Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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He took up the purest technical work.

But I never expected it.

Life can be so strange sometimes, even when he had completely let go of the past.

He actually heard the big boss say those four words.

"President Lin? Have we identified the first target for resetting the studio?"

With a hint of suppressed excitement, Li Mingxuan asked.

"of course."

Lin Lixia pointed to a project proposal on the table with his finger.

"The first project after resetting the studio was Heroes of Might and Magic."

A glint of excitement flashed in Li Mingxuan's eyes. He took a deep breath and tried his best to calm himself down.

"Yes, Mr. Lin, we will definitely complete this reset task!"

Lin Li smiled and waved his hand, saying, "Don't rush."

He stood up naturally.

In a few steps, I arrived at the whiteboard.

"Don't rush, this reset mission is a bit special, I need to talk to you first."

Although Lin Li hasn't figured out how to outperform Tencent in the overall market yet.

However, Lin Li had ideas on how to target Red Alert Online.

The core of this idea is an online remake of Heroes of Might and Magic III, plus a new spin-off of the Heroes of Might and Magic IP.

The requirements for the remastered version seem simple, but they are not.

"For this remastered version, we'll first create a demo framework."

"I'm not asking you to recreate the campaign. First, make the multiplayer mode, recreate the original map system, then select two races and do a high-definition remaster..."

"The core idea is to be fast."

"We need to create a usable version within a month."

"Don't use 3D, use our mature 2D style. In terms of art, take the pixel art of the original work, enlarge it and restore it."

"Especially in color reproduction, the saturation should not be too high, and new technologies such as lighting and special effects should be used more."

"It's okay if the visuals are a bit simple."

"The final result should have that feeling of putting new wine in old bottles."

Lin Li's request is undeniably high.

Why are remakes of games difficult to make?

That's because remastered games are inherently special; many older games are players' cherished memories.

It's easy to recreate an old game, but it's difficult to recreate the old game that players cherish in their hearts.

However, difficulty does not mean there is no way.

First of all, if the original version is not a 3D game, Lin Li will never use 3D to operate it, because 3D is not a good thing for an old 2D game.

Especially today, with 2D game technology having reached a fairly mature stage of development.

If we're going to remake Heroes of Might and Magic V, then naturally it should be a 3D remake, high definition, with added details.

But Heroes of Might and Magic is different in three ways.

Lin Li's approach to Heroes of Might and Magic III is called "imitation".

Something we all probably did when we were little: take a slightly transparent piece of white paper, cover it with a pattern, and draw.

This is what Lin Li is going to do.

It is recreated one-to-one using the Spark Engine, and the latest technologies are added on top of the recreation.

This is why Heroes of Might and Magic III was chosen as the first remake, because the Starfire engine's technological accumulation in the 2D game field is simply terrifying.

In order to ensure that their own daughter, the frontline girls, can remain competitive in an increasingly fierce market.

The 2D technology of the Spark Engine is also constantly evolving.

Based on this.

Lin Li divided the remake of Heroes of Might and Magic III into three steps.

"Disassembling the bones is the first step."

The so-called "disassembly" refers to extracting all the materials from the original Heroes of Might and Magic III. These materials include not only art assets but also various details, such as the movements of minions, the random generation method of the map, the interaction of various treasures, and so on.

This step is actually quite difficult and time-consuming because Xinghuo doesn't understand the original Heroes of Might and Magic III engine.

Fortunately, Ubisoft released an HD version in 15.

Although this HD isn't very good, Ubisoft has already done the disassembly.

Moreover, 15 years is not far from now.

The disassembled projects are still there. After all, the remastered version didn't include the death shadow, and the project team has properly preserved them for future use.

"After removing the bones, the second step is to re-establish them."

Redrawing involves redrawing the disassembled materials.

This step can be very simple; for example, Ubisoft's HD version simply overwrites the original.

However, this perfunctory approach has caused a series of problems. One is that the original version is blurry in many places, and most people, apart from the original designer, may not be able to understand the details and structure. The HD remaster is just a completely new version drawn on top of it based on intuition.

Then there's the issue of background and architectural perspective processing.

Because the original version has a low resolution, the pixels around the building were already compensated for with ambient light and diffuse reflection when the drawing was done. However, the HD version did not have this compensation, which made the buildings look angular and completely out of place.

Chapter Thirty: The Three-Step Reset Method

Finally, the HD version has a fatal flaw: the sense of distance between buildings.

