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The Development of the Resident Evil Engine/Series Over Time - RE1 > RE1.5 > RE2 etc

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  • The Development of the Resident Evil Engine/Series Over Time - RE1 > RE1.5 > RE2 etc

    I know we don't need another prototype thread, but this is something I've been thinking about lately. When Capcom started developing 1.5 they were, from what I've always knew, building on top of RE1's engine. One of the in house criticisms of 1.5 was that it played too much like RE1, this sparked them to make changes and redesign the engine into what we know now in RE2. Does anyone actually know what went on during this period and what changes were actually made? Obviously I don't expect you guys to give detailed answers as none of you worked for Capcom at the time, however you guys have played these games a lot, some of you have even delved into it's coding, so I thought you might at least have a few answers.

    Take the Trial Edition for example. The majority of 1.5's backgrounds are there a lot of which were still used in RE2, such as the lab areas towards the end of the game. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, a lot of the 1.5 backgrounds that are missing are the ones which were being replaced in RE2 at the beginning of the game, such as the police station. This would lead me to believe that development on 1.5 never really stopped, but in a sense continued on with the addition of new artwork and a reworked engine. Of course development on 1.5 wouldn't have stopped in a litteral sense, they didn't drop everything and start from absolute scratch is what I mean.

    I don't see why Capcom would put out a demo build (Biohazard 2 Trial Edition) with all those resources contained inside unless this was a true representation of RE2's development at some point (or unless they left it there on purpose :/). While they could have done whatever changes they made to the engine and then imported all the backgrounds into the new build, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to do so when so much of the artwork was being omitted and you were essentially starting from scratch. It seems like Capcom were replacing the backgrounds area by area (replace police station A with police station B etc) untill they eventually knew what they were doing and figured it was time to get rid of the 1.5 content for good.

    I'd like to think that even though the Trial Edition was a public release and is reasonably easy to get a hold of, it's still representative of development and just as much of a holy grail as any other beta. Personally I find the Trial Edition infinitely more interesting than Beta 2; even though Beta 2 has debug options and a lot of stuff to play with, the Trial Edition shows us an RPD that's vastly different to retail. A lot of it's ideas were scrapped, a lot of it's artwork too, it came from a time when assumingly Capcom didn't really know where they were going with RE2. I'd love to play a build that was slightly earlier or slightly later than the Trial Edition, I want to see the old Marvin scene complete the way it used to be, I also want to see if the alternate RPD layouts and the routes Sherry takes ever went anywhere. Personally I think the Trial Edition probably came from a time when they had already scrapped those ideas, as opposed to when they were working on completing them. Guess we'll never know.

    Anyway I'm rambling, sorry for turning this into another rant, but I'm sure you know how it is with these things. What I'm interested in knowing is, what really changed between RE1 and RE2, engine wise? Is the code really that different? Or did Capcom make tweaks to the RE1 code, as opposed to rebuilding it entirely? The jump from 1.5 to RE2 always sounds so big, but are the games really that different? I wonder what happened to the 1.5 build during this period of it's development, if it was hacked apart and put back together, or whether resources were simply imported into new code.

    -----

    One piece of evidence that points to similarities in the code is the presence of an identical glitch/exploit and behaviour in both games (Biohazard 1996-01-31 and Trial Edition to be exact) which I discovered after some experimentation one day. In the 01-31 build of Biohazard it's possible to use the flag menus to regain control of the player during active cutscenes and events. It's only possible by checking flags for player movement, as well as checking the flag allowing you to press start. This alone doesn't do it as the game still has you frozen in place by something seemingly unrelated to movement flags, only once you enter the inventory and return to the game can you move around during the active cut scene (this is in RE1).

