Grim Fandango Deluxe - Original Thread [Locked]

giucam · Post by **giucam** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:25 am

I wouldn't say it's very easy, anyway i think it's doable (leaving aside the movies).
You'd need to redo the backgrounds (artwork and z-buffer), maybe some other bitmaps (objectstates) and modify the position of the objectstates, which are hardcoded into the bitmap files theirselves.

ResidualVM can't scale the backgrounds at the moment, but that doesn't mean it won't be able in the future. It just lacks the needed code, but there's not technical limitation.

JohnnyWalker2001 · Post by **JohnnyWalker2001** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:52 pm

cplhenshaw wrote:I've been writing in C, and unfortunately I haven't gotten around to making any changes since I made that post. I followed the github tutorial and put the source files up there. If you have any questions about it feel free to ask.
https://github.com/cplhenshaw/boop

Great. Maybe others can start helping out. I remember you were saying that it was missing a lot of features?

JohnnyWalker2001 · Post by **JohnnyWalker2001** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:59 pm

giucam wrote:I wouldn't say it's very easy, anyway i think it's doable (leaving aside the movies).
You'd need to redo the backgrounds (artwork and z-buffer), maybe some other bitmaps (objectstates) and modify the position of the objectstates, which are hardcoded into the bitmap files theirselves.

ResidualVM can't scale the backgrounds at the moment, but that doesn't mean it won't be able in the future. It just lacks the needed code, but there's not technical limitation.

Well this is one of the three things that's hoping to get done as part of the GF Deluxe project... but I suppose playing at higher resolutions is something that ResidualVM may eventually support by itself?

The type of widescreen additions shown by UltraNeo would still be a great addition to the GF Deluxe project, though.

giucam · Post by **giucam** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 1:12 pm

JohnnyWalker2001 wrote: but I suppose playing at higher resolutions is something that ResidualVM may eventually support by itself?

I think so, but not until it's more mature.
Actually, somaen or Akz - i can't remember now - wrote a patch to support that. You could search in their clones.

Akz · Post by **Akz** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:11 pm

giucam wrote: I think so, but not until it's more mature.
Actually, somaen or Akz - i can't remember now - wrote a patch to support that. You could search in their clones.

You can find my attempt at high res support at https://github.com/Akz-/residual/tree/resolution. It works quite well, but the branch is a bit out of date now. The biggest issue is with upscaling the Z-buffer image, which causes chunky silhouette edges like mogul mentioned earlier.

JohnnyWalker2001 · Post by **JohnnyWalker2001** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 10:00 pm

Akz wrote:
giucam wrote: I think so, but not until it's more mature.
Actually, somaen or Akz - i can't remember now - wrote a patch to support that. You could search in their clones.
You can find my attempt at high res support at https://github.com/Akz-/residual/tree/resolution. It works quite well, but the branch is a bit out of date now. The biggest issue is with upscaling the Z-buffer image, which causes chunky silhouette edges like mogul mentioned earlier.

How easy do you think it would be to fix those edges? :-/

ultraneonoirantihero · Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:57 am

Grim Fandango Widescreen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cigf0ZT9pu0

Grim Fandango with remastered locations adapted for widescreen aspect ratio.

Enjoy :)

giucam · Post by **giucam** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:51 pm

Wow, marvellous!

How did you manage to do it? Great work!

Jon N/A · Post by **Jon N/A** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:58 pm

ultraneonoirantihero wrote:Grim Fandango Widescreen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cigf0ZT9pu0

Grim Fandango with remastered locations adapted for widescreen aspect ratio.

Enjoy

That's brilliant! Also, Nice title card

I guess they're inspired by Miller's Crossing's Intro/Eding Credits, Am I right?

EDIT: Can we walk into the extened space too?

JohnnyWalker2001 · Post by **JohnnyWalker2001** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:22 pm

ultraneonoirantihero wrote:Grim Fandango Widescreen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cigf0ZT9pu0

Grim Fandango with remastered locations adapted for widescreen aspect ratio.

Enjoy

Holy molee! *takes hat off*

What's next for this? Can it be integrated into ResidualVM? Obviously the artwork would have to be distributed separately... and I'm guessing there's still the z-buffer issue.

Still, seriously well done. Wow.

Longcat · Post by **Longcat** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:16 pm

giucam wrote:Wow, marvellous!
How did you manage to do it? Great work!

