffa32d7f41Join2]

Any updates, Hank?

[673ffa32d80afSimon]

I'm curious as well Hank, I always liked the look of underworld but could not be motivated to play because of the controls (unlike the fantastic SYSTEM SHOCK PORTABLE!!)

I happened to be well versed in unity at least from the artsy asset preparation side of things so this is very interesting to me. It's a fantastic engine, and i agree, you've chosen the perfect one for the job

For everyone else, here's something extra awesome... Unity supports almost every platform available, and porting is a lot easier that most engines

[673ffa32d8192icemann]

Any updates? Not heard anything in a very long time.

[673ffa32d82a4hank morgan]

Apologies for the lack of updates.

Real life workloads and going outdoors for the summer months has conspired against me picking things up to any great extent. All I can say is that I am thinking about how to proceed and I'm hopeful to kick off again when the nights grow dark in autumn and winter.

[673ffa32d8417hank morgan]

Managed to get some time on the project this past week or so. I'm focusing on the Underworld side of things as I'm happy to see that other SS1 projects have a bit more momentum. Most of the time was just bug fixes, learning better ways to do things, work on the original game files and ripping the guts out of how I handled object interactions within the inventory and the game world. The upshot is that I know have a standard approach to using objects in game and my messy code has gotten easier to maintain and expand.

This however is the highlight feature. A working map:
Image: http://i.imgur.com/PvykhSg.png