Qhimm.com Forums
Project forums => Team Avalanche => Topic started by: sl1982 on 2009-08-07 01:54:11
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Well im hijacking my first post here to tell you guys that im releasing sl1982's Font Mod v0.1
Some things had to change for this release:
Shadows caused graphical glitches so the were removed
Numbers for the clock and the hp/mp bars are not modified in this release.
Instructions:
1. Download file http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8UVXP4UY (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8UVXP4UY)
2. Extract files from archive
3. Locate menu_us.lgp and extract them using your favorite LGP program into a folder
4. Copy the two .tex files from the downloaded file into the folder you extracted menu_us.lgp into
5. If it asks to overwrite select yes
6. Create a new menu_us.lgp file from this folder
7. Copy the new file back into the original location.
8. Copy all files in textures into the textures folder in your FF7 folder (if you dont have this folder you either dont have Aali's custom driver, or an old version of it)
9. Play the game :-D
Enjoy everyone!
old post: Hey guys I've been lurking here for about a month and thought i would try to contribute something to the community. Since im not a modeller or a texturer i figured i would see if i could tackle something else. My idea was to try to make the menu's high res. So my question for anyone that may know, I have not found any menu stuff in the menu_us.lgp other then text and avatars. Are the background menus textures like everything else, or are they dynamically generated?
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Since the new driver was able to smooth out the blockiness of the menu's color, my guess would be it is generated.
If you are interested, however, the text needs a definite overhaul. It would be somewhat tedious and very trial-and-error to get it looking right, but I'm sure EVERYONE would appreciate some smooth text.
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I was actually thinking about that and i would be glad to put some time into it. But i think i need some more information. I know that the textures for the fonts have a palette that shouldnt be changed, but can i use a higher resolution texture instead of the 256x256 ? And how does the program know what letter is which? Is it by the coordinates for the letters? If it is that may make a higher resolution texture impossible.
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It is by coordinates, therefore I think using anything other than the supplied 256x256 would be pointless.
It's been a while since I looked at it, but if I'm not mistaken, the font could have been a better resolution than what was used.
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If it's using the same sprite system as FF8, it won't do well with a larger .tex file.
However, you can use the custom drivers texture replacing feature to get any size to work.
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If it's using the same sprite system as FF8, it won't do well with a larger .tex file.
However, you can use the custom drivers texture replacing feature to get any size to work.
Right, but what about the game using certain locations on the texture for picking out letters? Would they not still be the same location no matter if it's a 256x256 or 1024x1024?
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Maybe some sort of patch to the game? Im not really a programmer but if someone could find the call for the textures they could just add a function to multiply it. As long as the new texture was a multiple of 256 it might work.
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If it's using the same sprite system as FF8, it won't do well with a larger .tex file.
However, you can use the custom drivers texture replacing feature to get any size to work.
Right, but what about the game using certain locations on the texture for picking out letters? Would they not still be the same location no matter if it's a 256x256 or 1024x1024?
Texture coordinates are usually (always in FF7/FF8) in normalized floating point format (0.0 to 1.0). FF8 and probably FF7 too calculate these texture coordinates using the size information found in the .tex.
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Sorry for the stupid question but does that mean it will grab the right spot no matter the texture size?
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Not if you replace the .tex file with a larger one. However, the custom driver can sidestep FF7 and replace any texture with an arbitrary png image. Since the sprite system does not know about this it will generate the correct texture coordinates.
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How does one go about getting the custom driver (which is awesome btw) to load up .png's instead of the tex files?
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There's no tool that can do this yet, but you have to put a special marker at the beginning of the pixel data in the .tex file.
Specifically, the first 3 bytes of the pixel data must be "EXT" followed by a name. This name will be used to find a png file in the textures/ directory, based on the following template: <name>_<palette index>.png
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Sounds way over my head lol. Lets say for example im replacing the usfont_a_h.tex. The png would have to be usfont_a_h_(whatever palette is).png? And how do i modify the tex? Hex editor? And how do i know what the palette is? Sorry for my noobishness, and thanks for all the answers.
