DS1 is no longer limited by the PS3/360 and here's why

I'm finally diving in big time to upping the polygon count to many of DS1's objects, mappieces, etc. All the while fixing issues that have existed since the 2011 release. Hope you enjoy! #darksoulsmods #darksoulsremaster #darksouls
The Blender Soulstruct tool is what allows me to do this mesh work for DS1. Check it out here: github.com/Grimrukh/soulstruc...
If you want ad free versions of my videos and sometimes early builds of my mods not ready for Nexus:
/ fromsoftserve
Buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/fromsoftserve
PayPal donations: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted...
My Merch Store: fromsoftserve.myshopify.com/
My mods:
Dark Souls Re-Remastered mod: www.nexusmods.com/darksoulsre...
Vanilla DS2 Remastered:
www.nexusmods.com/darksouls2/...
DS3 Embers mod: www.nexusmods.com/darksouls3/...
Find me also in these places:
fromsoftserve discord: / discord
/ fromsoftserve
/ fromsoftserve
Playlists:
DeS Modding: • Demon's Souls Modding
DS1 Modding: • Dark Souls 1 Modding
DS2 Modding: • Dark Souls 2 Modding
DS3 Modding: • Dark Souls 3 Modding

[@fromsoftserve]

you are now required by Gwynevere to like, comment, and subscribe!!!

[@Stangrex]

she ain't real I'm doing this for you

[@dickheadrecs]

amazing chest ahead

[@urracojalpa4481]

Are you planning to fix the remaster's lighting? Do you think it's possible to get it to look 1:1 with the original (including the overblown bloom effect of the original)? This is by far the biggest issue for me. It's visible throughout the game, but some places like Anor Londo are straight up ruined by the new lighting. And Anor Londo is amazing, it's worth the whole game.

[@fromsoftserve]

@@urracojalpa4481 so I've done my best to restore PTDE's lighting setup in the mod! It's sadly not as easy as copying over the PTDE param values, but I've gone through many, many revisions for each area. Also, I replaced every texture with their PTDE version since many of them had more contrast.

[@Jurglenuts]

The specularity on all surfaces also ruins remaster and the mod for me, only certain surfaces had it in the original and now its overblown​@@urracojalpa4481

[@mushroomcrepes4780]

there's something so satisfying about seeing low and high poly model comparisons

[@ztsb_koneko]

I feel like adding polygonal fidelity, even if just to the intended-to-be-smooth pillars, can be a slippery slope. It might be a quick and easy fix, but there's bound to be a spot where the high-poly asset clashes with a clearly contrasting low-poly one that's much more complicated to fix. Then if you start fixing more than cylinders then where does it end? Gotta remember that the whole game is "balanced" around a level of detail, and you can knock it out of whack, like a lot of mod-assets do. I'm sure you know where to draw the line, but putting this out there anyways :) Cheers for the good work!

[@nickoliekeyov746]

The best example of this is the branch in blighttown that you have to cross to get Remedy. It’s *too* polygonally detailed and you can very easily slip off and die, illusory wall has a video covering this I think

[@Junk_And_Junkets]

@@nickoliekeyov746 That was the collision mesh though. That's entirely separate to the model's actual level of detail. Otherwise, invisible bridges in Seath's domain would be uncrossable because they don't have a model. (Obviously they are crossable... because a collision mesh doesn't care what a model looks like)

[@zekill9792]

@@nickoliekeyov746 which video?

[@Mireneye]

Something that might be valuable for you to know. When you export a mesh to a game engine, it triangulates the mesh because that is how it's expected to be read by most game engines. So these incessant triangles you see in the mesh in blender, where a quad absolutely has become two triangles are the result of that. There is a way to automatically quadify a mesh. Altho I don't remember the exact workflow in Blender. But that is very helpful, so you can make cuts and additions that make sense to the original mesh. The tris are a lot of times difficult to work with when making loop cuts etc. There is also a specific setting in the top right corner, which allows you to add vertices without sliding the UVS under options, Correct Face Attributes, it can be incredibly helpful.

[@sirbobbenxd]

Yeah I think you just have to select two tris and right click should show "tris to quads" and vice versa

[@ThatWarioGiant]

Alt+J is tris to quads in edit mode. You can also go Face -> Tris to Quads.

