BG2 Redux : Athkatla - DA Mod - Irenicus!

Cuv

Hello everyone -
Thought I would post a video to get everyone even more exited about BG:EE coming out soon. I have been working on a mod to bring BG2 into the DA engine. Our cinematic designer @DahliaLynn has just completed the opening cutscene for Module 2 and we have made it public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhL8iKN3rVA&feature=youtu.be

Its a tedious long process to recreate each area in 3D, but nearly finished with the entire city now. Just the Graveyard catacombs to finish and finalize the slums night version. If this thread shows interest, will post some shots of that stuff.

Here are the credits involved in this scene:
@Cuv: BGR Module 2 Project Lead/Level Design
@DahliaLynn: Module 2 Opening Cinematic Designer
@Ablaine : Character/Organic Lead Modeller
@DarthParametric : Environment/Level Lead Modeller
@Piet: Environmental Modeller/Textures

Cuv

Tanthalas

Wow, that's some awesome work that you guys are doing.

tyl998

Holy moly this is good!!

Medillen

This cinematic kick asses. Nice modeling for Irenicus, I don't wanna know how much time you spent on him alone.

Cuv

@Medillen Then I shall not tell ya:D But the Athkatla buildings/tents/flying machines in the background took half a year to get right in 3DS Max and for the textures to work properly with the DA lightmaps.

lansounet

Great stuff! Just a nitpick about Imoen using some Burning Hands or whatever-fire magic instead of MM XD

Cuv

@lansounet Yes, we are aware of that. When the scene plays live in the actual game... hopefully MM will be fixed by then. Glad you like it!

lansounet

@Cuv
Never played DA, how hard is it to port the rules and everything from BG2?

Cuv

@lansounet Virtually impossible:D All our mod can do is approximate some features of BG2. We did get the resting mechanic in with player camp, Day/Night (which didnt exist in DA), new spells are being worked on... but the hardest part with that is the VFX. We also created a whole ton of custom FR creatures from scratch and got them rigged/animated and in. So, in the end, this is more of an interpretation of BG2 rather than a total recreation.

@Ablaine is our creature genius. He created nearly all the custom creatures and Irenicus!

lansounet

Cripple beholder misses half his eyestalks.
Just kidding, must have been tough to get the 5 there already, especially animated I guess. Nice modelling.

Drugar

Holy crap that's awesome. Seriously. I'm generally not easily impressed but that was everything I wanted from a 3D rendering of this scene, great!

Question though; why is Imoen yellow?

Cuv

@Drugar Thanks! That is high praise indeed!

Drugar said:

Question though; why is Imoen yellow?

The sky is blue, water is wet... best to leave these kinds of questions to sages and philosophers!

Its probably the lighting and angle of the sunlight. She isnt yellow anywhere else. I never noticed.

AndreaColombo

Too much awesome for just one thread. I suggest splitting it in several

Grieg

Congratulations for persistence because I have seen this project long time ago and now so much things already done, actually it is only the matter of time when it will be finished. So tremendous amount of work, and you will do it, great job!

Moomintroll

I think anyone familiar with BG2, seeing the first few seconds of footage would have guessed what this was, which goes to show how well done this is, amazing work!

Shin

Absolutely stunning cutscene.. seeing BG2 like that gives me goosebumps.

Cuv

Thank you everyone, glad you like it. Our cinematics person @DahliaLynn did a fantastic job. Here is a pic of my interpretation of Waukeens Promenade that is used in this cutscene:



We have many talented modellers on the team: @Ablaine, @DarthParametric and @Piet created the individual models used here.

trinit

wow. really. congratulations on your work...

imagine all these sexy detailed models ported into bg:ee through infinity animations. i imagine bg:ee would be better off with it.

or using them as paperdolls, with few enhancements to make them fell more like they are drawn (personalized paperdoll for every NPC-> mind=blown)...

regardless of that, redux is incredible. i do not know your background or job position, but if studios wont be begging you to join them after you're done with this, then they are obviously blind.

