Messages

1

General discussion / Re: Mods, Modders, People, and our love of the game.

« on: 2017-06-21 07:41:13 »

I appreciate this thread, as these falling outs is not only between modders but between modder and users(users harassing mod maker for not doing 'x' instead of 'y').
but as a user of many of the fine mods here, and seeing the work being put into the mods(no matter how small/big significant/insignificant changes it does total)

I have to applaud the determination and will you guys have to make the mods and making them available to others(even if they are not released I applaud them because they can show the very edge you can push the games to!(I love teasers of what is possible as well), or in the aspect of the ones who are pushing out tools to help further mods to be created.

Cheers from Norway!

2

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-03-20 17:58:59 »

as I said, it is to copy the original game's values without having to recreate the data nor it's behaviour.
the amount of processing power used to calculate the stats are neglible, you can't even reliably measure the time spent due to how little time is spent in that part of the code.(yes, even if in my work I created 10000 enemies, all their stats would'be calculated according to their inputed level in sub milisecond time)

about the time spent with the DB,  I would've saved considerable amount of time just modifiying the Ifirit tool to export all the values.
but yeah, either way works. didn't say you had to use the code, just made it available.

3

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-03-20 01:03:44 »

Regarding Level stats etc
this is from my personal work
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uzr64mo3sfqzd0x/CalcStats.txt?dl=0
(cstat here reads from the ',' in the HP column in Monster or Players table for example so LvlStat_1 = first number in the column, every column has 4 values.)

Using a Sqllite database in this case
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kwyt8u6fms7tfep/data%20-%20Copy.db?dl=0
Monster and Players table has the values needed to fill stat calculations
"HP" columns etc.

Monster stat|level calculation is 100% identical to original game to my knowledge.

the Player tables, is because leveling in FF8 levels grants stats to players as well, the values that I've filled in on players is just what I managed to get approximated as close to as possible, leaving 95% of the levels stats close to the original game. the few levels that are not 100% correct inbetween is only offset by +- 1 stat but last levels is identical stat wise.

btw creating the database was a pain in the butt filling each value by hand. ;P

4

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-03-01 11:47:11 »

I find Omnisphere very entertaining to play around with(then again I only convert midi but the tool is rather cool(though abit expensive for just playing around with but eh worth it))

5

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-02-01 21:19:56 »

Really incredible work, as far as the scale to walkmesh I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as everything stays to scale with the remade assets tbh(although a certain amount of agreement for the assets scale would have to be made).

open world or not either is workable even performance wise as it can be streamed/loaded in on the go(the thing is if the world management will be having to work around precision of float or using a reset traversal is needed(moving the world instead of the character) to avoid it, possibly using double precision instead of single precision float and then cast to float relative to camera being at 0,0(rather complex things to handle)

unless I misremember asuming using float you can have up to 5 digits then you can only have 2 decimals.

I do however think it is easier to keep the world and locations separated, as then you won't have to worry as much of scale and precision(not to mention the time to make a world management that can handle the scale/size needed), as the world could be more compacted like it is in the original game/just imagine the distance from train tomemory  forrest before Galbadia Garden and remapping that distance relative to the actual size of Balamb town to world map ratio.

6

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-01-06 19:32:38 »

The backdrop for Balamb street shows that the weapon shop back part continues all the way up to the wall. Empty wall space actually.
It's not logical because we do not have backdrops for every part of town.(which is expected),who would expect there only to be living 8 people in Balamb(I think this is an rough estimate considering houses and buildings visible through all the backdrops, not like Esthar were you can imagine every block essentially be a skyscraper:P)

7

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-01-04 14:31:49 »

The roof disc/circular object also got smoothed edges. and the flower pot is placed on an extended overhang(100% replication to me personally is not nessecary).
of course I'd say this already perfect.

Heh, looking at the original FF8 backdrop made me laugh regarding the gas sign :p it's rotated 90 degrees :p

8

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-01-02 09:41:25 »

If you are still a student of any kind (even highschool) then you can apply for three years educational license. I'm using one like this.
Yep, you're right. I have an issue with chamfering the edges. The results are bad, I think I destroyed the mesh earlier with something, I don't know how to fix this so I did multiple Polygon outline >_> :


Anyway, I fixed the textures and metal is no more 100% shiny. I also tried to do the park-a-lot building. I spent 3-4 hours on this and yet it still looks bad. Someone, please. Take care of the textures.






