Topics

1

General Discussion / Limit Brake - A gameplay overhaul

« on: 2019-05-04 19:58:46 »

I just have to write down my ideas on how to re-balance the game without to break the actual feeling of it. The main part of my idea is to work out a MP charge system. With this system you will generate MP over time in battle. The materia will have an heavy impact to said system, be its generation speed, max MP or start MP.
I had this idea long time ago but didn't thought that it is feasible but with the development of Sister Ray I think it could be done. I will write down in future what I think this mod needs like a rework of the limit system or making a few characters more special. Red XIII as example won't be able to use materia but I would lock enemyskills on him (and only him) so he would come with his own system. Though I'm unsure of how I deal with Cait Sith, because he doesn't really fit into my explanation of the new MP system (stress will activate it but he's a robot) so either I write him out and replace him (lots of options) or he gets his own system as Red.

2

FF7 Tools / IroNite - .iro packer and unpacker

« on: 2019-02-27 09:39:38 »

A small but handy tool to pack or unpack your iro files:
https://mega.nz/#!qdtRQAxT!OJY1emH5ieUf-_sMyYJ6klixvzJp5IJzeaS6Cbd0Gjk

Old file
https://mega.nz/#!mA9wAaIA!ABkqyeETrL_yjKiDOjvMnU_G8LSCpsZgXY-Qm3-_4kw

Usage:
To unpack an iro-file place it into packed. Run the bat file and select unpack when you are asked.
To pack a folder into an iro mod file, place it into unpacked. Run the bat and select pack.

Keep in mind that the bat will create iros which are always compressed by content.

Thanks to:
TurBoss
Red XIV
quantumpencil
Iros

3

General Discussion / Need help with new Sephiroth skeleton animations

« on: 2017-04-23 19:08:41 »

It doesn't help but I have to ask for help. There are animations are ridicules long and doesn't even need the coat animated. These are not also unnecessary time eaters but means also a lot of work and stress for something that could be done easier with a tool. All I need is a small tool which adds the new bones to the animation. As far I understand the info from the wiki an animation has a header with the information of the number of frames and the number of bones (and some other stuff I don't understand) then the file consist out of a followup of (floats)numbers.
It starts with three numbers for the root rotation, the next three are for the root translation and then follow the numbers for the bones (again three for each). This means, if we have a skeleton with 24 bones and an animation with two frames, it will have for its first frame 78 numbers. The 79th number is the first of the three numbers for the root rotation of the second frame.
Example with a skeleton with 2 bones and 3 frames

Header|

root rotation f1|

root translation f1|

bone 1 f1|

bone 2f1|

root rotation f2|

root translation f2|

bone 1 f2|

bone 2f2|

root rotation f3|

root translation f3|

bone 1 f3|

bone 2f3|

2bones; 3frames

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

As you can see on the wiki the header has more information but I guess they don't need to be edited.
So far so good.

What I need, is a tool, which will inject additional bone rotations into the animation file. The best way I could think of to realize that is to load the original models hrc file and then the animation, which should be ported to the new skeleton. For that it's necessary to load the new hrc of the model to have a comparison for the program to know which bones are new. When it writes the animation for the new file, it firstly updates the number of bones in the header, then it checks if the current bone of the new skeleton has in the original hrc a corresponding bone and if yes it writes the coords for the current frame from it and if not then it writes zeros and goes on.
Example:

	Old Skeleton		New Skeleton		write
bone	head-chest		head-chest
x  rotation	7,0312		------		7,0312
y  rotation	0		------		0
z  rotation	359,9121		------		359,9121
bone	N/A		coat-hip
x  rotation	N/A		------		0
y  rotation	N/A		------		0
z  rotation	N/A		------		0

And we shouldn't forget the six numbers for the root rotation and transition at the start of every frame, but these don't need an edit so it might be good to take them over from the original a file to the new one.

And this how I think an animation file (taking my first example) will look after the change:

Header|

root rotation f1|

root translation f1|

bone 1 f1|

new_bone  f1|

bone 2f1|

root rotation f2|

root translation f2|

bone 1 f2|

new_bone  f1|

bone 2f2|

root rotation f3|

root translation f3|

bone 1 f3|

new_bone  f3|

bone 2f3|

2bones; 3frames

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

xyz

That would be for the first version of the tool enough.

The next needed feature would be to patch a new animation file with the original. Why? Because sometimes I can't achieve the quality of the original animation with Kimera's interpolation function, however if I could restore the bone's rotation I could use Kimera to animate the new bones with it. I think it will work similar as before, but this time the new skeleton will get also an animation attached to it (I guess it's enough if the program checks if the file names are the same) and the program will only write coords from matching bones of the original animation. The root rotation and translation should be left untouched.

If someone could create such tool for me (plea~ze ), it might be possible that we also can exceed the limit of 29 bones (I haven't found a model with more) and I could make one skeleton which is compatible with all human models. It also would mean that a few more things could be animated with new additional bones (feet hands and hair springs in my mind).

Thanks for reading.

4

General Discussion / [FF7PC] Tool compilation

« on: 2017-01-08 21:19:45 »

I made a guide on Steam to have the most needed tools on map.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=838174965

Btw. can someone fix and improve this for the new Blender version?
https://github.com/jacobvalenta/ffimport

5

General Discussion / FF7[PC?] Something funny ...

« on: 2016-09-02 20:01:24 »

That's a really nice game:
http://ffvii-reimagined.com/

Would be cool if we could use it as a minigame in the wonder square.

