Citadel Island Remake in Unity [WIP]

[MevX]

Hello guys!

About 2 weeks ago i gained some interest in Unity, a gaming engine that i'm sure a lot of you people have heard about. It is not only quite easy to learn compared to other engines, but it is also powerful, and allows for some great effects. I thought it would be great to import some of the games assets and models, to add a shiny new coat of paint and sort of lift it up. After all it is such a amazing game, it deserves that.

Through this process i learned to appreciate all the small details the LBA team put in making the island, and really, i never thought about how lively and beautiful the real game was. It had such a nice charm, and i knew just adding some fancy effects didn't put it close to how nice it looked to begin with. But if it put it any closer at all to such beauty, i knew in fact it would be worth it in my book. I decided it would be fine as a showcase, a fun learning project.



The real reason the project managed to survive, was because of my other partner in this project, SirViewAlot who made sure to put in a lot if not as much work as i did. Together we've been working on this project for about a week, and while some things are still missing (textures and models) the majority is in place, and indeed looks pretty good! I'll put out a executable version of the project in the coming days, there are just a few things i wanna fix first. But enough of me talking, here are a few more screenshots.





I also added a night scene for the project, that you can access through entering the lighthouse door. At any time, you can return through the same door to get back in the sunlight. Using left click will deploy your magic ball, that can light up nearby areas (courtesy of Zebrazilla, thank you!).




EDIT: First post is outdated, check the last page for current progress!
To get the latest build, click this link:

https://github.com/realmevx/LBA2HD/releases

[Bot13]

Jesus Christ! This is about hundred times cooler than I expected when reading the title. I love how close this is to the original, yet still much richer. Anything you can tell us about the process and assembly?

[MevX]

Originally Posted by Bot13

Anything you can tell us about the process and assembly?

It involves what you would expect, converting the inner game files to something more Unity compatible i.e 3DS files, and then importing them into the engine itself. The models didn't have any names, instead they were numbered, so knowing where to put what on the island was a task in the beginning. The bulk of the work went to figuring out every single position for these 100+ objects, putting on the right shader and texture so to stay true to the original game.

Now originally the textures were a scrambled mess when first imported into the engine. Not only were they scrambled, but i found that Unity had problems finding some textures at all. This was before i decided to convert my own LBA files and use them instead of the 3DS files given to me. But even when i used proper game files, i had textures missing, transparency problems, wrong colors, you name it. Some of the objects had to be fixed in Blender, and i'd say SirViewAlot took care most of these issues in the end. Still a few things like the flower pot lack their proper texture.

I should perhaps mention another thing about the textures. Since they were kinda old and dated, i processed them through a online tool that uses neural networks to artificially increase the resolution. This all might sound complicated, so i will just leave a comparison to the original texture and the new 4k one i'm using for my project. It was a lazy way for me to better the looks, without redoing the textures myself.

[gravel22]

Awesome looking man! It was a pleasure to walk in this! I hope you'll change your mind and redo the whole game

Originally Posted by MevX

Since they were kinda old and dated, i processed them through a online tool that uses neural networks to artificially increase the resolution.

You could have vectorize them too in Adobe Illustrator

[gravel22]

Originally Posted by MrQuetch

By the way, excellent job on the LBA 1 speedrun! ( World Record ) )

Thanks man!

I wouldn't mind taking the original textures, and instead of vectorizing them, I would actually try to produce the textures from scratch according to what is shown in the bitmap images.

That would be the best thing but I think Amnesti can't do this from scratch, so it's great to vectorize what we already have!

Originally Posted by MrQuetch

Please, MevX, you must continue this project. It would be cool to have an LBA 2 HD / Remastered game to play.

+1 at least a game where we can walk in it. Then with time you can update and add some stuff later. Like the car on white leaf. Or some NPC's. But at least Unity is great engine that'll stay for years. Making the map is already a good start and who knows if someone joins one day and add more stuff to it!

[MevX]

Originally Posted by MrQuetch

Incredible job, MevX! You and SirViewALot have really pushed the limits of showing the original LBA 2 in HD glory!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by MrQuetch

I understand that this may be a project for you and SirViewALot, but I wouldn't mind taking the original textures, and instead of vectorizing them, I would actually try to produce the textures from scratch according to what is shown in the bitmap images.

Was this meant as a suggestion, or was it something you would actually wanna do yourself?

[marcosmapf]

This is amazing! I believe Angelus's and this project are probably the coolest projects we've had in a long time, seeing the graphics improved so much is great!

Did you guys get to start working with the game physics, effects, items and stuff like that yet? If you keep this pace, how long do you think its going to take to implement those things?

