Topic: Future of the Modding Community?

[shengoro86]

Hi all,

Over the past years a lot of us have been working hard to reverse engineer Shenmue and other software related to it.

After many many years of doing this, I personally have no clue what to do anymore on terms of shenmue hacking. Aside from my bike mod, which is all AI hijacking. Which I will probably never finish.

What do you guys think still need to be done?

As of this writing, I guess I am finished until Shenmue 3 comes out.


EDIT:
I dont mean fun little mods (IE character swaps, forklift hacks, etc.), I mean actual fundamental techniques (IE Save file region neutralization, clipping removal, etc.)

[GameRoomsRising]

I would say that if most of the modders feel the same way as you, the next step is to up the game and create a playable, stand alone, multiplayer mod that is separate from Shenmue 1 and 2. A Shenmue fighting game.

Imagine a fan made game where you can choose from any number of fighters; Ryo, Lan Di, Fuku-San, Ren, Dou Niu, Master Baihu, etc, and fight with them. At the very least there could be users of Hazuki style karate, and users of Tiger Swallow style. Why Tiger Swallow? The move set already exists in Shenmue, we have two known users of it in the Shenmue universe, and all it would take (as an uneducated guess) would be to pull the animations from the files and map them to the controller. And of course the work for the Hazuki style has already been done.

Imagine doing so in locations set across the Shenmue universe; the Hazuki Dojo, the top of the Yellow Head building, the park in the South Carmain Quarter, cliff side in Guilin, the Mad Angel's base, the parking lot in Dobuita, etc..

There could be a mode where you have to fight and survive each boss from the Shenmue universe in succession, no breaks, no forgiveness. Chai, Guishan, Chai, Terry, Greg, Rod, Chunyan, Master Baihu, Dou Niu. At the end of it, upon successful completion, perhaps you could unlock Lan Di for use as a fighter.

Would this mod be easy? Gods no! Would it be righteous? Hell yes. It'd take a lot to pull off, you'd have to learn a lot more about programming, but there are Dreamcast devs still out there who may be willing to help, or at least to teach. Yet, many of the assets exist, and the main work would be in coding. It could be released for emulators and/or as an .iso to be burned and played on the Dreamcast itself. Let's also not forget that the Dreamcast is internet capable, so someone with experience systems architecture/whatever may be able to set up a server for online play.

I'm not a fan of fighting games, but I'd play the hell out of a Shenmue one.

[shengoro86]

I would say that if most of the modders feel the same way as you, the next step is to up the game and create a playable, stand alone, multiplayer mod that is separate from Shenmue 1 and 2. A Shenmue fighting game.

Imagine a fan made game where you can choose from any number of fighters; Ryo, Lan Di, Fuku-San, Ren, Dou Niu, Master Baihu, etc, and fight with them. At the very least there could be users of Hazuki style karate, and users of Tiger Swallow style. Why Tiger Swallow? The move set already exists in Shenmue, we have two known users of it in the Shenmue universe, and all it would take (as an uneducated guess) would be to pull the animations from the files and map them to the controller. And of course the work for the Hazuki style has already been done.

Imagine doing so in locations set across the Shenmue universe; the Hazuki Dojo, the top of the Yellow Head building, the park in the South Carmain Quarter, cliff side in Guilin, the Mad Angel's base, the parking lot in Dobuita, etc..

There could be a mode where you have to fight and survive each boss from the Shenmue universe in succession, no breaks, no forgiveness. Chai, Guishan, Chai, Terry, Greg, Rod, Chunyan, Master Baihu, Dou Niu. At the end of it, upon successful completion, perhaps you could unlock Lan Di for use as a fighter.

Would this mod be easy? Gods no! Would it be righteous? Hell yes. It'd take a lot to pull off, you'd have to learn a lot more about programming, but there are Dreamcast devs still out there who may be willing to help, or at least to teach. Yet, many of the assets exist, and the main work would be in coding. It could be released for emulators and/or as an .iso to be burned and played on the Dreamcast itself. Let's also not forget that the Dreamcast is internet capable, so someone with experience systems architecture/whatever may be able to set up a server for online play.

I'm not a fan of fighting games, but I'd play the hell out of a Shenmue one.

