Reply To: WANTED: PS1 Style Tutorials

[coyo]

This is a really great post, Delilah! You have really analyzed a lot about what makes those old games stand out and why they still appeal to a lot of people even today. 

Look for “PS1 low poly modeling” on Youtube and filter by videos. There are some decent looking videos available – some might be older but the general information should still be good.

Check sites like models.spriters-resource.com for PS1 models that you might be able to load up into Blender to see how they are constructed. Places like Sketchfab might also have PS1-inspired models to look at or even download. Just seeing how they were modeled can help a lot!

If your end goal is to recreate the PS1 look in a game there are shader/lighting/etc assets available for UE and Unity. These are the ones I know of but I haven’t tried them and don’t know how good they are.

PSXFX for UE: https://marcis.itch.io/psxfx

PSXEffects for Unity: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/psxeffects-132368

Regarding animation, you’ve made an excellent point about how part of the look/feel of the old games are those repeated animations. One thing to keep in mind is WHY the developers did that. Animation is “expensive” so being able to make fairly generic motions that can be reused in different situations was ideal. Each animation had to be considered for its importance. Can it be reused? Is it a defining character or gameplay trait? Would putting a unique animation in at an important point in the story call attention to the importance of that moment?

I’ve seen at least a couple of PS1-style horror shorts that lean into the repetitiveness of the old style animations and then “breaking” style into smooth or otherwise unexpected animation for the scare shots. It can be very eye-catching!

I know this isn’t promising a PS1 course but hopefully it gives you some information you weren’t already aware of and maybe gives you a starting point.