CM30 Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 Well, I'm not sure how many Zelda ROM hackers still visit this site any more, but I may as well post this none the less. Basically, an awesome ROM hack called Link's Awakening 64 hit the news recently, and I got an exclusive interview with the main developer of the game! Here's the link: https://gamingreinvented.com/interview/lets-interview-ty-anderson/ So yeah, it's definitely worth a read if you're interested in the game. Or heck, Ocarina of Time hacking in general. I also might be able to interview other people here, if anyone is interested. Would anyone on the GCN be interested in an interview about their project? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xdaniel Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 I have been quite critical of this project on Twitter when I first heard about it a couple of days ago, when it hit mainstream news, for multiple reasons. For one, the "deeper, original, more inspired storyline" part, which I fear could turn into overly dark and edgy nonsense for the sake of it -- especially with me being a big fan of the original LA (my favorite Zelda, even above OoT) and its, in my opinion, already wonderful balance between a more serious, thought-provoking story and lighthearted moments. Then, on the hacking side of things, there's the unlikeliness of the hack working on real hardware, ex. with him most likely using one of my converters, or something related to them, to import the maps (the rather messy lighting/vertex normals being a telltale sign of them); and in turn, I'm also skeptical about the "many new methods" for modding he's discovered according to the interview. Also, there's the -- admittedly comparatively small -- Patreon he's running, i.e. making money off of the work of others (spinout, cooliscool, myself and countless others who've worked on research, model importing, etc.) without which his content would never find its way into the game. That said, I still wish him luck because the basic idea is nice, because his map models look pretty good, and because there's been very few big OoT hacks that got anywhere. I don't like the project, as outlined above, but I do respect the work he is putting in it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM30 Posted October 21, 2016 Author Share Posted October 21, 2016 I have been quite critical of this project on Twitter when I first heard about it a couple of days ago, when it hit mainstream news, for multiple reasons. For one, the "deeper, original, more inspired storyline" part, which I fear could turn into overly dark and edgy nonsense for the sake of it -- especially with me being a big fan of the original LA (my favorite Zelda, even above OoT) and its, in my opinion, already wonderful balance between a more serious, thought-provoking story and lighthearted moments. Then, on the hacking side of things, there's the unlikeliness of the hack working on real hardware, ex. with him most likely using one of my converters, or something related to them, to import the maps (the rather messy lighting/vertex normals being a telltale sign of them); and in turn, I'm also skeptical about the "many new methods" for modding he's discovered according to the interview. Also, there's the -- admittedly comparatively small -- Patreon he's running, i.e. making money off of the work of others (spinout, cooliscool, myself and countless others who've worked on research, model importing, etc.) without which his content would never find its way into the game. That said, I still wish him luck because the basic idea is nice, because his map models look pretty good, and because there's been very few big OoT hacks that got anywhere. I don't like the project, as outlined above, but I do respect the work he is putting in it. Based on your story comments, I'm getting the impression you didn't like URA Zelda's story very much when it was in development. Pretty sure that was gonna get pretty dark and edgy near the endgame. I remember a super epic final boss theme and lots of stuff about Zeth as an in game villain after all... Working on real hardware is an issue, though it wouldn't be the first example of a popular mod with that problem. Not sure if Brutal Mario would work on a real SNES with some of its broken music, and just about the entire Mario 64 ROM hacking scene has issues getting those hacks to work on hardware. Pretty sure Mario 64: Last Impact doesn't work on the actual N64. Patreon is a hotly contested issue, and one that's becoming very common with fan games and hacks now. Pokemon Uranium and AM2R used to have them, and I think Last Impact and Star Road still have Patreons for funding. But yeah, guess we'll have to wait and see what happens here. A few more big OoT hacks are definitely something we need to see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xdaniel Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 Based on your story comments, I'm getting the impression you didn't like URA Zelda's story very much when it was in development. Pretty sure that was gonna get pretty dark and edgy near the endgame. I remember a super epic final boss theme and lots of stuff about Zeth as an in game villain after all... Working