Messages

76

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-25 01:59:19 »

This pack is for the NTSC-U version so that could be an issue. Also try disabling 60 FPS, or turn on "retain changed textures" in the options.

I did some work in the Shinra Building lately (I've yet to publish it tho).

The tree no longer has floating pixels:




I didn't like how the MIA was covering Genesis' face:



I'm not a purist so I added a Midgar design in the completely empty glass case in the exhibit room.
I will rarely, if ever, do things like this. I feel like it adds so much to the rather empty feeling in the room:



I had to revamp the entire information board because nothing on it was readable, so I scrapped it in favor of this:





It's still a WIP, but I made sure the information on it is canon (enough).
I need to double check if "Mako" is uppercase or not.

77

WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake

« on: 2020-08-19 17:20:43 »

That's awesome, send over the updated spritesheet gridlines when you can.
Now that most of my work on the Crisis Core HD project is done, I can put more time into spriting too.

78

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-15 07:12:05 »

I had success with fixing Cissnei's bangs a while ago (haven't posted my updates yet on Github tho) so I can take a crack at Sephiroth later. For now, you should avoid work on Cissnei, Sephiroth and Tseng because I want to desaturate their clothes and fix their bangs.

I finally finished Zack's clothing so I'll leave the porting to you (you can try porting it to the soldiers and Angeal):

https://filebin.net/18bzbmalryh2zn2i

I also erased a wrinkle because one section looks iffy too much.
I'm not 100% satisfied with it (if I do any more work on Zack, I feel like I'll have an aneurysm), but it hides the issue.



I also made the decision to desaturate all of Zack's gloves and boots for consistency purposes for now.

I would advise against any more organization, I think the current system is do-able for now.

I think the monitor definitely looks like an improvement, you just have to remember it stays the same for the entire game so you can't really add anything specific like "Bombing at Junon" or something or else it'll look like there's a bombing at Junon for the whole game.

79

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-07 15:43:30 »

Yeah, I had to really put a lot of work into Zack's belt buckle to make sure it looks fine.

Sorry I've been a bit busy lately, haven't really done anything, tbh, I've had a bit of a burnout after putting so much effort into the project.

I want to work on Zack's low poly textures a bit so I think you should refrain from working on it or porting it to other characters just yet. I've already fixed some issues:

-white spot on shoulder
-black spot on belt
-hair is perfect desaturated
-weird wrinkle on pants I just don't like
-belt is black, not a navy color
-shirt is the exact same as high-poly texture so the major vertical lines are there



Ignore the shoulder plate and shoe zippers, I'm going to port your stuff over to it.

Also, note to self, these are the textures to work on to check how it looks in-game:

Zack 2nd class short hair: 00000000116307afd63b6918

Zack 1st class short hair: 000000004bb54918143ed1fb

Zack 1st class long hair: 000000007b05a244365a33e0

I wouldn't put too much effort into the Materia Room, I never go in there during my playthroughs.
I took the supply pods off WIP, but I'm going to add the keyboard and monitor:



They just look really bad. I also think the monitor should have a new interface because it takes me out of the experience a bit when I see a monitor but nothing on it is readable or makes sense. If you'd like to work on it, feel free (a Shinra logo should probably be on it too).

80

FF9 Graphical Releases / Re: [FF9 PC] Moguri Mod update 8.0 (LIVE ON OFFICIAL SITE)

« on: 2020-08-06 15:19:11 »

Oh, I didn't notice you were a dev on this mod, I thought you were just another gamer, sorry, my bad. I don't come to the FF9 boards much. I understand your frustration better.

I just tried playing vanilla but I get the whole "ZidaneZidane" "ViviVivi" etc error, and my controller is completely borked and the controls don't make any sense. For example, left on the analog stick steers me right. Any idea how to fix this so I can play FF9 in the meantime? Did Moguri cause this?

81

FF9 Graphical Releases / Re: [FF9 PC] Moguri Mod update 8.0 (LIVE ON OFFICIAL SITE)

« on: 2020-08-06 14:08:53 »

"FFS Square"?
You're acting like it's Square's fault or they deserve to be punished or criticized or something for updating their game, fixing bugs and whatnot. It's not their fault they don't support an unofficial fan mod. They should be applauded for actually caring about a port that came out years ago.

Anyway, I guess we should just wait until Moguri is compatible with this update.
For now, I deleted the game and reinstalled it vanilla.

82

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-28 08:03:42 »

Basically done 2nd class high poly. I was a bit confused as to what color 2nd class' straps are supposed to be. In the original texture, there's like no color. I ultimately went with brown (same as 1st class) because it's more aesthetically pleasing, and more consistent with the FMVs and some official art where you can clearly see it's brown:



I don't know why his straps lack any color in the original release, but I think it's safe to say it's an error. I also think it makes more sense from a lore perspective: would Shinra really go through the effort of making 1st/2nd class leather straps a different color, when their shirt fabric is already enough info?

