Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Devina

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 8
1
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2022-07-19 21:16:25 »
Pretty sure they said they'd leave the story alone. It's possible that the only change is how the Buster Sword looks like.

I definitely would not change the Buster Sword design in this mod as it would conflict with the FMVs.

We'll see what happens when it comes out, what the story/timeline stuff is like, what sort of texture changes are made, and go from there.

2
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2022-06-17 10:34:19 »
Soooo, Crisis Core remake just got announced. Pretty crazy, I honestly wasn't expecting it, but I'm pretty happy about it. I wonder if our project pressured Square to do something about Crisis Core and motivated them to remake it, but who knows.

There's honestly not much point to putting massive amounts of effort into our HDification project now, though we don't know how good/bad this remake will be, and if they'll strip or change a lot of content. For now, my development on the project is on hold.

Once the remake comes out, I'd like to take a look at its textures and probably port some of them into our project. Like, there's going to be new DMW portraits so I'd love to see what they look like in the old version of the game. We can then start making some "Crisis Core Reunion" optional mods as well. It also seems they're going to be releasing HD versions of the FMVs so I'd like to take screenshots of them and port them as well whenever possible. Whatever adjustments I can make.... well, we will see about that.

I have zero expertise with ripping textures from PC games, so I'd like people who can probably rip textures from the Crisis Core remake to revisit this topic once it comes out and help us out with this.

Until then, I'm going to be working more on the Before Crisis remake project, which I've posted an update here:

https://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19983.msg287670#msg287670

3
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2022-06-17 10:16:41 »
A quick update, I've decided to postpone the next update of Final Mix until after the remake of Crisis Core comes out this winter. The reason being, there's a high chance there's going to be some material/references in it to add to the game. Plus there's going to be even more Cissnei fans around this time.

I'm been very busy lately and had to deal with some stressful annoying situations and financial crap. I haven't had a lot of free time to work on the project, but I will now for the next 6 months.

The current demo has had over 250 downloads now apparently, so that makes me a bit happier. Thanks to those who are following this game's development and looking forward to Cissnei's trip in Junon. I have some secret surprises in the project that I'm keeping under wraps and are already implemented in the game as well.

4
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2022-03-11 05:16:26 »
Hey, we've made the decision to hide the game's source code. I probably should've specified "We decided to make our Github private." The game uses some paid plugins by some authors so we decided to hide the source code to respect the authors and prevent people from grabbing their plugins for free. All the Github has is the game's source code, nothing else. It's also convenient to not have to drop plugins in and out whenever we need to check the latest build.

And because of this, the Github source code is only available for developers or anyone who wishes to peek at the code to learn how we did things so they can learn and implement things into their own RPG Maker project. Ask here or IM me if someone wishes to learn how to implement Materia in their game, for example.

The download/version hasn't been updated anywhere since I posted it.
In the meantime, people may wish to check out our project on RPGMaker.net and become a subscriber:

https://rpgmaker.net/games/12400/

I'm still working on the game little by little each week. I just picked the song for the Elfe boss fight tonight.

5
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2022-02-18 17:09:44 »
I decided to take the advice and am in the process of trying to upload my Final Mix version to RMN.



I also decided this version will have a few small changes from the current available version.
Nothing HUGE or anything, but just something to tide people over until the intended chapter 3 update this summer.

For example, Cissnei will now have a new Limit Break inspired by Crisis Core: Lucky Stars.
It will restore her health and temporarily raise her max HP, while also increasing her evasion rate.

Hopefully I can get this small updated version on RMN by the end of the month. :)

6
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2022-02-15 04:14:11 »
Thanks you two, I'll probably upload the next Final Mix version to RMN then.
It's at 102 downloads right now on Mediafire... sooo, we have over 100 downloads now, just took a few months.
Thanks to all the downloaders as well.

