Topics

26

Solved Problems / [Solved]Field Upscale: cutting smoother layers; Is it possible?

« on: 2011-03-29 19:57:11 »

*update*
okay I figured it out and I am currently recutting all the layers in a much smoother fashion. It may sound tedious but it is worth it.

here is an example of the drastic difference between smooth and unsmooth layers
http://www.mediafire.com/?cwm5kmz08tcf5xx
__________________________________________________

I am going to be using a few pictures to help illustrate what I am trying to achieve here. I have already made some fairly decent progress after several experimental failures. Basically what I am trying to do is cut out the layers of my field upscale project much smoother than the originals. To help you understand what I mean take a look at these two images...


smoother


original

the reason why this is important is because when a model goes in front or behind a layer it will display the edge, and if that edge is "block"y then it is very unattractive, with smoothing it feels much more natural.

 I am basically writing this thread to get both help and opinions on how I should do this ultimately. After a lot of testing, I came up with a very nice automated method for smoothing. I know I can smooth only the edges I need manually, but in an effort to save a ton of time and work I have tried to go automatic but this requires the entire layer to be smoothed. Fortunately I found a way to do this without making the layer too small or too big in comparison to the others. After working with different possibilities these three layers are what I came up with





Now I can assure you, even though you can't tell just by looking at them, all 3 of these layers are perfectly uniform to each other; that is ,when put together, they form the complete picture without any holes or overlaps. However when I actually implement them in game there is a different story to tell. This is where I am stuck. This is what is happening in game...


Important: This happens even if I leave the very bottom layer full, with no cuts (unlike the example above)

I have circled the problem areas. This is because the once 90 degree edges, as well as some other areas, are now smoothed and curved leaving a small area of open space which was once filled in that particular layer. Please keep in mind this open space is not there if you combine all 3 layers in Photoshop, only in game.

 Now I think I know why this is happening, correct me if I am wrong but it seems in some way or another the game has predefined coordinates for where each layer should be. So for example if layer 3 is meant to be on top of all the other layers, then somewhere it is programed that layer 3 is on top and that it has exactly x height, x width, x dimensions. What I can surmise is that even if there is something there on the bottom layer to compensate for it, if a given area doesn't show up in the layer its defined to be in, it'll show up as blank in game, thus causing the small black areas. I know this probably isn't exactly right from a technical stand point but I hope I am at least on the right track.

It used to be a lot worse, for a while I had this weird huge line and if you walked in front of it, it would go on top of the character, so I have made a lot of progress but I seem to be stuck here. These little black areas are very tiny but very noticeable. I already have everything else figured out if I can just fix this somehow I can begin cutting smoother more attractive layers.

If there is no way to solve this then I will just have to work manually and it will take much longer, but I was wondering if it would be possible to modify Palmer or some other program, to set new coordinates and dimensions based on the layers being input and not from the original layers. Or if anyone knows other fixes that maybe I haven't thought of yet. I really need some help on this one guys. Thank you for your time!

27

Troubleshooting / request for info on sound fx

« on: 2011-03-28 21:04:57 »

Hello I am trying to collect as much info as possible on the sound effects from the audio.fmt file. I checked halkun's file reconstruction project but there was nothing. After some personal debate, I am thinking my next project is going to be replacing sound effects (if I am not mistaken armorvil's project is dead), since sound is kind of my specialty, so I am just trying to get started in my down time. I already know all of the basics, however it is extremely difficult to just know what all these sounds are just based on memory mostly because they are such terribly outdated sounds. Unless there is some kind of data base conclusively telling what each sound is for, I don't see how such a project would be practical. I would actually be willing to compile this database my self and put it out there if someone could help me find some kind of method for finding out which sounds play for what actions besides just trial and error/memory/guessing.

28

Troubleshooting / request for help on Field Upscale

« on: 2011-03-27 22:22:38 »

I just finished the last background I am going to need for my next release. I'll spend the rest of my time today working on testing and fixing any potential errors I find. I will be releasing v0.35 tomorrow however during my work, there were 3 files that Palmer refused to work with on my computer, and crashed every time I tried to open them. I know they have worked before for other people as I have asked about it a little bit already. So my request is this, I need someone to send me the pngs that Palmer exports from the following files: blin_st2, md_e1, and zmind1. Please, make sure you check to see if there are any parallax layers as well. All of these files can be found in the flevel.lgp.

