Messages

26

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R05c)

« on: 2017-07-01 14:22:47 »

Unfortunately, I currently don't have any empty CD's on which to burn the proper soundtest modded game, so I couldn't record clean sounds. I recorded a part of the actual Sub minigame though, if it's any help as it is. It's probably not in this case, due to at least two ambient sounds playing throughout, not to mention the alarm which couldn't be avoided either. Still, any comparison is a valid comparison, so here it is.

27

Aali's Custom FF7/FF8 Driver / Re: Custom graphics driver for FF7/FF8 [v0.8.1b]

« on: 2017-06-28 10:47:30 »

That log is full of Direct3D messages, and there's nothing from the custom driver. It stands to reason the custom driver isn't being loaded; try running the ff7_opengl.reg again and see if that doesn't change.

28

WIP / Re: [FF7PC] The Bug Database - post bug reports here

« on: 2017-06-27 20:36:30 »

On a side note, has anyone noticed a weird bug with Bizarro Sephiroth duplicating/triplicating his model during the boss battle? I'm not sure if i could replicate it though...

Well, I mean he is placed five times in the formation to give the illusion of five targets, but the four additional models are invisible by default. I guess some sort of script error could cause them to become visible. Typically something you'd see in mods developed by inexperienced modders, but I've literally never seen it myself, ever.

29

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R05c)

« on: 2017-05-28 08:58:48 »

I'm also thinking of adding the original Honeybee Manor back in at some point with an option. It will need some programming, since it was totally unfinished.

This totally needs to happen. I hope psx animation importing will be a thing by then, because otherwise that plan might choke on that. There are a couple of unique character anims in the unused Honeybee Manor that were never ported to PC.

30

WIP / Re: [FF7PC] The Bug Database - post bug reports here

« on: 2017-05-24 14:34:27 »

I don't think the engine supports transparent layers in the PC port.

Doesn't it, though? I imported this field's full background from the English PSX files, and the blue bubbles are as transparent as they should..

Then again, it may be a different thing altogether. There's the fact that in this field (startmap) the transparency is on Layer 1, which is the foreground. In fr_e it is Layer 3, which is commonly an animated layer, so I'm not sure if these two instances are even remotely related to each other.

In any case, importing the PSX layers for fr_e using Makou gave shitty results at best, so it's probably not worth it to even try fixing it. Using a flat square model with a transparent shape textured on it is the easiest way to do it, and will look much better, too. I fully agree with that idea.

31

WIP / Re: [FF7PC] The Bug Database - post bug reports here

« on: 2017-05-19 01:40:07 »

Gaussian could work wonders if it's applied in a very, very small dose, but any more and it's just going to make the details vanish. Also, it should be configured to avoid blurring 3D geometry, because it does slightly negate what you gain from using a high internal resolution. It would make battles especially look as if you'd been drinking for 14 hours straight.

I haven't even tried out the shader yet, but if it breathes life into the colors, then why the hell not.

32

WIP / Re: [FF7PC] The Bug Database - post bug reports here

« on: 2017-05-18 21:39:38 »

To me your screen shot looks just as bad in other ways (dithering / scan line / jagged).  Can you get me one in Kalm in the same place I took the Mednafen shot?  I can put them all along side then too.

Yeah the jaggedness and lines going here and there was definitely my bad, the display was configured like bollocks so it stretched the image one way and shrunk it the other way. Dithering, however, is unavoidable, simply because it is a PS1 game. Still, the fact that the dithering is visible through even a shitty screenshot, is a testament to how much more accurate the Component signal is next to that old PAL/NTSC crap.

I can get a Kalm screenshot too, but it'll probably take a couple hours because I need to fiddle around with save files and get them on the Memcard.

Update: Well, here it is. This time around, I decided to use the screen (HDTV) I always use for pretty much everything since the other one turned out to be a big hunk of $#!!.

Now, this picture will only tell you so much, but it confirmed my gut feeling. The pixellation is very much there, but then again so is that dithering, because, well, HDTV. Also, using an external camera to make screencaps for this sort of purpose is bad since each screen has adjustable sharpness and brightness and all that (although mine are set to default.) It also adds that blue tint and the picture is much brighter than the image itself was.

So, just for reference, I wanted to see what another emulator produces. With a color depth of 32 bits, there is obviously no dithering involved, and no external camera involved. Which results in this.

