Author Topic: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New High Quality FMV Project (2013-05-10)  (Read 47087 times)

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #75 on: 2013-06-01 06:00:17 »
You have actually managed to make your opening.avi (which is super special as a sequence, i think) even better than it was. So now it's pretty much perfect. Also, I'll be using many of your vids even if you never touch them again because, for whatever reason, the settings you used work really well on them. But some of the others are still not perfect. At least not on my system.

One that is super obvious and easy to access is sqlogo. I don't have the psx version anymore (though I bought it over the years like 3 times) so I can't compare to them. But DLPB's settings on that tiny movie make it look like a gaggle of nice soft chickobos, while yours looks like a yellow pixelated mess. So what's going on here? I think I might have a clue.

The developers used a number of different techniques to make the original videos, of which I know almost nothing. What I finally noticed was that different settings look better for the different techniques they used. On northmk.avi: the first part of that sequence, which is a quick transition from a field map to a movie as cloud and jessie run to escape the first reactor explosion, looks particularly bad in game with your version, especially when compared to that of Trojak's movies, which are very soft. HOWEVER, the second half of northmk.avi looks pretty bad on Trojak's version; it is a pan out scene overlooking Midgar, with the recently exploded reactor smoking like Chernobyl. This is exactly the type of modeling that looks so good in your opening.avi, and again, your settings bring out all the detail of the city, which suddenly looks animated and alive with activity when compared with Trojaks, which frankly looks like a party platter or something unrecognizable. Were it feasible, I would edit that movie so that it basically switches from Trojak's softer settings to your kind of gritty, more natural settings halfway through. I hope that makes sense. Take it with a grain of salt but I'm a movie person... Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, that kinda stuff.     

OK, now that the complicated stuff is out of the way... my other real criticism is that they are still too dark. Not everywhere, but when they are, it's sometimes severe. A really good example of this is biglight.avi. You cannot ignore the washout of color on a very very angry Ruby weapon (i think it's ruby anyway) and features on the airship in that movie are just swallowed by the black levels. Trojak's version has it's own cartoonish look as a downside but the brightness and available color detail as a result of it is more pleasing to my eye by a long shot. I think I like DLPBs approach more than Trojak's but the softer movies look better stretched out of res.

So that's the rub, I think. For a set of movies with a more or less standard set of parameters across the board, I think you outdid yourself. If you wanted to look at each one individually and adjust them really obsessively frame by frame, I think you could make them look a lot nicer, but I think I'd want 50grand for the job. Your movies are an order of magnitude higher in detail, in a lot of scenes, than any of the previous versions I've watched. I think that was probably your goal, so you nailed it and I really like the results. Thanks again for posting your project and for all your hard work!

P.S. I want to use your eidoslogo cus the very first part is neat looking, but the second part with the actual eidos runs choppy even in windows media player. like its at half frame rate.

cmh175

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #76 on: 2013-06-01 06:46:42 »
Thanks glad to hear you like them. I did my best going though them to get the best possible results. Unfortunately perfection isn't really attainable, as you said I'd have to go though every single frame of each video and that's a full time job for a serious professional. The color and shading is as close as it could be to the original image while enhancing the image and removing the hazy grey appearance. So if something seems really dark check your settings if it seems off. They look perfect on my pc and my mac.

Unfortunately some transitions like the reactor exploding aren't perfect. There's not a lot to fix this as the video images are rendered differently than the regular background. Even on nearly perfect videos you can see where they end and the game background picks up. Luckily those imperfections are mostly minor and over pretty quickly too. And in that video particularly you pretty much forget the imperfect image when you see the city and the explosion.

On biglight do you mean the main weapon you see who flies away first? That's Ultimate Weapon, he's a dark purple, nearly black color. It's an odd video and one of my favorites and most hated. I have no idea why the sky keeps going from bright to looking like midnight in that video. That's just how it's always looked. I brought out the original image in that video as much as possible and only slightly changed the brightness and contrast levels. I thought the deck of the highwind came out really well.

