Citadel - System Shock Fan Remake

[67426096557d3Synaesthesia]

I'll gladly paint that model for you if you don't mind uploading it for me.

[6742609655df5JosiahJack]

Are you planning to use PBR at all?

Currently no.  I want to keep a simpler stylized look in the feel of the original game.

Because I'd be interested in remaking the SS1 tiles in PBR like this medical wall panel...I'm keeping the original aesthetic when I remake these textures into meshes with textures.

Extruding textures into 3D like you did here would be awesome.  I had toyed around with this idea originally, even making a few simple enhanced walls myself, but currently I don't want to take away from time making the game playable.  If you are still interested in turning the textures into 3D, then please PM me (please note there are 229 textures to enhance for the level geometry).  As for bump-mapping, specular, etc., anyone can do a CTUP (Citadel Texture Upgrade Project) after release since everything will be open source and Unity makes it very easy to add such enhancements.

[67426096560a0JosiahJack]

I'll gladly paint that model for you if you don't mind uploading it for me.

Woah, that's generous!   It can be very tedious to paint all these model skins, especially the enemies.  Painting skins is my least favorite part.

However, would you be willing to do any skins in the low texel-density style?  (Please see previous post about trying to keep to a stylized look and feel)

[6742609656267Synaesthesia]

It's possible to have a stylized look with PBR. It just means that the environment will be lit with proper approximations of light instead of using specular hacks to get it to look like it's reflecting the world.

Woah, that's generous!   It can be very tedious to paint all these model skins textures, especially the enemies.  Painting skins textures is my least favorite part.

;-)

I can easily process that model through Quixel Suite and get a stylized approach to its look, but you'd have to get me some references for the look and feel before I could replicate the art style you want.

[67426096563b5JosiahJack]

The number one reason for project failure is scope creep. I would prefer to maintain the style as is, keeping largely to the simplistic look of the original game.  This is why I do not want to overreach my initial scope of simply turning objects and enemies into 3D with only very minor enhancements to level geometry for now. I'm keeping the low res textures and relying on increased poly count for my remake's style. There are a few exceptions to this higher-poly, low-texel density rule.

[6742609656777Gawain]

Are you planning to use PBR at all? Because I'd be interested in remaking the SS1 tiles in PBR like this medical wall panel I did a few months ago:

http://i.imgur.com/zmZWiav.jpg

I'm keeping the original aesthetic when I remake these textures into meshes with textures.

I'm making importer that imports all system shock data to Unity 5. (https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=7488.0)
Lighting is almost PBR ready (I don't have good algorithm to calculate potential reflection probe positions yet).
Emission texture override is already implemented and it would be very easy to extend that to support albedo, normal, and heightmap overriding.
If you have textures ready I'm interested in testing them.
Unity standard shader has parallax mapping, but it wont work well with deep height maps. Parallax occlusion or relief mapping shader would give better results.

[6742609656866JosiahJack]

I have materials and textures for every texture from the game.

[6742609656b29Gawain]

I have materials and textures for every texture from the game.

Yes, I know. I was trying to tell Aircraftkiller that I'm interested in testing and using his textures if you don't want to.

Sorry for hijacking your thread.

[6742609656c7bJosiahJack]

"So I tripped over this gelatinous thing on the maintenance level the other day.  Then it tried to kill me.  Must have formed out of the muck and grease around here.  Need to have a chat with Abe Ghiran about his workplace cleanliness."  -Uknown 19.OCT.72.

[6742609656dd9voodoo47]

that actually looks better than one would expect.

[6742609656f63icemann]

Very impressive. Keep doing your models that well and I just might be persuaded to give this a try.

[6742609657314Olfred]

It's looking quite good so far. But IMHO the animation could be a bit smoother. Using the Graph Editor inside Blender is a pretty easy and good way to get control over smoothing animations out.
And maybe "blur" the vertex groups at the edges of each other a bit out. With some squishy blobby thing like this it most likely will looks better. The easiest way to achieve this is through weight painting.

