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Messages - Mayo Master

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77
I've gotten a new link to the file, it should be fixed. Please let me know if the problem persists.

78
Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] Sector 6 Slums
« on: 2015-03-28 20:18:20 »
Quick update:

I got some help from someone at ff7.fr to make the layering process of the mds6_1 scene and have it playable. It can probably be released within 2 weeks  :)

79
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-25 15:28:34 »
Hi Sapphire,

The way I usually go about making the materials is twofold: first, get a sense of how it should look like "clean", and then incorporate textures to make it look weathered. I think that now you got something pretty good for the clean base, which wasn't the case before.
There are 4 types of textures you can commonly use for incorporating weathering elements for outdoor stuff:
- Procedurals
- Ambient occlusion bakes
- A huge "random grime" image texture  like this one for moderate dirtiness. The texture I linked is pretty much the first one I found, so it takes a bit of search.
- "Leaking" grime textures, like this one (although again, just an example), which are difficult to work with because you need very good UV-mapping to place the leaks at relevant places, but help give the best results.

The common way I use these texture is to "multiply" the original material with them to some degree, and I also multiply the texture of the specular map (the one controlling the diffuse/specular ratio). You may have to add a couple of brightness/contrast functions on the way to get the proper tone/shade of material in the end. But the overall result should give you darkened areas which are less reflective, following patterns which correspond to where grime would appear on building (using ambient occlusion bakes is a good help in that respect).

80
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-24 18:00:00 »
About the materials, I'm personally more concerned about mapping, rather then the actual materials. If the mapping is not done correctly you have to revisit all objects in order to fix that. That is a nightmare, especially for the more complex objects. For mapping I would use a colored checkbox kind of texture, however if you don;t intend to do any texturing, I would advise to keep it 50% grey, that will give the best presentation result.
For these buildings and structures, I agree that mapping is important. I think that mapping is very much linked to the process of making materials. The document I sent covers a good chunk about mapping, namely when I made an example for the concrete texture (for instance, when you want to convey the fact that a structure is made of concrete slabs).

81
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-24 15:27:16 »
I actually have to agree with Artema here.
Here, the two main problems with your galvanized steel are:
- the scale is way to big
- it shouldn't have bumpmaping. If you want to create some non-uniformity on your reflections, I advise you use some kind of specular mapping.

Did you receive the documents I sent you by email regarding materials? I had been tackling these kind of issues and explained some principles of materials creation for galvanized steel and concrete. I'm afraid that creating materials is something you'll have to be very, very, very patient with (again, as a rule of thumb, 3/4 of my modelling time are actually spent on materials, while it's the 3d meshing that I prefer to do).

82
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-23 16:04:09 »
If Killerx20 has the interior already modelled, I'm not entirely sure it would be worth spending the time to redo the same thing.

83
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-20 23:17:47 »
Yeah, that sounds about right. I've checked a few references (Advent Children shots, etc.), and indeed it looks like concerte for the bulk parts of the plate, with many structures are made of galvanized steel (like the reactors, the huge pipes, etc.). My guess is, by looking at this reference image, the more "orange grey" structures correspond to concerte whereas the more "blue grey" structures correspond to galvanized steel. I'll do some scouting on cgtextures.com (which I also recommend you do) and be back with suggestions.

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Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-20 16:06:03 »
I'll do what I can to help you out with materials then. However, note that I actually do not know how they're created in 3ds (I only use blender), so if you could give me some heads-up about the workflow involved, that would be good.
SpooX and I agreed that materials are a big deal, it's the thing that will "level-up" your scene considerably. Generally I spend 3/4 of my modelling time on materials, while I actually prefer modelling the mesh, but that's what it takes. Thankfully, for your Midgar scenes, I believe you'll have relatively few materials to create, but I recommend you spend a great deal of time and care on the main ones, such as the basic construction material of the plate and the high buildings. In that respect, I suggest you try to document yourself (I can help out there, too) and see any reference image of Midgar by day light (I think most of these references may be in Advent Children, actually) to figure what kind of construction material you would have to replicate (steel? concrete? other?) and we can work from there. The particular challenge for your scene will be to create one material with very high resolution, lots of details, and little repetition due to tiling.
By the way, ambient occlusion bakes may be very useful in the creation of your materials. Do you know how to get them in 3ds?

Regarding the scripts, I'm glad they worked. Take your time about these scenes, you sure picked some very challenging ones. By the way, I believe that SpooX already create a number of elements which your scene could use, such as the SA-37 truck. We should try to make an incantation in order to attempt summoning his ghostly spirit :P
Oh, and if you would like the scripts for other scenes (maybe a couple of simpler ones which would take less time to recreate), don't hesitate to ask!