6

Support / FF7 Steam Texture replacement

« on: 2016-06-26 19:21:58 »

Actually I was searching for an alternate program to textmod but for opengl based games. I only found its successor uMod (https://code.google.com/archive/p/texmod/downloads) which only works with directx9 games. However it does dump all textures of FF7 (FF8 too maybe its a better alternative to Tonberry?) I was able to replace the menu avatar and ...

parts of the BG:


Still I get too much unneeded images maybe some one knows how to setup the filter so that the program doesn't dump so much.

7

General Discussion / [FF7] Difference of the lighting in PSX and PC

« on: 2016-02-28 20:51:06 »

I have currently checked two vids of FF7, because the lighting of the PC version is entirely different.
PSX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-fwg4VQxwI
PC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl3H5pVeo4Q
As much I could see it, it seems that the PSX renders the light only once at the start of the scene on the model and on PC the light comes clearly from one direction and is updated every time when the model moves.

Can somebody confirm that I'm right?

8

Support / New Pete's OpenGL shader

« on: 2016-02-14 22:23:47 »

Aali's did say it is fairly easy to adapt shaders of Pete's OpenGL psx plugin for his driver, but I don't know how to do it properly.
 I'm highly interested in a new shader which would use XBR only on parts of an image with low resolution:
http://ngemu.com/threads/links-and-guides-to-custom-shaders-for-petes-opengl2-plugin.76098/page-33

This shader would be perfect for FF7, because it could work on the animated lightlayer as well.

Please I need somebody who could take a look on it and tries to bring it to work with FF7.

[Spoiler:]

9

WIP / [FF7] Project 8 Eye - High Res Textures for the mouthes and eyes

« on: 2016-01-21 15:50:38 »

I have asked mitzmitra if he could paint for me new face textures for the models and he has excepted the challenge. So lets see how far we come.

Here is some ideas I got:
Visual degeneration of Clouds look

Spoiler: show

until he freaks out when he meats Sephiroth

.
Mouth movement when text box pops up. Needs a new tool for that.

10

Support / BitSymphonie Chapter 2

« on: 2016-01-15 19:29:22 »

BitSymphonie is making a new revision of their FFVII music interpretation and this time they do a much better job: see here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjxcEtV7zdE&index=3&list=PLMuzFojU54xbsu24a_cnWziu0qR7_HJR2

Well I guess that SE wont use them for their new FF7 interpretation.

11

7th Heaven / How to use the Reunion with 7th Heaven

« on: 2015-12-28 05:54:17 »

Ok I see that some of you can't wait for the update of the Catalog and want to use the Reunion now.
Here is a quick and hopefully complete tutorial how you have to set up both 7H and Hextlaunch to work together:

At first you have to install the Reunion mod. Please use a fresh install of the game, but it's not a problem if you only have used 7H to mod the game nor if you have used new textures from the mods folder.
If it is installed open the new folder HL_Files and open Settings.ini with a text editor. Move the entry 'FF7.exe' from 'File' to 'Process ='.

It should look like that.

Code: [Select]

[HextLaunch]
File=
Process=FF7.exe
Window=
LoadHext=1
InjectDLL=1
NoInput=1
Delay=1000
If you have installed 7H already and/or have used the GC move the files from DLL_in to HL_Files/DLL_in (do the same if you have a hext in folder). Open FF7_opengl.cfg and change the modpath to use Textures instead Reunion you can also delete 'load_library = Multi.dll' because it's not needed anymore. Save and exit. Now you must move the files from mods/reunion to mods/textures (or you rename reunion to textures).
Now it's time to install 7H (skip that if you already have done that). Open 7H and go to settings. At also launch you must place the file path of by the Reunion created file FF7+.exe. Mine looks like this:

Code: [Select]

D:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\FINAL FANTASY VII\FF7_Launch.exe**This is my FF7+.exe

If you now start the game through 7th Heaven it should open command box (it's Hextlaunch) and the game should start with the Reunion activated.

12

General Discussion / Snowboard minigame models

« on: 2015-08-30 19:15:20 »

I did ask MaKiPL to help us with the Snowboard minigame models which we currently can't replace with higher res ones.

I ripped both TMD's, but they appear to be different from PlayStation TMD format.

Problem is- I don't have FF7.

The models can be easily replaced. At the header the file has filenames list with uint32 of offsets in file (global). At the given file offset again a name appears and next is uint32 of filesize. If someone is going to replace the models, then he needs to re-edit offsets of next items.

^{*btw you guys are awesome what you are currently doing with FFVIII*}

I assume that the files are identical to the usual file system (hrc,rsd,p and a). The thing is I need a tool which can extract and repack them.

13

General Discussion / Battle Shadows

« on: 2015-08-28 13:11:41 »

Please is there some one who can fix these damn shadows?

This is how it is on PSX:


That is how it has looked with The Saints patch:


And this is what we currently have:


It would be great if we could replace it with a custom made texture. As far as I know the shadow is in kage.dat and the size is modified through the models **ab file.

