Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

(Shenmue I & II Re-Release Discussion)

Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby AnimeGamer183 » Sat Jul 14, 2018 1:48 pm

MiTT3NZ wrote: I agree with AG. Reality will cease in 3... 2...


Well looky there, I have made Mittz phase out of reality everyone, you're welcome. ;-)
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby DigitalDuck » Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:17 pm

sand4fish wrote:Another thing I see it being complained about in other forums is the 30 fps. Well, besides being hard coded I believe it's tied to the time system in the game and it would mess with its mechanics and probably break the physics in the game. I'd imagine Shenmue HD 60 fps looking like this in execution:

phpBB [video]


Shenmue in 60fps would look like that, but it has nothing to do with the in-game time system (... why would it?)

Shenmue, like many games of its era, run on a framerate-dependent engine. This means that the physics values coded into the game (velocity and acceleration etc.) are in units of frames rather than seconds; as such, changing the framerate will do nothing but speed up or slow down the game as it tries to execute that number of frames a second (equivalent to... damn, all the good analogies are too old now. Do people still remember SP and LP on VHS?)

To fix this, you'd change the physics values when you change the framerate; however, this isn't as straightforward as it sounds.

This already happened for the PAL 50Hz versions of the original games (which run at 25fps). Without changing the physics values, the game would run at 83% of the original speed, and be noticeably off. However, even with the modified physics values, it still only runs at ~98.3% speed (something I learned while speedrunning the original game - it's a full eight minutes faster in 60Hz!). It also makes for some odd idiosyncrasies - exit Asia Travel Co. and hold run and left on the D-pad; in 50Hz you'll get round the corner and go past Nozomi, but in 60Hz your turning radius won't quite be enough and you'll end up running alongside Lapis. If you want to do the stair clip you'll have to have a whole new setup for it too (although it's still easily doable).

So going from 30fps to 25fps and trying to keep the speed constant has some odd effects on the game. Now imagine what going from 30fps to 60fps is going to do. The only solution is a new engine, which is clearly off the cards here, so we're not going to be getting anything other than 30fps.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby sand4fish » Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:29 pm

DigitalDuck wrote: Shenmue in 60fps would look like that, but it has nothing to do with the in-game time system (... why would it?)


Actually I meant to say that everything in Shenmue revolves around the clock, and so with the increased FPS it would break the gameplay flow with player having less time to accomplish tasks as day/night cycles would be way shorter among other things.
Last edited by sand4fish on Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby DigitalDuck » Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:33 pm

sand4fish wrote:Actually I meant to say that everything in Shenmue revolves around the clock, and so with the increased FPS it would break the gameplay flow with player having less time to accomplish tasks as example.


You realise that the clock would be the easiest thing to fix, right?
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby sand4fish » Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:38 pm

DigitalDuck wrote: You realise that the clock would be the easiest thing to fix, right?


Nope, clearly not with my current of knowledge (or lack of) on this.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby Esppiral » Sat Jul 14, 2018 4:27 pm

phpBB [video]

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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby ner0 » Sat Jul 14, 2018 5:19 pm

sand4fish wrote: Just a matter of perspective. Maybe they could have done 4k, but would it matter much? Personally do I want to see how muddy some of the textures are and exacerbate how old this game really is graphically speaking in even finer detail? Not really as it's not a remake, just a HD enhancement as it is being advertised.

Is this a lazy port by d3t? I can't tell because I don't know the budget d3t was working with like AG mentioned. But I don't really think so, as they could just have used emulation and be done with it.

About the 4:3 cutscenes, those are Yu's cinematography at play. Others have pointed out before how old films originally 4:3 scanned to widescreen ended up showing stuff not meant to be seen like camera crews and out of place objects, in the end changing the original intended atmosphere of the scene. Well, the same can be said here as npcs shown in the 16:9 emulation, not meant to be seen in the original frame shot, are frozen in place as example. Even worse as the draw of extra geometry already shows distracting artifacts in the emulation, who is to say that in the engine d3t worked with it won't break the game? Either way, changing the original ratio of the constructed shot cutscenes is the same as changing Yu's original artistic vision imo.

Another thing I see it being complained about in other forums is the 30 fps. Well, besides being hard coded I believe it's tied to the time system in the game and it would mess with its mechanics and probably break the physics in the game. I'd imagine Shenmue HD 60 fps looking like this in execution:

phpBB [video]


Anyway, I'm stocked for the release of Shenmue 1 & 2 HD not because of me playing it, but it is finally the chance the franchise ever had to draw in new fans towards Shenmue 3 and beyond. And I'm confident the newcomers won't nitpick these games that are nearly as old as they probably are.


I understand why they don't release the game with 4K in mind, they are using assets that are decades old and were initially meant for 480p, jumping to 1080p is already quite the stretch, and redoing assets was surely out of the budget scope. But as we have seen with so many games... the modding community will probably do a 4K overall at some point in time.

In relation to emulation, I'm skeptical that they could have opted for emulation as easily as some make it sound. First, I'm not sure how much of a walk in the park it would have been to build a Dreamcast emulator engine for the the intended platforms in comparison to porting it. Then, taking into consideration the current state of emulation on the PC, you may not fare very well unless you have a mid/high-range hardware; maybe this wouldn't be such a problem these days but still worth considering. Then you probably wouldn't have as much control over the game as with a port. If the port was really a nightmare, then being constricted to use a DC DevKit surely wouldn't have been better.

On the issue of 4:3 in cut-scenes, the argument about the scenes being ruined by whatever (unintended) that is outside of the 4:3 bounds seems completely plausible. The drawing of artifacts on the ported engine seems less plausible assuming that the gameplay itself will be able to run in widescreen without any artifacts, I don't see why the cut-scenes that use the same engine in real-time should be different. Still, the point of what is beyond the bounds being inadequate for scenes is a good one. As for the artistic direction, I don't see it. 4:3 aspect ratio wasn't a choice, it was simply the result of the standard at the time, bound by hardware limitations.