I don't know what's  on the ceiling in the last photo. It showed up in "High-res screenshot" function in UE4, 3ds max and ue4 in-game shows it correctly.

I should take some 3ds max course... 

Sadly I am not a student since quite a few years ago, this was a separate online version of a school course which I completed.
if its not visible in anything but the high res screenshot it most probably is a rendering bug of the engine.(cant think of any other reasons)

GasPump, maybe it would be easier to fix that by cutting away the faces in which is smoothed and just add another box with more faces then move the top vertices accordingly? that way you do not get uneven faces.

When doing the large scale remodelling from images(as I tried with Balamb main hall) I found using 3D coat made it alot easier by using its retopolgy tools on a flat plane then adjust it by what I could see would be height differences. I also found making the floors/road network first before adding anything would make it easier as you would have a layout to follow.(not being experienced at all in modelling or in any artistic forms whatsoever free hand modelling similar looks is flat out impossible for me.)

redoing dollet I would imagine the same approach would probably be very suitable(atleast from the little experience I have).

9

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2017-01-01 08:01:29 »

Well, thank you.
I am unable to work on them anymore as I do not have access to Autodesk anymore as my license was tied to a game design course.
I was thinking the upper rim edges on the gaspump could be smoothed, as in the image they are rather rounded unless my eyes are tricking me.
Love your work.

10

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2016-12-31 07:41:22 »

So much better than my last tries last year. not even sure they are worth sharing as a base. :p
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7tuihdlhtgj06z6/BModels.rar?dl=0
mostly max 2015 files and no UVs.

11

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2016-12-01 07:21:27 »

HD games or HD remakes is not impossible(if it had not been for copyrights and trademark protection), by amateurs sure(however I would say most people here who even does the slightest of modding for FF7 or FF8 is a bit above amateurs), then again even something like QGears or even just emulating the game with all the original assets and code is too much for amateurs, heck even making HD textures or backgrounds for FF7 or FF8 is too much for amateurs due to the asset pipeline they have to work through, and in fact I think had it not been for FF7-FF8-FF9 using 2D backgrounds(they would have looked really bad back then and even more so now though) they would have recieved a HD upgrade from the community a long time ago, as it takes alot of time to get the mesh scales and textures etc right when modelling from 2D assets, then to render it back to 2D in great quality, had they been in 3D this work process would have been alot faster.

Lets agree to disagree about the FF8 Graphics.

QGears really doesn't offer anything that other engines doesn't, every engine I know of that you have available today either has a scripting language builtin or it is possible to add ontop of it yourself.
infact QGears uses Ogre as its rendering engine which removes alot of work to even begin QGears.

The reason why projects like QGears usually dies, is because outside of reliving a game only very nostalgic fans would use it(aside from people wanting to download a package with everything+game setup for them beforehand), lack of interest/motivation, lack of time or lack of knowledge on how to proceed from the point it is currently at.
It also isn't much fun to be the sole contributor(in the case of it being a community project) to something that alot of people is using. if you want perfect examples you could look at two games called Fallout and Fallout 2, which has had probably 5-6 community made engines all died out(way too many people arguing about what scripting language, how to port(preconvert or runtime conversion of original assets) and the list goes on.

What also would attract most people to use/help something like QGears is if it is easy to use, which to be honest it isn't(not compared to engines which has builtin support for most of these features), Unity being a perfect example, which is why it is so popular among amateurs.

12

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2016-11-27 21:25:27 »

gradient probably looks like that due to jpg.

and the links you simply have to do
["url=https://postimg.org/image/px46x6ynh/]["img]https://s14.postimg.org/px46x6ynh/Screen0.jpg[/img][/url]
excluding the "

in my project I didn't worry about the UI look replication, I wrote code for handling scenes in 3D and 2D although with the hope of there eventually being access to full 3D scenes/objects to build the scenes from. of course you could make quite some good look alike scene with premade assets just would take some time.

13

General discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 8 in Unity?