I may have been wrong the first time. Neither PS2 nor ePSXe look like they make an effort to blur the image in any way, unless instructed otherwise. The blurring is not part of the game, it's part of the displays of that era. Mednafen might be simply trying to replicate that, because it's often considered part of the nostalgic experience. I know the GPU plugin I use with ePSXe has an option for fullscreen smoothing, which produces an almost identical result, but if it's disabled, it doesn't blur anything.

What do you make of this?

33

WIP / Re: [FF7PC] The Bug Database - post bug reports here

« on: 2017-05-18 21:15:12 »

Tbh the blurriness in that last image is just butt-ugly. I just booted up my PS2 and did a comparison, and the PS2 has a much sharper image. It is, of course, slightly blurred when compared against a completely unfiltered image, but only very slightly. It is so slight, in fact, that I'd say it's more or less perfect, as it doesn't smoothen out any details, but it smoothens out a little of the pixellation. If you're curious, I used a Component cable and a modern display, so it's not a CRT or composite signal thing either.

I did take a couple of screenshots for you to compare as well, but I don't think they'll be much useful since I don't have a capture card, and had to take them with my phone camera. So ignore the stupid blue tint, that doesn't belong there.

Either way, a postprocessing effect that destroys any and all detail is certainly not the way to go. If anything, that would be a major downgrade.

34

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R05c)

« on: 2017-05-05 23:52:56 »

#13 Yeah, Wallmarket seems to be broken with that flag (Silver Barrette sellable).  I remember now. 

WallMarket is broken in every "sellable" flag there is. Still, if you double-click the name, you can instead hex edit the flag and it will stay that way. It is the second to last byte, set it from FF to FE and the item will become sellable.

35

General Discussion / Re: Question about FF8 Modding

« on: 2017-03-02 17:19:35 »

Unfortunately, Tonberry is only compatible with the DX version of FF8, and not OpenGL.  The only mod you'll be able to use is SeeDReborn (old version - you'll have to dig for it).

While that is true for the most part, you can still use any texture mods with Aali's modpath if you rename the textures to match. I know because I've done this with some of the textures myself. If you can figure out what the textures should be named for the modpath, you could quite easily port them for the 2000 version. I don't know if this method is applicable to textures that are slapped on 3D models, though. I only ever did it for the font and some other menu stuff, I think.

36

Troubleshooting / Re: FF7 Battle Swirl Disable Patch (is it possible)

« on: 2017-02-21 12:02:59 »

It is a framebuffer effect, I think, so the difference in hardware architecture may be enough that it needed to be redone for PC. If it is a different effect, that is... Anyway, the point is, the battle swirl needs a special hack to even emulate at all, so it's just not probable that it would look as good with the PC technologies of '98. Especially with the extra limitations Eidos had to cope with when making the port.

With that said, I agree that the swirl would look better if it was slightly slower, like on PAL. It seemed to look real good at 50fps, at least.

37

Support / Re: FF7 - file audio.dat

« on: 2017-02-13 18:46:50 »

The last part of his post is a bit cryptic for me - it was a diplomatic way to find out what he desire to do.

Huh, I seem to have missed that part earlier. Still, with the way things are, I'd say he means he wants to restore the crappy PC audio to what it was in PSX. Which is, like you said, what DLPB is doing currently.

38

Support / Re: FF7 - file audio.dat

« on: 2017-02-13 18:16:22 »

It would help to know if you desire to mod the PC or PSX version of the game.

PSX has no audio.dat. The closest thing would probably be EFFECT.ALL but even then, those are just the samples, which the AKAO program uses to synthesize the actual audio in real time. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. I haven't extensively studied the inner workings of the game.

39

Releases / Re: [FF7PC] ChaOS -Character Overhaul Seven

« on: 2017-01-31 16:34:08 »

If the errors in the models are simply due to placement, then it's best to correct the error properly with Makou reactor and Ochu (change the coords).  I'm not sure if that's the case here.

Do you have a screenshot?

It's not. The new models are obviously taller, so the animation places them inside the ground. This looks very stupid on some fields, because you'd have a character's foot sticking out from under a background layer or something equally ridiculous. Therefore, each and every animation needs to be adjusted to place the skeleton root at the proper height, so that not even a pixel goes inside the ground plane.

The problem is, some animations have been adjusted for the new models, and the majority aren't. This is why there are models bouncing up and down when they're switching anims.