AndreaColombo

You rule, I drool

Cuv

Thanks:) We do this stuff for the love of the game (and the kudos dont hurt either)

@trinit If they still had the original bg assets, they might... but perhaps for BG3.

trinit

@Cuv i'm not trying to push a point, but original assets would be required even for importing your models, for example?
i though it was more of a matter of exporting an appropriate (perspective-wise) bitmap sequence and replace the existing one with it, if we're talking about avatars. or exporting a new sequence called "imoen" import into game and assign that appearance to imoen creature. or do things do not work like that at all?

sorry if i'm talking nonsense.

Cuv

@trinit Its far more complicated that that. For just the area map? Sure.. I could swing the camera around to the proper iso, take a shot and make it into an area. But someone has to actually place all the models, set the lighting and atmosphere in the first place.... terribly time consuming. The devs could certainly do this with their new content... but the entire game is out of the question. And for sprites/avatars... even more complicated with the game file formats, aligning and processing. Doable, but not cost effective and takes years with so many models and just a few new ones would look drastically different than the originals and not make a good impression.

agris

@Cuv

Yep, super awesome. That was a really really good interpretation of the opening scene. I have a couple of aesthetic critiques, do with them what you will. Indeed, Imoen's skin color is bit yellow / green. I think the intention was move olive skinned but you might want to reexamine the color. My second point is Irenicus's model looks great, but his face is a bit too.... pretty? feminine? Maybe it's just me, but I think his lips are pinched into a bit of a pout-y face, and he has really long lashes.

minor stuff, just saying!

Alejandro

Amazing! Really enjoyed that cutscene and I´m sure it must have been a tremendous amount of work. I wish you guys the best for you and your project

And of course It would be fantastic if you could keep this updates with pictures.

Thanks!

Cuv

agris said:

@Cuv
My second point is Irenicus's model looks great, but his face is a bit too.... pretty? feminine? Maybe it's just me, but I think his lips are pinched into a bit of a pout-y face, and he has really long lashes.

LOL! You are not the first person to mention his face... but sadly the video was completed before his model was fixed. He is still a work in progress... but I should point out that his face wont change very much.. as he appears to have his face sewn onto his cowl!!! Some kind of earlier accident perhaps?

trinit

@Cuv damn, i was so close...

jokes aside, thank you for clarifying. i knew it was too simple to be true. ah well, i hope the new paperdolls they claim are planned are really good.

void

Fantastic! I remember watching videos of the project with the Irenicus dungeon only. I could only imagine what would have followed, but now it looks so much better. Good luck!

agris

Cuv said:

LOL! You are not the first person to mention his face... but sadly the video was completed before his model was fixed. He is still a work in progress... but I should point out that his face wont change very much.. as he appears to have his face sewn onto his cowl!!! Some kind of earlier accident perhaps?

Yea, whatever the changes that need to be made, they are really minor and probably involve a setting in the facial animator not in the model itself. Again, great job with the opening cinematic.

This might be premature, but does your installer rip assets out of BG2 (like the narrator's voice) or are you able to redistribute those?

AndreaColombo

Cuv said:

he appears to have his face sewn onto his cowl!!! Some kind of earlier accident perhaps?

I think that's part of his being a renegade elf. His pointy ears are gone, supposedly surgically removed: That's why he has that thing/cowl sewn on his face. It covers the scar/hideous sight of what is left after he was scrapped of his elven nature (also baldness, as I don't recall ever seeing bald elves).

Cuv

agris said:

This might be premature, but does your installer rip assets out of BG2 (like the narrator's voice) or are you able to redistribute those?

Not premature to ask that at all ... it is an important question. We do have an installer that will extract and convert the sounds and movies to the DA format. The installer also requires a valid install of BG2 ( will make it compatible with BG2:EE when that time comes), either the discs or the GOG version.

The installer works just fine, but it requires a tremendous amount of work on the end user atm... we are working on sorting that out. currently, you would need to download and install not only RadTools, but also the DA Toolset just for the FMOD that it includes (with a warning NOT to just install the latest FMOD as that is not compatible with DA)... and then run the installer when those are present on your system. The basic installer is just a WeiDU installer... which most people here are familiar with using and has a TP2:)

Grammarsalad

Holy crow! Amazing! I might just have to get da after all! I'm burning all the memory on my phone but I don't care! Seriously great stuff!