Qhimm.com Forums
Final Fantasy 7 => FF7 Tools => Topic started by: Reunion on 2006-08-21 23:56:38
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Beta PCreator v0.85b (http://webpages.charter.net/reunionvii/)
Well here is a beta version, I spent the past couple weeks adding a few thing I thought were necessary...
PCreator is able to create 3d models for Final Fantasy® VII PC from 3d Studio (.3ds) files. PCreator supports both battle and field models, up to four separate meshes grouped as one file, and can be textured. Now it also can write the texture format used in FFVII (.tex) using 256 color bitmaps.
A few but useful 3d editing functions are included as well. It can scale, move and rotate (90°) each individual mesh or all groups at once.
(http://webpages.charter.net/reunionvii/images/helmets.jpg)(http://webpages.charter.net/reunionvii/images/cuirasss.jpg)
I also quickly put together a website to help explain how PCreator works along with some simple tutorials like grouping and other concepts, anybody who wishes to write there own tutorial I will add it to the site.
PCreator is full of bugs and still needs a lot of work, please email or pm me with any bugs or suggestions that you may have.
Thanks and Enjoy, Reunion
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hurah now all i need is my computer working again so i can get to the fixing of battle models
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Looks very nice !
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good work Reunion
can't wait to test this little baby out so i going to will let you know if a bug pops up
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Finally the suspence was killing me!
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This is all very cool. If only we could edit all the field data to create a custom FF game from. Of course, that's never going to happen, but it's good to dream.
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There was an HL2 mod with cloud right? I think it was made in .3ds
Anyhow this certainly, makes the game 'more' mod friendly
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Excelent job Reunion! You have revolutioned the FF7 scene once again. :lol:
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There was an HL2 mod with cloud right? I think it was made in .3ds
Anyhow this certainly, makes the game 'more' mod friendly
That was me actually. Take a look at it here:
http://forums.facepunchstudios.com/showthread.php?t=142926
I also ported FF7 to WC3 like a year ago:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=2819.125
Anyway how does this program work anyway? It seems you can port models in, but what are its limitations? Do you have to use the skeleton structure of the original mesh? Skin modifier isn't supported if I recall, I would need to chop up my Cloud model into different body parts, and then scale it to fit the bones?
And while I'm at it, isn't anyone interested in making a massive ff7 mod for HL2 or something? =P
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Excellent, now I need one for
Alias Autodesk Maya...
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Anyway how does this program work anyway? It seems you can port models in, but what are its limitations? Do you have to use the skeleton structure of the original mesh? Skin modifier isn't supported if I recall, I would need to chop up my Cloud model into different body parts, and then scale it to fit the bones?
Well the main "limitation" is FF7's animation format, all it can do is rotate each bone. So all the models that make up the skeleton need to be separate. Each bone can be any length and can usually have 4 models attached to it (really depending on the animation file I guess..) so that isn't a problem but still. For the field models you can make your own .hrc (hierarchy) and .rsd (resource data) files since they are just text anyway so they are not to difficult. However the battle formats are a bit different you would need a hex editor to change the length of the bones.
Here are some good documents written by mirex, alhexx and ficedula that help explain the FF7 file formats.
http://mirex.mypage.sk/index.php?selected=2
http://www.alhexx.com/documents/index.html
http://www.sylphds.net/f2k3/php/docs.php
BTW your AC Cloud model is quite good it would be great to see it in FF7!
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Would anyone here be interested in porting it over to FF7 if I supplied the model? I can't find the time right now to do it myself, and you guys are probably more experienced with using this program. The model is 15000 tris by the way.
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That was me actually.
Jeg hadde det på tunga! (norwegian for: I kinda knew it was you, but could't figure out your name :D)
Back on topic!.
I think "15000 tris" is okay, there is one thing dough. FF7 doesn't support bump map, so wouldn't the textures look alittle "washed out"?
But thats ok (at least better than "stock" cloud)
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My Cloud does not have any normal maps applied to it. It's purely texture. One thing I'm worried about is the fact that FF7 uses vertex colours if I recall. Can I use normal textures instead of Vertex colours?
If anything, I plan to only make the body part for each bone, not edit the skeleton itself. And if I do that, the character should be easily replaced right? Right? =P
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Although I'm not 100% up-to-date with the .p format, I'll try to answer your questions:
Can I use normal textures instead of Vertex colours?
Yes, there shouldn't be any problems with that, as long as you do not use more than 8 (?) textures per character.
If anything, I plan to only make the body part for each bone, not edit the skeleton itself. And if I do that, the character should be easily replaced right?
Yes, that should work. Editing the skeleton or even just changing the bone lengths would end in a mess.
- Alhexx
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The model is 15000 tris by the way.