14

FAQs and Tutorials / Tutorial to create an Hext patch for HextLaunch

« on: 2015-08-28 09:24:12 »

This is a quick tutorial to create for example an exe patch for DLPB's Hextlaunch:

Tools needed:
DLPB's tools 2.0
Dup2
Notepad

-run dup2 and start a new project (name doesn't matter)
-add a new module: right click in the column -> Add -> Offset patch
-double click on the new module -> in Compare Files choose the original file and the patched file -> compare those two
-right click on the generated table and choose save table as text
-open the text file with Notepad, use the column selection (alt + left mousebutton) and mark everything under Old Byte
-if all is selected press "="; kill the first two lines (this stuff with "offset", "old and new Bye"), save it
-place the new text file in the In folder of HextSort
-run the program and hit Enter in the out folder should be now the new file for HextLaunch

15

Catalogs / [FF7][WIP] Barrett's Hideout - 7th Heaven Mod Creation Tutorial

« on: 2015-03-05 05:11:48 »

Place holder for a 7th Heaven mod creation tutorial.

Do not post here!

I will try to capture up every function of 7th Heaven (from now on 7H) I'm aware of. If there is something I have missed please PM me instead of posting here. At the moment I plan to explain the functions of 7H and the way to create a working catalog.

7th Heaven Changelog:

Code: [Select]


V1.45
-Fixes crashes with some vgmstream files

Not sure why the crash only with the mod from the catalog,
perhaps the .oggs in it are corrupt in some way ...
but off course it should not cause the game to crash. Should be fixed now.

v1.44
Only one change: Accessing files in a .iro archive from FF7 is now a bit quicker.
The speed up seems especially large for loading .PNG files for Aali's driver; I did not see loading models get quicker,
but the delay to go into the world map when using the hi res world map textures is about twice as quick on my PC now.

v1.43
-Fix progress bars on GDrive downloads
-Fix Mega downloads sometimes (often?) not working

v1.42
-Fix crash in patch tool, hopefully
-Fix crash on high-us.lgp file
-Fix crash when importing mod without required fields in mod.xml

v1.41
-Can list multiple programs for 'Also Launch' in config
-Fix crash when corrupt .iro file is in 7H folder - should show a proper error message
-Add some more command line parameters

There are some command line parameters you can use with 7H:

/PROFILE:<profilename>  - loads a particular profile
/LAUNCH - launches FF7 as soon as 7H is loaded
/QUIT - quits 7H

They happen in the order you list them so:
7thHeaven.exe /LAUNCH /QUIT
will launch the game and then exit straight away.
7thHeaven.exe /PROFILE:AllMods /LAUNCH
will load the AllMods profile, launch the game, but not quit 7H.

v1.40
-Fix update check sometimes crashing
-Allow multiple patch links in mod
-Add PartyLeader variable (needs testing)


There is a PartyLeader variable in the .var file now.
The values it can be set to should match the character numbers in the save files -
http://wiki.qhimm.com/view/FF7/Savemap#The_Savemap

V1.39
-Fix: Mega downloads not working on some computers
-Fix: Mod generator was broken in 1.38
-New feature: Catalogs can specify mirrors/multiple download links for a mod.
 7H will try each download link so if one link fails to download it will try the next link instead.

To specify many links for a mod, you just need to add more <Link> tags inside the <LatestVersion> section of your mod details.
7H tries the links in the order they appear in the file so whichever link you put first is the one that will get used if possible.

v1.38
-Improved logging and error messages
-Mega link generator tool

The mod generator tool on the new version, there is a tab to generate Mega links for you.
Paste the Mega folder ID into the text box, click "Load", and it will generate a link for every file in that Mega shared folder.
(To get the folder ID, right click the folder in Mega, ask for a link, and the folder ID is the part of the link beginning !#F )

V1.37
-Small speed improvements in IRO archives
-Log file operations

...start the program, wait 30 seconds, and then send me the contents of your %APPDATA%\7thWorkshop\applog.txt file,
so I can see why autoupdate doesn't work for you...

V1.36
-Minor GUI fixes
-Improve decompression speed for compressed IRO files
-Improve FF7 startup speed when loading mods with chunked files
-Add advanced patch create - create a patch without needing to create a 'full' IRO of the new version

For the last option you really need to be careful to set things up properly. If you create the patch by comparing two IRO file (old version and new version) that at least it is easy to test that both IROs work, and the patch (should!) automatically take account of all the differences between the versions.
For this version you have to make sure you put all the right files in all the right places.

Example:
To update your mod to a new version you need to add two new files (vgmstream\yufi.ogg, vgmstream\yufi2.ogg),
change two existing files (mod.xml and battle.lgp\rvaa) and delete one file from the IRO (battle.lgp\rvda)
 - perhaps you have realized you didn't need to change that file at all!

So set up a folder on your PC like this:

C:\temp\
   mod.xml
   battle.lgp\
      rvaa
   vgmstream\
      yufi.ogg
      yufi2.ogg
   
   
Point the new advanced patch create screen at the C:\temp folder.
Any files in here (so, mod.xml, battle.lgp\rvaa, ...) get put into the patch to add/replace files to the original IRO.
And in the 'deleted files' part of the patch create screen, type in 'battle.lgp\rvda' - so when the patch is applied,
it will delete that file from the original IRO.

V1.35
-Minor GUI fixes
-Close IRO files quicker (easier to overwrite when testing)
-Settings checker: When you start 7H it will check if your settings make sense
 (e.g. if all the folders you chose actually exist) and if not, tell you and open the settings window to correct them.
-Download & patch option for mods

So the last change means that if you upload a new version of a mod, as well as adding a <Patch> entry in the catalog
so people who already have the mod can update using a small patch file,
you can also specify the 'main' download (for people who don't have it installed) as a combination of a normal download
plus one or more patch files.
Basically this is to make catalog/mod authors jobs easier.
If you make a small change to a 1GB mod, then you don't have to upload the new 1GB mod file.

