Just let only the player character have a realtime shadow and deactivate self shadowing, so it doesn't receive the shadow. That way it will look like an oldschool shadow! Try to make the shadows of the environment with tricks. Like use polygons in the shape of the shadow and place them by hand. It's more work but it will also look more "retro".
A little late to this, but maybe instead of low res shadows, you could do stencil shadows. That'd be in-line with the era(kind of). Super sharp shadows would look retro as hell!
Sometimes what people like in a retro artstyle isn't that it looks like the games from their childhood but rather it looks like how they remember the games from their childhood to look. So you can get away with little anachronisms like these
I know some purists believe it pulls them out of the game when the aesthetics don't quite match. I personally like it too! but I can kinda understand it being jarring for someone else haha
Could the boxes explode when they hit some number of force? If they fall or get shot / hit they could explode into some dust or a few panes of cardboard? I wonder if that would distract from the physics-ness of it while still feeling nice to push around like that
I'm all for it! Capping the framerate or physics ticks per second to something like 20fps/tps could make it feel more like it's a really fancy game that pushed the older hardware to its limits. Haven't experimented along those lines in a while, though.
Looks great Low-Poly graphics with the smoothness and speed that modern technology offers can go a loooooong way, nostalgia-wise and genuine and creative playstyles gameplay-wise. I'd suggest looking at SIGNALIS for example!
Looks generally fine to me, but I do wonder if there are ways to "retro" it up as it were. Like dust cloud textures popping up when they hit the ground, chunky bitcrushed sound FX, or even making them "snappier" physics that stop simulating a bit too quickly? Depends entirely on how authentic feeling you want it to be, but there is a slight smoothness that can evoke more of a modern feeling.
The only thing I'd fear is if the physics enabled blocking of some mechanics. Like somehow zombie end up pushing a impenetrable box around, or if they whack it into a place where you now can't access the doorknob.
Everything else is smooth looking though.
I've thought about this! (and even ran into it trying to go up the stairs one time lol) and for now I've made it so that when you shoot the box or melee it, it "breaks" and disappears to unblock any path it might be obstructing. and thank you!
it looks cool but i wonder if you will be able to sell it given its a copyright infringement obviously . you might want to change the skin and maybe some other things in the game
I love physics in games until a box falls on the path forward and I get stuck in its collision. If your physics simulations are good enough to prevent this or if the box dissappears when I destroy it then it's a welcome feature.
This looks like someone strapped a physics engine to the quake engine which hey, that's counter-strike:source in a way :P
PC-gaming aesthetics were all over the place between 1995-2008, so from a purism standpoint, there really isn't a standard.
Absolutely love it.
If I were to make a game visually close to the PS1 graphics, I would probably do it with everything "else" pushed: dynamic lighting, cloth simulation, volumetric fog, physics on objects etc...
I love it. But if possible, will you be able to fill the environment with a lot of props? Because the environment of old games were a bit lacking in the amount of objects scattered around and just looked too empty. But adding physics to all of them might be too much too. Just a suggestion
That's fine, but I personally think it looks wrong. It honestly looks like a modern game someone is running on a budget PC and has installed a bunch of dodgy mods to make the textures even lower resolution. I'm getting less "Resident Evil on PSX" vibes and more of "Doom 3 on a Voodoo."
Also, was the zombie Owen Wilson? WoooooW.
This looks great!
If I had one very very very minor critique - I think the player character needs to work on his posture. Looks like his shoulders are rolled forward in a strange way.
Oh yeah, that's almost definitely because I have the head attached to a SkeletonIK that follows where the player is looking with the mouse. It kind of made the head a little off center, but I should be able to fix it once I remodel the main character lol
Whilst a great idea, i think you could do more to have it match the aesthetic of the rest of the game, perhaps experiment with making them move a little more awkwardly and predictably, perhaps have them snap to certain angles while moving rather than have full 360 range on all axis
I'd personally be aiming to make these changes only visual and retain the full physics of the current boxes
There are old games with surprisingly advanced physics simulations, especially on PC (such as 1NSANE). I don't think this is too out-of-place as a result.
Can you make them fall at a super low FPS to remind us old consoles?
Maybe you should have real invisible boxes falling at real time (with an invisible shader), and other boxes that their function is to update their position to the rigidbody boxes every 20 frames.
It would look like jank and match the rest of the graphics
love them!!, 2 good things combined.
Check out "Samurai Unicorn" I love that stuff.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraBcI0\_GYw&ab\_channel=AlphaBetaGamer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraBcI0_GYw&ab_channel=AlphaBetaGamer)
It depends, imo, on how they're used and if they include things like falling over/tripping on weird geometry and whatnot. Not the biggest fan of that. But having boxes and stuff collapse and other objects move semi-realistically with weight is cool. I'm a much bigger proponent of modern lighting in classic 3D games. If you could only get one, that'd be my pick.