83

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-27 04:57:44 »

I hope you haven't ported the Zack stuff yet, I just saw a major error (two buttons on back).
I didn't notice because his buster sword was blocking the way.



I also began doing a basic port on the 2nd class high-poly model too.

Note to self: perfect desaturation > photo filter 7200ff > saturation -30 is how you get his uniform color.

Can you let me port the Zack stuff over instead? I want to make sure everything is perfect and has perfect desaturations (esp on his hair) anyway.

Also, the supply pods look good, although maybe it should be "ItemBox" with an uppercase I.

84

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-22 02:14:10 »

Alright, I uploaded it here:

https://github.com/eqprog/FF7CCUP/blob/master/textures/characters/zack%20-%201st%20Class/000000006020de14f1fad7db.png

I'll let you handle the porting then.

85

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-21 08:42:34 »

Be careful with that plant, I think there's a few hovering pixels there.

I'm getting a bit sick of working on Zack's texture so I'm going to post this now:

Before:


After:


I added some baked lighting into the shoulders. How does everyone feel about this?
I'm going to port it to all the other models soon. Keep in mind, this isn't the finalized texture, it's just a basic Zack 1.0 version so that everything looks consistent.

86

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-20 19:23:55 »

Thanks, I'll keep at it.

It's cool you've known Photoshop for that long, I'm pretty self-taught too and my image editing dates back over a decade when I used to make Sonic the Hedgehog sprites and banners for fansites in MS Paint.


(my work in progress)

I know the perfect way to get people to come. Once this topic hits 30 pages, I'll release a shirtless Zack outfit with multiple fun color variations and optional nips, so people can play the entire game as a hunky Zack (no wonder Aerith sent him nearly 100 letters, check out those lats). People will be able to vote on the color schemes.

Once we hit 50 pages, I'll release a special Aerith FF7 outfit (or Kingdom Hearts outfits if people want, we can hold a group vote).

Once we hit 200 pages, I will release nude mods... for the entire cast.

Other possible fun ideas include a gold-colored Buster Sword, bloody Buster Sword, and maybe FF7 or Remake-inspired menus and UIs.

(Also, I'm just kidding about the nude mods, I don't want Square to come after us.)

87

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-20 08:51:08 »

One of the main differences between the high poly Zack and low poly Zack is that low poly has less pixels dedicated to the front of his shirt, which is why I didn't carry over the leather belt and some elements because they didn't fit the resolution, or they were too pixelated. It's better to work on the high poly stuff and then port it over to the low poly.

Here's an update:



I just redid the suspenders from scratch, although I haven't added the fake lighting just yet.
I also redid the handle on his sword so the lines are more prominent. It's really important we get this right, because we're likely going to be porting it to Angeal and everything else. You could argue this is the most important texture in the whole game so I want everyone to give me feedback. We need to get Zack right.

I don't think we need to go higher than 4x for now. Maybe someday in the future. I just want to make sure everything looks good and consistent at 4x first. I've already made a lot of stuff at 4x and doing it all over is daunting.

To add fake grain, I just lasso tool > Filter > Noise > Add Noise, I keep it a low value like 1-5, and monochromatic. It's just enough to make it feel like it has texture, otherwise it looks too clean and fake. This can sort of simulate fabric and leather.

I'm not too satisfied with the current shoulderplate texture so I might re-do it a bit too. I sort of liked vierock's, it looks rather authentic:

https://i.imgur.com/hDfE4lD.png

At some times, I've wanted to just copy vierock's stuff over, but that would be plagiarism and they disappeared, so it's better to be respectful of their work and do stuff independently. vierock used my UI work without asking me and I pointed that out, then they just abandoned this forum, so I wonder if I spooked them away. I also commented that I didn't like how dirty the walls and floor of the Shinra Building looked so I might've accidentally insulted them... oh well.

And yeah, let's not get offended if we overwrite and re-do each other's work. This is a collab project after all. My "Shina Motor Group" car logo texture isn't so hot anyway, it could always use someone else improving it.

88

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-19 06:25:06 »

I see what you mean, I copied over his texture for his shirt and look it looks a bit more like fabric. I also redid his belts so they look a bit better.



I'm going to attempt HDifying his leather pads (it's going to be tricky)

I'm just posting these for reference sake:

1st class:
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-zack-fair2.jpg
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-angeal-hewley.jpg
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-misc03.jpg
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-misc06.jpg
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-misc07.jpg

2nd class:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/35/58/a0/3558a0e4e92fedb85dc9fe6ba02c6b6c.jpg
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-misc08.jpg
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-misc04.jpg

2D:
https://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/cc-misc01.jpg

89

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-18 11:42:07 »

I am using latest, you can even find the texture here (which is why it's the middle version in the pic I posted):

https://github.com/eqprog/FF7CCUP/blob/master/textures/characters/zack%20-%201st%20Class/000000006020de14f1fad7db.png

Keep in mind, it has to be the 1st class version, high poly model.

