Messages

126

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar City Information

« on: 2015-02-12 19:19:26 »

Among the possibilities is a method I've been using for my slums scenes:
You could ask SpooX, Sapphire or Killerx20 if they could make a panoramic, equirectangular render of their Midgar models.
Then, in Blender, you can use the equirectangular image as background (Using the "Environment texture" node), which could provide not only some background image, but also serve as enviro-light - it can be a very useful and realistic way to provide a light source to a scene.

127

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar City Information

« on: 2015-02-12 17:15:01 »

As I said, other people have been working on this, as you can see here and here.
As far as I recall, SpooX had the ambition to recreate enough of Midgar to be able to remake the opening video, which corresponds to what you have been trying to do. You could PM SpooX if you wish to have more detailed information.
At first glance: one feature which is missing from your model is that Midgar has metallic structures which keep radiating out, past the ring of mako reactors. The Midgar models shown in the links above do have these. In addition, I think the radius of the structure you've designed is too small, compared with the height of the pillars.

All that being said: if you were to recreate Final Fantasy VII environments, I would very much prefer if you spend your efforts on environments which have not been touched by anyone else so far. Given that we're way too few people in order to deliver a significant amount of scenes, we can't afford being redundant in the scenes we're creating. If you wish to create something new, there's a ton of things to be done, and I'd be very happy to guide you and help you out.

128

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar City Information

« on: 2015-02-12 13:06:19 »

It's hard to tell. To begin with, dimensions and aspect ratios a very different depending on whether you consider "original FF7 Midgar" vs "more recent CG renditions of Midgar" (as in Advent Children and Crisis Core). The size of Midgar in the original FF7 game is still that of a "RPG town", meaning that it might have looked big in its time but in actuality it is fairly small in comparison to a/ a real-life city b/large towns in more modern productions (GTA, Assassin's Creed). The size of Midgar is the CG scenes of Crisis Core or Advent Children is much larger and, in my opinion, more fitting the picture of the dystopian metropolis. What we could do is measure the top section of the Shinra building, which is 10 floors (thus roughly 30 m) and use that as a scale to evaluate the radius of the plate.   
Otherwise, SpooX, sapphite and Killerx20 have been working on modelling the entire thing, so they might have a more accurate idea.

129

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-12 00:34:15 »

Thanks! That's very insightful.
Well, all in all I think I can fix stuff without too much of a problem. I think that, if I have the means to be thorough and correct, I might as well do it right. Besides, your comments will be very useful if I wish to "recycle" some of these books on other scenes later.
And at least I'm happy to have gotten a couple of titles correctly

130

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-11 23:29:03 »

Thank you so much 

I'll definitely take your advice for the books. Below is an image where I pasted all the writings of the textures I had made for the writings on the book covers. I only have the writings as images, not as fonts, but I'm sure you could help me out on that one. Sadly enough, I actually can't recall exactly what each title was intended to be (I have done this texture job almost two years ago!). The titles which are horizontally written are on the front of the cover, the ones written vertically are for the cover sides. On the image below, there may be some redundancy between titles because I've just quickly combined all the titles of all book together.


What I can recall, however, is that I wanted some books about cooking indeed (I think something like "Home cooking" would be the best), photo albums (wouldn't have guessed about the Engrish on that one), gardening and floral arrangements. I even think that for one of them, I copy/pasted the title of the oldest book in Japan which happened to be about gardening
I had set 作り方 for some books as I was trying to make "how-to" books such as "1001 tips for your home" including a variety of odd jobs, the kind which would cover "DIY table", "applying wallpapers" or "fix your plumbing".
 
I'm very grateful for your help, although I can't help feeling a little down because I have to rework all these textures, and re-render the images 

131

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-11 13:33:53 »

Wow, that's a lot of useful information! Thanks 

You've given a good example, I see what the differences can be. I would guess a Westerner equivalent would be modified letters such as è, é, ç, þ, ţ, ž you can find in various European languages.
Thanks for the fonts, they're going to be useful. I'll see about re-texturing these elements of the item shop then.