Example, your catalog entry looks like this to start with:

Code: [Select]
    <Mod>
      <ID>BFAE987C-C1E6-42E6-8139-FF809142D72E</ID>
      <Author>Iros</Author>
      <Link>http://forums.qhimm.com/</Link>
      <Name>Test music/patching</Name>
      <MetaVersion>2</MetaVersion>
      <Description>Testing music in a IRO archive</Description>
      <Tags>
        <string>Music</string>
      </Tags>
      <LatestVersion>
        <Link>iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/Music1.iro</Link>
        <Version>1.0</Version>
        <ReleaseDate>2014-09-04</ReleaseDate>
        <CompatibleGameVersions>Original</CompatibleGameVersions>
        <PreviewImage></PreviewImage>
        <ReleaseNotes></ReleaseNotes>
      </LatestVersion>
    </Mod>

Then you release two updates which both fix a few things. The catalog entry can now look like this:

Code: [Select]
    <Mod>
      <ID>BFAE987C-C1E6-42E6-8139-FF809142D72E</ID>
      <Author>Iros</Author>
      <Link>http://forums.qhimm.com/</Link>
      <Name>Test music/patching</Name>
      <MetaVersion>2</MetaVersion>
      <Description>Testing music in a IRO archive</Description>
      <Tags>
        <string>Music</string>
      </Tags>
      <LatestVersion>
        <Link>iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/Music1.iro</Link>
        <ApplyPatch>iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/Music_0_to_1.irop</ApplyPatch>
        <ApplyPatch>iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/Music_1_to_2.irop</ApplyPatch>

        <Version>1.2</Version>
        <ReleaseDate>2014-09-04</ReleaseDate>
        <CompatibleGameVersions>Original</CompatibleGameVersions>
        <PreviewImage></PreviewImage>
        <ReleaseNotes></ReleaseNotes>
      </LatestVersion>
      <Patch VerFrom="1.0" VerTo="1.1">iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/Music_0_to_1.irop</Patch>
      <Patch VerFrom="1.1" VerTo="1.2">iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/Music_1_to_2.irop</Patch>
    </Mod>

So you have the <Patch> entries just like before which mean people who already have v1.0
can download the patch to update to v1.2. But instead of uploading a whole new v1.2 file for people
who don't have the mod installed already, you leave the download link still pointing to the v1.0 file
and add two <ApplyPatch> entries. Then if somebody new decides to download the mod,
7H will download the v1.0 file and the two patches and then apply the patches - so they will end up with v1.2 installed.

This means mod download/install takes a little bit longer, but with the large mods EQ2Alyza is uploading,
I can see it would be very slow to upload a complete new download for every single small change!

V1.34
-Cancel option on downloads
-Fix/improve subscription link registration failing if not running as admin
-Show size of downloads - if catalog lists them

To specify the size of a download in a catalog add a <DownloadSize> entry to the mod version (latest version)
entry listing the size of the download in KB.

e.g.

Code: [Select]
      <LatestVersion>
        <Link>iros://Mega/!PMtjVbCZ!e_qbdzRzAc_01Rd28u1E_z,#!jVEF3YqQ,Testing.rar</Link>
        <ExtractSubFolder></ExtractSubFolder>
        <ExtractInto></ExtractInto>
        <Version>1.1</Version>
        <ReleaseDate>2014-05-31T00:00:00</ReleaseDate>
        <CompatibleGameVersions>All</CompatibleGameVersions>
        <ReleaseNotes />
        <DownloadSize>5000</DownloadSize>
      </LatestVersion>

That mod will show in the catalog list with an estimated download size of 5000KB (will display as 4.9MB).

V1.33
-Faster IRO creation (multi-threaded)
-Improve handling failed / incomplete downloads

V1.32
-Fix reading certain compressed files from IRO archive
-Fix pictures for bool options not always loading properly
-Fix compressed file cache not working

V1.315
-Fix auto update, again

V1.31
-Fix: Small GDrive files sometimes didn't download
-Fix: IROP patches were not deleted after installing

V1.30
-Fix: Catalog refresh didn't update UI straight away
-New: Compression support for IRO archives
-New: Patch support for IRO archives

Explanation:

1) Compression. When you create a IRO archive you can choose whether to compress the files in it.
This makes the IRO smaller (faster download or install, smaller disk space)
but COULD mean it slows things down when running the game - because it will have to wait for a file to be decompressed,
when it tries to access the file...

The options when creating a IRO are:

Never: Do not compress files at all.
Always: Always compress files. Probably not a good idea.
By Extension: Do not compress PNG, JPG, MP3, OGG files. Compress all other files.
Probably a good idea, there is no point trying to compress a file which is already quite well compressed.
By Content: TRY to compress every file, but if it saves < 10% size, then do not bother.
Will take longer to create the archive but should only compress files, which will actually benefit.

2) Patch support.

Imagine you have a big IRO file - music, movies, lots of PNGs, could be anything - and it is 1GB to download.
Well, OK, it has to be that big if the files are high quality/long.
Then you find a bug and want to release a new version - maybe a few of the PNGs need to be updated with a transparent fix.
It is not very good for everybody to download the new 1GB mod again, when you have only changed 5MB of PNG files...

So, what you can do now is:

-When you upload the first version of the mod, you upload the large 1GB IRO file
-Then you make a new version. You still probably upload a new 1GB IRO file with the latest version - for people
 who are downloading the mod for the first time - but 7H will also let you create a patch file.
 This is a smaller file that contains only the changes between the first IRO and the newer IRO,
 so if you have only updated 5MB of files, it will only be ~5MB in size.
-If you include a link to this patch file in your catalog,
 7H will automatically work out if the user has a version which can be patched,
 and if yes, it will download and apply the patch instead of downloading the whole thing again.