Once you send me these I will apply the resize and the edits and send them back to you. All you have to do at that point is import them into the file using Palmer, save the file and send me the back the new pngs it exports when you save it. I'm really sorry to make such a tedious request but I really want this release to be as complete as possible and I've tried everything I know how to get Palmer to work with these files. I've already had sl1982 do this for me with one other file so I didn't want to bother him again. Thank you anyone who is willing to help.

29

Completely Unrelated / Favorite Video Game Music besides FF

« on: 2011-03-26 04:40:09 »

so the question is simple
which game do you feel has the greatest music out there? I know Final Fantasy has some of the most epic music and in my opinion it is the best but I think we all already know that. I am doing this because I love to listen to game music and would love to know what you guys like.

For me it has to either be the music from Mystical Ninja 64 or Guardian's Crusade for the PSX

*edit*
and I can't believe I forgot this one but the music from Star Ocean 3 is probably my all time favorite!

30

General Discussion / timu sumisu modelling tutorial?

« on: 2011-03-21 14:54:28 »

Hello all. I just remember reading on the team avalanche forums that some time ago timu sumisu had posted some really helpful modelling tutorials for beginners. Is this correct? Anyone know where I can find them?

31

Troubleshooting / critical error

« on: 2011-03-21 00:37:27 »

um I really don't know what happened but my game just won't run anymore. As far as I am aware nothing was changed, but it won't even start. I completely reinstalled ff7 from scratch and erased everything in the install directory, but it still didn't solve the problem. Usually this is around the time I say all is lost and just reinstall my OS but if anyone might have any suggestions? I know its not aali's driver because it wouldn't work even without any mods or the driver. I am guessing this is some kind of virus or attack. Basically the game won't even start, no matter what I do it opens up then closes.

The app.log ends like this
ERROR: could not open file D:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\ff7input.cfg
initializing sound...

32

Troubleshooting / save game request for testing field textures

« on: 2011-03-20 21:29:13 »

Okay I'd like to make a request for some save games. The only saves I have right now are at the end and close to the beginning of the game, right now I need a save toward the end of disc 2. I need saves for the US PC version. The ideal spot for now would be after cloud and tifa's sequence in the life stream but before the rocket takes off into space with the huge materia, however I will be needing saves before this very soon so anything close will do. I need them so that I can test my backgrounds for the rocket and for the midgar mission afterwards, I am fairly confidant that there are no major errors thus far, but I have to make sure before I release. Also I have black chocobo and I know you can edit your quest progress with it, but its not very user friendly and I don't really know how. If someone knows how to move a save to a specific location using black chocobo and wouldn't mind telling me how that would be great. Please anything will help I need saves from all over the game, I am working backwards so I still have the majority of the game to go anything will help but priority one is a save close to and BEFORE the rocket launches.

33

Releases / [Release] FF7Music exe files

« on: 2011-03-20 20:11:06 »

This is just a small release. This is something that I use and I thought perhaps some of you might find this useful.
Here are 3 exe files, a reg file, a batch file for disc switching, and 3 uncompiled batch files that are the same as the exe files, so in total there are 8 files

The .exe files are slightly modified versions of the batch file that comes with FF7 music. The small modification will allow you to run the game without having to insert or mount a disc.
There is one .exe for each disc and they are clearly labeled. The reg file will set your FF7 DataDrive to C:\ if its not already, this is required for the .exe(s) to work, but you can edit the batch files to use whichever drive you like. I included dsic switching batch file because I decided its a good way to switch discs while in game. This batch file was written by Kranmer and I also wanna thank him for helping me understand how to modify the ff7music batch file in the way that I wanted. All credit for the original ff7music.bat script goes to Fidecula or Covarr, I don't know which one these guys wrote it.

