by MiTT3NZ » Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:42 pm
3DRipperX works fine with Shenmue II. The most difficult areas to do will be Guilin, certain sections of Kowloon (if you're after the interiors) and Beverly Hills Wharf. Honestly though, it's not the huge undertaking that people consider it, it's just tedious as fuck.
I'm gonna be doing a lot of ripping in January, so if you want I can hold off on Shenmue I and just jump into Shenmue II first. If you wanna split up the areas to make it more manageable, that'd be preferred. There's a save game collection floating about that'll make things easier.
I reckon the following will work:
- Two people take Aberdeen/Wan Chai exterior.
- One person takes Aberdeen/Wan Chai interior.
- Two people take Kowloon exterior.
- Two people take Kowloon interior.
- One person takes Guilin.
There are other things to take into consideration too though...
- What file tagging would you like to be performed? (e.g. Folder Name: Aberdeen > File Name: Pigeon Park Shot 03)
- Would you like sky boxes and/or character models deleting?
- Would you like the anchor/pivot adjusting to make for easier navigation?
- Would you like the meshes grouped in a more logical hierarchy? (e.g. buildings become one object to make it more manageable, as opposed to dealing with individual polys)
- Would you like scenes to be stretched/skewed into place? (I'm sure you know, but there's a fair amount of distortion which is usually caused by the perspective of the camera)
- Which file format would you prefer?
- Would you like .dds files converted to .png?
- Would you like textures applied to each mesh?
If all you want is the captures and the captures alone so you can do all the work yourself, then this will make it appear less painstaking for contributors and they may be more willing to help. However, if you'd like it to be a more collaborative effort where you don't have some fucking mammoth task on your hands, then it could potentially be completed much quicker, but fewer people will find it an attractive project to be a part of.
As I said, in January I'll do what I can, and I'll try optimising where I can too, as rips seem to be a lot more taxing than user-created objects (may be due to the ridiculous number of verts, gonna have to try doing a mass-welding) So, for example, for basic shapes that aren't a pain in the arse to map textures to, I'd be willing to replace the ripped mesh with an object I've created myself. The main structure/bricks and mortar of a building will become a cube, the floor would just be a set of planes, etc.
If you wanna talk about it in this topic, the Project forum, PM or Facebook just lemme know and we can work summat out.