Messages

101

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-17 09:09:04 »

I loaded into Kalm with debug mode on, ran outside to the World Map, then exit the game, and it produced a 678 MB log file. Uh oh!

Yes, debug mode REALLY does log almost everything - I suggest, if you are having trouble getting a mod set up, run 7H with JUST that mod active, and try to have a savegame in the place you need to check things, so you can start the game and go straight to the place that reads the file

Does .iro file size have any affect on them working? I can make separate categories for movies, music, and sound and all work fine. In a combined .iro of 5.41GB, a couple of the options suddenly don't work.

Ah, I think you have found a bug. The .iro file format supports files >4GB in size ... but the wrapper code did not. So...

New version v1.23:

https://mega.co.nz/#!qEtBnLzC!rpxPlnrcbcVj-TYFi6JZNQpNmqgmL8td2X5AiInzqIc

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

@EQ2Alyza: You should not have to make the .iro file again - I think the file is OK, just you need the new wrapper for it to work.

@Kaldarasha: You can create a mod that applies hext patches. If you create a "Hext" folder inside the mod folder and put your text patch(s) in that folder, the new version should pick them up and apply them.

(e.g. if you 7H folder is C:\games\ff7\7thHeaven then maybe put the file in C:\games\ff7\7thHeaven\MyModName\hext\SomeHextPatch.txt )

Also I have put a basic OpenGL config editor in. The config is set up in the file ConfigSpec-FF7OpenGL.xml - I have not included every setting, but perhaps this is enough to show you how it works? (You access the editor from the Workshop menu in 7H). If somebody writes a good XML file then I can easily include it in future versions.

102

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-16 13:34:39 »

@Kaldarasha: Hm, unfortunately I didn't see your latest comment when I prepared the new version so I have implemented what I thought you meant

Still, I see what you mean now, so perhaps in the next version.

Version 1.22:

https://mega.co.nz/#!GYMlnDQZ!J6KqxmVKcZvzFD0-inDitH6b3b7N8tgLLGKgrjaIcBs

New features/fixes:

-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...

The debug mode does log more than the wrapper normally logs, also it will open the log file in Notepad after you exit FF7 so you don't need to run Debugview (although you still can, if you want).


@EQ2Alyza: Good point, thank you.

103

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-15 19:11:53 »

Unfortunately I can't get vgmstream working at all - I don't mean with 7H, I can't get it to do anything even when I run FF7 directly :/  This is annoying, I'm sure if I could get it working, it would be simple to find out why it doesn't work with 7H!

The forward slash in the path is not important, Aali's code often uses forward slashes to access files but it works just like a back slash.


EDIT: ...suddenly it is working. I am sure nothing has changed, but... well, at least now I can try and find the problem!

104

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-15 17:30:43 »

No in Hext_in are placed text files to edit the FF7.exe. Leave the Dll stuff for Dan. 
But I haven't tested the new Hext_Launch.exe with 7th Heaven together. I fear that I only can use one tool at once. Well I will better test it immediately.
OK, if I point 7th Heaven to Hext_Launch it will work. But now I have to start the BorderlessWindow.exe manual.
Well, only a question: could you give 7th H. an interface to edit the opengl config of Aali's driver?

Oh, OK. What hext files do you suggest I should use for testing? I did a quick search but couldn't see what mods/downloads actually use hext files.

To edit the opengl ... so the driver would use a different opengl config file when 7H ran it? Yes, I think that is possible.

You suggested using DebugView way back during the first release, so I still use that when testing. It shows the files inside the music .iro being read, but there are no overridden actions happening after that.

Hm, that is confusing. Can you post for the debug output for me to look at?

105

Gameplay / Re: gjoerulv's hardcore mod guides? FF VII

« on: 2014-07-15 11:28:12 »

I'm working on making a 7H version but I've been told by Alyza that getting the 7H Wrapper to read the scene.bin is problematic. At the very least I can get the .lgp files in 7H format to make it easier to swap in custom battle models.

Latest version fixes the problems with scene.bin so it should work for any files now (hopefully...)