To make a patch file, there is a new tab on the IRO screen in 7H.
You tell it where the original IRO is, where the new version IRO is, and where to save the patch.
You also choose whether to compress files, same as creating a new IRO.

The catalog should look like this:

Code: [Select]
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Catalog>
  <UpdatedOn>2013-08-08 13:34</UpdatedOn>
  <Mods>
    <Mod>
      <ID>BFAE987C-C1E6-C451-8139-FF039842D72E</ID>
      <Author>Iros</Author>
      <Link>http://forums.qhimm.com/</Link>
      <Name>Test music/patching</Name>
      <MetaVersion>1</MetaVersion>
      <Description>Testing music in a IRO archive</Description>
      <Tags>
        <string>Music</string>
      </Tags>
      <LatestVersion>
        <Link>iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/7H/Music2.iro</Link>
        <Version>2.0</Version>
        <ReleaseDate>2014-08-08</ReleaseDate>
        <CompatibleGameVersions>Original</CompatibleGameVersions>
        <PreviewImage></PreviewImage>
        <ReleaseNotes></ReleaseNotes>
      </LatestVersion>
      <Patch VerFrom="1.0" VerTo="2.0">iros://Url/http$www.myserver.com/7H/Music_1_to_2.irop</Patch>
    </Mod>
  </Mods>
</Catalog>

The "Patch" line says which version(s) the patch can update and what version it updates you to,
and has the link for downloading the patch file 7H has created.

V1.29
-Fix Conditional folders using new ActiveWhen tags
-Add auto update feature

V1.28
-Fix uninstalls, again, probably
-Add support for ActiveWhen to have multiple conditions

Now instead of ActiveWhen being specified as an attribute you can specify an ActiveWhen child node containing various conditions:
And, Or, Not, and Option (which actually checks an option)

V1.27
Should fix some bugs - I think. The uninstall crash I hope is fixed, I got it to happen once,
but then not again ... new version may have solved this.

V1.26
-Fix: mods not being added in compact mode even when compact mode ticked
-Fix: if 7H crashes after download/installing a mod, it did not remember that the mod was installed

V1.25
-Fix .bin files not loading from archive
-Speed loading up a bit
-Fix error changing priority of mods in some situations

V1.24
-Fix: controllers not working for some reason
-Update: OpenGL config XML with Kaldarasha's changes

V1.23
-Fix: .iro files >4GB will hopefully work properly
-New feature: 7H can apply Hext patches
-New feature: OpenGL driver config editor

V1.22
-Replacing vgmstream files from inside a .iro should work now
-Set a profile to use a different ff7_opengl configuration (see above. oops!)
-Debug mode - right click on Launch button to run in debug.
 Will log exactly which files the wrapper is looking for - this should help figure out why a mod isn't working properly, perhaps...

V1.21
Changes:
-Support replacing scene.bin (+ any other .bin files should work too now)
-Fix not able to edit subscriptions properly in settings screen
-Fix program crashing if invalid mod.xml or subscription file is loaded
-Allow adding extra folders to monitor inside FF7 folder, default "music"
 (i.e. by default will monitor FF7\music but you can add other folders to monitor as well)

V1.20
-new menu option "Chunk tool"
 If you choose this, you can select a FLEVEL.LGP file, an output folder,
 and which chunks to extract (e.g. 1 for dialogue, 7 for encounter).
 So make your changes directly to FLEVEL.LGP and then extract the sections that need to be distributed,
 and package them into a mod.

v1.10:
-Fixed crash on certain locales
-Fix version number not being set against manually imported mod
-Right click on Launch button to run game with variable dump option active
-Add MetaVersion tag to catalog mod info

The MetaVersion tag can be set against a mod in a catalog file
so you can mark a mod as updated without changing the version number of the download.
I realized changing the version number of the download wouldn't really be accurate
if you were just updating the download URLs etc.
It's optional so doesn't need to be set, just available if necessary.

v1.09:
-Add CounterRnd variable to allow setting counter to a random number
-Fix crash when download from Mega URL fails
-Fix crash calculating paths for magic.lgp folders

As expected the code for magic.lgp was completely broken ...
not sure why nobody got error messages, because I did, but anyway - it should now be fixed.
Certainly the game runs now if I try to override magic.lgp
- but please test it to make sure all your mod files actually get applied.

v1.08:
-Add 'compact' display option to profile. Might add this for other tabs later...
-Fix error updating thumbnails against catalog entries
-Fix config options not picking up default values correctly some times

v1.07:
-Fixed iro size limit ... again
-Fixed auto-import option

I really hope iro files >2GB work this time...
The auto import wasn't working
(and even was it was working, it didn't bring in details like author/preview picture etc.)
That should be fixed now - if you just drop a folder (or a iro file) into your library,
next time you start 7thHeaven, it will automatically add them to the list.
You should remember that if you do use the 'uninstall'
right click option that DOES delete the mod from the disk, though.

v1.06
-Fixes crash loading certain iro files
-Fixes crash loading large iro files