[@Mireneye]

@@ThatWarioGiant This is what I was thinking of!

[@theftking]

@@ThatWarioGiantselect the faces you want to quadify first

[@younghollow2663]

This mod looks incredible man! The best thing about videos like this is that you can notice the flaws in the texture mapping and fix them later, and receive quick feedback from some players about the mod, very good indeed

[@fromsoftserve]

tysm! and you're so right. it's why I really love making these videos. it helps me keep focus and find new things to fix. and people will notice more things than I can alone, so that helps too!

[@ballacaust]

Dude I feel like this specific update is a real landmark moment in this mod. I'm SO excited to see this continue development. This is one of those games that truly deserves all the countless hours of work, research, and I'm sure plenty of hair pulling you give to it, and I'm extremely grateful for your work, buddy! Keep on keepin' on.

[@fromsoftserve]

tysm!

[@sirbobbenxd]

A tip for using blender! If you wanna use the original mesh and subdivide it you should add a loop-cut to the edges. Like a small bevel. That would make it not squish down when you subdivide it.

[@fromsoftserve]

Ooo thanks for the tip! 🙏

[@tsnp423]

Dude, I love you and your work so much! Thank you!!!

[@aaronainairetv]

20:10 hmmm. I don't know, something about seeing a brick pillar turned into a perfect cylinder looks... off.

[@tsuketsu9889]

I mean yes and no. There are real castles/cathedrals that have hexagonal shapes like in the pillar before he fixes it, and there are ones with perfectly round brick pillars. Really just a matter of architectural design and preference. Fromsoftserve might think hes "fixing" certain "low poly" structures when some are meant to look like that.

[@volpilh]

Rectangular and polygonal pillars are very common in Gothic and late Classic architecture (even tho they typically "bulge out" on the faces, making them round-ish), particularly in pillars made from bricks. Circular pillars are typically chiseled or constructed in segments. Checking the texture to see whether it's a smooth pillar or a bricklayered pillar might therefore be helpful to discern whether it's intensed to represent a circular pillar or a more polygonal one. I suggest referencing concept art, and the buildings from which FromSoft took inspiration from, but also the sort of rules, principles, precepts of this kind of architecture. I mean, theres a lot of jank in the world design of DkS, but take care that you don't overfix things :3 (even if there sometimes might be knee-jerk instincts to make things nice and symmetrical and, uh, geometrically "intentional", so to say, I totally get that)

[@kevgmei]

Dude, I actually think the hexagonal pillars in the new church and I can see them making sense there!

[@TechArtAlex]

Something is wrong with your columns mesh normals. I think maybe your smoothing angle is too high, causing the 90° angle between the side and bottom to round out which is causing the shading to be incorrect. In an unrelated note it'd be amazong if you could do something about the texture tiling by implementing some more modern anti-tiling techniques (like sampling two similar textures and blending between them). Large brick/stone walls look super repetitive.

[@mrmunkee]

Yeah his pillars in game look like a cylinder with full smooth shading and top and bottom faces (which aren't needed here), which looks very wrong. There are a lot of other little wrong things I notice, especially with how he uses blender. I don't think he has much knowledge or experience with blender to really do all of this properly from what I saw here. The height map he made is also not really how height maps are done. They aren't that basic, and usually include slight variation of the stone as well, so it won't just be two toned, but you'd still be able to see the tile detail. All this stuff is generally ok and still works fine for what he's trying to do. But he might run into issues down the road, or have to redo entire sections once he learns more and realizes how he's done some things.

[@EyefyourGf]

​@@mrmunkeeYou can see this behaviour amongs many people who mod,or want to "fix the game" most of the time they dont learn or dont want to,ego comes into play every time,but not to blame only modders you can see this from some new developers as well,they remaster a game and ruin a vission,atmosphere,completely change some geo for no good reasons etc,and never ask them self is this what people want,updating game meshes is not a simple task of just adding more subdivisions ffs,and if you do it,you have to redo normal map,ao map,you can reuse old one it doesnt look good,it's a process. P.S but hey what do i know,i worked in industry 15 years ago many things changed.

