So, I Tried To Make A “Resident Evil” Mod…

Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I’m going to talk about modding. I’ve been meaning to write a serious article about this topic for a while, examining how the genre’s console-focused history has lessened the number of mods (compared to PC games), the pros and cons of modding horror games, why the modern “Resident Evil [insert sequel number here] ruined by mods” genre of Youtube videos is so brilliantly funny etc… And then I happened to see an “Ink Ribbon” video that intrigued me.

It was a tutorial about how to do texture modifications to Gamecube games, using the port of “Resident Evil 2” as an example. So, inspired by this, I thought that it would be fun to ruin the excellent 2002 remake of “Resident Evil” with a mod of my own creation *Evil laughter*. After all, ill-advised scientific experiments are a long-running theme of the Resident Evil series.

For time reasons, I decided to focus on the early areas of the game… and, even then, I was surprised at just how many textures are required for just three rooms. Did you know that the lightning effects are caused by literally swapping out the entire background image with another one (with different lighting) for a second or so? Did you know that the stairwell room/corridor with the bird cage in it near the beginning of the game pretty much entirely consists of a ludicrous number of mostly-transparent textures, psychedelic lighting and/or depth maps etc..? Seriously, I am in even more awe at the sheer amount of detail and work that went into this game.

Anyway, with the ridiculous number of background textures to mod – I modded fifty-one of them, and I STILL missed some of them- for just three rooms, I realised that I’d have to do something simple and quick. But I also wanted to do something cool that I’ve always wanted to see. I am, of course, talking about a classic-style survival horror game with the type of lighting used in parts of Dario Argento’s 1977 art-horror masterpiece “Suspiria“. If you haven’t seen this film, one of the many cool things about it is the way that it uses vivid red, green and blue lighting for dramatic effect during some of the scarier parts.

This, of course, was very simple to do. Using the GNU Image Manipulation Program, I was quickly able to adjust the colours (using pre-sets to speed up adjustments to images from the same room), adjust the colour saturation levels, use the “dodge/burn” tool to lighten areas of the images and even add some basic digital lighting effects too.

Here’s a montage of some of my adjustments in GIMP 2.10. It would probably look cooler if this was a video, rather than an article… And, yes, I briefly thought about turning this into an art tutorial, but it fits more into the category of “image editing”.

Even paring down my changes to simple colour adjustments, saturation adjustments and some basic lighting changes, it still took me the best part of two hours to adjust most of the backgrounds in the first three rooms the player will encounter. I decided to go for blue lighting for the main hall, red lighting for the dining room and vivid green lighting for the corridor beside the dining room.

Also, whilst modding these textures, I noticed some clothing and weapon textures too. However, due to the confusing way that they were laid out, I was able to give Jill some gold-plated weapons (both in-game and in… parts… of the inventory screen), but my attempt at creating a cool purple and black outfit (with glowing orange highlights) was only a partial success due to also editing some of the wrong textures. But, on the plus side….

Barry now looks 50% more purple than before 🙂 And, yes, I missed the background in this scene.

If you’re curious what this absolute mess of a mod actually looked like, then here are a few screenshots I took of it. They definitely make it look better than it actually was:

And, to protect the reputation for impeccable taste and decorum that proper “Resident Evil” modders have, I WON’T be posting the actual mod online. Apologies AGAIN to Dario Argento too. Still, given the laughable quality of this mod, it probably technically qualifies as “parody”….

And, here’s a… well-edited… animated GIF of what it was supposed to look like….

Seriously, it almost looks like a good “Suspiria” (1977)-inspired mod here.

And here’s a… less well-edited… animated GIF of what it actually looked like:

The key word here is “almost”…

So, what was the point of all of this? Well, it was mostly just a combination of boredom, curiosity and amusement.

Seriously though, this experiment was a display of the value of fan creativity and how opening up game design to those from non-programming backgrounds allows for all sorts of creativity… and silliness. Not to mention that it has really given me an appreciation for the sheer amount of time and effort that both modders and the designers of the “Resident Evil” remake put into their work. Games are complicated!

Still, at least I have now satisfied my curiosity about what an old survival horror game would look like if it used a similar lighting style to parts of “Suspiria” (1977). That’s another one off the bucket list…..

