if you lost all models and cant remake them...how did you remake this

orosius

I'm confused. If you lost most of the original model data and you will not remake from scratch, then how are you doing this?

Deltaslayer

I doubt they really lost it.
I predict the same excuse while making BG2:EE, PS:T EE, or IWD: EE.

Tanthalas

What was lost was the original art assets used to render the backgrounds and character models. Can't make new HD re-renders without them.

Dee

For further clarification, they still have the 2D sprites; they just don't have the 3D models on which the sprites are based.

Drugar

In layman's terms;

It's like trying to change a house. They'd like to do it, but all they have are pictures and videos of the house, the house itself was destroyed.
If they want to add another floor or new windows to the house, they'll have to rebuild the entire thing, using the pictures and videos as a reference tool. Still a whole lot of work. They could add a little drawing on the pictures or edit the videos, but it would look unrealitic and horrendous so rebuilding from scratch is the only option.

bigdogchris

The upscaling they've done is quite impressive though. From the screen shots you can see how far in you can zoom while still maintaining detail. At 1366x768 the game looks as good now as it did back then at 640x480, which is all I ask. The resolution was my primary graphic concern as I do not like having very tiny characters.

mlnevese

I wonder if they could work with the source material in 1pp and revamp it into a higher resolution. Those assets should be available, unless every model in 1pp is just a sprite from some other source or drawn directly as a sprite...

Tanthalas

@mlnevese

Its very likely that 1pp works on sprites.

mlnevese

@Tanthalas I thought so. But one can always hope

reedmilfam

It does seem odd that sprites can't be re-done, but I'm no expert on such things. While the look of the characters isn't super important to me, nicer is always appreciated for visuals, sounds and the like. Titan-Quest quality or better character avatars would be awesome, but apparently not do-able.

TJ_Hooker

@reedmilfam if I remember correctly, the logic behind not creating new sprites went something like this: Although they could redo some sprites, say the the character ones, you would then have a few snazzy, HD sprites mixed in with a bunch of the old, low-res ones, which would look bad. So it would have to be all or nothing, and recreating all the sprites from scratch would be a ton of work, requiring more resources than they have available.

I think I remember Trent Oster saying that the source are from PST wasn't lost though, so if they do a PST:EE, it may be a true HD remake like they had planned to do for BG, which I think would be pretty sweet.

reedmilfam

I would like better sprites, of course, but it isn't game-breaking for me. I'm looking forward for a stable platform to run the game. It will be fun for me.

orosius

I just wanted weapons to look more like their artwork instead of a color change.

sarevok57

i smell fish every time i hear art assests are "lost" i think its more of assest arts arent available to trent is more of the scenario because who ever owns the right to this game probally has them in a safe and is scared so shitless that trent was going to destroy the game they gave him very limited things he could do to it, no one makes an epic game and "loses" art assests and such, that is complete bs, look at disney they have all of thier movies locked up in a vault all the orginals so when new video devices come out to make movies look better they always have the original to make them better, im betting that the owners of these assests are just stroking trent and crew and not giving them to him to use

Rinpoo

I wonder if it's possible, since it's a lot of work to maybe re make the assets from scratch so that everyone can have the HD graphics, but they do it as a post release project. They could use the money generated from the game to do the work, and then charge it as paid DLC. I would without a doubt pay 10 bux for that.

Jalily

Rinpoo said:

I wonder if it's possible, since it's a lot of work to maybe re make the assets from scratch so that everyone can have the HD graphics, but they do it as a post release project. They could use the money generated from the game to do the work, and then charge it as paid DLC. I would without a doubt pay 10 bux for that.

Unfortunately, it's way too much work to be economically feasible, especially as a $10 DLC. Not to mention how long that would delay BG2EE...

Kithrixx

The issue is that all of the sprites (2D images) are based off of image captures of models (3D objects). This is why Baldur's Gate has aged so well - everything was pre-rendered. Creating new art assets would mean tracking down the original models (which I can guarantee you have been lost to time), because otherwise things wouldn't fit because the new stuff would be in a different definition or styled differently or have any number of problems. The issues sound small, but it's actually extremely difficult to correctly capture the look and feel of previous artwork done in such a specific way. It is time consuming and not cost effective, and realistically, the devs would have an easier time obtaining rights to the art assets from the other Infinity Engine games (which is still significantly difficult, just marginally less so).

Rinpoo

Jalily said:

Rinpoo said:

I wonder if it's possible, since it's a lot of work to maybe re make the assets from scratch so that everyone can have the HD graphics, but they do it as a post release project. They could use the money generated from the game to do the work, and then charge it as paid DLC. I would without a doubt pay 10 bux for that.

Unfortunately, it's way too much work to be economically feasible, especially as a $10 DLC. Not to mention how long that would delay BG2EE...

10 dollars was an example; I would pay more for such a thing if they wanted it, also I meant as in could it possibly done as an after project. Both BG EE and BG2 EE use the ToB engine, so I thought more than likely doing all the HD graphics for BG2 EE would cover almost all of what is in BG 1 EE. By that time you would have profits for both games and whatever DLC was released at that time, and could then utilize that for more profits by selling an x priced enhanced graphics DLC.

Rinpoo

Kithrixx said:

The issue is that all of the sprites (2D images) are based off of image captures of models (3D objects). This is why Baldur's Gate has aged so well - everything was pre-rendered. Creating new art assets would mean tracking down the original models (which I can guarantee you have been lost to time), because otherwise things wouldn't fit because the new stuff would be in a different definition or styled differently or have any number of problems. The issues sound small, but it's actually extremely difficult to correctly capture the look and feel of previous artwork done in such a specific way. It is time consuming and not cost effective, and realistically, the devs would have an easier time obtaining rights to the art assets from the other Infinity Engine games (which is still significantly difficult, just marginally less so).

Ah, I see I did not know it was so difficult, thank you for informing me of this.