Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: mjn.mixael on February 12, 2010, 05:10:36 pm
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First off, I just rediscovered this game. I used to play it all the time when I was younger. However, when I got into college then marriage and life, etc... I just forgot about it. Anyway, I just rediscovered it and played through it and again I am simply amazed at the highest level of quality the SCP version carries. It is simply fantastic.
As always, we want to make it better. When I was playing the game years ago I used to frequent this site (under a different username) and was always anxious for the new SCP release. I dreamt of making campaigns of my own. I even moddeled a few fighters and made a couple trailers. I had no idea what I was doing. Now I actually know some 3D design and understand concepts of animation. I hope I can finally make a contribution to this project.
I don't know how well this will be received by the community, but here is my idea. I would like to recreate the FS1 & FS2 cutscenes in 1080p Hi-Res. I want to remake them as close as possible to the originals. Same colors, same camera movement, same timing, everything. I would use the original audio from the current cutscenes. After that, I would also like to take a gander at recreating the hanger bays where the player chooses to go to the tech room, continue campaign, etc. But that is secondary.
It just seems that in game everything is so beautiful looking and runs so smoothly. Then the cutscenes or menus show up and they are dated. The are low-res, stretched, re-encoded a few times over... Yeah...
There it is.
Is there any support out there for this idea? Even a few moddelers to work with me?
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There is really no way to do this. The original data the cutscenes were made from is on some archive somewhere at :v:, if it even exists, and they won't be arsed to dig it up just to give it to the community pro bono.
You could possibly imitate them with in-game cutscenes, but the quality would be inferior.
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What I mean to do is systematically go through each cutscene and figure out which ship models we need + any others (landscapes, humans, vasudans, shivans, etc.) and remodel them paying close attention to the detail in whatever scene I am working on. Once that is done I will study the scene and set up the animation of the models and immitate the lighting. When all is said and done, if I spend enough time, I could have the scene recreated in a much higher resolution (especially the FS1 scenes).
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Were you thinking FS1 or 2? FS2 would be considerably easier, but, if I'm being honest (and a little selfish, I'll admit :)) I'd love to see FS1 done, if for no other reason that the side benefits from redoing the FS1 ones would be enormous - a Vasudan model, modelled Terran pilots, officers and soldiers... you'd have a FS FPS mod half done by the time you were finished, not to mention the ability to make new head anis, new, unique cutscenes etc. etc.
Obviously, FS2's cutscenes are much simpler - restricted largely to ships moving through space - but there's actually a lot more reference material for the FS1 stuff - super hi res renders that [V] did, the FS Reference bible etc. etc.
In any case, it sounds like a cool (if massive) project, and I hope you make it happen. :yes:
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I would probably start with FS1 because they are definitely the worse looking of the two. Many of them would be simple because they are the Ancients dialogues which is just a planet or something usually. The hardest one would be the capture of the Shivan Transport... I don't want to even think about that one yet... Anyway, that's my idea. I guess I'm going to go ahead and get started on some of the easier ones in order to motivate others.
I'm an ok modeler, but no where near as good as some of the people around here. It would be great to get others involved in the project so that, like SCP itself, we can put forth the best possible finished result. I do have a CG artist that works with me in my video studio, but he is preoccupied by studio business for a while. So yeah, if anyone is interested in getting on board for this project, let me know. I'll update this post when I finish a vid.
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pull this of and i think you would be elevated to the Parthenon of gods in this comunity, you would certanly get my mortal vote
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Haha! That isn't my objective... though... immortality from making a few videos seems like a fair price... :D
I've already begun. I finished making a list of all models needed for each cutscene. Though I realized I don't know the class names of a lot of the various fighters and transports anymore... I'll have to study up.
I'm starting with FS1.
I'm going to work on some of the easier ones first (The Ancients Monologues), then I'll probably tackle Endgame. After that it will take some time to get the terran, vasudan, and shivan models right. But I'll be able to finish up the more difficult ones then. The last one will probably be the Hallway Fight because that is going to be tough.
Once I finish FS1, FS2 will be a breeze.
Anyone know where I can download the HTL ship models? I'll make the models myself if I have to, but it would be nice to have those as a starting point.
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DL the MVPs and use an extraction tool like VPView32 (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/VPView32)
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Then you can convert them to cob or dae using pcs2, which can be found at http://www.freespacemods.net/
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I can' seem to find the pcs2 with DAE support. I can only export to .cob...
EDIT... I got it. Thanks.
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Ok... So I've got the textures as .tga and I've got the model converted to .dae. Problem is now that it imports very oddly, basically not at all. Now that is with Max's native .dae importer. I've been looking around and found several different version of ColladaMax, or ColladaMaya. I'm not really sure. There is little documentation as far as I have found. I've tried both versions, but Max insists on using it's own importer. Of course when I boot Max it tells me it couldn't load Colladamax.dle. Most frustrating.
Anyone out there that has experience getting the models from the vps into max want to help me out?
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http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65334.0
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Bro, you rock. Now I'm just having issues getting the textures to work right. They are mapped correctly, but I can't seem to get them to "open externaly", so I can't tell which ones go in which mapping spot. I'll keep playing though.
EDIT: I'm specifically talking glow points... I can't get them to show...
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Glow points? You'll probably have to place those yourself. Look where they should be in PCS, then place a plane on your model in MAX (or whatever you're using) where the glow should be. I'm guessing there's some way you can make your plane always face the camera and then you can apply the glow point texture to that plane and it will be similar to the in-game effect. I think...
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redsniper is right, thats the only way to add the glow points in, as they arn't part of the model, another way to add them in is in post production... personally I won't go to the trouble of adding them in...
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Oh... I had interpreted this as one of those "i have an idea, you do it!" threads...
Whereas I have posted a few of those myself, generally they've been for much smaller projects which would only take a tiny bit of effort for everyone involved. Time economics FTW!
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Thanks... I remember you. You might want to talk to IceyJones (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=7224), he did the Vasuda-Toasting-Cutscene (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=50977.0) (YouTube link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfBe9RTqwaY) here. <<High-Def should show up sometime.