How were these iconic 3D assets made, and who made them? (FFVII, Xenogears, Ocarina and more)

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Hi Era.

I sometimes want to visualize how something we have come to value so much, was actually built. I enjoy all "making of" documentaries, but I LOVE the ones that actually go into the nitty gritty detail (Detailed view vs regular High Level view).

However, sometimes even detailed google search and online references fail to answer very specific things from some of my favorite games.

I´m starting this thread to finally attempt to answer my own personal questions, and so that you can also add to it. In this case, I'm interested in particular 3D and 2D models (how did they build them, who actually build them, what was the tech behind it, etc.)

Final Fantasy VII (1997) 3D characters= "lego people" and detailed "battle models". Builder: unknown. Definition/Approver: Tetsuya Nomura?
Xenogears (1998) 3D models = gears, ships. Builder: unknown. Definition/Approver: Edit: unknown, some chars illustrator: Kunihiko Tanaka
Ocarina of Time (1998) 3D characters = Builder: unknown. Definition/Approver: Yusuke Nakano?
Fallout 1 (1997) 2D sprites and CGI Power Armor and humans. Builder: Tramell Isaac. Definition/Approver: Leonard Boyarsky

I'm interested in knowing who did the 3D model, what tool did they have to use at the time, as well as overall impressions of the final result (I'm particularly impressed at how clean all FFVII battle models look, as well as Ocarina and Xenogears models that show more detail that you would expect at such low-poly values)

Samples:

This is my first thread, hope you find it interesting, as I'm fascinated by the details of the subject.

DiipuSurotu · Jun 26, 2019

Not Kunihiko Tanaka. Tanaka simply made the illustrations of the characters. Most of the characters weren't even created by him (and are instead based on initial sketches by Square staff). Remember, Tanaka was never a Square employee. Square commissioned him for him to send drawings via faxes or mail or whatever, but it's not like he was in the office day by day interacting with the Square development team.

SnakeXs · Jun 26, 2019

There's a YT series roughly about this you may be interested in.

https://youtu.be/jF5a6ltOsK0

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

DiipuSurotu said:
Not Kunihiko Tanaka. Tanaka simply made the illustrations of the characters. Most of the characters weren't even created by him (and are instead based on initial sketches by Square staff). Remember, Tanaka was never a Square employee. Square commissioned him for him to send drawings via faxes or mail or whatever, but it's not like he was in the office day by day interacting with the Square development team.

This is the type of information I crave for. Thank you, updated in the OP.

SnakeXs said:
There's a YT series roughly about this you may be interested in.

https://youtu.be/jF5a6ltOsK0

Thanks, I love that series, but while it shows the 3D models in detail, it really doesnt go into the process of how they were made, and who made them. Also, since he focuses in progression through the ages, I doubt he would focus a video on Xenogears or Grandia 3D assets, for example.

Jayveer · Jun 26, 2019

A lot of 3D back then was done on machines by SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc), there are lots of great youtube videos out there of the history of the company and those that have used their machines, its really fascinating hearing stories about people who used it professionally back then. I know in Japan a tool of choice for a lot of 3D artists was SoftImage. Sadly it was eventually bought by AutoDesk who have a monopoly on 3D software these days.

There is a very good magazine in Japan called 'CGWorld' which has interviews and goes over the game creation pipeline of a lot of popular series, most notably for me the Metal Gear Solid series (I bought all the old magazines that have any Metal Gear Solid info in them). Of course Sadly it's in Japanese but with Google Translate with some effort this stuff is readable. It's a great way to learn of some of the graphic techniques used to make games and the anthology named 'making of Game Graphics 1998-2001' is one of the best to learn of older techniques.

Prof Bathtub · Jun 26, 2019

For the Ocarina of Time characters, you'll find some answers in the interview at the back of the Art & Artifacts book. They credit Yoshiaki Koizumi with designing the Link model (though it's unclear if that also means the Young Link model, though one can assume so.) All the other characters were made by Yoshiki Haruhana, while the enemies (Ganondorf included) were made by Satoru Takizawa.

They describe that all the models were made in-house, and they used 2D artwork for manual/promotional materials, since the pre-rendered images used in previous games like Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 were made elsewhere, and "such digitally rendered images were, both technologically and financially, not easy to outsource."

