SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[67456d9222002edx]

February Update:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2411039

[67456d922230aZylonBane]

We’re still using unfiltered textures - the “pixely” style is there, however, it’s not demonstrated clearly in the video.

The pixelated style is dumb and needs to die. Intentionally-bad stuff like that only has a place in kitschy "retro" games. SS1 pushed the state of the art in real-time computer graphics when it was new. It didn't look pixelated on purpose. It looked the best it could on the hardware it had available at the time. To make the graphics looks deliberately worse than they could be in this remake shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the source material.

Imagine if they made a remake of SS2, upgraded all the models and environments etc, but limited the renderer to 16-bit color. That's exactly how misguided this is.

[67456d92226bfRocketMan]

Forgive me for being artistically challenged but what do they even mean by pixelated style?  I don't see it.  Looks pretty good to me.

[67456d9222805ZylonBane]

It means turning off bilinear/whatever filtering on texture maps, and possibly also intentionally using low-resolution textures.

[67456d9222a7dMyagi]

Calling it "bad" as it in som fashion is objectively bad is unfair, it's part of the style. Whether you like the style or not is a different matter. Cubism is an art style, you might like it or not, but it isn't objectively "bad".  Toon-shading is a style, which some like some don't, I don't, but it isn't universally "bad".

For this game I prefer the pixelated, with the assets in the playable prototype at least. However, since it's just a render state, simply make it a rendering option and everyone can be happy.

[67456d9222bb7RocketMan]

Perhaps he feels the same way about pixelated as I did about whatever the fuck they used in Bioshock.   Clown-ated?

[67456d9222d48icemann]

Game looks good to me.

[67456d9223063sgupta]

Regarding the pixellated art style, from the early KickStarter days, it seems there was a pretty even split on the pixellated style used in the Unity demo.  People who loved it really seem to love it while people who hate it really seem to hate it.  I haven't noticed many people who are "meh" about it.

Personally, I really like it and would argue heavily it's an artistic choice, not trying to make something bad or low quality.  It serves as an homage to bringing back an older game, sure, but I think it also suits the colorful (somewhat unrealistic as far as geometry) cyberpunk world as an alternative to something ultrarealistic looking.  That gives it a unique style, and I think it's still sharp enough to be visually appealing.  Even if it sounds counterintuitive, I also think having constraints on art (ie. being creative, but within certain set limits...ie. pixel density) sometimes results in something a lot more interesting, original, and unique than something without constraints.

Just my two cents though.  Similar to some not loving the atmospheric effects like heavier use of fog (which I also really dig), tastes are going to be subjective on this one I think.

[67456d9223531ThiefsieFool]

Perhaps he feels the same way about pixelated as I did about whatever the fuck they used in Bioshock.   Clown-ated?

Teal and orange'd.

[67456d9223751RocketMan]

The low res (which goes mostly unnoticed to me) just looks good but what caused me some eye strain was the blur that was either intentionally applied or unintentional, not sure which.  The borders of a lot of these so-called low res textures seemed to be kind of fuzzy, like my own eyes were out of focus.  Maybe reducing that would really make the textures look pixelated but I thought that was kind of the goal anyway?  Well, the demo looks good as always and I feel it'd be fine to keep it that way but to improve it further, I'd cut down on the blur to get rid of eye strain.

Also there's a bit of an over-use of steam.  Every room has a busted steam pipe.  It was probably done for atmospheric reasons but it should be less averaged throughout the level so it doesn't look like some OCD mutant went around breaking 1 pipe per room, while only stepping on diagonal tiles.

[67456d92239c7RocketMan]

Teal and orange'd.

Teal and orange wax statue barf.

[67456d9223d80JosiahJack]

Crunchy Pixelly Goodness (R), aka Nearest Nearest Texture Filtering or Point Filtering:
It is stylistic, requires less GPU power (barely), is not blurry, allows for the crispest straight lines, can give a retro feel on lower res games, provides the highest color fidelity since colors aren't averaged with neighboring pixels, provides the most accurate representation of details since, like I said, it's not blurry.  I wear strong contacts so anything that obstructs or blurs vision arbitrarily is anathema to me (heavy bloom, heavy motion blur, heavy antialiasing, excess steam and fog, etc.).  These sorts of effects can be used subtely, such as filtered smoke, fog, and fire effects, but only where it doesn't detract from the quality.  The point of filtering is to smooth things out, but the "jaggies" that result from no filtering can be addressed with some antialiasing (selective blurring), at least, so long as the AA method has very good edge detection and doesn't blur everything.

