Author Topic: Gallery Proposal  (Read 8930 times)

BesideTheVoid

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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
« Last Edit: 2016-01-24 15:01:22 by BesideTheVoid »

Vgr

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #1 on: 2016-01-24 21:45:17 »
Just a side note: Bootleg is long dead, so you might want to use 7th Heaven instead ;)

SpooX

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #2 on: 2016-01-26 20:05:59 »
What to say...

A gallery proposal has hit the forums before, but went away with the setup of the different threads of every artist.

Most of the images turning up as blanc is due to the fact that initially image sheck was being used as a free site to upload. However they changed into a paying service in (at least for me) that's a waste. Even if i login there now, there is only 1 of the 100 images left which I originally uploaded years ago.
But I agree it would be nice to repair at least the first posts.

Another point is that since the news of the remake of FFVII everything feels like a waste of time, and it takes a lot of time to recreate a scene in full glory.

As for the releasing of the source files, that's a personal decision for each and every artist for themselves. And to be honest don't put your hopes up on that.

 8-)

Mayo Master

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #3 on: 2016-01-28 00:10:27 »
What to say...

A gallery proposal has hit the forums before, but went away with the setup of the different threads of every artist.

Most of the images turning up as blanc is due to the fact that initially image sheck was being used as a free site to upload. However they changed into a paying service in (at least for me) that's a waste. Even if i login there now, there is only 1 of the 100 images left which I originally uploaded years ago.
But I agree it would be nice to repair at least the first posts.

Another point is that since the news of the remake of FFVII everything feels like a waste of time, and it takes a lot of time to recreate a scene in full glory.

As for the releasing of the source files, that's a personal decision for each and every artist for themselves. And to be honest don't put your hopes up on that.

 8-)
I very much agree, especially on the relevance of the project now that the remake is on tracks.
In fact, when I uploaded the images of the "Released" scenes to googledrive, it had the appeal that we wouldn't be at the mercy of a change of policy from an image hosting site.
Now, for sharing source material, I'm not really inclined to do that. Most of the blender files are not only huge, they're also extremely heavy on textures based on images from cgtextures.com, which does not allow the sharing of their images (it allows free usage, but not sharing).

Fischkopf

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #4 on: 2016-01-30 23:18:23 »
Another point is that since the news of the remake of FFVII everything feels like a waste of time, and it takes a lot of time to recreate a scene in full glory.


Please don't feel discouraged. There IS a relevance and importance for yours, Mayo Master's and all the other guys work after all.

At this point it's pretty much known Square Enix isn't going to make the game WE want to play. It's gonna be modernized in the worst of ways, casualized, combat will be a spectacularized, nice-to-look-at button mashing mess, deprived of all it's depth and challenge, all characters will be Advent Children-ized, optional side activities will be cut, areas will be cut, dialogs will be cut, sh1tty new dialoges we didn't ask for will be added.

What will eventually be released to the masses will be a chopped up lifeless shell, forever to remain in the shadow of the great epic adventure this game once was. This is not the game for us fans, it's a punch in the face. But you guys can show Square Enix how to make it better!
« Last Edit: 2016-01-30 23:21:08 by Fischkopf »

obesebear

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #5 on: 2016-01-30 23:22:41 »
Another point is that since the news of the remake of FFVII everything feels like a waste of time, and it takes a lot of time to recreate a scene in full glory.

Don't say that.  I've been working on a project for over 6 years now.  I'd hate to think that's been a waste of time.
« Last Edit: 2016-01-31 13:06:58 by obesebear »

kela51

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #6 on: 2016-01-31 09:34:19 »
No it's not a waste of Time we want to play with the original game with better model and texture, this is "our" remake and SE making new game with old things more modern.

Cyberman

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #7 on: 2016-01-31 19:47:21 »
Don't say that.  I've been working on a project for over 6 years now.  I'd hate to think that's been a waste of time.
Nothing is a waste of time. It is only a waste of time if you learn nothing in it.
I still have all my "stuff" from back when I had made a plugin system to edit PS1 game saves (lots of fun that).
I found ways of reverse engineering CRC's from save game data. (Which someone else had a nice article on I found a year later).
So nothing is a waste. Just depends on how you look at it.

As for the SE remake. I am very dubious with how they are right now that they can even come close to making a remake let alone a decent one. I say this having looked at the "stuff" they've made the last decade as getting worse as they moved along. It's sad because Square and Enix were great companies and made great games in themselves.

The source for the original game won't help much either. Not sure I would use that (save use the original concept and over all control of how things were made and done).

Their are many ways to do things. Many worse than others. LOL

Cyb

SpooX

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #8 on: 2016-02-02 20:46:54 »
Nothing is a waste of time. It is only a waste of time if you learn nothing in it.
...
Their are many ways to do things. Many worse than others. LOL

Cyb

Such warm and kind words from every one :)

Cyb, yours remind me of 宮本 武蔵 (1584-1645), I'm not sure if I quote him right but it is in the sense of:

Quote
..No matter how bad the experience is, as long as you learn from it, it is a good experience...
now I still have to learn how to fight with two swords... ;-P

I just love the philosophers at this forum.


And because of that I just fixed the 'Gallery' of the bombing mission as much as possible.
 8-)

and finally:

Spoiler: show
"A man cannot understand the art he is studying if he only looks for the end result without taking the time to delve deeply into the reasoning of the study."
 ???

The Berserker

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Re: Gallery Proposal
« Reply #9 on: 2016-02-09 15:18:52 »
yesss so does that mean the background project is back ? that would be epic
super excited here and await epicness from you guys :D