Star Wars: Republic Commando RTX

[modern isle]

How's the collision

[severe flare]

oh thats a fair point

[dry shoal]

Basically spot on since the original mesh's collision was about as un-detailed as it gets

[modern isle]

I'd say gimme a show collision view from the game, but I doubt remix will display the wireframe. Dunno if kdraw triangles will show anything either.

[dry shoal]

Something I've thought about previously was the idea of e exporting all the original collision boxes and using that as a blank slate reference

[dry shoal]

Update: thanks to one of the engineers on Remix, it seems like the major technical issue I've had with the last few months' worth of bridge versions has been resolved. Once this is implemented into the main branch it'll speed up development

[golden plover]

Which one is that? What about building the toolkit?

[dry shoal]

https://github.com/NVIDIAGameWorks/rtx-remix/issues/543

Unrelated to the toolkit

[static mason]

Huzzah

[dry shoal]

no i will not give context

[severe flare]

That’s literally just kamino no?

[dry shoal]

the sky and main lighting isn't there

it's just emissives with nothing else

[severe flare]

goes hard regardless

[dry shoal]

Modifications made to Republic Commando so far: unique anchor mesh for every map, toggles for light sources of different types outside of Remix, a "Capture Mode" that forces virtually the entire level to load with all skeletal meshes at LOD0 for the best quality regardless of distance, all shader materials are replaced with a fixed function diffuse equivalent texture (fixes a handful of corrupted visuals). All instances of the level disappearing when in a certain spot/looking at X angle have been fixed, crashing and performance drop over time have been resolved

Next thing being worked on for the Republic Commando side of things is a small new mechanic that will replace the vanilla night vision visor mode in the game

It'll address the issues related to the night vision visor breaking visuals and be done in a way that better takes advantage of pathtracing

[dry shoal]

more emissives implemented

missed the little lights

[dry shoal]

new flashlight mechanic is in the works. Still adjusting, very not final (aka not looking for feedback yet)

[static mason]

feedback

[dry shoal]

https://tenor.com/view/angry-cat-gif-25783770

[modern isle]

single spotlight spawned via API?

maaaaaaaaaark we need IES or gobo support, pretty please

[dry shoal]

yes. I also wish it could look any more interesting lol

turning on nightvision mode triggers the API to spawn a light over the shoulder

its different values can be customized in-game via a command opening a UE2 properties panel

[modern isle]

||spawn multiple spotlights in the same spot with different intensities and outer angles, bonus points if you use very slightly different colors||

[dry shoal]

that sounds cool but also miserable to configure

[modern isle]

not at all, just set up the spotlights in the toolkit and tweak them there

you just have to copy over those values to the spawn command

[dry shoal]

u make a good point

I just have 0 experience setting up something like that and I have so many other things that I need to prioritize

like a little showcase video I got cooking

[dry shoal]

#showcase message

🙂

[modern isle]

Light 1

• wide angle, probably 60 to 70°
• low intensity for very dim light
• give it a sky blue hue (color temperature: 7200k)
• set source radius to 10 or so

Light 2

• main light, angle of 30° - 40°
• bright enough to illuminate things clearly for up at a 10-20 meter range
• source radius of 3
• color very slightly yellow (color temperature: 3500k)

Light 3

• focus light, angle of 10°
• just slightly brighter than the main light to give that focus beam effect
• source radius of 0.5
• color slightly orange (color temperature: 3000k)

going from the top of my head how I'd set it up initially

I can post that in the RC discord too if you want

[dry shoal]

that'd be great

[gleaming sedge]

W lighting method

[crisp jasper]

Lookin real good!

[dry shoal]

latest custom material. Done by yours truly

[gleaming sedge]

well done

[burnt light]

awesome

[analog wedge]

koteeee

[dry shoal]

Today might see some awesome developments. Exciting screenshots may be coming soon

[dry shoal]

and here it is. A test of the brand new DC-15S pistol model + texture that is planned for use in the final version of the mod

modelled and textured by the awesome artist Highbrook. Check out his artstation here:
https://highbrook.artstation.com/
Implemented into the project with his explicit permission and assistance 🙂

[dry shoal]

one day we will have an insane new geonosian model

[gleaming sedge]

that looks kinda fire

[main turret]

This is shaping up nicely, well done on all the hard work

[dry shoal]

Made creative changes to the door as the original design made little to no sense

Also this floor grating mesh is just about finished. Original was flat without modeled details

[gleaming sedge]

Your mom is flat without modeled details
Nice work

[dry shoal]

[gleaming sedge]

[dry shoal]

begun work on the geonosian force pike. Placeholder material

[dry shoal]

placeholder mats, WIP

[formal cypress]

idk if youll ever get to the kashyyyk levels and i know its out of scope for now, but wookies are gonna be interesting to make XD

[dry shoal]

Should it come to that I'm very much not looking forward to it

[dry shoal]

---

Ahem btw if any artists would like to help out with the project, please hit me up :) art is currently the limiting factor. The underlying compatibility is in a great spot and we have new functionality implemented like flashlights. Character models and weapons are the biggest pain spot. I have a clone trooper model I'm still working on implementing from time to time but the Geonosians especially are going to be a huge challenge

Natural desert-like environments/the geonosis arena is another thing I've been struggling with. Can't quite nail the look down especially with the spires and such

[dry shoal]

Update: after some experimenting with skeletal mesh imports into Unreal Engine 2, it appears as if the real tri count budget may be significantly higher than previously expected. The modding community for SWRC originally believed the budget to be 25-30K tris, and I just found success importing a 46K tri model

[static mason]

Now we need a 46k tri remote controller

[modern isle]

animations work?

[dry shoal]

They sure do. First attempt was just the mesh itself. That worked fine. Then I tried it with replacing the existing placeholder of 26ish K tris with the new 46K test version. Worked without a hitch once the import was done

[modern isle]

that's good news, if nothing breaks then have at it xD

[dry shoal]

rough draft of the low poly version of the phase 1 clone trooper model that I'm going to bake onto

45K triangles

a reminder of the intended final look once all is said and done

[static mason]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-cat-standing-cat-standing-roller-cat-silly-cat-funny-standing-gif-24695294

Thas cool

[gleaming sedge]

Thanks

[severe flare]

How large and dedicated is the RC modding community? This feels like an enormous breakthrough

[dry shoal]

Due to the age of the game the community has slowed quite a bit overall. The dedicated modding discord for SWRC has almost 700 users. Most people who do mod the game are doing new missions/levels and the like, not many have really tried to remaster animated characters to such a degree

[smoky condor]

the modding community is barely existant, like auto said, there's a few on the modding discord, but only like 5 mods updated in the last 3/4 years

adding on to that actually, many mods are canned due to how bad the editor is

[severe flare]

Damn that’s ass

[dry shoal]

the ambitious ones yeah

lots of published mods already exist

[dry shoal]

@gleaming sedge brother, I have an animating question. So I have my low poly character model I'm still working on implementing, but in the meantime is there any reason I shouldn't rig the high poly so an animator guy can work on it sooner? Since the low poly is 1:1 I should be able to transfer the rig and weight painting perfectly right

[gleaming sedge]

No need

As long as the lp works and the proportions aren't different, the animator can start

[dry shoal]

Well I'm worried that if I rig the low poly that when I go later to do edge splitting before baking the high poly onto it (necessary for UE2 nonsense that does go through to Remix), that'll fuck things up

The LP is far along enough that I could probably rig it as is but I'm not sure how that stuff might affect it

[gleaming sedge]

Animations don't care as long as the lp is skinned properly

[dry shoal]

Wdym by skinned?

[gleaming sedge]

Weights being applied properly

Right bones affect the right parts

[dry shoal]

Gotcha. And generally speaking I should do a more natural weight painting for the soft undersuit part of the body whereas the armor pieces themselves should have 100% weight as to not deform I imagine

Maybe some deformation around the waist is fine

[gleaming sedge]

The bodysuit should have smooth transitions and the armor pieces shoul be rigidly fixed to the appropriate bones.

[dry shoal]

[dry shoal]

@gleaming sedge please bro I'm about to explode in Roblox

I need u rig man

I spent so much time trying to rig this hoe ass

And I just cannot for the life of me bc I suffer from severe brain damage and the tutorials I find online are dick ass

[gleaming sedge]

Chat, is auto frustrated?

[static mason]

Mmmm

No

[gleaming sedge]

Hmm.

I'll let him figure things out himself then

[static mason]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-cat-standing-cat-standing-roller-cat-silly-cat-funny-standing-gif-24695294

[dry shoal]

Chat: "yes LUL"

Listen brother

I need u to do me a solid. Literally all I need is the skeleton parented and some automatic weight bullshit that I'll fix myself

I have the blend file

Pls assist me brother I don't have any other rig mfs

@gleaming sedge

Just the bones

[gleaming sedge]

Brother

I have wayyy too much on my plate right now.

Like more than ten pending projects

My advice is that you continue to work on the easier assets for now and don't worry about character stuff.

Get back to it when you have more experience

And I'll probably have more time by then too

[dry shoal]

I have an animator waiting on me otherwise I wouldn't have asked

You're good though I'll find find another soul to beg

[gleaming sedge]

He can work with the original model

[dry shoal]

I'm going to I planned to improve the rigging

Incl adding twist bones that didn't exist previously

[gleaming sedge]

And do you intend to replace every single animation and use the new rig?

[dry shoal]

I can reuse existing animations as long as I add bones rather than take them away/use a different naming scheme

[gleaming sedge]

Hmm

Weird

[dry shoal]

Yeah lmao was told by a modder of the game who did rigging stuff

[gleaming sedge]

Most game engines would freak tf out if you even looked at the rig wrong

[dry shoal]

[modern isle]

yeah it was news to me too but if a modder said that then I'll have to believe that lucasarts changed the engine up because even UE3 freaked out.

especially if the hierarchy differs anything should just ... explode violently.

[dry shoal]

My understanding is the rig and the mesh are imported separately. The skeleton contains the bone names and the animation data, and the mesh has the vert groups named after the bones to match up. But I thought this was how animation/rigging worked in general so I can't quite wrap my head around it. Guess I'll learn with experience

[lone delta]

Do you think if someone put battelfront 1 2004 phase 1 model in substance painter will be good or just using new model like this

[lone delta]

?