As for what programs were used for the modeling, all the interview says is that "There was a program that allowed us to view the polygon model and spin it around. I would use it to refine those areas where the textures were lacking and think about the details that weren't in the model." (Illustrator Yusuke Nakano) They also mention that an SGI supercomputer was used for the PowerAnimator tool for (presumably 2D) illustrations.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Jayveer said:
A lot of 3D back then was done on machines by SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc), there are lots of great youtube videos out there of the history of the company and those that have used their machines, its really fascinating hearing stories about people who used it professionally back then. I know in Japan a tool of choice for a lot of 3D artists was SoftImage. Sadly it was eventually bought by AutoDesk who have a monopoly on 3D software these days.

There is a very good magazine in Japan called 'CGWorld' which has interviews and goes over the game creation pipeline of a lot of popular series, most notably for me the Metal Gear Solid series (I bought all the old magazines that have any Metal Gear Solid info in them). Of course Sadly it's in Japanese but with Google Translate with some effort this stuff is readable. It's a great way to learn of some of the graphic techniques used to make games and the anthology named 'making of Game Graphics 1998-2001' is one of the best to learn of older techniques.

Thank you, will look for those particular samples.

Is there a particular asset that you always wondered about? For example, Metal Gear Rex and the Ninja (both from MGS1) are incredible samples of low-poly aesthetically pleasing models.

Snake and his face, not so much.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Prof Bathtub said:
For the Ocarina of Time characters, you'll find some answers in the interview at the back of the Art & Artifacts book. They credit Yoshiaki Koizumi with designing the Link model (though it's unclear if that also means the Young Link model, though one can assume so.) All the other characters were made by Yoshiki Haruhana, while the enemies (Ganondorf included) were made by Satoru Takizawa.

They describe that all the models were made in-house, and they used 2D artwork for manual/promotional materials, since the pre-rendered images used in previous games like Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64 were made elsewhere, and "such digitally rendered images were, both technologically and financially, not easy to outsource."

As for what programs were used for the modeling, all the interview says is that "There was a program that allowed us to view the polygon model and spin it around. I would use it to refine those areas where the textures were lacking and think about the details that weren't in the model." (Illustrator Yusuke Nakano)

This is fantastic context. In the end, the 2D artwork stood the test of time better than the CGI rendering (at least to me). Do they discuss the reiterative process of optimizing the poly count? For example, removing 50 or more polys because it was affecting the framerate?

Jayveer · Jun 26, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thank you, will look for those particular samples.

Is there a particular asset that you always wondered about? For example, Metal Gear Rex and the Ninja (both from MGS1) are incredible samples of low-poly aesthetically pleasing models.

Snake and his face, not so much.

Yeah I've always been impressed with what Kojima Productions achieved on the hardware they've written for. The way in which they've pushed the poly count and deciding which textures to prioritise, truly masters of their craft. I've been reversing Metal Gear Solid games for a quite a while, whilst I do not as much about the games you've listed above I could go into some detail of the mgs games, particularly mgs 4.

Soundchaser · Jun 26, 2019

Nintendo and Square used Nichimen N-World for 3D modeling and animation in the 1990s. N-World was initially developed by Symbolics, its former employee Kazuyuki Hashimoto became the first CG Supervisor of Square and trained the company's artists to use 3D software.

https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/animation_graphics/nichimen.lhtml

Rats · Jun 26, 2019

There's a certain artistry to low poly models that has been lost with the advance of technology. It's like digital papercraft.

Prof Bathtub · Jun 26, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
This is fantastic context. In the end, the 2D artwork stood the test of time better than the CGI rendering (at least to me). Do they discuss the reiterative process of optimizing the poly count? For example, removing 50 or more polys because it was affecting the framerate?

No, that information is about it in terms of the technical side.

But yeah, the 2D illustrations held up, though I will say the early digital coloring for OoT's artwok does result in a few iffy gradients.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Jayveer said:
Yeah I've always been impressed with what Kojima Productions achieved on the hardware they've written for. The way in which they've pushed the poly count and deciding which textures to prioritise, truly masters of their craft. I've been reversing Metal Gear Solid games for a quite a while, whilst I do not as much about the games you've listed above I could go into some detail of the mgs games, particularly mgs 4.

By all means, please go into the details. I didn't love MGS4 (nanomachines seemed lazy), but I did enjoy the art design and modeling.

