Author Topic: FF7 PSX pre-rendered backgrounds to replacing the ones of FF7 PC version?  (Read 79851 times)

Bosola

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Vgr

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Wow sl, this is pretty good. I will use it once there is a release :D

P.S.: Aren't they the ones of the Bombing Mission project?...

sl1982

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They are, but if I do release these they will not be part of Avalanche as I dont believe they meet the quality criteria.

Tekkie.X

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Yeah, some of the edges (primarily on text) do look a little jaggy and it's a bit grainy too.

sl1982

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Yup, but this is as good as it will get without remaking like avalanche (or well SpooX) is doing.

Tekkie.X

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Still a pretty good job though.

sl1982

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Still a pretty good job though.

It definitely has a certain artistic style to it.

edit: So i finally got around to testing in game and these images will not do for anything other then a 640x480 res. Will look into a 4x upscale.
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 03:09:46 by sl1982 »

yarLson

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I've figure out an easy and effective way of doing these to simplify the workload. Here's a little tutorial to resize the image while retaining the original color and detail as close as possible to the original image (as far as I know). Also I resized to 2048x2048 instead of 1024x1024 for high res monitor support. I plan on making this a project soon which is why I am writing this tutorial. I will go more in depth when I make the project page but just in case you all want to start helping me now I'm gonna explain what I did. I'll show you what I came out with before I explain. This is not perfect and its not going to get perfect, but its a huge improvement, so I made a personal decision to retain the original style as much as possible and minimize editing.



and here is an in game screen


running at 1440x900

these images probably aren't the best to see the full detail so here is a download link to see it in full resolution
http://www.mediafire.com/?fc5q964zyn9yrwn

I really liked how this turned out. I didn't really want to mess with the images more than I had to (just my preference) so this method is a very minimalistic but it makes it easy and practical. I did a lot of experimenting before I decided on this simple method. I am using Photoshop CS5 and Perfect Resize 7.0.1. This assumes you know what your doing with Palmer already.

So first you want to extract your png using Palmer open them up in photoshop. I open them all at the same time and put them all into the same picture. To do this easily I just go one image at a time select all (ctrl+a) then copy (ctrl+c) and then Paste in Place (shift+ctrl+v) into the top image. Its important to use past in place and not just paste so that you don't have to fiddle with moving the layers around. Once you get all your layers in order you'll want to merge layers, be sure to merge and not flatten as flatten will loose transparency.

Okay now here's what I did in Perfect resize. I set the width and length to 2048 and I set the amount, threshold and smoothness to their lowest possible values (this is because after experimenting with several values it seem these features were not meant to work with such old images and cause heavier distortion which means more editing later, which I wanted to avoid). Also I didn't use any sharpening either for the same reason.

Now your almost done. I tried a lot of different stuff here to try and minimize the "blotchiness" without changing all kinds of things. After hours and hours of experimenting (I even tried cel shading like effects) I decided on one very simple yet powerful method. All I did was apply a very light gaussian blur effect to the image with a 1.0 pixel radius. I decided on 1.0 pixels after even more experimenting and decided this effectively decreased undesirable blotchiness without bluring everything to hell. Save and your done with the editing part.

Hope this is useful, like I said I am going to be making this an official project very soon once I get a few more of these completed for a sample release (probably the first bombing mission) and I need all the help I can get. Now feel free to use any editing and resizing methods you want. this is just what I prefer to maintain the original feel as close as possible.

latest version of Palmer
http://85.24.185.102/share/palmer-0.4b.zip
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 16:26:52 by yarLson »

frivol

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OMG I loved how it looks in game yarLson, this is the look that I was looking for!! it is perfect for me, but... :( there is a big problem*, since you did not cut the background into the different pieces that compose the original background, I can´t "see trhough" the metal bars when you go behind the train cars (or whatever is the name,  :-\ <-not native speaker), but I will definitely follow your tips the next time I go to edit a background cos IMHO this is the best background I,ve seen so far in game. I am grateful that someone is serious about starting a project to edite/resize the old backgrounds, because although I wanted to do so, I have not much free time to do it, however you can count on me to help as I can.

On the other hand, since it does not require much time to edit, I'm starting to resize the textures of the battle arenas, and I will also (probably) going to add little details on some of these soon.

