Topics

1

Team Avalanche / Gallery Proposal

« on: 2016-01-24 14:50:50 »

A central gallery for images, even a deviantArt page or YouTube channel (YouTube search for FF7 Avalanche or similar phrase finds mostly irrelevant stuff from after Bombing Mission, or just Guard Scorpion battle with no other textures/models/backgrounds) would be very helpful. It is a shame most hosted images and blend files are expired (blank) now on the Bombing Mission thread. The released scenes hosted images will also expire eventually. There were many great previews of the backgrounds and characters. They were amazing even just to look at as nostalgia or art.

If the assets were displayed I'm sure many people would be interested in checking out the backgrounds and models even if they don't plan to install or mod the game. One may be inspired by Team Avalanche to do some fan animations, but which assets are available must be made clear or estimating time on such a fan project is impossible--one could download what is available from the release thread, but as expected, they are game-ready and there are almost no blend files. Releasing blend files would be really helpful for fan projects that should attract interest, if license is CC-BY. Hopefully the team has all of the artists' blend files, and hopefully they aren't sitting on a hard drive (or different sets of data on hard drives owned by multiple people) somewhere not backed up and may disappear forever upon failure (or intentional OS wipe like is why the original sources of FF7 backgrounds are lost forever). I haven't seen the file repository yet since I requested permission and did not yet receive an answer. Even if it were on there the blend files wouldn't be accessible to anyone else.

Even the official sticky doesn't have Guard Scorpion automatically installable yet. Seeing all the work that is put into it but not really having any readable task list other than tab separated values is unfortunate (instaling ownCloud is great if you don't like Google, but as hosted files are on Google Drive maybe use Google Sheets [could be set to editable by other team members with Google accounts, and viewable by Shareable Link]). A progress catalog (especially gallery), and having all models including Guard Scorpion and others in Bootleg Configurator or at least the installer would help inspire interest from both artists and users. Is there one person who can focus on packaging and gallery, while others work on modeling and dealing with artists? If not, perhaps install ZenPhoto or something else that has multi-user interface and the ability to upload archives (which could contain the meshes) to gallery with thumbnails, and ask past and future artists to upload the photos and art-ready meshes themselves. Do you think naming something in the realm of "Team Avalanche Fan Art" site would be ok with Square-Enix and they wouldn't mind in that case? If not maybe this is not a good idea. I'm not sure what other reasons the team has other than that or technical reasons keeping the pre-game assets locked away.

Summary:
*Background & character meshes in art-ready files such as Blender projects labeled with artist name, possibly using a site with ZenPhoto or something else installed so artists can be asked upload assets themselves (remember to include textures unlike happens sometimes)
*Background & character preview pictures labeled with artist name
*CC-BY license
*Update Bootleg Configurator and/or Avalanche High Res installer

2

Q-Gears / Installing qgears stable and daily build on *buntu from new PPA

« on: 2014-08-27 02:18:23 »

Hi guys, I know that the setup for daily build is new and maybe the stable version isn't set up yet, but I just want you know (attempted on Lubuntu trusty):

#I install and run daily build:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sithlord48/ff7-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install q-gears q-gears-test-data
q-gears

#It runs the configuration window but the window says choose an engine, but the only option is click one, and clicking the drop-down crashes q-gears (error in console is "0-width" window)

#So I remove both packages then remove the repository:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:sithlord48/ff7
sudo apt-get update

#Then I attempt to install and run stable build:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sithlord48/ff7
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install q-gears q-gears-test-data

#result is:
Package q-gears is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
#I am guessing that error is due to dependencies staying but only valid q-gears PPA being removed (?)

#However, the following errors show that the stable PPA is not a valid q-gears PPA (yet?):
E: Package 'q-gears' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'q-gears-test-data' has no installation candidate


I understand if you haven't added the stable builds yet since this setup is so new, but please advise on the crash of the daily build--meanwhile I'll try another day. I hope it includes OGRE--compiling that is quite a chore and not many people will try q-gears if that is required ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1148570 ).

3

Troubleshooting / Keyboard Overlay for FF7 Keys

« on: 2012-07-15 12:37:38 »

Hi, I made some printable keyboard stickers http://www.besidethevoid.com/index.php?htmlref=finalfantasy-ff7bestquality.html#keyboardstickers.  Enjoy!
Low-res thumbnail:

If anyone else has stickers or overlays maybe this would be a good place to post them.

4

FF7Voice / Recording tips - from a homebrew garage band guy

« on: 2008-09-22 01:01:34 »

Hi,

I am really excited to hear about the ff7voice project.  I heard a comment about clipping in the recording, which leads me to offer some advice from a semi-experienced garage band leader and multimedia guy.

For a good recording environment, an attic with exposed insulation is great!  I did a recording (2 acoustic guitars--lead&rhythm, one vocal) on a minitape recorder and a powered Radio Shack lapel mic in my friends attic, with lots of books and exposed insulation, and it sounded like an off-the-shelf recording and remains the best unprocessed recording I've done.  Of course, if you get desperate you can always pin up quilts on the walls and ceiling that are closest to you.  Some more ideas are attaching quilts to the walls (at least closest ones) and ceiling, or getting a couple of those $15 Walmart foam mattress pads, may be nearly as effective as acoustic foam--I haven't tested these theories yet.  If you try them, I would love for you to post your results.

As for the remark about clicks/pops in recording, this could be clipping, and is hard to repair unless you get a specific program with a feature or plugin to fix clipping.  Ways to avoid this are: recording at lower volume and then normalizing, putting the mic off to the side (this can be bad especially in bad recording environments), or using a membrane mic.

If you want, you can make your own membrane mic.  In my ventures in homebrew recording, this is most sure advice I have to offer.  If you compare talking into the mic with a foam cover, holding the mic off to the side, talking into the mic directly, or talking into a membrane directly, you'll find that the membrane mic method gives you far superior results.

You'll need:
-Plastic bottle
-Plastic Wrap
-Scissors and possibly razor knife
-Mic: preferably a powered lapel mic--get one from Radio Shack, but only bother with the watch-battery powered one.  Otherwise if you don't want to bother with batteries you can get a good stereo mic on eBay (the one pictured was from an eBay company that made homebrew mics--I can't seem to find them anymore).

Steps:



1. Cut bottle upper part off with scissors, then cut sides out only leaving two strips to hold loop to top (you can start the cut with a razor then continue with scissors for safety)



2. Attach plastic wrap with rubber band



3. Attach mic with twist tie or tape (twist tie avoids getting your mic gooey over time)



Tell me how your experiments go!  I'd be glad to do audio editing and compression on the files too.  Make sure you keep original unedited files in FLAC (lossless compression), and then you can export to ogg/mp3 or whatever you are using--but keep originals!  You never know when you might need your originals.  After all files are finished, I would glad to do the process of normalizing, equalization and compression so that all the audio throughout the game sounds uniform and volume varies only in situations where it should--sign me up if needed!


Well that's all the advice I have for right now, seeing as I'm pretty much just a self-made garage band guy.

glhf,
Orangejuice

5

Q-Gears / Legal issue w/ including data?

« on: 2007-02-17 08:40:41 »

Hi guys,
I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but won't Square terminate you if you include the field data & graphics in the releases?
-Proto

6

Q-Gears / (This post is fluff) I keep thinking...

« on: 2006-11-18 06:49:54 »

Hi, I downloaded the precompiled test of QGears.  I am getting really excited about it--and I (for some reason) keep thinking of how cool Akari is.