Messages

626

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-06 06:17:17 »

Thanks a lot for your feedback guys, good food for thoughts. Too bad I'm off for two weeks. I'll try to find the time to discuss these points. 'Later!

627

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-05 19:25:55 »

Those trophes are the shiniest thing in Midgar.

I can put "make the trophies more dull" on my to do list, if you think that'd be better *nods*

After closer examination of my Hi-res render, I was considering the additional revisions:

- Instead of making corrugated metal sheets and grids with bumpmaps, I should do them with actual 3D meshes
- I should revise some junction between the floor and the mattress

There's something I could really use some advise about: overall, I feel like the place feels "too clean". I tried to fix it by putting some subtle "dust" textures, but I think it doesn't achieve the effect I would like. To be more specific, I feel like the scene needs to convey a certain "thickness" to the light, and I'm not sure how to do that. I thought about particle modelling (for floating dust) but I'm not sure that's the way to go. The lighting effects in the renders by anaho and Spoox are pretty awesome, and I really don't know how to do something like that.

628

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-05 16:06:39 »

Ok folks, I think I'm almost done with this one...

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/4253/wipthisguyaresick3.png

I'll be on a trip to Europe tomorrow, so I won't be able to do any 3D modelling for 2 weeks. However, in the meantime, feel free to send suggestions as to improve the render of this scene - I think that's the best I can do without further input.
Cheers!

629

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-05 01:52:05 »

First I am not an expert at blender, however I suggest you export the final frame as a static model then do a polygon reduction on it. That should speed things up for you. Otherwise you will have however many polygons it used per mesh instead of the reduced count you probably can get concatenation strips of polygons into larger ones. There are a number of polygon reduction algorithms I believe for blender. You are just working on a static scene correct? Is the TV ever on in the game? I can't remember.

Thanks for the advice. In fact, once the "animation" is fully computed, I can work on the scene without much problem. Still, exporting the stating frame is a good idea and would lighten the file a lot. I don't think I would even need to reduce the number of polys (still I would consider it for more complicated scenes, so thanks for the tip).
Concerning the TV: in game, the TV is on, but with a static screen which is overexposed. At this point I used the screen shown in Avalanche headquarters for UV mapping (the screen is not flat because it's an old TV). However I was wondering:
- Is it feasible to implement this scene into the game as a dynamic scene? In which case, we could play a movie on the screen (such as the post-bombing mission short FMV with the reactor exploding) to enhance all that.
- If it were possible to do the above, would TA go with this idea or stick to a purely static screen because the original game was so?

630

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-04 04:07:31 »

Texturing almost done...



... hope you enjoy!

631

Team Avalanche / Re: New Project: Bombing Mission!

« on: 2012-09-01 20:17:20 »

Seems like it. Reminds me of the grenades found in Valkyria Chronicles

http://valkyria.wikia.com/wiki/Grenades

632

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-01 03:55:48 »

Thanks!

Blender indeed uses Python for its scripting.
Well, I don't know how experienced modellers would use the cloth physics, but this is how I did it. Let's take the case of the hanging clothes in the background:

I used a refined mesh for rectangular clothes, which I let fall onto the clothesline. The refined mesh is necessary for getting nice ripples. The collision physics (including self-collision) make the cloth ripple and wave dynamically with the cloth subject to gravity, and I let the "simulation" run until the cloth assume a "near-rest" position. It may not be very clear in the picture, but the clothes are hanging on both sides of the clothesline. So in that case, I had to compute all the animations between the release of the cloth and the "near-rest" position. Once all the animation is computed, I could access whatever frame and render it (I was interested in the "near-rest" position so I rendered the very last frame I calculated).
Probably there are much simpler ways to do what I did, if you have some tips I'll appreciate 

633

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-31 15:42:39 »

Update - I started to use Blender's cloth physics...




... much to the agony of my poor old laptop 

634

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-08-30 23:45:06 »

Wow! That's certainly impressive... good job!

However, I am a little confused... are you and Sapphire sharing assets or are these 2 different, separate modelling works?