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Well ive been messing around with this for a bit and ran into a bit of a snag. Biturn doesnt like to convert bitmaps back to ff7 .tex files properly. I read around and the general consensus seems to be to use omega. The only problem is that the link on the wiki is no good. Anyone have a working link for this program?
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look for borde's image2tex, its in the programming feedback forum i think
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Ok that seems to work. Except the palette is all goofed up now. All i did was open the bmp in photoshop (keeping original palette) and modify one letter to test it out. Used img2tex to make back into tex and inserted back into the lgp and when i run ff all the letters are different colors. Did i do something wrong?
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Woot ok we got some progress. 512x512 tex seems to work ok without trying to figure out .png injection. The palette is still all screwy though. Any ideas? Im sure many people would like to have some higher resolution text in the game. Hopefully we can make this work
edit: 1024x1024 does as well, also 24 bit
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awesome! lets see some awesum fonts
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Easiest way would be to just take an already made font and slap it into the textures. Anyone have any good ideas for fonts? Or do we want to remake the one in the game?
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I think we should stick with the original fonts... take another font would get off the 'originality' of the game.
We just need hi-res anyway... well.. IMO tho
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Aali .. can u elaborate more on that .png replacement thing?
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http://img34.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff7s.jpg (http://img34.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff7s.jpg)
Just a little messing around
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(http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3255/ff72.jpg) (http://img263.imageshack.us/i/ff72.jpg/)
By sl1982 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/sl1982)
OK this is what i have so far. Let me know what you think
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Looks like comic sans. I am thrilled that you got this to work correctly, but I'm not a fan of the font choice
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Lol it is. I dont mind the font but this was more of a first attempt. Anyone have any suggestions for fonts? Rebuilding the original characters for a high res is alot of work when a font swap would work just fine. But i guess if that what people wanted i guess i could take a crack at it.
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I am personally a fan of Tahoma. I'm not really sure how that will look in the game though.
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Nice and plain. I like it
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Calibri?
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wingdings would be awsome allthough you would need a translator J/K
the one that looks like it was done by a typewriter i think is the best
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well, provide me with the original font sheet, i could do a vector trace and output it at any resolution you want, you could do the rest (putting it in game)
however it depends what you want, if you just want a different font, do a swap, but if you want a direct improvement on the original (just curving out that AA'd bends in letters) i can do that fairly quickly
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Personally, I think that Calibri or Arial would work well if you're going to do a simple font swap. As long as you keep similar or thinner proportions to the original (any wider would be too bold), and make sure to use a sans-serif font that isn't crazy or comicy or scripty, you should be fine.
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Being a programmer, I'm inclined to say Courier, or bold Courier, haha.
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WINGDINGS! :D
Seriously though, I'd also like to see courier, but I don't know how trying to make a fixed width font would work.
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Well I tried to do tahoma and so far it looks pretty good. Ill get a screenie up soon.
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(http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/2508/ff7.jpg) (http://img233.imageshack.us/i/ff7.jpg/)
By sl1982 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/sl1982)
Ignore the red lines. The are used for alignment purposes and will be removed from the final textures.
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that looks awesome! do you plan on doing the numbers also?
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Nicely done! A few letters are a little too spaced or close, but nothing really that noticeable
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WHY WOULD YOU USE COMIC SANS :-o :-P
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WHY WOULD YOU USE COMIC SANS :-o :-P
To get reactions like that! :-D
I think he should use Papyrus (http://xkcd.com/590/) next.
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That looks really good, I can't wait to use that!
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wow! Excellent job! That actually looks *really good*
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Does this new texture of yours have multiple palettes or will all text just be white?
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As of right now that is the huge drawback. It is just white. Not sure how i could do a paletted kind of thing with the 24bit bmps
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Now this could also really help me. Do you know how to edit the character sets also? So I can place in the O macron character etc? I need it for the translation project you see....
I really like the idea of changing font too though :)
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You would have to find out if the character is in one of the texture maps for the fonts. If not im sure you could draw it into one of the unused characters and then just use that character in your translation in place of the one u want.