on real hardware is an issue, though it wouldn't be the first example of a popular mod with that problem. Not sure if Brutal Mario would work on a real SNES with some of its broken music, and just about the entire Mario 64 ROM hacking scene has issues getting those hacks to work on hardware. Pretty sure Mario 64: Last Impact doesn't work on the actual N64. Patreon is a hotly contested issue, and one that's becoming very common with fan games and hacks now. Pokemon Uranium and AM2R used to have them, and I think Last Impact and Star Road still have Patreons for funding. But yeah, guess we'll have to wait and see what happens here. A few more big OoT hacks are definitely something we need to see. Right, especially once the whole "Zeth as a super endboss" stuff came up, I did get rather skeptical about the story -- not sure if I publicly said as much, but it's what many people thought at the time, from what I recall. On the flip side, I'm also pretty sure I remember the Ura team being pretty upfront about the project having developed away from the 64DD Ura Zelda, and that, by that point, its only relation to that game was the name. This, on the other hand, is being "advertised" as a Link's Awakening remake, despite already showing the same signs that Ura did (dark, edgy, etc.) Of course it's not the first example of a mod not working on hardware, but it's most likely gonna be next in that line, a line that's only getting longer if no one steps up to change things in this rather decrepit scene, by writing tools that are tested against real hardware -- which requires access to a flash cart, which requires programming knowledge, knowledge about the N64's graphics hardware, etc. as well as patience and persistence. I am lacking the flash cart, patience and persistence, as well as (these days) the interest in OoT hacking. Plus, emulators are slowly getting more accurate, too -- I remember trying the Project 3rd Quest demo using an LLE emulator and/or graphics plugin of some sort (forgot which exactly) and it looked about the same in that as it did in DeathBasket's hardware test video, i.e. with horrible depth-related rendering glitches. And yeah, I've seen a video of Mario 64 Last Impact's behavior on hardware very recently too, and that's not a pretty sight, either, with extreme graphical glitches, flickering, slowdown, etc... I'm not sure how I feel about Patreon when it comes to, as you mentioned, fan games and hacks, especially the latter. Sure, if you're making pretty models, cool sprite art, etc., etc. then I don't see a reason why you shouldn't be rewarded for it. The next step -- turning these models and sprites into a game -- is where things split. If you're making a game from scratch using a regular PC game engine (think Unity, Unreal, whatever), then it's fine. But if you're making a hack, and you're using someone else's tools or documentation or whatever, at least acknowledge them in your campaign, on your website, whatever. Even better, try to track them down and ask them if they'd appreciate a donation for the work they've done. Then it's on them to accept or deny it, and hell, for the longest time I would've denied it; I think someone did offer me compensation for writing or improving some OoT tool once, but I denied because I was just doing it for fun and was using others' documentation. Now tho, with all these Patreons of that kind running, and with me not being in the best position financially (as in, I'll live, but wouldn't mind something extra once in a while), I'd probably accept such an offer. Anyway, I'm ranting again and I really shouldn't do that all the time, but yeah, agreed on the wait and see, as well as that we need more bigger OoT hacks -- preferably by people who also won't shy away from doing their own research, programming and documentation, to improve things for everyone in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xylaphone Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 I'm mostly interested how the project reworks the 2d mechanics into 3d, like will the bomb arrows work? It's a skill that's completely missable (I never noticed it til seeing it done during a game done quick) but it also seems like using the magic arrows that explode and just having them cost bombs instead of magic wouldn't be impossible. Will the rafting game work? is Roc's Feather just gonna be a levitate code with a timer cut off or a full flip almost like the zelda 64 jump slash? Not gonna lie the mentioning of darker themes is kinda worrying. While I haven't read the manga I'm not surprised it's darker than the gameboy game but I hope the mod isn't edge for edges sake. The uses of swear words in last impact do get eye rolls from me, not cause I care about people swearing but cause it seems counter productive to any effort towards making the game feel like an official Nintendo product. The patreon issue is messy, if he had proper accreditation and was only using tools made by people who don't mind it being used by people who are gonna make some cash from donations it would be almost a nonissue. I'm slowly working on a browser extension that will help people identify artists that are ok with being uploaded to archive.org's live music archive when