[dry shoal]

Do you mean would the quality be good enough? If that's what you mean then no this new mesh will be significantly higher quality

[lone delta]

New model from the clone wars phase 1 movie is a little bit different

[dry shoal]

What are you referring to? Sorry I'm a little confused

[lone delta]

Try to remaster battelfront 2004

With more things

[dry shoal]

Ohhh. Yeah I have no clue lol. There are people working on OG Battlefront 2, I know that much

Republic Commando is a very different game so it's hard to compare

[lone delta]

I know but

Substance painter is really hard to learn I can't learn and I just little mad tbh

[dry shoal]

You might wanna look for help around #asset-creation as well as looking at tutorials. Personally I struggle with following along with shit and I'm stubborn so I try learning on my own but it's a dumb idea so don't be me lol

I learned art stuff starting entirely from this discord server

[dry shoal]

OK ATTENTION LITERALLY EVERYONE. I HAVE 0 FUCKING CLUE WHAT IM DOING TRYING TO RIG THIS BITCH ASS CLONE. IF ANYONE KNOWS WHAT THEYRE DOING WITH RIGGING, PARTICULARLY TO RECREATE THE RIGGING SETUP OF THE ORIGINAL MODEL, PLS HMU BC I AM SUFFERING

[static mason]

Your trying to what

[dry shoal]

Rig

A clone model

[static mason]

And the game just... understands a different right? Or am I misunderstanding

[dry shoal]

idk what ur trying to say

[static mason]

I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore it's almost midnight

[analog wedge]

https://tenor.com/view/smash-clone-trooper-2003clone-wars-star-wars-gif-20468319

[gleaming sedge]

me

[golden plover]

Auto coming back at 4am after clubbing

[dry shoal]

If anyone wants to contribute to the project who owns the game, I'm hoping to have a dev map made that contains most if not all the assets that are gonna be replaced within the scope of this mod. First person viewmodels, loose weapons, droids, Geonosians, grenades, props like doors, light fixtures, etc

From what I understand it's relatively easy to learn so if you don't have experience with UE2's level editor you're probably fine. In the SWRC modding wiki there's a tutorial for creating your first level so that will get you mostly up to speed, and there's always the SWRC modding discord if there's any questions beyond that

I'd do it myself if not for spreading myself so thin

[dry shoal]

Quick shout-out to Frisser's blender addon for Remix. I was able to export and ingest this new asset including textures from blender and had it positioned perfectly all with just one click

Before I'd have to manually ingest the mesh and textures on separate ingest executions, then manually select the old mesh, add a reference, navigate to the proper file, then do translations to line it up

[gleaming sedge]

Blender... Addon?

[golden plover]

https://discord.com/channels/1028444667789967381/1289913588852592662

I need to check up on a few issues that are apparently going on but soon this will streamline the process of creating mods exponentially and just let you do creative things 🤞

[dry shoal]

@gleaming sedge ^

[analog wedge]

Forgot how many overengineered conveniently positioned chest high walls this game had. Neat.

[gleaming sedge]

[dry shoal]

nvm I made my own. First version

[dry shoal]

look at this little dumbass

goofy looking mf

[modern isle]

Congratulations on your first asset zoo

[dry shoal]

got a good chunk through rigging the low poly of the clone, doing it from scratch. Side-by-side it's nuts how much of an upgrade even the cut down version is over the original. Though with the tri count difference I can't be too surprised

[dry shoal]

not the intended lighting for this room but it looked cool

this is much more like it

[dry shoal]

yes there's context as to why they're different

always love seeing new geometry get in

[static mason]

PEAK

[main turret]

Looking beauitful!

[analog wedge]

My childhood dream since I first saw the trailer 🥳

[dark lava]

i wonder why you misplaced my overlay in newest shots in comparison of more earlier

[dry shoal]

Scaled it down for some shots depending on how much visibility was affected. It was just a lazy small edit basically

[dark lava]

i had such guess, its just letters about "f*ck off" is now not in center

[dry shoal]

Aye, tis true

[dark lava]

scaled down

[dry shoal]

Going on vacation for a couple weeks so mod development + updates will be largely on pause till I'm back

[visual tendon]

Enjoy!

[static mason]

have fun

[golden plover]

Have an amazing time!

[gleaming sedge]

Good job auto

[analog wedge]

Well earned.

[static mason]

UV anxieties

[main turret]

👀

[gleaming sedge]

balls

[static mason]

i bet you especially love thoes

[gleaming sedge]

Not necessarily

[static mason]

dont lie to yourself

[gleaming sedge]

I will be banned if I elaborate further, but not necessarily

[dark lava]

https://tenor.com/view/kun-kun-cai-xukun-nine-percent-chinese-idol-cute-gif-16585051

[dry shoal]

wanna teach me how to edit in affinity/photoshop @dark lava

[dark lava]

i'm doing it on PaintNet anyway

[dry shoal]

i paid for affinity so I have to use it (ignoring sunk cost fallacy)

[dark lava]

can i understand what you trying to show?

[burnt light]

worth it anyway 😛

[dry shoal]

just wanted to make a basic before and after comparison "promo" type thing

btw it was a joke question, dw

I'll learn bits over time anyways bc I have to lol

[static mason]

Blur the lines between the 2

[modern isle]

ditch the grey background and plain black text in favor of both images filling each half entirely. White text with either a drop shadow OR a stroke (not both, never both!) in the corner saying WIP suffices.

[dark lava]

Overdone work before sleep

[dry shoal]

[modern isle]

I'd put them sbs

[dark lava]

they already sbs, there is just thing in between, besides you literally see grenade on same position on same image

[dry shoal]

I like it personally

maybe if it was a different object but for the thermal det it works

[gleaming sedge]

[formal cypress]

me when gun reflects in the grenade:

manfacesackboy

[dry shoal]

Good eye, no one else pointed that out

Even in the couple other servers I shared to

[gleaming sedge]

Why is it so brown

[dry shoal]

Environment + harsh lighting

[main turret]

Those are some really impressive shots, the reflection is pretty damn cool

[analog wedge]

Canon

[hardy quail]

i mean the browness is accurate to rc tbf

[dry shoal]

we are getting ever closer to finally having this gorgeous new clone model ready

[crisp jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/dew-it-galactic-republic-palpatine-gif-21847982

[golden plover]

Like goddamn

[dry shoal]

Little baby update, got our first replacement gun implemented directly in Unreal Engine 2. It's also using an incredible 64x64 resolution texture as a placeholder since the PBR texture maps will be injected through Remix. In practice this means the base game should have a lower memory cost than the normal graphics which can help with stability

[gleaming sedge]

yes

[dry shoal]

The 1 year anniversary of both the RTX Remix Open Beta and the Republic Commando Remixed project is coming up. The day I saw the tweet from the Nvidia account saying the tools were out, I immediately joined this server and looked through all the games people had been toying with. It was Republic Commando in particular that caught my attention the most and it felt like one of the games best suited for a slick visual overhaul.

I still feel that way today and the amount of potential since day 1 has skyrocketed as I learned more of how Remix functions, entered the world of 3D modeling + PBR texturing, and gained more support from the Republic Commando modding community. Took some time since initially I was thought to be a tourist, bringing in some gimmicky tools and not caring to learn modding the underlying game. It was thought that I'd give up in a couple weeks tops. Over time they realized I was committed to this, and now I have direct contributions from a some great RC modders. This project, unlike so many other Remix mods, has relatively few limitations. When Nvidia made Portal RTX, they made a bunch of custom changes to Source underneath to enable Remix. That's doable with this game and I've already taken advantage of it.

---

To reiterate the scope of Star Wars Republic Commando Remixed (working title):

Currently the project will only cover Geonosis

• Every prop will be upgraded, including having custom physically based materials
• Every environmental mesh will be touched up to remove visible jagged edges and give a nice canvas for PBR textures
• All weapon models will be overhauled with new AAA quality models and custom made materials to match.
• All character models will be overhauled in geometry and textures
• Character animations will be polished to look more modern + all-new animations will be included
• Adjustments to a select few mechanics to show off Remix, like a brand new flashlight mechanic inspired by the original CGI trailer for the game
• Highly dynamic lighting, using real shadow-casting light sources for projectiles, flashes of light from explosions, unique lighting attached to different actions like reviving/being revived, etc
• Probably something I'm not thinking of
• No AI used whatsoever.

Stretch goals (aka not a given) depending on how successful we are at achieving the above:

• Rebalancing mechanics and some combat scenarios to feel more responsive and intense. Less "walking in mud 2005" feel
• Coverage of the other two major environments in the game's campaign, RAS and Kashyyk (god I don't want to make Wookies)

---

Right now for the one year anniversary the plan is to have a playable demo internally for those who have contributed to the project to get feedback before showing off a more fleshed out video/public demo. I'll share screenshots that should look more complete than what has been shown off so far, but ofc it's still very subject to change and WIP.

Speaking of showing it off, @main turret any way we can keep in contact with you as we ramp up progress?

[main turret]

Heyo! Feel free to hit me up on here, I should have my DMs open

[dry shoal]

You got it boss 🫡

[gleaming sedge]

My DMs are open

[dry shoal]

Join me burrito

My clone trooper is like 95% there but it's still fucky pls diagnose it for me (where there might be improper weighting)

[cobalt jacinth]

Did you normalize the weights? Unreal doesn't like it when the sum of the weights of a bone is more than 1.0

[dry shoal]

I didn't normalize, no. When would the sum of weights be more than 1?

Like if two bones have over 0.5 influence over the same verts?

[cobalt jacinth]

yes

[dry shoal]

Okay I think that's exactly what the problem is

[cobalt jacinth]

normalizing them fixes weird stuff like individual vertices seemingly being stuck or moving together with a bone that should not have any influence

[dark lava]

i remembered RTX Remix at Portal RTX times, and i joined here before Remix got into Open Beta, everyone here tried to launch games through Portal's files, even me for fun (i tried Far Cry, Left 4 Dead 1, Hitman: Blood Money)

[gleaming sedge]

What do you need, son?

[dry shoal]

I was gonna ask if you could check out a blend file and see where the weight painting is fucked

Bc I can't find it for the life of me

[gleaming sedge]

Ez job

[dry shoal]

open your dms

[gleaming sedge]

Always have been

[main turret]

Also, forgot to say, thank you for keeping me in the loop with the project!

[dry shoal]

Hey guys, just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the Republic Commando Remastered project, which is its own attempt at upgrading the visuals of SWRC but all done inside Unreal Engine 2. I'm sure most people here are mainly interested in Remix for the massive technical shift in rendering and what it can enable, but I think it's awesome that another project like this can coexist with my own. If you want the original feel intact but with a nice new coat of paint, this mod has you covered. If you want something that feels more akin to a visual remake on modern rendering, you have this Remix project to look forward to.

1.8 is their first major update that steps away from the foundations of the RC Remastered mod, as originally it was AI upscales with little else. Now it's being overhauled with brand new art to give RC the treatment it deserves (AI just can't compare!). It's been a pleasure learning 3D art alongside @smoky condor and he's inspired me to improve my own skills and keep me pushing on forward with this Remix project. We've even shared assets here and there as a mutual benefit. As part of the first update overhauling RC Remastered, they have brand new models for all of Delta squad that I'm super jealous of. They look awesome, so feel free to check that out. Can't wait to have overhauls of Delta squad here in PBR 🙂

[dry shoal]

reset the project files to get a more organized setup to use internally with those helping out. I've begun adding updated environment meshes that have new UV maps and applied some high quality textures

[burnt light]

very nice

[static mason]

Hell yeah

[dry shoal]

original graphics for comparison^. Taken from the level editor with dynamic lighting enabled. Ignore floating icons

[dark lava]

https://tenor.com/view/home-alone-grinch-smile-smug-evilsmile-gif-4792953

Me, looking at my overlay

[lone delta]

thats really cool idk why generally i think the cgi phase 1 clone from atttack of clones movie has more detail

when i compare it with the battlefront 2 2017 models

[dry shoal]

It probably does have more detail. At least in terms of geometry and texture texel density. I think the shaders used are probably more advanced in BF2'17 but the movies are also using baked raytracing so it's a give and take

[severe flare]

Yeah but raytracing is overrated up against the baked frostbite rasterization

Setting aside the fact that the armor is definitely clipping into the shoulder pad

Actually hold on

Bad example

Definitely from a pre-rendered trailer 💀

My argument deflates a little but I still think this looks basically as good for a 7 year old game done in real time

Ik the environments absolutely look better in the game, kashyyyk? No contest

[urban turtle]

The thing that sucks about both 2015/2017 games, is that on map's where we have two sun's - we got only one shadow...