85
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-20 02:22:03 »
Thanks for the update :)

That looks very good. I like the details you have on the platforms and their girder arms :)
Let me know if you need a hand with materials. Looks like you'll need a humongous tileable concrete texture, which will have to be spiced with a couple of procedurals for good measure  8)
By the way, did the scripts I sent you for the walkmesh and camera work for you?

86
Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-19 15:49:42 »
You forget that programmers are also needed. The current way to get the walkmeshs and import the final rendered picture into the game is a bit pedestrian. This should be done faster. An expert for opengl2.0 shaders would probably also a huge help.
While the problem of importing layers is there, I have found some workarounds. An improved workflow is for the artist to account for the positioning of the layers at the designing stage of the scene. Things can be done a lot more efficiently than what I've done, but sometimes you can only learn by stumbling and fumbling it seems :P
All this to say: while such a programmer would eventually help our work, as you suggest, this is not at all a critical issue/roadblock.

87
Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-19 03:54:29 »
Yes, I know what you refer to. It's not easy to explain what I'm talking about, so let's just say that the supported input resolution of my TV isn't exactly as large as the TV itself is, so it looks much better to use the whole width of it rather than 3/4 of it. Imagine 1024 x 768 resolution on a HD TV; it's just so small I'd have to sit with the TV in my face. Which is not practical, considering I scrapped my old 1280 x 960 monitor precisely so that I wouldn't need to sit with my face nearly glued to it and eventually ruin my eyesight. Using the full dimensions of my TV allows for a much greater distance between myself and the display and I can see all of the details of any given game so long as the internal rendering resolution is altered accordingly. (for FF7, Aali's driver handles that automatically depending on window size and aspect ratio)
So in short, I have a cheap and dodgy TV and a 4:3 aspect ratio will always be unbearable on it, stretched or not. Therefore, I might as well use the full width and height to achieve the best image quality this TV can offer.
...I do believe, though, that the aspect ratio is not really debatable since it's a matter of opinions when it comes down to it. :P While someone prefers widescreen, another guy can prefer 4:3. Hell, there may be people who have even uncommon aspect ratios such as 16:10 and so on. I know I like 16:9 more than 4:3 for reasons stated above, heh. :D
Ok, that's a set of particular circumstances and preferences, I understand that.
Personally, what matters to me is to avoid distortion in the display. In that respect, the images should have the same aspect ratio when displayed as when they were made. The fact that it is 4:3 or 16:9 is secondary.

Well the fact that'd you'd be willing to lead a project is good enough news. If I were try and advertise on social medias, what kind of qualifications and commitment levels would you want me to list?

That's good to hear :)
In my opinion, drive and commitment are more important than sheer skills, for such a long project. I would greatly value someone willing to put an average of 5h/week or more into the project, and be able to maintain that sort of commitment for 2+ years (I was probably around 15hr/week during the past 2 years, myself). The ability to self-impose deadlines and strive to meet them is important for this kind of volunteer work. Participants will have to keep in mind that the objective is to make scenes which have to work in the game, which sets a number of practical constraints, and often involves testing and troubleshooting.
There can be work for pretty much all skill levels. Newbies would be encouraged to use Blender 3d, since it would help from a resource management point of view and from a mentoring perspective. They could be set to work on scenes matching their skill level, before moving on to more complex scenes as their ability improves through practice.
Even though the use of Blender 3d is preferred (asset management), more advanced modelling artists can actually use whatever software they're the most proficient at. Work could also be tailored to a skilled artist who can only work for a shorter stint and complete 1-2 scenes, although longer commitment is preferred.
We could also use the help of someone skilled in Photoshop/Gimp or the like, in order to help designing and creating textures, without the need for this person to have any ability in 3d modelling.
That's all I can think of for now.

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Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar City Information
« on: 2015-03-19 02:32:49 »
Yeah I've been rather busy with work lately. I'd definitely love to be able to model like I used to. I put in improvements here and there though.
The modeling I do is... strange to say the least. I'm not sure how useful my models would be to be honest.
Welcome back!
Actually I believe your Midgar model could be of extremely useful to us. Although before going into details, I'm quite curious about the "strangeness" of your modelling approach. Can you elaborate? As far as I'm concerned, if you can achieve great results, I don't really care whether you use Blender, Maya, 3ds or something else.
Now, I'm convinced we could use your work in several circumstances. First, your renders may be primarily useful to compose certain scenes, such as eleout, fallp, midgal. Although Midgar doesn't show in the images of eleout and midgal scenes which I've linked, actually they feature Midgar cityscape prominently (if you recall how these scenes actually look like in game). Secondly, we could use some of your renders as environment lighting for many scenes taking place on Midgar's plate. Thirdly, I was under the impression that you recreated a bunch of the environments from the Shinra building. Is that correct? In which case, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to do the necessary work to have them in the game. What do you think?