By the way, its hard to get a good view of the original PS1 3D models...

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Soundchaser said:
Nintendo and Square used Nichimen N-World for 3D modeling and animation in 1990s. N-World was initially developed by Symbolics, its former employee Kazuyuki Hashimoto became the first CG Supervisor of Square and trained the company's artists to use 3D software.

https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/animation_graphics/nichimen.lhtml

Incredible. It was initially LISP-based in the 80s?

Also, I respect FFVII 3D models even more now. They were the first ones they built, and they still look good, design and proportion wise.

In comparison, Wild Arms 1 uses textures very well but the models proportions look very basic.

Quinton · Jun 26, 2019

Amazing thread idea. And FFVII/Xenogears/Ocarina of Time are three of my favorites! :3

Soundchaser · Jun 26, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
It was initially LISP-based in the 80s?

Yes, it was initially developed on and for the expensive high-end workstations called the Lisp machines, and later ported to SGI workstations. The history of this software is actually pretty amazing in it's own right. It was built by the same people who created the computer graphics for Tron, one of the first films to make extensive use of any form of computer animation: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/graphicshistory/chapter/6-3-information-international-inc-triple-i/

McNum · Jun 26, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
By all means, please go into the details. I didn't love MGS4 (nanomachines seemed lazy), but I did enjoy the art design and modeling.

By the way, its hard to get a good view of the original PS1 3D models...

Metal Gear REX on the PS1 is a miracle, to put it bluntly. So many moving parts, and so much detail. There's a reason you're moved to an empty room to fight it.

For instance, I can tell from that screenshot that REX has fired its missile attack five times. Because five out of six missile covers on the knees are blown off. They didn't need to make that detail, but it's there. REX is just that detailed, and it's kind of crazy it works on a PS1.

SantaC · Jun 26, 2019

Zelda Wind Waker for gamecube was made in Maya.

Jayveer · Jun 26, 2019

Well for MGS4 they had a total of 100 staff for the development, and they were divided into six groups; "Chara," "Stage," "Mecha," "Motion," "Demo," and "2D,". 30 member of Staff where used for Motion which is the largest group, it's worth noting 'Demo' is what they call their cutscenes. Then there were more than 20 stage crews and about 20 mechanical staff, and the rest consisted of around 10 staff. With MGS games it has always been the case that Yoji Shinkawa's art is the starting point, both for character designs and backgrounds (scenes).

The 3D models were made XSI Softimage (v5.1.1 ) Snake himself used around 5,000-10,000 polys and 115 bones. So the modelling, texturing and in game animation was done using XSI, but the full blown cutscenes (Demo) in the game were done using 3DS Max, for which they made a plugin that would allow them to adjust values whilst the scene played. When it comes to the actual game the container for models is an MDN file, and for specifying the boundary and the interactivity of a surface there is a GEOM file. Below is the design layout for a cutscene.

Z-Brush was also used to create details in the model and if the density of the polygons wasn't enough normal Maps would be made using the Projection Master tool, this technqiue was used to export eyebrow expressions as well. Once 3D models for backgrounds were made they were given to Mineshi Kimura and Yutaka Negishi to perfect. Surprisingly they didn't use LODs much in the game, reserving them only for things such as grass, the levels are generally split into chunks (which they call Stage and would generally give the naming convention S01a10, s01a20 etc).

The texture pipeline for the floor texture in XSI softimage.

As well as using these off the shelf tools they did create some things of their own. They had an In-house lighting editor, a particle editor made by Kunio Takabe and all the 2D elements in the game were made using a custom 2D layout editor (layout is what they refer to the 2D animation as)

The Layout Editor.

I won't go into shaders too much, Kunio Takabe gave what seems a really good talk at CEDEC 2008 on the details of what they used to achieve High Dynamic Range and environmental effects, which would be a write up in itself. There were some interesting things like using normal maps for ripple effects in water. I'll write some stuff on MGS1 when I get time.

Skel1ingt0n · Jun 26, 2019

Tagging this thread!

Akela · Jun 26, 2019

Jayveer said:
A lot of 3D back then was done on machines by SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc), there are lots of great youtube videos out there of the history of the company and those that have used their machines, its really fascinating hearing stories about people who used it professionally back then. I know in Japan a tool of choice for a lot of 3D artists was SoftImage. Sadly it was eventually bought by AutoDesk who have a monopoly on 3D software these days.