Also none of the blaster shorts had shadows or even light up surroundings (projectile itself, not muzzle flash) - btw that was working properly in the films and even sw clone wars

[dry shoal]

The blaster projectiles did work as non shadow casting point lights iirc. Making them shadow casting is unbelievably expensive in rasterization however, and even then they would cast from a set point rather than from the whole bolt. That's one really awesome thing about Remix. Pathtracing means you can have a virtually unlimited number of shadow casting lights of varying shapes and sizes. Despite this project not being from a AAA studio the tech means we'll surpass aspects of DICE's rendering easily. And they were at their prime with both EA battlefront games

[dry shoal]

1 year anniversary is coming up for the Remix open beta and the SWRC Remixed project (started on the same day!)

Been keeping quiet until I have something worth sharing. I'm more active in the private team discord. Despite the few and far between messages here I've been working on it almost every day

Currently I'm experimenting with skybox replacement using an HDRi, which will give the scene plenty of lighting information on its own

Here's the before and after of an HDRi I acquired for use on Geonosis. I'm new to image editing of this kind so I'm proud of the result. Hope to implement it into the project soon

[dry shoal]

@brave sparrow I know it's an overcast but I feel as if the amount of contrast is really underwhelming?

emissive intensity is set to 1, sphere is scaled 500x to encase the arena

from the playable area's POV

@sick river I know ya'll are busy but I wanted to mention that the first time I loaded a sphere to use as a skydome in my capture the distant light was still functional. Probably because the front faces are on the inner side of the mesh so the light went through the backfaces? It looked real solid but that seems to have been a bug because I can't replicate it. Seems like it's totally viable to have a skydome mesh still allow distant light through?

[sick river]

Good to know! @rancid ravine FYI

[modern isle]

When I did that, backfaces also blocked light passing through. Just FYI.

[brave sparrow]

might need to increase the contrast more before converting. Also not sure how affinity does gamma conversions as that has a big impact.

[dry shoal]

That's why I mentioned it being a bug. When I did it other times the backfaces did block the light

It was only that first instance where it worked, and I could tell because 1. The scene was brighter than otherwise 2. There were defined shadows that cast even onto the inner surface of the skydome itself based on the angle of the distant light (I could rotate the light and the shadow moved)

[lone delta]

@dry shoal Hello
Have you ever worked with 3d head photo scanner in blender

I mean sculpting head is really hard

[dry shoal]

Can't say I have. Thankfully my project doesn't many visible faces but it's something I expect I'll run into trouble on with the Geonosians

[dark lava]

meanwhile i rewatched Episode 2 9-10 years later after first watching (same with Episode 1 that i rewatched 3 days ago, and all further 4 episodes are incoming as well along with other films and.....Acolyte...)

Episode 1 got 9/10 in my rating and Episode 2 (surprisingly for me, as i had bad memories before) got 9.2/10

(but history showed me that i can rethink my opinions after rewatching something, same thing happened with "License to Kill" movie, i really didn't liked it before, but after watching it 2-3 years ago, i really like it)

[dry shoal]

Originally I wanted to do something for the 1 year anniversary for both this project and RTX Remix entering open beta, but I've been hit with COVID this past week and that's killed momentum.

It's also had me reevaluate what's realistic for this project and time and time again I run up against me having to do too many different things to pull off what I hope to achieve. I'm gonna need more hands on this project.

Specifically referring to art, not playtesting. The most crucial skillsets are non-human character modeling (Geonosians), hard surface armor character modeling (clone commandos), and riggers who can adapt existing skeletons to new meshes

Without these roles being fulfilled I'm going to hit a wall where there's little reason to continue

A bonus would be someone familiar with the UE2 level editor but that's more for convenience. I've been working on a dev map which should help greatly but it's quite time consuming

[golden plover]

Damn I hope you get better and find the people you need

[static mason]

fr

[dry shoal]

slowly recovering thankfully. I always try to stay on the positive side. There are a ton of star wars fans out there and talented ones at that. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love to contribute to a project like this, it's just a matter of getting it out there

[severe flare]

maybe try the battlefront modding disc? that place has a good number of incredibly talented people

just spitballin

[dry shoal]

Oh absolutely. There my concern comes from coming off as poaching or something

I'm gonna get a few major things implemented before I ask for further assistance though. A proof of concept goes a long way

[dark lava]

yay, i watched episode 3, nobody cares, why i'm even writing that

[dry shoal]

hey it's reference material

[dark lava]

well, considering that i'm not working on nothing but Logo and promo material design (the latter is probably just my bullshit), i don't think it matters a lot, its not like i'm working on textures or something

[severe flare]

whats the status?

[dry shoal]

We're gonna get something pretty big implemented Soon(TM). Also got someone new onboard and their skillset has a lot of potential

After the Soon(TM) thing we're gonna lock in and hyperfocus on a specific map and push it as far as we can. It'll give much needed experience and act as a reference for the target of visual quality

[main turret]

My soon to arrive 5090 is EAGER

[static mason]

Also you can do :tm: and it works

™️

[sweet kindle]

https://tenor.com/view/let-us-cook-let-me-cook-lets-cook-cooking-walter-white-gif-2649071825756414039

[static mason]

Waltuh

[dry shoal]

the plan is to get someone who knows rigging to help out pls give recommendations

💀

[dry shoal]

@royal sonnet I'm working closely with an artist on first person weapon models. I'm 99% confident I can bring the model in via Remix so the game engine isn't a concern. Do you have any kind of ballpark/spitball numbers for what would work as a first weapon weapon model in terms of tri count in Remix?

We're looking to set a budget/target before he gets started

[royal sonnet]

In general triangle count doesn't matter much, so just don't go crazy or be wasteful

we've never established solid triangle count budgets

[modern isle]

if you want a rough number for a raster tri budget it's around 5k to 20k tris for a first person mesh, usually hovering around ~10k average for very quality weapon meshes (I think COD meshes are around that)

[dry shoal]

Raster I'm relatively aware of, I just want to take advantage of Remix. It's good to have a solid idea of that though

[modern isle]

in most modern games you don't see much benefit of adding more polys to FP models so the same would apply to remix. No point in modelling the rifling of a barrel you know.

[dry shoal]

That's true. We already have some models that are done but the artist wants to remake them with his new knowledge. The pistol is ~20K tris and even on really close inspection it looks super pristine. So I don't really see any reason to go higher to begin with even if it's possible

[gleaming sedge]

https://fixupx.com/julen_arts/status/1884382462991548564

https://x.com/Chromfell/status/1884414448615711055/photo/1

Marie (@Chromfell) on X

@julen_arts nothing a baked normal map can't fix

X · Jan 29, 2025, 1:33 AM

[golden plover]

https://tenor.com/view/kung-fu-panda-gif-24482399

[dry shoal]

ladies and gents, new player weapon models are in with pristine full PBR textures. Will share screenshots tomorrow after I resolve a couple outstanding issues!

[severe flare]

wait no i wanna see nowwww

[dry shoal]

patience child, it'll come soon enough

[dark lava]

https://tenor.com/view/obi-wan-kenobi-chill-patience-star-wars-gif-11683608

[dry shoal]

He lied as naturally as he breathed

After painful hours the weapons are now implemented in UE2, every step of the process should be accounted for. Screenshots will come tomorrow bc it's too late to be taking remix captures/ingesting/all that stuff rn

[dry shoal]

a peak at the new DC-17m Sniper variant

and this isn't even its final form. The artist responsible for this version wants to make new models from scratch using the experience he's gained since making this art (originally purely fanart, multiple years old!)

also, the clone trooper model is finally seeing the light of day. First implementation is here, using placeholder checker textures. This new clone mesh is 62K triangles. A near 20x more geometric detail than the original model! And that's before the normal maps that will come from the high poly 300+K tri version bake. After that it'll look even cleaner

[dark lava]

Good, i won't make new one

[main turret]

https://tenor.com/ddXMDzdcjJT.gif

[dry shoal]

Roger. In lieu of that we've set up an idea or two. Would be interested to hear your impressions if you want to see what we have atm

[dark lava]

sigh tell

[dry shoal]

I ain't leaking that shit I'm trying to hold myself back from posting just the vector

[modern isle]

🤔

[dry shoal]

We must complete the meal as part of cooking

Then we share to the customer

[dry shoal]

Star Wars: Republic Commando RTX

[severe flare]

ur rly poppin off

[severe flare]

that said the old Remixed logo looked better ngl

[modern isle]

smh auto using a non final logo :P

[severe flare]

colours and the logo aspect ratio are too subjective to criticize, but from a distance that X looks rlyyyyy like an H

[modern isle]

I know, the font Remember Kamino had that in it, need to fix that.

I've been informed about a different matching font that has a better X in it, but that font might need a license.

[dry shoal]

it's the original font the game uses, from over 20 years ago

[modern isle]

If all else fails, I'ma just make a better looking X myself

https://tenor.com/view/i'll-do-it-myself-homelander-the-boys-i-won't-rely-on-you-i-don't-need-help-gif-4031298802882728450

[dry shoal]

good to hear some opinions though. I quite like this new one but I may put it up to a vote to see what people like the best. I'll try to get a more polished game screenshot to do it with though

[dark lava]

just exist

[dry shoal]

life if I had an experienced UE2 modder on standby helping:

insert flying cars picture

I was able to non-destructively replace the original weapon mesh on the UE2 side by using a property override as a part of the SWRCFix mod. Only problem is despite all animations working, melee/grenade throws are both broken

[modern isle]

unfortunately you only have an exprienced (this has been back in 2010, I probably forgot 95% of the things) UE3 modder and UE4 game developer 😛

[analog wedge]

Nice DC17! Should there be a bend/machined radius on edges so it looks coherently manufactured?

[dry shoal]

I expect there to be a big bump in fidelity when the 2.0 versions of these models are made in the future

same artist, but these are old models repurposed for use in-game. He wants to take another shot at it with the skills he's gained over time

[analog wedge]

I don't think the fidelity is bad atm. Star Wars prequel weapony is very blocky and chunky. It's just a nerd thing for immersion.

And the texture is neat too

[dry shoal]

signs of the manufacturing process is something the artist is keenly aware of. I expect it to go even further than just small rounded off edges

[analog wedge]

Coool.

[dry shoal]

Need artists

(hard surface props, Geonosians, Delta Squad*)

Also need character rigger

[static mason]

what kinda hard surcafe props?