89
Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-18 17:41:19 »
You've got a point with the aspect ratio, to be fair, but I can't do 4:3 because it will look absolutely ridiculous with the TV I have. The entire image will be about the size of a stamp in the middle of an A3 paper sheet. (or not, but you get the idea) That irritates the eye pretty badly, since it essentially means I'd have a bigger image on my old monitor than on TV, which kinda defeats the original purpose of me switching to a bigger display.

And I actually did resize the models before, but I switched the flevel archive and completely forgot to re-apply the changes. :P Talk about derp.
Actually I'm not sure I grasp the problem you have regarding the aspect ratio. With Aali's driver config, the point is that you can play the game in HD (1920 x 1080) with vertical bands on the sides which allow to display the graphics in 4:3, without distortion. It wouldn't make the game played in low resolution. The outline would be a bit like a SD TV channel displayed on a HD TV, but the resolution itself would still be HD. Or am I missing something?

90
Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-18 04:10:11 »
Mayo, if we were able to recruit more people to do the kind of work you've done here, how many folks would we need to get it done within a year or two, and would you be willing to lead that kind of project? I imagine in order to produce the work that you've done, we'd not only need the talent, but also coordination to get all the scenes reproduced in the same artistic style.
Unfortunately, we would need an army to have the project done within 1-2 years. Based on my own work rate (I consider I spent "as much time as possible on the project while being able to have a life"), we would need... 40 people *cough* to get it done in 2 years. Of course I would be very happy to be able to lead such a project. I'd be happy enough with 10 people, also considering an increase in productivity with people becoming more proficient in their 3d modelling abilities. Additionally, productivity can increase if we have the ability to pool resources (if somebody models redundant items which are used in a number of scenes, no need to remodel the same object). I would also say "all levels of modelling ability are welcome", because I actually started my own practice of 3d modelling because I wanted to help Team Avalanche, which was a mere 2 years and a half ago. All in all, finding people with enough drive and commitment is a big issue. But the amateur 3d modelling community is huge, so the potential is out there. In a sense, it's all about trying to mesh people with an interest in FF7 with people from the 3d modelling community, or show people with little knowledge of 3d modelling that they have the potential to contribute.

As for the coordination of artistic style, we already have a plan for that. Basically, each artist would work on distinct geographic zones within the game, so each geographic zone will have an internal artistic consistency (which is why I've made my work on the Sector 5 slums only). Having different artistic style across different zones is not a problem, because the environments are meant to look different. That being said, there are some "artistic rules" which will have to be respected by everybody (tending towards realistic-looking results, being aware of scaling issues, etc.), but they can be easily managed.

91
Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-17 22:32:04 »
Neat!
A couple of comments though:
- Your video has an incorrect aspect ratio, it's all in 16:9 so everything looks vertically compressed. I believe it would look better displayed in 4:3 (with vertical bands on the sides), which you can adjust with Aali's driver config.
- I also recommend you use Makou Reactor for correcting the size of the characters in mds5_w, ealin_1, ealin_12 and ealin_2, as I explained elsewhere.

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Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-16 21:12:51 »
Sure, that would be nice. You're welcome to broadcast it, too :)

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Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-15 02:33:46 »
Great! Much appreciated   :)

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Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-15 00:12:42 »
Thanks!
By the way, I would greatly appreciate if people could help this project a little. If some of you could make in-game HD video capture of these scenes and show them off, that'd be awesome. 
This project has always been sorely lacking manpower (each scene took roughly 1.5 months, given that there are 600+ scenes...), so it wouldn't hurt to get some exposure.

95
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-02 15:13:32 »
If you wish to work on backgrounds, you can use SpooX's Shinratool to retrieve the walkmesh and the camera data, if you have the PSX discs. If you don't have the discs, I see two options:
- You PM SpooX about getting whichever field walkmesh and camera you'd like to work on
- I could use Shinratool and generate the corresponding 3ds scripts, which I could send to you. Then you would run the script in 3ds to generate the walkmesh and camera data (I don't have 3ds, myself).
Let me know how you'd like to work this out  ;)

96
Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-03-01 17:18:08 »
Well, he'll probably show up eventually. I was pretty much seeing how your work on the Midgar model could help in various fields.
There were also talks about trying to merge your model with SpooX's, has anything happened on that front? Maybe you should contact him about it (note that he's still discreet and stealthy :P  )

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Team Avalanche / Re: [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-03-01 17:00:32 »
Thank you, thank you  :)
Now regarding your questions

Can we use those textures with 7H + Yarlson fields configured ?
It should be doable. I asked EQ2Alyza if it was possible to combine TA's fields onto whatever other series of fields the user would like to pick. I didn't have confirmation though.
I've been tracking Avalanche's progress for quite some time now, and I must say these new backgrounds all look absolutely superb, but I do have two big questions about them:

What do you mean by these models sizes? Should you manually change the sizes of all your character models every time you enter a different area, or should you just use models the size of Kaldarasha's?

