Anthus
04-20-2011, 12:19 AM
I have taken it upon myself to try and remake the Legend of Zelda in 3D. In a perfect world, it would be playable someday, but this is just probably not a real possibility. For now, I am just remaking the game's dungeons, items, and overworld in 3D using Google Sketch-Up. It's pretty fun, mostly, and I think it definitely looks cool. At first, I was just using NES tiles as textures, but given that this is 2011, I decided to use some decent higher resolution textures while keeping the style, and color like the NES original.
I am not doing enemies, and characters yet, and I probably won't even touch that stuff until I learn to animate things in SU. When I do get to that point, I will be using the NES booklet artwork, as well as concept drawings from the game to create the most faithful replicas of Link's 1986 enemies. On that note, the Link model seen here is from MM, with some recolorations on my part, to make him look kinda NESish.
As of now, I have Level one completely remodeled in 3D, including objects. I have not added any doors beyond all the open passages. There are two reasons: One, the door models are not done yet, and two, I'm kind of dreading doing that. I will likely add all the locked, and shuttered doors later on. All doors in the dungeons now are just open passage ways. I will probably be using a 2D texture for bombable doors, since editing each open bombed door into the wall's geometry is just not something I can do at this stage in the game (without nightmares for weeks thereafter). This was partly due to bad planning, but whatever, It will still look good. Level 2 is done, in a basic form. All the rooms are laid out, but no objects have been added yet. I have done some other random item models here and there (which can be seen, and downloaded in my sig). I have not done hardly any overworld stuff. I have been working on the mountains which will be used throughout Hyrule, but I still haven't decided on what exactly I'd like them to look like, while keeping it true to the original game.
A little bit about how I'm doing this:
For the dungeons, I laid out a template of 7 by 12 squares which would be used to keep the scale. Walls were added, and several different room models were made, and edited to have every possible (open only) door combination. there are 16 combinations in all, and therefore, 16 different room models which can be imported, and assembled to create any room/ door combination. These are then imported, and assembled as needed into a new SU file which then becomes the dungeon. Objects like blocks, statues, and corner traps are also added in this way. Doorways are then stretched to connect the rooms. When the time comes, door models will be added for the shutters, and locked doors. As I said above, bomb-able doors will use a texture as opposed to a real opening. Items like keys, the map, and compass will also be placed in the dungeons.
For the overworld, I will use a similar approach of basing the screens off of a grid of squares (11x16 for the overworld screens). Mountain sides, and trees will be added, and water, and other exciting things will come in later. I pretty much build things as I do in ZC: Rough outlines, then detailing, detailing, done.
All in all, it is quite ambitious, but it is a fun time filler.
Here's some screens. Some of these were posted in another thread, but these ones here are at the full resolution.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7296/3dzcconcept1.th.png (http://img225.imageshack.us/i/3dzcconcept1.png/)
This is a screen showing how objects are added. I said something in the other thread about this being cool for a conceptual "ZC3D".
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img846.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
I know there is no lava in this room in the original, this was just testing out the lava textures. There is a transparent texture over a darker "lava" texture.
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
Another angle.
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img718.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
How Link might look in the dungeon. Also, this model was used to keep things in scale. When zoomed out, as seen in a later shot, Link stands on about one tile, making him consistent with the NES game.
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img837.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
Again, another angle.
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2810/linkwithrupees2.th.png (http://img855.imageshack.us/i/linkwithrupees2.png/)
This shot still uses the NES textures. See some rupees there.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1516/linkwithrupees3.th.png (http://img192.imageshack.us/i/linkwithrupees3.png/)
Top-down view.
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7866/linkwithrupees.th.png (http://img534.imageshack.us/i/linkwithrupees.png/)
More rupees. there's 376 in all.
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/5494/linkwithtriforce.th.png (http://img585.imageshack.us/i/linkwithtriforce.png/)
That Triforce was the first 'item' model I made. I will probably not be using it though, as it is too thin.