[dry shoal]

all of them

Jokes aside I'm working with someone on a little recruitment graphic which will show an assortment of things that need to be remade

[static mason]

I mean for more simpler ish ones I can help, but itll be split time between workin on thoes and props for rtcw idk if you have a time crunch

[dry shoal]

Unfortunately simpler ish props don't really exist in this game they're all wonky shapes and/or fairly detailed when taking the texture into account

[static mason]

dang weh so ig im not mucha help here

[dry shoal]

All good boss 🫡

[dry shoal]

oh we're getting real structured up in this bitch

[dry shoal]

Just a small update, my modding work is on pause at least until next month. life + trip soon, yk how it is

[severe flare]

it's okay auto we still love you

[gleaming sedge]

Not me

Fuck you, auto

Finish the mod

[golden plover]

Yeah what do you think we pay you for

Have fun on your trip

[modern isle]

https://tenor.com/view/kenny-were-the-millers-you-guys-are-getting-paid-will-poulter-gif-15947352

[dark lava]

My exact question

[dry shoal]

If there was money involved this is all I'd be working on 24/7

[visual beacon]

Anyone getting these consistently?

[dry shoal]

I forget if this was the particular error, but if you open Unrealed or CTEditor it edits the system.ini files in System and SaveData to use the wrong render device iirc

[visual beacon]

Ooof, I think I did open it but it was hanging and I closed it with task manager. Should I reset system.ini?

[dry shoal]

Pretty sure doing that will work, yeah

[visual beacon]

Well I guess I finally made it work and can now capture assets, yay!

I have quite a few personal TCW characters I could try to swap original assets with

[dry shoal]

have fun messing about :)

[visual beacon]

I think I have read you have managed to work around the UI to not be so bright?

[dry shoal]

Can you be more specific

The UI is not bright for me whatsoever

[visual beacon]

I meant this

[dry shoal]

Helmet has that issue

Turn it off in the settings

I'm pretty sure my project has renderer changes that have some specific lights disabled to avoid this but I haven't worked with helmet enabled in ages

[visual beacon]

Got it, will give it a shot

This should also bring back UI, right?

[dry shoal]

You'll have to tag the UI textures after but otherwise yes

You only need to tag two. One of them has boxes that outline the UI, the other one contains the actual UI elements and it's the one with a big blue bar going down from the side

I wish I could describe them better but maybe you'll recognize it lol

[visual beacon]

I'll try to play around lol

[dry shoal]

Do you know how to tag textures

[visual beacon]

No clue for now

[dry shoal]

Go to the dev settings in the Remix overlay, game setup tab

Tagging textures is a requirement to get the basics working

[visual beacon]

What should be the tag?

[dry shoal]

UI

[visual beacon]

Oh got it!

Thank you

Also is it the case that characters are exported in capture frames as regular meshes and not as skeleton meshes?

[dry shoal]

That's correct. So skeletal meshes cannot be replaced through Remix. However CTEditor makes this quite easy to do

Actually no that's a bold faced lie it's not easy it sucks

I have found some success with it

[visual beacon]

But in latest remix they did showcase replacing skeleton meshes 😮

[dry shoal]

GPU skinned meshes, not CPU skinned ones

Which is like 95% of games

GPU skinning is rare for characters

[visual beacon]

Now that's really sad

[dry shoal]

It is but this game is at least possible to replace characters in

Most Remix games can't because lack of official tools/super obscure modding required

My personal recommendation is to keep it simple. Don't think about characters, mess about with adding textures which you can find online for free (if you aren't an artist), and models from places like sketchfab should the license allow it

I've already done all of that some time ago so I've reached the point of making all new assets for the game. Trying to get a smooth pipeline to make it happen

[visual beacon]

Ah man, and here I got myself hyped up about replacing characters, I just finished Tales of the Jedi clone variant

Oh well

[dry shoal]

You can replace characters, don't misunderstand

It's also not necessarily "hard", you just have to know about rigging which AFAIK you need to know some amount even in games with GPU skinning (so possible for Remix to replace them)

[visual beacon]

Yeah, I meant that I thought at this point Remix can handle it easily

[dry shoal]

Remix is not magic I'm afraid

There's a lot going on with skeletal meshes that makes them a totally different beast on a technical level

Like weight painting is done on a per bone level, but if your new mesh doesn't have the same skeleton as what's being used in the game, even if Remix could map onto the model proportionally it wouldn't know how to properly deform the model

Clone troopers have hard armor pieces, deformation should be limited for it to look right

It's just the nature of how rigging works, on a fundamental level

[visual beacon]

Oh that's understandable, you can just retarget your mesh to a different skeleton, that's relatively simple

[dry shoal]

Right, if you can do that and ensure decent weight painting then you're golden

Vert groups also need to be set properly otherwise you will get nightmare fuel

I've gotten clone troopers imported that look like they couldn't come out of the imaginations of the world's best horror monster designers

[modern isle]

nah they just melted a bit in the microwave :P

[visual beacon]

Usually I just use weight paint plugin in blender that allows you yo projects weights from one mesh to another, usually that takes care of the issue

[dry shoal]

Then go for it brother. You can use umodel to pull the original skeleton from the game files

Import into blender with the psk plugin, do your fancy shmancy stuff, export as .psk and bring into CTEditor

[dry shoal]

Wanna make a commando model for me (totally unrelated) <3

[modern isle]

no

I need to recover my own project first

[dry shoal]

Well it was worth a shot

Best of luck with that btw

[visual beacon]

Is it possible for CTEditor not to use rtx-remix?

[dry shoal]

Yes. Use dxwrapper instead of standalone dx8to9. Then in the dxwrapper.ini you can set CTEditor.exe as an ignored process

If you're too lazy for that, just rename d3d9.dll to d3d9.dllX or something so it doesn't trigger

[visual beacon]

That's a good one, thanks!

So I guess the process should be this. We can replace skeleton meshes in CTEditor, then in Remix we can setup shaders

[modern isle]

wait does that editor version not have the renderer selection in the perspective submenu?

[dry shoal]

It does but it's all technically DX9 so Remix tries to hook into each viewport

Only the main one actually works though

[modern isle]

you can't select another renderer at all? I had it set to openGL in the UEd editor

[low pilot]

I tried doing something similar with SwatEd but couldn't get it working, didn't spend a ton of time on it tho

[visual beacon]

@dry shoal so what would be the process for replacing an existing skeleton mesh to a different one in CTEditor? I have setup a mesh for a RC skeleton, but not sure how to import it in the game files now...

[dry shoal]

Oh in that case I have no idea

@cobalt jacinth ik you did an openGL alternative renderer for RC, is it possible to change the renderer used in CTEditor?

[modern isle]

In UEd for UE1 it's an in editor option in the viewport, in UEd for UE2 it can also be changed, don't know if it still has the option in editor or if it uses the engine.ini

[dry shoal]

The easiest way is to do it "destructively". First of all make a backup of the file you're editing, it's gonna be one in Animations. So for example you'd go to the animations tab in CTEditor. In the top left, import a skeletal mesh or whatever the actual wording is. Select the .psk file containing your new character model. It'll ask you what package and name to use, keep it in the original package and use the same name as the existing model. So it might be the Clone package and you name it CloneTrooper. That will import it over the existing mesh

[visual beacon]

Gotcha, looks like I have managed to do it, but it seems that in preview for animations only a root bone is being active...

[dry shoal]

Save the file and restart CTEditor

There are often bugs with previews upon first import

[visual beacon]

Well I'll be damned, it actually does work!

[dry shoal]

That turned out shockingly well for a first implementation. What's your blender setup you're using?

And out of curiosity how many tris is that model

[visual beacon]

For the test I'm primarily using this plugin to transfer weight paints: https://bartoszstyperek.gumroad.com/l/weight_paint_tools
I have a metahuman clone I setup for UE5 project, so it is pretty havy, I think it does have almost 100k tris lol, I had to decimate it in blender

It also looks like there doesn't seem to be support for hard edges in the engine?

[modern isle]

not via groups/phong tag, they need to be actually disconnected and not just marked as hard.

which is funny because it ultimately is the same thing

[visual beacon]

Oof, that's what I thought, I hope it won't cause light leaking through the edges in RTX

[modern isle]

it shouldn't

unless you physically create a gap that is

[visual beacon]

Then that should be fine, just need to separate mesh into polygon groups

[dry shoal]

Mark hard edges as sharp in blender. Edge split modifier, select use sharp only

Done

[modern isle]

that works, I use C4D and I can just set an edge break angle, then select all edge breaks and do a split edge on them.

[visual beacon]

Bless your soul

[dry shoal]

Yeah setting an min angle works too but I like having more control personally since inevitably somethings gonna be caught that I wouldn't want

[visual beacon]

Having those as UV seams also helps

[dry shoal]

Also heads up if you're gonna bake the high poly, make sure the low poly is that edge split version since that's what the resulting normal map will be based around

You need placeholder textures in UE2. Personally I just scale the base color textures down to an obscenely low resolution like 64x64 and import+apply that to CTEditor. Then you go into a Remix scene capture to apply the proper PBR maps

You need placeholders because otherwise all blank assets will be considered the same texture by Remix. So if you replace multiple models you're fucked lol

[visual beacon]

Yep, that will be the plan so far!
Can engine handle skeletal mesh having multiple shader groups?

[modern isle]

multiple materials? Yes

[visual beacon]

Awesome, I usually like separating character to separate material groups

[dry shoal]

Not necessarily, you could have unique materials on each mesh but without a placeholder they're just blank. And Remix thinks the blank surfaces are all using the same texture

Wait I'm super dumb

I didn't know you were responding to something ignore me

[dry shoal]

Yep, sure can. You'll see all the slots in CTEditor in the animations tab, properties panel on the right side

I think the current DC17m Sniper replacement I have set up has like 9 materials

[visual beacon]

Daum

[dry shoal]

Mainly from leftovers taken from the original material assignments stacked on top of what the new model alone uses. You need to keep them to keep the ammo counters functional

[visual beacon]

Ah, that makes sense

[dry shoal]

I'm guessing this plugin uses a better algorithm for transferring weights than vanilla blender's data transfer operator?

[visual beacon]

Yeah, it seem to be doing a much better job for me in that regard, especially helpful when you need to transfer mesh to another skeleton

[dry shoal]

Sounds like that might be what I needed all along. I still want to do manual weighting for the best results but having a decent starting point means so much

[visual beacon]

Yeah, you still need to clean it up, but plugin is doing the heavy lifting.
There's probably better ones out there, but I seem to get stuck with this one

Do you need to run any sort of packaging to see Remix changes in the game?

[dry shoal]

You mean from the toolkit? No. When you make a project it makes a symlink to your game's remix mod directory

Packaging is only for sharing it in a standalone form

[visual beacon]

Ah, I was running around to see if it works but then I saw I didn't check to enable enhanced assets lol

[cobalt jacinth]

Possible, yes. Doesn’t work though. You get a blank screen. Maybe because OpenGL 4.5 is too new? Idk
But the editor was clearly made with only d3d in mind.
Some of the browser windows have the render device hardcoded

[dry shoal]

Gotcha. Well in that case there's no downside to using dxwrapper exceptions

[visual beacon]

Hey @dry shoal so I managed to get the texture in, but I have no idea how to create shaders for each slot, right now I'm just reusing the same shader, but was wondering if you remember how to make a shader from scratch?

