⋅ Note 1 is titled "MVN Development" with some notes underneath. One looks like it might say "fly". Aha! That makes sense. MVN Studio is the name of the software used to develop with Xsens, the 3D motion tracking technology being used in Shenmue III.
⋅ Note 2: looks like business contact details, having a phone number, the name of a shop, name of the contact and an email address.
⋅ Note 3: is a single word with the number 1 after it. Er... I hope it's not a password as that would be bad security practice! (I won't give it here just in case).

Here's my interpretation:

Note 1: First line - "MVNのドキュメント化" = MVN documentation?
Note 2: The name of the shop - " ハウスコム五反田店 " which is a real estate agent
Note 3: I don't remember seeing any PC-related password in ひらがな. It could be his personal shopping memo, when the 2nd note is apparently personal. " すだち " improves the taste of some Japanese dishes. ;-)

Hey, guess what? My sister came over this morning and I finally had a chance to show her the game. We actually almost made it back to where I was before, and I even found a couple of secrets I had missed before! I experimented a lot more with the zoom feature to investigate objects in my house, and I am amazed by the amount of detail in this game, especially when it seems superfluous. I found I was able to rummage through all of my desk drawers and cabinets, and found a cassette player, an additional tape sitting on my desk that I had missed before, and a photo of Ryo and his friends. I also found lots of spare sets of clothing that I will most likely never change into. :P

I also found a Sega Saturn under the TV, but I couldn't get Ryo to play it, or even turn on the TV. :sad:

This time, I fed the kitten the fish, and got some additional dialog with Megumi. I also figured out how to name the kitten. My sister and I finally decided on Mimi, although I did jokingly recommend Sasuke, just to tease my sister with her disdain for Naruto.

I bought a soda, mostly to show my sister all the things you can do in this game, and wouldn't you know it, I got another winning can to make up for the one I lost when I deleted my save! Am I just lucky? Or is it because I tried to pick the same soda I did the first time? In any case, I should try booting up the Passport Disc next time I play and see what I won.

In one game day, I managed to make it back up through talking to Yamagishi-san. Next time, I will most likely get to new parts of the game, and I will definitely let all of you know what happens! I got permission from my sister to play without her as long as I show her the more interesting or exciting parts. Just to be clear, she liked the game and appreciated its "realistic fiction" vibe, but she doesn't have much free time (19 credit hours in one semester!? I would die within a week!), so playing the whole game with her doesn't make sense logistically.

In any case, that's all for today. See you next time, when I will most likely tread some new ground!

I've just finished a translation of an article from the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine back in March 2000, in which they announced their own "Grand Prix" awards for various Dreamcast software categories. This was a time when Shenmue had recently been released to wide acclaim.

Shenmue scooped the trophy for Best Title (out of all software released for the Dreamcast until that time) and there is an award acceptance interview with Yu Suzuki and Keiji Okayasu.

http://i.imgur.com/uacOBTCl.png

Here's a link to the blog post:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/09/shenmue-wins-best-dreamcast-title.html

One comment from Keiji Okayasu that I thought was quite revealing was when he says he thinks Shenmue II development will go "more smoothly than the previous game", hinting at the magnitude of effort and management complexity involved with getting the first Shenmue out the door.

Shenmue featured in several other awards also, so I'll translate these further parts in the future.

Maybe the idea is that Ryo has to work his way down to a particular carriage in order to find an exit hatch in the ceiling, use that to climb on top of the train, and at some point after doing so, this happens:

http://shenmuedojo.net/images/Projectberkley/berkley20.jpg
Could there be a person of interest in a guarded carriage, and the only way Ryo is able to make contact with them is by infiltrating in this way?

Reminds me of Broken Sword :D
I was watching the snippet of train video from Project Berkley again, and noticed something I hadn't before.

To me it looks as if Ryo is falling facing upwards (may have been pushed?) towards the speeding train from somewhere at the side. He just has time to twist around to grab on to part of the carriage with a single hand, clinging on for dear life as his legs are swept behind him.

