Messages

126

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R03d)

« on: 2015-11-16 17:49:16 »

So I'm gonna get finalizing this in sections and will release my part by part storyline walk through on Youtube.

How "automated" will this process be? I wonder if you could use Makou Reactor in combination with other tools somehow to re-create a series of scenes as a video? (It's been awhile since messed with Makou Reactor so I'm not sure how feasible that is. Just wanted to throw out that idea since it might make your life a lot easier.)

127

FF7 Tools / Re: [FF7] Text editor - touphScript (v1.3.0)

« on: 2015-11-16 13:05:40 »

Just tried touphScript and just wanted to say thanks for the fantastic work!

Also, thanks for sharing the source code, it helped me to debug some issues I had when trying to run it in a non-proper environment. Source is nicely written by the way. Definitely appreciate clean code that catches errors, writes to a log file, etc. I'll probably use this as one of my models when I dust off my C++ development skills. (I have about 7 years work experience with C++, but it's been about 9 years since I've been in it. I've been in Java for 16 years.)

I have some ideas on improvements, but I'll save them for later after I become more familiar with the tool.

For now, just wanted to say Thanks! And also thanks to you and DLPB for the Beacause project, I've watched this off and on over the years and I'm gaining interest in it again.

128

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake is HAPPENING!

« on: 2015-08-13 23:13:59 »

@StickySock: Very good point about overvaluing the element of surprise. In fact, one of the ways that I know I like FF7 so much is the fact that I've re-played it more than any other game (in that generation, at least). Also, interesting idea of having photorealistic and campy/cheesy at the same time, as long as it's consistent,it would work. The Scott Pilgrim movie comes to mind for some reason, even though that's not an apples to apples comparison.

@others:

Regarding getting Square's attention, the replies here are correct. It will take more than a website. A better strategy would probably be trying to create an organization of hardcore fans that becomes a media sensation and creates drama in the news, which would cause more people to ask Square what they feel about it. Or something.

Even if the fan org never convinced Square to change anything, it would be interesting to see such an organization meet regularly and discuss features on a large scale. Like a "convention". And to see how many fans care about which features, etc., in a report format on the web, continually updated.

Getting all fans to agree on everything is impossible, but I wasn't thinking about having the fans design the whole game, just trying to influence Square on various aspects, be it few or many, and/or (again, "option 3") make it modular/configurable so it can please both crowds (e.g. active vs. turn based battle).

129

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake is HAPPENING!

« on: 2015-08-13 03:29:25 »

By the way, you're dead on target with your anti SE rant above. I wouldn't actually call it a rant. Most of it seemed to be simply about how the style of the original FF7 (cartoony, campy, silly) just would not work in a "realistic" style game.

To add on top of that, I would say that no matter how SE made the remake, even if it was EXACTLY how YOU (anyone here reading this) wanted it, it would still not have the same impact as the original. You can't repeat a "first time experience". There's no element of surprise.

That's why I'm actually in favor of a complete remake. I can play the original any time I want. I can use mods to improve the graphics and such. Given the choice between two nearly identical FF7's, vs having the original AND a remake, I say go with the latter. At least we'll have the opportunity to experience something new and fresh. And it will be really cool to see how they design the game mechanics and such.

One last thought. Should the oldest, most hard core fans always get their way? If you take this idea to the extreme, we shouldn't play any console games at all. We should go back to text based adventure games like Zork. (Which I loved, by the way!)

130

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake is HAPPENING!

« on: 2015-08-13 02:56:44 »

You're exactly right, it would need to be a substantially large number of people. But if such a large number of people did participate, why would SE not listen? What if we had more pledges than Amazon had pre-orders?

Also I think you might be underestimating the size of the original fan base. And the people most likely to have strong opinions will be the fans that played the original.

Also there is a third option. If option 1 is SE makes it for the new generation, and option 2 is SE makes it for the original fan generation, and if option 2 seems hopeless, then option 3 is that SE designs it such that you can do either/both, e.g. active vs. turn based.

If nothing else, at least it's an extra data point for SE's R&D, and the fans can at least say they tried.

But you're right, it would need to basically be huge to make a difference. It would be not just collecting a few pledges, but more like trying to represent the majority of the original fan base.

131

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy VII Remake is HAPPENING!

