Resident Evil: Behind the Mask [+Hazardous Battle]

[Guest]

Stunning! :O

[MeganGrass]

Are you absolutely certain that the Sega Saturn backgrounds are lossless? They look like poop.

...but I suppose that anything looks better, compared to the horrendous Bio1 PSone variants that are capped to a measly 32768 bytes per render.

[Carnivol]

iirc, the Saturn backgrounds are just bitmaps (like the PC version?), but without having done a mid-landing through a compression artifact infested movie format (unlike the PC version). But their resolution is ass low.

The more curious thing with the Saturn version is of course the odd room here and there that has some minor changes applied to it.

[Gemini]

Nice man. When you say ambient diffusion, is that a lighting technique?
Also has the inventory menu been implemented yet or is it still being programmed?

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shading#Ambient_lighting - I wasn't exporting this from RE1 RDTs, at all.
2) Still wip.

Are you absolutely certain that the Sega Saturn backgrounds are lossless? They look like poop.

I'm fairly certain they are lossless RGB pictures. Here's a little comparison I made:

Zoom in and you will notice artifacts in my version, even if I'm using a software compression that doesn't involve discrete cosine transform. On the Saturn pictures would stay lossless in 99% cases because the console doesn't have any hardware to decompress them from a format similar to MDEC and JPEG, meaning the only alternative is software decompression (and JPEG is definitively out of the SS realm and its slow ass processing power, no wonder why most games implement True Motion for videos).
I would imagine BSS files are where the backgrounds are stored, even if those sizes seem a little too small. Time to find out later with the PRS decompressor, I guess.

[EDIT] Fortune smiles, apparently:

Format's plain and more or less what I was expecting, except for the part when I found out that the backgrounds are stored as 8 bit tiles instead of 15 bit bitmaps of the PSX counterpart. It's a good thing the RE1 backgrounds are so bare bone in terms of detail that color quantization does absolutely no damage to their quality. Ah, look at those sharp walls made of nothing but color diffusion materials.

[Getta robo]

Got more from proper conversions, if you like eye candy:

Eye candy? That's more like porno to some of us!

Fortune smiles, apparently:
Format's plain and more or less what I was expecting, except for the part when I found out that the backgrounds are stored as 8 bit tiles instead of 15 bit bitmaps of the PSX counterpart. It's a good thing the RE1 backgrounds are so bare bone in terms of detail that color quantization does absolutely no damage to their quality. Ah, look at those sharp walls made of nothing but color diffusion materials.

So technically speaking, are they any better than the PS1 counterparts? I'm glad I somehow was able to further "press" you in order to investigate those, now perhaps we could expect a demo sooner than we dreamed off
And as about the enemies, I have a question regarding the zombies. Which varieties of them has the team discussed adding to the game? Should we except most if not all existent types from the previous games, in addition to new ones? One of the things early RE games were flawed, was minimal variety and the misplacement of enemies in numerous occasions. I hope you'll take in consideration those issues and improve the zombie placement and the variety of their designs even more.

[Gemini]

So technically speaking, are they any better than the PS1 counterparts? I'm glad I somehow was able to further "press" you in order to investigate those, now perhaps we could expect a demo sooner than we dreamed off

Don't bet too much on this. I do have at least 20 rooms converted and running, but that's far from being even remotely at a demo level of completion.

And as about the enemies, I have a question regarding the zombies. Which varieties of them has the team discussed adding to the game? Should we except most if not all existent types from the previous games, in addition to new ones? One of the things early RE games were flawed, was minimal variety and the misplacement of enemies in numerous occasions. I hope you'll take in consideration those issues and improve the zombie placement and the variety of their designs even more.

Zombies will react like those in RE2, similar patterns and behavior. New ones will simply include reskins and slight alterations, but they will all work the same. I'm trying to get the most familiar kind of reconstruction in this case, since GS completely missed any proper AI programming and the enemies are flat out boring to fight, even those that are supposed to be fast and deadly.

[Zombie_X]

Gemini, I'd really recommend giving the zombies a lot more variety than just what we have in Gun Survivor. I'd really like to see some new ones. Perhaps have them more decayed like in RE1? Perhaps the new Zombies can have a different style and could be more dynamic like in 1.5 (what I mean is that they could start sprinting when shot).

I assume enemy AI will be more or less the same as RE2? Or will there be differences. I'd like to see a proper fight Thanatos and not just sitting back and popping caps in his face (first form). I found Gun Survivor to lack a lot enemy variety as they were all pulled from RE2. The only ones that were new are the Cleaners and Thanatos Tyrant.

Just some food for thought. I'd like to know more about the enemies. I'm sure you'll improve upon them in BTM. Actually having competent AI will be good.

[Getta robo]

Don't bet too much on this. I do have at least 20 rooms converted and running, but that's far from being even remotely at a demo level of completion.

Better late than ever I guess. A demo for testing/bug purposes for example should be fine too.

Zombies will react like those in RE2, similar patterns and behavior. New ones will simply include reskins and slight alterations, but they will all work the same. I'm trying to get the most familiar kind of reconstruction in this case, since GS completely missed any proper AI programming and the enemies are flat out boring to fight, even those that are supposed to be fast and deadly.

May I ask why did you picked RE2 zombies instead of RE3 or even RE DS ones? For simplicity shake's or you don't see anything particular interesting to their coding behavior pattern? I hoped the enemies would be modeled both in appearance and pattern closer to their RE DS counterparts than RE2 to be honest..
In addition to what Zombie_X said, I also hope to see numerous zombies with different skins, such as doctor zombies in the hospital, prisoner zombies in the prison, stuff and scientists zombies in the Umbrella hq etc. Also please replace those lame cleaners with chimeras / ticks or anything else you would came with
ps. I saw that you guys would cast new voice actors and the music would be rearranged, this applies to SFX as well? Are you going to re-record enemy sounds and such, or are you going to reuse them from other RE titles?

[Zombie_X]

Despite new zombies not fitting with Gun Survivors enemies, it would create more variety. Even new AI and animations for some of them would be cool.

In fact I wouldn't use ANY RE2 enemies directly, but would reskin them or create new models for them. The visual difference would be striking. But that's not my call, it's all up to you Gemini.

[Guest]

Is there anything in the story or files that dictate which enemies are used? Perhaps the strain of virus involved determines an enemies behavioural paterns? I guess it would just be a matter of continuity and respect to the original to use the enemies from their respective games.

[Zombie_X]

I don't remember any of the files in Survivor... They were lackluster from what I can remember. The only thing I can clearly remember is Nikolai's file you pick up in the Theater.

[Renard]

Survivor had files?

[ajrich17901]

I don't even remember Survivor having files.. did it? lol

[-Rusty-]

Well this looks very interesting.

[Northman]

Survivor had files?

Oh yes, very exciting ones. They made for a good read.

Zombies will react like those in RE2, similar patterns and behavior.

Will this also include the detailed damage modeling, like being able to decapitate and dismember the zombies, and blow them in half with the shotgun?

Also, will there be infinite ammo bonus unlockable for us to play with?