looking at concert trading sites. I'm going to release it open source with a creative commons Attribution-noncommercial because the tape trading scene is super against profiting from taping. That's the agreed rules the scene operates by and takes seriously, and I'm not sure if n64 modding has become big enough to have those kind of conversations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeth Ryder Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 Based on your story comments, I'm getting the impression you didn't like URA Zelda's story very much when it was in development. Pretty sure that was gonna get pretty dark and edgy near the endgame. I remember a super epic final boss theme and lots of stuff about Zeth as an in game villain after all... Right, especially once the whole "Zeth as a super endboss" stuff came up, I did get rather skeptical about the story -- not sure if I publicly said as much, but it's what many people thought at the time, from what I recall. On the flip side, I'm also pretty sure I remember the Ura team being pretty upfront about the project having developed away from the 64DD Ura Zelda, and that, by that point, its only relation to that game was the name. This, on the other hand, is being "advertised" as a Link's Awakening remake, despite already showing the same signs that Ura did (dark, edgy, etc.) I imagine a lot of you were 'misled' by the disgruntled ex team members and misinformation they did like to spout of that anger just to get people to hate the project. I would say that 90% of the artwork Spire posted on his blog or whatever was concepts that I had denied due to them not fitting into Zelda lore. He would literally have some whacked out dream(usually about batman) and create a fully detailed concept then get mad it got denied. He would even post artwork to the community without even my consent or approval. We were -never- trying to go dark and edgy. As for Zeth being the end super villain, whoever told you that straight up lied to you guys. The idea we were going for was something the team had came up with during the development and we thought of adding a fun little optional dungeon with some neat puzzles and there would be boss fights in the dungeon. You would have fought the entire Ura team in the Tower of Ura and it had no impact whatsoever on the story. It was just a side dungeon to get new armor, that was literally it and its not the first time developers add themselves as characters into the games they are working on. We named it the Tower of Ura because the project had originally grown so much from the original concept, it was basically our tribute to what started off the project in the first place. The main story of the project literally was about the Sage's seal on Ganon weakening and Zelda sending the Hero of Light to save the sages in the Palaces in the Dark World who were helping maintain the seal from the sacred realm and fix the mistake Zelda made as child by collecting the Triforce of Power from Ganondorf. I really don't understand how that story could be 'dark and edgy'. Sorry for the rant but when I hear people spout off misinformation about the project it really strikes a nerve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Fire Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 *bigass picture of Donald Trump* I imagine a lot of you were 'misled' by the disgruntled ex team members and misinformation they did like to spout of that anger just to get people to hate the project. I would say that 90% of the artwork Spire posted on his blog or whatever was concepts that I had denied due to them not fitting into Zelda lore. He would literally have some whacked out dream(usually about batman) and create a fully detailed concept then get mad it got denied. He would even post artwork to the community without even my consent or approval. We were -never- trying to go dark and edgy. As for Zeth being the end super villain, whoever told you that straight up lied to you guys. The idea we were going for was something the team had came up with during the development and we thought of adding a fun little optional dungeon with some neat puzzles and there would be boss fights in the dungeon. You would have fought the entire Ura team in the Tower of Ura and it had no impact whatsoever on the story. It was just a side dungeon to get new armor, that was literally it and its not the first time developers add themselves as characters into the games they are working on. We named it the Tower of Ura because the project had originally grown so much from the original concept, it was basically our tribute to what started off the project in the first place. The main story of the project literally was about the Sage's seal on Ganon weakening and Zelda sending the Hero of Light to save the sages in the Palaces in the Dark World who were helping maintain the seal from the sacred realm and fix the mistake Zelda made as child by collecting the Triforce of Power from Ganondorf. I really don't understand how that story could be 'dark and edgy'. Sorry for the rant but when I hear people spout off misinformation about the project it really strikes a nerve. Pretty much this. Zeth was supposed to be an optional superboss, similar to easter