I read somewhere that Ever Crisis is going to go in chronological order so they're (apparently) going to release their adaptation of Before Crisis first, but I don't have a concrete source for this. So I'll have my eyes peeled on that and if this is true, then I'd like to work the chapters around that so if Ever Crisis misses any important info, our version can fill in any gaps that Ever Crisis misses.

7
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2022-01-20 11:38:43 »
Hey everyone, it's a new year of covid and I thought it'd be a good time to post an update.
There's some good news and there's some bad news.
For now, I think it's best to get the bad news out of the way before I move onto the good news.

Soooo, it's been two months since the demo was released and...



I'll be honest, these numbers are a bit... disheartening.
83 downloads isn't terrible, but I know some of those downloads were mine in order to test the download worked, and that I passed the demo to some of my friends. I was kinda hoping by now that people would be talking about the game more and that we might have 150 downloads or something by this point. So I'm just sort of confused. I haven't received any donations myself either. I mentioned earlier I said the future of this project will rely on a little funding. I've seen a few people say "Oh, this looks cool!" and I reply "Great! Let me know what you think of the demo!" and then.... silence. I have like no feedback to go off. All I can do is hope our game will be a sleeper hit of sorts that will become more popular in the future, after all, Among Us was a quiet game for its first year.

It's just very "oof!" when you spend over a year of your life on a game and it feels no one is playing it. And I know it wasn't just me, everyone else like Obesebear and the voice actors put a lot of effort into making our demo a reality. I put a lot of effort into designing the Shinra Building level myself, even taking screencaps from Crisis Core (spoiler alert: our demo allows players to enter the front area outside Shinra as it appears in Crisis Core, which became an unused area and only appears in a small cutscene). Animating the fumes from the reactor alone, for example, took me at least two hours:



So I'm just curious, why the low download count? Maybe people don't play RPG Maker games or they're viewed as indie? Maybe it's just the curse of 99% of RPG Maker games, with exceptions like Omori and To the Moon being able to break the curse? Maybe the Cissnei fans are as dormant as the character, who disappeared after Crisis Core? Maybe Qhimm just isn't that popular these days, and most of the OG FF7 fans are in their 30s-50s by now and are busy adults who don't have time to play fan games? Who knows. Taking guesses isn't really important or productive, what matters is the future.

I noticed a similar thing to another game I enjoyed playing a lot called Farewell Eikon:


https://lapouris.itch.io/farewell-eikon

I played the demo a while back and heavily enjoyed playing it, and the game has only received 200 downloads as well.
(Yes, this is a shout-out to it.)

It just seems a bit strange, since FF7 has a huge fanbase and we're trying to make a canonical part of the storyline easily accessible. Then again, a huge chunk of FF7 fans don't even know what Before Crisis is. But yeah, stuff like a low download count demotivates me, to the point that I feel like I might as well scrap chunks out of the project, like Cissnei fighting alongside Zack in the ice cavern chapter.

Another possibility is that some people find the demo too hard, ragequit, and don't bother to tell their friends? Again, I wouldn't know since no one's given me enough feedback. As people can see, only one other commented in this topic after I released the demo. So here's some tips about the game if this is the case:

Spoiler: show

* At the beginning of the game, don't just head to the top left. Explore the map and make sure you click on any suspicious areas. You might find another level to explore.
* The All Materia is important, so use it once you get it to survive all the Avalanche members outside the reactor.
* When you see the treasure chests, you have the ability to open at least one of them. Here's a hint: the answer is in your pocket.
* Barrier is a must against Shears, and you only should bring one magic Materia into the battle. It doesn't matter if you choose Gravity or Fire or whatever. None of them do more elemental damage.
* Shears never uses 2x Cut twice in a row. You can get away with doing a strong attack or whatever you need to with this knowledge.
* Use the window of time before he unleashes his power move to kill you. You need 40 MP to cast Barrier and be sure you fully heal.


So now, onto the good news.