« on: 2015-08-13 01:49:05 »

I actually had an idea around how to influence Square Enix to make the remake in the way the fans would want them to.

The basic idea is a "pledge" website where fans pool their money to voice their opinions and pledge their money to SE if they design the remake according to their desires. For most practical purposes, the fan's money is not just a donation to SE, it's basically used to buy the game. The website is owned by an organization that acts as mediator between the fans and SE. If SE makes the game according to how the fans want it, they get the money (and the fans get the FF7R game), otherwise the fans get their money back, and possibly pledge not to buy the game or give SE any money.

Actually it's more complex than this; fans can divide their money according to different features, instead of all-or-nothing; SE might have an agreement with the mediating company to give fans a discount on the game; there needs to be specific criteria to determine if the fans got what they wanted; and lots of other logistical challenges. But, this could radically change the way remakes are done, in general, for all art forms (games, movies, etc.).

A couple of other problems I see with this are: (1) the remaker has more incentive to satisfy as many fans as possible to get the most money, which might actually not be a good thing, but then again they can always choose to design for a smaller crowd and be more special that way; (2) people with more money will have more influence, which isn't necessarily fair, although the fans will tend to be older and make more money, so this tends to be biased towards older fans, which is a good thing, for the older fans. (3) the fan's pledges and opinions need to be collected very early during development, early enough to actually be able to influence how SE makes the game. (4) Lots of other logistical challenges like this...

Anyway... Anyone wanna help me build this company and website? there's lots of other cool ideas related to this, like a system that's smart and continually learns about which different aspects of the game fans are interested in, etc.

132

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: Reverse engineering FF7R

« on: 2015-08-13 01:12:56 »

It was recently announced that FF7R will not be using Luminous Engine (which is what FFXV is using).

I guess it's still way too early to be thinking about FF7R from a reverse engineering standpoint anyway.

On a side note, I finally picked up the FFXV demo and I have to say that I'm digging it! I'm looking forward to the FFXV release way more than FF7R. (I might even be interested in RE efforts for that, but that's a totally separate topic.)

133

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Reverse engineering FF7R

« on: 2015-07-19 18:05:31 »

I didn't see any threads about reverse engineering FF7R so far, so I figured I'd get one started.

Note: Use this thread to discuss reverse engineering FF7R only. If you want to discuss your thoughts on FF7R in general, please do that elsewhere. I say this because we already have plenty of drama in this General thread: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16190.225

Now, on to business.

Q1: Who is interested in reverse engineering FF7R, and/or developing tools for it? On the one hand, many people have already spent valuable time developing fixes and enhancements and hacks for the original FF7, so maybe it kinda sucks that the interest (of players and especially the developers themselves) are now divided and will probably slowly gravitate towards FF7R and away from the original FF7 and from all the hard work put into it. On the other hand, we've been working on FF7 for almost 20 years, and we've done almost everything possible with it, such that the only remaining projects are the really big or difficult ones (like separating out the engine, doing a full HD remake, fixing deep-rooted issues like limitations with FPS/timing, etc.). So, my question for you guys is, are you "committed to the original until death" (DLPB maybe?), or are you "it's WAY too early, I'm not gonna waste time on this now, but hey, if you find any info, please share it with us" (perhaps the majority of us), or are you "I'm excited, let's trailblaze and start proactively pursuing this!"?

Q2: For those that are planning to get involved, what strategies and ideas do you/we have for reverse engineering FF7R? You may think "it's nowhere near release time so we don't know much yet". But what I'm asking is, what do we know, and what can we do to find out more, sooner, and when will we start thinking about organizing and documenting what we know on Wiki or something? For example, we know it will be released on PS4 first, and it's somewhat likely that the engine will be the same as, or similar to, FFXV, and possibly file formats and such. So, some of us could start trying to reverse engineer FFXV (demo now, releases later) and/or PS4 games, and at the very least we'd learn valuable things from that process, right? And as we hear leaks/rumors, we can track and document those, etc. What other info/ideas do we have?

134

FF7 Tools / Re: [v1.2.8] touphScript - FFVII-PC text editor

« on: 2013-06-19 21:39:22 »

after run and enter - d or e
Fatal error: basic_ios::clear

I had this problem, too, but I fixed it by doing two things:

#1: Run as Administrator.  (I suggest running "Command Prompt" as Administrator, then running touphScript.exe from the command prompt, so that you can see the output after it's done, and you can also provide the d option.  However, if you right-click touphScript.exe and "Run as Administrator", that works, too.)