I might make the dungeon models downloadable, but I haven't decided yet.. I want people to be able to see this, but there is really no way to protect your work, and not have it stolen, or used by someone else in the SU world :/
I did not make the textures. They were collected from Google searches of "seamless rock/ tile". I will start keeping a list of the texture sources, for credit purposes.
I am not doing enemies, and characters yet, and I probably won't even touch that stuff until I learn to animate things in SU. When I do get to that point, I will be using the NES booklet artwork, as well as concept drawings from the game to create the most faithful replicas of Link's 1986 enemies. On that note, the Link model seen here is from MM, with some recolorations on my part, to make him look kinda NESish.
As of now, I have Level one completely remodeled in 3D, including objects. I have not added any doors beyond all the open passages. There are two reasons: One, the door models are not done yet, and two, I'm kind of dreading doing that. I will likely add all the locked, and shuttered doors later on. All doors in the dungeons now are just open passage ways. I will probably be using a 2D texture for bombable doors, since editing each open bombed door into the wall's geometry is just not something I can do at this stage in the game (without nightmares for weeks thereafter). This was partly due to bad planning, but whatever, It will still look good. Level 2 is done, in a basic form. All the rooms are laid out, but no objects have been added yet. I have done some other random item models here and there (which can be seen, and downloaded in my sig). I have not done hardly any overworld stuff. I have been working on the mountains which will be used throughout Hyrule, but I still haven't decided on what exactly I'd like them to look like, while keeping it true to the original game.
A little bit about how I'm doing this:
For the dungeons, I laid out a template of 7 by 12 squares which would be used to keep the scale. Walls were added, and several different room models were made, and edited to have every possible (open only) door combination. there are 16 combinations in all, and therefore, 16 different room models which can be imported, and assembled to create any room/ door combination. These are then imported, and assembled as needed into a new SU file which then becomes the dungeon. Objects like blocks, statues, and corner traps are also added in this way. Doorways are then stretched to connect the rooms. When the time comes, door models will be added for the shutters, and locked doors. As I said above, bomb-able doors will use a texture as opposed to a real opening. Items like keys, the map, and compass will also be placed in the dungeons.
For the overworld, I will use a similar approach of basing the screens off of a grid of squares (11x16 for the overworld screens). Mountain sides, and trees will be added, and water, and other exciting things will come in later. I pretty much build things as I do in ZC: Rough outlines, then detailing, detailing, done.
All in all, it is quite ambitious, but it is a fun time filler.
Here's some screens. Some of these were posted in another thread, but these ones here are at the full resolution.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/7296/3dzcconcept1.th.png (http://img225.imageshack.us/i/3dzcconcept1.png/)
This is a screen showing how objects are added. I said something in the other thread about this being cool for a conceptual "ZC3D".
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img846.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
I know there is no lava in this room in the original, this was just testing out the lava textures. There is a transparent texture over a darker "lava" texture.
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
Another angle.
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img718.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
How Link might look in the dungeon. Also, this model was used to keep things in scale. When zoomed out, as seen in a later shot, Link stands on about one tile, making him consistent with the NES game.
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9561/level1withintobjnewtext.th.png (http://img837.imageshack.us/i/level1withintobjnewtext.png/)
Again, another angle.
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2810/linkwithrupees2.th.png (http://img855.imageshack.us/i/linkwithrupees2.png/)
This shot still uses the NES textures. See some rupees there.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1516/linkwithrupees3.th.png (http://img192.imageshack.us/i/linkwithrupees3.png/)
Top-down view.
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7866/linkwithrupees.th.png (http://img534.imageshack.us/i/linkwithrupees.png/)
More rupees. there's 376 in all.
http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/5494/linkwithtriforce.th.png (http://img585.imageshack.us/i/linkwithtriforce.png/)
That Triforce was the first 'item' model I made. I will probably not be using it though, as it is too thin.
I might make the dungeon models downloadable, but I haven't decided yet.. I want people to be able to see this, but there is really no way to protect your work, and not have it stolen, or used by someone else in the SU world :/
I did not make the textures. They were collected from Google searches of "seamless rock/ tile". I will start keeping a list of the texture sources, for credit purposes.