A quick tutorial about Weight Painting.
Go into "Object Mode", select your armature and switch into "Pose Mode".
Now select your model and go into "Weight Paint" Mode.
If you hold down Ctrl you can select a bone.
Press F to change the size of your brush.

When you are in "Pose Mode" and for example rotate a bone with pressing R, pressing Alt+R will reset the selected bone to it's standard position. This is quite helpful to check out how well your editing was.

If this is too much work for you I could also help you out with this, if you like to.
Oh, and this are just my thoughts. It's not like I am demanding anything or want to pressure you.

[67426096575d6Marvin]

I think the choppiness of the animation resembles the original System Shock much better than a silky smooth one would.  If the project deliberately aims for a low resolution recreation, this animation is a good match.

[6742609657b68JosiahJack]

It's looking quite good so far. But IMHO the animation could be a bit smoother...

Thanks!  The choppiness of the animations (by using very few frames) is intentional to ensure quick and snappy motion. This gif is just the animation that blender outputs. It actually looks smoother in-game because Unity applies its own interpolation  This way, it is quick and smooth in-game but still has the snappy feel to look similar to the original.  This is only a gif after all.

A quick tutorial about Weight Painting.

  Thanks for your advice, but are you refering to custom vertex normals along the edges to improve shading?

[6742609657c8bRocketMan_Remote]

REALLY GOOD...

Only thing I would fix is to make it even more transparent.  In SS1 it actually was almost impossible to see these things.  Whether that was due to the lighting being so poor or their transparency level, I don't know.  How does it look at the end of a dark corridor?

[674260965812aOlfred]

  Thanks for your advice, but are you refering to custom vertex normals along the edges to improve shading?

Uhm... I don't think so. If you simply created vertex groups and attached them to the bones, then switch into weight paint, they should be a bright red. This means it will be fully manipulated by the bone movement.
Now, if you go and paint some area in 50%, which is some kind of orange IIRC it will only follow the movements halfway.
In your animation there are these hard edges which appear during animation. Smoothing them out should get rid of it.

I think the choppiness of the animation resembles the original System Shock much better than a silky smooth one would.

Oh, I don't know about that anymore. Is there some gif animated gallery or something like that to get an idea of what all these monster look like animated ingame?

[674260965825dvoodoo47]

we do have a copy somewhere but can't find it, anyway, the original: http://www.daxxus.frickbat.com/wingnut/sshock/enemies.htm

[6742609658370JosiahJack]

SS1 Enemies

Ya gotta love systemshock.org, it's got everything.

[67426096584b2Olfred]

Thank you guys.
I would still favor a smoother animation. It's just that choppy because the framerate is so low. I mean c'mon, the Med-Bot dies in 3 frames.
But yeah, it's just a gif. Might really look better ingame.

[6742609658731JosiahJack]

REALLY GOOD...

Only thing I would fix is to make it even more transparent.  In SS1 it actually was almost impossible to see these things.  Whether that was due to the lighting being so poor or their transparency level, I don't know.  How does it look at the end of a dark corridor?

Thank you!  I'll have to post a quick video of it sometime soon.

[674260965888aJosiahJack]

Citadel, Now Fully On Github. Hop On and Help Out!

[6742609658a24JDoran]

JosiahJack, do you have any news or updates for us, please? If not, then fair enough (it's warm outside, so I doubt you want to spend much time on your PC!), but please let us know of any progress, it's interesting to hear how projects are progressing.

[6742609658b7dJosiahJack]

Ya sure.  Made a few more models for the items. Worked some more on the mutant but still not quite happy with it.  Working mostly on the inventory frob code at the moment. Started making the text based inventory for weapons a couple days ago. Still very early for showing anything yet.   I can't quite get the raycast to generate the correct triangleindex on my submesh at the moment in order to be able to get the correct wall texture name for messages like "Can't use molybdenum panelling". Trying to pin down the difference between the collision mesh triangles array and the sharedMesh triangles array. Something to do with different triangle order when it converts from Blender to fbx perhaps.

[6742609658c75Olfred]

The vertex order on a triangle shows you in which direction the face is showing.
If that's what you were asking for.