    From what I can tell this exact technique is used in certain hacks of the Trial Edition (RE2) to allow you to get passed the Ada scene in the STARS office (not including Martin Biohazard's Ada scene hack which simply disables it all together). Not including whatever physical hacking that went into the job, the one thing that's required by the player to move around is funnilly enough, enter the inventory and return back to the game. What happens in RE1 is that during cut scenes the game disables a bunch of flags which allow you to do things like control the player or enter menus, so you can't interact with the game while it tells the story and plays out animations/sounds. From what I can tell the same thing is happening in this scene. I assume the hack stops the Ada scene from ending the demo, keeps you in the game and re-enables those movement and menu flags so the player can press start and use this glitch/exploit to release them selves from the cut scene, allowing them to carry on the game.

    Of course, if the same team built both games then there's going to be some similarities in the way things work, however I don't really understand what Capcom have done here and maybe more importantly why it was done. Did they decide that they didn't like the feel of the game, so they rebuilt the engine and upon importing the resources decided to change the story as well? Or did they decide that they didn't like the story so decided to do everything from scratch, including rebuild the engine? Or maybe a combination of both? Capcom them selves told us that 1.5 played too much like RE1, so I guess that's the story we should take. However, the question I raise is that if the problem was in the way the game felt and played, surely making those kinds of changes to the engine don't require burying key characters, re-working the story and binning 75% of your artwork.

    I'd love to know more about what went on during this period so feel free to use this thread for anything related to the devlopment of the early RE games, including RE3.

  • #2
    This is rarely ever noted, but Hideki Kamiya says that the actual scrapping of 1.5 was done by Mikami after it was suggested by Noboru Sugimura, who read the scenario and started making changes but quickly decided that there was no saving it, so he suggested they start over from scratch and only keeping some elements from the original scenario (Leon, G-Virus, Birkin, Annette, Sherry, Marvin, R.P.D. etc). Everything else was secondary and simply gave them more reason, they weren't happy with the game at all.
    PROJECT Umbrella - The BIOHAZARD/RESIDENT EVIL Compendium

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    • #3
      Interesting topic. Regarding the RE1/2 engine, there's some leftover code files on the beta 2 disc which mention the original Biohazard and is dated 95 I think, so I'm guessing they just copied the RE1 code over before development and took it from there..

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      • #4
        Well from 1.5 videos and information we got, the engine did play a lot like a tweaked version of RE1. From zombie/character movements, to even the animations, just tweaked differently.

        But one thing that does get to my mind after reading your post, did Capcom actually intend to keep the remaining backgrounds that was found on the Trial Edition for the new RE2? I mean, we could see a new Police Station, but would have continued the game with the factory from 1.5 to the end (which would make sense of the 1.5 backgrounds on the disc.)
        Zombies...zombies everywhere...

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        • #5
          Weren't the backgrounds in Trial Edition actually from an earlier build of 1.5? Wouldn't that mean that they overwrote a back-up of an earlier version, and not the final one? I remember people at the bioflames forums noting several differences between the ripped backgrounds and the ones from Inflames' exclusive pics of 1.5. The most notable ones would be the lack of lockers in the ransacked Umbrella office and different camera angles for the refueling area at the train platform.
          Seibu teh geimu?
          ---

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          • #6
            I don't know much about code and hacking-related stuff, but as far as I know, the BH1 engine was only tweaked when they started BH1.5. Surely the engine would evolve during development as the team learn how to bypass things like pushing the console to work with more polygons and that kind of stuff, and they would keep adding more game related features for BH1.5, like the shotgun dividing the zombie's bodies at half, which was impossible on BH1 and was scrapped for BH2 (I think, I'm not sure) though, some early version of BH2 had said feature. By the end of the development the engine they had would be incredibly different to the one they started with.

