Here are some of the polycounts, I couldn't find were I have stored Ryo's model from Shenmue I.
life_247 wrote: I don't know if anyone posted this or not but the character models used in the original Shenmue Engine are wierd. They're split into various parts with the head, body, arms, legs, feet and hair all being seperate models which are stiched by the movement engine.
Its not a simple import job to copy the old assets into the game (textures aside), also the assests are 15 years old - we've moved on. It will have to be done using the particular way the unreal engine handels character models, this gives them maximum flexability and its probably quicker to start again from scratch than trying to re-use old assests.
Back when Shenmue was developed the gaming world - especially on consoles - were using custom engines for everything. This isn't practical in this day and age where the development of these engines can outstrip the amount of time spent on a game!
Yes the models are split as you can see in the first pic of RYo's model I posted, and some joints are missing so the total amount of polygons should be higher.
As I've said before, even if they have lost the original assets they can always rip them from the game files, I'm pretty sure they can develop better tools to do it than the ones the community has done in the past years, and even If it weren't the case, they could use the community tools, rip the models and use them as a base for the new ones, that's exactly what I've done, and I started doing it with 0 knowledge in 3D modeling.
I fixed the faces and gave the characters new bodies trying to stay as close as possible to the original ones.
Ryo.
Xiuying.
I am pretty sure they can do a way better job. It is fastest and cheapest than creating new models from scratch that look worse than the originals. And the passport faces looks absolutely stunning, with a few tweaks, honestly.
I just want to be clear, I am not complaining at all just talking about what I think is very important for Shenmue III over things like open world, extra content etc, number one priority should be stay closer to the original characters designs otherwise it would look lke I am playing a game with some people cosplaying shenmue characters, in fact that's how it looks it its current state.