The problem with the unshaded models iro was that now I fixed the case sensitivity issue,
it's actually using the overrides for chocobo.lgp -
it triggered another bug to do with certain file sizes.
The bug was in the older versions, but it never happened
because it never used the chocobo.lgp files anyway...
Large iro files should be fine now.
I would recreate any iro files >2GB you've made with older versions to be sure
they'll work properly. Smaller iro files should be fine.
(Although there is still not much point packing movies into iro files.
The speed gains mostly come when you are overriding LGP files.
Standalone files like movies, kernel bins, etc. aren't so slow.
You still can do it, off course, if you want to pack it into a single file
for easier distribution.)

v1.05:
-Improve decompression speed for downloaded mods
-Add 'readme' option for mods installed in library
-Add movie path to settings & capture accesses in wrapper
-Fix case sensitivity when overriding LGPs
To put a readme file in a mod,
just include a file called 'readme.txt' in the top level of the mod folder
(i.e. same place as mod.xml). Should still work when packed into a iro file.

v1.03:
Adds pack/unpack iro functions back

v1.021:
-Import author/image from existing mods
-Fix download error with two mods sharing same image
-Fix .iro import (again)
-Update tags list after downloading new catalog
-Add select all option to tag list
-Fix crash on load if library folder missing
-Add command line parameters
-Add crash dialog so errors can be reported...

v1.01:
-Import mod copies instead of moving files
-Added .var file back in and load it into mods that use runtime vars correctly

I have remembered, if you have the 'auto import mods' option ticked,
then just putting a mod folder into the 7thHeaven is enough to make it show up,
so you don't need to import manually then.
But an import option is still needed to do it manually.

v1.00:
- First release of '7th Heaven'before it was 7th Wrapper.

16

Completely Unrelated / 3D model search engine

« on: 2015-01-20 12:05:38 »

https://www.yobi3d.com/#!/

Found here:
http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2469084-3d-model-search-engine/

17

General Discussion / [FF7PC] Steam round two

« on: 2014-12-30 14:10:28 »

So I played a bit around with the Steam files with the following result:
Steam do only look if there is a program in the games folder which is called FF7_Launcher.exe, it doesn't matter what program it is.
The launcher itself do only look if there is a program called FF7_en.exe (depending on the language you use it may named differently). In both case the Steam overlay do work, but I guess achievements will not.
As far as I understand it they are handled by the launcher and the save files in the user's document folder. Is it possible to force  the old FF7.exe to use the rerelease save file system? Maybe with a small program which syncs both save folders, the old and the new one, with each other.
Even if this wouldn't work to enable achievements directly it could be used to get them by loading the save files with the rereleased FF_en.exe.
I haven't tested how exactly 7th Heaven do work with that, but if everything would work together I could free up some space on my HD drive by deleting one FF7 installment. It also may convince some diehard Steam user to convert the game, but still be able to use the overlay of steam.

18

Completely Unrelated / New Steam Virus Going Around

« on: 2014-11-25 07:23:57 »

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344092081

19

Completely Unrelated / A good way to learn programming?

« on: 2014-11-24 09:13:34 »

I have yet no idea if this will be a good tutor to learn programming or not, but it does look pretty cool even if it is more webdesign related:
http://www.codecademy.com/

My problem is that I would like to C++, but I guess python is fine too. 

20

Completely Unrelated / The truth and other lies...

« on: 2014-11-14 12:35:34 »

Actually I didn't want start this discussion, but Dan has written this:

This isn't  a political thread, but the reason people believe 2 planes brought the towers down is because they did.  Not only is it totally plausible, but all available facts support it. It's actually completely crazy to think otherwise.  A fully loaded jet airliner traveling at that speed, impacting a  tower designed in that way (with a VERY weak glass-aluminimum shell, for starters), combined with the office combustibles, WILL destroy a tower in the manner it DID.  It isn't up for debate or discussion.  That's what history will record forever, and it's what the vast number of scientists and structural engineers conclude.

So in order to his rightful request to open a new thread instead to bloating unnecessary the reunion threat with it here we go.

Regarding the structural engineers:

When interviewed in 1993, Lead WTC Structural Engineer John Skilling told The Seattle Times:
Lead WTC Structural Engineer John Skilling was rightfully confident that neither the impact of a large passenger jet nor the ensuing office fires was capable of bringing down the Twin Towers
“We looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side… Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed. [But] the building structure would still be there.”

http://www.ae911truth.org/home/655-faq-9-were-the-twin-towers-designed-to-survive-the-impact-of-the-airplanes.html

This doesn't mean that the towers are understandable, but it says that the structure was well enough to compensate this accident. So this means that a critical hit could have bring down parts of the towers but not the whole two (three) buildings, which, against any probability, collapsed accidentally same way as a professional demolished building. No matter who says the truth either the politicians lay or all the demolition experts do and their job and all their talks about static is fake, because any building will be collapse this way. I mean 3 of 3 buildings have collapsed this way, how big is the possibility that this happens for only one building? Buildings, which are also designed to be airplane proof? They did also take the fuel in account, which is the base of the official explanation.
How could they have found the passports of the hijacker if the fire was so hot that it has melt steel? This alone is ridicules and this isn't in any way 'totally plausible'. If crazy means that I don't believe their poor explanations all there laughable experiments to negate the hard facts, which are shown as theory, well then I guess I'm super crazy.

Real life propaganda depends on being able to hide the truth.  That's the other reason why 9/11 is not a conspiracy.  It would be impossible to hide the truth.