If possible, I would very much like to have your help for "Quality Control" purposes - I have to rely on knowledgeable people if I want to keep Japanese writings in my scenes and have them make sense.
By the way, if you could double-check what I had already considered "final", that'd be much appreciated: in the indoor scenes of Aerith's house (a couple of pages earlier), I have textured many books and folders where I tried to write a title, I'd like to make sure it's consistent (and that I didn't write gibberish). I have also a number of scenes "in progress" where I'd like your review before I launch the final renders.

132

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-11 04:45:58 »

To be honest I thought that kanjis which were common to Chinese and Japanese could be written with whatever font. I have other fonts for kanjis which generally look more "modern" to my Westerner eyes, but in that particular case I wanted a more "rustic" kind of font for the kanjis you mentioned. If you could redirect me to someplace where I could find a variety of Japanese (rather than Chinese) True Type fonts, I'd appreciate.

If there is a place where Chinese fonts were possibly used in the original game, that would be in the Wall Market / Don Corneo's mansion. If you could please check out the corresponding scenes
http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-vii/map-analysis/map-analysis-part-2/
and let me know? I don't have a discriminating eye for that. If there are Chinese fonts used in any of these, then maybe I could get away with a Chinese/Japanese font mix in mds5_i. If not, well then I guess I'll have to re-texture these.

Anyway, that's an area where I could definitely use some help 

133

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-11 03:23:27 »

Amazing work Mayo! I can't help but notice you're using a Chinese font for 歓迎 and 漢 in the shop, I know it doesn't really matter given that it's a fantasy world but they feel a little out of place due to the inconsistency (or did the original scene use Chinese fonts for those too?).

Actually, original scenes have a lot of kanji writings. For texturing, it's best to figure out what they were meant to be, so we can get the high-res version of them, so we do make some search. SpooX has been recently struggling with the original writings on the train car, for instance. For quite a lot of material, I was able to find information here:
http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-vii/map-analysis/map-analysis-part-5/
and I've been trusting this source so far (sometimes double-checking with my girlfriend who has rudimentary knowledge of Japanese).

All in all, I've made an effort in order to get some Japanese writings which would make sense to a Japanese reader - which is very tricky since I've pretty much no knowledge of the language myself. If you have some advice in that area, please let me know. Or did you mean that the font was specifically Chinese and would be unused for Japanese writings?

134

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-11 00:27:48 »

Update!

The mds5_dk scene, aka "Man in pipe" aka "This guy are sick" scene, has been finalized and uploaded to the repo. Below is the final render with the lighting layer:



I hope you enjoy.

135

Team Avalanche / Re: Spell effects

« on: 2015-02-09 23:06:58 »

Neat stuff! Keep up the good work 

136

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-08 21:51:56 »

Update!

The item shop scene mds5_i was updated (a couple of tweaks here and there), and uploaded to the repo (the tiled field files were replaced). Below is how the scene looks like:

137

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-02-07 15:32:00 »

I'm afraid I don't know how to generate these XML files. One thing though: the indication about how to tile the images (probably the "tile destination" stuff in the XML) is scene-specific, so I would guess the information comes from the LGP files already in the game.

138

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-02-06 19:34:48 »

The way I generate the tiled images is by combining the layers in Palmer, then "Write modpath textures". It's not something you get straight out of Blender.
I think that KnifeTheSky77 meant about removing the constraints from how backgrounds are currently tiled, and have full control over what layers can be displayed and where. My current work on finalizing my fields has shown how much limiting that can be.