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Anyway, I hope that you found this amusing 🙂

What Does Artistic And/Or Literary Inspiration Have In Common With Computer Game “Modding”?

Well, I thought that I’d take a break from talking about webcomics to talk about creativity in general. Although I’ll start by talking about computer games for a while, there’s a good reason for this that I hope becomes obvious later.

If you play a lot of computer games, then you’re probably familiar with the concept of “modding”. If you aren’t, then this is where fans of a game create alternative files for the game (which might change the graphics, add new levels, alter the “rules” of the game etc…) and/or programs that alter the game in some way or another. If a game has a good modding scene, then it’s pretty much infinitely re-playable since there are so many different ways to play the same game.

An example of a mod that I’ve been playing a lot recently is probably the famous/notorious “Brutal Doom” mod for the classic 1990s “Doom” games. Although this mod is only truly fun to play for a few weeks at a time (since the novelty value wears off after a while), it turns a familar game into something entirely different.

The combat goes from being an almost chess-like game of fast-paced, but careful, strategy, to being a much more aggressive, immediate and hyper-violent thing. The military themes from the original game (which are nothing more than a background detail) are also brought to the fore in “Brutal Doom”, lending the game a totally new atmosphere.

Far from being a silently enigmatic lone space marine fighting for survival against hordes of monsters in the distant future, the main character in “Brutal Doom” can shout insults at the monsters, he can meet (and rescue) other space marines etc.. Although most of these changes are fairly small, they lend this altered version of “Doom” a much more militaristic atmosphere when compared to the original game.

And, yet, it’s still very much recognisable as a version of “Doom”.

So, why have I spent the past few paragraphs talking about computer games? What does any of this have to do with art, fiction, comics etc…?

With the possible exception of fan fiction/ fan art, there has never really been that much of an overt tradition of modding in more traditional creative mediums. But, that’s not to say that modding is an entirely new thing. In fact, it’s existed for as long as stories and art have – it’s just done in a slightly more covert and abstract way in traditional mediums these days.

Back in the really old days, stories didn’t really “belong” to anyone. So, storytellers often told their own versions of the stories that they had heard. There wasn’t really the concept of a “modification” for the simple reason that there often wasn’t an “original” version – just lots of different versions.

Although, after the development of the printing press and of relatively modern ideas like copyright, we now have the idea that a story “belongs” to someone. Art, on the other hand, has often either been totally anonymous or it has “belonged” to the artist in question. Still, “modifcation” can only really exist if there’s an “original” to modify.

But, due to modern things like copyright, we can’t just re-tell the same stories or make slightly different versions of someone else’s artwork. These days, such ancient creative traditions are considered to be acts of unoriginal plagiarism rather than merely someone telling a story or making a well-known painting. And, yet, “modding” things is still a very central and essential part of creativity. After all, it’s nearly impossible to create an entirely “original” story or work of art.

So, how do artists and writers “mod” their favourite things these days? Simple, they tell new stories and make new works of art that evoke the thing that they’re trying to “mod”, but without actually copying any specific parts of it.

Since they can’t directly copy their favourite things, they have to take a careful look at them and work out which general elements (rather than specific details, like character names, specific plot details, an artist’s exact style etc…) make these things so good. Then they use these general elements to make something totally new.

To use a public domain example, if an artist is a fan of Caravaggio then they would look at as many Caravaggio paintings as they can and see which generic elements – that aren’t specific to any one painting- make them so appealing. Caravaggio’s paintings often play with light and darkness (with large parts of many of his paintings shrouded in darkness), his paintings often contrast religious themes and everyday life, his art uses a very realistic style etc…

So, an artist inspired by Caravaggio wouldn’t just copy a Caravaggio painting (even though said paintings are out of copyright). Instead, they’d find a religious story that interested them and try to find a way to make it look like a scene from everyday life. They’d add a lot of gloom to their paintings. They’d try to paint in a more realistic way. Their painting would probably look very different to an actual Caravaggio painting, but it would still be a new interpretation of Caravaggio’s art.

This is, of course, called “inspiration” rather than “modding”. And it’s an essential part of creativity.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