(Urban Assault) Mykonian Cutscene: Reengineered

The Mykonians An off-world species, the Mykonians are tapping into the very core of our planet with their devastating Parasite Machine, extracting energy to power their attacks.

Their weapons technology is more advanced than ours.

Diplomacy has failed. They want our planet

// Welcome, Commander

This is a remake/reimagination of the original 1998 cutscene. Since I began working with motion graphics in 2004, I have always wondered about the visual techniques used in 1998. I was tempted to recreate it, but I lacked both the skill and the technology to do so.

With the advent of existing tools and AI technology for image creation, I decided to make a new attempt. Seeing that I was achieving results quickly, I committed to the project.

The initial challenge proved to be quite intriguing: the fonts. They did not exist anywhere, not even in the game files. Upon examining the original video, it became apparent that some of these texts were animated, indicating that someone had to create a custom font family. Thus, this became my starting point.

▼ You can download the font files here

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/op75jvegqw0tl3kx40af9/h?rlkey=h9b85mrxt5gzpz9j26jcrww15&dl=1

Thankfully, the people at Metropolis Dawn have collected and stored some high-quality promotional materials that I used to re-illustrate some of the alien fonts.

Creating these font files took approximately 4 hours. The challenging aspect was comprehending the shapes themselves. Despite having high-quality images, the resolution posed unexpected difficulties. Consequently, the files may not be perfectly crafted, as this was my inaugural attempt at creating a font file. Nevertheless, they served their purpose perfectly for the intentions of this video.

The next step was to recreate the original UI panels.

The original intention was simply to restore these designs in high quality. However, I decided that if I was going to design everything from scratch, I would opt for a more modern resolution suitable for ultra-wide displays (3440x1440).

This also meant making the content of these UI panels wider. For example, the original radiation reader used 3 bars, but I designed mine with 4 to fill the wider aspect ratio.

Most of the UI work was done directly in AE since there are many simple shapes involved. Interestingly, the 4-bar panel took me the longest time, as I initially struggled to capture the original feel accurately. Additionally, animating the tips in a way that they don't distort was challenging and eluded me for some time. It took me approximately two days to achieve the desired outcome for the entire panel.

Finally, I stumbled upon a code that provided precisely what I was seeking for the tips. This allowed the tips to follow the position of the bars without altering their size.

L = thisLayer;
s = transform.scale.value; while (L.hasParent){ L = L.parent; for (i = 0; i < s.length; i++) s[i] *= 100/L.transform.scale.value[i] }
s

Because I have worked with many maps in the past, I knew that using the Blue Marble photos from NASA would be the best approach.

I didn't even have to manually crop the map, as water is naturally blue, so it functioned somewhat like a blue screen. Everything else was done in AE (After Effects).

You might have noticed some giant craters that are not present on either the NASA map or the original Urban Assault game map.

These are more an attempt to visually enrich the narrative of the game because the game takes place in a highly conflictive time between nations and off-world species, and we can see nuclear bombs being used in the opening scene of the game.

Thus, the world has to look as if it has withstood major catastrophic events caused by war.

▼ You can download the original NASA high res image here

https://neo.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/bluemarble/bmng/world_2km/world.200411.3x21600x10800.png

When I began working on this project, I knew I could enhance the original planet because of the stencil shader in Modo, which allows the use of any texture as a material mask. This feature enabled me to create a clean holographic render using the previously utilized map.

Working on the planet provided another opportunity to expand the visual narrative. As a child, I always assumed that if we had a map in the game, it was because we had access to satellites in the game world, and since Mykonians are an off-world species, I presumed there must be other Mykonian forces in space.

Therefore, I created this version of the map illustrating target locations and utility orbital trajectories around Earth.

I consistently altered the design and positioning of these trajectories.

The last is something I was looking forward to. It might look complicated at first, but it turns out that just using the echo effect was enough. I have no clue how they did this back in 1998 since I used Mr. Horse's random position effect to make each individual square move.

Needless to say, I was quite impressed by how well everything was functioning thus far. Although I was already aware of the remarkable work accomplished by the original 1998 game, particularly for its time, starting from scratch instilled in me a deeper appreciation for the effort, especially considering the limitations of tools and resources available back then.