Here is the sequence, slowed down:
http://i.imgur.com/zL9Q1ed.gif

The second translated part of the Dreamcast magazine article awards from March 2000 is now up.

Shenmue also claimed first place in the award for Best Script ("Best Scenario" in Japanese).

http://i.imgur.com/9h0a0Agm.jpg http://i.imgur.com/UNLKWzpm.jpg

It has an interview with Yu Suzuki and Keiji Okayasu.

The common theme that stands out from their comments is how much in flux the script for the game was. One part that particularly stood out for me is the reference to the decision announced at the March 1999 Tokyo Game Show, to release the game in several parts with the first part (Chapter One) all taking place in Yokosuka. It has been hinted at before, but working on Shenmue was clearly a pretty draining experience for the whole development team.

Keiji Okayasu: "It was a real ordeal! Figuring out how to adjust the script, and how to build the excitement up to form Chapter One, set within Yokosuka".

Blog post here:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/09/dorimaga-awards-part-2-best-script.html

I don't know if this has been discovered before, but I found a way to move some stuff and people around in Shenmue.

I still don't completely understand how everything works but things like these can be achieved by editing RAM:
http://i.imgur.com/HiGuMbf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qc5k1XT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/drG7Oze.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/39XPQKx.jpg

Not everything and everyone can be moved though , like buildings and etc. I will post how to do it when I get my thoughts together. Maybe it could be useful for mods?

This can be achieved by editing certain values in RAM .
To summarize:
Search for string CEWP
Higlight "P" in CEWP and add next addresses:
+7 - position1
+B - postion2(how high object is)
+F - position3
+16 - rotation1
+19 - rotation2

Sometimes you'll see ID's like AKIR or TAXI that can help you to identify who is who or what is what, sometimes you'll just have to guess , some addressees doesn't work at all.
It's a little difficult to explain so I made a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmA99IicD4c
In Dobuita additionally to "CEWP" there is "D000" for people and transport, works the same way as "CEWP" with difference that these seems to be a spawn points coordinates i.e point at which objects will appear when Ryo approaches them. Also I have found that there's almost no Id's to work with, so you'll just have to guess which is which..
addressees are :
+17 - position1
+1F - position2
+41 - rotation
It work best with characters standing still like Tom or Nozomi..
In addition to all that, if you change all D000 to JD00 you can move all characters from Dobuita to Sakuragaoka, video will explain it all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53qqYL4kI4
There's still things to be figured out, but for starting point this will do, i think :-s

As an example I made this Cheat Engine table with some objects for Sakuragaoka https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ogms49bis6oesl/Sakuragaoka.CT?dl=0
This one should work for PAL Shenmue 1 disc 1

UPDATE!

We are now on:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/shenmue-am2-podcast/id1166752613?mt=2

YouTube: youtube.com/shenmueam2podcast

Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?gclid=CjwKEAjwutXIBRDV7-SDvdiNsUoSJACIlTqlcst-kyZ6QgquAwac-meEfXOJttFYJ5sEPuuVi57LqxoCmz7w_wcB&dclid=CJCmx4yj6tMCFUW1swodpJMOqg#/ps/Ifqeivg4bovpuc6wdg7v7wadrxq

Some of the detail was lost, so it's not quite as nice looking, but if it's any use to you I was able to convert the picture into vectors and scale it up to a higher resolution:

I'm just gonna quote myself this time.

BlueMue wrote:Iwao is voiced by Hiroshi Fujioka. In other words, Ryo's father is none other than Segata Sanshiro.
If there's one guy that's able to have a Saturn in 86, it's gotta be him. I keep bringing this up, do I?

Category "Most Wanted Game".

If you have a moment, you can cast your vote here:
http://www.gamesradar.com/goldenjoystickawards/

Shenmue is not just entertaining (that is, as a new kind of interactive digital/virtual entertainment) ,
it's also soul-fulfilling ( sapienti sat ) .