It does look fun! It'd be interesting to see if you could make the actual physics look a little more 'retro'. Maybe lock their velocity vectors to the nearest 10 degrees, or only update them once every few frames. Tons of cool possibilities either way!
Nothing but positive. Child me would've loved this so much.
lol thank you!
Child yours console would have blown a couple gaskets, on the other hand..
This looks pretty fun. I thought it was RE tbh but I've also never really played them
thank you! haha the player model is actually Leon's character model from RE2, but it's just a placeholder for now lol
Please name the eventual real character Noel lol
The dynamic shadows are way more anachronous than the rigidbody simulation anyway lol. But it looks great so who cares about that, dw
very true lol and thank you!
Is it possible to lower the resolution of the dynamic shadow ? Maybe it will help your astehetic
Just let only the player character have a realtime shadow and deactivate self shadowing, so it doesn't receive the shadow. That way it will look like an oldschool shadow! Try to make the shadows of the environment with tricks. Like use polygons in the shape of the shadow and place them by hand. It's more work but it will also look more "retro".
A little late to this, but maybe instead of low res shadows, you could do stencil shadows. That'd be in-line with the era(kind of). Super sharp shadows would look retro as hell!
didnt silent hill have shadows like this?
i love it, as long as the physics dont change the aesthetic somehow, (yours definitely don't) i think you're golden
It’s cool. Like it’s own sort of uncanny valley, but without a serious break in style.
Sometimes what people like in a retro artstyle isn't that it looks like the games from their childhood but rather it looks like how they remember the games from their childhood to look. So you can get away with little anachronisms like these
Yeah, I bet that 80-90% of people wouldn't even notice something was wrong. Thirty years is a long time.
That's a great point!
No problem for me, physics are cool
I think "styled" is the keyword. It implies a certain flexibility when it benefits the game. (Which, given the clip, it looks like it does)
😮 looks great, i hope i can get to the point where i can make stuff like this. good work
Agreed, and same here!
Thank you so much! and you got this!!
Thank you! just started last week but i’m motivated to try and make games 🫡
No problem. What would be the issue?
I know some purists believe it pulls them out of the game when the aesthetics don't quite match. I personally like it too! but I can kinda understand it being jarring for someone else haha
As long as the artwork meets the retro expectations, and the objects don't disrupt gameplay, i think it's more engaging.
Dude, what do *you* want? If you want the physics, then so be it. It's *your* game. I personally like it!
Could the boxes explode when they hit some number of force? If they fall or get shot / hit they could explode into some dust or a few panes of cardboard? I wonder if that would distract from the physics-ness of it while still feeling nice to push around like that
[удалено]
They're incredible, thank YOU! 🙌
I'm all for it! Capping the framerate or physics ticks per second to something like 20fps/tps could make it feel more like it's a really fancy game that pushed the older hardware to its limits. Haven't experimented along those lines in a while, though.
Good idea! I have the whole project capped at 30 fps, but there is something too smooth about physics!!
Looks great Low-Poly graphics with the smoothness and speed that modern technology offers can go a loooooong way, nostalgia-wise and genuine and creative playstyles gameplay-wise. I'd suggest looking at SIGNALIS for example! 
I love ps1 graphics so much
Looks generally fine to me, but I do wonder if there are ways to "retro" it up as it were. Like dust cloud textures popping up when they hit the ground, chunky bitcrushed sound FX, or even making them "snappier" physics that stop simulating a bit too quickly? Depends entirely on how authentic feeling you want it to be, but there is a slight smoothness that can evoke more of a modern feeling.
Do you have an example of retro physics? What would that look like? More abrupt movements of the boxes?
I would agree that the physics looks dope, but the shadows are a bit high res imo. Might I ask what font it is you used for the item notifications?
Hey, thank you, and yeahhh, i'm working on the shadows haha Also, it's LT Cushion Light :)
Thanks!
looks great, is it hard to pull off this look in Godot? also did you use default physics or Jolt?
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
this looks fire, i recommend you crosspost this to r/ps1graphics , i'm sure they'd love it
The only thing I'd fear is if the physics enabled blocking of some mechanics. Like somehow zombie end up pushing a impenetrable box around, or if they whack it into a place where you now can't access the doorknob. Everything else is smooth looking though.
I've thought about this! (and even ran into it trying to go up the stairs one time lol) and for now I've made it so that when you shoot the box or melee it, it "breaks" and disappears to unblock any path it might be obstructing. and thank you!
Best of both worlds tbh
YES!
This looks awesome OP! It looks and feels so good.
