Ur-Quan Masters HD mod

[dczanik]

Rather than having everybody dig around in individual art threads, I thought I'd start putting everything in one easy to find place. If you have any questions about the game itself, feel free to ask here. I'll be posting (or have) posted individual art threads for each new item to get feedback from the community. Keep in mind until a release, everything is a work in progress and may change.

When is it coming out?
It's out NOW!

Why are you doing this?
Because I noticed many gamers never played the original. It's hard for them to get past the dated resolution/graphics of the original. We may need to grow this community if we have a chance to get a real Star Control sequel. This also gives me a chance to add/change some things I personally always wanted in a re-make. Also, it's fun.

What is it going to feature? (aka, why should I care?)
All of the features of Ur-Quan Masters but include new artwork, some new features, and up to 4x the original's resolution (1280x960).

Is it widescreen?
No, due to the engine, and programmer time constraints, the max resolution will be 1280x960. 640x480 and 320x240 are also supported.

You should make it X resolution.
I'd love to, but without additional programmers, and artists, this is it. It's been stated that future versions of Ur-Quan Masters may support multiple resolutions. So something might exist in the future.

Why has X changed?
I've tried to keep true to a lot of the original, but if I feel something can be improved upon, I'm going to do it. Otherwise, this can be due to time restraints or lack of people.

I don't like X.
I've learned from Project 6014, that somebody is going to hate something. You can't make everybody happy. Sorry.

Is this taking time away from Project 6014?
Not really. I'm just waiting until the storyline is a little more solid. I'm still dedicated to working on 6014.

Is this going to be one of those mods that never gets finished?
No. I never would have made an announcement if I hadn't believed I could get this done. I can do it all myself, but that would take years. How quickly this can be done depends on the team.

Edit: I set out and completed all the goals when I announced this project. (Hi-5!) However, as technology changes, I hope we can do the same with the HD project. So, it could theoretically never be 'done'. As long as enough people want it enough.

Can I help?
We could always use more programmers, 2D animators, and 3D artists. We really could use programmers. There's a lot of features modern games have (hello, mouse control?) that this game doesn't yet. This requires little art talent, and more programming talent.

I'll edit this post with new info when possible.

[dczanik]

Comm Screens status:
24 Comm pics.
15 "Finished" & animated: (CHMMR, Dynarri, Ilwrath, Kohr-Ah, Mycon, Orz, Pkunk, Slylandro Gas Bags, Slylandro Probe, Spathi, Utwig, Ur-Quan, Yehat, Shofixti, Vux)
2 Animation needs touching up (Slylandro Probe, Slylandro GasBags)
1 Art "Finished" (no animation) (Zot-Fot-Pik)
3 Almost finished (Hayes, Syreen, Thraddash)
3 not started yet (Druuge, Spathi (Safe Ones), Umgah)



Released comm pics:

1. Arilou:


2. CHMMR:


3. Commander Hayes (Soon).

4. Dynarri Talking Pet


5. Druuge (not yet, Possibly a modified version of this pic).


6. Ilwrath:


7. Kohr-Ah:


8. Melnorme (soon).

9. Mycon:


10. Orz:


11. Pkunk


12. Spathi - Fwiffo.


13. Spathi - Safe Ones (not yet).

14. Shofixiti (soon)

15. Slylandro Probe:


16. Slylandro Aliens.


17. Syreen (soon).

18. Thraddash (soon).

19. Umgah (not yet).

20. Utwig:


21. Ur-Quan (Kzer-Za):


22. Yehat:


23. Vux:


24. Zot-Fot-Pik:


**Edit: Added Mycon.
**Edited July 13,2011: Added the Pkunk
**Edited July 15,2011: Added Dynarri Talking Pet.
**Edited July 23,2011: Added Slylandro Probe.
**Edited July 23,2011: Updated Timetables.
**Edited August 5,2011: Added Slylandro gas bags
**Edited August 5,2011: Updated Comm Status.
**Edited August 12,2011: Added Orz
**Edited August 19,2011: Added Arilou
**Edited August 28,2011: Updated CHMMR pic.
**Edited April 20,2012: Updated timetables.

[dczanik]

Ships (Not to in-game scale):

Mycon Podship by Damon (dczanik):

mycon0.png (26.11 KiB) Viewed 43622 times

Pkunk Fury by Zenzmurfy:



Ur-Quan Dreadnaught by Zenzmurfy:





Yehat Terminator by Zenzmurfy:

glowy3.png (31.41 KiB) Viewed 43787 times

I'll leave it up to Zenzmurfy to share any more pics of his ships.

**Edited July 13, 2011: Added Pkunk Fury
**Edited July 18, 2011: Links to Zenzmurfy's Site.
**Edited July 22, 2011: Added Mycon Podship

[oldlaptop]

Yehat wing membrane is quite striking

[Death 999]

The density of surface widgets on the Ur-Quan feels too high to me. Also, the VUX insignia look 2D, and the Ilwrath is sort of… well, it looks like a nice picture of an Ilwrath instead of like an Ilwrath. Not a comm screen picture.

[Nuclear]

Yeah, I like the Ur-Quan Dreadnaught, but it looks like it's made of lego

[dczanik]

Death999. I'm assuming you mean the density of the Ur-Quan ship? Also, I don't get how my picture of an Ilwrath looks like a picture of an Ilwrath. I agree though, it looks off and I plan on making some changes to it. Same with the Vux. Truth is on the Vux, I just got tired of working on it and threw stuff like the medals on as quickly as possible. I'll fix that. You can blame my eagerness to show you guys what I've been working on.

As far as the Ur-Quan ship goes. (Lego? Ouch. Harsh) I'm willing to use the best looking Ur-Quan ship you can get me. Right now, the only real competition is Zenzmurfy's Dreadnaught and Dragon's dreadnaught. As far as I've seen, these are the best Ur-Quan ships in existence.

Dragon's Ship:


or Zenzmurfy's ship:


I personally like Zenzmurfy's ship better. There's nothing wrong with Dragon's ship, but it was designed for realtime 3D. Our stuff is pre-rendered 3D. So unless you can find me a better Dreadnaught model I'm sticking with Zenzmurfy's stuff. I plan on making 2D versions of the ships too for the diehards who want the classic 2D look. But that's over a year away. I'm just too busy with other stuff.

[Death 999]

Yeah, I meant the ship. It just looks too filigreed for a warship. The greebles stick out so far it looks like the ship has a beard.

If you're not done with the others I named, that explains it perfectly. No problem, then.

[Draxas]

I have to agree with D999 on the Dreadnought, I always preferred the smooth look to the "spiky bits everywhere" style that Zenzmurfy used. It's still a fantastic piece of art, but doesn't have quite the right look in my eyes (and the top-down view does evoke lego a little bit, especially on the warp pods and the rear engine).

[Dragon]

There's nothing wrong with Dragon's ship*, but it was designed for realtime 3D.

Yep, there must be like a million triangles in Zenzmurfy's whereas I have an entire scene budget of about a million triangles Also I'm assuming my ships will be viewed at a size of about 300x300 pixels (say 50 000 pixels of actual ship) so I can get away with +-3000 triangles a model.

The greebles stick out so far it looks like the ship has a beard.

Man, I can't unsee this now. Maybe they can be flattened a bit?

*Actually, at the moment, there is something wrong with my ship. It's a luminous iridescent purple because I've broken... something.