And some thoughts as an answer to closed-minded gaming-journalists and the vast majority of a certain type of gamers:
Some journalists criticize Shenmue by saying that it doesn't have a lot to
offer in gaming terms, and that they could perform the same activities in real
life. But that's exactly the point. To live (almost) a second life, different to
your own, while being immersed in a lifelike/believable world. To experience
it viscerally, with a gut feeling that you are organically one with what is being
shown on the screen. Yu Suzuki and AM2 created it based on standards of
the real world, and not as a video game. Players who prefer and are used to
'proven', traditional ways of gaming entertainment, of course, will disdain it.
Most of them come with a closed mind on what a video game should and
could be. Like there is a certain recipe that needs to be followed in order to
provide an accepted interactive entertaining experience. Their standards are
like a round hole and Shenmue is like a square peg. The easiest solution: to
mock it and its appreciators (as fanboys, lunatics, etc). The Shenmue series
is a new kind of entertainment. Almost two decades later, the vast majority
of players can't get why it is beloved, or, they do, but they can't stomach this
fact. They can't get that a game... is not like a game, and that, despite that,
people are still enchanted/entranced by it. At the end of the day, what makes
it seem empty for a lot of gamers is what makes it a unique, rich, natural,
and personally soul-fulfilling experience for others (even non-gamers).

http://i.imgur.com/ygk3Vvx.png
I do worry about how Shenmue III will be received critically. [...] Gaming journalism in this day and age is a complete and utter shit-show; not to mention the fact that some journalists are probably itching to give Shenmue III a bashing simply because of what it is. If the game turns out to be shit, it deserves fair criticism to the fullest extent, but that's the kicker: just because a critic might curse the game 'til they're blue in the face, does that mean it's an objectively bad game or do they simply not 'get' it? Shenmue is up there with the likes of Deadly Premonition as a game that people either love or hate - there's hardly any middle ground whatsoever - not because either are bad games, but because they transcend the very notion of objectivity.

Ride to Hell: Retribution is objectively bad, whereas Super Meat Boy , for example, is objectively good. Games like Shenmue and Deadly Premonition , however, simply can't be categorised in this way because they are entirely subjective - though not without obvious flaws - and handing the reigns over to a critic when something is 100% subjective is a very dangerous thing to do because it encourages bias and unnecessary personal opinion to float to the surface; instead of "This is [...]," it becomes "I think [...]."

Regardless, as long as we, the fans, enjoy it, and it makes a profit, thus allowing the series to continue on, critics can say whatever the fuck they want. It doesn't matter either way :)
There is confusion, everywhere where gaming is concerned, between objectivity and subjectivity. A gaming journalist's/critic's objective job is to objectively present to whom a game is addressed and then to objectively analyze if/why it achieves its ambition. For example, Shenmue as a new kind of entertainment, is addressed to players who enjoy an immersive, natural/lifelike/believable/living/breathing/based-on-real-standards, pro-social and story-dependent world, and it achieves its ambition for such and such a reason.

However, their objective job is not to share their opinion, and, thus, their subjective view and personal aesthetic judgement, on why they loved/liked or hated/disliked a game. Of course, some journalists/critics publicize their articles under the label "opinion" (but, sometimes, some of them abuse this, to present, at the end, an ode or a condemnation, to influence the public opinion through a website which gets a lot of traffic, or as a clickbait to get a lot of traffic).

Personally, I believe, Shenmue III will have the same fate as its predecessors. The vast majority of critics will try to find in Shenmue III something that isn't there and was never meant to be in there. They will criticize it based on the traditional standards (as I mentioned in my previous post) , and not based on the new/different standards of its unique/individual genre. [And the same applies to other games, too, which have a bizarre, capricious and/or idiosyncratic style (compared to the ones which follow the orthodox styles).]
Very well said, man. Even the biggest criticism the first Shenmue most often receives, the pacing, is not an objective criticism, because it fits with the aspect of being grounded to reality; some players will hate having to wait around, whereas others (myself included) love the fact they're able to kill time and explore the world, train moves, play arcade games, converse with the locals, or whatever else until the next event. Therefore, that's a subjective criticism that does not represent the overall quality of the game, and using personal opinion to dictate to others what they didn't like about something in the game, as opposed to being objective about it, is extremely poor practice. But hey, that's games journalism for you.

