SA Released Vice City Stories: PC Edition

[LaDiDa]

Well at least it's fixed crap now .

[Derrick Keno]

A VCS-styled Vice City Perennial would've been nice, but Ash (and the rest of the team), you decide.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Derrick_Keno

[Elissay]

A VCS-styled Vice City Perennial would've been nice, but Ash (and the rest of the team), you decide.

Unfortunately, it has already been decided by others to keep the original

[Ash_735]

Calling all artists out there, we have an interesting offer, we're looking to see if anyone can do a better Cuban Hermes Flame texture, we've tried scaling it and remaking it as accurate as possible but it just feels off, so we want the community to show us their ideas, here is the original texture...

 

 

We're looking to have the new one be 256x256, so show us what you can do, be accurate or be creative, and there's a chance one of yours could make it into the game if people like it!

[Hrod Wolf]

I did, but it's not very accurate.

https://imgur.com/AuXfIft

[iAbokai]

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there you go, i did 2 versions because i can... and i know, it's not perfect... but maybe i'll redoit tomorrow, we'll see

[Nihilist.]

Guys, I'm not sure if there's a perfect solution to Cuban Hermes' paintjob - original is really low quality and looks inferior to one we've got in Vice City, but on the other hand, any attempts to refresh it will result in noticeable changes some could dislike, even if the new, improved Harley Quinn texture is made with nearly 1:1 accuracy.
It's either preservation of original 7 color palette and step gradient in higher resolution, which won't change the style, yet will stand out from other textures due to sharper edges and no compression defects, or full recreation of the flames to make them look more natural, airbrushed-like, which will, of course, make them stand out among other materials due to amount of details and general higher quality.
There will be some whining either way, there's nothing we can do about it.

Since I have few days off at work due to nasty throat infection, I've got a while to play around with Photoshop a bit. iAbokai used the first method I've described above, faithfully preserving the original style, so here's my take, using the 2nd idea:

 

Also, speaking of vehicle textures - I should still have HD company logotypes from Vice City I've remade couple of years ago, appearing on all these Bensons, Mules and whatever else.

Let me know if you'd like to take a look at them - maybe they could help you out with the project somehow. Would be a shame if they've remained unused.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Nihilist.

[iAbokai]

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as you can see, i've redone it a little bit, the changes are not as drastic as everybody would have expected, but it should be enough for the texture to look good in the game.

Edited March 6, 2018 by iAbokai

[Claude_Lib]

The big question is whether the banding seen on the original texture was intentional or caused by bad compression. IIRC, the gradient was much smoother in VC. What do you think, Ash?

[guard3]

Most textures are 4-bit, so gradient, smoothness etc is lost and we’re met with simple slabs of colour (vehicle textures is a noticeable example)

[iAbokai]

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Nihilist's texture is very good man, his texture is the one that has to be chosen to be in the game, i'm just here struggling with something that i can't do right x'D

[Ash_735]

VERY impressed with what's been offered here guys, here's the results in game (all set to the same weather and time of course):

 

First up we have iAbokai's variants (Original Texture is on the left all times)...

 

 

 

 

And then there's possibly my favourite looking one in-game, Nihilist.'s more creative attempt which actually comes across as very faithful to the original making it up in the areas where the original had flaws (banding, 4bit, stipple, etc)...

 

 

And yeah if we look at the original texture on PS2/Xbox the gradient was more detailed and smooth as it was apart of the body texture itself...

 

 

 

Which again Nihilist seems to have matched (whether that was intentional or not), so right now if others are happy with the results, I'm leaning towards his to be the chosen one. And just to address Nihilist's question, yeah, we've already used better textures for most of the vehicles and the Cuban/Hermes is one of them that was remastered, and even comparing it to other vehicles in game which have a decal/ad, the Cuban was low res, the rest of the game uses 256x256 for ads on trucks, etc, where as the Cuban Hermes decal was only 128x128 and was being stretched across pretty much the entire front of the vehicle so I do feel like it was one that needed fixing in some way.

[gts.]

All cuban textures looks so nice and pretty much the same, will be hard to decide for which one.

[Ash_735]

Here's iAbokai's more creative attempts which are MUCH improved over the previous ones he's done (I guess being too accurate in this case was a bad thing )...

 

 

 

These two plus Nihilist's are the top runners, I might see a way if I can combine certain parts but both of you will get credits for this work.

[Derrick Keno]

I prefer Nihilist's flame, it looks smooth, and like a legitimate airbrush job on a car. Unlike what he said, it fits the game perfectly. Also, Nihilist, can you show us the logos for the vans? I am really curious how they came out.

[Nihilist.]

---

 

Nihilist's texture is very good man, his texture is the one that has to be chosen to be in the game, i'm just here struggling with something that i can't do right x'D

Thanks for the kind words! Really appreciate it. I gotta say, your latest version looks spot on, really like how you've managed to combine original step gradient style with smoother edges and supporting gradients and transitions. Good job! The bright oranges and yellows really mix together well, giving an illusion of depth and dimension to the entire paintjob!

