Bringing N64 graphics to Unreal Engine | Devlog

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#devlog

[@coolguy-xb2yn]

N64 Rare were a team of wizards. They wrote their own renderer and texture compression method, effectively doubling the amount of stuff they could have on screen compared to other N64 games. When you look at it, Tooie was pretty absurd for its time.

[@Legend64Project]

They really were on their A-game during the N64 era. Tooie still looks so good!

[@lunasam9]

goldeneye, perfeckt dark, then microsoft came and changed it all

[@zackbryans4982]

Beautiful. People so often think that high poly and high resolution = good looking. The truth is that this style (and your execution of it) is far better looking than many games trying to look realistic. Simplistic and stylized graphics are so underrated now a days. I can't wait to eventually play Legend 64 when you finish it.

[@Legend64Project]

Thank you so much. I hope I don’t let you down.

[@StrawberryNUKE]

Style is always important and so many people forget that less can be more I'd rather have a simple stylized art style.

[@mulanmiller5000]

@@StrawberryNUKE Yes, it's all about the amtosphere. Just look at Silent Hill. Just timeless.

[@mikeroegames]

100% agree. It’s all about artistic expression

[@Boomrainbownuke9608]

yup. polygon count isn't really a factor. its the execution thats important.

[@adamsmith7719]

4:35 Best. Ambient. Music. Ever. Love how you understand the N64 style is more than just a low poly count! Can’t wait to see more of your game.

[@bojordan64]

I'm at the beginning of my gamedev journey, currently learning C++, Blender, and Substance, and this project is inspiring as hell. I'll donate when I can, can't wait to play it.

[@morganlak4337]

Its been 3 months so I'm just here to say keep at it! I've spent almost two years learning art and its just finally starting to pay off, results will come!

[@dvttutorials9049]

Dude, this is what I've wanted my whole life

[@mariotavolieri4914]

I continue to be so infatuated with this project, I can't wait for more updates. This is fantastic.

[@Xograch]

I absolutely love the old textured low poly style in games. If done right it can still be so beautiful, you definitely nailed it! I will check it out if/when it will be released

[@aJellyJar]

I love the work you are doing, this small community of people trying to recreate the classic 3D vibe is really interesting to watch.

[@jung-zen]

The revival of low poly graphics is underway and i'm so ready for it

[@gamedev_byhobby8872]

Old low poly, cause there're quite a bit new low poly styles. From Minecraft to all those Unity flips. Makes me think that gaming art styles as with other styles, will always come back at some point due to nostalgia

[@kiyasuihito]

Dude, you're actually doing what I've been wanting modern devs to do this whole time, "don't overdo the graphics, just make the games bigger with the same graphics." I love N64 era graphics. Keep up the good work!

[@StrawberryNUKE]

You make it seem so simple It's good to not get bogged down by the process and the time it takes to do something creative I'm always stuck wanting to jump straight to final detail right away Measure 20 times and cut once, all things take time and if you rush it you will always feel ashamed of it.

[@TheHangedMan]

Great job! Putting it in that hazy forest was a great idea, I love the feeling of the place. Very lost woods.

[@sebay4654]

That is super cool (I'm a game design student with my focus being on narrative design (I use the story as the groundwork for everything (I use it to inform mechanics, art style, visual direction and similar things (my goal with games is to tell stories, I have two major projects I'm currently working on 1 being a adventure style game driven by story with the mechanical direction promoting the player to figure out there own approach to the "levels" as a sort of stealth in a normal house type scale, the 2nd project is a more experimental piece being a 3d platformer deliberately using older style rendering and texturing to evoke nostalgia through the stories themed of memories and the vote mechanic of sacrificing memories in order to progress (the story is that of a new experimental method of treating trauma has been developed and the main character has signed up for the first round of human testing with the trauma of the main character being what creates most of the enemies in the game (the first level/opening act reflects that of a good dream before diving in deeper and more corrupted as player progresses)

[@MrCheeze]

Wow, this is absolutely gorgeous! Every update to this project is pretty exciting. The one thing I do think could be tweaked a little more is the particles which seem a little bit more HD than the rest of the scene right now. Not sure exactly what gives me that impression, though.

[@Legend64Project]

Thank you. I agree. There are still a lot of nuances I haven’t quite gotten right. I will keep updating whenever I have any major breakthroughs.

[@mikeroegames]

Absolutely brilliant. Now on my study list.

[@tylerhughes192]

this looks really cool can't wait to see what else you have in store

[@nidalnijmgames]

Man, congratulations, this is Art in its finest form! People can not imagine how hard is to create good looking low poly visuals, especially those of the golden era of N64. Congratulations!!! Amazing job dude!!!