635

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-30 00:37:52 »

Ah so I assume that you speak french? Yeah it was so bad that we couldn't understand correctly the story, until now, the most french speaker don't know the correct story of the game. The guy who launch the project is Acro, the creator of http://ff7.fr/ (the biggest encyclopedia of FF7 that exists on the world, I think  ) , the patch is almost finished, I can't wait! He even restored 2 missing quest of the game.
About costa Del sol,  now that I have a fresh Maya 2012+ an interessant render engine (VRay 2.0) , I think I will continue.
It's not finished, but here's a pic, just for fun 
I really don't like the wood texture

Well, I'm French, though I now live in the lands of elks and hockey players. It is true that back then you had to rely on your imagination to follow the story (I had it right though). I know of ff7.fr, I have been lurking around Acro's site for quite a while - a very thorough and impressive work. Still, now that I am used to English language in video games (video game voice acting is way better in English than French, which is the opposite in movie industry for some reason), I'm not looking forward to a French re-translation as much as before.
All the best for your progress on that Costa del Sol scene, and happy modelling!

636

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-28 13:58:44 »

Great stuff Mayo, I don't think anyone has really touched the slums apart from one other person here. Good to see it's getting some attention!

Thanks Sapphire! Well, with the Bombing mission mostly taken care of, I figured the Slums were the next logical step. Plus I wanted to start with something rather simple.

yes Les Marronniers with 2 N, but this mistake is nothing compared to the whole french translation of FF7  Fortunately we have a mega fan who retranslate the game from japanse, we will have soon a new experience of the game
Nice modelisation guys, each time I see new work here, I want to continue mine

Tell me about it! Ah, I remember the good old times (I discovered FF7 in French), the translation mistakes, the gibberish phrases, the typos, and even the bits of English text left in some lines...
Anyway, I look forward to seeing you continuing your work on Costa del Sol!

637

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-27 19:26:09 »

There is a list, but only for the Bombing mission, and, if I'm correct, it hasn't be updated in a long long time.
 

I was under the impression that all the 3D fields of the Bombing Mission were already being taken care of. Nevertheless, maybe a big list as I mentioned above would be in order. I could volunteer, but I think it'd be better if someone who's been around TA much longer (and knows who did what) did it.

638

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-27 19:05:04 »

By the way, I have another question:

- Is there somewhere a list of the field screens to be modelled and who is taking care of which? Given that Team Avalanche does not seem to have that much manpower, it would be silly to end up with 2 people working on the very same things.

639

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-27 06:36:26 »

Noob effort




This guy are sick...

640

Team Avalanche / Re: Noob willing to help

« on: 2012-08-25 15:33:54 »

The camera match function in Sketchup was indeed attractive. I'm wondering: can you use Sketchup match function to draw the basic frame of your 3D field, and then import that to Blender via using 3ds Max as intermediate? Well, it would also be useful to be able to edit that sort of stuff.
Then on Blender we can always set a background image from the camera viewpoint, but setting it manually is a bit... tedious.

Otherwise, now that I got the basics in Blender, I think I'd rather stick to it.

641

Team Avalanche / Re: Noob willing to help

« on: 2012-08-23 20:10:51 »

After the recommendations of squall8cloud7, I started to learn using Blender and I now grasp the basics.
So, I decided to start simple and begin with modelling basic objects, which would be later incorporated in 3D fields (as I thought about remaking the sector 7 sewers, initially). Then I had the following idea:
- Since I'm a noob in 3D modelling, maybe I could focus on making simple items which would be re-usable assets, for other 3D modellers to use in their own 3D fields. I know that part of Final Fantasy VII artistic strength is to feature many screens using unique items, but it would be relevant to have objects such as cans, glass bottles, plastic bottles, cigarette packs, chairs, crates, ash trays, etc. be featured in several scenes. If needed, I could make several variations of each items with different textures/mapping. For example, making glass bottles, I could design several labels to make different kinds of beer, soda, etc.
- This idea would lead to the design of "brands", which would be relevant with the world of Final Fantasy VII. I think we could take some artistic liberties in that respect, though still referencing to this universe. For instance, there could be the "Chocobo King" beer ("Chocobo King" is a sign featured in the post-credit of Crisis Core), or the "Rocket smoke" cigarettes. Personally, I would have fun handling that.
- With the idea of designing reusable assets, I could browse the field screens and list all the objects which could be falling in this category, and make a document referencing objects/field screens. Then 3D modellers could consult this list and pick the suitable items.
- Since I'm a noob, I may need a few guidelines concerning the making of such 3D re-usable objects. More specifically, I have little idea about what would be reasonable poly counts for simple objects. I could also optimize the scale of the items so that they would be easier to use by someone else.     
- There's also the issue of making "future proof" 3D models. If Team Avalanche is going to release this 3D-based graphical overhaul somewhere around 2030, perhaps we would like to make items with higher poly-counts so that we can make insane-high-res renders with future technology (1920 x 1080 is the current standard, but what of it in 15 years?). Someone else who has played Gran Turismo 5 will understand where this concern comes from.