Hitler has done it before very well. The shockmoment is only important to force people to let them do even an unwanted reaction. And if the truth about a thing finally comes out, then call it conspiracy theory and place some more conspiracy theory by yourself and no normal citizen on these world is able to tell you what is a lie and what not. This is a simple propaganda mechanism. The advanced propaganda of this lies in the detail, because the word 'conspiracy' is negative and let people automatically think about stupid looking people which has no idea what they talking about.
How good this works shows the new age word anti-Semitism. Nobody knows what Semites are nor do they knew about the history of the Jews (me too), but if a person is called an anti-Semite, after he talked the truth about something unpleasant regarding the Jews, he will be social brand marked as a person who tortures helpless little Jews and the unpleasant thing what he has discovered will go under in the media.
Also you only need to pay a lot of money to a presumably repeated person (doctor, engineer, etc) and they say what ever you want and the people will believe it, because he has to know about it and it is official. After all, why should he and the official investigation committee lie? But if a other actually repeated person say that this can't be happened that way (often with more detailed explanation) and it's not an official person, people usually mistrust  him and say this is only conspiracy theory. But what is his motivation to tell you an untrue story?
So it isn't needed to hide the truth, you only need to create many versions of it and destroy the reputation of the people who do not agree with the official statement.

I have read in a book from 1996 (from Jan van Helsing*) that there are plans to nuke one of three major cities (New York, LA, I'm honestly not sure about the cities) in America to motivate the people for an military intervention in the Iraq. Well gladly the nuke was left out, but still the Iraq had paid the price.

*There are a few books out from him. I had read two from him, but the third I could put my hands on is different the way of writing and let him look like an complete idiot on peyote. So my guess is that some other have abused his pseudonymous or he really has taken these mushrooms.

Anyway, it is hard to tell what is true or not, these days. Look at the different news about the Ukraine in west and east. Both tell the truth, but from different positions. We do see Russia as aggressor and Russia see the NATO as aggressor which has hurt standing agreement several times.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/19/359239/nato-broke-standing-agreement-with-russia/

When I see an important event I often look at what the results can be: A weak East and Middle Europe and a heavy armed Mideast doesn't look so healthy, especially not if in the same book, I had read, locates the World War III in Europe between the irreligious west and the religious Mideast. (I really hope that guy has taken to much drugs and nothing like this will happen ... )


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUqjQD6HwAE

21

General Discussion / FF7: Overlay for to replace menu and box

« on: 2014-10-29 11:59:18 »

It might be a stupid idea but isn't it possible to put over the game an overlay like steam does it with the games?
'Why would I want this?' you might ask. Well the idea behind it is simply to have a full controllable menu and box system, which is also easier to modify and is independent from the framerates of the game (at last I believe an overlay has its own frame limiter). Also text files would be unified in one location, which makes translations or alterations to the text a lot easier and the use of different fonts would bring in some life to the game, too.
My ideas for it:
For the field:

• Creating text boxes which are connected to models on field like in ff9 (if we can read out the current position of the npc plus a z axis value to place the box near the head)
• advanced text effects like size deformation, shake effects, etc

For battle:

• A 60fps menu while the game run in its default 15fps
• Maybe more possibilities to modify the look of the menu

For the menu:

• Maybe we can create a new start screen. I do like it how it does look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeFXbKahOc0#t=326
   not the buster background but the music is quite nice and the setup is pretty much what SE is currently doing for there new games
• for the menu itself would be a texture interesting instead of these gradient thing we currently have. This looks quite the way I would like it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Ska_uTr0g#t=146

I surely haven't thought about all the problems, which might be there, but this is only an idea to hopefully inspire a talented person to investigate the real possibilities of this. The main problem I see is to eliminate visual of the default box and menu system.

Btw. a fully customizable menu would give me the option to change FF7 materia system to an interesting materia job class system.

22

General Discussion / I wonder...

« on: 2014-08-25 14:26:42 »

I wonder if it is possible to trick the re-release FF7Launcher to work with the 1.02exe. As far as I can tell Steam is only interested in the launcher and not in the main executable. I think that the launcher checks certain variables to give achievements. It would also be interesting to know how the re-releases are by-passing the CD check, maybe it's solved by the Launcher too.

23

7th Heaven / A matter of simplification

« on: 2014-07-18 14:01:33 »

I have posted this in the 7th Heaven tool section:

I haven't added the mod path for only one plenty of reasons:
I have enough of finding out why a texture don't work and of the extra work with manual copy'n'paste, only because some authors wants to separate their mods and changing the name of a mod path (Bootleg, DK, Avalanche, Reunion). We don't need this with 7th Heaven anymore, (actually we never needed this). Lets call it 'textures' (because that's all what it is) and later will follow 'audio' and 'voice' into the mod folder (maybe 'extra_shader' if Aali finds a suitable way for the light layer replacement).
Lets came to this agreement, then we don't need the extra option to set Aali's modpath. And it looks better sorted in a 7.H mod, if every external texture (and its folder) is stored in 'textures'. I can imagine that someone is confused to see field.lgp and field at once. Some people try to learn how another mod authors has built their mods, so it won't only helps us to have a better sorted mod structure. I also don't won't to store the same texture doubled, one in bootleg/battle/ and one in Reunion/battle/ only to be prepared for a possible mod path swap. Of course I could direct 7th Heaven to use the mod path /mods/bootleg, BUT if I change it in the opengl config to Reunion then I need to direct 7th Heaven to the new modpath too or else none texture mod will work. This causes only problems at the end.

So for the sake of lesser (user) bug reports let us:

• name the mod path for external textures 'textures'
• point 7th Heaven only to .../mods
• place in the 7.H. mods all external texture stuff in 'textures'

There is a lot of stuff in Aali's custom driver which is useful for moders and setting another mod path for testing is one of those, but I don't want to bug the average user with it. In future the New Timer option will also be gone, because the bug I had with it is solved. It's simply a 'it has to be on' option now.