[dry shoal]

It should be pulling the materials from the new model, but I know there's some behavior where it keeps the vanilla materials present in the list, let me look around for that

I couldn't find what I was looking for but I left a message for someone who had that issue previously

[visual beacon]

Think I managed to at least make a duplicate of existing shader, but not quite sure how to assign a correct texture to it

[dry shoal]

You're overthinking it

All you have to do is select the texture in the textures tab. Then go back to the animations tab, properties on the right where the different material slots are. Click "use". It'll populate with the last selected texture

And that's it

You can entirely ignore all the shader stuff from the original game's setup

[visual beacon]

Ooooh let me try it

[dry shoal]

this seems like an odd workaround but this is what I was told

so I guess take the original model into blender, give it the number of material slots that are present on your new model. Import that first, then import your new model after?

I honestly don't know how this would even work this way

[visual beacon]

I have managed to import it from scratch

[dry shoal]

I don't understand, what did you do

[visual beacon]

Hahaha, so what I did first is to import the new mesh, it had just one shader slot, so I clicked to add a few more to match the amount in the new one, then I have assigned an appropriate texture to each slot

[dry shoal]

oh okay that's rather straightforward

[sweet kindle]

great work, impressive for a first import. weight painting and rigging have been a issue we've been tackling for a while, looks pretty solid, no deformation with the animations

[dry shoal]

in the shot there you can see the shoulder pad seems to go out of position. More subtle but clear deformation happens in the video he posted

[dry shoal]

absolutely solid for a first attempt though like you said

[sweet kindle]

those sholderpads are a nightmare when they dont move with the arms, seems like a massive oversight unless it is just a thing with exports, if not i wonder how much of a pain it was to hand animate them with the rest of the body. i assume the former and that exports just dont have proper vertex groups for the pads

[dry shoal]

I want to say it does move with the arms in the original but I could be wrong?

you messed about with it once right

[sweet kindle]

yeah i just redid the vertex groups

but we'll have to do it to the official model when we get it properly setup

[dry shoal]

well I think I have the file with the two clone models lined up already so I'm gonna try the addon he's using then adjust vert groups and see what I get

[sweet kindle]

sweet, cant wait till we get the character models out of the way so we can focus more on eviro and campaign stuff

[dry shoal]

I'm still desperate for a super skilled artist to take a shot at the commandos. There are very few PBR/modern workflow versions out there that really push to the limits like I think Bryan did with our clone trooper

[sweet kindle]

yeah, should still get a placeholder set up for the mean time till we get a artist to do it proper. sooner we can focus on missions the better imo

[dry shoal]

we actually do have a placeholder, but it's too messed up atm I believe. Let me double check the file

blender having the move tool on left click by default is horrid

it gets me every time

[sweet kindle]

you use right click? what 3d software do you typically use other than blender? havent heard of move being anything but that

[dry shoal]

no I just like having the box select tool by default on left click

[sweet kindle]

ah

[dry shoal]

I do so many blender reinstalls that I always forget to save a new startup file with it

[sweet kindle]

wonder what program they used originally for models, bsp's and animation. i assume 3ds or maya.

[dry shoal]

99.9% sure it was 3ds max

some RC modders tried to convince me to use it early on but I could not be bothered

blender's a little scuffed working with this game but it's not too bad

the model the guy gave me doesn't have any of the vert groups set up

i remember why I've put this off so much

man this is miserable

[sweet kindle]

vertex groups and weight painting/rigging is a horrible practice, couldnt pay me to do it tbh. glad i dodged that at the dev jobs ive worked at

[dry shoal]

all I want is to have a decent enough placeholder commando that's good enough to mess about with posing/animating which can then be transferred over to a totally custom built mesh down the line

[sweet kindle]

god that topology tho 💀

wonder if we should just go with a bf2 placeholder till we get a new model.

[dry shoal]

this topology actually isn't bad it's just annoying that it's triangulated

and I think it'd take more work to use the bf2 model at this point

[sweet kindle]

switch it from tri's to quads

[low pilot]

https://tenor.com/view/lawyer-crime-illegal-zelda-fyi-gif-10772344

[dry shoal]

not bad

[sweet kindle]

its not as long as its a internal placeholder

[dry shoal]

the benefit of using this model though is that it's an open license so if push comes to shove we could use this and make custom textures for it

[sweet kindle]

tbc for the person above we dont plan on having any assets from other star wars products, everything is being made "in house/studio" there will not be any licensing or copyright issues

[dry shoal]

and ofc, no AI

[low pilot]

Of course, I don't know if EA is a big meanie like Bohemia Interactive but their license restricts even modifying the model to work in non-bohemia games at all. Again no idea if EA or whoever truly owns the rights will have an issue with placeholders in an unreleased proj

[dry shoal]

EA as far as I can tell has a "don't know don't care" policy. Tons of mods in tons of games use straight ripped models but don't get taken down

technically it's against their license policy but they don't act

[low pilot]

Yeah all those squad star wars stuff should've been enough for them to act but they likely don't care, they're too busy trying to reclaim their rep after 2042 anyways

[sweet kindle]

we arnt concerned with any intellectual property complications. any models, assets or material from other star wars IP are only internal and will not be shipped or available in the release or any material we promote. though we have floated the idea of perhaps in the future actually getting a licence for the IP or atleast some material from lucasfilm/disney we cannot say or speculate if that will actually happen, but we are doing out upmost to keep things kosher

[low pilot]

Either way I just read the sentence and the funny meme gif popped in my head lol

[dry shoal]

yep, tldr doing basically everything you could possibly expect from a mod to be done legit

you can't get much "safer" without removing the ability to mod at all lol

[sweet kindle]

and you also of course need a legal copy of RC PC to play the remake, so there shouldnt be any issues

[dry shoal]

anddd unlike so many remix projects, RC is easily acquired through steam. Tons of games worked on here only exist in retail forms

[low pilot]

Definitely sounds like yall got it in good hands then if you're already on top of the legal and all

[sweet kindle]

and we are operating under lucasfilms own EULA and license agreenment that comes with the mod tools for UE2

[dry shoal]

we be chillin

[sweet kindle]

its something that since the beginning we have been very conscious of. would be terrible if all the work went out the window due to legal complications

[low pilot]

Worst case scenario everyone has to go to the funny Swedish sailing website to get the mod 😁🫣

[visual beacon]

I think it happens because shoulder pad bone influence should also happen on the shoulder itself, not just the pad, it's kinda similar with knees as well

[dry shoal]

well, since the beginning of building up to something more ambitious. When I started out I had 0 art experience be it modeling/texturing/any kind of modding whatsoever. Back then I was gonna do an AI PBR upscale and call it a day as a quick and dirty project to try out. Then I was convinced by people here to try my hand at art, so I was thinking of using BF2 models + custom environment textures. But eventually it was like "fuck it we're going all in"

[sweet kindle]

we have a good team too, some fellow industry people as well. project couldnt be in better hands, and auto is a very good project lead with a good vision. cant say enough how impressed i am with the people we picked up, and im glad to have been apart of it at such an early stage. also proud of the fact that we have alot of attention especially from journalists and just RC fans here in general. yall def keep us going with the kind words. and plus we are all fans of star wars and would like to make a product that people can get genuine enjoyment from, which star wars IP has struggled with these past few years.

[dry shoal]

so far setting up vert groups has actually gone pretty well. I'm almost done with the full left arm, head/neck/both spins are set properly. Shoulder pads are good etc

[sweet kindle]

https://tenor.com/view/wizard-cat-beer-we-are-so-back-gif-3692249889183291228

[dry shoal]

everything that's selected here has been assigned the proper vert groups. Playing around with some bones is showing very good signs of this not being completely fucked

but given I wasn't planning on doing this today at all, I'm gonna call it a night lol

[visual beacon]

I think I have managed to make pads to work

I think the coolest part is I didn't even have to rebake maps, I just used UE5 to create a consistent LOD1 to use as my low poly mesh, slashed 90k to 45k to fit the vertex limit for game

So just one day of work and you get a game ready character

[sweet kindle]

looks a bit better, still kinda floaty but pretty solid. you work fast, lmao you should join the team, we always need more character tech's and ue2 devs

[visual beacon]

That is unfortunately the trade off with pads in general, I have spent a ton of time just to make it work with UE5 control rig and even in that case you need to move it a bit far away from body so it won't intersect too much.
I mean why not, I'd be glad to help lol

[sweet kindle]

feel free to talk to auto maybe we can work something out, people who can work fast with imports and character setup/generalist work would be a big help so we can focus more on enviro work, lighting, gameplay and animation side of stuff.

@dry shoal what you think?

[sweet kindle]

mind if i see the rig?

got a pic?

[visual beacon]

It's a bit convoluted, but I used the approach of looking at chest bone (some fella shared this approach on polycount years ago) and also looking at control above the arm, it sort of works, at least it's better than just attaching pad to the arm

[dry shoal]

I have nightmares from the first time I tried getting a character in-game

turns out it's pretty brutal when you have zero knowledge going in

[visual beacon]

I can definitely imagine that

[dry shoal]

and yeah I agree

[visual beacon]

UE2 is pretty freaky

[dry shoal]

@visual beacon I'll invite you to the team discord server then?

[visual beacon]

Sure!

[dry shoal]

sent a friend request to shoot it your way. So what's your actual background anyways? You do animation/rigging type stuff?

[visual beacon]

Yeah, pretty much so, mostly playing around with UE5 and trying home mocap

[sweet kindle]

ive got a full mocap setup, but another animation hand would be really useful so i can focus on lighting and generalist mapping stuff and set dressing. you'll have plenty of work to do welcome aboard

[visual beacon]

Noice, thanks!

I've got Rokoko, but it's been pretty meh so far, before that I used to do VR mocap

[gleaming sedge]

Rich mf

[dry shoal]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1284183195398570145/1351020023715463318/image.png?ex=67d983b2&is=67d83232&hm=452aaf2abef0d27628f4ec2db48c5dd99b83dae146a340236f095c43beb40b2b&

Thanks to Alexios, a first test of updated arms in the first person viewmodel!

Who would've imagined having someone with more rigging knowledge would bring some fast results?

[sweet kindle]

https://tenor.com/view/futurama-were-back-baby-here-we-go-gif-12141676

[main turret]

https://tenor.com/n9B01HjuDt3.gif

[dry shoal]

Followup, we have the new commando helmet model in, and that means the intro scene where the player inspects the helmet and puts it on looks a HELL of a lot better

I would show but currently the hands aren't higher poly anddd we may or may not make a brand new custom made animation for the sequence

[main turret]

https://tenor.com/jDHka9WW0sn.gif

[sweet kindle]

https://tenor.com/view/mechanic-hammer-trust-me-im-a-mechanic-top-gear-jeremy-clarkson-gif-7525096

we working fr

just got a new UI/HUD designer as well 🔥

[main turret]

I did name drop this project in my interview

[sweet kindle]

glad you have been following it! speak for the entire team that we really appreciate it

[dry shoal]

We'll make ya proud boss man 🫡 that's awesome of you

Originally remaking the HUD wasn't in the cards, but a lot of the increased scope in this project comes from the right people being in the right place at the right time. A new custom HUD renderer is being created to overcome the original game's HUD rendering limitations, and as Sev said we now have a UI/HUD designer with the skill set to make something real nice

The general plan being to give the HUD a suitably clean and modern coat of paint that fits a visual overhaul. I suspect in many ways the end product will look more like a remake on the surface than a remaster. But the original game is running underneath it all!