106

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-15 11:25:03 »

I think for the next version, I will add in a debug mode that lists what files it is looking for - that will make it simpler to work out what your folders should be named!

(It will probably have to be a special mode that is normally off because the game accesses a LOT of files! - so it will slow things down a bit. But it should be useful for getting your mods set up correctly.)

@EQ2Alyza: Music in .iro might be a naming issue again ... if it doesn't work the debug logs in the next version might help us sort it out.

@Kaldarasha: Unfortunately it is probably not possible to inject 7H into the process after it has started - FF7 reads most of the LGP files and the table of contents in the LGP as soon as it starts, so if you inject 7H later - even just a second later - it is too late to intercept the LGP files. Really 7H needs to launch FF7 because then it can control it and be SURE of installing the necessary code before FF7 starts running.

Adding extra files in a folder actually might work, but what would probably work better is that I will add proper support for a mod to contain DLL files that are injected. That should be easy.

107

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-14 11:36:49 »

Magic: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-Q_AObuWRSXaXRZdlc1aVJPXzg/edit

Save: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-Q_AObuWRSXVXNXUWFFME5CMjg/edit

That is the Magic folder I use for 7H. I load up Slot 04 of the save in Kalm and fight sweepers, etc. outside on the World Map.

@EQ2Alyza: I have tried packing some of the files from that mod into a .iro file and the magic textures/PNGs load fine from the .iro for me :/  so I am not sure what the problem is? The battle didn't crash either, I could finish it OK...

Could you try again and see what happens with v1.21, maybe it is only a problem with larger .iro files (I only packed a few files for a quick test) or maybe the new version fixes it somehow....??

108

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-13 19:13:45 »

I have tested the new function to replace the model loader with my re-sized models project. It worked as long the flevel has no dirty edits.

Sorry, I don't understand, what is a dirty edit?

Do you mean it crashed if you tried the chunk export on a flevel file which had been edited? If yes, which mod, your re-sized models mod?

109

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-13 18:41:11 »

@EQ2Alyza: Great, that's really helpful.


New version v1.21 fixing the easiest bugs:

https://mega.co.nz/#!Hdsm0RhR!ajOEBxqCWdzQJb3z6DSqRQPCFLD2vhRsp-4kXmRboyg

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)


@Sega Chief: Instead of putting a list here which could be out of date, the best thing for me to say is to check the 7thHeaven.var file - this lists all the variables 7thHeaven 'knows' about, so if it is listed there, you can use it (and if it is not listed, you can't!).

There aren't many entries yet unfortunately.

110

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-13 15:36:34 »

Most of those sound like they should be easy to fix - I will download some mods now to test with.

It will probably help make things quicker to fix for me if you have any savegames / mods you can point me to, that make it easy for me to check if it is working   e.g. for the magic PNGs not working, if you have a savegame with materia equipped for a spell that is very obvious if it is using the new version or not, then I can very quickly load the savegame and see if my fix works.

111

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2014-07-13 13:50:48 »

Hi all,

First, sorry for disappearing for a while; I had some financial problems last year and real life took over for a while :/ Also my main PC hard disk failed, which caused me some problems...

I did have the 7thheaven source backed up though so not all was lost! Since I have most things reinstalled now I have loaded 7thheaven back up again and made some changes, so there is now a v1.20 to download:

https://mega.co.nz/#!2BkWHSbC!VPKfhfAZoMH3RMDHUTcMwNt_c9oVMmDjKBLchliYc5A

The main change is that it supports "chunked" file replacements which for now means field files. If you look at the Field file format then you see it has 9 sections. The chunked replacement means that you can make a mod that only changes one (or a few) sections of this file and distribute just the sections that are changed - e.g. just section 1, if the dialogue is the only changed thing. Then 7thheaven will combine the sections back into a single field file at runtime. So your mod is smaller (because you don't have to distribute the whole field file containing all the background graphics, just to change some dialogue) and you could even apply two mods that both changed the same field file at once, if one mod just changed dialogue, and the other just changed the encounter data, maybe.

How to use - there is a 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.

I hope it will work, I tested changing dialogue with this tool and it seems OK, however it is possible there are bugs so please try it and find out

Are there other bugs that need fixing or new features that people want in 7thHeaven? Thank you.