[@robertoaguiar6230]

This was so soothingly good...

[@DavidTehDude]

The distant trees really sold the environment for me. Great job!

[@MrCrazyhand]

I really like this kind of videos, keep it up man

[@rolandkatsuragi]

Rareware were masters at utilizing 3D technology on Nintendo's hardware, just look at how they fit DKC on a standard cartridge.

[@villagerjj]

I am addicted to these dev logs, please make more!

[@LegoDinoMan]

Incredible video! Very informative on how to design an N64 style world. I loved the lighting effects on the lanterns.

[@Phantoon]

This looks incredible. The degree of artistry is wonderful.

[@diamondcore5282]

Super inspiring stuff keep it up man!

[@Ineedanameplease]

Man, as I soon as I know more about everything you're saying here this is gonna be such a cool video to come back to 😂

[@Skiloose]

So impressive, can’t wait to see more!

[@pokechamp3987]

Amazing, loving your vids

[@teresaivall1431]

This is incredible. I am so so excited to be able to play something like this! Keep the updates coming!!!

[@Death_Above]

Nice work man i love the end result

[@emeraldeelentertainment8988]

Excellent video once again!

[@GlamourSwinexXx]

Thank you for sharing this workflow... this is SUPER inspiring to someone who REALLY wants to make a N64 style game in a modern engine. Kudos!!

[@IReadTooMuchCrap]

Really enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing!

[@Billary]

I found your videos about 6 months ago and they inspired me to really take the time to learn how computer graphics work at a deeper level- thank you. After watching some of your older videos, I tried for a little while to figure out how to implement these techniques in UE4 and I made a lot of progress in researching how to go about doing it, but I never fully tried it out in the engine so it's awesome to have a reference of someone actually doing it the right way now. Thanks again for your videos!

[@Legend64Project]

That is so cool to hear, thanks a lot. I’m really glad you’ve found the videos to be of help!

[@TFx2TV]

bloody amazy stuff, keep it up!

[@LuisMorales-gr2rs]

Love this keep it up!

[@mulanmiller5000]

fantastic work, feels so nostalgic

[@vectonaut1503]

Really cool stuff! I remember seeing your early videos when I was researching how to make PS1 style graphics and you've made some amazing progress. That scene is beautiful and really makes me nostalgic for the golden age of gaming (at least for me anyway!). It's also cool to see more appreciation for this aesthetic too, and I'm hoping there will be a bit of resurgence similar to pixel art games - some emulating the limitations of older consoles and others a mix of old style graphics with modern rendering.

[@jeffrey999]

So cool! Ill definitely be playing this once its out.

[@crazelarious]

Beautiful work!

[@LockedChest]

Now this is epic, will definitely watch for updates on this project and want to play it when it is ready.

[@moviescolin]

Wow, this is gorgeous!!

[@Grimgool]

God this is incredible had to come back and re watch this video weeks later cause of how nostalgic the feel is

[@PayxiGandia]

I got chills from this, delicatessen

[@CloudlessStudio]

This is so good man! Great work. I kinda like the blended look of N64 over the sharpness of the PS1

[@drawingwithjay4488]

Looks amazing

[@bioman1hazard607]

Dang, this looks absolutely gorgeous. I'd be playing the crap out of this if it was on the n64

[@JayRKID]

Hi there, I've started making my own N64 style 3D platformer in Unreal, thank you so much for you videos, I hope to start my own Dev vlog soon, I've subbed to you anyways and looking forward to seeing more

[@DozerMane]

so sick man. do you have a video of you creating the texture atlas and or the individual textures? Looks so good!

[@Karyonic]

You've done an amazing job, makes me wish there was as much focus on N64 retro-styled projects as there have been PS1 in recent years

[@dcvmu]

The way they got that level to run in Banjo-Tooie was by running it in 5 fps lmao Just teasing, this is looking fantastic and I love the look. Can't wait to see more.

[@Legend64Project]

XD yeah that game does have some pretty bad FPS drops to be fair!

[@HYDRAdude]

very impressive stuff

[@Pendoodlex]

Looks so good

[@cursuscruor5080]

This is beautiful man.

[@5ibben]

Beautiful!

[@Razevixen]

Incredible!!!!!

[@Yeet-by5or]

I love the use of Mystical Ninja OST in this. Insanely underrated game that never got the recognition it deserved.

[@mathewjohnson6919]

This is so dope.

[@clairearan505]

I've made few few shaders/materials that use mod to tile subsections of a single texture atlas enabling the best of both worlds for tiling textures with a rock bottom poly count. Unfortunately, unless you're baking in that low res look at a higher resolution or using padding between the different textures on your atlas, texture filtering breaks that technique. It's great for PS1/Saturn style visuals, but you're pretty much right on the money in terms of technique for N64. It looks rad.