The models I ported form TES4 were rather massive, like 20,000 - 30,000 polys. So I at least know that my program and FF7 can handle it. Yeah I'm not really sure how many textures each model can have either. What texture mapping method did you use? The texture files in FF7 only can have 256 colors so this also limits the quality of the texture but still is a lot better than using vertex colors.
Some pictures of the glass and daedric armor from TES4 are in this (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5828.0) thread.
I have some free time right now so I wouldn't mind giving it a go if no one else wants to anyway.
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What problems may it cause to change bone lengths Alhexx? I never had any real problem with that while working in the NPC Reconstruction Project (hell, we should find a shorter name for this).
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If I recall correctly, FF7 does not have smoothing groups. Is this true? Would kind of suck importing a high poly model into FF7, just to find it is very blocky regardless.
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Sorry 1,500 miles later and I'm finally back to a computer with Internet. :lol:
If I recall correctly, FF7 does not have smoothing groups. Is this true? Would kind of suck importing a high poly model into FF7, just to find it is very blocky regardless.
Isn't "smoothing groups" just a way to manage the generation of vertex normals from face normals? So the vertices that belong to the same group share the same normal so the lighting changes smoothly between them. This way you can make an edge hard or soft if needed.
The field supports vertex normals however the battle doesn't support any normals at all, so either way a model shouldn't look to faceted..
PCreator does calculate its own vertex normals but it doesn't always do the best depending on the geometry. If needed I can put the normals in manually from the original file format.
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You could have made this a little easier for yourself, you made an editor to make new .p's when you could have just made an export script for model editing programs(3ds max, gmax etc)
It would have been easier i think.
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What problems may it cause to change bone lengths Alhexx?
If you change the bone lengths without changing the animation files, then you have a good chance of screwing up your animation.
If you only change the bone lengths a bit (maybe < 10%), then it should be no problem. However, if you change the bone length ~90%, then the animation will (or can) look simply strange.
If you never had any problems with it, then you had luck.
If I recall correctly, FF7 does not have smoothing groups.
Although I'm not 100% sure, I think that you are right.
The battle models are shaded using vertex coloring (you can call this "static per-vertex-lighting" if you want), and for that reason, the battle models do not have any normal vectors.
I'm not sure about the field models, since they do have normal vectors, and IIRC, these are used on the world map...
- Alhexx
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I'm not sure about the field models, since they do have normal vectors, and IIRC, these are used on the world map...
- Alhexx
As a note the field locations have LIGHT sources this is why field models have normal vectors. If you observe when moving around in the area after exiting sector six (Wall town?), you will observe numerous light sources.
Cyb
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If you observe when moving around in the area after exiting sector six (Wall town?), you will observe numerous light sources.
There's transparent foreground layers simulating light as you pass under them, but other than ambient and three object lights per field object (which can be moved and altered dynamically using a KAWAI opcode, though this doesn't happen in Wall Market), I don't think there are actual global light sources per field.
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I posted this question over at Game Tweaking, but I'm not getting much help, I figured this would be a better place to ask. I made a couple of sword models that could be possible replacements for the Buster Sword, but I have no idea on how to actually put them in the game. When I put the files in, all I get is one of the groups, untextured. I know there's some file I have to edit to make it work, but I don't know which one, or what to do. Anyone know any answers?
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I made some minor updates to address the problems with texturing battle models that andrewmarsh13 was having. The texture id now just uses a inputbox, this allows you to select any Id you need. Also if you are adding textures to a battle model you need to change the amount of textures the hierarchy is using. To do this select Open Battle HRC... under the file menu and enter the total amount of textures used in the inputbox.
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Hi,
I has attempt to use this PCreator version and I encounter a bug when I importing BMP File...Need to add textures to my model.
After the first BMF file I importing I receveid a error message when I interact with PCreator.
Error is:
Run Time error 9
Subscript out of range.
I'm on Windows 7 SP1 64bits. It's a VB6 tool? I already encounter this kind of error before with an other tool coded in VB6 on this system.
Thanks for reply.
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Just use any other working texture. It's not important which one you use.
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I Don't understand why I have this error message. Impossible to use multiple texture on one P file? Every Time I importing a BMP File in PCreator the next step give me this error and quit the program.
It's when I attempt to choose another group after importing BMP.
Is there any other more stable version?
Here is the bug in pictures:
The Bug after a BMP Import in PCreator:
(https://i.ibb.co/wyWtkfL/PCreator-BUG2.png)
The possibility to save the P file before this bug but only One texture can be applied on the P Model (Preview in Kimera).
(https://i.ibb.co/3f9jGWR/PCreator-BUG.png)
By the way here is what I can do with PCreator only one texture but it's fixe then. No eye cliping in game...
(https://i.ibb.co/Y326mBy/PCreator-BUG3.png)
----Reedition of the post--------
Ok I find the trouble, it's about the colors encoding format in the BMP. It must be encoded in 256 for jump this error message. I have try it after reading the first post of this Topic.
Good Night.