System Shock 2 - Terminal Box

3dmodelling 3dsmax retro substance systemshock ss2 remake

Here's a hi-res version of an undamanged Terminal Box from System Shock 2, trying to stay pretty faithful to the original. It’s also made to the exact same scale so that it slots into the level. It was mainly made to see how much effort recreating assets would be for my personal SS2 project

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Not my best work, mainly as I was trying to keep so faithful that I think it’s kind of stuck between looking boxy and HD. It’s also a little bit too weathered for a brand new ship like the Von Braun, but I was hiding my inadequacies as an artist behind grime textures/normals :p I think I might have another go at some point and take a few more creative liberties.

The project itself was a recreation of System Shock 2 in Unreal Engine 5. You can have a little peek at me playing through in the video below. It was pretty function scripting-wise, I recreated a lot of the systems from the original Dark engine:

The model was created in 3ds Studio Max and textured in Substance Painter.

You can also view a 3D model by clicking the image below:

Who I am

I'm Blake and I like to tinker with things and make stuff. When I'm not programming or developing random systems, I'm playing with electronics, doodling bits of art, 3D modelling or sculpting and painting things or nerding out watching sci-fi or horror TV.

From 2001 I worked in the games industry, eventually specialising in tools to aid in the development of video games and their engines. In 2011 I left the industry and teamed up with a few other talented composers to utilise my knowledge to help build the company 'Spitfire Audio'.

I also periodically compose soundtracks for video-games and have worked on titles such as The Stanley Parable and Portal Knights. You've probably also heard my music in random TV commercials at some point.

What I'm using to make games

Nowadays I tend to utilise Unreal Engine 5. I use a mixture of (mostly) C++ (Visual Studio 2019, Rider) and Blueprints.

I work with Autodesk's 3D Studio Max to generate the art required, and Adobe Photoshop or Paintshop Pro 6 for texturing. I also dabble with Allegorithmic's Substance Designer/Painter for more realistic texturing work.

I tend to generate tools in Python, C++ or NodeJS depending on what's needed.

Audio-wise, I still use Cool Edit Pro and FL Studio to generate sounds and music respectively.