As for Hojo's case, I'm pretty sure I have posted an archive in the past that has the corrected animations?

40

Releases / Re: New Shader for Post Process

« on: 2017-01-27 12:27:55 »

Same stuff happens on my end.

Code: [Select]

[00000000] INFO: FF7/FF8 OpenGL driver version 0.8.1b
[00000000] INFO: Auto-detected version: FF7 1.02 US English
[00000000] INFO: NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 750 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 4.5.0 NVIDIA 376.33
[00000000] INFO: OpenGL 2.0 support detected
[00000000] INFO: Using PBO
[00000000] INFO: Found swap_control extension
[00000000] INFO: Max texture size: 16384x16384
[00000000] INFO: Original resolution 640x480, window size 1360x768, output resolution 1360x768, internal resolution 1920x960
[00000000] INFO: Shader limits: varying 124, vert uniform 4096, frag uniform 4096
[00000000] INFO: fragment shader compile log:
0(734) : error C1016: expression type incompatible with function return type

[00000000] INFO: postprocessing program link log:
Fragment info
-------------
0(734) : error C1016: expression type incompatible with function return type
(0) : error C2003: incompatible options for link

[00000000] ERROR: init_postprocessing failed, postprocessing will be disabled
[00000000] INFO: FFMpeg movie player plugin loaded
[00000000] INFO: FFMpeg version SVN-r25886, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
[00000000] INFO: VGMStream music plugin loaded
[00000000] INFO: Loading external library FF7anyCD.dll
[00000000] LOCK UNLOCK TEST
[00000001] MATRIX INITIALIZE
[00000001] INITIALIZE DD/D3D END
[00000001] initializing sound...


41

Troubleshooting / Re: FF7 Battle Swirl Disable Patch (is it possible)

« on: 2017-01-21 11:57:00 »

You need an emulator that can handle framebuffer effects. ePSXe with basically any of Pete's gpu plugins will be able to do it, and most of the time they even have a special fix option that addresses FF7-specific problems.

42

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R05c)

« on: 2016-12-12 16:03:09 »

Oh, right. I see what you mean. For some reason, I momentarily assumed FF7 uses 3D sound placement but thinking about it without a sleepy head now, of course it doesn't.. FF7 only ever uses 2D sound so literally everything can be in stereo.

43

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R05c)

« on: 2016-12-12 12:47:43 »

File sizes don't differ too much, either. The original megalixir (mono) in ff7 pc is around 50kb. My 192 ogg version (stereo, which is why I made this 192) is  67 kb.

Does the panning work properly with stereo though?

44

General Discussion / Re: FF7PC: Program liuke Proud Clod but for the party?

« on: 2016-12-10 11:58:56 »

WallMarket


Each weapon has their own sound data, so you'll have to change it manually for all of Barret's weapons.

45

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R0c)

« on: 2016-11-27 19:59:14 »

I noticed the title says "R0c". Is that intentional?

46

Releases / Re: [FF7PC] Grimmy's Models and Textures etc.

« on: 2016-11-12 19:50:56 »

This is probably the best place to look at when you're hex editing AB files. There's more stuff lying around the forums too, but you'd have to search to find it all.

47

Releases / Re: [FF7PC] Grimmy's Models and Textures etc.

« on: 2016-11-12 13:54:34 »

Enemy models as playable characters D: how did you manage that?

In principle, it's easy. It's just that you need to heavily edit the AB file of a player character to make the enemy skeleton fully functional. Most of the time it's figuring out which animations look good with what command that's the hard part. Obviously enemy animations were never designed for using Deathblow or Morph or stuff like that.

48

Troubleshooting / Re: game cuts off

« on: 2016-11-05 19:34:10 »

For the first post: run FF7Config and make sure you have a driver selected in the Sound Tab. For some strange reason, it can get unselected during driver updates and most likely will. I'm using the built-in HDMI audio device from my NVIDIA graphics card, and basically every time I install a new driver update, FF7 loses its sound settings. It's bloody irritating when it happens, but easy to fix.

49

Support / Re: creating new animations question

« on: 2016-11-03 20:30:06 »

Am I missing something? Since when could Kimera modify effect animations?

50

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R05b)

« on: 2016-10-15 12:39:37 »

According to Makou, only the main characters have a mouth on PSX. Still, it's true that in-game, I remember clearly commenting on the lack of mouths even on Cloud, and not nearly just once.