#2: I installed FF7.  See, I was trying to run touphScript without actually installing FF7.  Is this supported, by the way?  I was expecting/hoping touphScript would default to the current directory, and that's where I put the FF7 files, but I still couldn't get this to work.  I tried lots of things, including removing read-only attributes; modifying the ini to set Override paths; tried putting the FF7 files in different places (all in the current directory, vs. putting them in the folder structure .\data\etc.); compatibility mode with earlier versions of Windows; etc.  However, it's very possible that I had installed then uninstalled FF7 a long time ago, so maybe touphScript still found the old install path in the registry and was looking for the files there?

Anyway, hope this helps!

135

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-06-07 23:44:18 »

BTW I revealed what I'm making in the following thread:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=13186.0

Basically it's a "Final Fantasy 7 Online" game. 

136

General Discussion / Re: Vision: Final Fantasy 7 ONLINE

« on: 2012-06-07 19:03:10 »

Thanks everyone!  I'm glad to see people excited about this and even getting into the mechanics/logistics.

Challenge #1: Multiple Clouds etc. will run into each other, unless you create a ton of 9-player servers.

Thoughts: Let me discuss Story Mode first.  Multiple Clouds etc. should definitely not be allowed in Story Mode. But we can make Story Mode be a lot of individual instances, instead of one big world.  So we don't need a ton of large 9-player world servers, we just need a ton of small instances.  (This is similar to how World of Warcraft does dungeons.)

For Battle Arena Mode, we can be more flexible. Maybe some arenas will allow duplicates (Tifa fighting Tifa!), but other arenas won't allow it, and people can choose which style they want.  Similar story for Play Mode.

Challenge #2: PvP won't be fun since people will be too overpowered.  Whoever gets the first attack will win, etc.

Thoughts: This will definitely require re-balancing game mechanics and not allowing overpowered gear such as Knights Of Round, Final Attack, etc.  There's lots of different ways we can do this.  We can introduce handicaps or limitations. We can do level syncing like FF11.  We can provide prebuilt, prebalanced characters.  Etc.

Thanks, guys!  Keep the comments coming!

137

General Discussion / Vision: Final Fantasy 7 ONLINE

« on: 2012-06-07 03:51:43 »

I have a vision for a "Final Fantasy 7 Online" game, and I'd like to share that vision with everyone and to get your feedback.

GET READY TO BE PUMPED UP!

IMAGINE... an online game where people can re-live Final Fantasy 7 and play with each other... ONLINE.

What does that MEAN, exactly?  Well, for instance, one person can play Cloud, and another person can play Tifa, etc., and they can do various things online... TOGETHER.

"Do what things, exactly?"  THE SKY IS THE LIMIT.  We can play the main story together, PvP against each other, explore the world, roleplay, minigames, and whatever else YOU think would be fun.

The game might have different modes.  Let's start off with STORY MODE, and PLAY MODE, and BATTLE ARENA MODE.

With STORY MODE, people can re-live the FF7 story, starting with the Bombing Mission.  But this time around, it's different.  One person plays Cloud while another person plays Barrett!  Once they finish the bombing mission, they have unlocked the next part of the story, and they have also UNLOCKED TIFA ON THEIR ACCOUNTS and can start to play her.

The BATTLE ARENA MODE is for PvP.  You can pit your ferocious Red XIII against my Yuffie.  Or maybe we can stage some virtual battles against Sephiroth!

The PLAY MODE is for everything else.  Socialize and ROLE PLAY.  Buy materia/gear for your characters.  Play minigames.  Go out into the world to gain experience.  Have fun while you are "queued up" for a Story Mode instance.  (See, that's where the game pairs you up with other people online to help you advance in the Story.)

GUYS... THIS IS NOT LIKE ANY OTHER ONLINE GAME.  This isn't FF11 or FF14 or World of Warcraft.  You're not creating some random character that nobody knows.  You are playing a character that you and all your fellow FF7 fans LOVE AND ADORE.  And we're all playing TOGETHER.