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Gemini changed the whole thing for psx version :)
It can be done....the question is finding out someone who can do this for PC. I will see if Gemini would be willing when he isn't busy in the future. :P Times like this I wish I could program to that kind of level
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(http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/3255/ff72.th.jpg) (http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff72.jpg)
(http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/7509/ff73.th.jpg) (http://img44.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff73.jpg)
Looking good if I may say so :lol:
Just need to find what texture files it uses for the numbers
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wow, the text looks a Sh*t ton better at high res now.
After you fix the color issue are you planing on releasing it?
Please do, i want this :-D
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Yeah i dont have a problem releasing it. I wanted to give back to the community after all. And as for the color palette thing im not even sure it can be fixed.
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Dang. maybe Aali can find away around it or something.
I was working on a text mod, but couldn't get it to work ingame XD
Though if you are using Image2Tex by borde, might be why, i was using biturn haha
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The palette might not be a big deal. As of right now the only thing ive seen it mess with was the save game selection shows all white even if you dont have a save there. And save game is never greyed out
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Got the numbers all sorted out and also spruced up the limit and exp bars in the menu. Unfortunately imageshack is down right now so i cant show you guys all the awesomeness :cry:
edit: up now
(http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/8422/ff74.jpg) (http://img18.imageshack.us/i/ff74.jpg/)
By sl1982 (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/sl1982)
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I like the letters, but I just can't decide about the numbers.... maybe you could try bolding them?
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I agree with obesebear, since the original numbers were so much thicker than the letters, bolding the numbers should make it look less off.
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i am happy with ANYTHING over the original letters haha, But the originals had sort of a 3d effect to them, can you replicate that?
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Without palettes, ALL text will be white, everywhere.
However, you could use the texture replacement hack in the custom driver to make this work, since it has one .png per palette.
The drawback is of course that it's not as "clean" of a mod anymore. Ideally you'd want to make a high-res paletted image.
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I agree thats probably the best way to go to make everything look perfect, but i dont know how to modify the tex files to load up the png's.
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New screenies with bold numbers. What do you all think?
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3518/ff77.th.jpg) (http://img4.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff77.jpg)
(http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6755/ff76.th.jpg) (http://img4.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff76.jpg)
(http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9378/ff75j.th.jpg) (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff75j.jpg)
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I think it looks better than when it wasn't bold. Now it's almost too bold :-P But that's just me being picky. I think you've done a really stand up job getting this to work and look believable.
Now if only you could pallette it...
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Lol i just cant win
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I like the numbers. awesome job
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I think it's good so far. But I really would like to see timu sumisu's magic in the original font.
Maybe we can have the original high-res'ed with no pallete issues.
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Lol i just cant win
Since you're the only one who has got this working so far, I'd say you've already won :-P
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Well ultimately I want to get palettized fonts working. Sent a pm to aali to see if he can help me get the png texture replacement thing working. Hex editing files is not something im familiar with.
I think it's good so far. But I really would like to see timu sumisu's magic in the original font.
Maybe we can have the original high-res'ed with no pallete issues.
And I think we should let timu work on his awesome model for the game and leave this to someone who cant model :-P
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@sl1982
yeah I know that. I'm liking ur font swaps already.
I'm just the kind of guy who don't want to get out of the originality of the game.
Also, I'm not asking timu to do it, he offered himself to it.
well, provide me with the original font sheet, i could do a vector trace and output it at any resolution you want, you could do the rest (putting it in game)
however it depends what you want, if you just want a different font, do a swap, but if you want a direct improvement on the original (just curving out that AA'd bends in letters) i can do that fairly quickly
at the end, would not be bad to have 2 options in the mod:
- ff7 hi-res "type in yout font here" font
- ff7 hi-res original font
ur mod can even have more options of fonts. For all tastes! :-)
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Well i think ive gone as far as I can with this until i get some palettized images going. The main problem is when doing the text in hi res it screws up a bunch of other things like pointers and materia and what not. Even just making the textures bigger and then inserting them back into the lgp screws with the palette even if you dont touch anything else. Might be a photoshop issue, not sure. But as it stands it screws up too much stuff for it to be a useful mod.
