Hello
Yes, I'm working on this project alone at the moment
. Here the problem certainly would be the problem with the organization with couple of co-creators due to the large size of the project, analysis, different time zones, importing models from other contributors, communication etc. Although the help I have already received is great(thanks also to Drakan Discord Channel), especially when it comes to importing the original models (BuXXe's blender scripts or Heckfluff's tools) and other members that I will mention below. Here is also the issue of updating the project version of Unity Engine(so some of the previous assets are not working properly). Or in my case even changing the IDE because MonoDevelop it is no longer supported by Unity Engine. So I changed to Visual Studio Code which I personally recommend, it starts very quickly in opposite to Visual Studio Community software.
Fortunately, a lot of people are willing to help me. One example of help is the help of the Mechanist eg transcripts from OOTF cutscenes or Zalasus with extracted rrc data. Or even Duncan and Alchemist in the organization of the project. Duncan mentioned setting up different action plans(plan A, plan B etc.).Or Alchemist was more based on completing the project as soon as possible, setting a deadline and then doing something like Drakan-Like-Game. However, one of my ideas is to set up couple deadlines: eg to finish the draft menu at the end of December, to complete Ruined Village for next 2 months, to complete the Wartok Raid cutscene by the end of the week, etc. The advantage of this solution is faster completion of various features.
For OpenOOTF main goal for now is to make SplashScreen-> Intro> MainMenu (Options, Credits, NewGame, LoadGame) -> WartokRaidCutscene-> RuinedVillage-> InnerTavern-> Heron's Tomb-> Arokh's Lair.
In fulltech demo, players will be able to load any other level: Islands, Grimstone mines, Wartok Canyons or Volcano for exploration purposes. Certainly,the exploration itself can be interesting even without NPCs, eg solving numerous puzzles, labyrinths as they are in Drakan.
The last progress with OpenOOTF has to do with completed couples cutscenes. At the beginning I did the easiest ones. So I first made The Farmer conversation with Rynn, next Awakening of The Arokh then the Wartok Raid. Or cutscene with flying Arokh along with Rynn to Rift World. (In the meantime, an improved version of the Arokh's flying animation appeared, with the addition of a transform position keyframe and not only the rotation of wings or legs, for making dragonflying more realistic). I used Unity Timeline for these cutscenes.
As for the models, they are original, that's why I called OpenOOTF as mod. UlrichGenova made Wartok model, but it has high resolution textures that cannot be easily imported to Unity. Anyways, he made great work.
Currently the player controller is changing, the question is whether the player movement will be scripted or root motion based, but rather it will be scripted. In the case of root motion, it would involve more work on the animations. I tried to make humanoid avatars with existing Drakan models and then put on animations from other asset but of course the problem occurred with the chaos of such animations. For me it is much easier to make a generic, these animations are easily edited in a blender.(it's better to do animations in own way
)
My idea for Arokh's controller is to make it like "spaceship controller"
. But these are ideas that I will have to implement after Ruined Village and Arokh's Lair will be fully finished .Anyways, the Arokh controller is not a goal for this moment.
One of good move was to place on ModDB OpenOOTF in order to reach a larger audience and it is more visible here as a mod. I strongly recommend authors of other projects to upload their works for example: OpenDrakan or Community Patch.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/openootf-a-drakan-remake
Of course recent screenshots. Thanks to Saad Khawaja asset (Instant screenshot) I took couple of highres screenshots
Heron's Tomb swing blades(Pendulum) With scripted motions. I'll show you on next gameplay video
Original hallway of Heron's Tomb, unfortunately, the way of fitting is the same as in the Riot Engine, exactly I have to put them to be matched correctly.
Heron's Tomb. I have idea to make stairs motion in animation event of grabbing Heron's Crystal that triggers these stairs.
I recreated Book of The Legends timeline. I added normal maps on these paintings to make them more realistic and masking low resolution of these textures.
I've spent a lot of time in order to making animations for Rynn,Arokh and NPCs such as Wartoks(Trolls, Orcs and even Scavenger)
In this case it's kinda silly, because OpenOOTF doesn't even (directly) use any of the assets from the Drakan data files, but there you go.
You're right.Even exported models and sounds are modified in some way. My view: OpenDrakan or Annivesary works similarly. The point is that
recreated engine(so another engine?) imports Drakan content. OpenOOTF(another engine imports changed Drakan content)
All that looks pretty good so far, very promising.
I was thinking about doing a Drakan remake with Unity as well, which is why I found this thread. So, is this supposed to stay a one-man-show? I could help, mainly with scripting.
Drakan is abandonware, so shouldn't the assets and name be free to use, as long as it's non-commercially?
Thank you
Here is strangely a bit, just as Mechanist said, Drakan franchise still belongs to Sony, it seems to me that it all comes only to the TAG. Although many mods and different types of fan art content have already been created and they are still on the internet. Even Barry Leitch's soundcloud channel has Drakan OST(Drakan content) uploaded.