Wednesday 10 August 2011

Welcome!

Click to see fullsize.

Welcome to the Grim Fandango Deluxe project, an unofficial fan-made mod for Grim Fandango. This blog will document the project's progress. Here's a brief introduction...

Grim Fan-what-now?
Grim Fandango is arguably the greatest graphic adventure game ever released. It continues to be praised by critics and still appears in "Top PC Games of All Time" lists to this day. It was designed by the legendary Tim Schafer (of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Brutal Legend and Psychonauts fame) and released by the equally legendary LucasArts Games. It's a film noir-inspired journey into the Mexican Land of the Dead, with all the humour and imagination you'd expect from Tim Schafer and LucasArts.


This Project's Aim
While Grim Fandango is a masterpiece, with many stunning attributes, its 3D character models (limited by the technology of its day) sometimes detract from an otherwise stunning presentation:



The Grim Fandango Deluxe project aims to try and improve the quality of these models, perhaps to the level of quality seen in some of the in-game videos:


Especially note the quality of the hands/objects.

How?
This entire project is made possible thanks to the hard work and dedication of the people behind the ResidualVM project, an open-source interpreter that allows a user to run their copy of Grim Fandango on modern machines (and even non-PC platforms). If you're familiar with the ScummVM project, you may recognize it as a sister project for the 3D LucasArts adventure games.

You can download ResidualVM for free here: http://www.residualvm.org/downloads/


But what will you change?
Every effort will be made to stay as true to the original spirit of the game as possible. Only changes that enhance what is already there will be considered. Specifically there appear to be three possible routes to enhance Grim Fandango's graphics:

  1. Increase the texture quality (a test of which can be seen in the Manny image at the top of this post)
  2. Adding polygons to the game models
  3. Upping the game resolution to 1280x960

Great! When will you be done?
Unfortunately even with Residual's help there are still technical problems that need to be overcome before we can even begin all of the above work.

These problems are:

1. Textures -- We have found a way to increase the texture quality (see the image at the top of this post), but we are still limited by the game's 8-bit palette. Ideally a 16-bit palette would be supported, allowing for better quality textures.

2. Polygons -- We just need some skilled 3D modellers to volunteer their time. See here for more information: Calling 3D Modellers

3. Resolution -- This particular chestnut still needs to be cracked.


If you want to help out with any of the above aims, you can either drop me email here:

grimfandangodeluxe@gmail.com

Or you can join in the up-to-the-minute discussions about these problems at:
http://forums.residualvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=100 (this is really the best place to jump in - don't feel shy!)

Please get in touch either way, if you feel you can offer something to the project!

Links:
DoubleFine Games - Tim Schafer's game company
LucasArts Games - Original publishers of Grim Fandango
Residual - Home of the software that allows modern machines to run Grim Fandango

Remember: This project is completely fan-made and unofficial. It has no affiliation with LucasArts or DoubleFine or any other official body.

19 comments:

  1. Brilliant project man, look forward to it.

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  2. Your link to the residual website is broken, it has an extra trailing space character (%20).

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  3. Greetings.
    I've been looking the past 15 min. to find a way to contact you. Either I'm very sleepy or you don't have any e-mail address anywhere.
    Anyways, I am quite interested in the project, in fact I was modelling a new Manny a few years ago (it's obviously lost in the oblivious lost data junkyard by now).
    I'd be happy if you'd come back to me. I'll leave my facebook profile here:
    http://www.facebook.com/LominaDrail
    I'll be waiting ^-^v

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  4. Pardon me for probably missing something obvious here, but I don't see the problem with the 3D models.

    If you can convert .3do to .obj, you can convert .obj back to .3do. If you can't find a direct conversion tool, something like MeshLab (http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/) will let you convert .obj to .dxf and then 3do Builder (http://springfiles.com/spring/tools/3do-builder) will convert .dxf to .3do.

    What's the issue?

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  5. The forum-link needs an update, as the old one won't work after the rename to ResidualVM.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Fixed! Thanks for the heads up, everyone.

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  8. One of my favourites games of all times.
    Congratulations for the iniciative!

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  9. Excellent work guys!!!
    Don't let this project die.
    Grim Fandango 4Ever ^_^

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  10. the graphics aren't that bad, what really detracts from the game are the horrible controls...

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  11. Bravo folks for not letting this diamond of a game be forgotten on a scrap heap! Genuinely hope people get on board with this one, be sure to keep us updated regularly.

    "Viva la Revolucion!"

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  12. Really hope this project gets finished some day! I love everything about this game! Great story, interesting characters, the whole atmosphere.

    I hope this project will lead to alot of younger people trying this game and loving it as much as the people who played it when it first came out. And also give the older generation a nostalgic feeling playing this great game again, in the quality that's possible today and that a game this great deserves!

    Good luck to all involved in this project!

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  13. Hello! I made best regards for your project! I think is a great idea and if you want I can support with some 3d models and textures. Currently I am more interested on making some corrections of Italian translation so I want to ask you if you can give me some documents about envelopment of story and analysis of textures (http://forums.residualvm.org/viewtopic.php?t=100&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=255)
    my email is bl_cervian91@hotmail.it

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  14. This is an awsome idea! Best of luck! Thanks to residualvm and help from this blog I can finaly play Grim on my Mac.

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  15. i hope this project is still alive, keep it up guys! keep it up!

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  16. I hope this project is still alive too! Good work guys!

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  17. Hoping that this project works!
    Good luck!
    Don't let the project die...

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  18. Ever seen one of these Official Grim Fandango "Store manager perk shirts" before?

    https://www.facebook.com/168239653223346/photos/a.690312784349361.1073741893.168239653223346/690312824349357/?type=1&theater

    Direct link to photo in case that doesn't work...
    https://scontent-a-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/t31.0-8/p720x720/10448556_690312824349357_6203857767614602115_o.jpg

    Please reach me at the email address at videogameobsession.com if anyone has info on this item. Thanks!

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