Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[67416b850ea18JosiahJack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_FXBIIJ5Pw

[67416b850eb6fJosiahJack]

I've got another video of the weapons to upload later this evening.

[67416b850ee6dRocketMan]

Shiny sparks and balls of seran wrap.  It's so wonderful!

[67416b850ef9dJosiahJack]

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

Here you go!   

[67416b850f0f2icemann]

Looking good.

[67416b850f223RocketMan]

That rail gun is funny as shit.  I am going to have so much fun firing that at assassins.  Maybe as a stretch goal you can have their body parts rocket off in random trajectories if hit by that weapon.  Loving the weapon recoil and sparks.

I'm half tempted to say keep the bugs.  They make me laugh

[67416b850f393JosiahJack]

Once I get the bugs worked, most of the robots gibs and bits will be able to be blown about by explosives as/when and after they die.  I've set it up such that some of them do the same death animation to match the original sprites and then at the very end I swap out the gibs and let the physics take over.  I'm planning on some more videos of this to show it in action.  It's quite satisfying to have them collapse and see the bits roll around.


Also.....cortex reaver inbound!  Shields up, weapons loaded.....Hal are you ready?!

[67416b850f4c7JosiahJack]

They weren't ready       

[67416b850f63eJosiahJack]

Enemies! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuKzUCPk-IA

[67416b850f749icemann]

Majority are good. The cyborg warriors seem very gorilla-like in their attack animations.

[67416b850fa2aThiefsieFool]

Now that looks really cool, I'm impressed with both the quality and fidelity of the enemies translation to 3d. (hopper melt ftw)

[67416b850fbe3voodoo47]

agreed - I think this is the first time I'm seeing an AI sprite-to-model conversion that doesn't look awkward and completely off. I would actually enable and use this.

[67416b850fd8dRocketMan]

There you go JJ.  If Voodoo approves it, then you know the Nobel Prize is right around the corner!

Also, what happened at 4 minutes?  Did the hacker shart or something?

Gibbing is spot on... not that it was needed but it's totally like it was meant to be there.  Rail gun should definitely send them into orbit.

Pretty much every enemy looks like a 3D-ified low res piece of shit early 90s graphics in 3D, just like mom used to make!  I mean that with love!  Dunno how you managed that aesthetic but Voodoo is right.  It's the only way it makes any sense for a purist to use it.

Zero G mutants are beyond epic... for pulsating spheres.

[67416b850fed5JosiahJack]

Thanks!

And uh, I think that was praise @RocketMan 

I'm trying to preserve the original feel, hopefully I'm getting that down and in a consistent way.

[67416b85100d3JDoran]

The 3D versions (looks and animations) of the enemies do look brilliant. For twenty plus years Doom modders have tried and failed to turn Doom's 2D sprites into authentic looking 3D models (at least if there are good versions then I've not seen them, and I've looked a lot), and you've managed to prove that it is possible to do. Not that I think many people thought it was impossible, it's just that for some reason, the 3D-izing of Doom's enemies is the one area where Doom's often amazing modders seemed unable to properly deliver.

It's all the more amazing that you're doing the coding, graphics, animation, and sound all by yourself.

BTW, what in-game options will there be for the size of the text, for those of us with ageing eyes?

[67416b8510270JosiahJack]

Thanks, glad to know I'm getting the look right.  I think a coherent art direction is lacking in games nowadays and also want to capture the mood which is a hard nebulous thing to grasp.

Not all by myself, but I have done the bulk of it.  Bastardrodent has been a huge help with the enemy models and textures; he's done at least 1/2 or more of them and then I've done 95% of the animating and all the rest except for a couple models which came from others. Denhonator did the music revamp which subtly enhances the orignal using modern sound fonts and other tweaks, and a few others that have helped even back in them thar olden days of the DarkPlaces engine before the switch to Unity, I'll have them all in the credits.

I haven't looked at font size, most is rather good sized but I can consider it.