What are the truly objective criticisms of the game? The English voice acting? Yeah, it's poor (many of us, as fans, love it because it's charming and humorous for all the wrong reasons, but it's undeniably poor voice acting). Other than that, Shenmue is pretty much flawless besides personal opinion which will differ from person to person. Shenmue II is a vast improvement over the first, and, much like the first, many of the criticisms are subjective: the Ghost Hall planks, Freeze QTEs, first-person Free Battles, QTE crate transportation, etc. The objective criticism? The voice acting, again. (Some would argue the stupid elevator system is objectively terrible, but you have to consider the decaying, chaotic nature of Kowloon at the time, so perhaps that was what they were trying to represent?)

As you said, critics will look for every nook and cranny to rip apart, and if they can't find one, they'll create them, but because of exactly the the kind of game Shenmue is, and the genre within which it fits, they may as well be criticising a basketball game for not using footballs.

I've just finished translating a new video interview with Yu Suzuki. It covers his time at Sega and some of his arcade hits (Out Run, Hang-On, Space Harrier, After Burner).



The full interview is here.

Update!

http://i.imgur.com/p8DEnKD.gif
Higher quality gfycat link


As of today, I am totally finished with the recording workload for the project. With just over 2 months left, I should have plenty of time to get the editing done and finalize the movie before December 3rd.

Why December 3rd?

Now that I have sufficient bandwidth, I plan on doing a live premiere of Shenmue II: The Movie that day in order to help promote Shenmue III and the #SaveShenmueHD campaign. To keep it "timezone neutral," the screening likely start in the early afternoon for those of us in the US. The movie will be uploaded to YouTube some time afterward, probably close to Christmas like I said in the trailer.

With Ziming's permission, I will be streaming the event on the Dojo Twitch channel .

I hope to see some of y'all there!

In regards to Lan Di being labelled as the leader of the Chi You Men in the first game, I agree it was probably a translation error, and what they meant was he is a leader within the Chi You Men
Yes, the original Japanese wording bears this out. Here's a comparison with what Master Chen says in Japanese:

Official in-game translation: "An organization called Chi You Men, its leader goes by that name."
vs
Direct translation from Japanese: "I heard there's a man going by that name among the leaders of an organization called Chi You Men."

In Japanese the word "kanbu" (幹部) is used, which indicates a leadership group i.e. more than just a single person.

Today (1st October) I want along to a single-day event in Yokohama for Unreal Engine put on by Epic Games, with the venue being Pacifico Yokohama, the same conference center where Yu Suzuki held the Shenmue Premiere so many years ago.

A number of talks on developing with Unreal were held through-out the day by companies such as Capcom and Square Enix, as well as exhibition booths and even a stall selling Unreal stickers and other merchandise.

But the main reason I was there was for to get my hands on this Shenmue leaflet:

http://i.imgur.com/PxVuekYm.jpg

Positions being advertised:
http://i.imgur.com/YVGIAhal.png

And I'm thinking this looks like a new image...? (Or is it recycled?)

http://i.imgur.com/P8BB4Jz.jpg

I've put up a translation of the leaflet on my blog:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/10/shenmue-dev-team-expanding-leaflet.html

They are back...

Who knew! Found this Virtua Fighter animation of Akira's victory pose hidden away inside What's Shenmue.

Blog post: http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/1 ... irtua.html

I've written about what that famous quirky phrase "Especially since you bought merchandise" originally says in the Japanese version of Shenmue, and why it ended up as it did through the process of translating into English.