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I once modified some battle textures and got screwed pallete. To fix it I had to edit the images with paint and after that modify some hex values from the modified .tex to fix the pallete... managed to make it work but I don't remember quite well what I've did to fix the pallete. Anyway, I only remember it was a pain to do it.
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Well at the moment im clueless when it comes to hex editing. It all looks greek to me. Bah this sucks
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There's no tool that can do this yet, but you have to put a special marker at the beginning of the pixel data in the .tex file.
Specifically, the first 3 bytes of the pixel data must be "EXT" followed by a name. This name will be used to find a png file in the textures/ directory, based on the following template: <name>_<palette index>.png
Anyone know where the beginning of the pixel data is? The wiki just says it varies.
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Hey SL1982, your work looks great!
Once you finish updating all the characters (I can see in one of your screenies that the parentheses are still at the default) and you solve the discoloration issues, I'd love to see a release!
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All in due time my friend. There is still alot of stuff to figure out before i will consider this worthy of a release.
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Woot i figured it out. Lots of trial and error but it seems to be working. Have 4 png's for the one tex file. Im assuming these are for the different palettes. Also aali if you see this it seems the png insertion ignores the black = transparent
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Well of course it does, a png doesn't have a colorkey flag.
However, with a png you can just set the alpha to 0 (this is always transparent, even if blending is off)
Here's a list of which palette corresponds to which text color:
enum text_colors
{
TEXTCOLOR_GRAY = 0,
TEXTCOLOR_BLUE = 2,
TEXTCOLOR_RED = 4,
TEXTCOLOR_PINK = 6,
TEXTCOLOR_GREEN = 8,
TEXTCOLOR_LIGHT_BLUE = 10,
TEXTCOLOR_YELLOW = 12,
TEXTCOLOR_WHITE = 14,
};
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Im sorry aali. Im new to this stuff and i really have no idea about image formats. If i ask a stupid question just ignore it.
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Woot working good! Updates will follow soon
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upload the original text file and send to me, and i'll have a highrez version in no time.
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You can just grab them from your menu_us.lgp file.
usfont_a_h.tex
usfont_b_h.tex
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Oh btw if anyone is interested in redoing some of the art for the game that is in the menu's that would be awesome let me know (eg hand for cursor, limit break bars, etc)
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Oh btw if anyone is interested in redoing some of the art for the game that is in the menu's that would be awesome let me know (eg hand for cursor, limit break bars, etc)
...the hand must stay!! :-o
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i can do most of those... or at least i'll give a try
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Anybody have a working link to the tools for converting the .tex files to bmp, can't find one that works.
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Omega by M4v3R (http://www.balamb.pl/qh/omega.7z)
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Bitturn will convert a tex file to a bmp. You can find it on the wiki.
And unfortunately the hand needs to be updated. Once you mess with the text in that file all the colors turn goofy. Look at one of my earlier screenshots for an example.
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Thanks.
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Timu were you able to get those tex files out of the lgp? If not ill upload them somewhere
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Screenie time!
(http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6643/ff711.th.jpg) (http://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff711.jpg)
(http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/2757/ff710.th.jpg) (http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff710.jpg)
(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6669/ff79.th.jpg) (http://img194.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff79.jpg)
(http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/3170/ff78.th.jpg) (http://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ff78.jpg)
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Have you thought about adding shadows to the letters and numbers once you get them all situated?
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I might. It would be a time consuming process though. Just to get what you see requires 10 png's minimum. To add shadows by hand would take a while. Also im not sure if timu is actually making a high res version of the original font. If he is then maybe it would be better to wait for that.
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I might. It would be a time consuming process though. Just to get what you see requires 10 png's minimum. To add shadows by hand would take a while. Also im not sure if timu is actually making a high res version of the original font. If he is then maybe it would be better to wait for that.