why .exe? well because its the only way I can use FF7 with the steam overlay

http://www.mediafire.com/?qb6o87ah6yc2ko4

Instructions and Troubleshooting
Place the .exe files and/or the 3 corresponding batch files into your FF7 install folder. In order for the exe to work you must have a full install of the game and a C:/ drive, however the game does not have to be installed to the C:/ drive, you just need it present on your machine. Also you need to have FF7Music installed in your Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\ so if you used the installer you'll have to move it, which might cause FF7Music to stop working, but its easily fixable. So to fix it if it stops working you'll have to use a registry editor and go HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\FF7Music and modify the only entry there and change it to wherever you moved ff7music.exe, for example D:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\. Also you must either be using DLPB's fmv restoration or you must manually move the fmv movies from your game disc to your Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII\ folder and set the movie path in a registry editor. You cannot skip this step or the exe's wont work. You won't need to do this if your using the fmv restoration as it should do this automatically but if your moving the movies from the disc manually then you'll have to edit the registry again so in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Square Soft, Inc.\ modify the MoviePath to wherever you moved your movies to.

Be sure when editing the registry to always end your entry with a \ and don't just leasve it open at the end or it won't work properly.

To use the disc switch batch file written by Kranmer is very simple. It will ask you two questions first it will ask for a drive letter. So if you have your DataDrive set up to C:\ then you would simply type C and hit enter. Then it will ask you to press 1, 2 or 3 and then hit enter, and this will switch the drive to disk 1, 2 or 3 respectively depending on which disc you want to use. I only use it to switch disks during the game, since the exe will auto start whichever disc you choose but this is very handy tool.

How this works is, if you have a full install of the game the only thing loading from the disc are the movies. So if you run the movies from your hardrive as well then the only thing it will be looking for is the name of the drive that the DataDrive reg entry is set to. The names it looks for are FF7DISC1, FF7DISC2, or FF7DISC3. So the exe file will auto rename drive C to either FF7DISC1, FF7DISC2, or FF7DISC3 depending on which one you click in order to make the game think the disc is loaded, then it will start ff7music.exe and then finally the game itself.

This will not change anything in your drive, only the name of it, and if you use the batch files you can rename whichever drive you want to. It doesn't matter as long you have it set up properly in the registry you can use any disc on your machine.

Hope this is helpful! Also if you would like an .exe file setup to work for a different drive besides see you can use a program such as Quick Batch File Compiler (its not free) to compile the batch files however you want them. If you can't use the program I would be happy to compile an exe for any drive you would like. It only takes a second and I'd be happy to do it.

34

Troubleshooting / question concerning Palmer

« on: 2011-03-17 16:06:21 »

During my work on resizing field backgrounds I noticed it seems as if Palmer is leaving out a couple of layers on certain images. A couple instances of this that I have noticed so far have come up in the northern cave. A specific example is the spiral that you climb down if you go left(or right from the camera's perspective), known as las1_1 in flevel.lgp, is missing the background when i extract png's from palmer. Only the spiral comes out, the background is nowhere to be found. So far I have found one other instance of missing layers on image las0_3. So I was just wondering if anybody happens to know, is Palmer not yet able to read and extract some of these files, or should I be looking somewhere else? I already referenced the file reconstruction project and wasn't able to find what I was looking for so I have no choice but to assume the former but I thought I might as well ask. It's really no big deal if it can't get to them right now, I am sure Palmer will get updated some day and I will keep track of all the files that have missing layers until then, however if there is a way to do them now and I am just looking in the wrong place, I would rather finish them completely now.

35

Solved Problems / request/curiosity about camera angles

« on: 2011-03-10 23:06:08 »

I've been thinking about this for a while and tried to find a project regarding this but so far no luck. Just wonder/officially requesting if anyone knows of/or would be willing to work on a mod that allows you to take partial or full control of the camera when in battle mode. Since I know each scene has several random camera angles that it uses for each battle even the ability to scroll through these either manually or auto-randomly would be much better than just a static camera unless magic or summon is used. I know I am dreaming on this, but a best case scenario would be full camera control with the mouse for battle and world map (of course field couldn't be done). It just seems with all the these mods. Especially the battle texture enhancement mod I am working on, that you should be able to see everything more freely. If there isn't anything already/nobody wants to try, would anyone know if such a thing would be feasible as I would like to give it go but not sure how much work would be involved.

36

Releases / [FF7PC-98] Project Blackfan (V0.35)

« on: 2011-03-10 22:25:09 »

This is a tremendous undertaking for just one man. All I ask is for your kind patience.

