Biohazard 2 - Beta 1: Anyone have it?

[Gemini]

Recycling background assets isn't exactly the same thing as having actual pieces of 1.5 FMV. Even the IMAGICA team mentioned how frustrating it was for them to recreate most stuff, meaning what we got from the retail build shares very little with the prototype.

[RMandel]

Like retooling the "John" model for RE15 as RE2's truck driver, for example ....

[News Bot]

Actually, there are pieces of the original RE15 FMVs in the ones for RE2 - if you know where to look. There are at least three places where RE15 FMVs are recycled. I'll tell you the first one - Annette's recollection. Most of that is RE15 FMV. Birkin's hair color in most shots, the use of the RE15 lab, etc. That will lead you to the second, much smaller clip. Can you find a third? -_^

Pure speculation.

[RMandel]

Nope. They're there, and they're for real. All it takes is a simple frame-by-frame analysis, and you can spot them for yourself. Besides, recycling everything they could - from the already-generated 3D models right down to existing video clips - makes sense, given the documented problems IMAGICA was having back then. Saved 'em a lot of time.

Here's where I'll speculate, Newsbot. I think one of them might have been put in there deliberately - as an injoke, or a side reference to the RE15 development phase, or whatever. It'll blow right by you at first, unless you do a frame-by-frame analysis. Once you catch it and realize it's there, it's so out of place that it sticks out like a sore thumb. You can't help but notice it every time after that. Once you find it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

On another related subject, here's my first attempt at recreating the EGS trailer ....

http://youtu.be/9Ni5oj0mC5s

[Zombie_X]

I always thought the helicopter crash scene was part of the recycled 1.5 intro for Leon. It's his 1.5 model after all. look at his leg. The knife is strapped to his leg.

[Gemini]

The 1.5 design for Leon is all but a leftover from the previous FMV work, but more like IMAGICA not using his definitive design. Even in those making of videos you can see a draft of the retail intro using incredibly bare-bone assets, meaning what they could have done until that point with 1.5 was extremely WIP, nothing even comparable to the final result. In other words, forget about finding any prototype assets in there, most were reworked far beyond recognition. It would be like comparing Elza to Claire.

[News Bot]

Nope. They're there, and they're for real. All it takes is a simple frame-by-frame analysis, and you can spot them for yourself. Besides, recycling everything they could - from the already-generated 3D models right down to existing video clips - makes sense, given the documented problems IMAGICA was having back then. Saved 'em a lot of time.

Here's where I'll speculate, Newsbot. I think one of them might have been put in there deliberately - as an injoke, or a side reference to the RE15 development phase, or whatever. It'll blow right by you at first, unless you do a frame-by-frame analysis. Once you catch it and realize it's there, it's so out of place that it sticks out like a sore thumb. You can't help but notice it every time after that. Once you find it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

On another related subject, here's my first attempt at recreating the EGS trailer ....
http://youtu.be/9Ni5oj0mC5s

I presume you've seen 1.5 FMVs and the models used in them?

Oh, you haven't? Then it's speculation.

[biohazard_star]

The model of the lab used in Annette's recollection is from Beta 2, or at least from the same era as it. Placement of the cabinet and the sink at the back is identical with 1.5's, but the placement of the storage units are different and the wall lamps are not present in the 1.5 lab. The train is also from retail.

[RMandel]

Newsbot, I don't have to see "1.5 FMVs and the models used in them" because we already have them. They're right before your eyes, if you'd just open them. I see I'm going to have to do this the hard way.

Keep in mind the concept art for both games. Birkin had brown hair in RE15. It was changed to blond in RE2. Also keep in mind that Birkin's lab was tinted blue in RE15, and tinted cyan (blue-green) in RE2. You might want to ramp up the color saturation a bit to see this in the RE2 FMV cutscene. Also remember that this particular scene (the attack on Birkin to seize the virus) is known to have been part of RE15, per existing documentation.

1) In the opening scene of the flashback, Birkin has brown hair. The lab also has a faint blue tint (RE15).

2) When HUNK and his man appears, the lab now has a faint cyan tint (RE2)

3) When the scene cuts back to Birkin, the lab again has a faint blue tint and Birkin's hair is brown (RE15).