Each player has their own account and their own copy of all the FF7 characters.  A newbie's account might have a Level 7 Cloud, a Level 5 Barrett, and a Level 6 Tifa, and that's it.  An experienced player's account might have unlocked all the FF7 characters with higher levels.  It might even be feasible to let people play other FF7 characters like Sephiroth, Reno, the Don, etc., but only in certain situations.

Yes, there are logistical challenges.  You don't want two people playing Cloud in the same world instance.  That's solvable.  What happens when your Aeris character... gets to a certain part of the story?  We can work that out.  Another challenge is copyright issues.  That's solvable, too.  We can get past any hurdle.

The most important question is... WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Let's hear your creative ideas, let's hear your criticism, let's discuss it.

And maybe, just maybe... we can create something awesome.

138

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-06-07 02:55:35 »

BTW I think I have resolved my texture issues.  Now I can concentrate on other parts of the game.

Pretty soon I will reveal what I'm making so that I can get some feedback and ideas.  It will probably be in another forum.

139

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-06-01 18:50:04 »

Aali: Nice to meet you, and thanks for your Wiki contributions with regards to interpreting FF7 files.

Thanks for the response.  I just wanted to make sure I was interpreting the FF7 files correctly, and that there wasn't some other extra data that was required to interpret the texture coordinates correctly.  Just knowing that helps me to focus my troubleshooting (e.g. maybe I have to explicitly enable texture repeating in my API's).

Thanks everyone.  I have all the info I need.  And I know nobody cares yet because I haven't shown anybody what I'm making yet. 

140

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-06-01 04:25:55 »

So, after analyzing the TEX files for Cloud's left eye and right eye, I found that they are mostly the same, except that one of the bits is set to 1 for his left eye, but not his right.

Also, for Cloud's left eye, I found out that if I reverse the image AND if I change the texture x-coordinates from x to 2.0-x, it looks right.

So, I'm suspecting that "image reversing" might be a possible operation that should be done before applying the texture coordinates?  (This kinda makes sense because if you view Cloud's two eyes in a TEX viewer program, they are both facing the same direction.)

Borde, I could really use your insight here, if you can spare a few minutes to help a fellow programmer.    BTW I downloaded Kimera's source; if I don't hear from you I will start digging into it.  There's a lot of .BAS files but hopefully I can figure out which one applies the textures...

141

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-31 16:05:47 »

Quick update for those who are reading this thread:

The "Hundreds" Chunks seem to provide some texture info, but not the kind of info I'm looking for:

HundredInfo[1 1 0   -126 3 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 -1 0 0 2 1 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 255 0
HundredInfo[1 1 14 -126 3 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 -1 0 0 2 1 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 255 0
HundredInfo[1 1 14 -126 3 2 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 -1 0 0 2 1 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 255 0
HundredInfo[1 1 14 -126 3 2 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 -1 0 0 2 1 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 255 0

I assume rows 2-4 represent groups 2-4, which are the textured groups.  The 9th value is probably a texture index (0, 1, 2).  All the other values are the same across all textured groups.  So, in short, the Hundreds Chunk won't tell me how to interpret texture coordinates greater than 1.0.

So I'm guessing I will need to understand the TEX file format more, to understand how individual texture "files" are loaded into the memory buffer, and use that information to correctly interpret texture coordinates.

If I figure it out before someone else helps me, I'll update this thread. 

142

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-30 19:04:55 »

BTW, I found this thread:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=1593.msg23376#msg23376

NeutopiaW explains the texture coordinates somewhat, and Alhexx learned from this, which presumably is how he got Ifalna to draw the textures correctly.  But it doesn't explain it fully, and Alhexx didn't update his documentation completely.

I'll need to understand the "hundreds" chunks more thoroughly, and then understand what the texture coordinates mean in a larger context...

143

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-30 18:39:31 »

Okay so now I'm a little stuck on understanding the texture coordinates.  When the coordinates are between 0.0 and 1.0, my program does great, but when a coordinate is greater than 1.0, it fails.  (According to Alhexx's document, when a coordinate is greater than 1.0, I should just subtract 1.0, but this doesn't seem to produce the correct result.)