I think pixelly works better when the texel density is high and anisotropy is used.  Depends on implementation, style, etc.  If most people don't notice the indivual pixels then it is working well.  Of course, when everyone uses 8k monitors 20yrs from now it will be a moot point since the textures will be large enough for it not to matter that they aren't blurred by filtering (of course they won't be filtered by then, too costly on performance at that size texture).

https://www.gamedevelopment.blog/texture-filter/amp/

[67456d9223efaedx]

Kotaku article: The People Behind The System Shock Remake Are Ready To Try Again

https://kotaku.com/the-people-behind-the-system-shock-remake-are-ready-to-1833549854

[67456d9224162fox]

RPS: "The System Shock remaster is spooky, but far from finished"

[67456d92242bcicemann]

Certainly far from finished. But thats not really a negative. Just a fact. Many enemies, weapons, levels and systems to be added.

[67456d92243faedx]

April update is up:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2485348

[67456d922463eSynaesthesia]

Here's a fun tidbit: We're naming the weapons the way they were named in the original. RW-45, for example, was named after Robb Waters. The JH-07 (as opposed to RF-07) Skorpion is named after me! I won't be modeling any of the guns, however, but I am working on the Research tileset that will likely be shown in the next update.

[67456d9224956unn_atropos]

How about adding the Police Baton_sbf or Police Baton_SSorg (https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=7471.0)? 

[67456d9224a6eRocketMan]

Ah yes, the shotgun.  Just like the original.

[67456d9224bcdSynaesthesia]

The Flechette was basically a shotgun, given what it fired and what its magazines looked like. This is a remake, after all. We've never billed it as a 1-1 recreation of the original game and have always mentioned that we would improve on the design where we felt it made sense to do so.

[67456d9224df1JosiahJack]

Ooh nice, weapons....

Minipistol looks perfect.  Good start.
Magnum seems snubnose or something.
Ion night mode version, cool

Flechotgun???  You turned a unique weapon that in an HD remake could shower splintering dart shards that ricochet with sparks off walls and robots or lodge themselves into mutants into the most overdone weapon of all time.

Magpump?  Well, ok I suppose so long as it is still a beast.  The magpulse is my favorite so hope they can do it justice.

Skorpion looks ok I guess.  I'd be fine if they make it take more ammo to kill something than the original, especially since ammo is so plentiful on higher levels, but really that looks like a weak submachinegun.

And here I am again with that strange distaste in my mouth, hopeful yet unneasy after checking out yet another mixed bag kickstarter update.

[67456d9225349RocketMan]

The Flechette was basically a shotgun

In no conceivable way was the Flechette anything like a shotgun - sorry dude.

This is a remake, after all. We've never billed it as a 1-1 recreation of the original game and have always mentioned that we would improve on the design where we felt it made sense to do so.

That's perfectly fine.  Where we differ is the "made sense to do so" part.  A) It doesn't exactly follow that the game needs a shotgun more than a Flechette and B) more importantly, important stuff like the hopper is getting axed on the grounds that it consumes resources you don't have, but you have resources to make weapons that didn't exist and to contemplate the cost-efficacy of re-using gun stocks in a mass-production environment.

Just calling 'em as I see 'em - nothing personal.

[67456d922547dRocketMan]

I do like the grenades.

[67456d9225726Synaesthesia]

>In no conceivable way was the Flechette anything like a shotgun - sorry dude.

The ammunition types of the Flechette are basically shotgun ammo. Pellets and fragmenting splinters have more in common with shotgun rounds than they do with fully automatic rifles or submachine guns. I don't know about you, but I used the Flechette to burst fire rather than holding it like an automatic. It was way too inaccurate otherwise for my tastes. It functionally changes little for me (and I anticipate most other SS1 players as well) for it to function as a burst weapon rather than an early-game automatic that you simply discard later in the game.

>B) more importantly, important stuff like the hopper is getting axed on the grounds that it consumes resources you don't have

I've consistently made the point that you should wait and see what direction the game takes prior to assuming something is being cut, even if someone makes an offhand statement in a live stream regarding development. We originally were going to trim a significant amount of weapons out of the game and I argued against doing so, but did argue for removing redundant weapons (the stun gun is a great example) and rolling their functionality into other weapons.

Try to hold off on what will and won't appear until we're a few levels into the game's development. We just left Medical and we're starting to get an accurate picture of what we can and cannot do in the time we have left to work with.