I'm guessing he just used videocaptured 4:3 footage, centered it in a 16:9 video frame and pasted in his modified backgrounds behind the video. Would be Pretty easy to do in Final Cut at least. Still a nice concept

Edit: which would mean, no, you can't walk into the extra space. At least not until ResidualVM devs implement it;)

JohnnyWalker2001 · Post by **JohnnyWalker2001** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:26 pm

Hmm. I hope it's not just a video trick... I'll be very disappointed

ultraneonoirantihero · Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:31 pm

JohnnyWalker2001 wrote: Holy molee! *takes hat off*
What's next for this? Can it be integrated into ResidualVM? Obviously the artwork would have to be distributed separately... and I'm guessing there's still the z-buffer issue.
Still, seriously well done. Wow.

I'm really happy you liked it but I'm sorry to disappoint you: this is not true widescreen. As Longcat said it, it's "just" original 4:3 gameplay video with additional background material... faux widescreen. I don't know much about hardcore reverse engineering (unless it's ActionScript) so as much as I'd like to make GF widescreen - I can't. But if I know something right then it's web design, photoshop and video editing, so I did this.

I would also like to thank you for posting the video on the GrimFandango:Deluxe blog, I included the link to the blog in the video's description. Sure hope it will attract more people to the project. Who knows, maybe someone at Lucasarts will see the video and send the source codes... or they'll make the Special Edition like MI.

Longcat wrote: I'm guessing he just used videocaptured 4:3 footage, centered it in a 16:9 video frame and pasted in his modified backgrounds behind the video. Would be Pretty easy to do in Final Cut at least. Still a nice concept :)

Edit: which would mean, no, you can't walk into the extra space. At least not until ResidualVM devs implement it;)

Yes, you're right :) But it wasn't as easy as I (and you) thought it would be. There are a lot times when objects go outside the screen, and then you have to make something out of nothing and motion track it. Like the initial tube shake, little flag notifier and Many's hand holding the letter. The inventory screen was a real nightmare: Many's arm always has 3 specific positions in each movement, and different movements for each inventory item. Plus, his arm rotates in each of those key positions... so in the end I gave up on motion tweening and did the thing frame by frame.

Here's an example:

Jon N/A wrote: That's brilliant! Also, Nice title card ;)
I guess they're inspired by Miller's Crossing's Intro/Eding Credits, Am I right?

Thanks! Although I love Miller's Crossing I like Blade Runner even more... actually am I huge Blade Runner fan and have the 5 disc ultimate edition which contains the documentary "Dangerous Days". The title card in my video is a shameless ripoff of the documentary's opening title. here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXMXEXU94Xo

Also, Many and his office console remind me very much of the Deckard and his Esper machine from BR.

.

Longcat · Post by **Longcat** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:20 pm

I'm sorry if it seemed like I diminished your work:) I'm very impressed by the initiative taken by the individual members here and it's very heartwarming to see something like this for someone who loves Grim Fandango as much as I do.

And yes, I DID wonder how you added in the additional off-screen elements(figured you just did a copy-paste job) so it's cool too see how much work you actually put into making it flow better. Off-screen elements produced by 3D objects in ResidualVM shouldn't be as much hassle to add in as they are already present if you introduce 16:9 backgrounds tho. Things like the flag are probably bitmaps tho and will most likely need redrawing, but I'm not sure about that.

I think the ideal starting point would be if someone with the skill could be bothered to remodel all the rooms in 3D and start with that. But I guess it would be difficult to get all the textures right. This would also make it possible to trace and redo the cutscenes in widescreen.
edit; come to think of it, that would probably not be as easy as I made it sound, seeing there are so many elements in the cutscenes not present in the rest of the game. Like the number nine train or the undersea monsters.

Again, good job and thanks!

ultraneonoirantihero · Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:55 pm

Longcat wrote:I'm sorry if it seemed like I diminished your work:)

No, it's OK, it didn't seemed like it. I was just saying how before the "combining" process started I too was thinking how very little work is needed since I had all the backgrounds ready. And from that point on it took me 8 hrs to complete the video. Just when you think you'll soon get it done you bump into unexpected things. Like FFDshow crash or mysterious (and awful) h264 compression artifacts on slow moving objects.

Longcat wrote:I think the ideal starting point would be if someone with the skill could be bothered to remodel all the rooms in 3D and start with that.

That is the most logical way of doing it, I did those backgrounds in Photoshop and I had a real trouble drawing the lamp and the chair.

I found this post by accident, it's and "old" one, from 2008.
http://www.kerkythea.net/phpBB2/viewtop ... af62c03350
This guy really nailed it down to the last pixel:

The user "kissingbandit" made those renders and unfortunately he made only those two posts on that forum. So I guess there's no chance of contacting him.

Also, here's Tim Schafer's diary on GF:
http://members.chello.nl/gwestendorp65/grim/

Cheers :)
.