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[HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

This Board features Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (UE1), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (UE1) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (UE2).
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MrBin
OldUnreal Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:09 am

[HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

Post by MrBin »

Hello.

A beta source code from Harry Potter 2 has been leaked recently. Because the game is legally in a grey area, I took a little hobby for my spare time: Re-finish the game AGAIN (thus leaving a fully manageable source code), complete with a fast climbing feature, cutscene "skipper" and so on. As the days passed, I found myself adding widescreen support, fixing any of these "little details" I could catch, "fixing" the DEP-dependent crash, and even implementing some scrapped features (including but not limited to those cancelled by time constraints or EA's decisions such as the In-Game menu). Here's an example:
Image
(WIP; These were the original icons and general design before EA asked the replacement you saw in the final version, I'm still determining whether should the styles be toggle-able or not because I don't want to get a C&D)

The plan is to eventually release both the finalized source code, and a minimal install trying to emulate a hypothetical "release version" without dev tools nor any ScriptText at HGame.u; This version should be capable of doing just everything the 2002 release does, if not more. To avoid poking the bear, the former is meant not to have any built files whatsoever (only base source + resource data (user shall build it by himself)), and the latter is meant to be packed into an installer that should only work if the user owns the original version (after all, I intend to keep it compatible with other languages, so the installer shall copy the voice/text files from user's version).


I'm a noob to Unreal though, I've never played nor dealt with Unreal stuff ever before! and I'm still in the early "taking control" phase trying to learn the general structure; currently my only weapons are Google, public tools, and some spare time to study in lower-level. Consider that I don't know just how much has changed internally in comparison to Unreal/UE1 itself (though I can tell there's so many remnants I don't think it has changed much, but still there's many edits).

May I ask for a starting point? i.e. which tools should I use or so?
I got some experience in C++ and I'm getting the hang of UnrealScript.


All that said, don't know if you're interested in checking out the current progress (let alone whether is it even possible to upload to Github or so)?

Thanks for reading!
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Leo T_C_K
OldUnreal Member
Posts: 3660
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:24 pm

Re: [HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

Post by Leo T_C_K »

Thanks for your post. I never played the HP games apart from the leaked beta (and didnt finish playing through that either). I'm not a big HP fan and lost interest rather early on in the stuff despite having had two books that i only partially read.

But I am a fan of this idea. I think you should go ahead with this project as it is a good idea. I don't know where all the tools/tutorials are in one place, there are a lot of things posted over at ut99.org too (despite it not being called that, like the old beyondunreal tag reminded us: it wasn't called ut99, lol).
MrBin
OldUnreal Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:09 am

Re: [HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

Post by MrBin »

I don't intend to ask with bad intentions (sorry for going a bit off-topic), just which are the most... "active" Unreal forums yet? With interest towards UE1, not UE4 of course. Here's OldUnreal, but I sent a first thread to beyondunreal a week ago, and it's not even moderated (displayed) yet. I'll give ut99.org a try, but the more options I know the better!!
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Leo T_C_K
OldUnreal Member
Posts: 3660
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:24 pm

Re: [HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

Post by Leo T_C_K »

Umm, there are a couple more forums like some more privately hosted ones, from the bigger ones still, newbiesplayground can come to mind, but not so many people there anymore either. Beyondunreal was covering almost everything but is a rather dead place these days with some strange things going on. When it comes to engine experts unfortunately this place has most of them it seems. But you can try on ut99, again its a bit mixed but it is very active compared to other forums.

there's of course unrealsp.org still and I almost forgot about that, but there are very few posts these days in general and I myself rarely visit it.
oldunrealuser0001
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Mar 18, 2021 9:37 pm

Re: [HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

Post by oldunrealuser0001 »

MrBin wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 4:06 am Hello.