139

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-06 18:33:51 »

The number scenes which have been finished, and finalized to be playable,  has reached the amazing amount of... ehm, 7.
I have 6 other scenes which are almost done, where I have to finalize the layering and post-processing effects, and that's currently underway. I'd like to believe I can do these before the end of the month, but recent experience has shown that unforeseen problems may pop up at that stage.
Once I have the package of my Sector 5 scenes done (market, related shops, and Aerith's house), I'll make a "public" release.
anaho made a few scenes for Mideel, I think a couple of them are almost complete and playable.
And then there's Ulpians's scene where the layering and post-processing wasn't done.


So, yeah, our progress is about 9/650, soon to be around 15/650 

 

140

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-02-05 01:03:52 »

Hi folks,

mds5_1 is finally done and uploaded to the repo. Below is the final render with light layers:



Again, anyone who wishes to try it without having access to the repo, please PM me. I hope you like it.

As a side note: finalizing this scene has been tedious and painful. As a lesson for future scenes: when modelling a new scene, it is key to refer to the background layer as given by Palmer. Referring to this layer in particular is helpful in preventing the following issue: Considering the background layer  given by Palmer such as the one below 


 
It is essential that the tiles in white shown on that layer be covered by objects located on a foreground layer. If not, it will instead reveal an area not covered by foreground objects, where the background layer will not be displayed either, resulting in black pixels. I had to go through an awful lot of troubleshooting to get that fixed, because I had been basing my modelling on the complete scene (where all layers are displayed together). The tiling process of the various layers is very limiting (not to mention the problem of alpha values).
Anyway, I need something more straightforward to do next - I've lots a few neurons and some hair completing that one.

141

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] Mission B Fields, Midgar details

« on: 2015-02-03 14:34:02 »

Thanks for the update 
As for the development lasting only a year, it would raise several questions:
- Are you sure? (I thought it was more around 3 years) For that matter, wasn't the date of 1995 on one of the cutscenes (Jenova's helmet during Nibelheim flashback)?
- If true, did these guys had any sleep during the year of development, or are they even human? The amount of work is too much for a team this small to have been done in a year.

142

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-02-03 14:24:07 »

By the way - it's possible to use 3d scenes directly in Q-Gears )

The modelling approach for making directly-usable 3d scenes for Q-Gears would have to be different from the one used for rendering 2d backgrounds. Basically, for rendering 2d backgrounds, we can model without much care about poly counts/mesh optimization - real-time 3d scenes would be a different story. The other matter is about lighting and shading, since the renderer you would be using (Ogre) does not necessarily support the same shaders which a 3d-modelling software would. 

143

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2015-01-31 18:46:57 »

Update: And yet more delays for mds5_1 

After a lot of work, upon testing the scene in game, it turned out that the automated layer cut is causing an awful lot of problems: mostly there are many places where the background layer is not showing, leaving the area black. So... I even have many areas to remodel in order to "hide" the areas where the background is cut, by adding "stuff" on foreground layers. And then I'll have to re-render and re-cut all that.

Cheap %#*^......

What he said.

144

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] Startmap Debug Room (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-01-30 14:48:07 »

What I think would be much simpler:

- Please download a font which actually supports kanjis (such as MingLiu), there must be plenty out there.
- In Blender, make square planes - I suggest you make one atop of each button. UV-unwrapping is trivial.
- In your favorite image processing software, write the kanji using the downloaded font. It can be made as simply as a Copy/Paste of said kanjis from the wikia page. Have the kanji white on black background on a square image.
- Go back to Blender, in the material of your square planes, map it with the appropriate kanji texture. Then in you material, create a material which has the reflective properties you desire for your kanjis. Once you have that, add a Mix shader node combined with a Transparent shader node. Use your kanji texture as the Fac input to the Mix shader.

I think that's the best way to go. The kanjis may be flat, but you have the projected shadow. If you want 3d effects on the kanjis, then you may have to do the cut out and extrude by hand (with the help of "set image as background" using top view), more complicated but doable. I have not tried to get such 3d effect by applying a solidify modifier to the 2d with transparency - I'm curious about what that would yield though.