It's odd you keep having trouble with the Eidoslogo. One thing that'll help is don't watch any of these in windows media player. VLC plays these videos perfectly. What are your pc specs? That could be why your experience with the videos seems different from mine. The square logo is just bad, or at least in the 2012s. Square kind of butchered that one, same as the second half of the Eidoslogo. I cleared them up some but I also wasn't stressing over those two. 

I'm glad you like them. It makes a big difference playing the game with videos this clear. Unless someone really digs into them and corrects them frame by frame it's about as good as it'll get for the most part. It would be awesome if we could just animate new videos, but that would require a team of 3d modelers and editors.
   

cmh175

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #77 on: 2013-06-02 17:50:33 »
Actually I found that the post processing shader settings effect the movies and the menu as well as regular game play. If your videos look really dark try another setting. I found they didn't make a big difference for me, other than darkening the videos, so I disabled it.

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #78 on: 2013-06-03 09:57:45 »
I haven't been using postprocessing for a while since it makes no difference for my ATI card currently. I am positive differences in hardware setups can effect these things. One of us could have a TV that was calibrated way off, too. The point was for you to make new videos that YOU like, and if you are happy than who care's if they are dark on someone else's rig. It's awesome to have more people doing mods period. I'm betting since you are into video editing you use nvidia? 

LeonhartGR

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #79 on: 2013-06-03 21:44:15 »
hahahaha! Card warzzzzz once more... I like it! Sneaky nvidia betrayed me with the new Tomb Raider though... (post #398 in the relevant nvidia forum) but still using it because of backwards compatibility and support :P :P.


cmh175

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #80 on: 2013-06-04 13:40:54 »
lol wow. Yeah I use Nvida, not really out of preference or loyalty though. I picked mine because it's an overclocked card with extra memory and matches specs of much more expensive cards. What problems did you have with Tomb Raider LeonhartGR? I had a few glitches with her hair but that was the night it released, and it seemed like a common issue. Otherwise my 660 ti handled it without issue at the highest settings.

As for the videos my pc on my tv matches my macbook and looks similar playing games like bioshock that I also have on the 360, so my settings seem pretty close to where they should be. So if anything looks dark for anyone check your monitor settings and also what shading option you're using. I tried the HDR Blooming and my screen was practically black, while the blooming option was so bright it was like an acid trip. The smart blooming maybe the best but it wasn't a drastic change and I didn't like how it darkened the videos.

It all comes down to preference though. If a particular video doesn't suite your taste there are plenty of others you can check. My preferred choices were DLPB HQ and 1080p Smooth. Those were the options I originally pieced together.   

LeonhartGR

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #81 on: 2013-06-04 15:22:39 »
(post #398 in the relevant nvidia forum)

Covarr

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #82 on: 2013-06-04 15:26:23 »
Cool it, both of you. ~Covarr

archerxtreme

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #83 on: 2013-06-07 14:36:45 »
Pretty neat! Would like to incorporate these almost immediately but i'm wondering just how far this can be improved :D
Looking forward to some newer 'betas' if you will.

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #84 on: 2013-06-07 15:20:17 »
This is a final release. I corrected the 2012's as much as possible to their original image, while removing imperfections and clearing up the image. Basically this is what they look like without the washed out appearance and a sharper image. Short of stripping these down and correcting each video frame by frame this is as good as they'll get. And as this went through three betas already, there wont be anymore attempts of improving them, short of any minor issues for support.

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Re: New High Quality FMV Project
« Reply #85 on: 2013-08-08 03:53:38 »
Ok so the fmv pack now comes in an .iro for 7thheaven. I've been testing the configuration, and to be sure it works I actually deleted the videos in my games movies file. It's a little bit larger than the original download, but it'll allow you to configure what videos you want, and you don't have to worry about keeping a back up when you reinstall or run bootleg. Plus with the option of removing the videos in the games movies file it'll actually free up hard drive space.

If there are any custom videos you want to use just add an extra folder to your 7thheaven library, and inside add a "movies" file. Just place any particular video you'd rather use inside. When you activate the file in 7thheaven put it at the top of the list of mods, that way every extra mod you're adding has top priority.