Messages

51

Archive / Hand Patch

« on: 2004-04-23 03:47:40 »

Women's arms *might* look ok on Cloud, but most of theirs are even skinnier. =P

And could you add them to Cid and Vincent and stuff without too many proportion problems?

Well, Cid has sleeves halfway down, which presents all sorts of potential problems (or easy shortcuts, depending on how you approach it.)

Like I said, give me a little explanation on how to do all this and I will gladly help

I pretty much explain how I've done everything in the handpatch v01.5 readme. What exactly is unclear?

The shoulder of the characters don't nessesarily have to be redone, the second half leading to the hands would be good enough.

You may or may not, depending on how you do it.

I guess I'm unclear as to exactly how people want the arms to be fixed. What exactly do you want me to do to them?
Here's a picture of the latest I've come up with. The problem with this one is that his forearms are now abnormally long. Is it enough to be noticeable? Or would you be happy if I went with it?

52

Archive / Hand Patch

« on: 2004-04-22 19:04:34 »

Sure I can do it. It's just a matter of finding that pair of normal looking arms, since for Square, the way Cloud looks is considered the status quo.  Square modellers often reused existing pieces from old models whenever possible. See, field hands are divided into the upper-arm, forearm, and hand.

If you look closely, most of the upperarms of men without  sleeves look just like Cloud's:

Code: [Select]


 / \
-  ==
 \_/


As do the forearms:

Code: [Select]

  ___
  /   |
==    |
  \___|

The part you want to fix is the ==== (combined)

...anyway, I think I've finally found some suitable pieces and am currently trying it out.
Trouble is that little kids, women, and fat people are all in different proportion to each other, including their arms/hands. That's why the hand patch makes some models (like Scarlet and, some say, Cloud) look trippy.

53

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Leviathan

« on: 2004-04-22 18:42:18 »

Just because I didn't stroke Lord_Skylark's ego doesn't mean I was trying to hurt his/her feelings. (<--see, I can wink too, for no apparent reason!) I'm just trying to save him some future pain. Is that bad?

Seph2k has been doing that since he got here.

...which is part of the problem. Do you remember how he got his warning? Mod tells him to do something, he ignores it. Repeat until eventually Mod loses patience.
Seeing someone do the exact same thing (what started all this) is quite annoying for a crusty grump like me.

Nothing beats a one line LOL post with smileys.

Bah. Do I need to remind you of Cuddleswing as well? She got her post count reset. :wicked: (<--evil smile for no apparent reason...?)

Meh. I didn't think this was going to turn into a potential flame war, but since it looks like it could head that way, I'll drop the subject.

54

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Leviathan

« on: 2004-04-22 02:03:07 »

Board time is not necessarily the same as real-life time (TM).  If nobody else has posted after you, no matter how many days later, chances are that it's still better to edit your post than to add a new one. IMHO, of course.

55

Archive / Another FF7 Crash (but this one I didnt find discussed here

« on: 2004-04-22 01:58:14 »

Next time just use the forum's search feature. Much quicker. ;)

http://forums.qhimm.com/viewtopic.php?t=1718

If that didn't work, then I'd suggest to play in Quarter Screen mode, as well. It's an option in the FF7config.exe file. Doing that can get you through a few hang ups with this game. Such as the submarine, and snow board parts.

56

Archive / Game being picky about modded files -_-

« on: 2004-04-22 01:54:37 »

PS: How WOULD i go about texturing these?

Sorry, I only know how to do that for field files. It *could* be similar with battle files, since there are some similiarities. But I haven't worked with them enough to know.

57

Archive / Gondola crash (like observatory)

« on: 2004-04-22 01:48:02 »

I had the problem on an old machine, since retired. The specs were as follows:
Pentium 133
48MB RAM
Windows 95
DirectX 6.1
4X CD Drive
No graphics accellerator card

At the time, the game was still somewhat new, and a Square rep actually mailed me a save file.

Later, I upgraded to DirectX 7 and started having sound troubles--sounds had a weird reverb effect and would play a couple seconds later than they should have. I ended up manually copying DirectX 5 files from my FF7 Install Disc and overwriting DirectX 7 file I could. In the end, my machine still registered that is was DirectX 7, but it was pretty much DirectX 5.
I didn't really change my system config after that (except the 4X CD Drive died at some point--don't remember if this was before or after--and got replaced with a 2X.) I ended up playing through the game again, and didn't have a problem playing through Cosmo Canyon that time, or any time after.
Go figure.

58

Archive / Hand Patch

« on: 2004-04-22 01:39:06 »

Alright, the new version's up. Linky

What might be in the new update?

Bug fixes (mainly Cloud's animations) and World Map support.

I hate WinRAR

Really? Why? The version 1 .rar file is 502 KB, Aaron's .zip is 717 KB. Doesn't non-lossy smaller == better?

(Notice how his arms get huge at the end, then suddenly BOOM skinny wrist? looks funny.. but that can't be helped @ the moment)

Yeah, it's more of taste issue, IMHO (since the Square 3D Modellers are the ones who did it.) Still, I have a few ideas. I'll let you know if any of them work.