[@Mireneye]

I'm pretty certain that the pillar you point out that is square, but looks smooth is because they wanted it to look smooth and damp so they used even normal smoothing on it across it's edges Instead of sharp ones. It's probably meant to look sharp but almost like it has grime/moss growing on top which would make it appear smoother.

[@ramim681]

thinking about getting remastered just to play re remastered

[@kewa_design]

Did the Same, worth IT !

[@christopherbalboni9820]

Your attention to detail is on another lvl 🤙

[@Tegyukfel]

You're doing the polish in Re-Remastered that the original Remastered should have had. Respect!

[@Wohodix]

8:40 its not unusual for an old build to have different materials for the same architectural part. Sometimes builder run out of a material, or something is destroyed and fix later, or it doesnt age the same way because of various exposition to elements

[@colbyboucher6391]

The PS3 is such a funny console to me. Powerful enough that it became a staple in makeshift supercomputers, but so alien that most ports ran like dogshit. ...Honestly, updating geometry like this seems significantly more important since you've added dynamic lighting. In the base game, the lighting is so flat that I'd never notice that those pillars weren't round. With all the shading, it's much more obvious.

[@RelaxingNostalgia]

port still run badly on modern consoles,architecture dosent matter in a lazy greedy industry.

[@Latchfpv]

@fromsoftserve you are absolutely the best kind of sicko and we all love you because of that. So delighted with all the awesome work you've been doing with the entire series.

[@habz4464]

been following forever. finally downloading

[@elliottvantonder5477]

Amazing work! If you have time it'd be cool to add a slight gradient at different angles on your tiles in Anor Londo. Something like 100% white to 92%, just to make the tiles look that bit more naturalistic, akin to the tilework in later Fromsoft games.

[@TheFaqvideos]

Also, would it be possible to add that wind animation effect to those static trees that are all over the game?

[@theftking]

...you can pull Fromsoft assets into Blender? With textures and everything? 😮 ...whyyyyy is there no PC release of Bloodborne... I want all that stuff...

[@RelaxingNostalgia]

because it would be piracy,and for some reason the West gamers are against piracy.

[@deathlykarma4620]

I fucking love this mod, love seeing your videos, can't wait for the next one 😊

[@melonhead.]

Hey man, been following your progress for a while and can't wait to try it out but could I make a request? I personally really love the look of the PTDE "magical" looking bonfires, maybe you could add like an optional setting or a file that could toggle between the old look and the regular fire effect in the Remastered version? I know I'm not the only one looking for the same thing but I don't think there's a reliable way to do so. Can't wait for the full release of your project, cheers!

[@TheFaqvideos]

Stayd was messing with the baked lightmaps of the map a while back (like he's doing with DS2) to great results, do you reckon you could try your hand doing something similar for the re-remastered mod?

[@Nemshek]

going full sicko mode on those uv mapping issues, keep it going

[@HouseGhost1]

I wonder if you could use the concept art too see if the shapes of certain things are actually intended or not

[@atticus9845]

Do you have anyone overhauling textures, tone mapping, recompressing, upscaling, and etc?

[@shambleshef]

This makes me think, I would love to see a dark souls restoration mod. Would be cool to see the buildings and environment not destroyed/super aged.

[@docbukabu8484]

Enjoyed your video! The depth effect on the floor at Anor Londo, the columns made rounder in blender, the small details - this was interesting. I do have a couple of (minor) criticism if you don't mind: 9:21 I feel like the extra hand-placed stone blocks on the wall stick out too much... It's ok on the edge, but not so much in the middle of the wall. I probably wouldn't let my mason build something like that, and I don't see a building aging in such manner either. 9:47 contrary to the others, these pillars look like they were meant to be hexagonal, I don't think you need to touch them. They're made of small different stone blocks in stead of a single column, it's easier to make an hexagon than a cylinder out of this. 18:10 I don't understand the issue here, the wall and the ceiling looks natural to me? You'd have the stones aligned horizontally for the wall, and aligned with the slope for the ceiling, thus a sharp cut between the two. Could you show your changes? 6:19 I am still not a fan of the extra furniture in this room, it feels random to me. Keep up the good work!

[@europa.]

Well well well would you look at that. Crazy undertaking but I wanna believe.

