d3t's "Toughest Project": Interview on the Shenmue I & II Rereleases [PCGamer]

PC Gamer has published an interview with Noel Austin, technical director at d3t Limited, the development studio behind the rerelease of Shenmue I & II to modern platforms.

Noel reveals some fascinating pieces of information about the way the original games and the challenges involved that will surprise even veteran fans.

We recommend reading the full article (link below), but here is a condensed summary:

• The project got underway in October 2015, when d3t gained access to the "massive" Shenmue archive of data and started planning their approach.
• At least 20 developers in total worked on the code over the course of the project, with the team size growing to around 10 developers at its largest point.
• The project was "by far the toughest" project d3t has ever done.
• Source code was not available for the Dreamcast libraries (and hence for Shenmue I which was released only for that console).
• For Shenmue I, some of the biggest challenges were around the hardware:
• Sound: the loop points, reverb, volumes, envelopes etc that were specified within separate programs for the Dreamcast's audio chip had to be reverse engineered.

• Graphics: certain features present in the Dreamcast's GPU were not available on the target platforms, such as "modifier volumes" (which give the ability to change the behavior of a defined area) for light and shadows. One consequence of this was that shadows in Shenmue I have been implemented similarly to the Shenmue II Xbox version so occasional artefacts may be seen due to this. 
• For Shenmue II, although source code was available for the ported libraries of the Shenmue II Xbox version, there were still many files missing which had to be reverse-engineered from assembly code.
• Conversion of the memory and data handling, which was 32-bit on the original consoles but 64-bit for the modern platforms. This resulted in many bugs, both apparent and subtle, needing to be resolved.
• Comments left in the original code were written in Japanese (and, in the case of the scripting language used only for Shenmue I, so were the function names and variables). A best attempt was made at understanding these using Google Translate.
• Also briefly noted was the reason why widescreen was not used for cut scenes: they were originally designed for a 4:3 ratio (albeit with a letterboxing effect in Shenmue II) and "didn’t work correctly" in widescreen mode, so black bars were added to preserve the original appearance. Presumably this refers to graphical anomalies becoming visible, such as characters remaining on-screen when they are supposed to have left the scene.

One of the most interesting parts of the interview was about previously-unknown findings from the source code showing the incredible level of realism Yu Suzuki was striving for:

• The moon in Shenmue II is not simply a texture but an actual 3D object that is illuminated by the sun in the distance and produces actual phases.

The moon in Shenmue II is an actual 3D object.

• The Lucky Hit games adjust the physical behavior of the ball based on the weather and temperature, calculated by the time of day.

Lucky Hit: the ball is affected by atmospheric conditions!

Noel also gave mention to the fan sites and forums of the Shenmue community as "incredibly useful" resources for the developers during the project, citing the Shenmue Dojo and the Shenmue Translation Pack team in particular.

This interview gives some great insight into the project, and I hope anyone who might have thought that this was a "lazy port" in any way will appreciate the amount of work and effort that has clearly gone into it. I also look forward to hearing more details in future interviews with d3t.

Read the full interview at PC Gamer: Link to interview

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