If you made another version, can you take a screenshot of what you see in the game?
And maybe send me your texture so I can compare.

90

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-18 08:42:22 »

Some progress on Zack (orgiinal/current/my version):



I remade his big belt and just got started on doing the pixel-math for his smaller ones.

I desaturated his shirt, although I don't really feel comfortable doing fabric textures much so I'll probably leave that be.
I added some noise to his shoulder plate because it looks too oily-painty.
I also desaturated his pants to get rid of the blue there.

Once I'm done this, I think I'll let eqprog adjust it, then I can port it to all his other versions.
It's important we make the 000000006020de14f1fad7db texture in 1st class folder to be his base, since I notice everything else seems to be of varying quality.

91

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-17 12:23:39 »

That looks really great, are you sure you want to do stuff like that right now?
Where are those textures located?

I'm trying to sort of pick my battles here and try to focus on the things that I think will matter more - the stuff I feel the player will probably notice or spend a lot of time around.

I just finished the shopping district for the most part, I think I'm going to go do some stuff around Banora. I made these blue blobs actually look like purple apples, and I had to spend a bit of time rotating them, and deleting the ones that looked too stretched.





I also think we should focus on the characters a bit more, especially Zack.
I want to desaturate and do a basic cleanup of all the character textures now, would you be fine if I went through with that?

92

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-16 02:45:09 »

Thanks for the bed fix~

And I sort of prefer doing stuff my way, but thanks anyway.
I just use Large Icons in Windows Explorer and I get large previews.

Here's some work I'm doing in the shopping district:



I couldn't help but add some Fat Chocobo plushies. Sue me.
Yeah, I know the look is a bit more colorful than the original, so this will be an exception.



I've yet to do the bottom part here, but I think the ribbon bows look nice now.



I found a free crate texture online and I'm really satisfied with the results, so much so I might replay the entire game and re-do every crate I find. It really does feel like jumping from an N64 to a PS2 game in levels of quality. I think this is also a good example of why we should try to insert as many custom textures as we can instead of leaving it to the AI, since the AI made these crates look like a really bad oil painting instead of real wood. I wish Albert who's working on the Resident Evil 4 project could help us out, but oh well. It's up to us, but if anyone else who happens to be reading this would like to help, please do.



I haven't done this yet but I just wanted to show how the AI sort of messed this part up.
This is supposed to be the hand-made logo for the store selling the ribbons (since it's also on the van), not some graffiti artist, so it should look legible. I plan on redoing this. I don't know what the original says but it looks like "Fifth Fun" (since this is the Fifth District) so I think I'm going to try to replicate that.

93

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-15 10:19:59 »

Fixed one (hopefully) final animation error, occurs when you meet Cissnei and she says "Well, I'm off to my next job".
This one was a bit weird, but there were 4 missing frames. 3 of them were uncaptured, 1 of them is mentioned in texture.ini but was pointing towards the gigapixel folder, where it doesn't exist).

Texture.ini happens to be pointing to these 5 files (oddly enough, the first one doesn't seem to exist so who knows what that one happens to be).

00000000afe177e6eafe0204 = /gigapixel/00000000afe177e6eafe0204.png (?)
00000000ffef414623680d56 = /gigapixel/00000000ffef414623680d56.png (cissnei face)
000000001cb1b59c92e7cdcc = /gigapixel/000000001cb1b59c92e7cdcc.png (banora juice)
00000000874b792529c9bbf6 = /gigapixel/00000000874b792529c9bbf6.png (grating)
00000000be9c0394a06d34ab = /gigapixel/00000000be9c0394a06d34ab.png (wires)

To fix the error, I put the 4 corrected frames in the Cissnei folder, deleted the gigapixel line in texture.ini, and added the correct lines there so we got this now:

00000000ffef414612662daf = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef414612662daf.png
00000000ffef414623680d56 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef414623680d56.png
00000000ffef41464fecd248 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef41464fecd248.png
00000000ffef414662b099b2 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef414662b099b2.png
00000000ffef414668dde6cb = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef414668dde6cb.png
00000000ffef414683f5208e = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef414683f5208e.png
00000000ffef41469624ab96 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef41469624ab96.png
00000000ffef4146b98bf022 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef4146b98bf022.png
00000000ffef4146c6303d54 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef4146c6303d54.png
00000000ffef4146f8c375f7 = /textures/characters/cissnei/00000000ffef4146f8c375f7.png

94

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-15 08:57:50 »

Oh well, it's over with. I do feel a bit more confident now, finding textures myself and organizing them.