[@UnrealSensei]

Love this, who needs lumen and nanite when we have the N64. Hopefully you start a new style for indies

[@TakumiJoyconBoyz]

One thing I am curious about is how strictly you are going to limit yourself to N64 limitations. Like which are worth sticking to and which are worth bypassing to you? Are you going to try to keep close to something the N64 could run? Are you going to implement the general blurriness from the aggressive AA? Will you cap the framerate to something closer to what N64 games of this scale run? Or is this more like Shovel Knight where it's kind of like an imaginary enhanced version of the target console? Sorry if I am asking too many questions, I am just curious about your design philosophy for the game as it seems like quite the personal passion project and we don't see stuff like this very often.

[@Legend64Project]

Those are all good questions! I am aiming to get the look as close to the N64 as possible. The environment looks way too HD at the moment and I still think it’s missing something. I am experimenting with the frame rates as well. This may be more complicated than just capping the FPS though. I think a lot of the work will be down to how the animations are key framed. As shown in the video, I’m okay with cheating with the triangle count as long as it still looks N64ish.

[@TakumiJoyconBoyz]

@@Legend64Project Yeah, triangle count certainly makes sense, especially when you probably COULD have done it for less at the expense of taking much longer to actually do it. If everything is a little too crisp for your taste I'd definitely consider the aggressive AA option to kind of blur things unless you think that's a bit too far. Granted, with the way you're implementing texture filtering I suppose you're likely very okay with blurriness. and yeah, if you look at things like Ocarina of Time you can tell the animations are made to look nice even at low framerates, kind of like how cartoons know how to move when animating on twos or threes. I've even seen those same animations smoothed out for higher framerates and they actually look very awkward once they do so I agree animating to the framerate is important. Anyways, thanks for replying!

[@MrCombatgiraffe]

nice to see you do this i've had an idea for a few months and wanted to capture that ocarina of time look as well. nice open fields and such, but wasn't sure how obtainable it was on unreal engine since all i see is newer looking nicely polished things. didn't want to consider unity after the backlash with charging devs per game downloads and such. but i guess i just had to visualize it differently though. your game looks really nice, keep up the good work. :)

[@Aaronmac404]

I would love to know more about how you got the material billboards used for the lens flares to render infront of the geometry. Do you have any links to resources/learning materials that you used by chance?

[@JustSomeAussie1]

very cool very swag i like it!

[@bobbynick5358]

You know what would be a interesting retro game concept? if there were 3 kingdoms and each one have their own 90's low poly look, a N64 style, and PS1 style and the Sega Saturn style.

[@The69Health]

11:21 tells me you're putting extra thought in to level design.

[@deinemama6303]

This is so fucking cool man

[@StiffAftermath]

Nice Mystical Ninja ost at 3:20 in the video :)

[@alexwithd]

Awesome. A nice video that ties it all together! :D What are your plans for upcoming videos?

[@DeepFriedOreoOffline]

Wow this is so cool to see! Also, you created that Hyrule Field for the Guardian scene? I knew this was all going to be awesome when you started to set stuff up but this is absolutely amazing, and seeing the workflow is very informative!

[@Legend64Project]

Thanks a lot! Actually that was misleading, I should have said “I re-created it based on the original model” as I had to make the area again so that it would work using my texture atlas.

[@DeepFriedOreoOffline]

@@Legend64Project I think I get what you mean, even if you opened it up in Maya and vert-snapped all the geometry to the original Hyrule mesh, doing it all for the sake of using your atlas is quite inspiring :) I am afraid of hard work sometimes, lol.

[@Legend64Project]

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline it took way longer than it was worth to be honest XD

[@silentslayergaming8469]

Please post more videos like this. Your content is truly unique and exactly what interest me. Do you have any tips on how I can learn to do this and make my own game in this style.

[@Legend64Project]

I will try! I would recommend learning the fundamentals in Blender. If you are new to 3D modeling, studying with Blender Guru is the way to go. You can learn a lot very quickly. I wouldn’t focus too much on emulating a single visual style if you are just starting out as it will limit what you’re able to do later on. I am trying to switch over to Blender myself. Start out small and build your way up to bigger and bigger projects!

[@jeremydragon-shapeshifter]

Would it be a dream come true if there be an N64/PS1/Saturn Maker software like there is NESMaker? IMO, that would be so cool and more convenience to create a 5th Generation style game!

[@skilarbabcock]

Something your map is missing is multilayered grass texturing

[@lifeartstudios6207]

Really wish you had a discord. Would love to get a group discussion and show and tell for retro graphics in modern engines. I think you'd like what I did since it's very similar to yours, but entirely vertex lighting and no post processing.

