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Post by bllizard on Feb 15, 2015 20:13:35 GMT 10
(Gamer of the original classic Parasite eve game.) For 2 years I was brainstorming the concept of starting something similar, titled "Project Evil" or P.E. for short. ( title is catchy but it can change.) Some concept Art of mine. Heroine i.picpar.com/eVnb.jpgVillainess i.picpar.com/dVnb.jpgMy thoughts, hypothetically speaking.The basic concept of the project would be to create something super close though not really verbatim. this would help the project stay afloat or maybe expand. using parasite eve as inspiration is fine. making the project open to all artists would be ideal. the tools that i was considering were - - Unreal Engine 4 (for the base game engine) - maya, 3ds max or blender, whichever program that both edits and saves in .fbx format. - photo shop, or any image editing software can do. - Makehuman, which is free to download. Even though makehuman has basic mesh models to start with, it exports 30-80k poly models that are fully rigged and pose-able ready in the .fbx format, which works for UE4. other programs can also be used in conjunction for tweaking the meshes and textures after. Anyways, makehuman also comes with options and sliders to manipulate characteristics. the program is good for NPCs and can help start main characters. Made some sample pics using a makehuman based mesh.    Executing the project
Ideally The project should be created for the fans by the fans. Artists can both be passionate or simplistic in their creations. making a library of useful assets for everyone to work with would be the #1 kickstarting goal concept. Soundtrack and dialogue (spoken or text) ideally should be left blank, for 3rd party external contributors. Classic dialogue boxes bearing buttons to edit dialogue would be ideal. classic animations are ideal too. first and second party creators can take a crack at level layouts and mechanics. …...And that's pretty much how the kick start project would work... without it getting sent to the chopping block. you look at a lot of the fan made creations and the butt busting efforts they put into it...it all sadly gets scrapped. It ends up that way because a lot of the creations are verbatim.
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Post by 80t on Feb 15, 2015 22:48:02 GMT 10
It hurts my head only thinking of how much work needs to be put into an actual game... all the aspects that need to be covered in the process...
You need about 90% of the story already in your head because all assets making will revolve around the game's mechanics...
You need a bunch of animations with all the necessary blends for interactive situations...
You need a lot of 3D models with multiple LOD's to cover both User Options and efficient real time rendering...
You need a lot of sounds and sound effects for footsteps, world emitted sounds, music, menus etc...
You need support for gamepads with force feedback both DInput & XInput...
You need to implement custom User input mapping configurations for all types of supported input devices...
You need to cover a great deal of hardware combinations mostly for entry level video cards...
You need to give players options and pay very much attention to details...
You need to refrain for going "all creative" to the point of no return...
And so on and so forth...
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Post by bllizard on Feb 16, 2015 8:39:14 GMT 10
Good observation. Well no one person should be taking on this project. A lot of these tasks should be made available to everyone who thinks they can tackle a specific task. This is why I said for the fans by the fans. The project should also have it's own web page, for submitting concept level layouts or list some of the roadblocks and tasks that need to be taken care of, to help the project.
Also, The unreal engine will be taking care of running on different hardware. It has built-in settings to automatically cutback on hardware consumption, drawing distances, and textures. UE4 is pretty sophisticated. It can even make cutbacks to run on tablets, pretty well too.
For scripting and scenes, creators can have the original story in their minds, but not have the actual wording in the project. Using ripped audio, background music and script is grounds for the chopping block. Conversation Animations and expressions are fine.
Most importantly, we want to make sure that the project and our efforts stays. Luckily for us the game is based on actual locations, so we can do the level layouts without having any issues.The project can have dialogue boxes as place holders to store text and audio.
These ideas are to keep the project from sinking. No target date is planned or any schedule, but having the project open people can see the progress or road blocks.
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Post by 80t on Feb 16, 2015 14:47:21 GMT 10
So, did you already put some grounds to this project already ?
You've used the term "we" That means you already have a basic team ?
What will be based of ? PE1, PE2, RE series ?
Will it be 1st/3rd person, OTS, 2D Backgrounds ?
