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Messages - Captain Epic

Pages: [1] 2
1
Great job with the re-release 👍🏼 I'll put a link to this on my wordpress site. Thanks :)

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Support / Re: [FF9 PC] Re-mastered music
« on: 2016-04-19 17:55:09 »
Is it hopeless?  :'(

I haven't had any luck yet.

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Support / Re: [FF9 PC] Re-mastered music
« on: 2016-04-17 15:45:27 »
Yeah cheers. Figured it out however certain tracks seem to just crash just game such as changing the menu theme, can't seem to pinpoint the cause of the crashes. Had other tracks work fine.

Yeah, I had trouble with the menu theme. I somehow got it working after some work, but I have no idea what I did differently to make it work, lol. In fact, I'm pretty sure I just did something I had already tried before and then it suddenly worked. If I figure out what I did differently, I'll let you know.

EDIT: Okay, I see what happened now. I did try something I had before and now I realise why it's working this time. I don't know if it's doing this for you, but for me I have to repack the music files twice before they are heard in game. If I repack just once I get no music whatsoever.

Anyway, regarding your crashing (I apologise if you've already done these - just offering potential solutions!). One reason could be because of the akb header you are copying. You need to copy the entire header (everything before the first "OggS" in the hex code). In the menu theme, music033, that's everything up to offset 00000130.

I notice you said "certain tracks", so it's not just happening to you on the menu? The only other reason it would crash (besides not copying the full header code), that I'm aware of, is the file size. This is something I discovered while audio modding Final Fantasy IV - if you replace an audio track with one which has a smaller file size, the game will crash when it tries to play it. For example, the meeting theme (music018) is 1372kb. If you replace this with something smaller (even by 1kb) the game WILL crash when it tries to play it back. Therefore, all audio tracks you put into the game must be either the exact same size or larger than the original so they will play in game. I have still not figured out how to get around this, so I just work with it and make my files as close to the original as possible (making them slightly larger).

If you figure out a solution, let me know! Likewise, if I figure it out I'll post here.

The thing I'm trying to work out now is why the game butchers the audio quality. The tracks I'm putting in don't sound anything like what they do in-game, so there's something weird going on. It's likely an issue with the audio engine itself, meaning it's very unlikely we can fix it.

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Support / Re: [FF9 PC] Re-mastered music
« on: 2016-04-17 06:56:33 »
Would also like tips on how to create loops for .ogg files, know you can view LoopStart/LoopEnd in the metadata however not sure what the value is based off.

The numbers are the samples. So, for the loopstart the loop begins at sample <number> and the sample number for loopend determines when the loop finishes and then goes back to the loopstart sample location. To get the ogg to loop seamlessly you need the sample numbers to be perfectly on the beat. I've been putting in my own remasters of the soundtrack - I use Cubase Pro to produce my music and I can also use it to get hold of the exact sample number I need. So, if the loop begins at bar 4, I can go to bar 4 and copy the sample number for that exact location and then I go into a program called "audacity" (it's a free program), import my audio file, put in the metadata, then export it as ogg. There are probably other programs out there which can help you find exact bar locations and sample numbers, but since I use cubase I've never had to look around for any.

Hope that helps.



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Support / Re: [FF9 PC] Re-mastered music
« on: 2016-04-15 17:30:05 »
Something was changed in 1.1.6 and it doesn't work anymore. Guy on steam forums hit me up with a DL link for 1.1.5 which works flawlessly.

Link to UnityEx 1.1.5: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ximkx2l4a3bu9mc/UnityEX.exe?dl=0 (remove link if this isn't allowed)

Massive thanks for that!

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Support / Re: [FF9 PC] Re-mastered music
« on: 2016-04-15 13:25:30 »
Managed to extract/reimport the audio files from the game using UnityEX 1.1.5:

How on earth did you do that? I use UnityEx 1.1.6 and I've had no luck extracting the files. I have successfully extracted the other assets, but not the audio.

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General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 7 for PS4 Announced
« on: 2014-12-06 22:20:05 »
I will laugh if they use the same terrible music quality from the PC release. No way to mod that :P

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Sounds awesome, but I already have almost all of their games on PC so there's a very good chance I'd just get games I already have.