There is a very good magazine in Japan called 'CGWorld' which has interviews and goes over the game creation pipeline of a lot of popular series, most notably for me the Metal Gear Solid series (I bought all the old magazines that have any Metal Gear Solid info in them). Of course Sadly it's in Japanese but with Google Translate with some effort this stuff is readable. It's a great way to learn of some of the graphic techniques used to make games and the anthology named 'making of Game Graphics 1998-2001' is one of the best to learn of older techniques.

Those SGI machines back then were beasts - people complain about the price of workstations like say, the Mac Pro nowadays, but back then SGI's most high end machines retailed for quite literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. Naughty Dog back in the mid-90's used SGI's that had 256-512 mb of Ram at a time when the average PC had 8-32 mb. Granted, not every dev could afford the top end machines, but even the lower end models still retailed for 10's of thousands of dollars typically.

Other then Softimage another modelling/animation software used was Power Animator, which was the predecessor to Maya. Both pieces of software were exclusive to SGI's OS IRIX and other high-end workstations until the mid-90's... which certainly helped SGI keep their foothold in the entertainment industry. Eventually the commodification of computer hardware caught up with the company which eventually led to it's demise around the 2000's, especially after Maya and such were ported over to DOS and 3ds Max became a viable alternative.

Here's an absurdly 90's demo reel for PowerAnimator btw:

(Also yeesh, that thumbnail.)

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Jayveer said:
The texture pipeline for the floor texture in XSI softimage.

This is fascinating, thank you for the detailed overview!

I can read a bit of katakana and its fun to see the name of the categories: "Layer Texture", "Specular Texture", "Normal Map", "Base Color" below, and "Subnormal Texture", "Cube Map" on the left.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

McNum said:
Metal Gear REX on the PS1 is a miracle, to put it bluntly. So many moving parts, and so much detail. There's a reason you're moved to an empty room to fight it.

For instance, I can tell from that screenshot that REX has fired its missile attack five times. Because five out of six missile covers on the knees are blown off. They didn't need to make that detail, but it's there. REX is just that detailed, and it's kind of crazy it works on a PS1.

I did not know the covers remained off after the missiles were shot. Thats just Kojima attention to detail...

I'm trying my best to get a better view of the actual full 3D model but Google is failing me. Is there a way to find and see in detail the PS1 3D model of Rex? (Not the Twin Snakes model, not the MGS4 3D model, not the Model Kit or fan 3D renditions)

lazygecko · Jun 26, 2019

For pre-rendered ingame assets from the same period I would also love to see more documentation on how the artists touched them up by hand after the 3D to 2D transition (things like backgrounds/props and CG sprites). Things would rarely ever look good enough by just importing it raw and it would take some work and artistic skill to make it presentable.

Soundchaser · Jun 26, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
I'm trying my best to get a better view of the actual full 3D model but Google is failing me. Is there a way to find and see in detail the PS1 3D model of Rex? (Not the Twin Snakes model, not the MGS4 3D model, not the Model Kit or fan 3D renditions)

It looks like you will need to extract the KMD file for the model of Rex and feed it to the converter: https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?t=10156
You will get an OBJ file, which you can open in any 3d modeling program, like Blender.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Another model that always looked good to me. Grandia´s tank:

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 26, 2019

Soundchaser said:
It looks like you will need to extract the KMD file for the model of Rex and feed it to the converter: https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?t=10156
You will get an OBJ file, which you can open in any 3d modeling program, like Blender.

Ok this can take a while, will experiment on Saturday. Can you extract all assets (Rex, the Tank, the Hind-D, the Ninja, the Torpedo, etc)?

NESpowerhouse · Jun 26, 2019

How could you forget THE model that showed off what the N64 could do? It was so impressive what they managed to accomplish for the expressiveness of the face, the real-time deformation, and just the really high level of detail for the model and animations, especially for a console from 1996.

Fenrick · Jun 26, 2019

I'm going back through some jrpgs I missed recently and have been pretty impressed by the models in Bravely Default 1 and 2. Low poly, but detailed enough to be distinctive, and they convey a lot of personality.