Will it be action, survival, adventure, point & Click ?
What about the locations ? You've mentioned real locations ?
Etc.
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Post by bllizard on Feb 16, 2015 16:24:16 GMT 10
"we" as in people who are for the project. What I'm doing is brainstorming and collecting ideas from a lot of angles. Though Nothing has been technically set in Stone or started. I also have no plans of taking credit for this project, this would be something for the fans. Now of course If i do create assets I would at least like credit for that.
The type of game I had in mind gameplay wise would be of the original parasite eve, Horror/j-rpg. Gameplay mechanics doesn't have to be exact though. It's RPG elements are very ideal but the elements can also be more flexible, improved. Random battles can be switched for repopulated enemies, when reentering rooms...and the payoff can be a lot better from eatch battle.
Ideally Everything should be in full 3D, that's why UE4 was selected. The program is perfect for rendering Scary environments. Also Because of having the project in full 3d, the project can have both 3d and classic camera styles. Ue4 allows both camera angles and has preset code/blueprints for a 3rd person cam.
For location, the original parasite eve game takes place in central new York. Last time I checked new York was still on the map.
And also Technically square soft didn't pioneer parasite eve entirely 100%. Not only did square borrowed real locations, but the core story as well. Parasite eve was based on a movie which was based on a book. Also SE lost the rights to the book, which is why 3rd birthday became a spiritual sequel to the original games.
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Post by 80t on Feb 16, 2015 17:00:20 GMT 10
Yeah, I know the movie  I've found out about it a few years back and I had to watch it  I, for one didn't played PE1 but I sure as hell loved PE2. It was Resident evil with "some magic" And it was sweet. Loved the Mohave Desert setting, loved the Motel and the monsters weird design. It was that awesome. The reason I didn't played PE1 even though many fans state that it's the better game, was that it had the RPG style combat system which I kinda hate. I like RE style partial "direct control" over my character's actions. The one that involves a bit of "realtime strategy" and timing/synchronizing movement and actions. Well, not QTE style, God forbid! I can only guess that most PE1 fans come from RPG games base, that's why all the love for PE1 and total hate for PE2. Granted, even if I can't tell, the story might be better in PE1, even the locations... although, watching some PE1 videos on YT I didn't really liked the "scrolling" backgrounds. Maybe just because they were less detailed than PE2's due to the fact that those scrolling BG's must be higher resolution in size, so for performance sake, they were done in such nature so they would decompress better at runtime. I understand the mechanic behind that though... Scrolling a "fixed" BG overcomes the issue of fixed cameras of suddenly changing position and the player ending up embracing an enemy. It gives a bit of "preview" of what's "in front of you" Which it's a good thing. So yeah, I liked PE2 because I was coming from RE gamers base... It was so similar that it felt familiar to me and it brought enough change and additions to the gameplay to keep me happy. It just made me love the game more than RE. It was simply the better RE game...
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Post by bllizard on Feb 16, 2015 18:26:15 GMT 10
I see what you mean. There is a possibility of striking a balance between the two styles of games. Though More hardcore fans may push for the classic RPG mechanics, atb, exp and range system. I want to leave it to the fans though to decide on the system. Of course for the project to More less be a success, the combat can't be entirely be verbatim so there will have to be some changes anyways.
This conversation should also be for a wider audience of fans. I think there is a website shrine to parasite eve somewhere on the net. Anyways this would allow fans to be artists and put their creative efforts into something that everyone can play, instead of just wishing or dreaming about it.
It can be done if fans think smart and be flexible with the project. Nothing can be too identical, this is how a lot of projects fail. Fans should look at the bright side to not being identical and take advantage of it, this leaves room for better ideas and improvements.
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Post by 80t on Feb 16, 2015 21:27:27 GMT 10
I don't think there's a wide base of PE fans on these boards. Quite an obscure game for many... Most gamers don't even know about the game at all. It's a shame such a good series had such limited audience/success... Maybe changing of style since PE1 to PE2 to PE3 also didn't helped much...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2015 1:51:13 GMT 10
I really like your character design.
