Revamp v13 Before/After: Teaser 3 Slideshow (Minor Spoilers)

Yooo,

Wassup, peeps. So today I have something really exciting and special to share. Today we're going to be looking exclusively at the Before and After shots of the v13 Revamp Park scene. I know this scene is a fan favorite. For those of you who haven't played the full original story, I'm going to try my best to talk in code and avoid spoilers here but I may drop some hints while still giving existing players a clue how things are going to change. These pics themselves do have some suggestive spoilers in them, though, so tread carefully.

I've been honest in past posts about this scene being one of my favorites and having some pretty high expectations on how I was going to pull it off. I think I've managed to do that and this slideshow today has some pretty amazing shots that I'm suuuuuper proud of.

The last shot in particular is probably one of the best shots I've ever done.

As always, if you're a glutton for punishment and you want the extended version of this post, you can find the video slideshow here. It covers the same pictures, it's just narrated and my monotone voice can act as a substitute for melatonin.

Let's jump in and take a look at these bad boys.

Pic 1: This first pic is just an intro pic for the second time we walk back through the park. I originally used this as the title screen for the video and i posted it over on Twitter as well. I gues the important thing to do based on this image is to keep in mind that the lighting is going to change in this park scene. I wanted it to be bright in some spots, darker in others, heavy moonlight in some spots, and heavy street lamps in others. This shot will give you an idea of the lamps lighting that was almost nonexistent in the original.

Pic 2: This shot is from the original game and is pretty much one of the post-bar horseplay scenes. This shot shows off a reoccurring problem with all of the original park scene scene shots: there like zero shadows for some reason-- which is a problem. I wanted to darken things up here and the lighting in this scene is going to differ from the lighting in the previous park walk because it's later in the evening. Another issue here is is that in the original, this was one of those shots where i was trying to experiment more and get more interesting angles rather than just 90 degrees from characters or frontal shots all the time. This was an attempt at an interesting angle. I think it was ok for then but it didn't hold up to the test of time imo. The facial expressions here are also chaotic af. So I scrapped that.

Pic 3: Direct replacement of the previous shot. This is the Revamp, folks, and I couldn't be happier of where things have gone. I kept the idea of an interesting angle but I dropped the camera; it makes it feel like we're on the ground with them post-horseplay. You can also see the insane lighting differences here. I'm playing with moonlight and tree limbs and leaves and all kinds of other cool shit to really give us a feeling that they're under a canopy. Facial expressions: holy crap they're better. They're just more natural here and there's less chaotic laughter. The depth of field also gives us literal depth to the environment and makes things look more natural and the background lighting just takes on more of a magical look as the different types of light collide and dance together-- which was a goal for this scene. I love this shot and I hope this gives you our first glimpse of the intimacy here that the environment is going to give us in this Revamp.

Pic 4: Aight, back to the original for a second. Same problems with this shot including no shadows. I also wanted to try and preserve the poses here but it ended up not working out-- they're too mechanical looking so I scrapped them. This was the original tree peek scene and the Revamp is going to go in a much more cinematic direction.

Pic 5:  Here's our direct replacement for the Revamp. Insane upgrade imo. You can see this pic is darker than the previous Revamp pic because we're in a different part of the park. The depth of field adds more mystery and I think it helps focus the camera on Zack because the narrative is a lot about him here. You can expect this scene to play out just like the original did but it's going to look waaaaay better. I think this is the most cinematic update I've ever done.

Pic 6: This next one is back to horseplay from the original. Same problems here but the awkwardness of this shot was insane. I liked the idea of it original but after sitting on it for a couple years, I came back and found that it was almost too dominating and forceful in appearance-- mostly because of the faces. While I tried to preserve the idea here, I ended up scrapping the entire thing and came up with probably the best shot I've ever done.

Pic 7: This. is. everything. this shot almost made me cry and it's been my wallpaper for a few weeks now. Here's our direct replacement and it smashes every button that it needs to. For those that have played the original, you may recall that a lot happens in this next update and I think this shot pretty much summarizes everything. The lighting is beautiful and i'm still soo happy with it. The grass is also way better. In the original, it was just flat and visually had texture but didn't really have it. In the Revamp shot we're seeing the blades of grass stick up and sorta wrap themselves around the characters. It just pulls the characters into the environment more. I'm also obsessed with the shadows in this shot. They're a crazy mix of light and dark and the contrast just really makes me feel like a park at night. The facial expressions carry it to the next level tho. The dynamic here almost tells it's own story and i think that's going to greatly enhance the narrative of an already impactful scene. I absolutely love this shot and I hope some jaws drop :p

So here they are, our first look at the Park scene post bar. I hope you're as excited as I am. In game, this scene fucking hits. it hits way more than it did the first time and I'm just really happy with it so far. I've been wanting to show these off for like a week and I couldn't take it anymore.

So enjoy.

And stay tuned. This next update will end Chapter 6 as well as Part 2 of the story :)