After 8 years of meticulous workmanship, the HD mod for Resident Evil 4 is scheduled to be released in full on February 2. This mod not only enhances the special effects, but also restores a large number of buildings, sculptures, and paintings in the game with reference to real-life photos. Mod's lead author, Albert Marlene, is from Barcelona, Spain, the most referenced location for Resident Evil 4, so he always has a special historical feeling for this game.
In order to provide material for mod, Albert traveled all over Spain, taking pictures in the field, and then traveled to various castles in the United Kingdom to collect materials. With amazing perseverance and a little bit of luck, he found the real-world locations referenced to most of the game's footage, and the years of material retrieval were comparable to the Da Vinci Code. Because of this, this mod is no longer a simple HIGH-definition texture package, and its production process is more similar to the art restoration of the traditional art industry. After installing the mod, the delicacy of the game scene is greatly improved, and entering the game is like walking into a museum, which is worth the player's slow appreciation.
Version changes
Resident Evil 4 released NGC and PS2 editions in 2005, with the PS2 edition having poor picture quality, but adding an Ada plot mode that NGC did not have. In 2007, the game was released for PC and Wii. The PC version was ported from the PS2, the picture quality is outdated, the reputation is not good; the Wii version takes into account the quality of NGC and the new content of the PS2, becoming the best version in the S&A era.
Albert was early on enhancing the quality of Resident Evil 4. In 2007, he ported the textures from the NGC version of Resident Evil 4 to the PC version. Albert found that some of the textures in the NGC version, although clearer than the PS2, were still too blurry as a PC game, and he created some textures for this purpose as a quality patch. Although he didn't spend much time thinking about the history behind the game, this early mod allowed him to look at the tens of thousands of posters in the game one by one, laying the foundation for making more perfect mods in the future.
Moving into 2008, Albert began thinking about how to improve the Texture Mod, using Google's image search and Street View features to find locations on the web where the game had been sourced. Most of the material for Resident Evil 4 is derived from Spanish and British locations, and the remaining small amount is taken from Italy and France. Albert's Barcelona, the city with the most materials in Resident Evil 4, began to pay attention to every building and wall he saw in his daily life, and this observation brought him many surprises. For example, the sticker on one wall in the game is derived from the station where Albert passes by every day.
Original wall map
Wall stickers for hd Mods, taken from a photo of Albert
Since then, Resident Evil 4 has ushered in HD versions on various consoles, which have increased the resolution based on the Wii version, but missed some special effects of the NGC and Wii versions. In order to bring a better experience to PC players, Capcom launched Resident Evil 4: Ultimate HD on the Steam platform on February 27, 2014. The steam version of the screen has been significantly improved from the old PC version in 2007, but it still lacks some of the special effects of the NGC and Wii versions, and only 5% of the textures have been roughly hd processed, and the word "ultimate" is not worthy of the name.
Before the release of the ultimate HD version, old players can find these problems by analyzing the trailer, and Chris from the United States is such an old player. Chris knew that there was no mod to hd-check all the stickers of Resident Evil 4, and the ultimate HD version did not do it, so he decided to make a complete HD texture mod himself. Albert had a similar idea, and he and Chris quickly became netizens and decided to develop together.
Players often joke about the pairing of Albert and Chris, whose names are reminiscent of the Characters Albert Wesker and Chris Redfield from the Resident Evil series. The two also feel that such a coincidence may be a kind of fate, and the two players who are related to Resident Evil will cooperate to create a wonderful mod.
The Da Vinci code
From 2008 to 2013, Albert spent his free time looking online for realistic locations for game stickers, and these advance investigations saved Mod a lot of time. Albert found several material books that Capcom developers had used, and after comparison, he found that most of the Italian and French stickers were from these books, and Capcom only used field materials from Spain and Britain. Therefore, Albert only needed to take photos in Spain and Britain. Subsequently, he began to go out several times to collect materials.