So... that's all for this post, I'll appreciate your feedback on these ideas.   

642

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-21 16:37:15 »

Sorry about the trouble for remaking the sign 

By the way, I have a question about some tiny details concerning the re-modelling of Midgar features.
I understand that you aim to recreate something very faithful to the original. However, in the original FF7, there are several features which are "wrong" or "mistakes". A couple of examples to illustrate my point:
- In Final Fantasy VII, in Midgar, several items bear the mention of "Midgal" (like the tiny three-wheeled truck) or "Midgul" (on a couple of signs), which come from a wrong conversion of the Japanese phonetic alphabet into roman characters (they should have shown "Midgar" instead).
- As it was mentioned elsewhere, the street layout of Sector 8 is odd, as the vehicle seen in the intro sequence actually come from nowhere and are driving into dead ends.
So, my question is: do you intend to replicate the original features even if they are wrong, or is there any plan to correct/modify these aspects to make things more sensible? 

643

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-08-19 16:45:03 »

Great job Sapphire! I hope the rescaling of the centre part wasn't too tedious.

644

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-18 16:54:44 »

Finally someone who noticed ....

I cheated: I can speak French. Anecdotally, it means "the chestnut trees".

645

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-17 22:12:27 »

Details details details.
Since I am competing for the trophy of being today's pain in the butt, may I point out something? 
"Les Marronniers" with two "n" is the proper spelling (as it is in the crisis core post-credit scene).

646

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-08-17 18:33:17 »

Sorry to have brought that up
If my observations are correct, it seems it is especially the central building which is too small. In particular, for reference, the "horizontal cylinder" of the main building is located at higher elevations than the two "weird side buildings".

647

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-08-17 17:40:09 »

I understood the reactors were too large, it's just that the central district (Sector 0) looks less high in comparison to the diameter of the plate than it was originally (see link).
http://finalfantasyviipc.com/images/media_shinra_big.jpg

648

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-08-17 15:53:38 »

Excuse the noob question, but it looks like you downscaled the central district (Sector 0). Why?

649

Team Avalanche / Re: Noob willing to help

« on: 2012-08-10 03:10:33 »

I see. This reminds me of my initial issues with Sketchup, as I initially used it for creating importable objects into the free version of Terragen2, and my objects were inexplicably falling apart even though the Sketchup 3D preview was flawless.
Thanks for the link, I will try to learn Blender bit by bit - even though my laptop won't make it user-friendly

650

Team Avalanche / Noob willing to help

« on: 2012-08-08 02:07:52 »

Good people of Team Avalanche, I salute you!

I personally always have been interested in the concepts of remaking or overhauling FF7, and the works of your team is really stunning. All the new 3D models I have seen in these pages are amazing! So, I'd like to try to contribute within my limited abilities - I'm quite a noob when it comes to 3D modelling, I mostly had fun with stuff like Terragen in the past (anyone interested in rendering empty outdoor fields?). I thought I could do a couple of things with free Sketchup because it's rather intuitive (I'm not cut to use stuff like Blender), even though I'm working at the pace of a snail under prozac.
So, here's hoping I could be of some use, and to begin with, I've started the modelling of this field screen.



I hope it's at least recognizable!