4) When HUNK and his man swing their guns around to follow the sound of the chair, the lab is again tinted cyan (RE2).

5) When the video cuts to Birkin holding his pistol, he again has brown hair and the lab is tinted faint blue again (RE15).

6) As Birkin argues with HUNK, the footage will switch from the blue-tinted lab (RE15) to the cyan tinted version (RE2).

7) In the cut where Birkin backs away from HUNK towards the table, he has BLOND hair and the lab is tinted cyan (RE2).

8) In the cut where Birkin reacts to the sound of the falling container, the lab is tinted light blue and his hair is brown again (RE15).

9) In all of the footage of HUNK's man shooting Birkin, the lab is tinted cyan and Birkin has BLOND hair (RE2).

10) As we see the wounded Birkin on the floor bleeding to death, his hair is brown and the lab is tinted blue (RE15). This is also true after HUNK leaves, and Birkin injects himself with the G-virus.

11) When Annette first enters the lab to discover Birkin, the decontamination area is tinted orange (RE2).

12) When Annette kneels beside the wounded Birkin, the lab is tinted light blue and Birkin has brown hair (RE15).

13) When Birkin injects himself with the G-virus, he has brown hair and the lab is tinted light blue (RE15).

Now I'll grant you that all footage of HUNK and his men was probably worked up during RE2 - but it would have been based on the footage originally generated for RE15. There's some early concept art for Umbrella security, I think - I'd have to look it up again. There's no way you can argue about that footage of Birkin, however, and the way it flips back and forth between the RE15 and RE2 concepts.

As I stated before, there's RE15 footage in Annette's recollection. There's no debating that, for anyone with eyes to see. The biggest part of it is either recycled directly from the original FMV or adapted from what would have happened in the original. Birkin's and Annette's FMV character models and the lab models for the RE2 version can be shown to come directly from their RE15 predecessors, too, per this video. All they did to Birkin's was smooth his hair and change its color from brown to blond. Annette's FMV model doesn't seem to have changed at all - or very little. Therefore, most of this video comes from RE15.

Q.E.D.

[News Bot]

That's quite a hefty lot of assumptions. Still nothing concrete, just tons of speculation. You're jumping on any possible connection, irrespective of whether it is actually true or not.

[News Bot]

DEBUNK TIME

1) Birkin has similar hair to Leon. It's brown, but looks blonde depending on how lighting strikes it, and can even look like both at once. This is true even in Zero and Darkside Chronicles. Annette and Sherry also have seemingly different hair colors in artwork drawn in the same period. It's lighting.
2) Leon has no knife holder in the BH2 helicopter scene. It's his BH2 model.
3) The laboratory does not have a blue tint. Whatever source you've been watching has whacked-out colors, as in the raw versions, the color scheme is more sterile. Some things are blue, but the majority is gray/silver. The lab didn't even have a blue tint in 1.5 (the blue tint came primarily from the fact that whoever took INFLAMES' screenshots, took them from a TV), so I don't see how this is irrefutable proof that they re-used it. The color scheme is pretty similar to the pre-rendered backgrounds for the lab.

[Gemini]

Agreed with News Bot, most of that stuff is your own speculation. Even in the Source Next version of the video you can see most colors are broken due to MDEC encoding, IMAGICA wasn't changing renders for each sequence (which would make no sense; FMV are rendered in consecutive sessions, not switching stuff in and out like there's no tomorrow). That scene has nothing of 1.5.

[Zombie_X]

I agree, it's his retail BIO2 model. I can't see them chopping up two different videos into one at all.

[Guest]

Why would lighting and ambient colour tones change based on the frame (obviously taking into consideration camera angles, etc)? I understand the explanations given, but surely if "colours were messed up" due to encoding it would be consistent throughout the whole FMV sequence and you wouldn't just be able to explain away "inconsistencies" like that based on those circumstances.

[Gemini]

You can even see Annette's hands looking like she's wearning gloves when she storms in the lab, then when she's closer to William the hands revert back to the regular skin tones. It's called variable lights and it's rather common when you have multiple light sources in a small room.