[@atheran]

Once you start upresing assets you add a whole bunch of work to be done, since you can't quite upres a few assets and leave the rest as they are. But so far you've done great work with the mod. Do you have a team, or looking for people? Never modded DS1 before but I worked on props/textures/non-animated meshes in several mods of other games and in a studio as a prop/texture artist.

[@chsi5420]

Is there any possibility of parallax occlusion maps?

[@5chneemensch138]

The dark corners look better than your removed corners. Artistically superior.

[@johnbangs1]

praise the MAN!

[@cho4d]

gimp is pretty agressively okay if you decide you want layers for example with doing texture work

[@Spellfork]

Bro, whaa!? This is the ultimate "well, if you're gonna remaster something right then you'd just best go on and do it yourself". I love it, throws shade right at Namco for cheaping out on the remasters. No shame at all thrown on the paid remaster studio, they probably delivered exactly what Namco was prepared to pay. I do hope you keep going with this, you are gonna be forever in the pantheon of Souls icons (you are already doing good) :)

[@paullane3999]

Don't know if you have a spot to submit these kinds of problems but there is a texture problem in sen's that hurts to look at. At the bottom of the tower of the crestfallen merchant behind the serpent mage on the rock face there is a really bad UV error

[@Iamkaden]

Dude, this kind of work is straight amazing. I recently started learning Blender, how can I get maps into my Blender like you? I'd love to mess around with this kind of stuff and just learn more!

[@fromsoftserve]

So luckily all you need is the Soulstruct for Blender plugin which has a GitHub page. From there you can import any model file you want from dark souls 1. It super helps to also use DSMapStudio as it can do a lot of things beyond what Soulstruct for Blender can do. They make a hell of a combo!

[@Iamkaden]

@@fromsoftserve Ooooo. I'll check those out! Thanks a ton!

[@raph4106]

You think at some point either you or someone else would remake the player animations to fit this mod’s quality? To make the animations feel smoother and more interesting and nice to look at, sort of like how Bluepoint did it for DeS?

[@juliet4093]

I feel if you’d like to another thing to do, adding broken parts of the pillars here and there on top of the bridge would be a good touch for environmental consistency Also could you alter the destructible props to remain collision active I think it would be a dramatic improvement

[@cyka_delik9537]

So...does online functionality still work with the mod?

[@docbukabu8484]

A couple more things... 10:28 About the pilasters. From an architecture viewpoint there is nothing wrong with them being square-shaped. But there is something weird with how it looks here, I am not sure what though - maybe something to do with the way it is lighted? One of the edge is barely visible, and the shadow against the wall makes it look more rounded. I can't be sure what the original intention was, but I think you are right in not meddling with it too much. 14:30 Personally, I wouldn't mind if you documented your modding in other places as well. Like an extra optional zip file to download on the nexus mod page : a folder for weapons and armors, a folder for each areas, subdivided by improvements, creative changes, original bugs solved, new bugs introduced/corrected... something like that. With .txt changelog files, with mod version number tagged on each screenshot. Not something that takes too much time and hampers the modding process, of course.

[@ghostflask]

The lighting in undead burg looks kinda jarring, like it’s noon whereas the original was more sunset color temperatures, which is kinda tied to the tone an allat Anor Londo looks great tho and obv this impressive shi

[@hashtag6312]

Something with DS1 always bothered me: All the stone surfaces, especially those with moss in Undead Burg, just look *wet* everywhere and I still notice this in your previews too. Is this something you'd be looking to change at some point?

[@jonsmith6331]

Those "square pillars" are Pilasters and clearly meant to be that. Just be careful you don't end up turning into BluePoint and turn this faithful remaster into a remake.

[@eugenechelovechniy]

Use concept art as references if you have doubts about the geometry and design of locations. I was about to be indignant that you were adding polygons in vain and hardly changing the picture, but then I saw that you know what you are doing.

[@barendolneznami]

I would decide whether to make the column round or polygonal based on whether it's realistic for it to be round. The smooth ones on the bridge would probably be easier to make rounded, while the grooved ones inside the church make more sense angular. The bricked ones I'd keep hexagonal, you don't make round shape from bricks, just make texture fit the shape better or make a new one that would fit. PS: Or just look at romanesque architecture and make it like that.

