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 ๐
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 ๐
And that’s all for now! I’m keeping a few extra things for a future “Part 4″ hehe ๐
I’ll also post a few more examples of lighting improvements next time!
Have a nice weekend!!
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Impressive, as usual. Kudos, keep on doing such a superb work ๐
Great job again, Albert.
– Adding new light sources at will!
You never cease to surprise me. And this is all ‘HEX-modifying’ stuff, right? ๐
By the way, did you try to find out a way to restore missing depth of field effect? I suppose it’s the same kind of problem as a broken water shader (or whatever it is).
Thanks!
Yep. I feel like I’m in a Matrix movie. All day seeing those bytes floating everywhere XD
Right now I have no idea about DoF… Anyway, that effect at HD resolutions looks quite bad and I suspect it was removed on purpose while they ported the game to the HD Revival Edition.
Yeah I kinda know how you feel.
You’re probably right. But they also broke specular highlights at some point xD I didn’t really like this ‘fake DoF’ effect and I wouldn’t bother about it anyway. But for some scenes it is necessary to cover extremely low-poly ganado models. I wonder if it’s possible to swap them with a hi-poly ones.
Looking forward to your future updates.
I guess it’s possible to replece those low-poly models. I’m still not 100% sure though
Wow lot of works on this section ๐ฎ
Albert, I think I’m in love with you
Hahha thank you… glups!! XD
I love you so much man. My favorite game finally looking perfect. I mean the models are top notch and the lighting was the most unlikely thing I’d expect to see fixed and it all happened. ๐
I didn’t know it was possible 2 weeks ago!
You accidentally stumbled upon it while trying the gamma/color fix, right? ๐
I was doing some other kind of testing, but yes, something like that ๐
Freaking amazing how much improvement u made compared to the original. Capcom should be pleased behind the work u gone through to remaster what they failed to do. U guys never cease to amaze me
Thank you again Frank for your comments!
I’d love to know what Capcom people think about this project ๐
The gifts I passed on to you about a year ago were meant to show that Capcom 100% everything you are doing.
Just to be clear…
That gift was not from me. It was from Capcom themselves because they LOVE what you guys are creating.
You (and Cris) are doing a HD upgrade that Capcom could never create themselves for a multitude of reasons.
Oh! I’m aware of that. I had in my mind the creators of the geme. I was not clear enough, sorry ๐
That’s good to hear. I was always worried about potential copyright issues with this mod.
You dudes are heros!
Here is my interpretation of one of the original textures. I believe it is the 24th picture down from the top. There are some blurry cables hanging down beneath some thin horizontal rows of gear. This looks a lot like a patch bay, where you can plug a cable into a slot on one of the rows to route a signal from one source to another. If you ever do a Google image search for “patch bay” you’ll get a better idea. Though your interpretation in the remastered image looks pretty great!
Yep, it seem that way. Thank you! I tryed to do something like that. I think The cables should be connected to those dark bands
I thought everybody said it was pretty much impossible to change the lighting. Oh well, good job.
Yep… it was… ;P
Mind-blowing stuff Albert, you’re amazing man
I 100% agree with everyone above.
The updated Village and Castle release is going to be epic.
I CAN’T WAIT!
Yaaaass!!
I mentioned the oddly dull fire light in spots in a previous post. Glad to see them able to be fixed. Looks magnificent!
Huh, now that you mention it… Albert, is it possible to bring back high intensity fire effects like it was on GC/Wii?
Wii: i.imgur.com/MZtQhln.png
PC (default brightness, no filters) : i.imgur.com/0IGfqO4.png
I tried with no luck…
That effect is completely broken. In fact, that broken effect is what makes some rooms more red in comparison with the original GC/Wii version. Every single room with wrong colours had this missing effect applied on some fires in GC/Wii.
Hm, that’s interesting.
By the way, I noticed a lens flare effect at 0:52. Pretty sure it wasn’t there before ๐
It was already there hehe.
Wow. Thats a new insight that makes it more complex. Maybe one of the rooms that have it working correctly can be transfered somehow?
PS: Ok, this version of BioFAT probably won’t work with RE4. But I have another one: https://yadi.sk/d/y037NzSt337NiE
Thank you everyone! Unfortunatelly there’s no tool at the moment able to uncompress stage DAS files…
Maybe its possible to entirely replicate the file from the wii version. Hex edit the values to see if it behaves similary. I remember fully extracting the files and their content. The right toolkit was difficult to find tho. It was also interesting to compare file size to see if the package might be missing a part.
Wait wait wait…. It’s possible to extract those *.das files from the GC version??