Material books collected by Albert
Albert first looked up the location of various attractions through Google Street View, and many of the photos on the Internet were poorly sharp, but enough to see the general shape, and then he went to the scene to take high-definition photos. After visiting a few cities, he came up with some rules: Capcom employees generally followed popular local tourist routes, and shot them all the way in a row. If you find a real scene of the A and B maps at an attraction, then the C map is likely to be located between A and B.
Albert's process of drawing materials was not smooth, and sometimes he found that a seemingly unremarkable brick wall was the sticker material in the game, but there was a motorcycle parked next to the wall, and he had to wait until the owner drove the motorcycle away the next day to shoot normally. There are also venues where ordinary people are not allowed to take pictures at will, such as a wall in the Royal Palace of Madrid, for which Albert can only look for existing information photos.
Capcom employees in 1999 in Spain and the United Kingdom to take materials, some of the buildings still exist, but the appearance has changed to some extent, Albert did not directly use the latest, clearest photos, he chose to compare the game stickers, as far as possible to restore the past appearance. Scenes that no longer exist, such as an ancient brick wall near barcelona's Basilica of the Holy Family, where Albert raced against time and took rescue photographs of it, before witnessing the demolition of the old wall.
There are also some materials that are identified with luck. Albert passed by the newsstand one day and saw a copy of the latest National Geographic magazine, and he recognized at a glance that the glass pattern on the cover had been referenced by the game. The cover of this issue is from The Church of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, France, and with the key words, Albert quickly followed the vine and found a clearer online photo.
The Church of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris on the cover of National Geographic
Stormy meeting
When mod development was officially launched in early 2014, Albert and Chris expected them to just change the texture and take two years to get it done, but it actually took eight years to complete. As a free mod developed in their spare time, the duo's work efficiency is not slow. The reason why it took 6 years more than expected was that the two gradually upgraded their development goals, changed from simply changing the texture to changing the model, and finally even made up for the missing effects of the official version. These improvements were assisted by other mod authors.
Since the engine of Resident Evil 4 was not made public, the Mod authors could only find out the details little by little through reverse engineering. In the early days of mod development, the file format became the biggest headache for Albert and Chris, and the two used a simple text editor, unable to read the several key numbers in the file format that controlled the special effects, and repeated experiments wasted a lot of time. It was not until the end of 2014 that the netizen "Son of Persia" developed a number of file conversion tools for the two, and the development efficiency was greatly improved.
The "Sons of Persia" tool also facilitates large-scale changes to the scene's 3D model. The 3D model of Resident Evil 4 dates back to the 2005 NGC version, and there are many flaws in the details, some of which stem from functional limitations and others of which are errors left over from the rush of development. When the texture is blurry, the errors in the model seams are not obvious, and these errors become particularly glaring when replaced with high-definition textures. On the other hand, if the 3D structure of a model is very simple, even if the texture is fine, it will not be able to restore the photo effect. Faced with this situation, Albert could only make a brand new 3D model himself.
Original rudimentary textures and models
Textures and models of HD Mods
In terms of special effects, Albert prefers cool tones in the NGC and Wii versions to warm colors in the PS2 and HD versions. The NGC and Wii versions enable more dynamic light sources, and also include a bloom effect with strong chiaroscuro. Mod uses the NGC and Wii versions as a reference direction to fix the glare effects that are missing in the HD version.
Albert's goal was not only to restore the effects of NGC, he also wanted to further improve the light and shadow effects. Because modern PCs far outperform NGC, Albert added more dynamic light sources to the mod, and the shadows of the trunk and leaves can also be correctly projected onto the protagonist.
The Mercenary Mode "Water World" map leaves a lot of regrets, the NGC version hopes to achieve the effect of ground shadows moving with the clouds in the sky, but the actual picture is very different, the clouds in the sky are stationary, the moving shadows only appear on the roof, and other ground shadows are static. Now that Albert has made up for these regrets, the sky and the ground have a dynamic effect.