[@barendolneznami]

14:10 - Those arches in Anor Londo are interesting. Obviously, they should be rounded. The more interesting thing is that they are divided to bricks primary by vertical lines. Also there are some small brick pieces close to the floor, that's not something you'd do IRL. And since it's a gothic architecture, it's not hard to find how it should be done. PS: I've just realised how bad the texture alignment is in Anor Londo and probably in the rest of the game as well.

[@docbukabu8484]

Seconded! I was about to write the same thing!

[@joelzuniga3292]

Dark souls 1 is my favorite of the series world design was the best im sad they never tried to do that again

[@yaroslavyaroshchenko501]

0:25 - on the newer models you have to fix smoothing groups (set hard edges) because it shades incorrectly in the build and creates a weird tinted look of columns. Same for smoothing groups on 10:25 I'm not a Blender user, but here is a short video that can help:

[@yaroslavyaroshchenko501]

2 minutes long video Video title: How to do a Smoothing group in Blender Author: Tommy Kho Sorry to bother you if you mentioned that in the video and I missed it

[@yaroslavyaroshchenko501]

+ I beg you to check what "Weighted normals" are. You going to like it ! ! !

[@yaroslavyaroshchenko501]

Weighted Normal | Blender 2.8x Tutorial - The video is 20 min but actually to apply weighted normals you need only a few clicks by Gleb Alexandrov

[@yaroslavyaroshchenko501]

14:04 You can use weighted normals in the places where you have a "bevel" (square columns left/right). There are a lot of places in the game where you have bevels and "hard edges" on those bevels. By assigning weighted normals to those you will create an illusion of high fidelity and the best part is that it will cost 0 in terms of additional performance cost

[@HeyKyle]

You put the serve in fromsoftserve

[@almostblank4025]

god damn, the topology on the original looks fuckin stupid lol. nice work man

[@cho4d]

some cool improvements, some things i would have done different. i bet it won't be long before an AI is able to go through a game and evaluate what an asset is supposed to be then retopologise it automatically and regenerate textures automatically. all the human has to do is verify the AI didn't do anything bad.

[@Wohodix]

will you fix the trees ??

[@fromsoftserve]

That's on the list for sure! Just trying to come up with the best way to do it honestly

[@JoshuaDbener]

No one tell softserve about chamfering... he will lose his mind on every corner!

[@janderfischer]

Maybe the decision whether you should make the pillars round could be based on if the normals are smoothed in the original? The pillars on the walkway have smooth normals so im sure theyre intended to be round, but the big pillars around the gate have hard normals so they might be intended to be hexagonal... You could still improve the look of the hexagonal pillars by slightly rounding the corners, i dont use blender but there should be sth called bevel or chamfer that makes this easy! Interestingly, following that logic, the square pillars you pointed out in the interior really should be round... But then again maybe they made a mistake with the normals haha Whatever you do, I appreciate the work and content!

[@tommapar]

If you need something to edit your heightmaps that's a little more robust than fucking paint LOL you got Photopea, which is like a stripped down photoshop. Works as a photoshop sales pitch mostly, but for our humble applications, it does the job. Take care man!

[@indiedreamsmedia2235]

Is there a reason most armor set mods replace current sets as opposed to adding it as a new item?

[@RatboyW]

"You have to be a sicko like me to notice this" is such a mood LMAO

[@RelaxingNostalgia]

your mod that adds dynamic shadows to og ds2,has a considerable amount of visual bugs,fix please.

[@RelaxingNostalgia]

if possible fix as well og ds2 forest of fallen giants,its a part of the game that looks unfinished.

[@fundip533]

Praise the sun!

[@Polygonaim]

Get some korean bevels in there baby so the corners catches light better.

[@DaRoachDoggJrr]

With all these improvements the game is genuinely getting close to looking like it was made for ps4. Looks graphically better than Bloodborne in a lot of ways.

[@thelizardwizard6772]

i love a lot of the texture changes and hate others, lots of saturation, lots of contrast, and the increase in foliage in firelink doesnt feel right.

[@zZiL341yRj736]

I didn't 360 has a Dark Souls, I always thought it was a PS3 thing.

[@rymd1875]

the normals are broken on the pillars

[@camraid9]

round is better

[@peterpanther8627]

Bro is single hanedly remastering Dark Souls, all in the right places too. Great job man.