[67416b85103ceicemann]

Speaking as one who like Josiah prefers to do all the roles himself, there is a unique appeal that comes with that. I find it quite fun, aa your tasks daily can vary greatly. Its the 80s approach, and one not done very often anymore (due to obvious reasons). I think more projects would succeed over group ones, but I'm judging that off personal experiences.

What did you make the remake in? Or is 100% code based? I dunno how in the hell I'd ever do something on this level in SDL.

[67416b851083fRocketMan]

Time for a sober detailed analysis:

(any comments are with the full knowledge that some of this stuff will change because it's WIP)

Servbot:  Death animation and gibbing are perfect.  Design of the bot itself is good enough that unless I check the sprite sheet, I can't tell the difference.  The polygons are not gouraud filtered but perhaps you have plans to do that later, just that it stands out on this model.

Autobomb:  Pretty far away but looks 1:1.  The death sequence... OMG that's just the best ever!  Only thing better would be if it left a black scorch stain on the ground and a small rivulet of smoke.

Mutant:  As others have said, this is probably one of the lesser works, although I still think it's pretty damn good.  It certainly matches the art style.  The death sequence is a little fast and seems  to crumple faster than gravity would allow.

Cyborg Drone:  Absolutely perfect in every way.  I particularly like how he goes "OH YEAH" with his hand held high, while dying.

Hopper:  Near perfect.  I noticed a very tiny misalignment of its laser from where it should emerge, when looking from the side.  Also the hopping animation is like 99% but pretty damn good.  Also lolz he picked up part of the serv bot while hopping

Cyborg Assassin:  Perfect

Maintenance Bot:  Perfect... if not a little boring.

Cyborg Warrior:  I don't think there's technically much wrong with it but I can see a gorilla/star wars thing going on there.  Maybe this just requires some tweaking of the art.  The animation seems familiar enough.  Also his shots are misaligned a bit.

Invisomutant:  Hit detection needs work.  Physics with ground needs work.  The invisible art is a little bland - maybe just need some color gradient or something.  Otherwise it moves and dies well.  The projectiles were purple tadpole shaped things before.

Zero G: Nailed it

Sec 1:  Obviously not done yet but looks great so far

Sec 2:  Amazing!  Maybe could be a bit faster?

Holy shit, an eagle screaming avian mutant thing attacks me! :  Really cool.  The flying animation is a bit slow to be believable though.  Hit box seems too small for firearms.

Another maintenance bot I forgot the name of:  When it dies its animation cycle resets.. looks a bit off.  Design is perfectly fine though.

Exec bot:  Not finished obviously.  Geometry looks pretty plain and simple, kinda blob-like.  Animation and death is great.

Gortiger:  Looks great but the coloring seems off - a bit too metallic

Virus Mutant:  Too tiny to comment... looks ok from afar.

Plant Mutant:  Looks fantastic.

Mutated Cyborg:  I wanna say this is 1:1.  It certainly looks great but now more than ever reminds me of an old fat guy wearing a diaper.

Cyborg Enforcer:  Skin coloring is close but should be a tad more purple/gray with skin colored specular highlights.  Mechanical legs are superb but a lesser % of her is mech than on the sprite sheet.  Claw is perfect.

Elite Cyborg:  Wow!  Is the coloring right?  I can't remember but he looks pretty white.

Cortex Reaver: Looks just like the death sequence!!!

Diego:  Looks cool but doesn't quite resemble the log pictures, where Diego has a more emaciated, skeletal looking face, elongated with a yellower pigmentation.  Still great though.  Does Diego have hands or were those tube things supposed to be rapier generators?

[67416b8510b99JosiahJack]

Ooh, awesome write-up.  I need more of these!  Bring it people, critiques please!


Time for a response
Fixed "shart" sound where jump sound would sometimes play multiple times in a row making it sound odd.

