/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6388520
Recently I've seen some guy remaking Doom maps in Doom 3. Among few other examples, I recall someone recreating a map or two in Unreal Engine 3 and 4 or such. It happens with other older games too, like CS 1.6 for instance. Where you'd see something like de_dust remade in a modern game with same old visuals and maybe slightly better textures.

While this may be interesting for the novelty of it and to simply see how it looks in a different engine, it'll always stick out like a sore thumb in the end and look plain bad more often than not. I think what one should aim at is to preserve geometry and overall functionality found within the source map and see how it can play out in the context of the game it's being remade in. Try to keep the general outline and collision of the original, but adapt it to the host game's mechanics and gameplay. For example if a game has ladders you can use that instead of Doom's elevator. Graphically have it fit with the new visuals, but also try to preserve the old colors and general atmosphere.

Something that really pushed me towards this realization further, is a recent take on Doom's E1M3 in CS Global Offensive that someone posted here couple of threads ago. It's not perfect or complete, but it neatly deviates in the right ways.

I had this idea of remaking Quake's E1M1 in a different, more grounded setting. Something like the first tutorial secret being hidden in a trunk of an old car locked with some lock and chains that you'd have to shoot, just like the panel in Quake. With the car's back lights blinking periodically like the light in Quake. Maybe the platform you only reach by sprint-jumping could be some kind of a cliff, things like that.

Unfortunately this requires some amount of ingenuity and imagination which is harder than straight up porting, especially if there are tools which make this effortless. I don't blame people for taking the simpler route, but it'd be nice to see more of what I described above.