Still, in any case: Kanji font >>> bitmap

145

Team Avalanche / Re: Spell effects

« on: 2015-01-30 14:33:14 »

What effects are left?
If that haven't been touched up I vote limits.

A good question. Please let us know what remains to be done, it will make it easier for us to vote

146

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-01-29 20:14:29 »

Oh beware, nothing goes automatically in 3ds Max, that would be too easy 

I suspected as much 

are there any concrete materials that apply evenly automatic?

When you're inexperienced in 3d modelling, sometimes you'd expect that materials and texture be the secondary part of the process. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any"magical material applier" tool in any software.
Just some figures to give you an idea: in any scene that I've made for TA last year, I would say that only 1/4 of the time was just modelling the mesh of objects (at most). Most of the time is dedicated to UV-unwrapping, creation of materials, lighting, etc. And that's coming from someone who does prefer the meshing aspect of 3d modelling to the texturing side of it. However, the extra care you put into developing materials is what makes the difference.

147

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-01-29 16:38:52 »

Is there any way to get the original camera data for this scene so I can render from where the camera in FF7 renders from?

There is. From the PSX field data, SpooX's Shinratool (see sticky thread)can output a script which you run in Blender, yielding the walkmesh and camera data. If you don't have the PSX discs, I could prep the .blend file for you.

By the way, in theory: SpooX has this scene as "Work in Progress" (though he works with 3ds) - so as far as TA is concerned, this scene is not new content.

PS For adding geometry (without having to change your UVs), subsurf and bevel modifiers are your friends.

148

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-01-29 00:00:16 »

So.... I just checked your .blend file. All in all it's very simple: your bridge was not UV-unwrapped correctly.
One quick way to "diagnostic" the problem: When you put one of the sub-windows in Blender as "UV-image editor", you can see in that window the UV-unwrap of a select object in your 3D viewport sub-window, when the object is in "Edit mode" (ie. Tab). The UV-uwrap should represent the surface developed by your 3d object on a 2d surface, and describes how the texture is going to be mapped on it. When I checked your UV-unwrap, the rectangles which should correspond to the "thickness" of the bridge had the same aspect ratio as the rectangles describing the top surface of the bridge, which is incorrect. You can see this on the left hand side on the picture below.



A proper UV-unwrap should yield much slimmer rectangles for the thickness of the bridge than the rectangles describing the top surface. Additionally, your object didn't have any seam for the UV-unwrap to be made. I'm assuming you must have used one of the automated UV-unwrapper, such as "Smart UV project", whose "smartness" only takes you so far.
So how to do this correctly:
Select your object. Go to edit mode. Then you would have to select the edges which will be the seams of your UV-Unwrap. This is the most "tricky" part of UV-unwrapping, if you practice on cubic or cylindrical object, after a fashion it comes more naturally for more complex geometry. The seams are where you need to cut your 3d object in order to develop a flat surface. The tricky aspect is mostly about figuring the proper seams which offer the best compromise between texture continuity and distorsion (mapping a cylinder is the simplest exercise to give you the idea). In the case of your bridge, the best result would be achieved by the ensemble of seams described below:



So, what you need to do is to select these seams, then check your Tools menu, and in the Shading tab click "Mark Seam". Once you do that, the seams in question should be highlighted in red. Once that's done, all that remains is to select all the seams of the Object, then press "U" and select "Unwrap". At this point, your UV should be properly unwrapped, as described by the picture below:



You should notice that, on the left hand side of the image, your new UV-unwrap has much better aspect ratio of the rectangles describing the object surface. Your object is now properly UV-unwrapped.



And that concludes our UV-unwrapping 101 n00b tutorial. Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week 

 

149

Team Avalanche / Re: North Mako Reactor Bridge (Q-Gears)

« on: 2015-01-28 17:55:43 »

I'll check it out tonight.

150

Team Avalanche / Re: Spell effects

« on: 2015-01-28 17:53:30 »

Awesome! Thank you very much for all this work. Looking forward to testing that