Opening Sequence Redux Project

[Tsetra]

Hello, I've been lurking here for a little over a year now, and have been fascinated by the work you guys do, so I just want to say thanks before anything.
Now then, I'm looking to do some tweaking myself finally, and the project I had in mind requires that I change the beginning of the game. Basically, I need the gameplay after the first cutscene to begin with Cloud already on the ground and the two guards knocked out. Is there an editor that will allow me to do this?
I tried to check out Meteor to see what it could do, but the downloads for it seem to be out at the moment.

So this makes more sense, here's the (hopeful) plan:
Blend the PS3 tech demo intro and the Crisis Core ending to achieve a new intro cutscene. I want the high quality train to pull into the station just as in the tech demo, but then I'm going to fade to a fraps clip of the guards being taken out and Barret running off the train. When he waves to Cloud, the cutscene will fade to the PS3 demo of Cloud jumping off the train, ending with his face shot. After this cutscene finishes, my idea is to have cloud on the ground and Barret telling the newcomer to follow him. Make sense?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks for taking the time to read this and thanks again for all your work! 

[ultima espio]

It is possible with Meteor..BUT FF7 is EXTREMELY hard to reprogram, as me and syngergyblades found out. So i can't promise it will work the way you want it.

[Tsetra]

Hey, "possible" is all I need, I've got nothing but time to deal with trial and error. Thanks for the tip, I'll hunt down Meteor and see what I can do.

EDIT - Having a little trouble finding Meteor, but I'm anxious to start playing with it. Does anyone know where I might find a copy?

[Tsetra]

Well, after some fiddling around, I can definitely say you weren't joking about this being extremely hard. I'm fairly sure I know how to script the events to do what I want, the problem is that when I do so, it crashes the game. So right now I'm currently trying to figure out exactly what the game looks for that's doing this. I'm fairly sure it's not a filesize issue, unless certain areas of the file are checked. If so it could be as simple as creating dummy commands to fill the gap, so to speak. But I highly doubt it's that simple 

On a side-note, I've almost got the movie I wanted to place in completed. When I get on a faster connection I might have to upload that to YouTube. I've also been tossing around the idea of doing this with other FMVs like Otokoshi did awhile back. The problem then is consistency within the FMVs, but I've already got the NPC Reconstruction patch applied so my videos cut to "lego Cloud" anyways. Eh.

[Otokoshi]

I tried for some time with changing the background to match my opening video, using Meteor.  Frankly, I'm not a l33t hax0r and FF7 is stubborn.  One piece of advice I can give.  FF7 counts the frames of the video, so if your video is shorter than the original you can increase the frames per second for your new video.  I made the intro using the entire tech demo, which is considerably shorter than the original.  I increased the fps to over 23 from the original 15 and the video ran smoother and synced up perfectly.

The whole consistency thing is strange, isn't it?  Some of the FMVs have "lego Cloud" and others have high quality characters.  I like the idea for your new opening video, looking forward to seeing it soon.

[Terra]

I've been hoping for this for a long time. Good luck and can't wait for you to share progress.

[Tsetra]

This is an old topic, but my own topic at that and the announcement I've got doesn't warrant a new topic, I feel. So please forgive my necromancy in this case.

I haven't forgotten about this, in fact I've just made a serious break through and by the time I've got a broadband connection at my disposal again (I'm shafted with 56k right now), I'm expecting that I'll be able to release my revamped introduction. Haha it's been interesting working with the field script to say the least. I wish I would have recorded some of my bloopers I caused for you to enjoy lol. 

What you'll get when this is finished is a new md1stin file to replace the original in flevel.lgp, along with instructions on how to do that. You'll also receive a new opening.avi movie, appearing as described in my first post here. All just a matter of time.

For future reference, how do you guys feel about restoring some dummied dialog in the game? I've got a keen eye for what was dummied for good reason, but other things would fit in perfectly. It might even be possible to fit in some other things like the guard who asks "Who goes there?" after Cloud reveals his name (past the gate), but for now I've been thinking about the unused text. It's very easy to add into existing dialog so I wouldn't be straining myself at all. This includes places where you've got options and such, for example one thing that's been dummied out is that Jessie has a much more obvious attraction towards Cloud. AVALANCHE in general has a lot more to say, and if nothing else I feel it would make their death feel more meaningful in the long run, know what I mean?

EDIT - Has anyone here played the PSX demo? You know how the opening part uses some text to explain some things for you? How do you feel about that? Yay or nay?

[Swampthing15]

i havent played the demo...but anything that adds to the lore of the game or just a side stor for that matter i think would be great!