Hd Mod fixes the "Water World" effect
Mod also improved the engine's rough dynamic details (Level of Details), and the viewing distance of the long view was greatly improved. Some walls only trigger the full lighting effect when the protagonist is approaching, but this distance is programmed too close and the effect is abrupt, which is obviously also set to take care of NGC's function. Albert can't change the lighting trigger distance, he can only add a circle of transparent polygons around the wall that do not have the collision volume, and use the invisible polygons to trigger the lighting judgment in advance, so that the wall can also trigger the full lighting effect when it is far away from the protagonist.
In the later stages of mod development, Chris gradually faded out of the project because of his personal life, and the high-definition mapping and modeling work fell on Albert's shoulders. The later program development was relatively smooth, and the joining of Emoose and Nipkow solved many technical problems for the team. Emoose analyzed the file compression format, saving mod half the hard disk space. The dll files developed by Nipkow have greatly improved the memory management of the game, increasing the maximum capacity of a single file and enabling a more elaborate 3D model. With more memory in the vertex buffer system, players can boost the FOV within a certain range, and now the 21:9 screen provides more lateral views than 16:9, and the depth of field effects of the NGC version have been restored.
Wide field of view from the 21:9 screen
In addition, Nipkow has fixed a number of bugs, such as a random jump in the crosshair position after using the mouse to open and close the camera, and QTE judgment in 60 frame mode has become more stringent. However, this dll file only supports 30 frames and 60 frames, and bugs may be reproduced in 120 frame mode.
Artistic restoration
For artworks such as sculptures and paintings in the game, Albert did his best to restore them to their original appearance. Some of the game's stickers are copied intact from a famous painting, such as Raphael's "Academy of Athens.") There are also stickers that are mixed from several different paintings, and in this case, Albert often chooses the one closest to the game sticker.
Raphael's famous painting "The Academy of Athens"
As for the stickers of the signs, most of them were copied and pasted by Japanese developers who did not understand Spanish, and there was no need to restore them, and Albert could make more reasonable signs by himself. This perfunctory attitude is also part of Capcom's tradition, and when Resident Evil 3 was released in 1999, many people guessed at a vague notice board for half a day, thinking that the text in it hid a secret. After the more articulated PC version of Resident Evil 3 was introduced in 2000, players finally saw that the sign was simply "keep the public clean", and this so-called secret instantly turned into a joke.
Albert said that Resident Evil 4 is full of similar jokes, not only in the text, but also in the dubbing. The stage of the game is set in Spain, but the Spaniards in the game have a Mexican accent, and this perfunctory attitude of Zhang Guan Li Dai makes Albert cry and laugh, but he did not modify the time of dubbing.
When it comes to the most difficult textures to repair, Albert considers them to be all kinds of machinery. On the one hand, stickers such as brick walls and moss have no obvious structure, and even if the original material cannot be found and precisely repaired, the player cannot see much difference, and the characteristics of the mechanical buttons and gauges are obvious. On the other hand, the original mechanical stickers were very arbitrary, and Albert found that there were also many mistakes in the crown and Li Dai, and the photo of the anesthesia table became a sticker of the desk. In order to keep the original appearance as much as possible, Albert basically did not correct these errors when he made the textures in high definition, after all, most players do not know much about industrial and medical machinery, and these details are harmless.
The original machine is extremely difficult to repair
HD mod after repair of the machine
Albert believes that except for the earliest NGC and PS2 versions of Resident Evil 4, the development attitude of other versions is very perfunctory. The Ada plot mode is derived from the PS2 version, and the picture is understandably reduced compared to the NGC version. However, the performance of subsequent Wii and HD platforms exceeded that of NGC, and the Ada mode included in it used the material of the PS2 version, which was disappointing.
After Lyon's story mode was repaired, Albert began to repair the Ada story mode, and many scenes of the two modes were shared, and the development efficiency was greatly improved. However, the model seam errors in the Ida chapter are far more than those in the Lyon chapter, allowing Albert to appreciate the rush nature of the PS2 version. These errors were fixed by him one by one, and the problem that most of the items in Ida's chapter could not be broken was also solved in the mod.