This project won't be cancelled. Obesebear has given me the go to make a "branch" of the game. He's very busy with his life and has very little time to work on a fan game that receives little downloads and already has an official remake called Ever Crisis supposedly coming out. He might do his own version of Chapter One using 3D models with his own take on the chapter, but no guarantees.

The vast majority of video games with full teams have developers constantly floating ideas back and forth, often with disagreements or compromises, with developers saying things like "Ehhh, I think that's not a good idea." This often results in some sad devs because their ideas and creative vision gets scrapped. This is just the reality of game development with multiple members. For example, should Cissnei receive this or that Materia after a boss fight? How should a character be written? Is the boss fight too hard, easy or just right? Et cetera. Our version 0.1a of the game is built a result of our compromises and lots of consensus over many months.

However, the Final Mix version will allow me to express my creative freedom and desires to my full ability, without needing to constantly check-in with someone else or ask for permission to go forward with an idea, so I appreciate him giving me this opportunity.

For now, I've decided to called this branch Before Crisis: Cissnei -Final Mix-
(And yes, Final Mix is a Kingdom Hearts reference, just for fun. "FM" for short.)

It will be solely authorized by me (with text lifted and adapted from the original game), so I ask that no one views the Final Mix version as Obesebear's work. So if, for some reason, someone does not like something in the Final Mix version, then blame me, not him.

I've spent a long time (months, actually) pondering what the FM version should have. Something I will be transparent about is that the storyline will branch a little bit at the ending, which won't be out for quite a while. It will answer what happened to Cissnei after Crisis Core and address why she does not appear in the rest of the Compilation of FF7. Of course, this is purely fanon but this one of the few divergences I want to have in my creative vision.

FM will contain chapter two as a two-minute long slideshow summary, like this:



Chapter three will be playable and feature Elfe as a boss fight at the end.
This is one of my main motivations to keep working on the project, since I really wanted to have a cool Elfe-Cissnei battle.
Here's some images from the incomplete chapter three:



Chapter three in my Final Mix version is aimed at a release date of Summer 2022.
Afterwards, I will summarize chapters 4-22, with each chapter being a two-minute slideslow.
It only takes me 2 days to summarize one chapter as a slideshow, like I did for chapter two.
They will also have appropriate music, so Aerith's chapter will include her theme, for example.

Players will be able to save between each chapter.
This means people can play our version alongside Richter's and not have to choose "which version should I play?" People can just play his first, then watch the 2 min summary in our version between each chapter for a basic recap, and to see all of the HD portraits. Each chapter will feature a world map image like chapter one, giving players an idea of where the action is set:



Final Mix will end with a playable version of Chapters 23/24 and will end with the final boss of the game, Zirconiade. Players will be able to get through the final dungeon using high-level materia such as Firaga, Thundaga, etc.

I hope people look forward to the Final Mix version. The finale of it has a loose release date of the end of 2022. I still have a lot on my plate, for example, I need to finish spriting Elfe:



I spoke to many of the voice actors who worked on their demo, and basically all of them said they were willing to help out in the future. So to all the voice actors: for now, you can rest for a while. The sub-server in the Tsunamods channel will remain open as my development on the game continues, although it won't be very active, of course.

Something I could use now, however, is a good Elfe voice actress. I have someone in mind but right now, they're just a possibility and I want to see other voices, so anyone interested in voicing Elfe, please post your auditions on the channel. Just say whatever you want like "Let's do this!" or "This is your end, Turk!" or "How could I lose...?" I don't really care about the lines said, I care more about the voice, range and tones than the lines. And in the future, I'd ideally like a Fuhito voice actor for a possible boss fight.

So to recap, update two (up to chapter three) should in the middle of this year, while the rest of the game will be update three (at the end of this year). After that, I'm not sure. There's always possibilities for me to go back and flesh out the summaries into fully playable chapters, or I might make my own version of Episode Reno since I finished his sprites and his moveset and voice acting is done. The future is full of potential. But at the very least, our remake will have five playable chapters (1, Shinra Building, 3, 23, 24) and be an immersive way for players to know the full story of Before Crisis.