A beta source code from Harry Potter 2 has been leaked recently. Because the game is legally in a grey area, I took a little hobby for my spare time: Re-finish the game AGAIN (thus leaving a fully manageable source code), complete with a fast climbing feature, cutscene "skipper" and so on. As the days passed, I found myself adding widescreen support, fixing any of these "little details" I could catch, "fixing" the DEP-dependent crash, and even implementing some scrapped features (including but not limited to those cancelled by time constraints or EA's decisions such as the In-Game menu). Here's an example:
Image
(WIP; These were the original icons and general design before EA asked the replacement you saw in the final version, I'm still determining whether should the styles be toggle-able or not because I don't want to get a C&D)

The plan is to eventually release both the finalized source code, and a minimal install trying to emulate a hypothetical "release version" without dev tools nor any ScriptText at HGame.u; This version should be capable of doing just everything the 2002 release does, if not more. To avoid poking the bear, the former is meant not to have any built files whatsoever (only base source + resource data (user shall build it by himself)), and the latter is meant to be packed into an installer that should only work if the user owns the original version (after all, I intend to keep it compatible with other languages, so the installer shall copy the voice/text files from user's version).


I'm a noob to Unreal though, I've never played nor dealt with Unreal stuff ever before! and I'm still in the early "taking control" phase trying to learn the general structure; currently my only weapons are Google, public tools, and some spare time to study in lower-level. Consider that I don't know just how much has changed internally in comparison to Unreal/UE1 itself (though I can tell there's so many remnants I don't think it has changed much, but still there's many edits).

May I ask for a starting point? i.e. which tools should I use or so?
I got some experience in C++ and I'm getting the hang of UnrealScript.


All that said, don't know if you're interested in checking out the current progress (let alone whether is it even possible to upload to Github or so)?

Thanks for reading!
Hey there!

There is digital preservation and archiving project that I maintain, the Harry Potter Games Archive Project. We've collaborated with the Library of Congress and host the the Project on the Internet Archive / Archive.org. I run the Discord server which has helped tremendously for tracking down rare materials and variants of the games, as we have people from all over the world helping. Also, there's the adjacent modding sever, too, and I suspect that your questions regarding OldUnreal/Engine questions might be best posed to some of the master modders. They're currently building a new editor, by the way. These two Discords - in addition to the speed running Discord servers / community - are the biggest communities online for the Harry Potter games, OldUnreal.com aside.

https://archive.org/details/@harry_potter_archive

Harry Potter Games Archive Project
https://discord.gg/F7354xe

Harry Potter Modding
https://discord.gg/5KFeb48

Check out our Project on the Internet Archive and feel free to stop by on Discord.

—HP_Archivist, Project Lead
Harry Potter Games Archive Project
MrBin
OldUnreal Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 5:09 am

Re: [HP2][TBD] Harry Potter ReMastered

Post by MrBin »

I'd like to apologize for the lack of news, but many things have happened behind the scenes. Among them I learnt that there's another, very similar project, which not only has been in the works much earlier than this, but also promises better editors and general optimization. Per se, it will be better quality software and goes far beyond simply giving compatibility.

Initially I thought on cancelling this project, because I'm not doing anything else than finish the game again while giving it the "beauty pass", sort of. On the other hand, the other project will likely take loner to release (mind you I haven't checked that Discord since then), and it will be closed-source.

I don't lose anything myself by sharing everything I'll have though, unless EA still cares about this game somehow and manages to dox my home address and sue me; in that case I'd have to tae down some (hopefully not all) links, and I'm not sure if any mental gymnastics with the installer could work (i.e. display any disclaimers and lock it out if you haven't installed the original version first or something).

So, I decided to put my focus on the artistic presentation instead. In order to differenciate one project from the other, not only I'm actually going with a different name, but I'm also reimplementing scrapped and unfinished features from scratch, adding some new ones, and rewriting most cutscene scripts. I suck at level design though. Think of it like the PS2 vs Xbox/GameCube versions of the game, it's the same assets under different coding.

Without further ado, here's my latest re-implementation:
Image Image

Trailer and releases coming very soon!!
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