Let's take a specific example: Cloud's "head" bone (aaba.p) contains one big non-textured polygon group (0) for his head+hair, then three textured polygon groups, which I will call left eye (1), right eye (2), and mouth (3).

left eye uses the first 5 coordinates (and uses texture aabb):
TextureCoordinate[0] = (1.0, 0.0625)
TextureCoordinate[1] = (1.03125, 0.9375)
TextureCoordinate[2] = (1.84375, 0.03125)
TextureCoordinate[3] = (1.84375, 0.90625)
TextureCoordinate[4] = (1.96875, 0.90625)

right eye uses the next 5 coordinates (and uses texture aabc):
TextureCoordinate[5] = (0.03125, 0.0625)
TextureCoordinate[6] = (0.8125, 0.03125)
TextureCoordinate[7] = (0.03125, 0.9375)
TextureCoordinate[8] = (0.8125, 0.90625)
TextureCoordinate[9] = (0.96875, 0.90625)

mouth uses the remaining 4 coordinates(and uses texture aabd):
TextureCoordinate[10] = (0.96875, 5.21875)
TextureCoordinate[11] = (0.46875, 5.9375)
TextureCoordinate[12] = (0.46875, 5.0)
TextureCoordinate[13] = (0.03125, 5.21875)

My program can correctly apply the texture for the right eye.  Its texture coordinates are all between 0.0 and 1.0.

My program has trouble applying the textures for the left eye and the mouth.  Their texture coordinates go as high as 1.96 and 5.21, respectively.  I don't know how to interpret values greater than 1.0.

I don't mind digging into Borde's Kimera source code.  But I'm hoping that Borde or someone else will know exactly what my problem is and can save me the trouble and explain how to interpret these coordinate values. 

Thanks in advance for any insight you can give me!

144

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-23 19:59:47 »

Sure enough, as soon as I posted my last message, I realized what my problem was: my code is not applying rotations on the root bones.  As some of you know, many character models, including Clouds and others, have multiple root bones, e.g. a hip (upper body connected to this), a left hip (left leg connected to this), and a right hip (right leg connected to this).  I wasn't applying rotations to any of the hip bones.  Once I apply those rotations, I'm almost certain that will fix Cloud's legs in my program.

TLDR: You can ignore my last message. 

145

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-23 19:44:03 »

Ah, thanks Borde, I see that you are the one that wrote Kimera.  Awesome, I will definitely have to check it out, including the source. 

I'm stuck at rendering the complete model correctly.  I can render individual bones (e.g. hip, chest, etc.), and I can parse the skeleton structure fine (chest is a child of the hip, etc.).  I'm just having problems with putting all the bones in the right places.

I am REALLY close, though, I think.  Once I place a parent bone, the way I place one of its child bones is that I apply the following transformation: Translate by "parent bone length" in the negative Z direction, then apply Y rotation, then apply X rotation, then apply Z rotation.  This is REALLY close to the right solution, I think, but it's not quite right: Cloud's upper body looks perfect, but his lower body, starting with his legs, is messed up: his legas are going behind him instead of downward from the hip.

Anyway, I'll keep playing with it... thanks!

146

Graphical / Re: Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-08 18:33:28 »

I somehow missed the fact that we have a Wiki!  Wow, there's so much useful info there!  This is such an awesome community! 

I found the info I wanted on the Wiki.  In case anyone else wants the same info, here it is:

*.P file format: http://wiki.qhimm.com/FF7/P (also discusses relationship to *.RSD and *.HRC)
*.A file format: currently in: http://wiki.qhimm.com/FF7/Field (but maybe needs to be separated into separate Wiki page)
*.RSD file format: maybe http://wiki.qhimm.com/PSX/RSD (but this is for PSX)
*.TEX file format: maybe http://wiki.qhimm.com/PSX/TIM_file (TIM is really TEX I think)

147

Graphical / Understanding model files

« on: 2012-05-08 02:00:01 »

Hello everyone, I am new to the forums and a little new to working with FF7 models.

I'd like to create a new game that uses some of the FF7 models.  To get started, I'd like to create a program that can do basically what Ifalna does: load model data and render 3D models (and ultimately animations) in a window.

I have successfully used LGPTools to extract (from char.lgp) all the model-related files: *.p, *.a, *.rsd, *.tex

So now, my question is: Where can I find more information on the file format of these files, and/or source code that reads these files and generates 3D models and animations from them?

Thanks in advance!