Our Discord is open and everyone is welcome to join, give their feedback on the demo, or help out in any ways they see fit, whether it be submitting art, music, volunteering to be a voice actor, giving us exposure, etc. For example, Chapter Three will feature a remix of the Chapter One theme because someone gave me permission to use their fan-remix.

8
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-12-21 20:48:53 »
Hey everyone, it's been a while and it's been a busy year. FF7 Remake is out on PC (Epic only, sadly...) but it's going to create a lot of interest in FF7.

I decided to revisit this project and do another playthrough to ensure more textures are up-to-par. I've said before that I'm 97 percent satisfied with this project, but now, I'm going to be working on it for a few more months for some more room for improvement. Many of these improvements will improve accuracy to the original. After a few more months, my satisfaction will be around 98-99 most likely.

I met a very talented friend a while ago who's really good at this stuff and they're going to help with these improvements. Here's some of their work:



The first revision didn't convey the sign was an old sign enough and looked too new, so now it has a more rustic and grime look. I also made the kanji white as it should be.

They also helped to create this new and improved logo in the museum:



Here's another example of an accuracy edit, where I lengthened the middle of the 3:



I hope everyone looks forward to these improvements and I'll be posting notable updates. I won't be posting everything we do, but for the major ones, I'll definitely post them.

I also updated my post on the front page to include some comparisons so people will have a better idea of this project.

9
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2021-11-09 11:41:37 »
Hey everyone, I'm here to finally release the demo,

This version is now what I consider the "gold demo", as in "the game has gone gold".

Our game is now titled Before Crisis: Cissnei.



Here's a sharable trailer for our game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PQhBEjjDGY

It's 1:30 long. The trailer is not full of any huge major spoilers, but some people may wish to not see the trailer in case they want absolutely nothing spoiled. The trailer shows some combat, menus, a few moments from some cutscenes. And expect some music from Devil May Cry.

There's a lot of things I want to go over so here's some organized sections for easier reading.

WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG?

First off, I want to talk a little bit about my background and the creation of this. I've been working on this for about 3/4 of a year (although I made some sprites before that), and when I first started, I had little experience with RPG Maker, so I've had to learn a lot from scratch. I've probably put around 200-250 hours over the past several months. I'm a hermit myself so this pandemic had little effect on my ability to contribute.

My last post in this topic was in February this year so it's been a while. I decided not to post in this topic since because I didn't want to disappoint anyone, since I noticed a pattern of me constantly not being able to keep up with the deadlines I wanted to, and I didn't want to cause a cycle of hype and disappointment. However, it was ultimately for the better: good things take time and I did not want to rush it myself. I also wanted to spend a lot of time polishing the game.

It took us this longer than we hoped to release this, although they are many reasons why:

-Both me and Obesebear were learning the hoops of RPG Maker. Sometimes plugins broke something or we had to spend time fixing some stuff. Both of us are way more talented at RPG Maker now and any future development on the game would not take as long because the initial hard hurdles are over.
-Me taking a long time to join the Discord and get more involved (I thought being part of the Qhimm forum would be enough, but it turns out being part of active discussions is far more important than I realized). Additionally, I was busy doing a lot of work on the Crisis Core Upscale Project so I wanted to finish that up a bit.
-We had to move everything from 4:3 to 16:9, and re-do the backgrounds and positions of characters.
-We had to re-loop the music of the original tracks, as we decided to no longer use MIDIs.
-We had to change all the background windows to a translucent version.
-The release of Ever Crisis in February severely disheartened me and Obesebear's motivation to work on this project.
-I went on vacation and due to an unfortunate situation, I was lost a week more than I wanted to.
-We decided we wanted to include partial voice acting, so with the help of Tsunamods, we were able to find some good actors to bring the cast to life.
-I wanted to add the Shinra Building, so I created the entire level myself.
-We implemented a new script.
-I had to spend time studying some of the OG FF7 (such as how menus look) and ripping sound effects

ABOUT THE CURRENT DEMO

Now that that's out of the way, here's some basic information about our game, dubbed 0.1a for now. If I had to give a rough estimate as to how long it is, it could be between 1 hr 20 mins up to even 4 hours. Why the big gap in playtime, you ask? Well, some players may breeze through the combat while others may need to spend time retrying.