The biggest difficulty in fixing Ida was the cutscenes, where Albert went through a long and complex step of elevating the pre-rendered SD video to HD little by little. After he deleted the video file, the game displayed the 3D coordinates of the storyboard in the scene, and using these coordinates and mod scenes, he restored the high-definition background video. As for the character part, simple actions can be restored manually. For complex character actions, Albert cuts the characters out of the background frame by frame, intelligently enlarges the characters through AI, and then synthesizes them with high-definition backgrounds, and the special effects that are difficult to zoom in by AI are remade using After Effect, and the final effect is eye-catching.
The original Ida cutscene
A truss after the restoration
Although Albert implemented high-definition animation, the original game program did not support high-definition video, but fortunately, the dll file provided by Nipkow added this function, so that the resolution of the video was increased from 512×336 to 1920×1056, and the bit rate was also guaranteed. Although the effect of the video is still not comparable to the real-time rendering, Albert has done everything he can today when Capcom has long lost its original data. Not only is it the cutscenes of Ida' chapter, everything you see in the game has been restored in high definition, including the illustrations of mercenary mode. Lyon's illustration of passing in mercenary mode originated from Covent Garden Station on the London Underground in the UK, and Albert didn't realize it until 2020. He had not photographed it here when he went to the UK before, and could only turn to London netizens to help him fill in the detailed photos.
Lyon's mercenary mode pass illustration
Covent Garden Station, London Underground, UK
Players who have come all the way from the NGC and PS2 eras often have a memory beautification effect on old games, when they marvel at the details of the picture on SD TV, and years later play to the HD version and complain about the blurred textures. Albert is not this kind of player, he often observed the details of the picture when he played the standard definition version in his early years, he did not understand the limitations of 3D function, naturally did not know why all the material was blurred, and in the high-definition era he began to study 3D technology. He didn't want to make too many changes to the graphics in the mod, he just wanted to recreate the true face of the original material.
Some have praised Albert's work as having gone beyond the average Mod author and closer to the "art restoration" of the traditional fine arts industry. Many famous paintings with a long history can be handed down to the present day, which is also the credit of artistic restoration, otherwise if the years erode, the exquisite famous paintings will become a paste.
Albert thanked the players for their support, believing that the term "art restoration" was the highest compliment for Mod. He also knows that Spain has made a lot of jokes about "artistic restoration", such as the fresco of a church in Borja, because the restoration effect is too contrasting, from "artistic restoration" to "artistic destruction". This negative teaching material warned Albert to treat the restoration work with a correct attitude.
Murals that have been "artistically destroyed"
Looking to the future
A series of events in 2021 add more talk to Mod. Photographer Judy Jurek discovered that Capcom had used her photos without permission for games like Resident Evil 4, for which she took Capcom to court. Albert had purchased Judy's material license as early as 2016, and he was relieved to use the material in mods, but he never imagined that Capcom would never pay for it. The Mod author bought the material, but Capcom did not buy it - this strange incident caused a laugh among netizens.
Last summer's 3D animation Resident Evil: Endless Darkness revealed for the first time what Ashley's father looked like, and gave away a picture of a father-daughter group photo. Albert praised Ashley's image in the animation for being highly restored, and the image complemented Mod. Getting these materials at the end of mod development was a pleasant surprise for Albert.
New material from Resident Evil: Endless Darkness
As for the exclusive VR version of Oculus Quest 2, Resident Evil 4, Albert was not interested in this VR headset, he only briefly learned about the game through text and video materials. The VR version claims to have fixed 4500 stickers, but this number is less than half of all the stickers, the light and shadow effects are seriously missing, and the Ada article has been deleted, which is not the best version.
Capcom has recently used new engines to reproduce Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, and the graphics and gameplay of the two replicas are very different from the original. Resident Evil: The Village is nominally new, but the content is close to the first-person perspective of Resident Evil 4, but the process is significantly reduced. There are many indications that a replica of Resident Evil 4 has been in development for a long time, and Capcom will release a replica in the near future.