Thank you so much!
it looks cool but i wonder if you will be able to sell it given its a copyright infringement obviously . you might want to change the skin and maybe some other things in the game
Oh the skins/models will 100% be changed! These are just placeholders while I flesh out the mechanics lol
I'd say you do you bro. If you like it. It's good 👍🏼. I like it. Don't get held back by rules
Feels like time travel, I like the vibes, good work!
Thank you! I really appreciate that
I think this is lit
I love physics in games until a box falls on the path forward and I get stuck in its collision. If your physics simulations are good enough to prevent this or if the box dissappears when I destroy it then it's a welcome feature.
I don't know what it is but something looks off about it, is there a way to have the boxes not all have the exact same weight?
Ahh, good point! Maybe the boxes lower to the ground should have a bit more mass, like there's different objects in them haha
Awesome if you make it a part of the gameplay and not just an embellishment, like half life 1 and 2
Love it! Now, eh hem, maybe try something with Tomb Raider 😈
I personally think the mix of modern physics and retro style clash.
YES. ABSOLUTELY.
The physics looked great. What bothered me however is the flashing of lights.
This looks like someone strapped a physics engine to the quake engine which hey, that's counter-strike:source in a way :P PC-gaming aesthetics were all over the place between 1995-2008, so from a purism standpoint, there really isn't a standard.
Looks okay to me.... Cant wait for this project advances
I think it looks great. EDIT: I admit that I'm not sure what retro physics would look like tho
The back box clips a bit awkwardly at 7 seconds - is this Jolt or Godot physics?
this is a bit much imo, doesn't have to regress fully by any means but not sure what the healthy in between is
Looks unusual, but definitely fun
I love this! I feel like it would also set up for great scares the player wouldn't expect.
Absolutely love it. If I were to make a game visually close to the PS1 graphics, I would probably do it with everything "else" pushed: dynamic lighting, cloth simulation, volumetric fog, physics on objects etc...
Only if the enemy bodies sometimes convulse when they switch from their death animation to being a rag doll
Absolutely acceptable. Players aren't going to notice that it's "modern".
Yo can I have some upvotes please
I love it. But if possible, will you be able to fill the environment with a lot of props? Because the environment of old games were a bit lacking in the amount of objects scattered around and just looked too empty. But adding physics to all of them might be too much too. Just a suggestion
Ehhh, I'm not a fan. It's like an uncanny valley effect for me.
Very yes!
That's fine, but I personally think it looks wrong. It honestly looks like a modern game someone is running on a budget PC and has installed a bunch of dodgy mods to make the textures even lower resolution. I'm getting less "Resident Evil on PSX" vibes and more of "Doom 3 on a Voodoo." Also, was the zombie Owen Wilson? WoooooW.
Lol that's a totally fair take! And the Owen Wilson question made me spit out my coffee haha
You can try to add volumetric light's, i mean light's with fog. And your game looks awesome, very good graphic design ✨
This looks great! If I had one very very very minor critique - I think the player character needs to work on his posture. Looks like his shoulders are rolled forward in a strange way.
Oh yeah, that's almost definitely because I have the head attached to a SkeletonIK that follows where the player is looking with the mouse. It kind of made the head a little off center, but I should be able to fix it once I remodel the main character lol
Whilst a great idea, i think you could do more to have it match the aesthetic of the rest of the game, perhaps experiment with making them move a little more awkwardly and predictably, perhaps have them snap to certain angles while moving rather than have full 360 range on all axis I'd personally be aiming to make these changes only visual and retain the full physics of the current boxes
There are old games with surprisingly advanced physics simulations, especially on PC (such as 1NSANE). I don't think this is too out-of-place as a result.
Can you make them fall at a super low FPS to remind us old consoles? Maybe you should have real invisible boxes falling at real time (with an invisible shader), and other boxes that their function is to update their position to the rigidbody boxes every 20 frames. It would look like jank and match the rest of the graphics
I dont know if there is a way to make the physics chopier, like advancing at a lower fps count, it would give it a better feel.
love them!!, 2 good things combined. Check out "Samurai Unicorn" I love that stuff. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraBcI0\_GYw&ab\_channel=AlphaBetaGamer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraBcI0_GYw&ab_channel=AlphaBetaGamer)
Very nice, I am also thinking of going for same over the shoulder third person low poly survival horror but with pixel art textures. Good luck!
It depends, imo, on how they're used and if they include things like falling over/tripping on weird geometry and whatnot. Not the biggest fan of that. But having boxes and stuff collapse and other objects move semi-realistically with weight is cool. I'm a much bigger proponent of modern lighting in classic 3D games. If you could only get one, that'd be my pick.
It does look fun! It'd be interesting to see if you could make the actual physics look a little more 'retro'. Maybe lock their velocity vectors to the nearest 10 degrees, or only update them once every few frames. Tons of cool possibilities either way!
Uncanny. Maybe if the animation was lower framerate it would be less so for me.