Sadly I do not have the time or energy to work on this but it is a great idea!

Another one of our community members is already working on a Shenmue Fighting Game, which was announced on Shenmue500K via Facebook.

[GameRoomsRising]

Sadly I do not have the time or energy to work on this but it is a great idea!

Another one of our community members is already working on a Shenmue Fighting Game, which was announced on Shenmue500K via Facebook.

It definitely wouldn't be a one person job, but would take a sizable team to accomplish. I'll look into that fighting game in the making though.

[shengoro86]

Sadly I do not have the time or energy to work on this but it is a great idea!

Another one of our community members is already working on a Shenmue Fighting Game, which was announced on Shenmue500K via Facebook.

It definitely wouldn't be a one person job, but would take a sizable team to accomplish. I'll look into that fighting game in the making though.

yeah true. So far it is seeming to be pretty cool!

[Yokosuka]

Wait for Shenmue HD and ideas should pop out naturally I guess.

[Fenix]

Shenmue 3 will bring more ideas. Specially since you buy UE4 .

[shengoro86]

The ultimate goal would be to understand some interesting code snippets of Shenmue 1 & 2's SH-4 assembly. That would truly empower modding.

[Fenix]

The ultimate goal would be to understand some interesting code snippets of Shenmue 1 & 2's SH-4 assembly. That would truly empower modding.

Our main problem is the extractors/converters doesn't work correctly.

[shengoro86]

The ultimate goal would be to understand some interesting code snippets of Shenmue 1 & 2's SH-4 assembly. That would truly empower modding.

Our main problem is the extractors/converters doesn't work correctly.

yeah true, i am also diving intoi sh-4 in my free time but like you told me we need good debuggers which im lost on sadly.

For now, I am just focusing on some pretty intricate hex edits to fuck with the AI functions in NPCs. After that, either we crack SH-4 modding or we wait for Shenmue I suppose?

[ReeceKun]

I suppose realistically It would be to wait for Shenmue 3 to come out on PC hoping it contains all of the same game mechanics as Shenmue 1 & 2 and then focus Shenmue Modding on the Shenmue 3 engine and port all of the Dreamcast assets into it to recreate Shenmue in a PC environment BUT hopefully some game developer will realise this idea themselves and release Shenmue on a PC platform even if it isnt a HD update.

Thinking about Shenmue Dreamcast Engine modding really takes Dreaming to the next level, yes we can fuck with mapinfo code but thats really all we will ever be able to do. Making new areas, objects , dialogue, animations is just a far fetched fantasy .. Unless Yu released all the Dreamcast Asset tools which would be lovely but then we are still confined to a pretty obsolete game engine.

I really want to create a solid archive of 3D models but I just know that by the time its done some bastard will appear with a new model ripping program or they will just re-release shenmue on the PC theirby wasting my time for an 'environment' I love but a story I hate

[shengoro86]

I suppose realistically It would be to wait for Shenmue 3 to come out on PC hoping it contains all of the same game mechanics as Shenmue 1 & 2 and then focus Shenmue Modding on the Shenmue 3 engine and port all of the Dreamcast assets into it to recreate Shenmue in a PC environment BUT hopefully some game developer will realise this idea themselves and release Shenmue on a PC platform even if it isnt a HD update.

I agree. As for the vidual assets, we have already scripted a mass conversion for all PVRs to PNGs which can then be directly imported into UE4. As for the building and area models, not my field.

Thinking about Shenmue Dreamcast Engine modding really takes Dreaming to the next level, yes we can fuck with mapinfo code but thats really all we will ever be able to do. Making new areas, objects , dialogue, animations is just a far fetched fantasy .. Unless Yu released all the Dreamcast Asset tools which would be lovely but then we are still confined to a pretty obsolete game engine.

That would be pretty cool if we could do that. There have been advances in making custom doors and such. I've seen a youtube video of someone doing it but I do not recall the channel.

I really want to create a solid archive of 3D models but I just know that by the time its done some bastard will appear with a new model ripping program or they will just re-release shenmue on the PC theirby wasting my time for an 'environment' I love but a story I hate

Yeah true. I would wait it out before wasting time for now.