eggs that are placed in games by the developers. Also, any allusion to the story being dark and edgy can be blamed on my writing. As the one who was solely responsible for creating the dialogue, I was trying to put some urgency into it, and with what was shown, it made it seem dark and edgy, when that was far from the intent. Additionally, who wouldn't want a boss fight with me? You could try your best to kick my ass. =P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcaith Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 The terrible vertex shading isn't actually directly a result of the importer itself, it's a result of the geometry. Since he's using sketchup to make his geometry and isn't building it one triangle at a time, it's triangulating things for him, which means it optimises for less polygons, which also means huge, stretched and misshapen triangles that when lit using vertices looks awful. I was actually planning on doing something between an LA remake and an original story; my idea was that it would take place during Link's seven year slumber in OOT. He'd dream an island trial to prepare himself. Never got around to doing it, partly because I wanted to have hardware compatibility and I never got around to making the design doc for the tool suite I had envisioned for said purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xdaniel Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 Zeth and Shadow Fire: Well, that explains some things, I guess? Probably some misunderstandings on my part, coupled with, well, the overall drama back then with (ex-)team members saying this and that, etc... hell, maybe me misremembering stuff as well, it's been several years after all. But, Zeth, did you have to use a picture of Trump of all things? <.< Arcaith: There is some iffy code in ex. SharpOcarina regarding vertex normal calculation, if I remember correctly -- because some .obj exporters didn't even generate normals, or only did surface normals, or something? -- so I'd guess it's a combination of the model's geometry and the importer's code messing things up... but I last touched that code maybe five years ago, so I don't quite recall how it worked or what it did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeth Ryder Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 Additionally, who wouldn't want a boss fight with me? You could try your best to kick my ass. =P I got to do that with RP later on with you, which was quite fun. Zeth and Shadow Fire: Well, that explains some things, I guess? Probably some misunderstandings on my part, coupled with, well, the overall drama back then with (ex-)team members saying this and that, etc... hell, maybe me misremembering stuff as well, it's been several years after all. But, Zeth, did you have to use a picture of Trump of all things? <.< Yeah it had been several years and there was a lot of misinformation spread about the project out of anger instead of facts. But regardless of the project now which is several years dead, things are better off without it because it sparked better things. As for Trump, it was me trying to be funny because all the times Trump said 'WRONG' during the debates. It was just meant as a joke. :3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xdaniel Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 As for Trump, it was me trying to be funny because all the times Trump said 'WRONG' during the debates. It was just meant as a joke. :3Don't worry, I know, it's just that (all politics aside even, which is a whole different can of worms) I find him extremely unlikeable, so even jokes about him I'm feeling... rather meh about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeth Ryder Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 Don't worry, I know, it's just that (all politics aside even, which is a whole different can of worms) I find him extremely unlikeable, so even jokes about him I'm feeling... rather meh about. Yeah truthfully I'm not fond of him either nor would I vote for him. But we should probably switch the conversation back on track lol As returning back to the original topic and the Link's Awakening design. Its nice to see some better looking models being made but the styles of the models and textures seem to conflict a lot which does bother me a bit. The fishing pond looks like it was a rip from OOT 3D with some added textures and models added/changed. While the rest contrast between a new style of texture and OOT/MM textures which kind of feel off. To be truthful, if I didn't know what the project was about, I wouldn't been able to tell that was from Link's Awakening which is one of my top 5 favorite Zelda games. I could be wrong about this, but a lot of the things shown just seemed to be model/animation replacements for current existing enemies/actors such as Chain Chop/Bow Wow is just using OOT's dog actor to have it follow him around where an actual custom actor would be better choice to accomplish the things he wants to do. While I may not be a fan of the project, I do support him following his dreams and creating a project that will make him happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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