[@johanleemeyer2626]

this graphics is sweet

[@Badguy292]

Subscribed. I love this shet, also love UE4.

[@TriforceMeteor]

Wowie hype!!

[@SAZERU]

dude whats the music at 8:59 i remember hearing it but dont know the name eee

[@morganlak4337]

Is this just an unlit shader for the geometry? It looks really good

[@Andrew-tl9gk]

Maybe can you make the blossom tree leafs more rare and random so they dont float around everywhere all the time? This would be more realistic IMO to see a leaf fly around here and there only.

[@csmemarketing]

I'd rather time travel back to when OoT was released. A much better world than in 2021.

[@Legend64Project]

Sadly true.

[@gaia9020]

can you make a tutorial on how you did some of the things? like the lance flair on the torches, that you found to be difficult, or some other things you had to find away to make them work. Inspired by you (and some n64 let's plays) I began to create a few thing in n64 style graphic in blender :D

[@kaijucobalt2064]

This looks amazing! If you don’t mind me asking, how did you make the textures? Im working on an N64-style animated short (rendering and animating in Maya) and I’ve been using a mix of seamless photographs crunched down to 64x64, and some original textures I made in Substance Painter at the same resolution. They look fine, but I feel like they’re lacking character. Is there a particular way to get the look? Thank you very much for making these amazing videos!

[@half-pipe9791]

i'm doing something similar to this myself and i would like to ask how exactly you made that grass texture. i cant quite figure out how to get something that looks authentic to the time period

[@tommydrager5497]

beneath a steel sky OST for the win

[@Gecko1993HogheadIncOfficial]

I wonder if someday there will be a featurette that will work on Old School hardware like the PS1 & N64?

[@inedibleRED]

you should try reducing the render resolution or use a post-process effect, particle would look better with blockier, bigger, and lower res petals!

[@Stany]

Big thanks for your video ! I actualy make a inde game based on N64 graphic, your video was useful. (sorry for my english I'm french)

[@Legend64Project]

That’s cool! I’d like to see it!

[@mythhead2688]

6:45 Love your work. How did you import the map from Banjo Tooie to Blender?

[@bentsivertsen4968]

6:57 The "magic" was sacrificing fps.

[@markmeadows7093]

Just stretch the textures out and make them fit in four kilobyte blocks. Big polygons with very little corners are angles. Then get some Vicks vapor rub and smear it on your screen.

[@shitchops]

Remember the n64 expansion pack ? maybe thats how they ran the banjo level 😋

[@Rawrlz]

How did you create your textures? Can you do a tutorial on that?

[@DMARtunes]

Love the MT32 music.

[@Punisher1992]

Do you use Unlit or Lit for performance, or style... or u just use all the modern things you can?

[@GabiN64]

You should write a book one day

[@toasterdev8329]

is the music that starts at 0:22 and ends at 1:52 some kind of remix of banjo kazooie music and specificaly the witch's lair?

[@Legend64Project]

It’s Dr Burke’s theme from Beneath a Steel Sky.

[@toasterdev8329]

@@Legend64Project oh ok thanks it gave me that kind of banjo kazooie kind

[@Legend64Project]

@@toasterdev8329 hehe that’s why I chose it :D

[@toasterdev8329]

@@Legend64Project you inspired me to make a n64 style game now:)

[@Legend64Project]

@@toasterdev8329 oh, good luck!

[@kaypathy]

Very nice you should try to implement vertex snapping, i think it'll look even better

[@Legend64Project]

Not sure what you mean? Vertex snapping when 3D modeling?

[@kaypathy]

@@Legend64Project just look it up,theres a tutorial by the sickly wizard on how to do that but im not sure on how u can implement to ue4,itll definitely make your game look more retro

[@Legend64Project]

@@kaypathy ah you mean the PS1 thing? Whilst I love the look of that, sadly the N64 didn’t have any texture warping. I’m trying to keep the games graphics as close to those on the N64 as possible.

[@kaypathy]

@@Legend64Project oh :) you are staying true to that,thats fine then.im learning ue4 myself so i enjoy your channel.cheers m8

[@parusastringent7073]

Impressive. I would be curious to try this with godot. I am not sure to have understand. The textures you use are open-source, created by yourselves from pictures you took or modified pictures found in the net without knowing if there is a copyright attached to them or not ? Thx in advance. I sure hope to see more of those kinds of low-tech graphics in the future.

[@Legend64Project]

Wow yeah I totally skipped over that. The textures are made by me. I use a combo of ms paint and photoshop.

[@Althoms-gs2ww]

It is possible to create a n64 game using unity hub?