Some things in our version were not actually part of Before Crisis, but for understandable reasons. This demo is not a 1:1 recreation of Before Crisis' chapter 1, and it never will be. However, don't be alarmed because but we aimed to be faithful where it counts, so people can still play our version and not be left out on anything, especially story-wise. Think of it as more of a vanilla KH2 vs KH2: Final Mix experience. For example, there is a boss battle and a secret optional location not available in the original. This is because we wanted our chapter one to be a banger with more exploration.

One major change is that Cissnei was not actually playable until chapter until Chapter 18 in Before Crisis, as she was more of an unlockable "bonus" in the game. In our version, Cissnei is our protagonist because we felt it was the best choice and Crisis Core wants us to empathize with her. I agree that it would be better to be Cissnei, as opposed to one of the other random Turks who have little backstory and are ignored by the rest of the Compilation of FF7. Cissnei is intended to be written into our script in a natural manner. At the very least, our version is a nice little "prequel" to Crisis Core and a taste of Before Crisis for people who know very little about it. I also hope it will help people empathize with Cissnei before her appearance in Crisis Core.

I did the entire combat system myself, balancing enemies. I decided to go with turn-based instead of ATB because turn-based is easier to program for and balance. An ATB version someday in the future is not out of the question, but it is far from being my priority.

SOME THINGS I'M NOT TOTALLY SATISFIED WITH

There are some things I didn't get to put in this version which I would like to later. For example, I think some of the sprite work could be improved (I'm not too happy with Cissnei's walking animation), and I would like to add some more dialog choices. At one point, two characters turn semi translucent because I didn't want to delay this demo any longer, but I do plan to add KOed sprites in later. Some things I wanted to implement was a way to make the TP (aka Limit in our game) bar to flash colors when full, but I could not find a way. Another thing people may notice is that footsteps may be inconsistent or not appear in certain areas. This should be addressed in the future.

HELP, ADVICE WITH THE DEMO, AND OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION. READ THIS!

- F4 is fullscreen, F5 is force reload to title screen
- Shift (to run), Z (confirm)/X (cancel/menu) are used if you are playing on keyboard.
- This demo is controller compatible, but you may need to press cancel or some other button in order to "activate" your controller first. Try spamming all buttons on your controller to get it active. It's a weird RPG Maker thing.
- Be sure to extract the "www" folder inside the .rar as well or saving won't work.
- You need to examine the first save point in order to use it, walking over it won't work. Please test to see if the first save points works. It's not a super long demo anyway and you can retry battles if you die.
- The "ALL" Materia does not work exactly like FF7 automatically. You need to press a button (such as Shift on PC) while targeting enemies. As in FF7, the All Materia needs to be in a paired slot.
- If you hold Z during cutscenes, it will fast-forward them.
- Please do not spoil the puzzles (e.g. posting number codes) in this thread. It ruins the fun.
- Please read the instructions and tutorials very carefully as you play. If you skim, you'll probably end up confused somewhere.
- You can get through the combat more easily if you notice general patterns to the enemies and strategize. My advice is to be conservative with healing items, and focus on defeating one enemy at a time because flip-flopping will give them more turns.