[@EyefyourGf]

He is not,he is changing how it looks for his vission better,but its typical for people to over hype anything these days. P.S its hard for the developers 200-300 to remaster/remake game and not fuck uo,but you are hyping one guy who just fuk around with meshes and replace them,and they dont look better to me foe many specifics,one of them is they lose their actual shape outline,because he just adds subdivision,you wpuld have to rwbuild these models to look better from ground up not just add details,but ofc he is free to mod game like anyone else,nothing bad on that.

[@EyefyourGf]

You are not fixing anything,but if you are having a good time playing with changing meshes that is fine,but i would never replace developers vission with how certain things look with yours,even tho there was clearly limitation in details,your fix is oh lets just subdivide model look how rounded it is lol,sorry but dark souls is fine. P.S im.sure you will have some snarky comment.

[@mrp8171]

I mean... the PC port exists and its fully moddable, so...

[@Vivezoz]

I bought remastered just to use re-remastered..

[@IllyasArt]

Watching you use Blender is so uncomfortable... So many shortcuts that you can use to save time. Pressing Tab to go back and forth between modes (object to edit mode, or whatever the last two selected modes were). Pressing S to scale, and either Z Y X to scale in that specific axis. Keep in mind... I have been using Blender for almost 15 years now, and even I don't fully utilized each and every shortcut, haha. (NOTE: Something that is tripping up Blender users of the latest version, is that shading a model smooth doesn't exist anymore. Instead, you have to use a modifier, which is under the normals section.)

[@koresoteira447]

You ssy that the original DS was limited by ps3 and xbox 360, but I remember how bad the original PC port also was...

[@fromsoftserve]

Yep PTDE is a mess on a technical level. DSFix allowed us to play at higher resolutions, 60fps, better AA, AO, etc, but yeah, it still isn't optimized at its core. But PTDE was just a shitty port of those releases. I'm not really sure if QLOC used PTDE as its starting point or did it just start with the console releases. Thank God that DSR is suuuuper optimized regardless, though.

[@RelaxingNostalgia]

​@@fromsoftserve though DSR looks objectively worse than the original game,and has new bugs.

[@fromsoftserve]

@@RelaxingNostalgia so I wouldn't say it's "objectively" worse as it's definitely a subjective thing. I do think PTDE obviously did a better job with lighting and contrast. However, DSR brought normal and specular maps to all surfaces, which PTDE lacked in many cases. DSR also brought better mesh lods. Also brought parallax occlusion mapping. Temporal anti aliasing. Better ambient occlusion. Vertex shaders added to foliage so they sway in the wind. Better normal maps in many cases too. I will always love PTDE and defend it, plus I've worked on a PTDE remaster mod. But DSR gets waaaay too much hate.

[@RelaxingNostalgia]

​@@fromsoftserveptde is good as long as you have dsfix.

[@lucy-pero]

"DS1 is no longer limited by the PS3/360" yeah, since 2012, when it came out on PC 🤣

[@battedbook5811]

You were lucky if the pc version even launched on your pc, and even then it ran like shit.

[@normalhuman4951]

I want to go home... And then edge.

[@Danilen52]

you need to learn optimization

[@EVPointMaster]

I like what you're doing, but I think these video would be more engaging if they were more concise. Or maybe just presented differently. Showcase first and then explain what you did.

[@Jp3game]

the vocal fry makes this unwatchable bro

[@danebrennand]

Your "edited" mesh has normal/smoothing errors compared to original. You really should be leaving this to actual 3D artists. You actually made it worse in terms of how light hits the surface. It's completely shading wrong. Learn how surfacing works before doing this.

[@fromsoftserve]

Lmao 😅

[@TuRmIx96]

Thats a lot of polygons on the pillars without proper lod support. You’re gonna get a bunch of quad overlaps further away. Games really don’t like a bunch of small triangles close together. (Ofc todays hardware wont have a problem i think)You also could have just modify one and use an array modifier to quickly make a bunch then rotate them around to make em bit unique. The square pillar with the strange shading is just set to soft shading instead of hard shading I think. Strange that ds1 uses the height map in inverse. Usually black is the deepest and white is the highest point. Don’t take this as a criticism ur doing a great work! I’m just making suggestions to maybe help a bit. Also, maybe look into nvidia nsight, really useful program.