*maybe I missed the part where you said that it is just a background to test and it was deliberate, in that case sorry and very nice work :P (it is too late here to read again  ;D)

NOTE: BTW, After some attemps with more complex backgrounds I have come to the conclusion that we won´t be able to edit all backgrounds, but maybe I´m wrong (I hope so), an example, the Shin Ra lobby, I challenge you guys to successfully edit this background  :evil:, Honestly I was unable to do so, mainly because I could not figure out how to get some "see through" parts properly working. The name of this background is "blin1".

Once again, awesome work yarLson I LOVE it, keep it up!!


yarLson

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yeah I am aware of the layering issue. This isn't all finished up as far as the layers are concerned, sorry I didn't mention that. I am actually working on cutting the layers right now, but this was just meant as an example of my method and its effectiveness.

After racking my brain for several hours, I've found a really useful way of cutting out layers EXTREMELY EASILY and EXACTLY. I will post more on this soon but first I am going to test it some more.
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 15:21:37 by yarLson »

sl1982

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Yeah that doesnt look half bad with the gaussian blur. I was toying with this last night and could not come up with anything that looked decent at 2048. As for the cutting into layers there is a way with photoshop that makes it super easy, but i cant remember offhand what it is.

yarLson

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well i could use a hand with the layer cutting to start off with. I can't get it to work correctly I keep getting black edges or artifacts even though I am cutting from an image that was resized as a single layer. if you could think of another method that would be great cuz mine apparently was a fail. Dont know why I am getting the black edge to make matters worse. In photoshop Its looks perfect but when I load it in the game I get these weird black edges. Since the output files that palmer makes are a jumbled mess I can't really see where the problem is, and palmer itself, as buggy and featureless as it is, is not much of a help either so unless you've got a much better way to do this I am stuck. Once I got this all figured out I am basically planning on starting off by doing the bombing mission in complete as a demo, including battle scene image resizes. and pretty much every image that can be resized.
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 15:01:59 by yarLson »

sl1982

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Upload them and send me a link.

yarLson

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okay here are the png layers
http://www.mediafire.com/?acfud0kc5fyjx7x

and here are the files for use in game
http://www.mediafire.com/?kdxra5a2qflkeuu

I really appreciate the help. I am anxious to get started but this layer thing is holding me back.
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 15:24:32 by yarLson »

sl1982

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I need the file before it is cut up.

yarLson

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no problem just give me one second to remake it. and will edit this post with a link

and here you are sir
http://www.mediafire.com/?fc5q964zyn9yrwn
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 16:26:30 by yarLson »

sl1982

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I cannot download it like that for some reason. Maybe rar it up first.

edit: nevermind, i got it.
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 16:50:41 by sl1982 »

yarLson

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well thats strange the download works for me?
in any case here is the .rar you requested
http://www.mediafire.com/?burvtyouzyfl896

sl1982

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yarLson

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hey man thanks alot. great work its perfect. Any chance I could get a quick explanation of how you cut up the textures so I can continue onward?

sl1982

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There is a function in photoshop that is called create clipping layer. Anyways I will probably start doing some of these myself, following your instructions.

yarLson

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hey thanks I will look it to it. I should be able to figure it out. I'm not exactly a noob to photoshop but I've never used it for something like this so I was completely stumped. Hey we should probably sanction off different maps between us two, so that we don't end up doing the same images.

sl1982

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I am going to start at the end of the field files if you wish to start at the beginning.

yarLson

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sounds like a plan. Alphabetical I assume. Also a question about the clipping layer, i know how to make them but aren't they only use-able for a file with multiple layers? How then did you use it on the picture I sent you with only a single layer? Also a better question may be how were you able to make a perfect selection for each layer, I've tried a bunch of different methods for making the selection but each one results in the black border somewhere or another, I assume it has something to do with the clipping layer but I'm just not sure. Thanks a lot for everything you've been a great help.
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 18:51:55 by yarLson »

sl1982

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1. Open up one of the original files.
2. Resize to 4x the original. Make sure to use nearest neighbour, not bicubic.
3. Copy the layer into your redone image.
4. Use clipping layer on the redone layer, not the layer you copied in.
5. Save image.
6. Ctrl Alt Z a few times to go back to where you were.
7. Repeat

edit: what were your settings in perfect resize for sharpening?

edit 2: I think the film grain setting in perfect resize looks nice.

Grain:


Your Method:
« Last Edit: 2011-03-07 19:22:20 by sl1982 »