FF7 Movie Limitations

[Tsetra]

The goal of this topic is to create the absolute best quality video that FF7 for PC can use with minimal recoding, if any, needed.

With that out of the way, all I've been able to glean from this forum is that the engine somehow calculates the FPS of the videos, and that the videos are called in the fieldscript.
My questions are as follows:

- Are the videos limited to a certain resolution?
- Can the Hi-Res patch change this limitation?
- What is the optimal encoder for the videos?

I seem to recall that someone was able to take the FF7 PSX version videos and format them so that they looked even better in game. I also know that using FFDShow and the K-Lite codec pack, I can achieve somewhat better video. But what is possible beyond this? Again, this is intended to be applied to the PC version of the game.

[Otokoshi]

1) 320x224
2) No
3) Depends, experiment with it.  I recently tried with h.264, but the colors rendered in-game were limited, while back in Windows it looked fine.  Indeo codec is alright, but I'm sure there is better.

The PSX videos do have a slightly better quality, so encoding those would be an improvement on its own.  I guess experiment and let us know what you come up with.

[Tsetra]

Damn, I was really hoping I wasn't limited to 320x224, that's hurting big time.
When you made the opening out of the PS3 demo, what were the results of the total time being too short or too long? If I recall, too short will cause a black screen while you wait, correct? How about too long?

[Otokoshi]

If the movies are too long then the events coded for the event after the movie will start anyway.  For example, I made a version of the opening movie that was longer than the original, but after the set time the bombing mission music began and overlapped with the video and sounded messy.  You can avoid this effect if you calculate the number of frames the original movie has, then match that with you new movie.  All FF7 movies default to 15fps, so you could make a replacement movie that is shorter, but increase its frames per second to match the total frames of the original.

Hope this helps!

/Side note/
Anyone have any success with h.264 encoding and FF7?  It looks great in full screen within Windows, but not in-game.  Any tweaks work for anyone?

[Tsetra]

Hmm... too bad I couldn't make the video overlap the characters on screen (make them invisible). That longer video could actually work to my advantage. If I could even insert ONE freaking command into the field script without making it crash, I could accomplish an idea I had for redoing the entire intro. But alas, anything I do messes that up.
I've been trying to encode videos with Blaze Media, but it's really pissing me off. I can't get the video to show in the game, despite using the correct resolution. I'm pretty good at splicing and making my own movies, but I'll be damned if I know anything about encoding necessary to actually put it in game.  Do I need to use certain encoders? Or basically as long as the end user has the decoder, it should play in the game like anything else?

FRUSTRATION! 

If I can get it to work, I've been getting some really good quality out of FFDShow encoders, that I think would really help people improve their quality if they take the time to do their own encoding. If I get something that's significant and works, I'll post the details.

EDIT - Actually, that might not even be necessary until later in the script. I just got a sick idea, IF it'll work. Towards the end of the PS3 demo, the train stops. If I can make the movie roll with that background frozen there, that might effectively act as the background in game while the guards get knocked out on the superior background. This all depends on whether the placement is the same as the game's background, or at least believably close. But then I'd still have to hide the characters when Barret waves, because I want Cloud jumping off the train from the PS3 demo to show, ending with him on the ground and Barret telling him to follow him.

But again to keep this relevant to Tech-Related, for now my goal is simply quality and seeing what works best. Again, I'll post results as they happen.

EDIT 2 - Might be on to something interesting... 

[Tsetra]

Well, that flopped. Here's what happened when I tried to use a longer movie to make a different intro:

The guards appeared, then quickly disappeared. So this left me with an image of the train station, but it was empty. After Cloud jumped off the train PS3 demo style, it quickly dumped me back to where the guards were still standing, then they got knocked out by Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. So that event will wait until the movie is finished, unfortunately. That means I can't make certain parts "disappear" with movies. As I still can't get the game to start with Cloud already on the ground, I'm basically saying no progress was made on the intro idea. None.

As far as encoding works, obviously I got movies playable. Xvid is a horrible codec to use. Virtual Dub keeps complaining about half the movies I make in Blaze Media, since Blaze Media makes better movies but won't reduce the color to 16-bit, I've gotta use both programs. So right now I'm looking for a better program than Virtual Dub, because it's putting out garbage.

[Lag.Com]

You could try 'nandub', it's basically a custom build of VirtualDub but it supports other stuff. I have no idea if it'll fix the problem you mention, but it might be worth a try.