112

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: How are polygons sorted before rendering ?

« on: 2013-08-24 12:30:40 »

Not familiar with the PSX engines; but, that looks exactly like what you would see if you hadn't enabled alpha testing (and should do).

What alpha values do the objects have? If it's only 0 or 1 (i.e. completely transparent, or completely solid) then you don't need to sort the polygons at all, and rendering order doesn't matter. What you can do instead is enable alpha testing, and tell GL to discard pixels/fragments with a alpha value (e.g.) < 0.01

Then, the transparent pixels won't update the depth buffer, and so they won't 'mask off' things behind them that you would normally be able to see through the 'gaps'.

(If the polygons are semi-transparent - e.g. alpha value 0.5 - then this won't work, and you will need some polygon sorting. But you should still be able to get around it using far less than 7000 draws.)

113

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-20 21:46:12 »

Iros means the ID of the field, not the ID of the model in the field.

Correct!

It would be better to have a Not Active When function.

This is also possible. I should really write some documentation.

However, as a short term fix/explanation:

Code: [Select]

  <Conditional Folder="sewer2">
    <RuntimeVar Var="PPV" Values="300..400" />
  </Conditional>

...is a 'normal' conditional folder. It activates the folder when the variable PPV is between 300-400.

Code: [Select]

  <Conditional Folder="sewer2">
    <Not><RuntimeVar Var="PPV" Values="300..400" /></Not>
  </Conditional>

...reverses the check, so now it's active only when the variable PPV is not between 300-400.

Code: [Select]

  <Conditional Folder="sewer2">
    <And>
      <RuntimeVar Var="PPV" Values="300..400" />
      <RuntimeVar Var="FieldID" Values="213" />
    </And>
  </Conditional>

...combines two checks so the folder is only active when PPV is between 300-400 and FieldID equals 213.

There is also an 'Or' tag, which does what you'd expect. And you can combine them, if you really need to, so,

Code: [Select]

  <Conditional Folder="sewer2">
    <And>
      <Not><RuntimeVar Var="PPV" Values="300..400" /></Not>
      <RuntimeVar Var="FieldID" Values="213" />
    </And>
  </Conditional>

...activates a folder only when PPV is not between 300-400, and the FieldID equals 213.

Oh, that I hadn't thought of. Ok cool, how would something like that be configured? I was thinking combining this with MR may still be a good idea depending on the scene. Like in the Life Stream when there's more than one Cloud on screen in the Nibelheim memories, that way both young and present day Cloud can be used. Unless they already have separate field ID's, than just a 7H script would do the job.

As Kaldarasha said, I don't think you understand what FieldID is. It's the ID of the field location that's currently displayed, so separate models on the same screen can't have 'separate' FieldIDs. The ID doesn't belong to the model in the first place.

What you could do is use counters, as I described for alternating battle models so you got a different battle model each time a particular enemy was loaded. It would work with field models, too.

But which scenes were you thinking of replacing models in, where the same model is used on screen twice, and you want to replace it with two different ones?

114

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-20 08:51:28 »

You would probably then need to make the folder conditional on both PPV and FieldID. That should be good enough. That's also why checking the variables using the debug output is probably the way to go: it will tell you every time one of the variables changes, so you can see what the PPV and FieldID values become as you progress through the scenes just by playing them.

If I haven't explained how to do that (which is probably true), then let me know, it is possible.

115

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-19 21:13:55 »

It outputs it to debug info. So either use dbgview, or ff7music. Since the variables often change, the idea is that you do something in the game that changes it, and then see what the new value is, and then maybe change it again and check the value again.

116

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-18 07:10:57 »

I've started putting together the Zack flashback mod but I cant find how to enable variable dump to get the PPV's. It's not in the settings or anything.

New version v1.10:  https://mega.co.nz/#!yRRikTxI!OWbvaheEnJjlWJizBqN2XXtG1a94lp0_8vLpXhQIl3w

-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

Oh ok cool thanks Kaldarasha I'll check that out. So I know you can add files from the mod file to load png textures with 7H, but I was wonder about the pngs actually in the mod file. So I was wondering if I could just cheat and copy the entire mod file. If I did mods\bootleg - with all the other files inside it, and loaded that file into 7H would this work or would it not know what to do with the file since it loads files into this folder?