59

Archive / No sound effects in ff7 (win2k)

« on: 2004-04-22 01:31:16 »

I'm betting it's a driver, possibly DirectX. If you know how and don't mind doing so, downgrade to DirectX 5  (comes on the FF7 Install disc.) and see what happens.

60

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-22 01:28:26 »

ah i figured the patch make thingy, and i used yours, but it would freeze b4 loading a battle :p

Sounds like you might've applied the patch twice. Anyway, *I* did that once, which caused the game to crash as soon as a battle starts. What happens if you copy battle.lgp from one of your game discs, replace your old battle.lgp, and then try to patch that file?

it would take a hella lot of coding to convert and

Well, IIRC, Terence Ferguson mentioned something about converting the Ergheiz 3D models before...something like their format had already been decoded (not all PSX devs invent new formats.)
Still, even if they aren't, all you need is something that can convert the models to a fairly standard format. Then you can use one of the existing .P converters. Animations shouldn't be *too* much of an issue.

Are there any free 3d programs I can use?

I think the student edition (stripped down and free) of Maya just came out. The two unknowns are whether there are any converters for the special file format it uses, and if there's .P <-> Maya converter. If there isn't, Alhexx or Mirex *might* be able to add it.

61

Archive / Shooting coaster: Zeplin?!

« on: 2004-04-22 01:14:56 »

No idea. Definately use some sort of CPU slower, but you probably already are. ;) I remember the PSX version being a little easier because you could set the fire button to turbo....

62

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-17 20:00:25 »

Dreakon: It's probably my fault and not FiceLib's. I probably just extracted them in the wrong place or have multiple, different copies floating around my hard drive. ...or something. I can't remember, and am too lazy to check. >=)

Sure, you can use my fix. Don't know if my explanation is right, though.

ye-roon:
Well, I still felt like typing it up. Just download Dreakon's new file, though.
01. Download the file.
02. Extract the files in the zip.
03. Open LGP Tools 1.55
04. Go to Tools > Patches > Patch Converter
05. A dialogue should have opened. Click on "Self Extractor to LGP"
06. Click on the "..." at the top. This will open a file browser. Find "cloudquality.exe" in the browser, click on it, and hit enter.
07. Click on the 2nd "..." This will open another file browser. Go to \your ff7 director\data\battle, type "cloudquality", and hit enter.
08. Click the Convert button.
09. Wait a minute, then close the window.
10. Go to \your ff7 directory\data\battle and make sure there's a file there called "cloudquality.ffpatch"
11. In LGP Tools, go to Tools > Patches > Apply Patch
12. A file browser should have opened. Find cloudquality.ffpatch, click on it, and hit enter.
13. Wait for the progress bar at the bottom of LGP Tools to fill up.
14. Go to \your ff7 directory\data\battle. Right click on battle.lgp and select properties.
15. Look for filesize and last modified. If filesize is "59.7MB" and last modified is "17th April 2004", it worked.

63

Archive / Hand Patch

« on: 2004-04-17 19:38:13 »

Thanks! Actually I'm working on an update right now. Hopefully it'll be finished later today, although it may take longer.

64

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-17 19:35:08 »

I wonder why some people's worked and others didnt though.  Bad download?

No, because I've had the same problem on my machine when I manually create autopatches. I had this same problem with yours, but was able to follow the steps I've described above and get it working.
I'm not sure what causes it, but my guess is that I have something wrong with my FiceLib files.

65

Archive / No sound effects in ff7 (win2k)

« on: 2004-04-17 19:28:59 »

It helps if you can be more specific: What sound card do you have? Do you have the latest drivers for it? Does the music work, or are you having trouble with music *and* sound? Are you running any other programs when playing FF7?

If you have a SB Live or later, you can try sky_render's fix. No guarantees it'll work, though.

1. Hit the start button
2. Choose settings
3. Choose control pannel
4. Choose add/remove programs
5. Select the windows setup tab
6. De-select, then re-select the multimedia option
7. Click on details to make sure the Sound Companion Option IS selected
8. Then apply

Edit: Waha! Beaten by Aaron again.

66

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-17 19:21:12 »

Well, first you check and see that it created the patch, obviously.
After that, to check if it applied the patch, left-click once on battle.lgp and see when it was last modified. If it was today, looks like the patch worked.

67

General Discussion / The reason that Aeris' fate can't be changed. Spoilers. Rant

« on: 2004-04-17 19:15:49 »

Aye-yi-yi, here's a flame-fest waiting to happen, if I ever saw one. Plus, there's the mother of all spoilers in the topic title...

68

Archive / Gondola crash (like observatory)

« on: 2004-04-17 19:10:08 »

IIRC, technically, it's a succession of movies, interspersed throughout the bwhlin conversation:
gold2.avi
gold3.avi
gold4.avi
gold5.avi
gold6.avi
gold7.avi
gold7_2.avi (in that order)

69

Archive / Hand Patch

« on: 2004-04-17 19:01:13 »

Thanks for the input. It appears I can breathe easier because it looks like most people can get it without a problem. Also, thanks for the mirrors! Any and all are welcomed.