Keep at it, no point having high res 3d when the 2d looks old school due to a rubbish font.
Well done.
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Ill give that a try and show some screens. Thanks Hermoor!
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Awesome job!, what happened to the materia and the slots though?
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Thats one of the problems when i redid the numbers. Basically all the art for materia and such is in that file so when i modified it it got all messed up. Thats why im looking for an artist to help me redo them.
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(http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3011/ff712.th.jpg) (http://img188.imageshack.us/i/ff712.jpg/)
Like the shadows?
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(http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3011/ff712.th.jpg) (http://img188.imageshack.us/i/ff712.jpg/)
Like the shadows?
YES! Hurry and release this :-D
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How'd you manage to pull off the shadows?
So you're looking for someone to make a new hand cursor, materia slots, and other graphics? What format? What size? What kind of pallette? I'm sure we (we being everyone here on the forums with some artistic experience) can help!
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Shadows look awesome. Around the numbers there is a line under it though, Is that for alignment? Or is it just a graphical error?
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Graphical errors for now. Not exactly sure why some of them are there. Need to do more investigating. Also if you notice there is a couple glitches above some of the letters in the menu. They seem to be related to the capital S. The shadows were compliments of Hermoor's knowledge of photoshop. As for hand cursors and such bmp would be the preferable format. If someone wants to team up on this let me know. (Imagive if millenia got his hands on these :wink: )
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Ok ive figured out what all the black lines and stuff are from. It seems when the game grabs the character it uses coordinates to grab a square area and there is an edge of a different character it is grabbing. I may have to see if i can shrink some of the letters
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the hand cursor and materia slots is the pallete screwed up when it converts .bmp back to .tex
I have only managed to fix those with hex editing. comparing values between original and the modified I found out that the .bmp to .tex converter don't work like it should.
I can only fix this with hex editing tho, unless someone have a 'easier' solution
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the hand cursor and materia slots is the pallete screwed up when it converts .bmp back to .tex
I have only managed to fix those with hex editing. comparing values between original and the modified I found out that the .bmp to .tex converter don't work like it should.
I can only fix this with hex editing tho, unless someone have a 'easier' solution
Are you using Borde's Image2Tex program?
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Yes i was. But im now using aali's texture replacement method.
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Are you using Borde's Image2Tex program?
I was talking about Omega.
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Release in the first post. Check it out!
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I personally think that sl1982's Font Mod v0.1 for the name would be a better self-description of the program.
Btw, gratz for the release!
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the " in the menus around like "enemy skill" materia are dark should they be white?
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I personally think that sl1982's Font Mod v0.1 for the name would be a better self-description of the program.
Btw, gratz for the release!
Good idea!
the " in the menus around like "enemy skill" materia are dark should they be white?
Can you provide a screenshot for me to look at?
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Here (http://img90.imageshack.us/i/ff7font.jpg/)
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Ok ill take a look at that. They seem to be original text so I must have forgotten to update those 2 characters.
Also I made a new thread for the release. Please post problems in that from now on. :-D
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Curlyoxide, how did you get your font to look as Anti-aliased as that? I have AA on but it doesn't like to do anything about the font...
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i used this .post (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8306.msg108621#msg108621) shader and tweaked it by editing it in notepad
// Calculating texel coordinates
float width = 1280.0;
float height = 640.0;
is my current settings
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In the next version of the font I may put some antialaising on the textures. Or for anyone that has an image editing program all the textures are in png format. Edit to your hearts content
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Man, that AA looks so good... Too bad my laptop can't handle it. It like almost halves my framerate.
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Man, that AA looks so good... Too bad my laptop can't handle it. It like almost halves my framerate.
Me too. I've found that running the game at lower resolutions helps speed things up, but what's the point in doing that!
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Personally i think it makes it look too blurry. But thats just my opinion
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Halkun since this thread is somewhat obsolete due to a new release thread could you close this thread?
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Personally i think it makes it look too blurry. But thats just my opinion
But you can change the resolution in the .post files so it looks less blurry.
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Once everything gets redone in high res you wont need the filter :-P