Should work fine. A mod basically is just meant to be a copy of either files that would go into a LGP; or files that would go into mods\bootleg - so if you take something that has installed itself into mods\bootleg then all those files pretty much are ready to just put in a folder and tell 7H to import/use it.

117

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-16 07:58:29 »

No support for the textures folder at the moment. I haven't really investigated it yet, although mod path would still be my preferred option if that can work.

118

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-15 20:48:48 »

New version v1.10:  https://mega.co.nz/#!yRRikTxI!OWbvaheEnJjlWJizBqN2XXtG1a94lp0_8vLpXhQIl3w

-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.

119

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-15 12:46:30 »

If you can point me at a mod which 

-uses the textures folder,
-doesn't work when copied into the modpath folder
-is reasonably easy to test

...then I can download it and add support in, I guess. But if they all work when copied into modpath, I'd stick with that.

120

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-15 12:31:33 »

Really    How does that work? The small mention they get in the config file makes it sound like it was an older feature that modpath replaced - and if you're repackaging them anyway, perhaps they could get updated to use modpath anyway?

I'd have to see how it actually worked, in order to be sure exactly how to support it (if it's needed).

121

General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.

« on: 2013-08-14 21:25:04 »

To be honest - if I'd been translating the game, and the developers had come back to me and said "No, it should be Aerith, not Aeris. Because it's based on 'Earth', right?", then my response would have been "Well, you're the boss. But ... you crazy, man. Maybe that works super well in Japanese, but if you're wanting to imply this name is something to do with earth, then both of those options are rubbish - because they begin with 'Aer', which is basically the root of probably hundreds of words in European languages that are all to do with air. But, you know, if you're stuck on this 'Aerith' thing because that's what you've already decided on, then fine..."

Evidently 'Aerith' is what the writers intended. Of course, there's sometimes a difference between what the Japanese authors decided on, and the impression it makes in English...

122

General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.

« on: 2013-08-14 21:02:13 »

I played the French game before the English one, and, I can say, the mistakes are worse at many points. There's even a dialogue in the game that was left in English.

Wait ... you mean the French version was translated from the English version, not directly from the Japanese? That ... sounds awkward.

Although I guess you can't say that for sure just from that one thing, there could be other explanations?

123

General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.

« on: 2013-08-14 20:57:21 »

It was an accident in that they didn't have any specific reason we know of to make their decision, but they didn't just pick the name out of thin air - the translators knew that it could have been translated as either Aeris or Aerith. I suppose we don't know that they didn't just flip a coin when originally deciding which one to go with, but it's pretty plausible they picked the one that sounded best to them. It's what they did with other names, after all - we need an English equivalent to this name, these are the options that are reasonably close to the Japanese version, what sounds best?

124

General Discussion / Re: Aeris vs Aerith.

« on: 2013-08-14 19:48:52 »

The main reason for using Aeris I could see is that it is actually a Latin word, and as such sounds natural to many people speaking Latin-derived languages. As somebody else has already said, Aerith soundth like she hath a lithp - because it's not a word sound you expect to encounter often, in English, anyway.

Obviously the developers get to say what is "correct", they're the original authors. Doesn't mean it sounds better in non-Japanese languages. After all, Terra in FF6 is in no way a "correct" translation of the Japanese name (Tina) - it was chosen because it worked better in English, which is no bad thing.

125

FF7 Tools / Re: 7thHeaven

« on: 2013-08-14 13:29:32 »

I wonder if it's possible to have multiple subscriptions, but it's maybe best not to do that either.

Yes, the program supports this. Although I only realized when I actually tried to set it up, that it's not so easy to enter the URLs ... because 'enter' closes the settings window. I think shift-Enter? or control-Enter? lets you enter a second line of text in the subscriptions box; you can have as many subscriptions as you want.

Anyway, that's why it doesn't just replace the catalog completely based on the subscription file - you could be subscribed to other sources, too.