The resemblance between Village and Resident Evil 4 is clear
Albert himself has played these works, and he thinks that future reproductions of Resident Evil 4 will be completely different from his hd mods. The replica is likely to change to the art style of Village, while the HD Mod pursues authenticity. In addition, Resident Evil 4 is a work with a very long process, and according to Capcom's performance in recent years, the process of the replica version is likely to shrink again.
Theoretically, Capcom could incorporate high-definition Mods, and Albert did contact Capcom's U.S. division employees and got a positive response, after which the U.S. division wrote a project and handed it to the Japanese headquarters, but it ended up sinking into the sea. Capcom's Japanese headquarters dominates the game's development, and the Japanese side seems to have no interest in the HD mod. For such an outcome, Albert said it did not matter, at least the Japanese side did not stop his mod, which is enough.
Albert doesn't expect an older engine's HD Mod to rival the new engine, and the difference in special effects is clear. As for 3D models, even if memory management is improved, the number of polygons on the same screen is still limited, and models that exceed the upper limit will simply disappear. The focus of mod restoration is not on special effects or polygons, but on faithful restoration of monuments.
When Albert came to England to collect materials, he had a wonderful feeling in the face of those castles. Albert had never visited an English castle before, but the scenes seemed familiar to him, as the game's graphics had long since been etched into his memory. A native of Barcelona, Albert believes other players can find similar feelings in the game. Even if you haven't been to Barcelona, you've seen these famous monuments in the game. With hd mods, all kinds of architectural details will be seen by players.
Albert photographed the castle in England
The famous Barcelona Cathedral
During the testing of the mod, Albert did not go astray, every test is a normal game process, he will loot every corner of the treasure, destroy all the enemies he sees, everything reacts like instinct, which is the infinite charm of Resident Evil 4. Some players said that they had played Resident Evil 4 20 times and were willing to play it again after the mod was released. Other players said they had played the level 40 times, but still expected the mod. These responses reinforced Albert's goal, believing that there was such a game in the world that it was worth spending 8 years making a mod.
Albert's development time on the Mod reached 9,000 hours, Chris also had 4,000 hours, and with the addition of several other programmers, the team's combined development time was even more staggering. Including the cost of purchasing material licenses and going out to collect materials, Mod spent a total of $31,000, of which $15,000 was funded by donations from netizens.
For Albert himself, the money spent was not important, and he gained more valuable development experience. Albert was originally a 2D artist, who could only change textures and could not 3D model, but developing hd Mods taught him to become self-taught and gradually mastered 3D modeling skills. Albert worked for a technology magazine publisher, and in September 2021, the publisher announced layoffs, and 60% of its employees, including Albert, were laid off in January 2022. Upon hearing the news, Albert began taking formal courses in 3D games and interactive programs, and in the future he would become a professional game developer.
Developing mods gave Albert experience in 3D modeling
That's the story of The Resident Evil 4 HD Mod. The mod is scheduled to be released on February 2, 2022, and in addition to the graphics improvement, Albert also provides some Easter eggs for players to choose from, such as Ida's classic costume in Resident Evil 2. In addition, the Japanese version of Resident Evil 4 uses a fixed perspective in the part of the operation of Ashley, and the European and American versions are over the shoulder view, and players can also choose their favorite perspective in the mod. As for the future, in addition to continuing to refine the Resident Evil 4 mod, Albert may also join the Mod team for Resident Evil: Codename Veronica and the original Resident Evil replica.
For Albert, 2022 is a new beginning, a new year full of challenges and hopes. The meticulously crafted Resident Evil 4 HD Mod is his best gift for players in the new year.
Some references:
Gamuza: Interview with Albert and Resident Evil 4 HD Mod
Ragequitters: Resident Evil 4 HD Mod Team Interview
TheVerge: How Mod authors recreated the picture of Resident Evil 4
Toofargone: Resident Evil 4 HD Mod Interview
Gamerant: The photographer accused Capcom of plagiarizing footage in games like Resident Evil 4
Gamesradar: Resident Evil 4 HD mods are scheduled for release in February