As for the 30fps lock, I think it is very possible that the undertaking to update the engine to 60fps might have been too great for the payoff. As we have seen in the modding community, the game can run smoothly at 60fps and the animations can be slowed down by 50% to make up for the 50% acceleration, but it is very probable that other things in the game beside animations are dependent on the FPS cycle to be regulated, not sure what though - maybe physics, AI in general.

Honestly, I'm just considering arguments and giving my opinion, these things don't bother me in the least. While some people criticize for the sake of it, I do so because I care and I wonder. Because of this wonder, I can't help but wonder how much better it could be with an adjusted budget. As with what I think is the majority, I'm happy enough with the remaster as it is being advertised. I'm not so confident that non-fans will see it in the same way, I do hope so because after all the release price-tag hints that SEGA is trying to maximize profit and minimize risk, understandably.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby Jibby » Sat Jul 14, 2018 9:45 pm

Esppiral wrote:
phpBB [video]

Is this frame interpolation or native 60fps? Your post and video description don't make it clear.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby GYO6161 » Sat Jul 14, 2018 10:43 pm

Esppiral wrote:
phpBB [video]

This is personal preference of course but yikes no thanks, everything looks like a soap opera here lol.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby DigitalDuck » Sun Jul 15, 2018 12:32 am

sand4fish wrote:Nope, clearly not with my current of knowledge (or lack of) on this.


The timer is simply one of the values to change - in Shenmue I, it's as simple as adding 1/8 second to the in-game clock every frame instead of 1/4 second (note, I don't actually know the units used in the engine, but it's this kind of substitution).

Esppiral wrote:
phpBB [video]


That's nice, but did you ever figure out fixing NPCs etc.? It might help to use the PAL version and see what changes between 50Hz and 60Hz modes.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby darkfalz » Sun Jul 15, 2018 10:34 am

I could play it at 60 FPS on my TV with the frame interpolation built in (you get edge artifcating though and additional input lag, I've actually played DC games like this just for fun). I'm not that fussed about it for such a slow moving game.

It's true that fine background details in 4K are more visible and that even with 20 year old textures/models, it can be an improvement. I wouldn't be shocked if a modder figures out how to make it run at resolutions other than 1080p. I can only think the devs decided they didn't want to write the tiny bit of extra code to scale the UI, subtitles etc. (I like the new subtitles, definitely done in the original style/colours but not so blocky). Who knows? 4K for PS Pro / custom resolution for PC might come in a future patch. Maybe they're just focusing on 1080p first because that's what the standard consoles do and represents the screens most people have on their PCs or HDTVs.
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby celsowm » Sun Jul 15, 2018 5:42 pm

Do you guys remember Night Into Dreams 2012 version?

In the early they had a bug about Night 3D loop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbR5iYNnvOE

I remember Sega trying to justify with some arguments and so. Well, weeks later they release a Fix for that.

IMO things like 60fps, widescreen cutscenes and one or another requested feature will be implemented in the next months. It's just a matter of time
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby oliquidrusho » Mon Jul 16, 2018 11:23 am

So, the cutscenes running on 4:3 for Shenmue make sense, but has there been mention if the Shenmue 2 cutscenes will be 4:3 or 16:9? Reason I ask is because in Shenmue 2 the cutscenes were letterboxed and looking at the trailer it looks like some of the S2 footage that I'm pretty sure were from cutscenes (Ryo and Shenhua looking at the Shenmue tree) were in a 16:9 format. Is this confirmation S2 will have 16:9 cutscenes or will it be 4:3 with black bars at the top and bottom?
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby DigitalDuck » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:45 pm

oliquidrusho wrote:So, the cutscenes running on 4:3 for Shenmue make sense, but has there been mention if the Shenmue 2 cutscenes will be 4:3 or 16:9? Reason I ask is because in Shenmue 2 the cutscenes were letterboxed and looking at the trailer it looks like some of the S2 footage that I'm pretty sure were from cutscenes (Ryo and Shenhua looking at the Shenmue tree) were in a 16:9 format. Is this confirmation S2 will have 16:9 cutscenes or will it be 4:3 with black bars at the top and bottom?


16:9 with letterboxing on all sides (so the cutscenes appear with a big black border). This is presumably because many cutscenes have the black bars on the top and bottom pull away into 4:3 (e.g. for QTEs).
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Re: Adam Koralik explains the re-releases (4:3, audio etc)

Postby Esppiral » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:04 pm

Jibby wrote:
Esppiral wrote:
phpBB [video]

Is this frame interpolation or native 60fps? Your post and video description don't make it clear.


This is not framerate interpolation, it is running at 60 fps.


DigitalDuck wrote:
sand4fish wrote:Nope, clearly not with my current of knowledge (or lack of) on this.


The timer is simply one of the values to change - in Shenmue I, it's as simple as adding 1/8 second to the in-game clock every frame instead of 1/4 second (note, I don't actually know the units used in the engine, but it's this kind of substitution).

Esppiral wrote:
phpBB [video]


That's nice, but did you ever figure out fixing NPCs etc.? It might help to use the PAL version and see what changes between 50Hz and 60Hz modes.


Yes, NPC's animations can be slowed down or speed up, same for cutscenes animations and camera movement during cutscenes, it is a collosal task though, I am sure that what I am tweaking are return values instead of the main instruction, anyway I've patched it in to Shenmue I iso though.

The same can be done with Shenmue II

phpBB [video]

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