Hello, friends!
We've received a lot of feedback over the work we've done so far. The overall positive feedback has encouraged us a great deal to continue working on the project. This month has been even more productive than last month so we have a lot to share with people.
The development team has been hard at work fixing bugs in the leak, learning how to use the existing tools and creating new ones when required. New content has been added and existing content enhanced, culminating in a polished and playable version of the Lady Killer casino which we intend to release as a playable demo at a future date. We’ve been inspired by the 2002 incarnation of the Casino and have been matching it with a few liberties here and there.
We’ve also fixed some broken elements to maps. Such as the Balls of Steel pinball machine.
That’s not all we’ve been working on though. In tandem with fixes to levels we’ve also had tremendous success with loading custom meshes into DNF01. Our plugin team has finally made some headway and we’ve been able to import a new Duke model.
We've been inspired by the 2002 Matt Wood model and have created a design reminiscent of it.
(Note we haven’t figured out mount points with models yet. Which is why he lacks a weapon. We’re still working on that)
But. That’s not all.
We’ve also been working hard on features that are highly requested. We’ve made a lot of progress adding bots into the engine for multiplayer. At some point in the future we will also include new gamemodes to enrich your multiplayer experience
We have also benefited a great deal from new concept art being produced for the project. Which will help us greatly with fully realizing the characters of the game.
But that’s not all.
One of our team members has published an DNF:RP official steam deck profile to run the game on your steamdeck. We’re looking for testers for it. You can find it here.
Our second announcement is the opening of the official Discord community server for the DNF2001 Restoration Project, where you'll get:
* First access to project updates
* More behind the scenes content
* Multiplayer server updates
* Direct access to the team
* Access to play-testing (in future)
* Community events
You can find our project on these social platforms:
Discord: Discord.gg
Twitter: Twitter.com
Reddit: Reddit.com
On behalf of the DNF2001 Restoration Project, we hope you have a great day. If you are interested in joining the team, please either PM me here on moddb or join our official server.
We'll have more news to share very soon.
Nice, though Official Duke Model textures look better here
Agreed-- might just be the angle of that one screenshot but he looks scrawnier too.
Thank you, keep up the hard work!
Oh my~
I'ts awesome. I like that all the environment decisions try to get the best of the leak and 2002 screenshots
I'm really sorry to say it, but your Duke looks sorta sad and terrible. That would be my only criticism, though. Everything else looks like great progress.
Nothing is set in stone so any feedback is good. I think the Duke model will take the longest to get "exactly right" so the more specific people can be with their critiques, the better the result.
Curious what y'all mean about duke looking kinda scrawny. Is it that the muscles aren't big enough? Is the face too skinny? Thx for any feedback you're able to give! <3
I wouldn't go so far as to insult your guys work - I think the main issue with the new Duke model is that his neck muscles are a bit too...thick, maybe? It's a combination of the neck and chin that are bringing it down - possibly due to the older lighting of the engine that's not really producing enough contrast for the model. Duke definitely has superhero muscle proportions whereas the new model looks more like a realistic take on a wrestler/body-builder physique.
I was staring at the pictures (the offical VS yours, where Duke is next to a mirror) and I think one of the main points would be the waistline - the new duke has a fairly thin waist, compared to the official one.
Waist is kind of the pillar muscle in how we perceive musculature - that's why the over-the-top bodybuilders can look borderline misshapen with their thin waists and overly bulky chests/shoulders, while people like Strongmen look, I guess, "consistently built", because they're thick in the core.
If you have the time and inclination, perhaps try to shift Duke a bit more into the Strongman category, as opposed to pure Bodybuilder?
But either way - all the kudos to you all for the work you are doing, regardless of your final decision about Duke's model.
Y'all? Are you a southerner?
I just like that pronoun a lot haha
While I do think that some people's criticisms of the model are a little harsh, given the sheer scope of what's being accomplished here (remember that in the leak, as it was given to us, Duke was an eyeless zombie.) The priority is that we finally get to experience the legend in its entirety. that being said, I do believe the "scrawny" criticism stems from Duke's neck not looking as toned as the rest of him, and his face isn't chiseled, kind of making him look like an old man, but those might be limitations incurred by the tech in use here, keep your head up my friends, fantastic work!
I *think* i got it. It might be that his arms are wide in one direction and not the other. a good simile would be if his arms were holding a book under his armpit, its sort of like that. As well as his shirt being less defining of his pecs. also, to solve the not having weapon thing, im making assumptions here, there is a specific tri within the model that is angles in where the gun is positioned. im saying this because i looked at UT models before, and this seems to be the case.
Happy if i could help
he does have a rather large nose too
This is awesome, the Steam Deck is very promising for the future I really like how the environments look like!
Good job!
-Rayan ''Dabu''
Hey guys - Senior Dev from the project here - I'm already seeing some really useful feedback on some of the stuff we've posted, particularly the Duke model. Since y'all are being super nice about it, it seemed worthwhile asking what people would want in the model. Bigger muscles? More detailed face? More detailed ***? Any constructive feedback is good, especially if it helps us keep our vision of the character in line with the community!
In my opinion the model needs some little improvements, like with the face that doesn't look like the duke's face we all know and the design of the pants and boots that don't match and look like the official model but don't worry if it doesn't look the same, that's least to worry about.
Without more, i want to congratulate you guys for the work made so far, keep going!
