Started a high-res re-texturing project of GK3

[Spikey]

Hello all, long time no talk - hope you are all well. Very recently I started with re-texturing GK3, a fun little project focused on improving the environments.

Was wondering if anybody here with a working copy of GK3 wants to occasionally test it from time to time, as I go along upgrading each room?

So far Room 25 + bathroom, upstairs hallway, lobby and phonebooth are done .

[BBP]

Spikey, hey! Great to see you! We missed you with the Masq!


The improved
I have like 20 working copies of GK3 and 3 laptops, none of them currently able to run GK3, which is embarrassing - plus in my current situation I am afraid I don't have the time to do much testing. I'd love to see what you do though, I'll try to get my 2007 Samsung working again.

Poor GK3 always had a lot of negative flack over its looks, even from reviews I read from back in the day. Such a fantastic game...

[Spikey]

Heya Bonny! Sad to hear you are currently GK3-less... never actually had much of a problem myself running it these past few years be it on my laptops or desktops. Now just bought a high end gaming desktop few weeks back, and a Meta Quest 3, JUST so I could play The 7th Guest VR - but yeah, once that was done I really needed to have a go at GK3.

I'm not really good at remembering to screencap stuff once in a while, but I will try!

[Collector]

I have not tested in quite sometime, but does my GK3 installer no longer work on modern Windows?

[Spikey]

I have not tested in quite sometime, but does my GK3 installer no longer work on modern Windows?

Not sure, I installed from GOG on Win11 this time instead of my hard copy, but everything runs fine, including dgVoodoo and all that.

[Collector]

I only asked because Bonny said that the game was not running on her machines. I just did a quick look and it appears that the bat file the installer creates to start the game in 16 bit color mode isn't working as expected. Good news is that the utility it uses to reduce the color depth does still work on Win11, so I should be able to fix it.

[Spikey]

Collector; impressive as always! Let me know if you need testing. Btw, is it okay if I share my upgraded graphic assets for GK3 here? The GK3 devs made it SO simple, graphical upgrades dont even need an installer, only instructions, so literally anyone can enjoy the higher res graphics as I go along.

Bonny; totally random but I sent you an invite on LinkedIn.

[Tawmis]

I would love to test this. I currently have GK3 already installed from when I played it on my channel.

[Collector]

Here is a temporary fix. Drop this EXE in the game's folder and try launching the game with it. It only plays in windowed mode, but anything better will have to wait until I have time to work out a better solution. A new version of the installer won't happen until after I have that solution.

[Spikey]

I would love to test this. I currently have GK3 already installed from when I played it on my channel.

Would be awesome Tawmis! Have finished the Dining Room and almost done with the fountain plaza, will share an upgrade pack after the weekend.

[Tawmis]

I would love to test this. I currently have GK3 already installed from when I played it on my channel.

Would be awesome Tawmis! Have finished the Dining Room and almost done with the fountain plaza, will share an upgrade pack after the weekend.

I am eager to check this out, good sir.

[Spikey]

Here is version 0.1

https://mega.nz/file/snI1iJiY#qR6ZE0PmF ... eWcUJzz1xI

Installation;
- Create a new folder within your GK3 folder and name it anything, put all the files from the zip in it
- Edit gk3.ini with a text editor and put the line
CUSTOM PATHS = YourFolderName
on the bottom of the file. If there is no gk3.ini just make a txt with only the above in it and rename it gk3.ini.

Notes;
- If a wrong image is encountered, the game will throw you out and name what file it couldn't load. I don't think there are any problems right now, but I'm not sure all versions of the game handle everything the same way.
- Room 25 and its bathroom, the hallway, the lobby, the dining room, the phonebooth, the fountain plaza, the mopshop and the museum are all done. The church is actually mostly done too, though half of the statues still need some work.
- Some corrections I've put in; the cringeworthy "Musee d'Saunière" is now Musee de Saunière. The "leaving Rennes-le-Chateau" sign I have heavily changed to reflect a real life sign as it would be encountered in France.

[Tawmis]

So I love it. The hallway looks sharp for the table.
But the dining room wall texture - either I am crazy - or it's far more vibrant looking. (In a very good way, doesn't look as drab as I remember)
The fountain plaza looks good too - now, if only something could be done about the water spouting from the top!
I haven't ventured into the church yet.

For the Leaving sign - is it just the red line going through the words in a diagonal pattern?

[Spikey]

Thanks for testing some so quickly, really appreciate it! What resolution in the game settings are you using, and do you have dgVoodoo running too?

I only upscaled the dining room walls, haven't touched it otherwise - though upscaling really improves your views of stuff that you are closeby. Do you have midmapping on, because I only test with that setting enabled.

Not to say that I "only" upscale in this project, I tinker with stuff and try it, and see what happens in the game at the native resolutions and running dgVoodoo. Originally I heightened the contrast on the Room 25 bed texture for example, which made it look nice and fresh and crisp - but then it horribly clashed with the plaid on the couch very badly (lol), as the bed and couch (and chair) share that same texture. A few textures I built from the ground up, for example the bathroom wall tiles, the maple tree leaves (the first tree you encounter as you leave the hotel), the rusty barrels, the cobble stone paths and the grass/dirt patches right outside the hotel. I understand that this is not for everyone, purists will loathe that, but some textures just don't make a lot of sense when "only" upscaling.

And yes haha, you noticed I didn't touch the fountain as it was animated and I have no idea what I'm doing. These files weren't loaded with loading just the scene (as they are animated) so I missed them and had to manually skim all the graphic files to even locate them. Anyway, here is an upgraded fountain pack, just dump the files into your custom folder!
https://mega.nz/file/9nRCFKRT#tWWex-OE6 ... JbHIlyrZ44

The old "leaving"' sign was a brown one with white text and an ugly red cross. I changed it to white with a red slash like you would see in France.

[Spikey]

Whoops, the bookshop sign has the wrong transparent color, will correct that. Funny how back then transparency in bitmap images didn't really exist yet, the game uses a pink stand-in color that designers could quickly get access to by setting green to 0 (R=255, G=0, B=255). Some early images though use some sort of specific target code to create transparency it seems, as those images lack the pink stand-in color; those are the waymark signs in RLC and the newspapers Emilio and Mosely have.

Speaking of newspapers, I still need to redo those too, they weren't on my radar as they are animated (like the fountain water) and don't show up in the scene file nor follow room logic name-wise.

Another thing that is giving me headaches are the splash screens, can't really do a simple upscale on images that are meant for full screen, because they aren't adjusted to fit the screen, it just looks at 640x480. The splash screens look nice in and of them self regardless, but the panels in the museum up close do not - which now leads to the situation that the panels look better in the room than when you actually "look" at them.

Next on my list are good old Moseley's Room 33, Tour Magdala and around and the first few locations around the valley.