_______________________________________________________________
Mission:

The basic idea is to upscale the field backgrounds from Final Fantasy VII by a factor of 4 using Perfect Resize 7.1, and to maintain them as close to the original images as possible. Therefore imaging effects are kept to a minimum and are only applied to sharpen detail, add detail and correct color distortion that is caused by the resize. I am constantly experimenting and rechecking to reach the highest quality possible for this project.

Feedback is always appreciated
_______________________________________________________________
Releases:

Note: Installation instructions are at the bottom

V0.35 Torrent [uncompressed] [215 backgrounds complete] [1.25gb]
http://www.mediafire.com/?o32ac3cv6nvj8kk
I am seeding this one pretty much constantly and Aali is also helping to seed at amazing speeds so it should be no problem

MegaUpload Installer [uncompressed] [854mb]
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HJJMHNHP
Note: Thanks to Kranmer for making this installer

MediaFire Another Installer [compressed] 7 part download
http://www.mediafire.com/?hrv9b6cxcxnd8
Note: Thanks to Vgr255 for making this installer for the compressed version
Launch the executable and select your modpath directory (under the mods\ folder)

Google Mirror [compressed] [991mb]
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3FK0dqybqUCYTYzODQxZDktNzk5Yi00YjNiLTk5ZTYtZDM1ODhmYmYzZTFm&hl=en

MegaUpload Mirror [compressed] [991mb]
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NBKYFPYQ

please inform me of a dead link!

Enjoy!

Note: there is no visible difference between the compressed and uncompressed versions, although some of the images may have been reduced from 32bit depth to 24bit depth so I have decided to include both. The compressed version should load faster in game but I haven't tested this yet

*Attention!*

V0.35 Source
Part I [700mb]: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3FK0dqybqUCZTQ5NmZhNzAtZjg4Zi00NmJlLTkzZGItNWY2NmJlOWRmOWJm&hl=en
Part II [648mb] : https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3FK0dqybqUCNDIyNTZjMTItZWVhMC00OTZiLWEyNTYtNTY0ZGZlMjBiZTRh&hl=en

The source version is available for those of you who would like to make changes, would like to filter them in a different style, or would just like to take a look at what the layers look like before they are converted using Palmer. If you make a change or a correction that you think might benefit my pack, and you would like to share it with me, just send me the source layers with your modifications and I'll check it out.
_______________________________________________________________
Important:

Note: Some of the scenes cause glitch errors due to palette changes. I have included the files anyways for those that wish to use them. If you want to get rid of the errors just delete the PNG that has the 15 in it. IE tin_1_15_00.png


Please if you find any problems be descriptive and post a picture if possible
I am spending a lot of time going over these images and correcting any errors I find but when your working with thousands upon thousands of images it is perfectly normal to miss something so please do not hesitate to post your issues!

_______________________________________________________________
News:

[03/29/2011]
I am slowly pumping out new backgrounds but I am still more focused on cleaning up the ones that are already finished.
my main focus right now is smoothing, check this thread for the details
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=11596.0
and in this file is a perfect example of the drastic difference between smoothed and unsmoothed layers
http://www.mediafire.com/?cwm5kmz08tcf5xx

[04/06/2011]
I have found a new plugin for Photoshop called Perfectum which allows me to make all of these photos look even better and more detailed when combined with a new technique I have developed. I will be applying this to all the images which are already finished as well as whats to come in the future. I am really excited about this! Check out the full, in game, comparison here!
http://www.mediafire.com/?2kbecfc817f8bu4

[04/09/2011]
1.epic problem that has been stalling progress for almost two weeks has finally been solved! Read about it here!
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=11663.0
Thanks to this new solution, progress can once again resume at a steady pace. However do not expect a full release as quickly as the last one. Due to the high amount of errors in my first release I am testing much more thoroughly for each image. Plus the smoothing process, which I am happy to report is finally moving along at a consistent and reasonable pace, still adds a decent amount of time to the workload so it will be a while.

2.I did say above not to expect a FULL release. I consider a full release to be a version upgrade, this will not happen until I have smoothed the layers in all of the existing images from v0.35 and added a decent chunk of new backgrounds on top of that. However stay posted because I have decided to release smaller separate packs from the new areas I am working on. First up will be Gold Saucer! probably in about a week or two as long as my schedule stays the way it is now. The main purpose of this new release schedule is two fold: to give you guys something new to experience without having to wait for the next full version release, and second, to demonstrate smoothed layers and the Perfectum filter in action!