Jayveer · Jun 27, 2019

Akinsa said:
Those SGI machines back then were beasts - people complain about the price of workstations like say, the Mac Pro nowadays, but back then SGI's most high end machines retailed for quite literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. Naughty Dog back in the mid-90's used SGI's that had 256-512 mb of Ram at a time when the average PC had 8-32 mb. Granted, not every dev could afford the top end machines, but even the lower end models still retailed for 10's of thousands of dollars typically.

Yeah it's crazy how far technology has come in such a short space of time. Even though I was just too young in the 90s to ever have had the pleasure of working on one of these machines I've always been nostalgic for them as most of my favourite games were made on them. Rareware were the first developers I saw talking about them and they've always been one of my favourite devs.

Leo-Tyrant said:
This is fascinating, thank you for the detailed overview!

I can read a bit of katakana and its fun to see the name of the categories: "Layer Texture", "Specular Texture", "Normal Map", "Base Color" below, and "Subnormal Texture", "Cube Map" on the left.

Yeah it's great how much they share about the development process, here's some more MGS4 development information.

Apparently Shinkawa not only drew the characters, but made real life models which were then made in-game, if it wasn't easy to make a solid model he would make it out of clay. The design process would be brush strokes -> adding colour -> making a physical model, then the last part would be a cg artist making it in game.

Facial rig in XSI

Creating the character animations in XSI.

Another in-house plugin they created for use in XSI was the 'MTR Assistant,' this was used to actually map the collisions, noting areas were Snake is allowed to hang, and what sound a particular surface should make. This compiled down into the binary GEOM format that I mentioned previously.

A 'demo' scene being made in 3DS Max. The Collada format was used to transfer geometry information between 3D programs.

Schlomo · Jun 27, 2019

NESpowerhouse said:
How could you forget THE model that showed off what the N64 could do? It was so impressive what they managed to accomplish for the expressiveness of the face, the real-time deformation, and just the really high level of detail for the model and animations, especially for a console from 1996.

Eurogamer had an interview with Giles Goddard where he talks about creating this. (It's not entirely clear though if he just did the deformation tech or also the model.)

Laser Man · Jun 27, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
I did not know the covers remained off after the missiles were shot. Thats just Kojima attention to detail...

I'm trying my best to get a better view of the actual full 3D model but Google is failing me. Is there a way to find and see in detail the PS1 3D model of Rex? (Not the Twin Snakes model, not the MGS4 3D model, not the Model Kit or fan 3D renditions)

The hatches are texture swaps, the name of the textures are "rex_thigh_f02.png" to "rex_thigh_f02sss.png", you can download them from The Sprites Resource web site, most details in games from that time period come from textures and creative use of textures (arguably still true today but we have way more polygons to throw around nowadays).

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 27, 2019

Jayveer said:
Apparently Shinkawa not only drew the characters, but made real life models which were then made in-game, if it wasn't easy to make a solid model he would make it out of clay. The design process would be brush strokes -> adding colour -> making a physical model, then the last part would be a cg artist making it in game.

That´s amazing, and the care and attention to detail shows in the final product. Each individual piece of armor and cloth looks like something that could phyically exist, and the way each piece connect to each other show a lot more polish than other games from the era.

Another game that also did clay sculpts for the faces was Fallout 1. They were then digitized:

"After the team worked out exactly what it was after, a sculptor made a clay head that fit the bill. From there, the artists took the completed head and carefully studied it to see what parts of the face needed to be animated most in order to create a realistic final image. Using a Faro Space Arm and the VertiSketch software, the team digitized the head, and then used theLightWave modeling software to do necessary geometric corrections. Next, texture maps were created in Photoshop and laid onto the modeled head. Finally, the art team began working on the animation. "

"Talking heads were proposed during the game's development by Leonard Boyarsky. Most of them were painstakingly copied into the digital format from clay models by Scott Rodenhizer. Originally, Fallout was supposed to have 40-50 talking heads, but the average time to do one head, 8 weeks, was too time consuming and was pushed done to just 21 "

Clay model:

Render:

In-Game:

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 27, 2019

NESpowerhouse said:
How could you forget THE model that showed off what the N64 could do? It was so impressive what they managed to accomplish for the expressiveness of the face, the real-time deformation, and just the really high level of detail for the model and animations, especially for a console from 1996.