[sweet kindle]

legally we are trying to be as clear as possible that this is a mod of the original game following the RC modding EULA and all. cant be clear enough about that

but it will def be feel like a completely new version of this classic. it will def be something incredibly special to those who played it back in the day or when they where young

[dry shoal]

Yup. If you wanna play then toss some bucks on Steam. It would be incredible if the game got a noticeable enough boost in sales when the time comes that it's seen internally. Might reassess the viability of making an actual sequel

Don't wanna get too ahead of myself but it's super exciting to think about

[dark lava]

Republic Commando Definitive Edition

[dry shoal]

Republic Commando Definitive HUDition

[main turret]

I just can't wait to get killing those droids, man

[dry shoal]

New, super clean and faithful reticles for our custom HUD

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1351578259543822426/1352010217742925965/image.png?ex=67dc7523&is=67db23a3&hm=5743812d52beb1f4cf3ff6a4b321c78e7bb93021abaad9d37dca705364eb9f9b&

Ik the designs were never all that complex but I think our new UI guy got it spot on, first try

[dry shoal]

There's going to eventually be a version of Sun Fac's trim made just for our project, but in the meantime @smoky condor has shared PBR exports of the version he crafted for RC Remastered (another RC visual upgrade being built entirely within Unreal 2) for placeholder use. And I got a say, displacement on shit like this looks so cool

[gleaming sedge]

Got damn.

Would look great with agx

[dry shoal]

TRUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[dry shoal]

We currently are going through mockup concepts for the new HUD. We plan for it to have some new quality of life features, like showing a general ammo count for weapons you don't have equipped, and a "grenade inventory" similar to Halo. Right now in the game you have no way of checking if you even have ammo in another weapon unless you switch to it, with there being no notification or animation if the gun you're switching to doesn't have ammo

You also have no way of knowing what grenades you have unless you cycle through them, which just snaps between the icons in the equipped grenade box on the HUD

We're trying to ride a fine line with these HUD changes such that we don't make existing systems redundant. For example, the HUD won't tell you exactly how many rounds you have in your DC17m in blaster mode, it may just have the icon in yellow to show its on the lower end. Then when switching to it you read off the weapon's display to know exactly what you're working with

Ideally having those bits of extra info will make moment to moment gameplay more engaging since you know what tools you have at your disposal during heavy combat

[gleaming sedge]

Cheff's kiss

[dry shoal]

Due to the current nightmare driver situation forcing me to use a driver version unsupported by Remix 1.0, my personal hands-on work on the project continues to be on pause after my vacation. However I'm still engaging with the team and there is stuff happening behind the scenes. Hate to leave y'all hanging for too long, so I figured later I'll share the latest very much not final mockup of the new HUD just to keep interest

Emphasis on not final. As of the latest mockup there are many aspects that I know for certain will be altered, but it'll serve as a sort of proof of concept that this is being explored. I'm not looking for feedback at this time

On a technical level one of the very big changes to the HUD rendering will be that it's aspect ratio agnostic. So unlike the vanilla game, no awkward stretching of HUD elements beyond 4:3

This will also differ noticeably from existing HUD aspect ratio fixes, which require manually choosing which version to download for your specific resolution/aspect ratio setup

[brave sparrow]

do you mind mentioning what the current issues are with the latest drivers?

[dry shoal]

To go on a side tangent, this project is likely to run much better than Half-Life 2 RTX, based on the current Steam demo's performance that is. This has me wondering if Steam Deck could be a possible hardware target for RC-RTX (to which I'd outsource optimization help to tweak Remix's many internal values for perf scaling). If that idea comes to fruition, I've considered the idea of having a version of RC-RTX with lower resolution textures to fit within that VRAM budget. That would let me push texture quality a bit further on the main version since the minimum expected VRAM availability will be increased somewhat.

Would be interested to hear thoughts from those with more technical knowledge (ahem like @modern isle )

[dry shoal]

Sure. So right now on 572.XX drivers there's serious instability under a specific set of circumstances. I've seen it reported pretty widely with 40 series owners on Reddit, but going off my own experience it's related to DLSS4 frame generation and it crashing my entire system upon activation. I've heard bits here and there that suggest HDR could play a contributing factor and that would line up with the fact that my partner's RTX 4070 PC doesn't have this same issue (I have an HDR display, they do not)

A workaround for this issue is to use the latest non DLSS4 version of frame generation, which would be 3.8.10. However not all games allow you to downgrade/change versions and Remix is no exception. When downgrading the frame generation version in Remix, it completely locks out the ability to use FG

While I could live without FG for the purposes of making a Remix mod, it affects some of my most played games where skipping out on frame gen isn't a reasonable ask imo. I've come to really love the feature for games that push high end visuals

/
TLDR: On 572.XX, DLSS4 frame gen fucky, might have to do with HDR. This causes the some of the games I play most to crash my entire PC requiring a hard reset. I'm on 566.XX so those games are stable but the Remix 1.0 runtime has a driver version requirement of 572.XX

[modern isle]

Remix auto mips based on available texture streaming pool afaik. So if a card has less vram then remix will allocate a smaller pool and either only loads full mips for certain objects or lower mips for everything (please note that I don't know the exact behavior and assume this based on comments from mark and my own experience with texture streaming)

But you shouldn't have to specifically make lower res textures just for the deck. However this does not mean that you can just make everything 4k for the lulz. Apart from me throwing lego at your window at night if you do, you'll have much smaller file sizes on disk and additionally if some objects are small and or never seen up close then they simply don't need high res textures, so this will also naturally aid in distribution of the texture pool. My max res for most assets is 2k. Often enough I can get away with 1k or 512 for assets. I have a really detailed chalice... That has a 256x512 trimsheet texture

[dry shoal]

I recall hitting VRAM limits on the Deck that made the HL2RTX demo unplayable even at obscenely low render resolutions. When it was running how I'd expect it was about 15-20ish fps, but sometimes it would drop to like 7 with immense stuttering

And ofc, I wouldn't do 4K textures on everything for the lulz. I just wouldn't be super stingy with cutting corners if there are meaningful visual gains to be had. Right now I don't think any of our textures are 4K in the current build (I can add you to the GitHub if you wanna verify/mess about btw). But I do think 4K is a good idea for the most significant models. Clones/Commandos, maybe even first person weapon models depending on the texel density of the 2K textures

I frequently think back to that old barrier mesh I textured way back. That I did at 2K and I was very very pleased with the quality. It's a good sized object and didn't use UV island stacking either, so I feel confident in 2K being the most common texture resolution for most "medium sized" assets

[modern isle]

Oh yeah hero assets are one thing, I'm talking about your average environment asset.

Uhhh sure add the to the github, I can take a look at the assets.

[dry shoal]

Don't judge me, shit isn't very organized atm despite us coming up with the naming/directory conventions lmao. I was in a rush before my trip. DM your account name

[modern isle]

Uhhhh one sec, I think it's just RuneStorm?

Yeah it is

[dry shoal]

Inv'd. Gave "Maintainer" perms since I'd like to get an idea of the appropriate perms for best practices on GitHub. If it's too limiting in some way just lemme know

[modern isle]

👍

I'll let you know once I'm home and helped a buddy "kill his sister in warframe"

[modern isle]

Sister of Parvos, it's an adversary. That whole system is kinda like in shadow of mordor with random bosses that have their own personality. And killing them gives you their gun and stuff.

[dry shoal]

A promise is a promise. Here's the current vanilla HUD next to two mockups we've made recently. I want to stress that I'm not looking for specific feedback. The final version of the new HUD will not look like either of these. Just wanted to give a look into what's happening behind the scenes, and it's a little reminder that the scope of this project is well beyond the majority of what's being done at the moment with Remix in terms of how many aspects are updated (not in terms of gameplay content). The Kamino intro and Geonosis is the current content scope target.

credit to our UI designer, Paddy Tee (not in the Remix community server). He's been making these and updating with our internal feedback over time. He's not super familiar with the original game, so it's up to us to guide him in what we feel is a good direction for the mod 👍

[brave sparrow]

looks absolutely sick

good work to you and your team

[burnt light]

i love that second design

[dry shoal]

Thank you 🙏 ya'll's responses always keeps me hyped about what we're doing and energizes me to deliver

[dry shoal]

not to suggest anything but that's the one I prefer too 🤫

goes without saying but once we have a layout we like, additional polish will go into making it visually coherent. Stuff like HUD elements conforming to some degree with the helmet cheeks of the 2D overlay for example

it'll also need the seal of approval from Leon who's going to create this new HUD renderer just for the project, which enables this in the first place.

I suspect his work on this will trickle down to helping general RC modders too, like some of the Remix-targeted feature additions he's made to SWRCFix over the last year

[dark lava]

You still not using my logo?

[dry shoal]

I wouldn't say it's 100% locked in but there's more than a few things to consider when deciding what to go with. One big one I have in mind is how flexible the currently used one is, since we have the vector art and it's very easy to make any little changes and what. That said, there's a specific hypothetical scenario in mind where it's almost a given that I'd go back to yours should it happen. Can't make any promises though. You are still credited for making the original logo in the project credits however, and I intend on having it displayed in some way or another in the future

[dark lava]

😐

Well, i better not even hope

That will be for the best

[dry shoal]

That would be the most healthy thing to do, yes. It's not personal but I also don't want guilt to play a part when both logos have had a lot of work put in by two passionate people. It's not like the new one is AI generated or something. The reason for wanting to showcase yours in some capacity regardless is because your work is too good to just let fade into the void. I know there will be people who prefer it and so I'd want them to see it too out of respect

[dry shoal]

Quick test of Remix's new tonemapper. Currently only accessible by manually adding a line to rtx.conf

Much better for the tone of RC

[teal fog]

So there's no way to get it to look like the helmet style HUD at all?

[dry shoal]

There's two responses to that question

1. Currently the 3D helmet HUD is not functioning properly in RC RTX. We have found some success getting it to show but there's too many problems to even consider it for the time being. There's a real possibility that the proper Helmet HUD in vanilla will never become 100% functional in this project since it's a clusterfuck how it works on a technical level. The technical makeup behind the original 3D Helmet HUD mode screws with Remix's ability to interpret and make changes to it.
2. Part of redoing the HUD involves a new custom HUD renderer being written for Republic Commando. Whether we can add a 3D mesh representing the physical helmet or not is basically entirely dependent on if Leon can program support for that functionality. This isn't a given, since Republic Commando is notorious for being a huge pain in the ass on a technical level for modders. Hence the need for a from-the-ground-up HUD renderer rewrite as opposed to building on the existing HUD renderer/setup in vanilla RC in the first place

Hope that gives clarity on that side of things

TLDR on the 3D Helmet HUD: shit's fucked yo. We can't do much if anything with the 3D Helmet HUD mode from vanilla at the moment. It's not currently planned for unless our new HUD renderer is able to reasonably support such a setup

[dry shoal]

@burnt light pin this pls bc it's a reasonable common question

[dry shoal]

Bad @burnt light I wanted the TLDR pinned. Ain't nobody got time for all my yapping above the TLDR ‼️

The TLDR covers the same thing but more concise and easy to understand for a normie

[bleak lark]

It might or not help.