[MevX]

Originally Posted by marcosmapf

Did you guys get to start working with the game physics, effects, items and stuff like that yet?

It's not clear to which direction this project is going, i myself wanted to keep it like a showcase, nothing that special. Because personally i don't think there is a need for LBA 2.5, it's a lot of work for something that doesn't feel the same, and as good as the original. However maybe i'm wrong, perhaps there are many who could find good reasons for a fan remake. They should really speak up, or reach out to help if they want to make this a reality.

What i thought would be interesting, is a sort of LBA DM using Citadel Island as a battlefield. Picking up item spawns, like the blowpipe or magic ball, maybe even getting a suit upgrade for a set amount of time (Quad Damage anyone?). We already have one weapon in the project, so that is a start in a way. It's just a thought however, it's not something i have planned to do.

Originally Posted by marcosmapf

If you keep this pace, how long do you think its going to take to implement those things?

And time is just something that can't really be estimated well, it's not like we're working on it full time or something. And like i said we don't really have a set plan for what we should continue with in the future. It may just remain a showcase

[MevX]

I wouldn't say making Citadel Island in Unity, was simply a extraction and conversion process. And i talked a bit about this above, after figuring out which object was which, naming them and placing them, they still had texture problems, some which had to be manually replaced through Blender. For example, since the game uses a palette system, some original colors weren't present when imported for the first time like the color of the ground, or the colors of the stair walls. So these things we're only added later on in the project, around the same time SirViewAlot joined in. I'm not gonna pretend like this was some kind of incredible remake process either, but it took us some plenty time to actually get some good result in the Unity engine itself, especially since it was our first time using it.

[gravel22]

A death match game would be awesome where you can choose your map to fight in and choose your character. Also it needs to be online

[Styx]

That lighting makes citadel island look like some long lost eden

Double thumbs up for randomly dropping this project on us with already such beautiful screen!

[MevX]

If you wanna try out the project for yourself, i've created some binaries for the purpose! https://github.com/realmevx/LBA2HD/releases
Some things may be invinsible when looked at underneath, this is just because the original assets of LBA 2 didn't expect people to get under there to begin with

It seems like i can't edit the actual main post itself to provide a link, can any admin help me with this?

[Mabrie]

I hope someone has as much fun with this as we had making it I still have some ideas for the island, but I'm not sure if I will ever touch it again. Its been a huge time consumer so far - and we haven't even touched the fancy stuff yet

[ChaosFish]

Holy schnitzel! I just saw this thread. Beautiful!!

[Angelus]

Great Job but I have only one complain: missing gamepad support :P

[MatheusMK3]

That looks so nice!!! I really miss the days of wandering around this city!

Do you plan on releasing any demos or something? I'd really like to play around!

[Angelus]

Originally Posted by MevX

If you wanna try out the project for yourself, i've created some binaries for the purpose! https://github.com/realmevx/LBA2HD/releases
Some things may be invinsible when looked at underneath, this is just because the original assets of LBA 2 didn't expect people to get under there to begin with

It seems like i can't edit the actual main post itself to provide a link, can any admin help me with this?

He already did :P

[gravel22]

I think he's actually working on White Leaf

[MevX]

i am. If anybody would be interested at all here is a screenshot of the current progress. Screenshot is down scaled, so it might look jagged. In reality it looks more smooth.

[Bot13]

This is the best thing ever! Never stop.
Also, by any chance would you be willing to share this unity project (now or especially in the future when you get more stuff in?) Would love to get my hands on this and do a little "upgrading"

[MevX]

Originally Posted by Bot13

This is the best thing ever! Never stop.
Also, by any chance would you be willing to share this unity project (now or especially in the future when you get more stuff in?) Would love to get my hands on this and do a little "upgrading"

Thanks for the kind words, it means a lot. The project has been up on github for a while now, so if anybody would be interested they could get it from there. However, a recent commit kinda screwed it up, i wouldn't advise anybody downloading it until i can either fix it or create a new one. I'll provide you shortly with a link once i manage to sort things out.

[MevX]

Should work now: https://github.com/realmevx/LBA2HD
Unity version is 5.5.0b2. I'm too tired to really go through everything, so expect some clutter and bugs.

[pitiflake]

Wow!!!

[gravel22]

It's awesome Amnesti all the words you get from the community, you should really think of continuing it

[MevX]

Originally Posted by pitiflake

Wow!!!

Originally Posted by gravel22

It's awesome Amnesti all the words you get from the community, you should really think of continuing it

I appreciate the support