My first N64 game was Ocarina of Time. When I got to Mario 64 It looked sub-par in comparison. I liked the face but the actual Mario 3D model was very basic compared to Link and you can see they learned a lot in 2 years:

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 27, 2019

Another good use of low poly aesthetics, Front Mission 3. I assume they were using the same tools across all of the Squaresoft project during this era?

Pyro · Jun 27, 2019

I love this thread and am gonna assume y'all would like this too:

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 28, 2019

Pyro said:
I love this thread and am gonna assume y'all would like this too:

You know, I don't understand why Indie games in particular have not been successful in recreating this look. The artists and modelers know how it should look, they even create parody videos such as this.

Why aren't indie games experimenting with these kind of aesthetics?

3D backgrounds (textured) + 2D sprites (Like Grandia and Xenogears). But, cohesive, NOT like Octopath (lots of mismatching elements, everything was over-pixelated by design, not because of natural unfiltered look)
3D backgrounds (textured) + 3D models: Silent Hill 1, Metal Gear Solid 1
2D Backgrounds + 3D characters: Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Legend of Dragoon, etc. (I suspect this would be fare more expensive and time consuming than the previous 2 options)

Its generally either VERY pixelated 8 bit, or super low poly (but highly filtered IQ with lots of mismatching elements) or attempting a modern game look (Unity-UE4 default shaders look)

Syril · Jun 28, 2019

One of the cool things in FFVII was how for a special battle scene that was 1-on-1 with no background and tons of close-ups they made a special high-detail version of Cloud's battle model.

Pancracio17 · Jun 28, 2019

Rats said:
There's a certain artistry to low poly models that has been lost with the advance of technology. It's like digital papercraft.

Yeah, nowadays you can waste polygons on even the smallest things and not much would be lost. Though instead of papercraft modern character models are more like sculpting.

werezompire · Jun 28, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Why aren't indie games experimenting with these kind of aesthetics?

3D backgrounds (textured) + 2D sprites (Like Grandia and Xenogears). But, cohesive, NOT like Octopath (lots of mismatching elements, everything was over-pixelated by design, not because of natural unfiltered look)

3D backgrounds (textured) + 3D models: Silent Hill 1, Metal Gear Solid 1

2D Backgrounds + 3D characters: Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Legend of Dragoon, etc. (I suspect this would be fare more expensive and time consuming than the previous 2 options

I'd love to do either the Grandia-style or the Resident Evil / PS1 FF look, but either would definitely be more work than the straight 2D we do now.

Dean Dodrill (Dust: An Elysian Tail) did a PS1 MGS look for his game, Never Stop Sneakin'.

Hogendaz85 · Jun 28, 2019

Syril said:
One of the cool things in FFVII was how for a special battle scene that was 1-on-1 with no background and tons of close-ups they made a special high-detail version of Cloud's battle model.

Was about to bring this up!

Isayas · Jun 28, 2019

Syril said:
One of the cool things in FFVII was how for a special battle scene that was 1-on-1 with no background and tons of close-ups they made a special high-detail version of Cloud's battle model.

Always loved the final battle Cloud model. It looks so clutch.

Deleted member 2620 · Jun 28, 2019

wow, this thread has a lot of great deep-cut info

Mona · Jun 28, 2019

Syril said:
One of the cool things in FFVII was how for a special battle scene that was 1-on-1 with no background and tons of close-ups they made a special high-detail version of Cloud's battle model.

pretty cool

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 28, 2019

werezompire said:
I'd love to do either the Grandia-style or the Resident Evil / PS1 FF look, but either would definitely be more work than the straight 2D we do now.

Dean Dodrill (Dust: An Elysian Tail) did a PS1 MGS look for his game, Never Stop Sneakin'.

Thank you, I had never seen that game. The lightning and set-pieces really look like copy-pasted from MGS1 but, the actual character models are higher poly, and the proportions are weird. Also, the actual gameplay reverts to the top-down view instead of the more cinematic MGS or SH cameras. Still, its good sample of an indie aproximating what we like! Thanks again.

From your side, it would be great if you could share your thoughts on the following effort. 3D BGs with 2D sprites (Something like Grandia). Could you provide a very high level ballpark on the following list?

Assuming one person for each capability (3D, 2D), and using an already existing engine (Unity?)