THE FUTURE OF THIS DEMO AND BEFORE CRISIS: CISSNEI

Unfortunately, at this time, we simply don't know what the future is for our project. This is because a lot of it is based on the success of this demo, reception and popularity. Ideally, I would like to finish the game (all 25ish chapters) and it's something I could very well work on for several more years. Although I'd summarize some boringish filler chapters, I'd keep the chapters which I feel are worth preserving. Here are the chapters which I would summarize and the ones which I could ensure are remade (if the game is finished in the future, then I would like to later make the chapters I summarized to be playable):

Spoiler: show

2 - Summary. The layout is rather boring and President Shinra is meh.
3 - Playable, because it introduces Elfe.
4 - Summary, meh Azul storyline
5 - Summary, linear layout despite Cloud, no major plot significance
6 - Summary, Rude/Chelsea storyine isn't significant to main plot
7 - Summary - Sebastian/Essai are meh
8 - Playable, with Zack as an ally
9 - Summary, linear layout, Heidegger is meh
10 - Playable, has interesting Shinra Building layout
11 - Playable, with Aerith as ally
12 - Summary, it's linear and just going over the Nibelheim Incident
13 - Playable, important plot details, interesting Shinra Mansion layout
14 - IDK, layout of Wutai is interesting so maybe a mix of summary and playable
15 - Summary, linear, meh Cid story
16 - Playable, with Barret as ally, interesting dungeon
17 - Playable, important storyline
18 - Summary, Cosmo Canyon boring
19 - Playable
20 - Summary
21 - Summary
22 - Summary
23 - Playable, final dungeon
24 - Playable, final dungeon


Depending on how things go, we may stop after a few updates, or we may finish it to the end. One of the major reasons is, of course, the elephant in the room: Ever Crisis. Why work on a remake if Square already said they are remaking it? None of us expected this and it caught us off-guard. We have no idea how faithful their remake will be to the original. This is why we don't have plans to put the project on full blast (i.e. making every chapter playable) to the end. However, we have created a version of the game that is still a great "base" for the future at the very least. If Ever Crisis happens to miss anything important or change too much (such as removing some important flashback important to a character's backstory), our version could be a complement to it.

DONATIONS

Our version is free and will always be free, and we made this as a passion project with little budget. Perhaps even a shoestring budget. Obesebear is accepting donations and the more funds he receives, the more he will feel motivated to fully work on the game. Creating this demo was time-consuming, and creating the rest of the game with only two main programmers will also be. So if you enjoyed our demo and wish for the game to have a bright and complete future, please donate here:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=5VY9FTRUS4LES&no_recurring=1&currency_code=USD

People can feel free to donate to me as well, but I prefer only Steam wallet codes via forum or Discord PMs (I buy games occasionally, but the money I save from games helps my life out in other ways, so it's just another way to donate).

ABOUT LEGALITY

Some people may be wondering about the legality of this project. This is legal because people have been creating fan games using official assets for ages. However, this also means Square has the right to send a C and D at any time, but it is unlikely they care, and it would be an insult to the FF7 fans, and people who have been working to archive Before Crisis. Additionally, our version is free and it is usually when people put their fan games behind a paywall when companies start to take action (meanwhile, we are simply accepting optional donations). Richter already remade his own version of Before Crisis and has had no difficulties with Square, so we are not worried.

RPG MAKER HELP, POSSIBLE TRANSLATIONS, AND RECRUITMENT

There is a community of creative, passionate RPG Maker devs out there and making certain aspects of our game was a confusing process at times, such as implementing our phone menu, making sure custom animations appear, etc. We have decided to hide the game's source code in order to respect the authors of the paid plugins we bought. However, if anyone is working on an RPG Maker game and is wondering how we did X or Y in our demo, they can send me a message on our server and I will be happy to help out and can provide screenshots of the relevant code so other devs can improve their game.

If anyone would like to offer to volunteer to work on Before Crisis: Cissnei in any way shape or form, even in spite of its uncertain future, feel free to post a message in our Discord.

If anyone would like to translate our demo into another language, feel free to ask. I made some mock-ups for fun of what our game would look like in Japanese:



If someone encounters any major bugs, or has suggestions about anything, please let us know on our Discord.

CREDITS



I would also like to thank Naoya, who has been nice to talk to, and their efforts in trying to archive the original Before Crisis.