I just finished fixing the man (and woman) I mentioned earlier. They no longer have animation errors, and while their textures are a bit ugly (the man's suit is pixelated and the woman has a red seam on her blouse), they can always be improved in the future (it's not like you see them much anyway up-close).



What threw me off was the man has most of his textures in priority, while one of them is in "skybox". The woman has most of her textures in NPC, and one of them in priority.

Organization isn't the best, but I can't blame you because you've had to organize 5000 textures. For example, I discovered that some object at the train station is in Sepiroth's folder (you probably confused them as his belts). What matters is the final product, anyway. As long as everything looks good in the game.

These past two weeks, we've done fantastic work so I'm really proud of the both of us. We've fixed all the animation errors (as far as we know), so we've basically just laid the groundwork for improving everything from now on.

For now, I'm just going to keep improving stuff wherever I find them so feel free to take a break if you want, you deserve it (but if you can help finding that damn Nibelheim bed texture, let me know). I also hoped we'd have more beta testers by now.

95

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-14 23:57:01 »

Which files? If you mean those texture dumps, I just got them via the new folder while dumping files in the church.
Then I combined the HD ones already present with Zack, and spliced the correct mouth and eyes using Photoshop.

I think Filebin is working again too.

Are you still working on the church floors to fix the pixelated look? If you want, you can give them a break and let me have a go at them.
I also noticed the chandeliers in the church have poor masking.




I played the game far away from my TV, so I saw a few scenes closer up, and now I'm noticing some more errors.

96

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-14 20:19:20 »

Yeah, the six fingers is odd...

The animation glitch is still there for me, so I just fixed it myself.
Your sorting program may not be working, I guess.

I added these two photos in the 1st Class folder:

000000004bb54918e0eda9d6.png
000000004bb54918a088a17e.png

https://github.com/eqprog/FF7CCUP/tree/master/textures/characters/zack%20-%201st%20Class

And the texture.ini now has these two lines:

000000004bb54918a088a17e = /textures/characters/zack - 1st Class/000000004bb54918a088a17e.png
000000004bb54918e0eda9d6 = /textures/characters/zack - 1st Class/000000004bb54918e0eda9d6.png

I don't know if my Zack additions/save artwork/summon icon additions to texture.ini will be reverted if you update it using your programs (they might), but I'll just keep an eye out anyway.

97

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-14 07:12:43 »

Just downloaded the archive, church floor looks good, nice work.

The animation error still isn't fixed, not sure why you aren't seeing it. I erase everything in the ULUS folder and download the zip of the master build whenever I upgrade.

I dumped the textures for you. There's also my list of DMW flashback pics (some are already upscaled, but the textures.ini isn't properly linking them, so I think you know how the handle that.

https://filebin.net/j7sr7f2wigw56k52

Can you also update the texture.ini with my findings here?

https://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=20208.msg280449#msg280449

I uploaded my save files in case you need them (right under the current issue list). I recommend you do two things:

- Open Briefing Room (6 hours), go to Shinra Entrance, find the man. You'll notice he has an animation issue (he *does* have the upscaled texture it seems but they're not all synced up)
- Open Shinra Manor, go to Nibelheim, and there's also poorly upscaled hardwood you can fix in the inn - check the second floor too, they might use the same textures or different ones, not sure

Right now, I've decided to work on the entire shopping district where Shopping Paradise since the low-res textures ruin what should be a fun moment with Aerith.

98

WIP / Re: Before Crisis Remake

« on: 2020-07-13 09:19:21 »

Cool, do you need to give me a new sprite sheet with new gridlines to work from as a base, or should I just use the last one you gave me?

Either way, a new spritesheet with more room will have to be made anyway once I start doing the custom frames like "preparing to attack", "unconscious on floor", etc.

I'm glad you got it sorted out, I haven't done anything lately because I've been waiting for this and I've been busy upscaling Crisis Core in the other topic. I did get started on a look for Shears tho:



Also, congrats on the 1337 posts.

99

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-13 08:11:07 »

I spent like an hour on this in Gongoga:




I fixed Gongoga's sky because the clouds looked weird.

The weird box things had some yellow stuff on them which I don't even know if it's supposed to be text so I just got rid of it.

I edited my second post in this thread to be a list of current issues and who can work on them so we can better coordinate stuff, and anyone reporting bug issues will already know what's been mentioned or not.

100

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-13 02:46:42 »

I use a different method. I select the area in Photoshop and control + shift + u. This creates a perfect desaturation.
For example, here's Zack's sweater brightened in Photoshop. The top is what it currently is, and the bottom is a perfect desaturation.



I'm also pretty sure I have all the latest stuff and Zack still looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/fJrx3eS.jpg

His hair, sweater and gloves still have some faint color in it.
Zack's model will still need some work to fix his odd belt, but I guess you're working on that. Maybe once you're satisfied with your work on his clothing, I can go over all the textures and perfectly desaturate them.