Your Duke lacks a bit of muscle definition. I feel like it's going for more realistic proportions while Duke was always comically muscular. He's a macho man kinda character. Big muscles, veiny arms and whatnot. I'd base it off the official designs. The clothes could use a bit more wrinkles as well.
Good job overall though!
Agreed
Best option is to replicate the textures on the shirt/pants as identical to the original as you can, try to add the wrinkles and small details. Legs are a little skinny and Shoulders can be broader. Thanks
About face, I always imagine that Duke face is similar to Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren)
Static.wikia.nocookie.net
maybe is it good base to use real photos to face model texture :)
I think bigger muscles is a pretty solid consensus, and a more chiseled face. don't know if this is of any help, but Ivan Drago from rocky 4 is a pretty good point of reference for what duke's physique should look like
I am really digging these updates. They get me even more excited for when the demo finally comes! :) Congratulations on the initiative and best wishes to your team on this endeavor!
You might run into trouble putting Bombshell into this...
Amazing update, can't wait to play it on my steamdeck, Duke's face needs some work, I would prefer that the face looks more like the DNF 2011 version.
Just amazing ! If I could I will give money to this project to help !
Well, the possessed eyes are gone, so that's good.
Thanks for the news, cool artworks by the way!
Duke model is fine, maybe make him a little more angry, you know, bigger eyebrows, angry like this: è_é
You know what I mean!
Can't wait to replay DNF01 with your fixes! GJ and GL everyone! 👍
Keep the original texture work of pants and shirt as it looks much better. While the work that was done on pants and shirt after is actually what would be more in line with modern texture work because of much better PBR capabilities on newer engines than back in 2001., the older, "archaic" way of using much higher details on diffuse texture is better. Unsure for boots (cant see it properly from here) but looks to me like your version could be better here.
As regarding the body itself - I see why your work aimed to maybe fix some issues around shoulder areas and muscles, but the model turned out possibly too much thin in areas where it should be bulkier. Its tricky on the low poly models and focus should be to achieve fluid animations without too many sharp edges in main poses. You can see in second pic how there is an issue between Duke's biceps and lower arm. Maybe subdividing a bit certain areas of model, especially joints, if its possible, to achieve more flexibility on design ? And yeah ... smoothing out a bit neck area and muscles could be good.
The overall bulkiness of torso in original is good, so rather going in more athletic / fit looking curves, it goes straight in mass - which fits the Duke and his "logic", lol.
And finally, I think the face is one of the things thats most off. Duke looks too old, his facial proportions looks off, but especially his nose position is off. At least from my POV.
Good luck on future work ! This project has already stirred up a LOT of things in gaming community ...
I like this Media.moddb.com it reminds me Marines dropship from Aliens 1986 movie, I love it!!! This movie can be one big inspiration for hardware and monsters etc
This is just a nitpick, but why were the textures changed for the pinball machine? The original textures did not appear to be "broken" and even if some of it might have been temporary -- the pinball machine clearly is supposed to resemble the one found in the first level of Duke3D.
Maybe these new textures were found in the leaked files? But in that case, it suggests there would be more than one pinball machine to interact with throughout the game. I just hope the original pinball machine will still be placed somewhere within the game, as it was in the 2001 trailer.
All that said, this is the restoration team’s project and creative decisions. The work here is great, and I look forward to future updates and the first release.
Columns in the pool are clearly different in the original screenshot, they don't have the arrow pattern. Only the dividers along the wall have that design. Too much arrow patterns imho. Columns should look like thee screenshot too.
We're not following 2002 designs to a T. The column texturing choice was intentional.
Looks good so far.
I do agree with the consensus that Duke should have bulkier muscles, a more wrinkled shirt, and a face possibly resembling the 2011 version. I think the shirt could also be a bit more red.
And with the pinball machine, while the new art looks good, I agree with lostintime's take, in that the textures for the machine didn't seem to be what I'd call broken, and it would be cool to see a pinball machine with the old textures.
Other than that, it looks great, and I can tell you all have spent an astronomical amount of time on this project. Keep up the good work, and I can't wait for the next update!
This is looking great! Can't wait until next update.
Although Duke's face seems a bit different, like an older version of him, but that's probably the idea
Also, do you need a musician? I'd really love to make some tracks for this :D
Awesome!!!
Looks great! Keep up the good work.
Amazing guys!
Amazing! Keep it up guys! Have you been reaching out to original developers asking them for guidance and what were the plans for the levels/plot? Also, there is even more advanced build of Unreal 1 engine-based DNF version from 2002. Perhaps it will be leaked as well.
We have spoken to former developers yes. They've provided us a lot of valuable feedback.
However the bulk of what we're using with the project is developer information from around that time period. Due to how much the game's plans fluctuated some of the information directly from developers contradicts elements in the leak and concept art.
We are operating on the assumption that DNF01 is the only leak we will have access to.
Great job! It's good that you have some leaked screens from the 2002 build.
Sweet :D
hope you read this. is just feedback just feedback is the duke model in the leak photo of the duke the cargo pants looks better than your model (i don't want to insult i just don't know english too well sorry D:) other thing is the muscles i always imagine and by the art that the duke muscles are like superheroes in comics BIG and that i just wanted to say that the muscles for the duke to be bigger and the pants to be more like in the old leak just that
hope he see this o_o
To fix the graphical glitches as seen in your bots test video, I used graphical API wrappers.
DX8 to DX9 + DX9 to Vulkan.
Github.com
Github.com
Everything's good, but the official Duke model looks miles better. Why not just use it with a few improvements here and there, IF needed be?