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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-10-16 08:27:46 »
This sounds really great. I think I'll use them from now on. Unfortunately the second disc seems to be broken. I get a CRC error trying to decompress parade.ogg.

As for the movies, fortunately the PSX version has separate SFX and music for both the openning and the ending so they could be combined with your work for a more faithful result.

Have you tried re-downloading the second disc? Sometimes that solves the problem. If that doesn't help, I'll re-upload!

I didn't realise the PSX version had them seperate! That's great news. I'll have to look into that :)


EDIT: Just an update - I've re-uploaded discs 1, 2 and 4 with all the fixed ogg files inside. I have also made changes to a couple of tracks - I lowered the volume of the snare in the battle music and I have made more changes to the cosmo canyon theme, with the bass and drums more prominent throughout.

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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-10-07 10:34:54 »
I think what everyone is trying to get at but nobody has hit on the head is the violent volume fluctuations.  Not so much clipping since the bumps are not distorted, just out of place.  There is a sudden jump in volume for apparently no reason.  Its like really obvious in bat and I haven't listened to them all yet but they all seem to be doing it so far, some not as badly though.  Whole sections of the song seem to be "sinking" in volume until they randomly POP up loud again.  Doesn't make sense and ruins the dynamic, however all else sounds really amazing and I am sure it is a rather easy fix.  I am by no means a "professional" but I have played music for 13 years and have mixed my fair share of tracks and am confident in my analysis.  Other than that, bravo man this is the best mix by far, I perfer this above ALL the others but I am a symphonic NUT so I am pretty bias.

That's very weird; I'm not having any problems with volume fluctuations when I listen back to them. In fact I actually put a bit of compression on the tracks during mastering specifically so there would be less drastic dynamic fluctuations. Could it be something to do with your media player?

Glad you like them. I had a feeling fellow "symphonic nuts" would enjoy this soundtrack, haha

11
Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-09-30 15:49:07 »
I agree with DLPB, the bass are clearly too low in canyon.agg.
Normally it is a really important part of the tune, but we can't even hear them during some parts of the song.
Do you think you could correct this?

Except from this this is quite magnificent work!

Thanks a lot!

I've uploaded a version with a louder bass part. The link is in the first post :)

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Ha, Michael from Achievement Hunter always makes me laugh ;D

13
Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-09-12 10:24:29 »
Well, I take back what I said about the original choir sound, that's for sure! I revisited that track today and tried it once again with the original choir and it sounds fine. I'm not sure if it was something I did before (in terms of EQ/Effects/etc) which made it sound bad or if it's just because I'm listening to it with fresh ears. Regardless, I'll put up a link for a version of the track with the original choir instead of the virtual choir I used :) I also mixed them louder than the other instruments, to address Kaldarasha's concerns. Hope you all like this new version.

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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-09-09 17:13:32 »
Sorry but I meant the original PSX choir. You can extract it from the 3rd disc/iso with PSound.

I know what you meant; I was referring to the PSX choir in my post :)


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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-09-08 13:33:15 »
Thanks for the link. Never heard that version before; it's pretty good :)

Yes, the instruments are quieter in the original version, but I didn't want the choir to drown out the orchestra in my version (which happens because of the much bigger choir sound. The original choir wouldn't drown it out because the sound is too thin due to the smaller number of singers). To each his own though, I guess. I'm not going to get upset if no one likes my version, or prefers versions using the original choir, or whatever. I ended up with something I'm happy with (even though I can't get the choir perfect - technical limitations and such) so that's all that really matters to me :P

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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-09-08 06:15:52 »
You mean like the versions I've put on youtube? Yeah, I could do that at some point. In the meantime, you could get the tracks off youtube using a youtube-mp3 converter.

Also, One-Winged Angel doesn't sound "bad", just "different". The original choir used had only 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors and 2 basses, which is very small. This new version has a much bigger sound for the choirs because of the larger size. Actually, the original choir is the one that sounds "bad" (when you listen to the choir on its own, you'll know what I mean!). I know the one I've put in the track isn't perfect, but that's the best I can get it without hiring a full choir to come and perform it while I record them, lol. I thought it sounded weird at first while I was working on it and nearly ended up using the original choir, but eventually the new one grew on me after I got used to the different sound it had. Besides, the original choir really did sound terrible alongside the rest of the instruments in it. The original version got away with it because the entire thing was midi/synth rather than real instruments, so the choir sound fit in well.