We also thank Richterwilker, who created a previous Before Crisis remake and inspired us to create our own. It is important that everyone knows that we are not trying to "one-up" Richter or take his thunder away from his version, we have respect for his work and don't want to hear any stupid false accusations that it's our intent.

DOWNLOAD

https://www.mediafire.com/file/qj616bjd7czmmua/BC_Demo_0.1a.rar/file

Here is the download, it is 400mb.

10
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-10-05 04:34:08 »
If characters have their eyes closed when they shouldn't be, then you might've missed this in my post:

While visiting Banora, enable Retain changed textures to fix slowdown in Angeal's house, then remember to disable after leaving Banora to prevent blinking animation errors

11
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-08-07 20:05:19 »
Hi 14190ateru, please send your .pngs our way, I'd be happy to use them.

And the red tie slipped my mind. We have some plans for some improved Genesis/Two Turks computer monitor screens, so stay tuned.

12
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-07-06 19:25:04 »
I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't been able to edit much, but I wanted to post this little update.

Zack's portrait in the main menu have been updated thanks to Sabekio.

Because these are more accurate, the 2D versions are now a mod in the folder (we were previously using 2D art so it would look nicer).


13
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-03-12 12:43:55 »
I'll try to be mindful of this for future editing. I have an alpha prototype for the 2nd Class sword, but I think it's too dull and not reflective enough so it's on hold for now.

Sometimes, I've had to make sacrifices and changes in order to maintain an HD presentation, like how there is no 3D art of Zack's portraits in high quality, so I went with the Nomura 2D look. And then there's the filler text.

I've sort of burned up a lot of energy working on this project so I'm not going to go into overdrive mode or anything, or make wild changes, I've been wanting to focus on the Before Crisis remake now. I do plan on fixing on NPC phasing soon at least. Just keep in mind, nothing is finalized and someday, I could make Zack's clothes duller. It just takes a lot of time and effort for me and I'm a bit busy these days so it's not a high priority.

Unfortunately, if people don't want to use the project because they're super purist about the original presentation, there's not much we can do about that because making an HD version of the game simply requires artistic choices ultimately. I did give a warning in my post on page one about how for the most part, we try to stay true where it counts. I could make a fun gallery comparison in the future explaining some of the more major artistic changes so people won't need to fear what they may be missing out on, and I also mentioned the player can toggle the texture replacement hotkey as well.

14
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-03-12 02:08:51 »
It would help if you were a bit more specific. I do have future plans to make the golden part of the sword less gold and a more subdued color. It would also help if you shared your textures too.

15
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-03-07 11:55:51 »
After a week of reviewing the game on another playthrough, I'm pleased to announce that the game is once again stable, so everyone should update their packs using the latest Github build.

I've fixed various errors caused by the recent update.

There are some minor little goofs here and there, and not everything is 100% perfect (NPCs still phase quality for now), but the game is very much in a solid playable state so if anyone is super eager to play CC, just go ahead and play it. Like I said, the goof are minor. If anyone sees anything they feel is a distracting major errorr, however, feel free to post them here or on our Discord server.

Me and Zakkura also remastered this door texture (original/first release/revision):



You can really see how the new algorithm provides a much better, cleaner and more accurate base.

16
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-02-28 22:50:13 »
Hey everyone, the new textures are all in now, and much of the quality has improved.
As a warning, we're going to need a couple weeks or so to fix things that are broken as the pack is now unstable with errors like this:



So don't bother download from Github in the meantime.

17
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2021-02-23 22:28:01 »
Some positive news, we've done quite a bit of an overhaul of chapter one over the past month.
There are a lot of new updates but I don't want to spoil what will be in the demo. I want a lot of stuff to catch players off-guard.

Right now, we're just doing the finishing touches and I'm currently making battle sprites. Here's a sneak preview:



Everything's going smoothly.
Anyone with RPG Maker MV expertise is welcome to help us as this project is open source.

