Author Topic: [FF8-2013 PC/Steam] BattleFieldPack v3.1 [NEW UPDATE!]  (Read 106934 times)

Mcindus

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BattleFieldPack v3.1 for FF8 Steam 2013 version

OFFICIAL RELEASE!!!

***Updated: 7/27/20***

With the combined efforts of myself and FatedCourage, we bring you the NEW BattleFieldPack v3.1
Most BattleFields in the game have been either Upscaled, Re-created, or given completely new Artwork!

Join my Patreon and help make these beautiful mods :)

Make sure you have the latest tonberry or the Lunatic Pandora Modpack installed and follow the directions in the Readme!

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UPDATE:  This release requires that you delete any old versions of this mod!
To do so:
1.  Delete the 'ba' folder from /FINAL FANTASY VIII/textures/
2.  Delete the hashmap file 'battlefieldpackv1.1_hm.csv' from /FINAL FANTASY VIII/tonberry/hashmap
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Get it here:
Download BattleFieldPack v3.1


ALL Artists/Modders:  Please contact me if you are interested in contributing on the project.

Artists:
MCINDUS - All UPSCALES and custom outdoor battlefields. MANY miscellaneous custom textures.
Zeeber - Training Center
Crestian - Tomb of the Unknown King 'Main'
Shunsq - Original Comm Tower textures - additional textures by MCINDUS

Some Screenshots:






Let me know if there are any glitches!
________
MCINDUS
« Last Edit: 2020-07-28 01:49:11 by Mcindus »

Nunsrgr8

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #1 on: 2015-10-20 02:14:55 »
Cool, I've been waiting for this all day buddy. I'll check into what's been done and I'll pool my resources with yours. I've gotten the "Magic Lamp" textures complete, some of the Dollet textures complete (City Square, I'll compare yours and mine), and I'm currently working on Timber and the Gerogero battle textures. You mentioned Fated Courage is working on this as well, are his/her textures included as well?

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #2 on: 2015-10-20 02:35:05 »
Cool, I've been waiting for this all day buddy. I'll check into what's been done and I'll pool my resources with yours. I've gotten the "Magic Lamp" textures complete, some of the Dollet textures complete (City Square, I'll compare yours and mine), and I'm currently working on Timber and the Gerogero battle textures. You mentioned Fated Courage is working on this as well, are his/her textures included as well?

The textures I've been working on are not included in this. You also say you're working on Timber? Once you get to the area with the Pub, let me know if that battle field is giving you any trouble or not. That's one of the few I can't seem to figure out.  :P

Nunsrgr8

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #3 on: 2015-10-20 03:10:56 »
The textures I've been working on are not included in this. You also say you're working on Timber? Once you get to the area with the Pub, let me know if that battle field is giving you any trouble or not. That's one of the few I can't seem to figure out.  :P

For sure, I didn't think Timber was going to be as bad as Dollet to be honest but I haven't got that far yet. I have the textures ripped and hashed, I'm just working on the train car textures first. Would you mind either PMing me with a link to your textures or simply posting a list here of what you've done? I want to avoid doing stuff twice... Dollet took me hours to recreate all the houses and it sucks that I didn't need to. I might try PMing Mcindus as well and get the ones he's working on so we can all be on the same page.

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #4 on: 2015-10-20 03:32:51 »
It's not really hard once you see what pieces work for what. The pub area actually puts the textures in the wrong spots for me. :P I'll just send you a link with what I've done. Trust me, don't worry about doing things twice with things I've already done. Mine need a lot of improvement. Yeah... Just specific spots need work. Okay.

Mcindus

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #5 on: 2015-10-20 06:29:58 »
It's not really hard once you see what pieces work for what. The pub area actually puts the textures in the wrong spots for me. :P I'll just send you a link with what I've done. Trust me, don't worry about doing things twice with things I've already done. Mine need a lot of improvement. Yeah... Just specific spots need work. Okay.