And another question: Is there any room in the PC version with that “intense fire” effect intact? I could replicate the same hexvalues if there is one of those effects working. I did the same for another missing effect (next update :P)
Yes, I remember being able to extract these.. i need to move fast and see if i still can get to that cg toolset.
No worries. I won’t rest till I get to those files again.
Searched and searched but everything’s down. And I removed the files from my desktop two months ago.. wish I could go back in time..
Maybe you can get that extractor back with file recovery software?
RE4_Modkit_V4
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evil_4_PC/index.php?showtopic=21810
http://www.mediafire.com/file/dzj18xd3tojn58l/RE4_Modkit_V4.7z
Include this and I thinks this is what you want.
RE4_GCDatExtract
RE4_DRS_Extractor
Created by St.Vampyre and MarkGrass
Original post (links dead)
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evil_4_PC/index.php?showtopic=575
Dr.Emuler Software Development Kit
Dont know is this work for GC or PC only.
http://z6.invisionfree.com/Resident_Evil_4_PC/index.php?showtopic=21347
http://www.mediafire.com/file/6v9xaxozro163cl/dremulerre4sdk.zip
@Alvare
Are you looking for BioHazard File Archive Tool? I have a working link for latest version: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1019/
If I remember correctly this program should support:
Bio Hazard 4 | Resident Evil 4 [GameCube/Wii/PS2/PC]
(*.DAS) – Archive File Extraction, Archive File Creation
(*.DAT) – Archive File Extraction, Archive File Creation
(*.DRS) – Archive File Extraction, Archive File Creation (Stage files | de/compression is not yet supported)
(*.EVD) – Archive File Extraction
I can also upload RE4 GC/Wii images, if you can’t find them online.
PS: Ok, this version of BioFAT probably wonโt work with RE4. But I have another one: https://yadi.sk/d/y037NzSt337NiE
Sorry, for double/triple posting. I hate this forum structure ๐
PPS: apparently, this version of BioFAT doesn’t work with Stage .das files. And it crashes a lot, someone said it’s a problem with Win7 (someone may try it with XP).
http://www.the-horror.com/forums/showthread.php?8052-BioHazard-File-Archive-Tool&p=275118&viewfull=1#post275118
Maybe we should ask MarkGrass directly about RE4 .das extraction?
YES!!! This is awesome stuff.
Please consider sharing your findings at resident evil modding forum, I’d love to edit some of this stuff myself.
Yes I’ll do it at some point ๐ It’s quite hard to explain! hehe
I love that drainage at the end of the ramp. Nice detail and good thinking.
How did the idea come to you?
Not sure XD I guess I saw those tiles bending and I thought something was missing there. Everything was… too clean ยฟ?
Thanks!
On an unrelated nore, seeing you guys edit the scenarios in 3DMax like any other scene created with that program sure opens a door to animating an re-rendering Ada’s scenes. I know I said this before, but I myself have already used recorded footage (of myself) to rotoscope and animate characters, so using the original videos as reference (and considering that the scenarios would be the same in this case, allowing to match camera angles perfectly) isn’t that far fetched ๐
I thought that someone skilled enough could remake Ada’s scenes using something like Source Filmaker. Yeah, it will be a prerendered cutscene like before, but much easier to implement back in the game and video quality will be better.
Still, there’s A LOT of work even with this method.
Sigh.. You dont wanna know how much work such a thing would require.
Also, wanted to point out it is not yet possible to use a 1080p video. It will simply zoom in onto the video to look equally blurred.
Is that so? Damn, no point in doing it then, I guess.
Yeah, I’m fully aware it would have taken a lot of time. Last time I crafted a 15 minute animation it took me, like, a year of my free time.
That’s right. Cris wanted to recreate those short cutscenes appearing in Leon main campaign and he found out the new videos were zoomed in…
:/
Uh, so it’s even worse than I thought.
The passion you guys are putting into it is very inspiring. I know you guys are not looking for recognition, but I do hope Capcom do something about it when the project is finished.
Looking great as usual! Although one detail I think is off is the blue brazier by the merchant – it’s not very clear in the original model, but there’s meant to be some kind of coals in the bottom of it that are burning blue, wheras in the updated version it’s just a shiny silver base, which still looks great in its own way, but doesn’t make too much sense.
And that’s the only nitpick I can come up with. This seriously looks stunning.
Oh. I’m afraid it’s just the decorative ultra blurred texture ๐ No coals in there. In fact, you can notice just in this room some kind of inflamable liquid effect is used here (see it in motion)
Thanks for the feedback! ๐
[…] the mod’s development blog for years, delighted each time they post about things like discovering how to edit real-time lights, fixing lighting issues in the base game, finding buildings Capcom photographed, fixing errors […]
Thanks for the write-up!! ๐