Author Topic: Is it possible to replace the internal players for FF7? (Read 8607 times)

KojiroTakenashi · « **on:** 2002-09-21 01:28:27 »

I figure, that'd be the best solution for problems with FMVs and 32-bit colour, thier blockiness, AND the fact DMusic sounds loads better with FF7 than DX7 stuffs.
Not to mention it would really spiff up FF8.
Qhimm once told me that the video players for FF7 and 8 turn the FMV's into a hundred or so itty-bitty 256-colour blocks. The only workaround I can see for any of there problems is if someone made a mod or patch to run FF7 using a different decoding engine (perhaps one already present on your computer?). Maybe there could be a list to select which one you want to try?
... *meep* And add a SuperEagle/2xSaI filter? XD
Same thing with Dmusic, althought Fice's FF7MIDI has taught me that's no easy task (it plays some songs wrong no matter WHAT I'm using for my MIDI device...)

halkun · « **Reply #1 on:** 2002-09-21 03:10:00 »

I would like to start in on a linux port if the FF7 engine (One day) however the videos are very propiatary, the codec is called Trumotion 2.0 it is (was?) made by Duck inc. I've tried mplayer but I coudn't get the win32 codecs to load. (They were hacked and illigal anyway) A bi-liniar filter would work much better than a SuperEagle/2xSaI filter for the FMV. The codec is hard-coded into the player.

The backgrounds could use a 2xSal, but they are made up of blocks and are also layered. Both 2xSal and Super Eagle are "One pass" filters used after the render is done. It would take creative fanaginling to make it look OK.

-halkun

KojiroTakenashi · « **Reply #2 on:** 2002-09-21 17:50:38 »

Well, what I meant was to simply code a new player which plays the videos right-out, rather than doing that insane blocky-256colour-texture thing.

halkun · « **Reply #3 on:** 2002-09-21 20:05:40 »

You can play them using Windows media player ^_^

Aaron · « **Reply #4 on:** 2002-09-22 05:15:06 »

Whenever I try to play the FF7 movies in Windows Media Player, they are upside down

Must be a codec problem.

On my old computer they worked fine.

In FF7, the movies seem to be limited to 256 colors or something (they look really crappy) but they are fine when you play them with WMP. This may be possible to fix, I guess.

KojiroTakenashi · « **Reply #5 on:** 2002-09-22 16:53:46 »

The movies are limited to 256-colours because they're being played as 256-colour tiles. They're full-blown 24-bit movies, is what urks me. Fice's 32-bit patch makes them look well and nice but FF7's internal player messes it up at that bit-depth. All you'd need to do is have it run something else...I'm not sure how embedded it is in the programming, since I'm not a programmer. That's why I'm asking you guys

Kendrilian · « **Reply #6 on:** 2002-09-22 23:35:27 »

I've had a problem with movies (*.avi) being upside down. I haven't gotten it fixed yet though...

Kendrilian

Rubicant · « **Reply #7 on:** 2002-09-23 02:42:35 »

Whether this is off-topic or not, I have a program that can convert the ff7 avi files to 320x224, which also makes them readable in (any?) most avi players. Once at that stage, we can compress them however we may like. Does this arouse ideas?

Aaron · « **Reply #8 on:** 2002-09-23 02:48:49 »

Well they should already be readable in all AVI players (PC), but sometimes their upside down. Simple codec problem.

halkun · « **Reply #9 on:** 2002-09-25 02:47:22 »

How on *earth* can a silly bug like movies playing upside down make it to the presses. I mean I have a hard enough time inverting images when I want too

Sephiroth 3D · « **Reply #10 on:** 2002-09-25 08:31:31 »

IIRC, It happened mostly with Cyrix chipsets, and a few ATI cards. Apparently they didn't test it enough. They had to dump a lot of stuff they wanted to do cause they were behind schedule as is.

Rubicant · « **Reply #11 on:** 2002-09-25 15:37:53 »

Always the cyrix processors. Those are the big splatter poop of all sh*tty processors. Back in the days of ATi's mach32 and mach64 nobody knew what was going on with video. Why didn't they try using a more compatible video compressor in the first place? The avi's were going to be in windows, so why not use the standard windows avi compressor?

KojiroTakenashi · « **Reply #12 on:** 2002-09-25 19:38:15 »

Well the Duck True Motion filter patch included with the disk kinda....uhm, fixed that?

Smurgen · « **Reply #13 on:** 2002-09-25 21:32:55 »

yay! use Bink to convert it to any AVI format you likes! but..what then! WHAT THEN! the world ends of course! bye!

Rubicant · « **Reply #14 on:** 2002-09-26 00:11:19 »

uh..what?

Sephiroth 3D · « **Reply #15 on:** 2002-09-26 07:42:42 »

I'd like to point out that Bink wasn't around when they released FF7...

Smurgen · « **Reply #16 on:** 2002-09-26 08:31:56 »

But it is out now
And you can also use it to convert to any AVI format you want, not only to make Bink

Aaron · « **Reply #17 on:** 2002-09-26 12:10:05 »

You can do this with like a billion other programs to.

But if your computer decodes the AVIs as upside down, wouldn't Bink or anything encode them upside down into a different format? Or is Bink smart enough to handle this?

Smurgen · « **Reply #18 on:** 2002-09-28 21:14:30 »

I'll have to check that
I mention Bink though cuz its free and people forget you can use it to convert to AVI as well as Bink/Smacker

Lord Kane · « **Reply #19 on:** 2002-10-13 02:02:07 »

The reason the FF7 movies are converted to these little bits is because taht is the way taht the PSX renders movies.
The MDEC engine on the PSX basicaly deals in small JPG style compression images, but it can render them very fast.

2xSai? If you wanna see what a problem that is, I suggest you try running the PSX emulator ePSXe with Pete Burnet's plugin, enable 'Hi-Res texures', play any FF game, and see the artifacts.

KojiroTakenashi · « **Reply #20 on:** 2002-10-13 14:21:26 »

Thank you for ressurecting a dead topic

Well, I don't get that many artifacts when I do that, see XD
I figure you could just use it on the video...
In whatever case, though, these FMVs are NOT MDEC, so using the MDEC method of playing them makes them look horrific. Couldn't we just tell FF7 to use WinMM or something instead of the default player?

Goku7 · « **Reply #21 on:** 2002-10-13 18:39:10 »

Ah, but you're forgetting that the original format the FMV were in was MDEC. And, I hate to say it, but SquareSoft doesn't seem too knowledgable about making good PC ports of games. I wouldn't be surprised if they got lazy and coded the game to show the video as if was a PSX video, decoding and all.

KojiroTakenashi · « **Reply #22 on:** 2002-10-14 00:53:54 »

Still, is it possible to just make it use WinMM?

Smurgen · « **Reply #23 on:** 2002-10-14 04:49:00 »

Quote from: Goku7

Ah, but you're forgetting that the original format the FMV were in was MDEC. And, I hate to say it, but SquareSoft doesn't seem too knowledgable about making good PC ports of games. I wouldn't be surprised if they got lazy and coded the game to show the video as if was a PSX video, decoding and all.

Actually i think that would be the best thing lol
Can't be any worse than what we already have