            As for the backgrounds, we think they're the final ones, post-INFLAMES images. The last work the dev team seemed to have done on them was on Dec 23rd, apparently before going into some vacations/festivity. Okamoto brought Sugimura to the team, probably, before Dec to consult with him the problems they had been having, but it is not exactly known whether the talkings between Sugimura, Okamoto and Mikami that lead to the later to change his mind happened during this period or shortly before it, but once the team came back to work again, they didn't made any new additions/changes to the backgrounds, probably they worked for a few days more and then they decided to stop. Apparently on February 6th (iirc), they had a meeting to discuss the future of the game, where they seemed to decided what things they could keep and which ones needed to be changed. It also looks like Sugimura took charge of the Scenario from this point on.

            The team then had to redesign the areas they wanted to change some time between February and March, and by April they already had some general examples of the feeling and style they wanted on the different sections of the game to be reviewed. During this redesign period most of the team that was working on BH1.5 was sent to work on Durector's Cut and only some programmers and artists were left to keep the work on BH1.5. After the redesigns were approved, the team was brought again and they kept working on BH2 over the BH1.5 data they had, apparently changing selectively all the scenarios. By the end of July they had pretty much every room of the RPD and the sewers switched for its BH2 version.
            Last edited by Ridley W. Hayes; 08-30-2011, 11:37 AM.

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            • #7
              A lot of good info here! Thanks!

              Originally posted by Ridley W. Hayes View Post
              I don't know much about code and hacking-related stuff, but as far as I know, the BH1 engine was only tweaked when they started BH1.5. Surely the engine would evolve during development as the team learn how to bypass things like pushing the console to work with more polygons and that kind of stuff, and they would keep adding more game related features for BH1.5, like the shotgun dividing the zombie's bodies at half, which was impossible on BH1 and was scrapped for BH2 (I think, I'm not sure) though, some early version of BH2 had said feature. By the end of the development the engine they had would be incredibly different to the one they started with.

              As for the backgrounds, we think they're the final ones, post-INFLAMES images. The last work the dev team seemed to have done on them was on Dec 23rd, apparently before going into some vacations/festivity. Okamoto brought Sugimura to the team, probably, before Dec to consult with him the problems they had been having, but it is not exactly known whether the talkings between Sugimura, Okamoto and Mikami that lead to the later to change his mind happened during this period or shortly before it, but once the team came back to work again, they didn't made any new additions/changes to the backgrounds, probably they worked for a few days more and then they decided to stop. Apparently on February 6th (iirc), they had a meeting to discuss the future of the game, where they seemed to decided what things they could keep and which ones needed to be changed. It also looks like Sugimura took charge of the Scenario from this point on.

              The team then had to redesign the areas they wanted to change some time between February and March, and by April they already had some general examples of the feeling and style they wanted on the different sections of the game to be reviewed. During this redesign period most of the team that was working on BH1.5 was sent to work on Durector's Cut and only some programmers and artists were left to keep the work on BH1.5. After the redesigns were approved, the team was brought again and they kept working on BH2 over the BH1.5 data they had, apparently changing selectively all the scenarios. By the end of July they had pretty much every room of the RPD and the sewers switched for its BH2 version.
              Interesting, thanks for the quick but detailed summary. If you don't mind me asking, where did you get this info? From interviews?

              Something that's just caught my attention. I've been looking up about Beta 1 and came across these images, are these supposed to be from Beta 1? Was this mystery ever solved? Because I noticed something which from what I can tell is quite inconsistent, please bear with me here for a moment.

              Rare footage of the Resident Evil 2 / Biohazard 2 Beta version 1 from UltraGameplayers. This is not from the beta where you can only play Leon or from Versio...


              In this video of "Beta 1" we see two early Biohazard 2 images, one of them is 2F Hall which is quite clearly that of the Trial Edition (boxes), the other is of the 2F room beyond the burning helicopter where you place the ruby stones. Interestingly this second image is incomplete and is lacking key working features from the TE (the statue), which assuming the TE build was actually compiled in the development time it tries to represent, shows that Beta 1 came before the Trial Edition. The problem with this assumption is that we don't know when Capcom actually made the TE or what build they made it on top of, does anyone know the date the build was actually compiled originally, as opposed to the date it was released along side Directors Cut?