70

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-17 18:56:37 »

The high res model is quite a bit better if viewed at different angles. What card do you have? If it's ATI then I know a trick to running in hardware mode regardless of 8-bit paletted textures.

Yeah, well, there've been a billion tricks to getting hardware mode working on this forum. If it hasn't been said before, shoot, for the public good. =)
Thanks for the offer, but I just haven't ever really bothered with hardware mode. It seems to create more trouble than it's worth, and software works fine.

Any way to make your own weapons? Like model em outside the game and put them in as a replacement?

Yeah, but it's a bit complicated. biturn (by Mirex) and various tools by Alhexx can both convert .P files to various formats, so you can edit them in your 3D proggy of choice (as long as it supports Vertex Coloration.) Then you can use Alhexx's stuff and convert back to .P. Then replace, as before with LGP Tools.

Or imagine... *grin* Tifa in Aeris' clothes or vice versa! Let's see who can mix and match the coolest character!!!

We could have a contest. Of course, just about everyone's entries would probably be pretty sad.

I'm getting:

Acces Violation at adress 00000000. Read of adress 00000000.

is that ok??

That means it didn't work. I actually get the same problem (probably means I have my Ficelib files in the wrong /dir/ or some such), but there's a simple fix. In LGP Tools go to Tools > Patches > Patch Convertor. Then use the "Convert from Self Extractor to Patch" option. Then apply the non-executable patch and it should work.

However, one Q: Do people need Ficedula's ff7 patch utility to make this work, or is the exe all you need? Cuz if it's the former, you may wanna put that in the readme.

All you need is the .exe, unless you're having ye-roon's problem. In that case you need LGP Tools as well. Regardless, you don't need Cetra, though.

71

Archive / Somoene wanna look over this?

« on: 2004-04-17 18:24:37 »

Well, sky_render actually already has a faq that covers this, but more can't hurt.

Anyway, yours is a much more entertaining read.
As appcal says, there *are* minor grammar errors. To wit:

While the movies and thier "quality"

faster than your CD drive .

then I appologize .

And no, I *havn't* figgured

Feel free to distibute this

as missing only one file will casue

And like i said before,

That anal enough for ya? =P

Except for that, not really much I can add to what's already been said.

72

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-17 02:25:30 »

Well, part of it is probably that I'm running in software mode--their might be more marked difference with 3D acceleration. But part of it is also that the high res model isn't *that* much higher in quality, I guess.

I think we've avoided animation problems since the skeleton still has the same parts--just different data.

73

Archive / Hand Patch

« on: 2004-04-17 02:22:01 »

Alright, I've been informed that people are having trouble downloading my FF7 hand patch. The question is: can anyone (besides me) actually download the thing without either getting server errors or CRC problems?
Thanks.

74

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-17 01:52:04 »

Sorry for the double post

Next time, please just Edit your post if you've got something more to say.

Sure, I'll try it out (doesn't matter if it's just a patch or a self-executing.) Let's see how you did. =)

Edit: Looks cool. I'll try it out.

Edit 2: Seems to work. No obvious problems yet.

75

Archive / Using the high quality Cloud model in game?

« on: 2004-04-16 23:57:11 »

You've got the general idea, anyway. Some of the files in those groups should be animations (all the ones that end in da). Chances are you want to leave those alone...

If you double click on a file in LGP Tools, it should give you the option of trying to view it. Try to view each non da file in the two groups as .P (3D data) and .TEX (textures). Take notes, especially because if LGP Tools finds a file it doesn't know what to do with, it'll probably page fault.
The reason for doing that is because the file names might not match. This is just something I'm pulling out of thin air (AKA as a Dilbert "assumption") but suppose sidd is part of high res Cloud's head. Now, if you just rename sidd to rtdd, it might turn out that rtdd was part low-res Cloud's arm...
You've got to figure out what each part is first.

So you want a list of each part for both models, and their names. Something like this:

Code: [Select]


Part:         High Res    Low Res
Head          sidd        rtsr
Head Texture  side        rtss
Left Shoulder sicf        rtmb
...etc. I made up those filenames. Just making a point.

Then you can start swapping. I recommend loading up the game and trying after every change you make, just to make sure.

how do I import by the way?

Click on the file you want to replace. Then hit the big "Replace" button in the upper right, which will bring up a dialogue. Browse to the file you want to replace it with. Voila! Isn't Ficedula cool?

After I do this I want to make a patch so I can give it to friends and they can use the high-res model. How do I do this?

Go to Tools > Patches > Create Patch. I recommend using the Pack Archive option in LGP Tools before this. To create the patch, you'll need an unaltered copy of the .lgp (from one of your game discs) for LGP Tools to compare it with.
I've sometimes had trouble getting it to create the patches in the past, so check the size of the patch (should be about as big as the files you import), and test it, before distributing. If you have problems, try changing the directory where LGP Tools saves the patch.