All of this careful attention will help result in a much cleaner final product. I will not allow myself to be rushed.

_______________________________________________________________
Screenshots:

Here are some screens. I would recommend you open them up to full size in order to see them clearly. Hope you all enjoy them!
http://img41.imageshack.us/g/zz4000000000.jpg/
I converted them to jpeg so that I could upload them, so you may find some small artifacts. Don't worry about them if you do, they won't be there in the release.

Please note that these images have not been updated using my new Perfectum method, I will update these screenshots once I have finished cleaning up much more of the backgrounds
_______________________________________________________________
Progress:

Finished:
The Northern Cave
Return to Midgar Mission at the end disc 2
The Entire Shinra Building [Smoothed]
The Highwind
Rocket Town and the inside of the rocket
The Ancient Forest [Smoothed] [Updated]
The materia caves, Lucretia cave, chocobo sage house, sleeping man's cave, and blacksmiths house
The Forgotten City [Smoothed] [Updated]
Cosmo Canyon
Underwater Reactor and Sub
Galnika
the sequence with cloud and tifa in the lifestream
Mideel
clouds end of game flash back with zack

In progress:
The Gold Saucer

_______________________________________________________________
Installation:

Requirements:
Final Fantasy VII for PC
1.02 Official Patch
Aali's Custom Graphics Driver
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8306.msg156782#msg156782

to install just place the field folder in your mod path "mods/(mod path)/"
for example if your using the Team Avalanche Graphical Overhaul then you would place it in "mods/avalanche"
to reiterate: place the field folder inside the mod path, not the folder tree inside of the field folder or it won't work!

additionally, if you are downloading the torrent, you can just tell your torrent client to save the field folder in the mod path and it will download everything exactly where it needs to be

also make sure you have the mod path set up and activated in Aali's config file
for example
mod_path = avalanche
_______________________________________________________________


Thank you!

37

Troubleshooting / crash with palmer 0.4b

« on: 2011-03-09 05:24:32 »

Just wondering if anyone knows of a fix or workaround for this? Basically I am having a crash with palmer, it is consistent and apparently unavoidable. Currently I am working on a project that involves resizing the field images to higher resolutions so I need this program to work. the reason why this crash is so annoying is because once it happens, no matter how many times I close the program and shut the process, Palmer will not work again until I restart my computer. It happenings after opening a field file, it stops responding. I haven't counted but it seems to happen after I open about 4 or 5 field files. If I close and reopen the program it'll stop responding on opening a field file again. No matter what I do this continues until I restart the computer. The reason why this is such a hassle is because I have several windows and photoshop images open while working on my project and restart means waiting and reopening opening everything. All I need is way to get palmer to start working again after the crash happens without having to restart. It would save me a ton of time. Any help would be great thanks.

*edit*
its become even more frequent -.-
also from time to time it seems the temporary folder where I keep my finished layers is being wiped clean. I think palmer has something to do with it because the 3 times it has happened Palmer was open. and the only other program I have open is photoshop. These problems have resulted in a massive loss of time and I really can't wait for a new version of this. Also I noticed some of the animations from the originals are lost in the conversion. Is there anyway, using palmer, to retain the animations in the resized layers? Thank you

*edit2*
Problem solved so for anyone else having a similar problem, I noticed Palmer never crashes if I do not have Firefox open. I am an avid web browser so I always have it open and never would have guessed that it was the cause. So if you are having a similar problem just close your web browser (or any other application for that matter)

38

Troubleshooting / slight issues with ff7music

« on: 2011-03-07 21:48:05 »

Okay well this is just kinda random stuff, usually works just fine with one constant exception. The song that plays while riding a chocobo never works. Has not worked for me once. I tried reinstalling several times. Other songs will not work randomly then start working again (example would be the victory fanfare and battle song) although this is rare enough to not be a major issue for me. Just wish I could get that chocobo song working. I've played through the entire game, so unless there's some area I have neglected (i don't think so) I think this may be the only consistent problem song in the game for me.