              Anyway, what caught my eye was the incomplete image of Roji Bak basketball courts, was this background included in the Trial Edition? To my knowledge it wasn't, but I'm unsure (I've avoided looking at ALL of the images for 1.5 spoilers!). Assuming it wasn't, and assuming the TE actually came from the time period it represents, this pretty much proves that at least this "Beta 1" image didn't come from Beta 1. Of course, the problem here is the TE is a public build not a true beta build and this makes it an unreliable source of information when we're trying to chronologically place it into the development timeline. I'd like to think those Beta 1 images are real, but I'd also like to think the Trial Edition was real and not just something slapped together to put out as a demo. However Capcom could have simply decided one day to put out a trial and hacked apart any old build from a couple of months ago, which makes it's relevance chronologically, kind of irrelevant.

              At the very least this would suggest that if the images were real, it came from a build after the Trial Edition. We could assume that development of the alternate RPD continued after this point, including reworking of the underground carpark...

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              • #8
                Originally posted by geluda View Post
                Something that's just caught my attention. I've been looking up about Beta 1 and came across these images, are these supposed to be from Beta 1? Was this mystery ever solved? Because I noticed something which from what I can tell is quite inconsistent, please bear with me here for a moment.
                I may be wrong as it has been a couple of years, but I am pretty sure those are the same "beta 1" images that White Umbrella website originally received that were declared and proven fake a couple years ago. (not faked by WU, but by whoever gave em to them)
                sigpic

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                • #9
                  Yes, they are fake.

                  In the trial edition, the backgrounds where untextured characters were placed, the characters were very-well detailed. In this one, Annette looks like "made in paint".

                  The subtitles are terrible, in one line, it's japanese, in another, english.

                  The cutscene between Leon and Claire in the sewer is the total prove it's fake.
                  I mean, they don't move like in the games cutscenes.
                  The lower line of the subtitle is a total mess.
                  Still, you can see a stretched version of Ada between them.

                  Maybe I'm wrong about some of those things,
                  but just look closely at the pictures and you'll see the fakeness.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    That ends that lol. I'm not surprised you guys have picked it apart already, I wasn't around in the Bioflames days so I'm unfasionably late to the party, I guess I'm just as interested in these games now as everyone else was back then.

                    So, what about the one with the door? I imagine you've put just as much effort into picking appart this pic as every other one but, to me I'd say this one is as good as real. Why? Because the artwork we were left with still suggests it. If you look here at this image from the Trial Edition you can see that on the floor they left a trail of blood leading out from the wall and stopping in a pool in the middle of the floor (I believe this is still in final). Why would there be a trail of blood coming out from the wall? People can't walk, or crawl, through walls. Perhaps it's because there used to be a door there?



                    If you look closely you can see that the trail of blood actually lines up perfectly with where the center of door used to be, if you put both pieces of art together you could most deffinately say for sure someone came through that door bleeding and fell on the floor. Nothing in the artwork really explains why that mark is there, no blood on the wall or anything to lead the victim to that spot, the only thing that really seems to explain it is a door.

                    I'm probably repeating everything that's already been said five years ago.

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                    • #11
                      If that door was really there, then it would lead to the reports room.

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                      • #12
                        Just to address one point in the original post (I don't feel I know enough about anything else to comment), but I always thought for some reason that RE2 (1.5) playing too similar to RE1 refered to the scenario, rather than the engine.
                        There's no real way to validate this since we don't know the RE1.5 scenario, but just the general gameplay flow that you're stuck in one place (mansion), explore everything, but make it outside to get an extra key (guardhouse), explore the mansion again with the new key (more dangerous this time), and then finally move on to the end of the scenario.

                        Problem is RE2 final is just like this with the 4 keys, and even return to the RPD after getting the club key from the basement...