Read my in-depth analysis here: :)
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/10/especially-since-you-bought-merchandise.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuI0kZ8yybA

Just read this article about some of the nice little touches in shenmue, pretty interesting

http://devdocuments.com/index.php/2016/ ... n-realism/

Mathewmatosis and other game criticy types never really mention shenmue so it's kind of interesting to see it get some design analysis.

The little shrine located near Ryo's home in Yamanose is a remarkably accurate representation of a typical "Inari" shrine found widely throughout Japan. I've made an image comparison of its features vs some actual shrines in the Yokosuka area I've come across when wandering around the area.

Full set of images in the blog post:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/10/shenmue-realism-yamanose-shrine.html

http://i.imgur.com/lG2QtUEm.png http://i.imgur.com/JxMT6Rtm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2IxMocLm.png http://i.imgur.com/QInuD2Lm.png
http://i.imgur.com/1eXFTTPl.jpg

Well...last night I played some more. After learning Pit Blow again, and getting the soccer ball QTE right this time, I went to Abe Store to redeem my winning soda can...and didn't win anything. Feeling frustrated, I decided to buy one soda, just in case I might win again, and against all odds, I got ANOTHER winning can! I then proceeded to not win anything again. :mad:

I went down to Dobuita to do some investigating, but I went a different way than usual and ended up getting lost in an unfamiliar part of town. However, this ended up leading me to a place I had heard great things about...You Arcade! I played Hang-On (for the first time ever, actually) and made it through the first checkpoint, I got to Level 2 on Space Harrier, and I discovered that I have a talent for QTE Title, getting the high score! \:D/

However, by that time, it was already the middle of the afternoon. The day had whizzed by without me noticing. As I tried to get back to where I was, day turned into night, and this time around, Tom didn't seem to know about the black car! I had to find another lead, and someone kindly mentioned that the Hamburger restaurant owner knew something. Talking to him revealed that Nozomi had seen the car. By that time, though, it was already almost 8 PM, so I headed home for the night.

It wasn't a very productive day, but I don't care too much. I had so much fun at the arcade that it didn't really matter. I'll talk with Nozomi in the morning and get back on track then.


In other news, I finally found and purchased a manual for my copy of Shenmue, so with the game migrated over to the new 4-disc CD case I got previously, the game almost looks brand new, or at least well taken care of.

Amazing new Shenmue video from the very talented "Dreamcaster's Tube"!

Japanese site Famitsu.com today published a new interview with Yu Suzuki, in commemoration of the release of the recent Powerdrift 3D on the Nintendo 3DS, centered mainly around various arcade games he worked on at his time with Sega.

http://i.imgur.com/a2DJnVQ.jpg

The good news for Shenmue fans is that the interview contains mention of Shenmue 3 in a few places, including some direct comments by Yu Suzuki.

I've extracted and translated the relevant parts here:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2016/11/yu-suzuki-comments-on-shenmue-3-nov-2.html

My favorite part is where he states that his ideal graphical vision, going back to the early arcade days, has never changed - and he gives a Shenmue 3 image as an example of that ideal.

EDIT, SORRY I posted by accident the post is still under construction.

HI!

Since it seems those HD remaster we are waiting for will never come to fruiction, I was wondering, what we could do to improve even further the games ( appart for making them widescreen :))

First thing that came to my mind is, well a simple HD remaster would feature some kind of improved lighting, and some "modern" tecniques such as Screen Space ambient occlussion or depth of field, someting that happened to Code Veronica HD.

So I first knew about reshade not so long ago, it is a PC tool that allows you to inject some sort of cool post proccesing effects to any game, the thing is it needs acces to the z buffer in order to inject the most advanced effects, such as the before mentioned SSAO and Depth of field, and whenever I read about it everyone would tell me that the Dreamcast does not have a z buffer nor any Dreamcast emulator. so it was impossible.... well... It turns out they were mistaken.

Both Demul and NulldC have z-buffer and Reshade can actually make use of it to inject advanced postprocessing effects.