Once I was content with fine-tuning the effects and positions of every element, it was time to confront the part that I had been avoiding all this time.

original 1998 Mykonian Parasite design by Terratools

Okay, I have a confession to make: I am terrible at creating terrains in 3D, and probably in most other media as well.

While I have succeeded somewhat in the past, it has always been a struggle for me. I tend to avoid them if possible. However, in this case, it was unavoidable. Either I find a way to solve this, or this project is dead right here.

This is one of the reasons why I haven't been able to complete this project in the past. I've tried many times, but I never achieved the quality I wanted.

However, now we have something: Stable Diffusion.

I've used stable diffusion as a rendering tool before, by providing it with 3D data such as depth passes and mesh outlines.

The initial step was to create the scene that I could utilize to facilitate stable diffusion and observe the subsequent outcomes.

I was impressed by the initial results and it was great to brainstorm different possibilities, but I knew it couldn't be too complex since I still needed to animate it.

I wasn't a big fan of the pyramid design for the Mykonian Parasite. The entire Mykonian aesthetic is characterized by cubes and rectangles, and it always bothered me how empty it appeared in the original cutscene.

The game's original lore documents mention that Mykonians have a theocratic system, which leads me to assume that there must be some religious significance to the parasite device for them.

Therefore, I decided to incorporate some Mykonian ships positioned similarly, as if in adoration or reverence towards the parasite device.

Here is a collection of the first images I obtained using stable diffusion, feeding in both different prompts and depth maps.

I recall observing individuals manipulating 2D images with the aid of depth maps.

Therefore, with a depth map readily available, I utilized the same depth map employed in stable diffusion to fabricate a simulated change in perspective.

Incorporating further compositing techniques, it appears that I was making progress with this endeavor.

Of course, there were some issues with the quality of certain objects, especially the floating ships. Nonetheless, I found myself liking what I saw; in a way, it reminded me of the hand-drawn cutscenes from the Homeworld series.

However, I then had an idea. If stable diffusion is indeed creating images from a very specific angle, known as the depth pass angle, then I could utilize the generated image as a protective texture over the entire scene.

The next step would be to find a more suitable background, render the floating ships on a separate layer, and blend the depth map deformation with actual 3D content, in hopes of achieving the best results.

After spending a considerable amount of time experimenting with prompts and depth maps, I have settled on this cleaner result. It appears more suitable for incorporating content that I can manually add during compositing.

The next step was to create the texture for the Mykonian ships.

I remember being so close before, but it never felt right to me.

So, once again with the help of AI, I decided to see if there was something that could assist me with this task. Happily, I found a website specifically designed for creating textures for 3D models

https://poly.cam/tools/ai-texture-generator

After experimenting with Modo shaders and employing various techniques, I successfully utilized these textures to impart a Mykonian tech ambiance to the ships.

With everything now in place, I finally had a scene that could probably work.

This was the first time I finally felt there was a chance to complete this project.

So armed with that confidence, I started to build the pieces that would create the whole scene.

The Mykonian Parasite also has to work in line with the game lore. The Parasite Machine is explained on the Metropolis Dawn site:

"The Parasite is a colossal hyper-structure doomsday machine that has been implanted onto the crust of the Earth's surface by the Mykonians in order to harvest thermal energy directly from the planet's core."

So I imagine it as a really huge device, imbued with some sort of theological significance and featuring clear Mykonian design.

This is what the result looks like

One aspect that particularly appeals to me about Mykonian tech is their utilization of unstable electric static energy, which blankets their ships.

Despite being created in 1998, they truly ignite my imagination. I envision nearby ships being struck by electrostatic charges, and the entire Mykonian region being supercharged with unstable electric energy.

With these concepts in mind, the next logical progression is to incorporate these electric features into the scene.

A significant amount of fine-tuning was performed on these electric bolts, with the final adjustments made near the end of the video's development process. For the sake of narrative continuity, I am placing the final look at this stage.

original 1998 Mykonian Enemy Alert design by Terratools

The iconic Enemy Alert. I expected this part to be easier, but attempting to honor the original design while also updating it for modern resolutions proved quite challenging.

