Stranger's wrath SD vs HD Pictures

[lloyd]

Hey oddworld fans, JAW did an interview with gamesindustry.biz

You can see it here http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...h-hd-remasters

i also put the screenshots together so you can roll over and see some of the not so obvious changes. such as the sky change and higher rez textures

flash version here: http://bit.ly/pjvsQo


non-flash version here: http://bit.ly/omQVoi


Enjoy!


I can't wait


-lloyd

[Sekto Springs]

Honestly it just looks like someone put a noise filter on the non HD images. I don't recall the actual game being so grainy.

[lloyd]

its all about resolution. the HD abe screenshots are 720p and the xbox ones are SD which could be 420p. so the SD ones are scaled up to fit over the HD pictures.


This is a pretty standard way to show the progression from SD to HD. i could of scalled down the HD pictures. but it would be harder to see the diffrences and it would give the HD pictures extra anti-aliasing.

if you were to play SW xbox on a hd tv, it would blow the pixels up like this and maybe even add a blur filter over the top. really go check! same for any old game.


poor halo 2 oh how you don't look as good as I remember

[Sekto Springs]

Ah I see, so its more about the aspect ratio than the graphics. Gotcha. Hopefully the final version will look great.

[lloyd]

well actually that is the HD graphics, not only is it rendering the game at a higher resolution but the textures have been made larger.

look at the text on the signs.
You can make it out better in the HD version. also some props [objects] and the characters have been remade with more details [polygons].


it also seems like they have tweaked the FOV of the camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_length

as you can see distance in game is better represented. i.e things seem further away and less flat. in photography terms that's the focal length

[Sekto Springs]

Yeah it looks better, but only barely. I'm still not impressed. I understand they have to work within the limitations of the engine though, c'est la vie.

[lloyd]

Well its a hard thing to do, I feel they've done it well because you can go down 2 routes

1) Make everything again from scratch while adding new things / changing other parts

2) up rezing the models, textures etc while keeping the original style and feel of the game. [This is what they've done]

They way they have done it keeps faithful to the original while polishing it up. I'm sure people wouldn't be impressed if it changed beyond recognition.

[STM]

I think it's fantastic. JAW, have my babies.

[Dynamithix]

Ugh, I still think those 'HD' pictures aren't looking too good. I want to see some gameplay of it, not the same pictures over and over.

Also, it seems as JAW is trying to make the original version look bad, I remember there was a picture comparing the models of the HD version, the original version and the original's cutscene version and the original model looked a lot worse in the picture than it did in the game...

[lloyd]

@Dynamithix

are you talking about this picture?
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.c...0af0aed2eo.jpg

people [myself included] forget how bad things use to look, at the time we hadn't seen better so we were impressed, really. go back and look at an old game you loved. not so nice anymore. JAW aren't making it look worse

http://mktplassets.xbox.com/NR/rdonl...imhalo0019.jpg
http://static.trustedreviews.com/880...ombRaider1.jpg
http://add-raider.webs.com/tomb_raid...ofilelarge.jpg <--tomb raider 3
http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/u...02/mario64.jpg
http://tcovg.aftervision.com/Tekken%...Ingame%202.gif


I'm not sure about 3d/2.5d abe though.
i'd much rather have nice rendered images running at a high fps, than 3d geo.

:x

[Dynamithix]

Yeah, that's the picture. I don't know, maybe it's just the way that I look at things, sorry for being negative, I'm sure the HD remake is going to be awesome when it's finished.

[lloyd]

Its understandable, people are like this all the time.
You mainly see them complaining that a sequel looks the same and could of just been DLC.

[Manco]

So to clarify, the only changes being made for the HD version are a higher resolution display, higher polycounts on some character models, and better textures?

Well going on that, looks like they've done the best job they could have.

e: is there a mirror for the full interview?

[lloyd]

I'm pretty sure they've REMADE all of the character models. and then a lot of the other objects, however some of the world stuff seems the same, houses / background objects such as rocks

its definitely an improvement.

[Sekto Springs]

They remade some of the character models. JAW had posted a production journal not too long ago. Many of the models are the same with higher poly and improved textures, but only a select few were completely redone.

[lloyd]

not to get to technical but adding extra geometry is remaking them, as you need to uvw / re-bake the normal maps.
Also making higher textures means actually making them again from scratch using the old texture as a reference.

its more work than it looks

[Sekto Springs]

I've worked on models and skins, I know how it goes.