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Post by bllizard on Feb 17, 2015 13:42:53 GMT 10
I don't think there's a wide base of PE fans on these boards. Quite an obscure game for many... Most gamers don't even know about the game at all. It's a shame such a good series had such limited audience/success... Maybe changing of style since PE1 to PE2 to PE3 also didn't helped much... I can tell, the website caters to resident evil, Which is understandable. the original games were definitely classics. And So was parasite eve. I'll probably have to do some website searching for shrines dedicated to the series and link this thread to them, or bring my concepts over. Or make a webpage dedicated to the project. I really like your character design. Thanks, I got no problems with being one of the concept artists for this project. An other sample I made of the main antagonist, Closer view. i.picpar.com/Nbob.pngI was thinking about using edward scissorhands in the design, into something More like knife hands. She also weares a metal wreath of knives and thorns, a creepy version of the one Edea from ff8 has. And lastly, I drew her mouth hollowed out to make her seem distant, entity more than human. If anyone saw Mama directed by Guillermo del Toro, that's vibe I was going for. _---------- Like I mentioned earlier, this project could be killer if the artists and creators are flexible with it. Many of us know the original designs, mechanics, and story. so it shouldn't be too difficult to understand every one's concepts that would contribute to kickstarting this project.
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Post by bllizard on Feb 20, 2015 10:41:27 GMT 10
I was thinking about making a Facebook page for this project, the proplem is there's too much working against it. I've been reading a lot bad publicity about similar concepts. This sort of thing has to be safe, honest and ledgit, before there can be a green light.
There would have to be a place where everyone could congregate first, because it would be a big step.
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Post by Welsh on Feb 24, 2015 3:30:47 GMT 10
I probably shouldn't post this, but here's a sketch from Parasite Eve 2 that I obtained from a developer.  Might help with your project.
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Post by bllizard on Mar 1, 2015 17:02:24 GMT 10
many thanks. I've been checking some forums for anyone interested in a similar project and the topics all seem dead. there's 3 things that would really help, if someone is interested in booting this project. anyone of these could help. 1. Making a website. ("Project Eve" was in my mind but it's too close so i was thinking of a website called "Project Evil".) 2. a modeled City of New York, or assets from it. 3. character assets in .fbx format. The website is where all of our assets, collaborations and our concepts go to. dialog and story are not important, what is, is the content and then making it work. I have the city of New york with me and it's textures too, but it's too low quality and the textures so many and haven't been assigned correctly.   Since this model of NY is low quality it would only work for a map selection screen. similar to the one in the original PE. /Update%2024/34-capture_19052011_202822.jpg) If anyone is interested in the model of NY i have, i can share it.
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波動バースト
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Post by BloodChuckZ on Mar 3, 2015 5:19:06 GMT 10
What programs you use to creat this mod ?
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Post by bllizard on Mar 3, 2015 8:24:58 GMT 10
Right now This is all just brainstorming and collecting assets and tools at the moment. The project isn't going to be a mod directly from the game, the game isn't even on PC to mod so it would be way too difficult to even consider it. plus the game's engine can't even handle higher resolution 3d assets. In order to do a project of this type the game has to run on a completely fresh engine, capable of working with in a friendly environment. Unreal Engine 4 was selected to be the game's base engine because it's a whole lot easier to start projects on, not to mention it supports playtesting on the go in the middle of development. Which is great because everyone can both help and test as necessary. There has been some really big news about Unreal Engine 4 today, as of today The Engine will be Free to download and not require any subscriptions. www.gamasutra.com/view/news/237724/Unreal_Engine_4_is_now_freetodownload_for_everyone.phpThis is really great news for people who want to take a crack at this project. The tools i suggested are listed in order of price and accessibility. Game Engine 1. UE4 (Free) Tools2. Makehuman (Free) 3. Blender (Free) Other Graphics tools you can use for this project as well.1. Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave (All not Free) Sculpting Tools - 2. Zbrush, Mudbox (both not free)
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I've found out about it a few years back and I had to watch it 