I've found the best way to test where goes what is to pick a color and label each 'section' of the texture with a number or letter of that color.  That way, when you test in-game, you will see the number of the tile with a color that should correspond to the texture you're looking for. 
(This doesn't work when you have many different textures with colliding hashcodes - the only way to deal with that is to use the method below to combine textures into single 'master' textures (this is pretty much flying blind, and you have to use your best judgement as to which texture on which page is used for what when this happens)

Example:  Let's use Dollet  -- House Texture Page A (battlef_doltown_xx.png)-- has the same texture but 4 color variations with four different houses -- use white, green, red, blue. Number the houses 1-4 using all white for the first texture page, all green for the second, all red for the third, and all blue for the fourth.  When you open the game, you will see a house with a number of each color - this is what you're looking for.  This is the only texture that matters on that page - and you can even delete the erroneous information to save file size and space - and then at this point, you can even combine all 4 different pages into one, and point all of those hashcodes to that texture. (which is pretty much how I handled creating the textures for horizonpack - boy was that a pain in the ass lol)

Has anyone had a chance to test this? Opinions?

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #6 on: 2015-10-20 07:28:48 »
I know exactly what you mean. Though, I haven't tried this method myself. Probably would've made things easier. I have had to combine a few textures due to hashcodes. The only areas this won't work is the B-Garden hallways (at least for me) since the battlefields look too similar that they interfere with each other.

Mcindus

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #7 on: 2015-10-20 09:10:11 »
I know exactly what you mean. Though, I haven't tried this method myself. Probably would've made things easier. I have had to combine a few textures due to hashcodes. The only areas this won't work is the B-Garden hallways (at least for me) since the battlefields look too similar that they interfere with each other.

Seems like I've hit a snag in dollet -- i have fixed the issue with the ground texture, but for some reason my sky isn't showing up.  anyone else having this issue?

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #8 on: 2015-10-20 14:29:46 »
Seems like I've hit a snag in dollet -- i have fixed the issue with the ground texture, but for some reason my sky isn't showing up.  anyone else having this issue?

Which area in the Dollet? Pretty sure all the skies worked when I went through. I know the skies in Dollet consists of two pieces(top and bottom). And one area(where you fight the snake and Seifer wants the final blow) shares a code with another texture.

olearyf2525

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #9 on: 2015-10-20 14:52:18 »
Thank you McIndus, does this include the GF textures you were working on as well?

Mcindus

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #10 on: 2015-10-20 19:06:44 »
Thank you McIndus, does this include the GF textures you were working on as well?

No, sorry - that is another mod called "Hellfire Pack" that I'm slowly working on.  Sorry all of my mods are moving so slow - I'm extremely busy irl with a huge project and don't have a lot of time these days for my mods, which is why I'm trying to pool together other people to help on these projects.  Right now, Hellfire Pack only has Ifrit, Shiva, Minotaur/Sacred, Quetzacotl, and Carbuncle completed... I was hoping on releasing that one as a completed 'pack', but maybe I'll have to drop in a WIP like this one for everyone to play with.

DarkMatta

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Re: [FF8 Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #11 on: 2015-10-22 19:58:32 »
Excellent! I'm coming up to the end of the game, so I'll be sure to fly around to place and check it out.

I'll report back.

Other than that, If I can help in any way, then I'll do my best, with what you need.

EDIT: Just been on the Balamb continent to test, but the new textures aren't loading for me.
EDIT 2: Scratch that, it's working.
« Last Edit: 2015-10-22 21:13:50 by DarkMatta »

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #12 on: 2015-10-24 00:49:03 »
Excellent! I'm coming up to the end of the game, so I'll be sure to fly around to place and check it out.

I'll report back.

Other than that, If I can help in any way, then I'll do my best, with what you need.

I'm sure this project could use all the help it could get. There are quite a few backgrounds(I have 128 of them...). So I'm sure everyone can pitch in and get a game plan going. :)

Mcindus

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #13 on: 2015-10-24 07:05:37 »
I'm sure this project could use all the help it could get. There are quite a few backgrounds(I have 128 of them...). So I'm sure everyone can pitch in and get a game plan going. :)

Let's divy up the project.

I can make a master sheet with who is working on what, etc.  Maybe we should all have a skype chat?

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #14 on: 2015-10-24 16:32:30 »
Let's divy up the project.

I can make a master sheet with who is working on what, etc.  Maybe we should all have a skype chat?

That's fine.

That'll work. As for me, I've upscaled all the battlefields I have. I just have to cut away all of the useless bits. But there are a lot that don't look all that much better in my opinion. So there is a lot of work to be had. I'm up for that if necessary.

