Phantasy Star IV HD

[xfixium]

Well, another week in the books. I have taken Rika about as far as I would like to for the time being. A lot of changes were made during the week. I converted most of the UI as to prepare for the use case that it would eventually be an editor. Not sure when that may happen, but at least there's some frame work done if that should happen. There are a bunch of things that have not been discovered or applied, that I would like to see get done. Mainly deciphering the palettes, some of the tile maps don't really jive up, and the map data, which seems to be truncated to some degree when I read it in. I'm aware of plane maps that can be different sizes and formats. For the time spent, I never quite figured it out. This data seems to use Kosinski compression, but at this point, it seems that maybe the decompression algorithm that I use, may not be reading all the data? Not entirely sure. My other concern is the way I currently have the static data defined. Basically these are values I have set up that I can't get autonomously read in by what exists in the ROM data, and there's A LOT of it. I may break it out to external json or xml files. Not crazy about that idea, but the enumerations I have set up may not be flexible enough.

All in all it was fun to discover things about one of my favorite games of all time. I remember when I saw the original Phantasy Star game for the Sega Master System advertised on TV (Yes, I'm that old) and it blew my mind. I never saw graphics like that, and I knew I had to have it. Unfortunately they didn't sell the game in my area for a long time. Back in those days, you had to wheel and deal in the streets with other kids to get "imported" goods. I remember finally trading for it, and running down the street back to my buddies house to play it, like we just won the lottery. I must say, getting down to the bytes with the ROM this past month has been a good primer, but this week, back to actual game dev <3.

I will be uploading Rika later today, I worked on it last night pretty late. I'll drop a link here at some point, and as always, thanks for viewing!
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_023.png

[xfixium]

The source for Rika has been uploaded to github, it can be found here (The binary is also in the repository):
https://github.com/xfixium/Rika

Alternate direct binary download:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/rika/Rika.zip

Just a heads up, the Maps portion is not usable at the moment. Me, playing around, left it in an unstable state. Everything else should be fine.

[xfixium]

For some reason not having the map data drawn up is still annoying me. Viewing the map data (Also verifying data through memory dumps using an emulator), I knew the way map tiles are processed is different from most other graphics, and I did read about tile chunks at some point, but didn't really understand how things were applied. However, today I found this on the net: https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/05 ... block.html and it really sheds some light on things. I never heard of PLCs (Although there is mention of them in PSIV's disassembly) till now. So, Ima take another crack at that map data. This is just me, being green, with the whole ROM hack scene. Once that is figured out, and pulled into Rika, I think I'll be satisfied. Honestly, I'm amazed by the amount of work anyone puts into reverse engineering ROM data.

[xfixium]

Weekly update, unfortunately I wound up getting sick during the week. I was looking into the map data one last time, but everything got derailed. I wound up taking today off to fully recover. This weekend will be more productive. Thanks for viewing!

[xfixium]

Howdy all! I know it has been sometime, but things got sorta crazy? It took a bit longer to recover than I had anticipated. I finally got into the swing of things last night. Although very minor progress. I basically did some work on an easy resource to get my feet wet again. It's a section of wall, I did some basic texture painting and added a normal map. I need to finish the bottom of it, correct some texture changes that I made prior, and we can call it finished.

Yas, this is pretty minor XD:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_024.png

Thanks for viewing, hopefully next week will have some goodies!

[xfixium]

Weekly update:
I've been slowly defining my pipeline when it comes to the environmental design of the game. Still not happy with certain things, but I'm getting there.
I've also started putting together more of the engine on the Unreal side. Making sure that I have an environment that will be similar to the Blender environment.
I've added a CSV export to Rika, I'll use that data to import into Unreal. Hopefully that all works out as I expect. I'll need to take some of the text columns and pull them into localization though.
Right now, it's just me learning new things. I want to get most of Piata up and running within the next month.
I would also like to add some additional effects, like tree leaf swaying, small sand storms blowing through, rolling cloud shadows etc.. etc..

Obligatory screen:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_025.png

[xfixium]

Weekly(ish) Update:
As I said last week, I wanted to focus on the resource pipeline, and I believe I have things where I want them, for now. I wasn't too happy with the results once I pushed resources to the actual game. The main problem was the inconsistencies in normal maps, and how they interacted in the 3d space. I still have much to learn in the ways of lighting, and setting a scene. I managed to redo one resource with the new techniques, and I like the overall quality better. I still need to experiment with one or two things to solidify things, but at least I like the direction things are going.

How many times can one man show off a wall part (WIP)?:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_026.png

[xfixium]

Bi-weekly(ish, lol) update:
I redid and finalized thee other wall parts, started doing designs for the ground tiles for Piata, I also updated my game engine a bit, and tested the models. It looks horrid atm because of me experimenting with lighting and post production coloring. I've learned a bunch of things these past two weeks modeling wise, and getting steadily better at things. I am on the verge of finishing the base Rika model that I haven't worked on for months. It all is starting to look good. I hope to have Rika's main suit completed next week, thanks for viewing!

Rika WIP, ground WIP, and walls
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_027.png
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_028.png
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_029.png

[xfixium]

Update:
Basically just modeling Rika still. I've tried implementing the reference image to the model, unfortunately some of the ideas didn't translate well to 3d. So a lot of editing and new ideas came about. Currently, I'm working on the carbon fiber and the leather armor. Once those are done, I'm moving on to Alys and Chaz.

Eventually I will change her ears, they don't fit very well, as I also wanted a base model for Nei as well. Mainly to create something for SketchFab. Didn't hit my goal to complete this, but maybe next week:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_030.png
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_031.png

Thanks for viewing.

[xfixium]

Update:
Nothing too exciting, rinse n repeat, but steps closer to finalization of Rika. I've tried my original design, and a couple new ones. They didn't work out too well in 3d space, but I eventually got something I like put together. The main reason it's taking so long is because of redesigning. I got a bunch yet to do, cape, feet, gloves, harness connect for shoulder and back, and finishing the hair. Then onto retopo, normal maps, and texturing.

WIP screens:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_032.png
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_033.png

Thanks for viewing.

[Milkeeway]

We are over in the fan art section if you need props just hollow us see our thread here

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4076

Rika by me @ https://www.3dcgx.com/img/fal.jpg

[xfixium]

Thanks for the offer! When I have this project at the demo level, I will definitely look into bringing more resources in. Rika is my fave character in the game, so I jumped the gun a little bit, just having fun. Like your work.

[xfixium]

Weekliy(ish) Update:
Again, nothing too exciting, just finishing off Rika, bit by bit. I may skip a few updates so not to bore people, until I have her completely done and imported into the game engine with shaders n wut not.

Just need to finish the back, choker, and hair:
http://pyxosoft.com/projects/psiv/screens/ps4_034.png

Thanks for viewing!

[Lightrayer]

It is my 3d model of Piata

[Lightrayer]

My new attempts at modeling in another program "Blender".
I am trying to first create the necessary components of the objects and then collect the maps as a constructor