Shadow Tower SOM - General Discussion

[Verdite]

Sorry about that I ‎  didnt include the second part of the file. I was hurrying to zip it up, because ive got more than this project on the go - hmm and my eyes were almost fizzled out. Theres another large mod im making assets for, then my own SOM game which saps tremendous amounts of time from my day without me even realising... ‎ 

Well I keep thinking about the ST map parts im going to make. Hmm, im thinking that the poisonous cave and the cave in the human world could use the SOM tiles, and I could make objects for things like the fat mole's perch, low down doorways etc. Though I wouldnt mind redoing the set completely, its just gonna take longer.

[JC Bailey]

Thanks, the fix works nicely.

If you don't want to do a complete retexturing, that's ok. I'm not too familiar with this stuff, but it seems like it'd be quite a time investment, especially if you're working on other projects.

I think the default SOM textures will actually work just fine for what I was planning. So if you'd like to save yourself some stress and only do certain game-specific tiles like the wall tombs/mole perch using engine textures, then I'm all for it.

[Verdite]

MT, just to say im still working on the solitary region map set, it should be finished by sunday. So far ive put 7+ hours into making it and ive been working as fast as I can!

[Smittiox]

Wow, Looks like this project is really takin off !!

‎  I'm new to modelling but Verdites smithing skill is over 100 (and uses modded blacksmith potions too i think) so you're covered there
‎ 
Mabey I can contribute in the music dept too. Playing and recording music has been a hobby of mine for around 25 years. Haven't done anything real fancy like Toms stuff from DoM but I'd like to help if I can. I thought Toms music was great btw, really set the atmosphere and stuck in my head for days. ‎  I use an old Roland Alpha Juno keyboard, A Yamaha RX21 drum machine (glorified metronome lol) and Play a Fender strat/Ovation plug-in acoustic through a Fender G-DEC amp with more bells and whistles than I can count lol. I stepped up from a tape deck when I discovered Audacity to record with years ago. Never tried fruity loops. kinda broke lol. The keys and drums are dated but so's the game Not sure if you're going for a more modern sound or something matching the year ST was released.

‎  Big problem on my end is that I need to play through ST and get a feel for it. Lemme know if I can help though Take care n have fun ‎ 

[JC Bailey]

@Verdite
Is that the pillar from the altar room? Looks nicely detailed, can't wait to see what the full set will look like.

@Smittiox
Sound good. If you need, I preconfigured a PSX emulator to work with Shadow Tower for referencing.

Here's the download link, rom included:
https://www.mediafire.com/download/x4oin...4d/PSX.rar

[Smittiox]

Groovy ! Thanks man ‎  I forgot to add earlier , if I can't help in the music dept, I could at least ship ya a few pounds of coffee for the all nighters lol. ‎ 

[Verdite]

*Crawls to keyboard* I wont be beaten! Even after........... ? Ugh how many hours did I spend on this tonight? Oh yeah, 6 and a half... Ill make sure Shadow Tower is built...

Ran into alot of strange design decisions that I hadnt seen before. So I corrected where I went wrong... Then after I built the altar room I found more problems in how the tiles should be laid out to the same ST positions.
Then I tweaked colours to get them as ST as possible.
Before you ask; yes I made the stonework relief at the start from scratch... Digitally drawing every detail... Along with every other texture you see here. Everything was made from a blank image.

It was good though.

Though I do need a screenshot of the small altar door, its not completely visible from the screenshot. ‎ 

[JC Bailey]

I really like the texturing! That new wall texture looks much more detailed than the repetitive wall tiles from the original, and the way you blended the reddish tiles with the ceiling decorations in the first image just looks amazing! Really appreciate the work you're putting into all this. I find the fact that you did this all from scratch to be incredible.

May I ask how you did that HUD, like is it a custom script or can that be done within the engine? Didn't know that you could edit the UI like that. If that's the case, I wonder if there is a way to display on-hit damage in the bottom left corner of the screen, like in the original game.

I'm also wondering if the gold model can be replaced in the engine, was thinking about replacing it with a model of a cune and giving each enemy a chance to drop one like they do in the original.

Oh and here's that screenshot you wanted, if you need any more PM me and I'll hook you up.

[Verdite]

Actually SomEx allows for the improved HUD - and of course tons of graphical improvements, such as antialiasing. I can help you set it up, and I would imagine Diver would be happy to let us use it.

Im also thinking about the ST doors. It would be nice to have our project doors work the same as the ST ones, though the traditional KF progressive feel isnt there. Are you wanting to link up all the levels through black fades on / off or do you think a more natural approach is better? Like the warp system in DD.

Its nice that you appreciate the texturing ive done. Without good textures models are just too plain.

[JC Bailey]

For transfer events, I was planning on having doors that open, then the player can walk into the blackness willingly where the screen then fades to white and activates the teleport event. I'm going to make a short demo of the first area once things are in place and you'll see exactly what I mean.

Would be great to set up SomEx. I've been looking at it, but still don't know much about it. You'll have to help me with that when you get the time.