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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-08-15 06:10:09 »
I don't hear any clipping. It does sound like a live performance at a large concert hall or something, which is quite impressive.

That's the sound I was going for, so I'm pleased to hear it worked out :) It's not easy to get that live orchestral sound without recording a live orchestra!

Personally I don't think the style meshes well with the game in terms of actually inserting it, but it's wonderful for listening to on its own.

I realise that this soundtrack is not for everyone (as I mention in my first post), because it's a big stylistic difference to the original soundtrack. But I'm a sucker for this big orchestral sound, so I prefer to use this in-game instead of a soundtrack in the original style.

I had a thought: I think it was a bit unfair of me to base my critique from playing these off Youtube... Perhaps some/all of my listening displeasure comes from their compression. I'm going to check them out again when I get a minute. I mean... I did say they were fantastic... not like I gave them a bad review lol

YouTube's compression is absolutely horrific. If you listen to the tracks (on youtube) in HD quality, it's not quite so bad though. Also, I know you weren't attacking me or my productions; if I came across as being overly defensive or offended in any way then I apologise. I appreciate that you're just trying to help improve the soundtrack by offering constructive criticism :)

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General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.
« on: 2013-08-14 16:09:02 »
See the thing is with that...  sometimes a story is finished... and done.  And Star wars, and FF7 were done.  It takes a very good writer to be able to do prequels and sequels to a high standard.  I can't see anyone managing to fix Star Wars now... or make it anywhere near as good as the original.  The one thing that MIGHT work... would be to set it in the same universe but way in the future... or the past.  That way you could make a completely new and original story.  But hands up who doesn't think they will just milk the original story and characters for all they're worth... again.

Basically... the main problem is that success=profit, and that, for most writers and film makers, trumps quality.  Instead of just ending a movie or franchise, they realise they can make uber millions with crappy additions.  I guess it isn't all their fault... I mean, people keep buying it so.

I originally thought they were going to set it far into the future, but then I heard they got some of the original cast back! Yeah, it probably will end up a disaster, but I can remain hopeful. It also won't make a difference to them whether it's amazing or terrible, because swarms of people are going to flock to it, regardless ;D

You're right - The film makers aren't to blame; the people who keep buying them are. They have no reason to put so much money and effort into sequels when they know fans of the original story will pay to see it regardless of its quality. We see a lot of this in video games too (the milking of a franchise).

So... Knights of the Old Republic?

This game proves that it is indeed possible to have a great Star Wars story :) I'm personally not a fan of the game myself (not my kind of game), but I think I'd enjoy it if it were a film because the story is good.

But since episode VII is set too close to the events of the original trilogy, it will be more difficult for them to make a great story. KOTOR was set so distant from the original trilogy that they could do what they wanted without worrying about having any effect on the original story, lol.

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General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.
« on: 2013-08-14 15:44:13 »
Very interesting information about loanwords (I learned something today!).  How funny would it have been if they called him Sephiros.  SE-FEAR-OS it sounds like a good bud guy name, not as scary and Sephiroth but... 

I think the mako thing was just one of those thing were that's how you said it when you were 14 so that's how you want to say it now.  You're right of course that it is incorrect. 

I think I'm with DLPB on this one though that is just sounds more like a girls name when it's spelled Aeris but hey ho...

lol, yeah, I don't think "Sephiros" has the same ring to it as "Sephiroth".

I know what you mean; I used to mispronounce everything back when I played the game and it wasn't until much later when I realised I was wrong a lot of the time :)

I also agree "Aeris" sounds better ("Aerith" sounds like Mike Tyson trying to pronounce her name or something).

I'd say the changes to the trilogy really did f*ck it up though a lot of the time :P  Especially adding "NOoooo" to Darth in Jedi haha (if that is true...).