« on: 2016-11-27 02:31:25 »

some time back I was working on my own project(not using Unity though) with the same target although I have to say my motivation dwindled.

14

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF7 PC] Full source code reversing project?

« on: 2016-08-05 09:42:50 »

compile ogre as a library or as a dll that way you do not have to recompile Ogre source every time you make changes to the things which can be handled through inheritance or components.

15

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF7 PC] Full source code reversing project?

« on: 2016-07-27 01:01:45 »

"100% remade assets/scripts/code"
Great so they resorted to plagiarism. they full duplicated every scene and behavior and required no original copy ownership for a user to play it, see the problem here?

"It's better to use original scripts because it's not possible for a program to covert them to a higher level language automatically"
Yet there are projects which do, some of the Fallout 2 reverse engineered projects actually do support converting scripts.

It's fine not wanting to take risk to be 100% sure, but the Chrono Trigger case was quite obviously outside of the gray area and inside the area of just blatantly copying it.

I am not going to argue which is better and what to do, just wanting to state that there are ways of doing things which is perfectly legal, and as I said, won't work unless a good sum of planning is done beforehand.

It's still a discussion which I enjoy. 

16

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF7 PC] Full source code reversing project?

« on: 2016-07-26 22:04:07 »

For games that are still being sold this does happen, not distributing any data is the only way to be 100% safe, unless of course you are a well vexed lawyer

You aren't distributing any data belonging to them, you are distributing converted code to make the data work, still requiring every user to launch it and link to original data folders/archives for the conversion to convert original data that they already have by having bought the game.

17

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF7 PC] Full source code reversing project?

« on: 2016-07-26 18:35:16 »

I've yet to see any of the projects I am following that reverses other games to see a C&D for converting/porting scripts to emulate/mimic/alter behaviour.
Afterall FF games does not have any ownership of the behavior their scripts executes, only the code directly(which only prevents you to copy paste, which you aren't doing when you convert by hand, you simply mimic the behavior of the script), if you write something which does the same thing, they really can't do anything about it.

paul: the point is that sounds,fields and models when formats are fully known can be automatically converted on first run per user(this is allowed as you aren't distributing anything) usually this is done by other projects by asking the user to find/select original game data folders/archives.

and even if converting opcodes/scripts might be hard there are multiple cases where this is also converted, even per script based scenarios.

Most countries I can think of also do not allow patent or directly copyrights code in that sense(unless you actually copied and distributed the original file, which you aren't doing).
I'd seriously start to wonder how people who only does texture touch ups for games(not making new similar ones, but only tweaks the original textures) is able to distribute their versions, afterall this to me seems to be exactly what modders who only increases the resolution of the original FMV/Textures(or uses original and adds filters to them then distribute them), details of models are doing.

18

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF7 PC] Full source code reversing project?

« on: 2016-07-25 20:54:48 »

Remember: All the data conversion must be done programmatically because we can not distribute converted data!  This means each user will have to have a program that converts all the original data to the XYZ's Engine Data and the conversion can not be done by hand.  Unless off course the engine can use the original data.

You do not need a program for every user ,this can and is done in alot of other reverse engineered engines so that when you start up the project for the first time it converts data.
This does of course rely on either having preconverted scripts for each asset(lets say field scripts, and yes these hand converted scripts you can distribute) or something which can interpret and convert then save.

some reversed projects I've seen does both, it will emulate and use original scripts or assets until converter works fully/a replacement script(can be done 1 script or 1 asset at a time) is made.

19

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF7 PC] Full source code reversing project?

« on: 2016-07-24 19:44:20 »

saying most/all projects trying to use another engine failed, can happen because of a numbers of factors.
-limited programming/engine knowledge.
-poor structuring
-badly interconnected system making them hard to understand and/or use
-too much focus on having 100% replication of how FF7 did it.
-limited time
-loss of interest/little interest shown(makes the project seem not worthwhile to complete)