39

General Discussion / just thought I'd throw this out as an FYI

« on: 2011-03-07 08:02:09 »

for those of you who do not know. The PC version of Final Fantasy VII and VIII work with the Steam overlay as long as you use Aali's custom driver. Just add the game(s) into your steam library and launch them from steam to use it. Since Steam added a screenshot feature to their overlay I just thought I'd let everyone know so you can all start sharing screens of your modded game with your Steam friends and spread the word a little bit . Also useful if your the chatty type (like me) and you want to be able to talk to your friends while you play.

40

Solved Problems / SOLVED: Stop mega-all disabling 4x cut effect

« on: 2011-03-06 05:53:51 »

just wondering if anyone knows of a program I can use to edit the effects of materia. More specifically I just want to do one thing for now. Remove slash all effect from mega all materia so I can use 4x cut with it. Thanks for the help

41

Releases / [RELEASE] Field Cloud CHIBI upgrade

« on: 2011-03-05 09:06:42 »

Well I really liked the field model of cloud done by dahfa
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=11164.0

but the only thing I didn't really like about it was the shoulder. So I made some small changes. There is a picture of it in the file


Thought it would be cool for him to have a hi res shoulder piece, and I like the way it turned out so I figured I should share it. Basically I replaced both of the top halves of each arm with the arms from APZ's Cloud (replaced the right arm as well just to match better with the left). Now I know APZ's Cloud has been banned on the forum for using a ripped face texture, but since this small modification is only using the arms I figured it would be okay to upload. I apologize if this is incorrect and will remove the downloads if needed. I am also going to try and include the arm bands and hands from APZ's Cloud but I don't know if it will look good so I figured I would just release this first. Hope you all enjoy it!

All credit to APZ and dahfa for their great work.

Another really cool field model thread can be found here
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8857.0 for Chibi Reconstruction Project
all credit to Sauntam and his team for their great work on these models.


file is in .rar format

manual install (22.98 KB)
http://www.mediafire.com/?kz2866dalfj8661

42

Solved Problems / request for custom shaders and/or help making them

« on: 2011-03-01 11:24:00 »

*update*
Working on converting shaders for psx emu to work with aali's driver. However this will remain on hold until we have more help and/or make a break through here. I don't really know what I am doing with OGSL so unless some experts get in on this its going to take me a while. Once I finish my current project this will become my main focus. I will also be reading up on OGSL in the coming months as I work on the field map resize. There are some links to the shaders below and what little information is known is posted as well. Would really appreciate some help. I am willing to put a slight hold on my current work if we can make some headway on this. This should probably be reposted into the projects thread, but then again since its still sort of in the request stage, maybe not.

here's a link to download and a guide on how to use most of the shaders available for pete's opengl2 plugin, you can download guest's without having to join and it contains most of the shaders
http://forums.ngemu.com/psx-plugin-questions-troubleshooting/76098-links-guides-custom-shaders-petes-opengl2-plugin.html
also more shaders are here
http://www.pbernert.com/html/gpu.htm#SHADER

now I have already tried using some of these shaders unedited and aali's driver seems to load both the frag and vert files just fine but the problem is nothing is displayed. There are no errors but just a black screen. so I attempted to hand edit the shaders in notepad to be compatible with aali's driver. But so far to no avail. But then again I really have no idea what I am doing here so I really require the input or advice of an expert. According to aali himself it can be done easily (I just don't know what I am doing) so please a little help would go a long way. I will do all the work I just need a few pointers. I am even willing to hand edit all of the available shader's and make them available for download as my first contribution to the forums, of course I will give credit to all the original authors and anyone who helps me, but I figure since these shaders are free for download in the first place that this has to be legal. Thank you very much for your time and effort.

I will also continue trying this for the next few hours and edit this post if I have any success.

*edit*seem to have successfully converted the frag shader ( i think) won't really be able to tell if there are any bugs until I get the vert shaders working as well. Still the same problem with the vert... loading up with a black screen. I am kinda just guessing at this point so hopefully I should get it eventually. I will post the first shader I am able to get working. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I guess I'll have to start learning opengl shader language (on account of my laziness I wanted to avoid this) if the problem persists.  I am determined to get this working sooner or later. Perhaps this should be moved to the projects forum?