 

 

[...]

 

And yeah if we look at the original texture on PS2/Xbox the gradient was more detailed and smooth as it was apart of the body texture itself...

 

 

 

Which again Nihilist seems to have matched (whether that was intentional or not), so right now if others are happy with the results, I'm leaning towards his to be the chosen one. And just to address Nihilist's question, yeah, we've already used better textures for most of the vehicles and the Cuban/Hermes is one of them that was remastered, and even comparing it to other vehicles in game which have a decal/ad, the Cuban was low res, the rest of the game uses 256x256 for ads on trucks, etc, where as the Cuban Hermes decal was only 128x128 and was being stretched across pretty much the entire front of the vehicle so I do feel like it was one that needed fixing in some way.

Thanks, Ash. Yup, this choice was intentional. This particular texture from VC has been a thorn in my side for years, no joke, since I've tried to recreate it in 2048x2048px during my Vice Cry days. Eventually we've abandoned the idea due to insane amount of work and time it'd require (and multiply it by number of all vehicles in the game - now that sounds like fun, doesn't it?), but it stood in my head to this day. Cuban Hermes was always one of my absolute favourites in VC, I remember perfectly its smoother color transition, which I've tried to incorporate here, kinda mixing both versions into one. Smoothness from VC with color palette and general shape from VCS.

Besides, iAbokai already did a faithful recreation of the original VCS texture in higher quality, so I didn't feel it would make sense to do the same thing, virtually. It's not like my version would be much different. They'd be like Titanic and Olympic, or Elegant and Premier in SA, you'd need to really look on both to see differences.

 

Either way, I'm very surprised with how all these different textures look in-game. I was wrong assuming they'd undeniably stand out from the rest of materials no matter what. It seems like the exact opposite, actually. Everything fits in, at least on these screenshots.

 

Finally, I have tweaked my texture just a tiny bit. There's more darker tones, similarly to original VCS paintjob. Lighter colors remain the same - the worst thing you can do is to start overthinking and overdoing everything

 

Version 2.

 

 

I prefer Nihilist's flame, it looks smooth, and like a legitimate airbrush job on a car. Unlike what he said, it fits the game perfectly. Also, Nihilist, can you show us the logos for the vans? I am really curious how they came out.

Five minutes, friend. I'll post them when I find them. Edited March 6, 2018 by Nihilist.

[LaDiDa]

Won't even attempt to recreate that texture, those already done by Nihilist and iAbokai are awesome already!

[guard3]

I really like your texture, however, original VCS flame has some smoke effects here and there. I'd be nice if you added it. Other than that, great work!

[Nihilist.]

Found these old materials, although all of them are PNG images. I remember having vectors of at least some of them, but couldn't locate them.

For the most part that's a really random selection. Note that not all of them are 100% accurately redrawn - here and there I took some liberties, and considering I've been doing them one after another in a row, really fast, some may have slight imperfections, or may have been done better. But hey, that's the price for rushing things.

Pic heavy spoiler below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download the entire pack of random stuff

If you want to use anything, be my guests. As I said, it'd be a shame if my work remained unused collecting dust bad sectors on my old HDD.

 

 

I really like your texture, however, original VCS flame has some smoke effects here and there. I'd be nice if you added it. Other than that, great work!

Adding smoke isn't a problem, I can do that easily, but the way Cuban Hermes is mapped begs a question "should I"?

Texture is stretched on the hood in few places, and while that's not that noticeable with flames, smoke could look odd, like on the pic above.

Dunno - your call, if you ladies and gentlemen want me to make a smoked variant, I can do it. Just let me know.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Nihilist.

[Ash_735]

Version 2 in-game:

 

[Shogun Pacino]

Is it possible to play as CJ in this mod? i don't really like Vic.

Edited March 6, 2018 by CoolMods

[guard3]

You're kidding, right?

[inadequate]

You're kidding, right?

No.

[Shogun Pacino]

You're kidding, right?

No, i'm serious. I wanna play as CJ...no joke

[guard3]

Then you're out of luck

[Shogun Pacino]

if this is on san andreas engine, atleast i can play as Ryder? (using skin selector)

 

sorry for stupid questions...

Edited March 6, 2018 by CoolMods

[Alek-say]

if this is on san andreas engine, atleast i can play as Ryder? (using skin selector)

 

sorry for stupid questions...

The best way to help with this situation - delete all non-VCS characters...

[Elissay]

if this is on san andreas engine, atleast i can play as Ryder? (using skin selector)

 

sorry for stupid questions...

Skin selector using cleo right ? If yes then you cant use it cause cleo is not compatible with the mod

[Ash_735]

Next up on the cleaned up and remastered (with model corrections by CP) is the Moonbeam...

 

 

[The Hero]

What's my kid gonna do on a school with a name like MOONBEAM?