In the original version of Heroes of Might and Magic III, because of its low resolution, you only need to use the principle of objects appearing larger when closer and smaller when farther away, and then arrange them in a way that allows you to achieve that effect naturally.

However, the HD version has a much higher resolution, so doing it this way will cause problems.

In the HD version, the clarity of distant buildings and nearby objects is completely consistent, with no blurring or detail adjustments, making the image look strange at first glance, yet it's hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong.

Lin Li is making a remake of an already remade version.

Moreover, this is the first remastered version of Xinghuo, and to build a good reputation, it can't be treated so perfunctorily.

Therefore, Lin Li has very high requirements for bone restoration.

The materials were extracted, and the art part was redrawn using the "tracing" method, while the programming part was reprogrammed with the same function.

Ensure all materials can function properly in the Spark Engine.

That completes the bone restoration process.

If we take a more perfunctory approach, we could call it a remake once we've completed the bone restoration, which is exactly what Ubisoft did.

It's not entirely wrong to use this method to make money.

It's just that their behavior was somewhat unseemly.

The essence of the remastered version is not simply high definition, but the final step.

"The final step is called reshaping."

With the framework in place, it means that the Starfire development team has completely ported Heroes of Might and Magic III into the Starfire engine.

The next step is optimization.

As a key focus of the restructuring, the first step is to comprehensively upgrade the art resources.

It's worth noting that the original version of Heroes of Might and Magic III was designed with a resolution of 800x600 pixels and an aspect ratio of 4:3.

The current mainstream resolution is 1920×1080, with an aspect ratio of 16:9.

It may seem like just a difference in proportion.

However, for the remake, this is actually a very fatal problem.

Because all the UI designs, battles, towns, and style layouts in the original game were based on a 4:3 ratio.

Therefore, in addition to the large map, you can directly drag the frame to switch to landscape mode.

All other scenes must be reset proportionally.

Of course, you can also choose to be lazy like Ubisoft and just draw a 4:3 frame and put it in, leaving black borders in other places.

However, since Lin Li was going to do it, he certainly wasn't doing it to scam money.

However, this variable ratio does require some ingenuity.

Take the inner city as an example.

The layout of the original race towns will definitely need to be changed in the new scale.

Of course we'll change it, but we won't change it haphazardly.

On one hand, Lin Li obtained the documents that they had collected when they were working on the remake from Ubisoft.

Secondly, I obtained the contact information of many of the developers who created Heroes of Might and Magic III.

Lin Li invited them to Xinghuo to help with guidance.

This is not difficult, at least not for Xinghuo, since money really can buy anything.

Of course, this money wasn't wasted.

As for nostalgia, besides the game itself, the support of these veteran developers will make this version of Heroes of Might and Magic III stand out.

In addition to its copyright legitimacy, it also gains recognition from players' nostalgia.

Imagine this in a promotional video.

If the original art director of Heroes of Might and Magic III were to stand up and give an interview...

I would like to say that the collaboration with Xinghuo was very pleasant. Many ideas that were not realized back in Heroes of Might and Magic III have now been realized.

It attracted not only the popularity of Xinghuo, but also the attention of the whole world.

These veteran developers may no longer be working in the game industry, and their understanding of games may be outdated, but as long as they appear...

Players will then believe that they can help Spark create miracles.

However, Lin Li was quite clear about it.

These people can only provide support; actual development depends on themselves.

Their presence simply freed the Spark development team from constraints, providing an endorsement that allowed Spark's reset studio to make some changes to the game's architecture.

Let's take the human towns in Heroes of Might and Magic III as an example.

The original human town is a classic, a typical three-view landscape consisting of the foreground, middle ground, and background.

In front, there is a market; in the middle, there are a bunch of castles; and behind, there is a paradise in the sky and huge sculptures and mountains.

This is actually what Xinghuo excels at.

Lin Li used this as an example to explain how to reshape things.

First of all, the UI will definitely need to be changed after the proportions are altered.

If you only look at the town scenes in the original work, the ratio is actually about 16 to 8, which is quite close to a modern, enclosed environment.

It's just that the original UI takes up about two-thirds of the town screen.

Therefore, the overall ratio is 4:3.

After adjusting the UI to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio, the UI will appear relatively shorter.

The screen area ratio also decreased.

The extra space allows for a larger view of the town.

By simply adjusting the location of the buildings, the original feel can be preserved to the greatest extent possible.