You will need Reshade (I use Mediator for convenience)
Demul 5.8.2
http://demul.emulation64.com/
or this specific version of NullDC
http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=46995
And Reshade
https://reshade.me/

So set up everything.
In demul you should select the directx 10 plugin in order to make it work.
In nullDC you should set the z-buffer option to D2468 mode 2 (lower precision) otherwise Reshade will not have access to the z-buffer.

Once you have everything in place just add the emulator to Reshade and tweak anything you want at your will.

The most impressive effect you can actually add to the game is SSAO, you have different options HBO, SGI SSAO etc, it uses the depth buffer to determine objects that are close to each other and makes them project a soft shadow, it gives depth to the game and personally it is pretty impressive,
Basically it does this.

http://i.imgur.com/Ox9krGg.jpg

Some comparissons with the effect turned on and off, notice how closer objects cast soft shadows to each other.

http://i.imgur.com/lY3bk9A.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/CS1jTtY.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QleNjyi.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mj6rKRk.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/oY0vjM9.jpg

You can also add Bloom, HDR, Lens flare and so on so lights will look that are actually emiting light.

http://i.imgur.com/t5j19kq.png

http://i.imgur.com/eYiSdqQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XS6DKb2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kZRS4ER.jpg

[img]http://i.imgur.com/TTBOIKK.jpg[img]

http://i.imgur.com/bXrSgQF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xbIKGR4.jpg

HDR lighting

http://i.imgur.com/DODN68F.png

http://i.imgur.com/sj9ParV.png

http://i.imgur.com/gJEkrWd.jpg

Tonemapping for a more natural looking lighting

http://i.imgur.com/ucd9IcM.png

http://i.imgur.com/qtBZsLa.png

http://i.imgur.com/u9RrCdm.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/csBuuy8.jpg

Depth of field ( once an object gets closer to the camera the background will become blurry, I love this effect too :))

http://i.imgur.com/l5OzfC9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BMfuUr2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3E74rM5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/O6VcAoH.jpg



Sorry for the overload of images :D

Sorry for the double post (though I'm sure the statute of limitations has passed :lol:), but can anyone explain what in the hell these things are:

http://i.imgur.com/qtBZsLa.png

I always imagined them as some kind of marshmallow-like thing, but, looking at them now, they have the appearance of something submerged in liquid.
I'm guessing they're rice crackers. There's another jar in the shop (shown below) which has just one left.

The "liquid" effect may be an unintentional side-effect of the way they've modeled them.
http://i.imgur.com/2I8sqGg.png

I explained this last night during the stream, but at the time, I wasn't totally sure of myself.

The "MJQ" in MJQ Jazz Bar stands for Modern Jazz Quartet, which was a very popular band in the 50's. Therefore, the full name would be "Modern Jazz Quartet Jazz Bar," which is obviously quite redundant.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d0/6f/22/d06f22ed99a6928e9ba2bbd79a4378a6.jpg

The Shenmue series changed my life for the better, it is a videogame series that made me realise the importance of things in life, the small little things shown in the story of Ryo and his quest for vengeance is very emotional and an experience that can never be forgotten. I am only 17 years old and I will be telling you why I love Shenmue.

In 2012 after being convinced all the time throughout my life to play Shenmue 1 and 2 (which I was very keen on doing) by my elder brother that played them both at release, I finally play my brother's copy of the original Shenmue for Sega Dreamcast for the first time, I was only 13 years old at the time. I began the game as I see Iwao get killed by Lan Di and then make my way through the game experiencing a chilling and heartwarming journey through Dobuita and into the Yokosuka Harbor. Meeting many of Ryo's beloved friends as well as new people that hurt (such as the skinheaded Chai) and help on the way. Finally after beating all the thugs called the Mad Angels, they help us find out about Lan Di and his departure. Seeing Ryo leave Japan and board on the boat I was ready to continue the story through action packed Shenmue 2 and I could already feel the energy and bravery within Ryo himself.

