SM64 Peach Castle except its the real deal (+poll to decide how to release)

[ArcadeStriker]

So I was working on this starting August for...no real good reason outside of wanting to know if something like porting actual geometry would be possible in SRB2 with the usage of vertex slopes. Equipped with nothing but gigantic boredom and morbid curiosity, the vertex slope assistant from an unofficial ZB build, and flat color textures included in the game, I basically...recreated SM64's Peach Castle exterior in SRB2. And by recreated, I do mean it.

The process was relatively straightforward: I grabbed a OBJ file of the outside and imported it into ZB with "Sloped Terrain" activated. On one hand, the import was mostly readable and there were objects with Z coordinates placed; which meant that I could use those to get the right proportions for vertex slope heights. On the other hand, you might have already guessed that trying to use the import itself for anything was...impossible: Imported in an obviously broken state, the only way to get something out of it was to take screenshots of it, use them as backgrounds in a new slate and redraw over that.

The Vertex Slope Assistant existence was something that made it 30% less painful as it allowed quick vertex slope placement, which meant less time consumption, and allowing me to mirror one side of work on the castle into the other side relatively painlessly. However, I still had to check many many times about the slope heights in the broken import to set those values in the new map. And if there's something that almost drove me insane, it has to be the castle itself.

With the amount of work I had done with the rest of the terrain that didn't involve FOFs, the castle itself was the biggest challenge possible: As I was using a almost if not 1:1 redraw of the original geometry, it was entirely possible to recreate the geometry with vertex slopes, and this would include anything that would need a FOF. However, having to figure out that many FOFs would have to be stacked AND sloped in the same sector, as well as getting everything lined up properly was a nightmare; just imagine what I had to do to get right the area right above the castle door where the Peach portrait would be. Another thing that was really tiresome was the two front spires, as I had to use around three FOFs per spire triangle: One for the red spire slope that was on the fof, and TWO for the slope that went into the castle wall below it.

Some things are hard to explain regarding that experience, but the best part is that you can easily see how much this paid off: from the structures matching up with the original, to the amount of triangles/slopes being made visible as I used alternating flat colors over the triangles so that it was more noticieable; and also inadvertently make it look like a sort of FX-esque landscape.

You may have noticed only a single thing missing at this point: The waterfall at the left of the castle.

...

I'm not doing that; not now at least or not until I get to either figure out how to do it properly (since the import plane in that area is messier than it should be), or do a simpler approximation of that part. But for now, I think I really am satisfied with the whole result of Peach Castle. I even added for fun a pipe at the beginning with springs (where you would spawn), simulating the very first entrance that you make in that game.

Oh, and of course, there was a small detail going on these days: This was "finished" around 1-2 weeks ago, but I wasn't even sure how to release it since its...just that. Its the exterior area of Peach Castle; the insides of the castle don't exist yet and I won't be working on that at least until I get to finish my OLDC entry, so...yeah. I was thinking if I should make it an emerald hunt map (so that at least you have a reason to roam on it in single player), a hangout map (so that you run around it because yes), or as some few had suggested me, a match map (just for the sake of it; the only thing is that I haven't ever made a match map before so I don't know a thing about object placements as I haven't played too many matches either).

And for that, there's the poll below (just in case my spaghetti wording ends up confusing you, first option is Hangout, second is Emerald Hunt, and third is Match)
https://www.strawpoll.me/20817550

And now, with not much else to say...

yahoo

 

[clairebun]

This is truly fascinating! I can empathise over the woes of sloped FOFs; I have to imagine the castle structure was quite an ordeal. It makes me wonder how UDMF might be able to streamline the process there; I do recall we had better tools for multitagging FOFs and drawing slopes on floors and ceiling, I just don't recall what the situation is for sloped FOFs.

I can see why you wouldn't want to replicate the waterfall, though I will say it's a bit awkward seeing the left-back side of the map suddenly end as it currently does. If anything, I would probably just slap together a few sectors with a sloped water block tagged to them, without worrying too much about accuracy to the source.

The open ended nature of this map's design suggests to me that it would be a good fit for the gametypes you mentioned. I could also see it working well for BattleMod's Control Point mode; though if you want to keep it vanilla friendly, just placing weapon ring panels and establishing "Match" as the type of level is enough for BattleMod to make the level CP compatible.

 

[CST1229]

This. Is. Amazing.

Now all that's left to do is rip the original textures, convert it all and paint the level with 'em.

Oh and you could do multiple gametypes at once with either multiple files for each gametype, or multiple maps corresponding to each gametype.

 

[TehPuertoRicanSpartan]

How did you do that?

 

[Tatsuru]

How did you do that?

OP explains how they did it in their post.

 

[ΩSmashCrafterΩ]

It kinda looks like something out of a superFX prototype.
Maybe a later release can have some textures either direct from the n64 or ds version, or new original textures to fit the SRB2 art style.

 

[TehPuertoRicanSpartan]

OP explains how they did it in their post.

Yeah, but when I import an OBJ, I got vertices and ACZ targets. How does this man import this map?

 

[Joki]

Yeah, but when I import an OBJ, I got vertices and ACZ targets. How does this man import this map?

If you read more of it, the import didn't just work. They had to redraw over the polygons because it didn't come out right. It wasn't as straitforward as "put model in thing yeah yeah yeah".

 

[ArcadeStriker]

That is true: I had to take screenshots from the import because the import itself produced nothing but broken sectors; and also, the reason why the "sloped terrain" option was important because the ACZ targets are supposed to be slope vertices...but aren't the right objects. While of course those can't really be used either directly due to a number of reasons (like not accounting for any kind of FOFs), their values can be used when placing the slope vertexes manually on the triangles so that the scale is accurate.

Oh, and on an update regarding this, since it turns out that a remake like this is allowed in the OLDC, you'll find this one as a MP submission in there :)