[Melee] Vision Mod - Reforged Graphics Quality Control

[VisionMod]

Hello Friends, I've been working a lot on this mod let me know what you think about these changes.

Vision Mod - An update for Reforged Graphics to make it functional for multiplayer. Quality control to bring it closer to what fans expected from a remaster. Recognizable units, classic hit boxes, attention to details like unit size and hp bars. New UI and portraits.

Features

Units Updated - Resized units and repositioned to fit in the classic model better. In some cases remodeled and reanimated units. Tons of animation clipping fixes. Deleted unnecessary model details.


New Skins - Replaced default heroes with new versions that match the original game better. Hero glow doubled. Team color and unit color of models matched to classic.


Hit Boxes Replaced - All units have the moving Reforged hit boxes replaced with non moving Classic style.


Health Bar Location - HP and Mana bar position synced with classic. (Except for the few units that transform like Destroyer)

Trees Replaced - Replaced 2.0 trees. Resized Lordaeron and Ruins trees to fit better in the original model. Updated colors for some.

New Portraits and UI Replaced - A slightly darker UI with an open portrait frame. New portrait lighting and a zoomed out camera angle to make the portraits less jarring. I tried to keep the file size down by deleting all unused mesh and nodes on the portraits.


Icons - Reforged icons replaced with Classic not 2.0 AI icons.

Creeps Updated - All creeps updated for 1vs1 maps in the current pool. It will need updates to creeps if the map pool adds new creeps. If there is interest in the mod beyond 1v1 I can updated the other game mode creeps.

Item Updated - Removed moving item animation, added glow.

Collection Skins - All Resized, Hit Box and HP bar adjusted. The optional Pitlord Azgalor has been replaced with Archimonde.

Buildings Updated - Few buildings were edited like the farm hitbox, undead birth is smaller, moonwell model and hp bar update. There is no plan to change other buildings except if there could be a fix to the ancients roots spawn bug. I spent a lot of time unable to fix that bug.

Bug Fixes - AoW has an uproot sound, MK has a death sound and Cryptfiend has classic footstep sounds. Human UI brick fixed. Top of Orc UI aligned.

About the Mod - Started as a personal project to change some of the models that bothered me it became something that I worked on with others in mind, so I took the quality control seriously. That means lots of testing the unit size, position, hp bars and hit boxes. Most units were too small and since the hitboxes were aligned with the moving model, unlike the larger hit box circle in classic, it made the units much harder to click. Reforged weapons also had hit boxes, unlike classic, leading to frustrating moments like death coiling a Blademaster sword instead of healing your unit.

Perhaps I should have called it HIT BOX MOD because that is the defining feature

Obviously it will never be a 1:1 match with classic but the goal was simply to make the graphics close enough to be enjoyable for those few of us who would try Reforged graphics in melee every few months only to be disappointed. Certainly the community could improve on my changes if they want to but I'm at a point where I dare say it's playable.

Known issues - Some HP bars in Reforged are not the same length as Classic but the vertical position should be correct. Not sure if there is a fix. Units that transform like Druids and Destroyer I couldn't sync to the same position as classic. The portrait of lvl 6 demon form for default DH and female DH has a few odd lip syncs from resizing it to fit in the new ui. Selection circles are not in the same position in classic and Reforged, I could not change these.

Let me know your thoughts. Is this something you would try or should I have kept it to myself?

Attached some pictures along with reference of the current game. Since I haven't changed the lighting at all I want to remind everyone that monitor settings are very helpful so play around with it if your immediate reaction is disappointment. I prefer lower brightness and night light or a warm setting to lower the blues but everyone is different.

Thanks!

Credits:
Retera's Model Studio by Retera and the people who helped that project like OgreLord and Twilac made model and sound changes possible.
Casc View for extracting - credit Ladik
Sanity Tester for model testing - credit GhostWolf
Quenching Mod for showing how to edit the UI - credit Zorrot
Models found on HiveWorkshop:
Shadow Hunter Rokhan Projectile - credit SADGASM
Prince Kael with fixed armor and animations - credit Fugrim
Rexxar with fixed animations, Firelord/Volcanus Fix, and Frost Wyrm emissive - credit Mr Ogre Man
Thank you everyone of Hive who answers questions!

edit: new screenshots of units and replaced the hitbox picture with the Sanity Test like Retera showed

 

[Remixer]

Damn. As a person who does not have Reforged, is that seriously how some of the Reforged units actually look? I have to say the Vision mod variant are a lot more recognizable, hilariously so (compared to Reforged defaults shown here). What on earth is wrong with the default Spirit Wolf and Blood Mage for example - yikes.

Overall looks like a pretty solid remake of those assets.

 

[VisionMod]

Damn. As a person who does not have Reforged, is that seriously how some of the Reforged units actually look? I have to say the Vision mod variant are a lot more recognizable, hilariously so (compared to Reforged defaults shown here). What on earth is wrong with the default Spirit Wolf and Blood Mage for example - yikes.

Overall looks like a pretty solid remake of those assets.

I'm glad you recognized some units, thanks. Spirit wolf was actually the first thing I did, someone called the original a squirrel and I couldn't unsee that.

 

[Archian]

In a time when Blizzard doesn't quite cut it, it makes me glad to see the community is stepping up. Vision mod is another example of that

Love the work you've put into this so far

 

[Retera]

since the hitboxes were aligned with the moving model

As a note, the Retera Model Studio program does not preview hitboxes accurately. The point math for drawing 2D rectangles was not built to rotate them, because I did not consider the concept of animated hitboxes, since I mostly anticipated that concept to be a waste of time that doesn't make sense (SD).

So if we use something like Sanity Test we get a more accurate render than the picture you pasted with the 2D rectangle boxes going everywhere that look broken.

This would help highlight what you're referring to regarding the Sword having its own hitbox for clicking the model. If you were making a fighting game where blademasters needed to chop off each other's arms, maybe this metadata would make sense, but for click intersection on an RTS this is definitely a waste of processing. Eliminating this would most likely boost Reforged FPS. But also, I got this model to preview here from 1.32.10 which is an older Reforged that I had available on mobile. Do you have the models from after the new 1.33 and 2.0 patches? I thought that in 1.33 some of the Reforged models actually eliminated this silliness and changed to SD collision spheres, but maybe I was mis-remembering.

 

[VisionMod]

I did not consider the concept of animated hitboxes, since I mostly anticipated that concept to be a waste of time that doesn't make sense (SD).

Hi Retera! Speaking of a waste of time, I couldn't simply import the hit box from SD and be done. Each import had to be resized I assume because of the unit scaling in Reforged. That means a lot of time overlaying with classic screenshots and testing with mouseover. Miserable work but I'm confident now that the awful interactions of moving wings and weapons are gone.

Eliminating this would most likely boost Reforged FPS

I was hoping that would be the case along with deleting unnecessary mesh and nodes. I know nothing about software development, but when I redid an animation often deleting keyframes and letting RMS use interpolation (if that's the word) maybe that could help with performance too.

Do you have the models from after the new 1.33 and 2.0 patches? I thought that in 1.33 some of the Reforged models actually eliminated this silliness and changed to SD collision spheres, but maybe I was mis-remembering.

Yeah I started last year from 1.36. As far as I can remember very few units have stationary hit boxes, for instance the default Blademaster does, but not Samuro in my screenshot.

Thanks for making RMS it never crashes, well done.

Love the work you've put into this so far

Appreciate it.