As for a timeframe of the demo, if I had to guess, maybe in 2-3 weeks from now.

18
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-02-12 19:08:34 »
^ I wouldn't know anything about that yet, sorry.

I know it's been two weeks since I posted, but there's a major update coming soon and that is, we're using a new algorithm to upscale. Since most of this project is done by AI, this means that most chromatic abberation should be gone and textures will look way better. Various textures are also going to be double their size so there's higher quality.




Even little details that were lost are going to be re-added, like the indents here:





I encourage everyone to wait until all the new textures are rolled out, then do a replaythrough and check for errors.

19
Team Avalanche / Re: Project Edge (Jusete's field scenes)
« on: 2021-02-05 12:41:55 »
Yes, it's as easy as a folder replace.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_(2012)

You should read the last link under "Other useful mods" section.

20
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-01-29 21:44:03 »
-Dialog font and battle numbers in bottom left now have thicker borders to make it easier to read them. The black pixel garbage on the bottom has also been fixed, but you get the idea. All transparent UIs and Xbox UIs have been updated.




(Just noticed the u is higher than it should be, will fix that later)





-Final battle soldiers have been upressed using screencaps, making them look like they truly belong in the scene. As a result, they no longer animate but it's worth it since their frames-per-second was off-putting and slower compared to everything else. It doesn't make sense why they're constantly moving up and down anyway, or shooting at Zack while he's fighting the other soldiers since they could be hit in crossfire. What the game does is have 3 types of soldiers doing 3 types of animations, and each only has about 30 frames.

21
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-01-26 09:51:00 »
Any idea what this means? I'd like some easy copy-pastable text so I can insert this.



And does anyone know what's supposed to be under Jenova?
(Going to prolly re-do Jenova later, the font looks bad)



I tried looking at the original game and you can sort of make out something:



I guess it might be an eternal mystery. I think I'm going to go with 159-Cover 1.0 since that's what satsuki went with.

22
WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake
« on: 2021-01-25 11:42:42 »


Hey everyone, some updates.

For one, we are igniting the development of the project on the Discord.
Everyone interested in the project please join us there.

The development of the game is now open-source.
Everyone is welcome and those with RPG Maker MV skills are extremely vital.
The more people who collaborate with us, the faster we can get this game out.
For example, someone joining us could mean the difference between a release date of 2022 instead of 2024.

The current status of the game is be hosted here, at:

https://github.com/DevinaGithub/Before-Crisis-Remake

RPG Maker MV is currently required to access the playable version.

Finally, we plan to release a Chapter 1 demo sometime soonish in the future.
Can't give an exact release date just yet.

Finally, a sneak preview of the game's menu:


23
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-01-25 01:56:15 »
Some updates:

threethan has added optional Xbox prompts and has fixed some minor issues.

New Highwind art has been added.

Cloud's 1st class outfit, and the two cameos at the end of the game now have better clothing.

Some posters in the Soldier hallway now have updated, consistent font.

Tifa has been updated, mainly her belly button which weirded some people out.
Her hat has been darkened to hide some noise, and her hair is darker.



Monitor background has been updated, even if it only appears for like 3 seconds:



Fixed some noise and the podium:


24
Team Avalanche / Re: Project Edge (Jusete's field scenes)
« on: 2021-01-20 07:27:43 »
Looks amazing so far.

Has anyone gotten this issue with the chocobo farm interior? "frmin"



Using latest Reunion, game save is during the Meteor fall near the end of the game.
There's four files, not sure what's causing it.

25
Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project
« on: 2021-01-11 03:54:09 »
Thanks JBedford128, if you have anything else that could help the project like Banora White logos or something, I'd appreciate it.

Original:


Version 2:


Version 3:


I've still yet to fix some artifacting, but the general image is complete.
I also managed to fix the seams a little so they're less obvious. I'll re-add the description and should upload it in a weekish.

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 8