Shenmue 2 begins and I am impressed with the very intense and epic boat intro, the music, angles and visual detail was incredibly welcoming and exhilarating. Yet to this day I would say that Shenmue 2 has the greatest opening intro to a sequel ever! I was immediately immersed in the huge new open world in Hong Kong getting robbed and eventually finding the guest house to sleep in. I felt as an actual stranger in a new town full of danger and people I do not know exactly like how Ryo would feel. I made my way through Hong Kong and then eventually to Kowloon then finally meeting Shenhua at Guilin until the stone pit where the game finally ends, I get chills and was ready for Shenmue 3...

Until E3 2015 It was finally announced! I waited 2 years but my brother had waited ever since such as most fans. Me and my brother are absolutely delighted to continue the story thanks to the one and only Yu Suzuki for making this all possible with his masterful vision.

I cannot wait for Shenmue 3!!! I know it will exceed expectations and be one of the greatest games of all time just like Shenmue 1 and 2, we have to give them time and it will be possible I truly believe so.

Added information about mapinfos from S1 beta. IPAC sector maps collision information documented as well

I've always wanted an HD version of the "Shenmue II Special Trailer" that Sega released at some point in the middle of 2001. I remember back then IGN usually had 640x480 versions of most of the trailers, but those have been lost to time. The only remaining copy that I can find is the low res-version on Disc 4 when you place it in a PC. This project was to remaster the trailer in HD.

Version 1 completed trailer:
https://youtu.be/oRhlxgtr1ps

My primary video source has been Mr357's Shenmue 2 movie, but there are several clips that are either from the wrong time of day, different in the final game (the lighthouse scene in Beverly Hills Wharf for example), or just aren't part of the 9 hours that Mr357 recorded. (7pm night transitions, Fengmei scene in the diner, etc.) Also, the font used in the trailer doesn't appear to be publicly available. A font search engine found me one that's close, but as you can see some letters are slightly different.

There are also some interesting differences to be noted in the scenes that do match. For example, the scene with Yuan and Duck Race Man in the basement of the warehouse, one of the random henchmen is different in the trailer. In some cases characters blink at different times.

This project has given me new appreciation for the time and effort required to produce a trailer, and it make sense now how time consuming it would've been for YSnet to produce a Shenmue 3 trailer for MAGIC this year. Putting together what you've seen so far took over 8 hours, and it's less than 2 minutes long. There are several scenes where things are chopped together not only in small bits, but out of order that they appear in the game. I wouldn't be surprised if the original version of this trailer took someone a few weeks to make.

I'm hoping to have a finished "draft" of the base trailer using the clips I have already have finished in a few weeks, then I can go back and replace some of the stuff that's inaccurate. I might also consider using something like SVP to interpolate the source footage to 60fps, but my current video editor actually only does 30. (There's a newer version that does 60, I just haven't had a reason to buy it yet.) I wanted to post the WIP here in case anyone's interested in helping to improve the accuracy at all. I can replace the font for example, if someone either finds the original or wants to recreate the existing text as vectors. Or if someone is interested in recording more 1080p source footage, it would save me time. Either way, I plan to finish this since it's over half way done.

What do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z04hUT23RiQ


***Trailer at the end of the video***

Will run in 1080p
PS4 & XBOX ONE - Physical release
Dual control scheme - updated & classic
Both audio dubs - English & Japanese
New user interface
Release - by end of 2018

Topic discussion

I've translated another early design diagram extracted from the 1998 Shenmue art book, and this one relates to the very start of game play in Shenmue I.

There is no Ine-san mentioned and instead (somewhat optimistically) it is Fuku-san who has been taking care of Ryo for the whole week that he has been in bed. There are also several other interesting differences compared to the final version of the game.

https://i.imgur.com/QV11viZ.png

Start of the flowchart:
https://i.imgur.com/slsO2hM.png

Link to the blog post highlighting differences & points of interest:
http://www.phantomriverstone.com/2018/04/shenmue-1-start-of-game-flowchart-early.html