But since this uses unreal engine 2, I know natively this engine does not support aspect ratio of 1080p or anything above.
There is community patches for UT99 for resolution/aspect ratio and HUD. I will leave you with git to UT99 since both games use UE2.

But you will have to create patch based on this for SW:RC unfortunate based on this.

If you really wanna move forward with project I think its worth checking out, it will also fix weapon alingment, it should be more in middle.

https://github.com/alexstrout/foxWSFix-UT99

[dry shoal]

Funny you should mention that. I believe something like that is already the basis for the existing SWRCFix

https://github.com/SWRC-Modding/CT

It adds unsupported resolutions, FOV adjustments, yada yada

I've talked quite a lot with experienced SWRC modders, including people who tried to make a very ambitious in-engine overhaul that was eventually cancelled due to issues exclusive to RC that aren't present in other UE2 games

It's not impossible they've missed it, but I have reason to believe these things have been looked into extensively in differing capacities before Remix was a thing.

I appreciate the suggestion, I might forward to the SWRC modding community discord to get direct responses from people who've been in the scene for a long time

[main turret]

Bloody hell

That looks lovely

[dry shoal]

You've seen nothing yet. Some of the additions in the screenshot aren't even fully set up, like the weapon is missing some PBR maps to make the material look as intended. Beyond that, longer term the artist who made the new main set of weapons wants to make them again with the skills he's gained since. The guy is a beast and I know he's gonna make something remarkable. To give a frame of reference, this is the latest weapon model he created

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Jrg8wz

I fully plan on letting him stretch his legs artist wise. I forget if you were around when it was brought up, but we also have a first person viewmodel animator. Expect brand new, more crispy animations to go alongside the stunning future models when the time comes

[dark lava]

the way you describing it make me feel he makes COD:MW19-like animations

[dry shoal]

Yeah probably not lol

They can make em but I don't think the game's setting and pacing work with it

[dark lava]

pacing is the main problem, as original reload timing is quite fast, and MW19's animations are a bit slow, even when spedup

[dry shoal]

I definitely don't remember MW19 being anything slow but it has been a while tbf

[dark lava]

Compare to RC it surely is slow

[gleaming sedge]

Did u make these

[dry shoal]

The screenshots?

[gleaming sedge]

No the flames, idiot

[dry shoal]

Then yes*

[gleaming sedge]

thank u

embergen?

[dry shoal]

I literally just took the original texture

[dry shoal]

Had to do something to make it an emissive map that Remix would like but yeah I did literally nothing other than that

When I did it I actually wanted to experiment with embergen but iirc I couldn't find a particle in my captures that would work well to test it

[dry shoal]

So close to having that new clone all but finalized and I can almost taste it

Running into lovely technical issues with baking the high poly with its UDIM textures onto the low poly in-game model

I suspect something to do with the cages used

[main turret]

Stylish new Clone camo print

[dry shoal]

Reminder of what it's supposed to look like if I get it working ‼️

Need him in-game so I can finally take some new money shots of the briefing inside the LAAT flying through Geonosis. First time I made a texture for that was awesome but now we got some real shit

[analog wedge]

d-d-dilta skwodd

[modern isle]

I'll just add this to the pile of silly star wars names and ignore that it's just a funny way of saying delta squad.

[gleaming sedge]

Glup Shitto

[main turret]

God it looks beautiful

[hardy quail]

Are you… baking the diffuse of the high poly onto the low poly?

[dry shoal]

Yes

[hardy quail]

Just retexture it 😭😭😭 youve got more than enough polygons

Baking it like that will always give u jank results because blenders baking tool is pretty archaic

It also looks like u are trying to bake it while its not in basepose

[dusk trail]

Exactly why I use Marmoset myself, blender baking is aids

[hardy quail]

Its just generally better to texture on the low poly and use the high poly for normals

[dusk trail]

I mean yeah generally

Normals and curvature maps ect to use for texturing later in like Substance or whatever tool

Oh wait I didn't see the part about baking defuse...

💀

[dusk trail]

Do not lmao

[dry shoal]

The intention from the beginning was to use a high quality render mesh/texture setup and then adapt it to something in-game. Was that a bad idea from the start?

[hardy quail]

Yeah probably, you might be able to save it tho

Experiment a bunch

U learn from mistakes

Or u might find a new way of doing something

[dry shoal]

Oh I should also mention both the LP and HP are split into like 30 submeshes each, so each little piece is being baked separately

[hardy quail]

Ahhh ok

[dry shoal]

I learned the hard way not to bake with a single complex mesh like this

So if blender is ass for this is there another software I could use for the same purpose?

[dusk trail]

I highly recommend Marmoset toolbag for anything related to baking, it's a subscription based software so that sucks but the results are pretty fantastic

Iirc it can bake as many meshes as you want at once and I think bake to a single texture but I'm not sure I haven't baked multiple things before

[dry shoal]

Everything I've seen points to it being the GOAT but idk if I'm ready to give up a kidney yet

[dusk trail]

Exactly why I charged it to my company account

[modern isle]

Something something explode your meshes if needed

[modern isle]

Did they get rid of the 300 ish bucks perpetual license?

(it was 400 USD not 300 nvm I was thinking of the sale price)

[dusk trail]

[modern isle]

nope you can still buy a perpetual

it's just 💰 💰 💰

[dry shoal]

it's kinda "already" exploded since the bake is done per submesh

and it looks like marmoset has a trial so....

[gleaming sedge]

.

[dry shoal]

.

[dry shoal]

Yeah so I'ma need someone to help leading

[modern isle]

https://tenor.com/view/president-not-to-read-elected-simpsons-gif-10792961

Wdym lead, project lead or just coordinate efforts?

[dry shoal]

Coordination with art assets in particular bc shit gotta get worked on yo. I got a lot going on

This is also where the person I commissioned for a recruitment graphic would come in clutch but she's on a much needed vacation

[gleaming sedge]

You just need someone who can direct artists to make sure they don't break the original art style

A small spreadsheet of the currently in-progress jobs is also a nice idea

[dry shoal]

The original art style can (somewhat) sugma. We don't want to make something that isn't Republic Commando but generally we think the difference in technology would benefit from some difference in art direction. Think Halo 2 vs Halo 2 Anniversary.

Though it has been a concern of mine to make sure we have a consistent visual style so

[dry shoal]

This is something we yapped about a bit today, looking at the possibility of using something like Trello or other alternatives to keep a good overview on progress

[gleaming sedge]

Absolutely disgraceful

[dry shoal]

Your mom

[gleaming sedge]

https://tenor.com/view/i-love-my-mom-happy-mothers-day-cats-tabby-cat-grey-cat-gif-26409110

[dry shoal]

Wholesome

[gleaming sedge]

[modern isle]

This is absolutely paramount. You MUST enforce a consistent artstyle, if you don't your game will look more like an asset flip rather than something conherent that meshes together

[hardy quail]

Trello works pretty well

Same with google spreadsheets

Trello i think u gotta pay for a board though

[dry shoal]

if only I had auto exposure enabled in the editor

[gleaming sedge]

Looks goo

[severe flare]

damn that's sexy

[latent canopy]

That's insanely good. I don't think Geonosis has ever looked that good, either in another game (sorry Battlefront reboots!) or even on film (sorry ILM!).

[static mason]

Star wars clone wars looked the best

[latent canopy]

CW had been my favorite depiction of Geonosis too. But that's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, since the CW art style is so stylized. So I'll at least push the point that of all the attempts to show a "realistic" Geonosis, this looks the best.

[dry shoal]

Hm good shout-out though. Clone Wars had a lot of runtime specifically in Geonosis didn't it? While the art style is different it could be helpful to have more references to establish mood and such

[modern isle]

Which clone wars are we talking about? The goated 2003 cartoon or the 3D one?

[dry shoal]

$10 on it being the 3D one (which was also quite good from what I remember)

[static mason]

the 3d one whihc is still good, the 2003 one was awesome tho

[severe flare]

2003 didn't have a geonosis depiction?

[modern isle]

I think it had one

[severe flare]

that artstyle is absolutely timeless, but i would've loved to see a more complex rendering with a larger budget and timeline that the 3D shows have been granted

this is a VERY rudimentary mockup to demonstrate

[latent canopy]

If they had gone CG instead of hand-animated it might have looked like the Samurai Jack video game, since that was an attempt to translate Genndy Tartakovsky's 2D style to 3D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuKHx4Mj2UI

[severe flare]

nononono thats not at ALL what i meant lmao

i meant more something akin to tartovsky's recent work like Primal

[analog wedge]

This kind of functionalist high techifiying of very basic materials and shapes is what makes star wars for me.

[severe flare]

wb those recent Andor eps? ngl they feel more Star Wars than Star Wars itself...

[analog wedge]

Haven't seen but besides the AKMss, the first season was great

It really did it in a way Mando never could. I'm just sad he's Kyle Katarn from wish.

Edit: 👇 Fair. It's just that they doubled down on it with the Bryar. They're not letting it go. 👇

[dry shoal]

Current aim is to do a sprint where we cover as much content in a single map as possible. I've elected to use by far the shortest map in Geonosis to keep scope in check. The goal is to cover most of not all textures present, most of not all meshes present, improvements for significant particle effects (the crash of Sun Fac's ship). We're aiming to touch up one squad animation with proper motion capture. Exceptions for assets covered include the Commandos, Geonosians

I also want to experiment with RTX volumetrics to bring a realistic looking planet atmosphere, and distant scenery not present in the original

The sprint is going to happen over the span of a month, starting soon. We'll see how much we can reasonably accomplish. If we're happy with what we have, then we're gonna capture a gameplay video to put out alongside a team recruitment request because goddamn do we need artists. And pretty good ones too, I'm having an issue where I'm not happy enough with the quality I can produce with 3D models to cover that myself in a meaningful way. In the meantime I'm focusing on env textures for my own personal contributions

[latent canopy]

I suspect in the earliest conceptions of Rogue One, Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso were going to be Kyle Katarn and Jan Orrs, respectively--but when the filmmakers realized that all of the core Rogue One characters would logically have to die then they swapped over to new characters. And I'm fine with that, because it means that Kyle and Jan could still be available for use in modern continuity (at least for stories set between the OT and the failure of Luke's attempt at creating a new Jedi Order). I haven't watched Andor yet (it feels a little too "pulled from the headlines" to work as escapist fare right now) but I haven't heard anything that would suggest that it would preclude Mon Mothma having additional agents (e.g. Kyle Katarn) beyond who we're shown on screen.
(To any die-hard Kyle Katarn fans, here's where I insert a shameless plug for my nascent attempt to do an RTX remaster of Jedi Outcast: https://discord.com/channels/1028444667789967381/1275837166781464668. We're currently having issues getting updated assets to show up in-game, but once we have that working I'd love to do a one-map sprint like you've planned here, to build some buzz and recruit more potential artists.)

[visual tendon]

I know you got around culling via anchor meshes but xoxor is cooking

[severe flare]

hows it goinn

[dry shoal]

We're aiming for a milestone to show off at the end of this month. Got a few meshes in the pipeline including their textures. I have some new versions of custom environmental textures, still looking around at the ideal MegaScans materials to make use of (I'm not custom making 20 different rock/dirt textures). We're looking at improving existing animations starting with generic stuff like the clone trooper walk cycles. Hope to have the B1 Battle Droid ready and implemented. Thanks to Xoxor's work on some UE2 titles we're close to a method to fully eliminate frustum culling which is a fairly significant issue when not outdoors (light sources will despawn out of view) so that'll go a long way for visual consistency

We're also trying to have updated first person viewmodel arms to be applied to all variations of the player viewmodel so it doesn't swap depending on in-game actions

[thin dagger]

Are you guys going for regular B1s or the Repcom style version with glowing white eyes?