Fixed lots of other stuff:
Servbot: Adjusted vertex normals, applied smooth shading to cylindrical features.  Material specular adjusted.  Smooth and subtle.
Autobomb: Adjusted vertex normals and smooth shading, gives a nice feel fixes some odd facets around the "eyes".  Love the scorch idea!
Humanoid Mutant: Ya...needs some blood spurts on death and a small blood pool.   Not sure about him.  Adjusted death anim speed slightly.
Hopper: Unity's LineRenderer code doesn't update the endpoints every frame so it can shift off as the hopper turns. 
Repair Bot: I should have let it zap me with it's lightning...see how boring that is why donchya!
Flyer Bot: Uh...spawned but apparently drifted off into the ether.
Cyborg Warrior: Dis guy...Not sure what to do to fix him.  Needs moar tweaking.  Bugs me too.
Invisable Mutant: Swelled his collision hull, raised his visible model up so that it doesn't sink in the floor.
Zero-G: Yesh I love it.  Bastardrodent helped with the texture changing effect.
Sec-1: Not yet animated.  Will gib, would gib again.
Sec-2: Faster how?  I sped his walk up slightly.
Avian Mutant: Fixed.  The raycast distance wasn't getting reset after firing a melee weapon so....why do bugs only happen when recording???  And yes, I randomly picked the melee lunge speed and this guy scared the crap out of me the first time I tested it.  Oh the many adventures testing I have over here that you don't even realize (like the time when I accidentally enabled the player to rotate and I fell over when I walked into a bump and proceeded to roll around)!
Gorilla Tiger Mutant: Darkened the texture.  Looked washed out.  It's still too low-res I think.
Maintenance Bot: Fixed animation transition to death.
Virus Mutant: Fixed armature that needed to Apply Object Transform to normalize the scale to 1.0.
Mutated Cyborg:    I can't unsee that.
Cyborg Enforcer: Boosted contrast on the texture.  Adjusted material.
Elite Cyborg: Boosted contrast on texture.  Adjusted material.
Cyborg Diego: Added red light to his chest, gives it that creepy flashlight from underneath effect.  Needs more work.

[67416b8510d08RocketMan]

Re: Sec2  yeah he just seemed to be strutting a bit too arrogantly to cause urgency.

There's something very crude and unapologetic about the animations.  The autobomb?  Like a grenade went off.. Wut?  Wut?! U like dat?

Makes me laugh.  Moar!!

Cyborg drone (super mario style) :  YEah!

ahhh... it's late.

[67416b8510e4fJosiahJack]

So, my greeting message up in the corner says "How do you do JosiahJack, long time no viddy"

Guess I need to do another video then.  Who wants more? 

@Kolya is that you being funny??  Do you get to hand pick those?

[67416b851101cKolya]

It's a coincidence, "long time no viddy" is Nadsat for "haven't seen you in a long time".
However the phrases in the greetings are intentionally ambiguous. So it's kind of a planned coincidence, "emergent behavior" as the cool kids say.

[67416b85113f7JosiahJack]

Speaking as one who like Josiah prefers to do all the roles himself....
What did you make the remake in? Or is 100% code based?

*cough* *cough* well not so much prefers as forced to do all the roles, but sure I enjoy being able to switch gears if I get burned out on one thing or the other.

Citadel, brought to you by LGS and the following softwares...
Game Engine: Unity 2019.2.2f1 (was DarkPlaces at first)
3D Modeling Software: Blender 2.78c (Unity fusses at later versions atm)
2D Texturing Software: Gimp 2.10
Coding Software: Notepad++ mostly, Monodevelop initially, Notepad before that
Sound Software: Audacity for simple edits and conversions, LMMS for authoring
Video Editing Software  : Blender 2.78c
Level Editing Software: Unity (was JACK for DarkPlaces)

FOSS ftw (well...mostly.  Sometimes I regret going with Unity but I've learned a lot)

[67416b8511531icemann]

If you could travel back in time and start again, how would you do it differently?