Messages

1

Releases / Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV

« on: 2020-06-04 00:01:07 »

Like a deepfake?

Yeah exactly! I do think it may save some time if it works..I played with one of those tools once just to see how it works and they should be able to "find the faces" and export already masked replacement frames (with transparency) with not too many steps..

P.S.
I sent you some extra interesting source material

2

Releases / Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV

« on: 2020-06-03 09:24:31 »

At the cost of repeating myself.. you're doing an amazing job!

I kinda noticed that faces tends to get blurried/distorted sometimes and that gave me an idea...

You're using AI for upscale purpose but would it be possible to use machine-learning face-swapping technologies to fix those faces?
We kinda have a lot of near shots of many character faces and I wonder if a trained model of Rinoa or Squall could help when upscaling a "small face" since we can't pretend miracles when we start from a very few pixels..

It's just an idea but I think it could work.

3

Releases / Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV

« on: 2020-05-16 10:04:03 »

I do like your approach of aiming to the max possible quality (kinda reminds of mine for 3D reconstruction).

Hi, since you're working on that lil' project of upscaling I guess you would appreciate some better res- original source material (if you don't have it already).
Sadly you'll see a SQUARESOFT watermark and a slightly different aspect ratio (if I remember it correctly).

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nfl6y99sxm0x8ax/Dolby_Disk.7z/file

4

Releases / Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV

« on: 2020-05-15 11:40:01 »

Impressive result. still a bit too blurry in some spot but that's huge progress for an automatic upscale..
Manual editing would require a crazy person or a very patient one..
I wonder if different upscale methods would give sharper results and that could help using animated mask to blend between different type of upscales.. that would require a lot of roto-masking but it could work maybe..

5

Releases / Re: [FF8-PC Steam 2013] FFVIII Crystal 1.0.0

« on: 2020-03-04 19:57:58 »

cool mod!

6

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Camera Research / reconstruction

« on: 2020-01-10 15:46:39 »

I updated my table with a lot of new data and my theory still may be correct ( focal is probably just zoom/10 unless background size is different from 320x224)

7

FF8 Tools / Re: [PSX/PC] Field editor - Deling (0.10.1b)

« on: 2020-01-08 09:28:18 »

It should be correct I used it to match locations in Chocobo Forests: https://www.ff8.fr/quetes/forets-chocobos#foret_fun

Thanks for the answer!

I'm working on 3D camera reconstruction in Maya and I'm tryn' to solve the zoom / focal formula.

If want to give a look I'm posting my progress here:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19046.new#new

After that I'd like to move to the camera animation files.

8

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Camera Research / reconstruction

« on: 2020-01-07 22:30:39 »

little update about zoom/focal lenght

I created some sort of table with the data I've collected so far and this is my conclusion so far:

"Focal Lenght =  Zoom *0,1"  formula gives accurate results but sometimes fails

I made some check to spot when it fails and it looks like when the fields have background size different from 320x224 the focal is often smaller...

this makes me think there must be a calculation that result in 1 involving the image size stats..

here's my table with values I found

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e7qYNiKdgtZOriaSmoF5UniHu3RjGlO9gVX2Tzsesdo/edit?usp=sharing

eFocal lenght is  the Focal lenght I managed to obtain manually which seems to be correct to me (it may be not perfect but I estimate a 5-10% error threshold)

any suggestion would be really helpful

9

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Camera Research / reconstruction

« on: 2020-01-06 17:11:13 »

I think I solved the position using this formula similar to Myst6re's one:

Code: [Select]

tx = -(camPosX*camAxisXx + camPosY*camAxisYx + camPosZ*camAxisZx)/4096
ty = -(camPosX*camAxisXy + camPosY*camAxisYy + camPosZ*camAxisZy)/4096
tz = -(camPosX*camAxisXz + camPosY*camAxisYz + camPosZ*camAxisZz)/4096

#note you calculate using int but you may obtain a non-integer result..
#I did not made the same divisions Myst6re made before on the axis

I made a script for maya handling everything and it gives almost perfect matches in many cases while sometimes something is missing about the focal lenght since it's not always just the zoom value divided by 10...in those situation is obviously a different value..

I guess there is some sort of formula for that either but I did not guessed it yet..

10

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Camera Research / reconstruction

« on: 2020-01-03 23:04:34 »

I found this on mystr6re github (it could help)
https://github.com/myst6re/deling/blob/master/files/CaFile.cpp
https://github.com/myst6re/deling/blob/master/files/CaFile.h

11

FF8 Tools / Re: [PSX/PC] Field editor - Deling (0.10.0b)

« on: 2020-01-03 22:58:34 »

hi myst6re!

in the fields camera info, by any chance, could it be the displayed vector for the camera position is wrong?
I made many tests with deling 0.9b and it looks like the position doesn't match the walkmeshes like it should.. (didn't tested with the latest version since I can't find a compiled 0.10.0b one and I'm not sure I'm able to compile it by myself  )

[Edit]
Nevermind..the data is correct but I missed the formula to get the actual camera position
[/Edit]

12

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Camera Research / reconstruction

« on: 2020-01-03 22:37:50 »

Ok guys I'm back..

