Ashley in a Capsule (Room 329) and Technical Improvements – Part 3

Hi! Today’s post is filled with quite interesting stuff!

Regular room update (room 329):

This room has been the toughest in terms of the remastering process. The original had everything I fear the most:

• Laboratory, technological, and control panel textures. Most of these textures were ultra blurred and unrecognizable. In short: I sometimes had no idea what the hell I was re-creating! But this also makes me think that Capcom staff also didn’t always know exactly they were creating. My guess is that being 100% realistic wasn’t their goal.
• Badly mapped and overly simplified 3D models. This forced me to remodel and touch up every single model (with the exception of some walls and the floor XD).
• A complex area that is easily skippable. This room included a section with a huge variety of textures and a lot of small details for an area that’s easily skippable during a normal playthrough. It’s somewhat frustrating, but I hope you appreciate the efforts 😀

I’m quite happy with the results after overcoming all of these obstacles. I consistently had the feeling that I was finishing a beta version of a game while remastering this area. An “unfinished work” vibe was present in every part of this room…

As I mentioned elsewhere, the huge amount of work for this area gave me some room for creativity. So, feel free to comment about the work-in-progress comparison shots and video!

Technical improvements – part 3:

I wanted to save this for a separate post, but the screenshots speak for themselves! I’m talking about Lighting Improvements. I found out a way to edit the real time-light sources. This is what I’m able modify so far:

• Position: For example, I found that some light sources are located about 1 m away from the fire / candle. Now I can manually adjust their X Y and Z coordinates.
• Intensity: Some giant torches generate a really faint light, while some small candles generate blinding lights. It’s quite unbalanced sometimes.
• Colour
• Range: Some lights sources are noticeable only if Leon is at a really short distance. It’s possible to increase their range so that the character is lit at larger distances.
• Which models will the lights sources affect: Characters, enemies, the stage, and all kinds of combinations. Have you noticed how some lights reach the wall but don’t affect Leon? This light source feature is the reason.
• Blinking: There are several kinds of blinking depending of the light source (fire, old electrical light, fluorescent, etc.). Now it’s possible to choose which effect will be used.
• Adding new light sources at will! For example, the last candle in the first cave (room 102/112) doesn’t send out any real time light (only the fire and flare effect is there).

All these edits are possible by editing certain bytes inside the stages’ LIT files. The intent is to edit just the most obvious inaccuracies. Right now the possibilities are unlimited, so we’ll try to exercise sound judgement 😉

And that’s all for now! I’m keeping a few extra things for a future “Part 4″ hehe 😛

I’ll also post a few more examples of lighting improvements next time!

Have a nice weekend!!

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