The actual problem lay in the myriad ways to solve this, yet I aimed to maintain the cleanliness of the original design as much as possible.

Many of the approaches I took toward visual solutions involved concepts feasible in 1998, so I avoided overly modern UI designs or holographic styles.

The original 1998 design exudes a classic cinematic feel, and I needed to approach it in a similar manner.

The Mykonian Host Station, while entirely made of rectangles, captivated me with how such a simple design could evoke a strong sense of evil. Imagination plays a significant role here; despite the abstract nature of the design, we understand it is composed of alien technology, such as tubes. Thus, this was my interpretation of their design.

The Mykonian Host Station underwent a few changes. It was almost complete in the first version, as it utilized the same materials that I used for the floating ships in the parasite scene. I simply adjusted the materials to better reflect the light.

And this is the final appearance of the station. Thankfully, the Modo Intel AI denoiser greatly assisted in reducing the render time.

Since my version of the cutscene is in ultrawide aspect ratio, one idea was to utilize all the available space instead of containing it like in the original, somewhat akin to having a giant display in the background.

I actually wanted to reuse the planet panel as the original did, but it seems more fitting, at least from a narrative perspective, for a military operation to feature a huge map showing the current operation. I added some orbit lines for fictional satellite positions or other imaginary tactical hardware.

Below, you can observe the early versions of the design, which incorporate some changes in mood and VFXs.

This was another significant problem that was only resolved thanks to Stable Diffusion.

There is no high-resolution image available for the alien, and the 320x240 resolution is simply not feasible to work with. Not even AI upscaling can do much for the original artwork, at least not yet.

Thus, Stable Diffusion performed some incredible work in recreating the creature with much more detail than I was expecting.

Below, you can find some early experiments, whether by tinkering with the prompts, checkpoints, or original artwork, or by modifying them directly.

After a couple of days of trying multiple options and experimenting with many of the results in Adobe After Effects, I finally settled on these two AI-generated images.

Needless to say, I was impressed. AI finally took care of something that had been chasing me for years.

Now that I have an alien style that not only matches the shape of the original creature but also fits with the rest of the Mykonian technology's appearance, it's amazing to see the old art with such rich detail. So, I went ahead and gave it that X-ray look of the original.

original 1998 "battlezones" gameplay by Terratools

This was one part that I was expecting to be easier until I understood what I should do.

While AI is great and all, I really loved the game visuals. Those crunchy textures and chaotic, sporadic rhythm of animations make this game have a presentation that fits perfectly with the horror and post-apocalyptic world.

And the sound design, just wow, amazing.

But trying to replicate the original in-game cutscenes would have meant replaying the game over and over until I was able to get it right. And while I have already beaten the game, upon opening my save file, there are no enemies left because I already finished the game.

So at least my save files worked fine for the satellite view. But once I needed the parts where the game explains the enemy war capabilities, I found myself at a wall.

This part in particular took me around 3 days until I settled with the idea to use someone's footage. There are some vivid fans of this game who have channels dedicated only to it.

So it also could be a good opportunity to get involved with anyone who still keeps the flame alive for this game.

Metropolis Dawn YouTube channel is an obvious choice. Also, his gameplays are in really good quality, so I asked for his permission to use some footage from his YouTube channel, and he agreed. So all that was left was to sit and search for fitting parts of his gameplays that go with the visual narrative.

And that's it. My biggest fear in doing this was that I would be unable to live up to the standards set by the original design team.

After all, this was just a reimagining. Working on this project has given me an even greater appreciation for how the team crafted the cinematic back in 1998, when computers barely had 1GB of RAM, without the plugins or effects we have available today, and of course, without AI.

I hope this also brings something to feed the imaginations of all Mykonians fans out there and expands a little on the narrative of the world of Urban Assault.

I was around 16 years old back in 2004 when I dreamt of accomplishing something like this. Doing a project like this was only possible in my wildest dreams back then, and it still feels like a trip to see it done today.

Thank you very much for watching, and a special thanks to the Terratools team for making this possible in the first place.