Lucas changed his mind about Anakin too... originally, he was a good friend of Obi Wan's who piloted ships.  The idea, I think, was that he was already much older than a child when they met.  Lucas updated the graphics too in Jedi to dub in the head of the new Anakin actor.  I thought the original trilogy was much better than the meddling Lucas did after, but... well... he's the writer, or at least was the owner.  Still think he's done a really sh*tty job with Star Wars since the trilogy though.  :-D  Problems of that kind generally come about when a writer decides to make prequels, change ideas , and then has to update the original content to fix the discrepancies...

This is one of the reasons I dread a remake of VII. I have a horrible feeling they'd plant in crap about Genesis and so forth, and change too many things from what it was.  Not to correct problems, but to revise the game... and imho the whole genesis thing and the prequels/sequels are crap.

Oh, I agree with you; some of the changes are... questionable, to say the least. But the point is that Lucas was improving them based on his vision (how he wanted them to be), so who are we to say his decisions are wrong? The rereleases of the original trilogy are improvements from Lucas' point of view, but to a large portion of the fans it ruins the films. It just illustrates how people are unwilling to accept change in things they love. Perhaps Star Wars wasn't the best example to use :P

I think VII has promise though; I heard Lucas doesn't have anything to do with the story (I may be mistaken though), so it'll be interesting to see Disney's take on the Star Wars Universe. It could be a great resurrection of Star Wars films, or it could backfire and cause more damage than even Lucas managed with the prequel trilogy :D

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General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.
« on: 2013-08-14 15:28:25 »
I wish I could find a video of this line, it's much funnier that way. :)

haha - http://youtu.be/ijGQAeIKzgc

Dess to Aeris! :-D

This is unfortunately where a LOT of the problems I've had with people opposed to the translation project come from.  A lot of people refuse point blank to accept any change to FF7, regardless of how big the mistake is.  The reason Aeris keeps coming back time and time again, is because people grew up with it, and want to find any c*ck and bull excuse to hold onto it, as if it somehow matters to the order of things.  When you consider the sheer magnitude of things that were wrong, and we've corrected, you can see how that would cause the ire that has been directed as the project, and me especially.

People need to just accept that FF7 was deeply flawed with its translation.  The unfortunate thing is that practically all of the mistakes in FF7 have been adopted as "English canon" precisely because the localisers and designers fear an illogical backlash.   The best response I ever saw was someone Luksy pointed me to from online, who was desperately trying to explain how "Midgardsormr" became "Midgar Zolom".  His belief was that it was a "variation".  It killed him to just accept that it was a mistake.

I can imagine your frustration. Sadly, most people hate change; they refuse to accept any alteration to what they grew up loving, even if that change is for the best (a higher quality, more accurate translation). It's actually the same situation with Star Wars - There are swarms of people who refuse to accept any change to the original trilogy and call all of the remakes/remasters "betrayals" to the originals. Things like this happen all the time.

"Spoony bards"

The greatest translation of all time :-D


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General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.
« on: 2013-08-14 15:04:33 »
Please site proof that they wanted the 'th' sound.  I find it hard to believe that they wanted a sound that is uncommon in their language.  It doesn't matter if you use Aeris or Aerith it still gets spelled out as エアリス or Earisu it doesn't matter if you use Aeris or Aerith the translation remains the same (check google translator yo!).  If your proof is that they have changed it in later translations is say ehhhh... The new translators probably didn't work with the original writers anyway.

At the end of the day I will always say Aeris and (May-ko) I agree Mah-ko sounds lame  :-D

Sounds like you're not familiar with how loanwords work in Japanese

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fclasweb.clas.wayne.edu%2FMultimedia%2Flanguages%2Ffiles%2FJapaneseLoanWords.pdf&ei=MI8LUsarNqml0wXAxYGYAw&usg=AFQjCNGhVzZ_lshHcW8ppfsSXWqsg-RzoQ&sig2=cac-HZQQhgn5rRycpsPgNg

^ Go all the way down to page 11 and look at the list of words with "th" in and notice that in EVERY single example an "s" sound is used (su/se/sa/shi) for the "th" sound.

Examples not used in the link above - the Japanese say "Happy Birthday" as ハッピーバースデー. Also, "death" is デス. "Earth" is アース. Notice that a "su" is used for the "th" sound.