                        The scenario from 1.5 to retail 2 has obviously been changed though, whereas the engine hasn't. I can only think of two changes from the RE1 to RE2, albeit large ones. I have no idea how these were implemented in RE1.5, if at all. And I can't see why either would require a scenario rewrite.

                        1) Your character limps when damaged.
                        2) When a zombie grabs you and you shove it off, nearby zombies will be shoved back, and can possibly fall. This never happened in the original, and 3 zombies could just grab you over and over until you die.

                        There may also be differences in the inventory screen? I remember handgun clips being unstackable in some way? Maybe that's just in the beta? Or when getting them out of an item chest or in some other specific scenario?

                        As I said I doubt these changes would call for an engine overhaul, and I think it was purely a scenario/story problem that caused the change, rather than engine issues. Heck, you can even see multi-speed zombies in RE1.5 media which were not in RE2, but placed into RE3 (identical animations even), so I really doubt engine things like that are the difference.
                        sigpic

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by alinhoalisson View Post
                          Yes, they are fake.

                          In the trial edition, the backgrounds where untextured characters were placed, the characters were very-well detailed. In this one, Annette looks like "made in paint".

                          The subtitles are terrible, in one line, it's japanese, in another, english.

                          The cutscene between Leon and Claire in the sewer is the total prove it's fake.
                          I mean, they don't move like in the games cutscenes.
                          The lower line of the subtitle is a total mess.
                          Still, you can see a stretched version of Ada between them.

                          Maybe I'm wrong about some of those things,
                          but just look closely at the pictures and you'll see the fakeness.
                          ;-)
                          If he had a brain, he'd be dangerous.

                          sigpic

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by TheSelfishGene View Post
                            Just to address one point in the original post (I don't feel I know enough about anything else to comment), but I always thought for some reason that RE2 (1.5) playing too similar to RE1 refered to the scenario, rather than the engine.
                            There's no real way to validate this since we don't know the RE1.5 scenario, but just the general gameplay flow that you're stuck in one place (mansion), explore everything, but make it outside to get an extra key (guardhouse), explore the mansion again with the new key (more dangerous this time), and then finally move on to the end of the scenario.

                            Problem is RE2 final is just like this with the 4 keys, and even return to the RPD after getting the club key from the basement...

                            The scenario from 1.5 to retail 2 has obviously been changed though, whereas the engine hasn't. I can only think of two changes from the RE1 to RE2, albeit large ones. I have no idea how these were implemented in RE1.5, if at all. And I can't see why either would require a scenario rewrite.

                            1) Your character limps when damaged.
                            2) When a zombie grabs you and you shove it off, nearby zombies will be shoved back, and can possibly fall. This never happened in the original, and 3 zombies could just grab you over and over until you die.

                            There may also be differences in the inventory screen? I remember handgun clips being unstackable in some way? Maybe that's just in the beta? Or when getting them out of an item chest or in some other specific scenario?

                            As I said I doubt these changes would call for an engine overhaul, and I think it was purely a scenario/story problem that caused the change, rather than engine issues. Heck, you can even see multi-speed zombies in RE1.5 media which were not in RE2, but placed into RE3 (identical animations even), so I really doubt engine things like that are the difference.
                            I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom did a copy/paste job and went from map to map turning the mansion into the police station, the guard house into the factory and so forth, untill they had a direct carbon copy of the game. It's possible they got so far into developing 1.5 it was impossible to go back without redoing absolutely everything. The one thing I wonder though is why they replaced so much of the artwork. They had from what I could see a perfectly good setting with tons of atmosphere, something I thought was vastly different to the original. Maybe it was just a product of changing from one vision to another and Sugimura taking whatever opportunities he had to redo artwork? Who knows?

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by geluda View Post
                              I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom did a copy/paste job and went from map to map turning the mansion into the police station, the guard house into the factory and so forth, untill they had a direct carbon copy of the game.
                              Yep imagine how many beta versions there must be.. every time the save button is clicked.

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