How much could a closed area (typical Grandia room?) take to build in 3D ? This would include the actual modeling as well as some baseline texture work.
How much would the 2D sprites take? (assuming Xenogears-level of animation)
Camera work, colition, etc. (I would asume that even if provided by Unity, it would still need to be customized)

Its ok if you dont answer in detail, I'm wondering how this would compare to your current 2D-focused pipeline.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 28, 2019

Syril said:
One of the cool things in FFVII was how for a special battle scene that was 1-on-1 with no background and tons of close-ups they made a special high-detail version of Cloud's battle model.

Loved this when I first saw it back in high school. It was like "woah its so detailed!"

I dont like it as much now, I think the face looks weird, and I actually like the more basic regular battle model. Maybe with a better face modeling...Yeah I think its just the face.

Lactose_Intolerant · Jun 28, 2019

Fenrick said:
I'm going back through some jrpgs I missed recently and have been pretty impressed by the models in Bravely Default 1 and 2. Low poly, but detailed enough to be distinctive, and they convey a lot of personality.

I really like the look of low poly models with higher resolution textures. Like 512x512 size or so instead of like 128x128 or 256x256.

Obligatory Bobo the Seal picture:

The legs look pretty basic but from the waist up, it is so good.
The model probably has close to the same polycount as that cloud model up above.

Crossing Eden · Jun 28, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
You know, I don't understand why Indie games in particular have not been successful in recreating this look. The artists and modelers know how it should look, they even create parody videos such as this.

Why aren't indie games experimenting with these kind of aesthetics?

3D backgrounds (textured) + 2D sprites (Like Grandia and Xenogears). But, cohesive, NOT like Octopath (lots of mismatching elements, everything was over-pixelated by design, not because of natural unfiltered look)

3D backgrounds (textured) + 3D models: Silent Hill 1, Metal Gear Solid 1

2D Backgrounds + 3D characters: Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Legend of Dragoon, etc. (I suspect this would be fare more expensive and time consuming than the previous 2 options)

Its generally either VERY pixelated 8 bit, or super low poly (but highly filtered IQ with lots of mismatching elements) or attempting a modern game look (Unity-UE4 default shaders look)

A large part of the aesthetic was partly caused by devs having to work around limitations that simply don't exist on modern hardware. And I imagine for many devs it's hard not to take advantage of modern technology even when attempting to emulate the art direction of older games on way older hardware.

werezompire · Jun 28, 2019

Leo-Tyrant said:
Thank you, I had never seen that game. The lightning and set-pieces really look like copy-pasted from MGS1 but, the actual character models are higher poly, and the proportions are weird. Also, the actual gameplay reverts to the top-down view instead of the more cinematic MGS or SH cameras. Still, its good sample of an indie aproximating what we like! Thanks again.

From your side, it would be great if you could share your thoughts on the following effort. 3D BGs with 2D sprites (Something like Grandia). Could you provide a very high level ballpark on the following list?

Assuming one person for each capability (3D, 2D), and using an already existing engine (Unity?)

How much could a closed area (typical Grandia room?) take to build in 3D ? This would include the actual modeling as well as some baseline texture work.

How much would the 2D sprites take? (assuming Xenogears-level of animation)

Camera work, colition, etc. (I would asume that even if provided by Unity, it would still need to be customized)

Its ok if you dont answer in detail, I'm wondering how this would compare to your current 2D-focused pipeline.

I honestly don't know. Although I build stuff in Unity, I've never used the 3D capabilities. My partner would be a better one to talk to about asset creation difficulty, although talking to him, he did say that getting decent visuals via a Grandia-style setup would probably be easier than doing a PS1 FF setup.

Leo-Tyrant · Jun 28, 2019

Crossing Eden said:
A large part of the aesthetic was partly caused by devs having to work around limitations that simply don't exist on modern hardware. And I imagine for many devs it's hard not to take advantage of modern technology even when attempting to emulate the art direction of older games on way older hardware.

I understand that a lot of the "look" came from actual hardware and rendering limitations. But for example, both Grandia and Xenogears don't depend on the flaws for their look.

You can render them at 4k and filter-fix them (bilinear, antialiasing, perspective-correct-textures, etc.) and the final picture will still look very good today.

Yet we don't see a 1:1 Indie approximations. Closest examples are either super pixelated 8 bit or 16 bit, or Low Poly-Low Detail samples (I am Setsuna isnt even Indie but it would be an example).

How were these iconic 3D assets made, and who made them? (FFVII, Xenogears, Ocarina and more)

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