DarkMatta

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #15 on: 2015-10-24 16:40:11 »
As I'm currently roaming Ultimecia's Castle, I've been up-scaling the different areas. (Obviously not sure if anyone else is working on this area.)

Anyways, while doing that - I'm trying to implement these back into the game using Berry mapper just to see if I can't add textures as well. I'm collecting all the images that Debug Mode throws out for me, but I can't quite figure it out to do it correctly?

Little advice anyone?

Mcindus

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #16 on: 2015-10-24 19:17:30 »
I think it's time for me to make a tutorial.

I also have the Ultimecia Castle textures named, hashed, etc - just not upscaled.  This is why we need to be organized. lolol.  We end up wasting a lot of time doing what other people have already done.  That's why I posted this release in the first place - so people could use it, and use it as a basis of finishing/creating their own backgrounds.

Anyway - who's on what?  How do you have your files named, Fated?  I see that your files are all chronologically in order based on a playthrough.  That's freaking amazing.  And you've upscaled them all already?  Let's compare/contrast what we have and set up a big combined release pack.  That way, I and other artists can focus on true 'replacement' upscales instead of just 4x algo upscales.

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #17 on: 2015-10-24 20:28:39 »
All the bitmaps are in order of that, yes. Well...as best as I could make them. As for the upscaling, I based it off how you were doing. Sorting them out by the first letter. The only difference between my and yours is your boss battle scenes are named [area name]boss while I just use the boss name. Where am I at? Hard to say... Based on all I've collected and what you sent me, I'd like to say the upscaling is done besides certain areas I can't get to work. And I never finished Ulti's Castle. Textures are upscaled but there are some matching hashcodes in areas that need sorting out. But like I said... Some I like, some I don't. It doesn't take long to upscale. Only a few seconds thanks to my GTX 980ti.

Some of my areas need cleaning up and smoothed out in some spots. And like I said, I need to cut out the useless bits of the textures. I can still send a rough draft though.

But I have every area hashed so if people like DarkMatta wants the bitmaps to upscale and just pop them in without hashing, I can supply the hashmap and areas.

DarkMatta

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #18 on: 2015-10-24 21:17:17 »
I can do that. Though let me know what your process has been in the past, so I can keep things consistent.

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #19 on: 2015-10-25 00:09:05 »
I can do that. Though let me know what your process has been in the past, so I can keep things consistent.

Not to sound completely clueless... But what do you mean by my process? :oops: I'll gather everything together and send them to you soon.

DarkMatta

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #20 on: 2015-10-25 01:04:26 »
Not to sound completely clueless... But what do you mean by my process? :oops:

I mean up-scaling, I'm trying to practise with things, not just these mods.
I'm doing it via software called "Perfect Resize" but there a few options. Just wanted to know what you had done in the past and such. I'm just trying to understand it all.

Quote
I'll gather everything together and send them to you soon.

Cool. PM me when you're ready.


FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #21 on: 2015-10-25 20:04:03 »
I mean up-scaling, I'm trying to practise with things, not just these mods.
I'm doing it via software called "Perfect Resize" but there a few options. Just wanted to know what you had done in the past and such. I'm just trying to understand it all.

Cool. PM me when you're ready.



Ah, okay. I got you. I've just been using the waifu upscaler that satsuki posted on the forums awhile back and editing them a bit with GIMP.

Okay. Should be sent.

Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #22 on: 2016-01-04 04:16:54 »
So Ifrit battle in fire cavern has black ground. Is this a known fault?

FatedCourage

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #23 on: 2016-01-04 11:11:54 »
So Ifrit battle in fire cavern has black ground. Is this a known fault?

Sounds like the upscaling process might've messed with the battle background files for that area a bit and is causing them not to work properly. Reexporting them through any photo editing program should fix that. At least that's what I'm doing for my own upscales.

Mcindus

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Re: [FF8PC-Steam] [WIP] BattleField Upscale v1.0
« Reply #24 on: 2016-01-07 00:10:08 »
Sounds like the upscaling process might've messed with the battle background files for that area a bit and is causing them not to work properly. Reexporting them through any photo editing program should fix that. At least that's what I'm doing for my own upscales.

I need to fix this... I am going to try to tackle it today.