And there is a difference between remaking them from the ground up and re-baking them. The fuzzles, for instance, were completely new models. Stranger and the Grubbs already had a base to build from.

On that note, I'm very interested in seeing a few FPS screenshots in HD. If I'm expecting to see any significant improvement, it had better be noticeable on the live ammo.

[lloyd]

i just hope they sort out the issues they are having getting it on 360

[tda]

Just poking my head in here. I can assure you we've not tried to make the old version look bad. Fact is we don't have to try, by today's standards an Xbox1 game does that all by itself. If you plugged the original Xbox + Stranger into a 50' display nowadays you'll be in for a fright. Lloyd's comparison is actually pretty good, you just have to imagine those screenshots stretched to fill a nice HD display to grasp just how big the difference will be.

What you do have to remember though is not to compare any HD update to a modern game, because they aren't modern games. A great deal of how nice a game looks are down engine features, lighting, post-processing and other nice shader tricks. Stranger HD is working with the original game engine that shipped for the Xbox1 that's been gutted and updated to run smoothly on modern hardware after an injection of polygon and texture steroids. It'll never stand up to the battlefield 3's of today in terms of graphical prowess, but it's definitely head and shoulders above the old version.

They remade some of the character models. JAW had posted a production journal not too long ago. Many of the models are the same with higher poly and improved textures, but only a select few were completely redone.

I can confirm that all of the character models (and all live ammo) have been completely redone from the ground up using the old model as a guide only, much like you would concept art. The fact that these newer, higher poly models with bigger textures look like an exact 'high-res' version of the old ones is a testament to the skill of the artist (not me btw). From talking to the guy who made them, i don't think very much was "recycled", if anything at all. Of course a handful (aka stranger) were made by re-using the CGI model as the highpoly in a Hipoly -> Retopology -> UV -> Bake -> Texture -> Rig pipeline as per the production diary, but the latter 3/4 of that pipeline is no small feat.

The environments have been given a good seeing to as well. Glitch has been working on them for the past few months, increasing texture resolution and adding extra polygonal detail and extra models to many areas. I've even chipped in with about 50 texture uprezzes. The difference between the 2 is night and day now.

[DarkHoodness]

Considering your restrictions it does look incredibly good - It's clear to see what has changed and it's a definite improvement over the old version. I think people will be able to appreciate the differences once the HD update is released and people are able to play through it.

Thanks for continuing to breathe new life into an old game.

[moxco]

This may sound like a stupid question, but why don't developers use vector modelling and texturing so they can do a graphical remake with very little effort.

[Sekto Springs]

I guess I'll just have to play it before I fully appreciate it.

[Phylum]

This may sound like a stupid question, but why don't developers use vector modelling and texturing so they can do a graphical remake with very little effort.

Because people don't have foresight.

[Glitch]

I certainly hope that the game doesn't disappoint when it is released. The nature of updating games like this is that, in theory, we could up every level's polycount by 100,000, make all the textures 1024 x 1024, and make sure there's not a single prop model with a poly count lower than 500.

Problem with that is simply the time it would take to do it. I've tried to be selective with what I've updated; picking on objects that are seen often and close the to the camera; areas of the game that are overtly low poly, and essentially tried to make sure that we can get a general level of improvement across the entire game rather than three levels that look amazing, followed by many more levels that have had next to nothing done to them.

That being said, if you guys/gals aren't happy with the outcome when it get's released, then that just means I need to work harder next time and stop coming up with excuses to post on here

[Wil]

Stop posting and make game already!

[moxco]

If it’s possible could you perhaps update the leaves/grass so they don’t have that jagged, 2d, paper cut-out look.

[Glitch]

If it’s possible could you perhaps update the leaves/grass so they don’t have that jagged, 2d, paper cut-out look.

Unfortunately, short of upping the resolution of the plant textures (which I've already done) there's nothing else that can be done about that particular problem; it's caused by how the engine handles the alpha channel of textures.

[Phylum]

I'm sure you guys are doing the best job you can. I look forward to finally playing this game when it gets a PS3 release.

[Paul_hibs3]

I think the SD to HD pictures are astronomically improved. Take a pat on the back JAW looks superb.

[STM]

Say Glitch will there be an alpha release of these games to a select proportion of the public? Y'know, purely for the purpose of getting feedback. If so, I'd like to put myself forward. I know, I'm such a noble giver!