[dry shoal]

Potentially a mix, but those signature glowing eyes are 100% part of the plan

[thin dagger]

nice, and I think they have dried blood or dirt or something on them too

[dry shoal]

When I say a mix I mean it probably won't be going for a 1:1 recreation in higher fidelity, but I hope to retain the overall vibe

[thin dagger]

right, there were some pretty cool Repcom b1 mods for Battlefront 2 2017

https://live.staticflickr.com/7880/40491817833_8b53bd092a_b.jpg

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/republiccommando/images/a/a2/Battle_Droid.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110208161224

[thin dagger]

btw, you mentioned the petranaki arena and the geonosian model that needed detailing

are you able to upload those assets somewhere?

[dry shoal]

For what purpose?

[thin dagger]

I was thinking I could load them into zbrush, add some subdivision levels and mess around for a bit

I have a little bit of sculpting experience but stuck on a low spec machine rn

[dry shoal]

I have my doubts on how much could come from carving into a subd'ed version of the original Geonosian, but when I'm home I guess I could shoot it your way. As for the arena, it absolutely has to be made from scratch. The geometry of the original game makes basically no sense and doesn't match the film even remotely

[thin dagger]

yeah it's just to have a launch off point or to keep a reference of the overall size and shape. They had a kind of unique look too because they were all armored iirc

arena is kind of rough though yeah

[thin dagger]

I assume it has to be roughly the same size/proportion to make sense though

to fit the perspective while you're down on the ground

[dry shoal]

I want to say the size of the arena is fairly accurate. The mesh they use for it is enormous

It just needs all the fancy rock detailing really

[dry shoal]

Roger, I'll toss something your way

Is it just the Geonosian model you need in a T pose?

[thin dagger]

yeah sure and why not the arena too if you want, it's just for my own amusement for now

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ooeh18zaa5sixnyutbd5d/AElo4WbGyoMAspsP3WXE_xI?dl=0&rlkey=xmtvrhzowybiv80e5trup0qd8

some good references here for star wars prequel miniatures

[dry shoal]

Well this is a hell of a thing just to have on hand LOL

What's the context for collecting all this stuff

[thin dagger]

I remembered it from those forums and decided to look it up to see if it still exists

[dry shoal]

[thin dagger]

might be useful for anyone tackling this kinda stuff

[dry shoal]

Yeah that could be pretty helpful, I threw it up on the RCRTX team discord for future reference

Add me and I'll shoot you the files for the Geonosian and the arena

[thin dagger]

ah sorry didn't notice

[dry shoal]

Well a good chunk of the arena at least

[dry shoal]

I literally just did it dw

[thin dagger]

also if you use movie still as reference, AOTC had this soft filter applied on top of the camera lens so you can make out more detail if you sharpen the footage a bit in a video editor

they did it to blend the cgi and models better

I don't think ROTS has it though

[dry shoal]

That makes sense actually. I have a rip of the Blu-ray (obtained legit ofc) so I can probably just run a live sharpening filter on top when scrolling through the film for references

[dry shoal]

Yes, we will be participating in the Remix mod contest that Nvidia just announced

Yes the potential prize money has injected a big motivation boost in the team lol

[static mason]

im rooting hard for ya auto

i would put wolfenstein in for a chance but i dont think we are ready for allat but if saint says yeah then im not apposed to it lol

[dry shoal]

From what I remember seeing, Wolfenstein is relatively limited in the number of unique assets to cover. Might be worth a shot!

[main turret]

[golden plover]

Jesse we don’t need more competitors 😭

[dry shoal]

Make sure to cover us when we get one of those winning spots

Apologies for not putting more updates in the thread btw. When you have multiple people to coordinate on top of doing your own work there's less off-time to share something presentable

[main turret]

My 5090 is ready

[dry shoal]

It'll be very ready. Performance is already a strong suit of this project. I'm expecting it to get a little worse once we disable camera frustum culling, but that's gonna be necessary for visual consistency (you don't want lights to disappear when you turn away). We've also considered editing the maps to include more optimization tricks

You're at 4K right? DLSS balanced mode should look excellent. Pair that with 3x FG and that framerate should soar

[main turret]

Yep, 4K, and now, 120Hz I believe since I've got my 5090 hooked up to my LG C4

Can't remember if that's 144Hz or 120Hz, but either way, fun times

[dry shoal]

Wouldn't even need 3x then lol. 2x should do the trick. My memory's hazy but I know my 4090 can stay at a locked 60fps in 3440x1440 DLSS quality mode iirc. The 5090 is roughly 30% faster so you'll get nice headroom for great DLSS image quality, then FG 2x will get you to your 120 target for sure

Separate tech advice, when using frame generation on a display that supports VRR, you want to force vsync enabled in the Nvidia app. That'll eliminate tearing and since Nvidia Reflex is baked in to FG, Reflex will handle automatically capping your framerate below your max refresh rate. That will keep input latency in check

Frame times will be super consistent and it'll be really seamless. Highly recommend it

[main turret]

Above all else though, will there be droids to un-friend with a blaster?

[dry shoal]

That's certainly a part of the plan. The B1 Battle Droid model should be finalized soon, and we got plenty of time to create our take on the Super Battle Droid before the contest deadline

[main turret]

I'm sold

https://tenor.com/heD0c4aAy1C.gif

[dry shoal]

To give some updates

1. Cool models and some very nice textures (pics 1-3)
2. I'm remaking an old metal tile material I did. I'm experimenting to improve my texturing skills so I can deliver (pics 4,5). Not representative of the final look
3. We're exploring building a trigger system to get around Remix's limitations on volumetrics. This would let us change volumetrics when necessary to fit a given scene rather than have one universal setup.
4. Skydomes with emissive HDRi sky textures are back on the menu for natural ambient lighting. Previously this was thought to be a lost cause
5. Plan is to have brand new iterations of the main weapon set (DC-15S, DC-17M Rifle+Sniper) ready by the contest deadline.
6. We finally have a plan in place to create our own unique Clone Commando model
7. Probably something else I'm not remembering

There's more than this ofc, but just to have something to share there's this 👍

[main turret]

Are you planning on remastering everything from the opening to the first mission? Or just the first mission?

[dry shoal]

For the purposes of the contest we're laser focusing on two levels. Geo01c and Geo03a (which are back to back despite the naming)

So taking out Sun Fac and then going down to take out the signal jammer by the droid factory.

Long term I want to cover Kamino through all of playable Geonosis, subject to change bc life.

The intention is definitely to remaster every single asset. If there's an exception, it'll be because the geometry is fine and a new texture with displacement sells it just as well

[static mason]

it was worth a shot,,,,

yoy got competition now !!!

[main turret]

As always, wish you lot the best of luck with this!

[dry shoal]

Much appreciated. I'm dreaming big here, just gotta pull it off. I want people to look at it and second guess if it was a proper remaster/remake before realizing it's a mod a tall order but one I will take on

[dark lava]

You also might (but not 100%) presumably have to choose logo for contest

[severe flare]

can't wait to see the entire game finished this month!!!

[static mason]

:eyye:

[dry shoal]

[static mason]

You got it auto full release this month

[dry shoal]

https://tenor.com/view/pepe-gif-18261463

[dry shoal]

the base of our new fully custom Clone Commando (made just for this project!) is complete. We will absolutely have this implemented in time for the contest submissions

credit to @visual beacon who crushed it

[static mason]

(BTW silent messages still send a ping just no notifications)

[dry shoal]

aka no sound?

[static mason]

Actually dont know of there's no sound or not

[dry shoal]

my hope is that silent matches the label lol

but I didn't know it still gave a ping in general. Still better than having the discord notif noise blasting

[static mason]

True

[dark lava]

#remix-updates message

[dry shoal]

I'll post something there but I want to wait until we have some super polished shots

[main turret]

This might sound daft, but is there a way to pair the RTX implementation, alongside a mod that introduces decent controller support to the game as well?

[dark lava]

There is a such mod already?

[sweet kindle]

we haven't looked into controller support or changes in controller input, though there might be something we can do engine side, I'd say if its available the best bet is a custom steam controller profile or something.

[dry shoal]

Not daft at all. If a mod exists, you should be able to use it. Not something I've looked into myself however

Steam Input controller support works, if you're okay with PC prompts and no aim assist. I played with my Steam Deck a while back and tried doing a custom controller setup (never finished it though). Had stuff like X for reload (R), hold X for interact (F), ADS on left trigger, right bumper was grenade, left number was swapping nades. I think holding Y pulled up a Steam Input "weapon wheel" that covered the number keys

[visual beacon]

It is akin to what was done in Stalker Enhanced Edition when they released a new version of the game that has controller support (button references, weapon wheel etc.) which is something that should be done within the source code, but that on its own sadly is going to be a lot of work

[dry shoal]

^ for a more native integration that's gonna have to come from another mod. I remember talking about this some in the SWRC Modding community discord. I think it was explained that the Xbox version had code/parameters that were totally absent from the PC version so there was no way to use it 1:1 nor does aim assist and such exist

[dry shoal]

So there's some messy stuff around the rules of the contest. This mod will not be affected as we are putting in a huge amount of work before release that wasn't there previously. But I strongly believe it's unfair for community veterans to be judged less favorably for the sin of making cool shit too early in Remix's lifecycle

I'm confident in our ability to take one of the winning spots, but I want to do so fair and square. I don't want it to be artificially made easier because I was lucky enough to... Be too slow at progress for a long time?

[dark lava]

Well, that sucks

[latent canopy]

I think the main point of the contest is to rebuild some momentum around mod creation, by rewarding recent work. For instance, there was a lot of buzz around the early footage of the Roscoe Street subway station in Max Payne, but I don't know how much progress has been made in the Max Payne mod(s) over the six months or so. It wouldn't help motivate more mod creation if old stalled projects beat out active projects. Plus, they way they're doing it incentivizes people releasing bigger, more attention-grabbing chunks onto ModDB closer to the contest deadline, rather than releasing a bunch of incremental improvements. From a marketing perspective, that's a better deal for Nvidia.

[dry shoal]

Better for Nvidia, but to me pretty insulting to the community for supporting niche software for so long. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth

[dark lava]

Footage was based on Max Payne Remixed to which i made logo, Roadmap image and reworked some textures

That project is dead

[dry shoal]

dw guys, we're cooking

[latent canopy]

Dang, Remix is so powerful it even makes the holos HD!

[sweet kindle]

we are def full speed ahead, cant wait for yall to see what we have been up too.

[rustic rose]

I’m so excited to see all the progress being made. Y’all are doing a great job 👏🏻

[dry shoal]

We already had a remade version of the DC-17M. It was an older fanart model that was then repurposed for use in the project. However the artist behind it has improved a ton since and wanted to take another stab at it and design it with game use in mind. So the work on the DC-17M V2 has begun. I'm excited to share more in the future