I don't think that there is any advantage anymore to use for mods different mod path folders. In the end I will merge the mod folders anyway and a less experienced FF7 mod user will merge them in a bad way and complain then why it's broken now.
With 7th Heaven I practically don't overwrite textures anymore entirely. If a mod has a bad texture impact then it's easy to contact the mod author, so he can make his texture pack optional or even make a compatible version for another mod.

24

General Discussion / Resume of our work on FF7

« on: 2014-07-05 09:33:13 »

This is a brief capture of bugs, To Do List, tools and needed tools. Please keep in mind that I can't test every tools entirely function, especially DLPB's Tool collection has very powerful tools and time savers, but some are made for a better Hex editing which is beyond my knowledge. Further there are some projects which already work on points on the To Do List, but sometimes it isn't possible to connect one special project to it, so I made this global. The To Do List should encourage new moders to find a project which suits his/her ability. And the tool section should help to find fast a tool they may need. It's not a list of all tools we have but a list of the most needed ones.
Further I expecting that the latest custom driver from Aali is installed, don't post a bug when you are using an older version. Specially Bootleg related bugs doesn't belong here.

Current Custom Graphics Driver for FF7:  v0.8.1b

Current Bugs of the PC Version:
- Shadows of the character/enemy models are wrong displayed
- Balloons in the Snowboard minigame are wrong rendered
- Music in Junon introduction FMV didn't have the volume change as in PSX
- Strange speed up of the FPS in Chocobo minigame
- No wave sound when Leviathan attacks
- it is currently not possible to replace the light layer in field correctly


To Do List:
- New Animation
- New background sound for more immersion
- HighRes rendered backgrounds            |
- New character and enemy models        |----> Possibly new rendering of the FMVs
- finding a way to replace the models in the Snowboard minigame
- Repositioning of the models in field
- Sound overhaul
- repainting of the magic effects
- Script improvements if necessary (what ever this means)
- 60FPS mode
- Battle balancing mode for the vanilla game
- overhauling all battle backgrounds to high res
- overhaul of the minigame textures and menus


Extra:
- Voice Over
- Footstep sound
- dropshadow for the characters on field
- New quests
- New Hidden bosses
- Overhaul of the battle system
- Fort Condor minigame seams unfinished, in the last fight you access to everything without doing anything for it
- harder Chocobo minigame, so it matters if you choose the long or the short circuit
- harder Mog Minigame!
- Events on the Eventsquare
- More dialog for the NPC
- More background information about the world of FF7
- Placing some of RedXIII kind in Cosmo Canyon
- new shader for Aali's driver
- A way to use rigged meshes for the models


Tools we have

Text and Script editors

• Makoureactor - very powerful field script editor
• BoxFF7 - Text editor which allows you to change the text in the text boxes while playing the game. It stores the edited text in a text file so you may need another tool to implement the changed text.
• ToughScript - Can nearly change any text of the game
• ProudClod - Battle editor
• Wallmarket - Editor for the Kernels
• White Chocobo - Shop editor

3D and graphic tools

• Kimera - Model editor, can import 3ds files
• pCreator - an converter of 3ds files to p files
• image2tex - an converter for Tex to BMP and vice versa
• textool - an converter for Tex to PNG and vice versa
• Palmer - a background exporter of the fields to png files
• Shinratool - allows to extract walkmesh and camera data for field files, it's needed if you want to rebuild one of the backgrounds
• Bitrun - not only FF7 related, can convert p, rsd, HRC and files of the battle models to 3ds

Sound

• A tool to replace the crappy sound system - ficedula is working on it, project name Ultrasound

Miscellaneous

• Otchu - FF7 Trainer, good for modders to test there mods or getting position values for placing objects
• FF7tk - If you plan to make a new tool check this toolkit out fist
• Black Chocobo - Save game editor
• DLPB's Tools - very useful tool collection, for examable the launcher can make changes to the FF7.exe without to make any edits to it and can inject DLL's. Please read his tool instructions!
• 7th Heaven - Great tool to install mods. Has some extra features. But sadly the project is dead. Iros is back! 
• FF7 Game Converter - Converts and unify the game to the 1998 release, it basically changes the game to the English version but keeps the foreign language intact - needs an update to DLPB's new tools

Tools needed

• A worldmap editor and a worldmap script editor
• A *working* walkmesh creator and editor for self created fields
• A new Mod injector like 7th Heaven Iros is back!
• An model and animation importer and exporter for Blender/3DMax

Other needed stuff

• An overlay for Makou Reactor which writes the script automatically. So you can place models and objects on the field map/walkmesh and be able to set event points.
• Tool Tutorials!!!
• A config-tool to edit Aali's driver and which could replace FF7config.exe

#############Final Fantasy VII - The Big List of Mods################

25

General Discussion / A new FF petition...

« on: 2014-05-22 20:14:34 »

Yes, the Steam users have finally realized that Square Enix will never patch in the PSX music in Final Fantasy VIII and now have started a petition to get the PSX music officially.
http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/ff8music

I knew that it isn't that easy as the last time for Square Enix to solve the problem, that's why I wonder if and how they will react to it. So please support the petition even if you are not really interested in it or even if you are a happy user of RaW, which solve that problem. At last Square Enix should realize for the future that even a rereleased game for the PC needs a bit more work.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/39150/discussions/0/558755529972175073/