When it (su) doesn't represent the "th" sound, it usually represents the "ce" or "se" sound. For example - "Ice" is アイス. "Dance" is ダンス. "Balance" バランス. "Sense" is センス.

And when it doesn't represent "ce" it represents a double s sound (ss). For example - "Glass" is グラス. "Kiss" is キス. "Chess" is チェス. "Dress" is ドレス.

There are, of course, a few exceptions where "su" is used to represent just an "s". "Gas" is ガス. "Tennis" is テニス. But this is definitely not very common.

One other thing is the fact that "Sephiroth" uses the "su" ending as well. Why is "Aeris" okay, but not "Sephiros" ? Both endings are pronounced the EXACT same way. There's also no "l" sound in Japanese and they just use "r" for it, so why can't her name be "Aelis"? :-D

It's safe to say they wanted the "th" sound, considering that's how loan words work in Japanese.

I also find it intriguing that you're happy with spelling her name the same way Japanese people pronounce it yet you don't like the Japanese pronunciation of Mako and instead use a different way of saying it  :P

One more thing - The original translators didn't work with the original writers, which is why there were so many errors in translation in the original release. Like DLPB said, the developers wanted it to be "Aerith", so the fact it somehow ended up as "Aeris" in the English version proves the original translators had nothing to do with the original writers / development team.

But, hey, if you want to call her "Aeris" (if that's what you prefer) then go ahead; no one can stop you.

EDIT: lol, DLPB beat me to it ^_^ I couldn't find any pics online to prove it though.

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Completely Unrelated / Re: Brigade engine
« on: 2013-08-14 13:35:06 »
Well, it certainly looks very promising! I look forward to seeing its development :)

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Releases / Re: Final Fantasy VII OST Symphonic Remaster
« on: 2013-08-14 11:35:11 »
The only reason I would bother offering feedback is because these are very HQ to begin with so improvement is worthwhile:

I had to look up overmodulation to make sure we were talking about the same thing, but I think Kaldarasha is pretty much spot on about the recordings.
The levels on your recordings are "spikey" as a sound guy at a club would say. It's "clipping" going in, so it's clipping going out. I'm no audio expert so I could be wrong, but I am a little bit of an audiophile so I wouldn't just toss out the criticism. Again, I want to stress that these are already very high quality. A lot of people will love them even if you don't touch them again. But for some people they might be a little too "live".

I technically am an audio expert, considering a lot of my income is from Audio Engineering :P I am no way amateur enough to mix these at levels high enough to distort; I mixed them all to a good level then when I mastered them I made sure it didn't push too much volume out of them which would cause them to clip (I promise you all it does not clip anywhere). I a bit of an audiophile myself (my headphones are certainly audiophile equipment, lol) and they all sound great to me on my setup. But if it's bothering people I guess I could adjust my mastering.

If the two of you are referring to the harp at the start of that siera track - I noticed that while doing it but there's not much I can do about it. I promise you it's not overmodulating though. Unfortunately, the harp sound library I use has a couple of dodgey notes (certain notes at certain velocities). That "overmodulating" you think you hear is one of the notes. There are four ways I could get around it - 1: Use a different harp sound (though I don't have any other good harp sound libraries, so that would make it sound crap). 2: Raise the part up an octave (which would get it away from the bad note, but it would just sound too wrong). 3: Lower the velocities of those notes so it doesn't trigger the bad sample (doing this puts the balance out though, because all the other harp notes are playing much louder). 4: lower the velocities of all the notes to keep balance and get away from the bad samples (maybe the best way of getting around it, but the low velocities trigger the quiet samples and boosting the volume of that would sound weird).

Anyway, like I said, there's definitely no clipping/distorting/overmodulating going on because I made sure of that. I can try re-doing the mastering, I guess (Perhaps I went a bit over the top with the multiband compression for most people's likings...)

But thanks for the feedback so far. I'll find time to re-do the mastering at some point.

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Graphical / Re: [WIP] Tifa
« on: 2013-08-14 08:23:10 »
Very impressive work! :o

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General Discussion / Re: Low Poly FF7 figurines for sale
« on: 2013-08-14 07:33:05 »
Ha, these are amazing! I need to get them at some point :D

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