Unity based Super Metroid level art.

[cowsmanaut]

I haven't worked on it now for a year.. I did debate finishing it and I did have a number of people hoping I would too. However, it's a lot of work for something that will never really go anywhere.. so I figured I'd let it go and focus on my other projects. Plus I moved over to Unreal for my job so I'd end up redoing a bunch of work, since these projects are a way to keep up my skills and experiment for my main job.

Anyway, I hope you like them.. I tried to remain mostly faithful and incorporate some of the lore that has grown over the various versions as well.

The images you see here are constructed by hand painting elements in photoshop and then combining them back into unity (you can see in one of the images with the camera turned) The ship was full 3D to get some 2.5d action on it as was part of the background. I also started to make Samus in 3D before I stopped, the head you see in there.. I made a cartoony version closer to a disney sort of design style.  Also, the planet image was for the fly down to the planet, (another reason the ship was 3D)..

Google drive link Let me know if it doesn't work.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B28L5bM7KksUdV9sLU5fSVVQUFE?usp=sharing

Cheers

[benox50]

The drawings are cool, are you a 3D/2D artist ?
Cool to see more working artists here  :^_^:

[cowsmanaut]

Yeah, I teach 3D for characters and environments as well as painting. Focused on games and film. I do projects like these to practice my skills and challenge myself a bit. In this case.. painting stone walls, floors and collumns :)

[Grimlock]

Your artwork is very impressive!  It would be a tremendous task to recreate the entire game with that level of realism and artistic style.  I would contact Nintendo and try to do it legitimately if you decided to pursue completing this project, I think it would do well as a full retail release.

[cowsmanaut]

Thanks! Yes, it was a fair bit of work just getting this one start area as most of it is hand painted uniquely, very little tile work.. I did start some concepts for Norfair but stopped after hearing about Am2r.

If I thought for a moment they would actually let me finish it, I'd probably consider it. I do have about 100-ish people on my FB feed that expressed interest in seeing it finished as well.. but that's a drop in the hat compared to what kind of backing nintendo would want to see to have even a consideration of allowing it. Not only that I'd need someone in Unreal (which is where I've moved my productions to. I actually have a Samus controler set up already with movement, but would need save stations, bosses, monsters, weapons, etc) to help with code and testing and probably someone for music as the task of just the art alone is huge.

My goal was a single level as a tribute to Super Metroid. I managed that one area of it in unity.. I was looking at pseduo tiling like Ori and the Blind forest to make it smaller as a task and file size. Where you create small patch items that fit together, not edge to edge, but overlap and blend. This method allows you to make a few stamps that don't look like obvious repeats because of how you blend them. I didn't do any of it yet, and as I said, when looking at a quick concept of Norfair I saw what happened and just let it go.. sad, but it's a lot of work that I'd never get to share outside of screens like this.

I'm sure they will reboot Super metroid soon enough given their reboot of metroid 2.

[Zero One]

Not only that I'd need someone in Unreal (which is where I've moved my productions to. I actually have a Samus controler set up already with movement, but would need save stations, bosses, monsters, weapons, etc) to help with code and testing...

Well, hello there. I realise it's a massive undertaking, but Unreal is pretty much my job, and I would be interested in collaborating a little, if you decided you might want to take it a little further.

[cowsmanaut]

Thank you very much for the offer. Again, that would be secondary to the first issue though, which would be avoiding the huge boot wielding Nintendo Lawyers.. Nothing worse that investing a few years of time only to have it shut down. It would rip my heart out... Most of what you see in the images for Metroid were done in the summer month.. including coding the character and some other items in unity in C#. Cutting it off there was already hard..

I'd decided to redirect my love of Metroid into a female character and platform game which hold a few nods to the character and mechanics, while including mechanics from some other games I've loved. I had a project already at the ready, where all the mechanics were worked out, but decided taking this nod to Metroid could be a great addition, and so have spent the past month and a half adapting it, building level art and characters.. working out story direction and motivations. With the strong foundation I'd already built, it seems to be coming together quite fast.

Anyway, honestly.. the fact that others can enjoy these images, at least in this state, is nice. Feels like it wasn't a total waste of time. I may finish off some items, or put up a concept here and there, but I doubt any levels will come of it.