Awesome MI2 2D/3D Projection thingie

[Thrik]

Time to literally wet yourself:

[MrHoatzin]

Time to literally wet yourself:

That does look really nice.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Time to literally wet yourself:

Freaking awesome............... I wants it!!!

[Patters]

Time to literally wet yourself:

If lucasarts do the second one, these guys/guy? should definitely be involved. This scene seems even better than the first.

[syntheticgerbil]

I like this new one as well. I wish he hadn't modeled the stuff in the foreground though since it doesn't fit with the style of everything else, but I guess he had to since he's moving the camera inside and everything.

[BigJKO]

It's still the same drawings in the foreground, though. He just applies fancy transparency, reflections and lighting on them, which IMO enhances the ambience.

[toblix]

I promise that, if they make this happen, I will pay one thousand US dollars.

[Cigol]

Man, do I feel gypped having paid for that other 'special edition'

In fact, what about a special edition of the special edition?

[syntheticgerbil]

It's still the same drawings in the foreground, though. He just applies fancy transparency, reflections and lighting on them, which IMO enhances the ambience.

Yeah, they are textured with the original drawings through Maya's camera mapping, but I'm referring to his models only and they aren't exactly as characteristic as the original drawings, so it gets a little bit more muddied compared to the objects in the back that have to move a lot less.

I promise that, if they make this happen, I will pay one thousand US dollars.

Hah, but he works at Crytek, why would he want to go to LucasArts? It appears most of the art for the first Special Edition was farmed out to Singapore anyways, so I'm sure that says something about how much money Lucas would be willing to put into it.

[LOPcagney]

Whoa that is a cool video. We briefly investigated this technique for the fantastic/innovative/sexy yet tragically cancelled game we were working on at NCsoft. Our goal was to use this as a way to quickly and cheaply convert concept art to semi-3D scenes. If I recall correctly the idea was dropped due to the poor flexibility it gives. Pan the camera just a bit too far and you start seeing the seams...

The tests definitely look fantastic, but the only part that I don't get (I'm probably over-simplifying the process in my mind) is that if the texturing is just a 3D projection of a 2D image, wouldn't any slight camera movement show untextured surfaces. I assume they just paint around the edges of objects to give a little elbow room there.

[Thrik]

He's done quite a considerable amount of texture work to fill in the gaps. This is especially noticeable in the Voodoo scene.

You do need to be pretty damn good at this stuff to pull it off, for sure. It's not a quick trick.

[MrChaz]

That's what I love about it. To me, Guybrush is barely even a character. I know some people like to talk about how much they love Guybrush Threepwood as a hilarious character, but it's never been that for me, at least not in the first two games. I really like that I have no fully-formed human conception of who Guybrush is; his cypher-like nature is really central to the effectiveness of those games.

In the first two games you are Guybrush in the others you play Guybrush. It's a subtle but important distinction, I think.

Also, I much prefer that Guybrush model to the new one

[syntheticgerbil]

The tests definitely look fantastic, but the only part that I don't get (I'm probably over-simplifying the process in my mind) is that if the texturing is just a 3D projection of a 2D image, wouldn't any slight camera movement show untextured surfaces. I assume they just paint around the edges of objects to give a little elbow room there.

Yeah as Thrik said, he definitely did a lot of "fixing" on the Voodoo scene. If you go back and look at the textures when he moves the camera around the scene in front of Captain Dread's boat, you can see how broken a lot of them are when they aren't directly facing the camera, as it appears he messed with the textures less on that one.

Of course, if a hyopthetical game were moving in a 2.5D way, you probably wouldn't be doing much zooming in or major camera rotation, so you could get away with this stuff with minor fixes.

Also, I much prefer that Guybrush model to the new one

Yeah I have no idea what they were thinking when they okayed his new character design. If there's one thing that seems almost universally disliked is the Special Edition's new Guybrush look. He's lacking majorly in appeal, I'd say.

[Chris]

I don't like the Guybrush used in these projection examples, but I think it was just tossed in there for the purpose of scale and matching resolution, not as a carefully-considered decision of what kind of Guybrush would work best.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I think he just picked the best fan made one on the Mixnmojo forums (Paco Vink's) and stuck it there.

[BigJKO]

Oh, I thought it was Telltale's concept art Guybrush... But yeah, it was definately just thrown in to show scale and such.

[syntheticgerbil]

Oh, I thought it was Telltale's concept art Guybrush... But yeah, it was definately just thrown in to show scale and such.

Very inspired by that definitely.

EDIT: BROKE THE FORUM

[Chris]

Er, is this all in response to my comment about not liking the Guybrush he used? It's not like I was assuming he thought this was the best Guybrush possible. I'm just saying "This Guybrush would be an inappropriate Guybrush for an MI2 remake."

Whatever his intentions, you still have to be careful that, if there's a chance in hell LucasArts is swayed by these videos, they don't mistake the enthusiasm for the 3D work as enthusiasm for this particular Guybrush as well. Because I sort of doubt that they'd know any better.

I don't really think it's his responsibility to be careful about the theoretical future actions of a company he doesn't work for. If LucasArts would literally act in such a blind, spineless way as to simply act on some throwaway impulse exhibited by some Guy On The Internet, there would be even dumber projects they would already be making.

[OssK]

Guy On The Internet

I like how you caped that, GOTI.cx is the new GOTY ?

[syntheticgerbil]

I'd say it has pretty much went full circle in that case.

[ThunderPeel2001]

If LucasArts would literally act in such a blind, spineless way as to simply act on some throwaway impulse exhibited by some Guy On The Internet, there would be even dumber projects they would already be making.

Like the Star Wars: Clone Wars franchise?

I hope they're knee-deep in a new non-MI related "update" (Tie-Fighter? Yes please!), so they can come back afresh and do an awesome 2D/3D version of MI2.

[Chris]

The "you" here was not referring Hannes. If it was, I would have said "he". "You" here is referring to people expressing enthusiasm for his work. I merely prefaced that sentence with "Whatever his intentions" because I don't think it matters what his intentions are with respect to having an opinion about whether that Guybrush is appropriate.

Okay, well then I don't think it's the responsibility of those people either.