Although not the same game, it still applies.
Afterall by comparison before I kinda lost the interest in my own programming something to emulate FF8 was simply time consumption but in approximately 2 months thanks to all data/information/tools for FF8 I implemented.
-Full angelscript real time compile for whenever I changed a player's limit break damage calculation or spell damage/heal/effects
-Behaviour Tree based battle AI
-Spell and junction system(both extremely flexible and capable of executing each their own damage/effect script)
-GFs and Limitbreaks
-All monster stats and level/stats scaling
-world exported from FF8 converted to heightmap then added to terrain system(3D).
-2D backscreens with 3d player ontop(as expected as a copy of these games, with multiple layers support allowing animated layers to be grouped,like curtains blowing the back and stop(emulating wind has stopped))
-Character UI, party switching, junction system, item list.
-Worldmap battle encounter, regional monster tables

Again this relies too much on
-how much time you are willing/can spend on it
-how much knowledge you have around programming and what areas you are capable of finishing.
-You have others helping you in the areas you can not do yourself
-good design and readability of your code(doing solid prework and ideas of the systems can help alot in how you will connect them)

lines of code for programmers means absolutely nothing, it is what those lines you have does which matters(I've seen alot of people writing huge amount of code which could've been handled in less than half the lines).

using opcodes and guesswork on what to change to see if it breaks or not, to me sounds like a hard way of programming when going to replicate/reversing projects.

Lets say on average the each field has 1500 lines of code which is generous.  Multiply that by 700, and you got 1,050,000 lines.

That is asuming you need 50% of the lines avoiding duplicate functions/code in the scripts(which probably almost every field shares in someway).

KnifeTheSky77 is correct about Unity.

20

Tools / Re: [FF8] Rinoa's Toolset - BS, WMSET, WMX, GF, RAIL - Ripping, editing, analyzing

« on: 2016-07-19 20:57:32 »

battle stage editor sounds really cool, I also like Halfers idea(unless it is already in there somewhere?).

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Tools / Re: [FF8] Rinoa's Toolset - BS, WMSET, WMX, GF, RAIL - Ripping, editing, analyzing

« on: 2016-07-19 08:26:23 »

Just had to donate for this, really awesome work. : )

22

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: Talk / Contact range.

« on: 2016-04-20 12:09:52 »

Just going to take a stab guess.
in other games, contact range would be controlling factor for effects or behaviors/eg a fleeing frog in FFIX would run based on rules inside contact range, or lets say object starts floating when in contact range, then 'talk range would be the controlling setting for activating it(capturing frog, activating floating object)

where they can be set depends on how the code was made I guess, init would usually be set after main(as a C/C++ example), this however when in regards to many script implementations seen in other games, init is the first called, then main is called as the primary setter.

regarding Cloud, is it possible that the order of calls to the script is
init - set some values
sets other default values(assuming contact range is set based on parameters, one which could be as you said, model size)
main - rest here to override defaults

I have no clue about any core stuff in Final Fantasy games in this degree, just thinking implementation wise seen in other games which has had source available.
and yes, this sounds like a horrible way to do things, but hey, lots of games has really weird code running around in them.

23

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF9]2016 release

« on: 2016-04-17 13:53:43 »

No one is reversing anything into Unity to my knowledge, FF9 for PC uses Unity,besides I believe Android version uses Unity anyways.

24

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF9]2016 release

« on: 2016-04-17 02:32:42 »

Had a chance to check WMWorld/WMBlock/WMCell/WMReadFile?
I also note that WMPsXCamera could be of use if one wants to figure perfect camera angle themselves ; )

25

Graphical Mods / Re: FF8 3d model modding?

« on: 2015-12-30 11:55:12 »

From what I've seen from deling there really isn't much magic going on.
you got the static background image layers. then you got the 'animated' images which is just individual static images of an object that is getting looped over(unless it is deling which converts it to single images).
like the starting infirmary scene, you got the infirmary, then you got the moving curtains as a seperate image with the curtain and the rest of the scene cut by alpha ontop which is looped over.
doors are images which are opened when the character gets to place 'x' in the screen controlled against a bounding box/region(if player is inside of that area the images for the doors gets looped over to open or close respectively).
to recreate the scenes you can either do camera matching perspective to the image while modelling, or you could guestimate the measurement of the room and objects then match the camera afterwards.
NOTE: also to know, every 2d prop in a scene is the same size as the original image it seems so there is no special placement for images like you usually see in games nowadays, so if the scene image is 972x572 every tiny prop image is the same size even if it is just the size of 25x25 in the scene.