Also, are you guys eventually going to release the models that you're rendering these areas from, in case someone with ambition wants to do a full remake of FF7 in a true 3D engine, like Rich Whitehouse tried to do a while back?
Regarding model sizes: When doing the modelling work, I paid very close attention to the relative size of the characters vs. the size of the objects populating a scene. There were many inconsistencies, mostly because small items were grossly enlarged to make them be recognizable at very low resolution, but since HD can make one see the small details, many things had to be addressed (tea cup the size of a salad bowl, beer can the size of a bucket, etc.). In some cases, nearly all the objects have wrong dimensions with respect to the scene layout, while walkmesh and layering constraints does not allow me to change these sizes. Example: in ealin_12, originally, if you pay attention you'll realize that the table height reaches Cloud's shoulders, it should be actually twice smaller. The only way to address these inconsistencies is to actually change the characters sizes, and keep most of the objects relatively similar.  Objects were also designed using Kaldarasha's models to get the proportions right, chibi models may look more awkward (if something is realistically designed, it obviously cannot fit chibi design).

The characters sizes can be changed using Makou Reactor, and the changes you can make there will affect the characters sizes regardless of the ones you're using, so you can make adjustments even if you're not using Kaldarasha's models.
Doing this with Makou Reactor is unbelievably easy: you open the flevel of the field, change characters sizes there, save, and then you're done - you do it once and then it works every time the scene loads while you play the game.
I'm not totally sure how that's going to be worked out for 7H users, but I think it will be pretty much about fiddling with Makou Reactor before you use 7H. As a last note, 4 fields in the release pack are concerned with this issue (ealin_1, ealin_12, ealin_2 and mds5_w).

As for your second question, the short answer is "hardly". These 3d models were designed for CG renders, not gaming. One notable difference is that it usually took more than 30 hours to render each scene, while for gaming you want this rendering time down to 1/30 second. They were not optimized in terms of poly count, and the shading (textures, bumpmaps, etc.) was made for them to be rendered with Blender's cycle engine. If someone wants to reuse these assets for a real time 3d gaming engine, at least the shading was to be reworked.

I personally do not have the ambition to work on a full 3d remake (as things currently stand). As a whole, I believe our modding situation can last as long as user play a mod which works on a purchased copy of the game. We can be tolerated as long as what we do can financially benefit Square, somehow. If you make a standalone remake which doesn't need the original material to work, then it's a short trip to Cease & Desist IMO.

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Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Revival
« on: 2015-02-28 23:18:10 »
Hey Sapphire,

I was thinking that it would be great if you could check things out with Tom regarding his attempt to recreate the eleout scene. Namely, I believe it would be most useful if you could make a panoramic, equirectangular render of Midgar by night from  the location featured in that scene - then he would be able to use the image as background and lighting source, with potentially awesome results :)

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Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums
« on: 2015-02-28 23:10:01 »
Good work :) What's next on the plan? You'll have done all of Midgar before long!
I wish! Sadly the reality is very different, considering it took me 15 months to complete 11 scenes. We would need about 10 more people with the same work rate for this project to go somewhere.
I'm not really decided about what I am going to do next, to be honest. I hope my works can motivate people to pitch in, because I can't make this work on my own.
That being said, I have a couple of ideas regarding what to do next, but they would be outside Midgar. Most likely, resuming my works on the Tiny Bronco, or starting some scenes in the Nibel mountains.

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Team Avalanche / [FF7PC] Team Avalanche field scenes
« on: 2015-02-28 19:41:45 »
Team Avalanche field scenes
Version 0.03

The latest pack of Team Avalanche's field scenes can be downloaded Here
The field files have to be extracted from the .7z archive into modpath/field
A gallery of the corresponding field scenes can be viewed here, where credits are given.

These fields were designed with the reference of Kaldarasha's character models , which had to be occasionally resized using Makou Reactor. It is recommended to use these character models and sizes. A list of the recommended character sizes as defined in Makou Reactor can be found in the corresponding .txt within the .7z archive from the download link.

The current version comprises 16 field scenes.

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