Since holydays gave me some spare time I went back on the camera research and I got some news but still I need to solve some stuff.

about background I figured out most of the thing I needed to know except for the camera positions:

Since my coding sucks I used data as it is extracted from deling and this is what I got:



(this is just an example but my method worked with more backgrounds)

in maya I used the first 3 vector (axis) in a four by four matrix to get the rotation and seems to be working
Also the parameter called zoom (in delling) seems to match the focal lenght (must be divided by 10)

The thing that is driving me crazy is the position since the one shown in deling seems not to be correct but I can't tell if it's me doing something wrong or maybe Deling not reading the data correctly..

I found some info here but I would need help from someone more skilled than me with this issue..
https://web.archive.org/web/20171031181044/http://wiki.qhimm.com/view/FF7/Field/Camera_Matrix


Also I made some tests with manual camera tracking and it gave some stable result so I got those wich seems to be the correct proportions for garden basement using a few cylinders
proof here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bQHiL9mFtpQzJEmbeWKRE99sIc9VpegO/view?usp=sharing


Any help will be greatly appreciated 

13

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: FF8 Remaster new compression algorithm

« on: 2019-09-11 19:14:14 »

You're doing great guys!
I just can't wait to see if we're finally be able to change 3D models to higher polycount version..I'd really be into creation of HD assets for serious modding if that became a thing..

14

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / [FF8] Camera Research / reconstruction

« on: 2019-06-26 11:59:44 »

Hello guys!

It's been a while since the last time but the "remaster" announcement woke me up from a long sleep 

What's the point of this topic and why should it be so important?

Cameras are one of the not yet fully documented things in FF8 but they could provide great help to the 3D reconstruction of many stuff that could lead to new/better 2D background mods for example.

Also later on, when the remaster will be released (if the engine is going to be moved to Unity or something), maybe an actual 3D environment could actually be injected in the game (or replaced for some battle stages for example).

We already can use walk-meshes for having some spatial reference and they helped me a lot to understand the actual depth for some areas.
I'm sure those mesh come from the actual 3D model since some of them kept their relative position (you can notice that if you import most of the garden ones..the central hall ones just overlap each other with no need to move them)




Having exact cameras views in the 3D would help with precise reconstruction and be used for texture camera projection.

I guess we could try to make some sort of inverse-photogrammery to get some raw-3d models of some stuff.

This is what I'd like to get in a more precise way (I adjusted the camera position manually to get this)



Even better would be having a precise reconstruction of the camera movement during cinematics with 3d characters overlay (we need to figure out how to read those data)

So far this is what I think I understood:

-walk-mesh come from the original 3D models then they're a reliable reference of the 3D environment
-the in-game 3D camera probably "render" a bigger region which is later cut from the game (the camera doesn't actually move when you see the background slide..it just show a different slice of the same camera render giving the illusion of movement while keeping the character aligned on the background) ---> see camera ranges

So far this is what I'm trying to understand and I'm quite sure about:
 
Camera position read from Deling doesn't actually match the walkmesh but if you swap the order the position you get is probably correct (X->Y , Y->Z , Z-> X) ..otherwise all the walkmesh position are the one to be swapped.

Camera orientation from my guess is guided from 3 vectors (even though probably just 2 of them should be enough to get the orientation)
1st Vector represents the axis pointing to the "right" of the camera
2nd Vector represents the axis pointing to the "bottom/down" of the camera
3rd Vector represents the axis pointing to the "front/aim" of the camera

So far this is what I'm trying to understand but I really don't know how to handle:

-In the very first "in-game cinematic" there must be some sort of object masking away the characters when they are "behind" the column... I would guess that should be some sort of mesh (similar to the one for the walk ) that serves the purpose of hiding 3d models... could be that or some sort of 2d mask tracked but I hope for a 3D plane that could give more spatial info.

see here (5:57) : https://youtu.be/0Gfcjm4a1Lw?t=349

-I don't get how the "zoom"  value works and how I'm supposed transfer it to a 3D software (like 3dMax or Maya)

-We don't know much yet about camera animation data but the number of "positions" (??) doesn't match the supposed number of frames in the cg animation.. we need to figure out how those data are supposed to be read..!

15

General Discussion / Re: FFVIII Remastered

« on: 2019-06-23 11:15:15 »

I must admit I'm not too excited for this "remaster".
It just doesn't look like it will add much about quality (compared to what mod is already doing) and since they announced it for this year I guess we won't see much improvement (if there will be any) at the final release.
Yet I hope for a remade engine (unity or something) that is going to remove those huge limitations for modding..
If just we could be able to fully replace character/monster and battle stages whith no polycount limitation that would be gold...my hopes (and my willingness to spend further money on this new version) depend on that.

Edit:
Even if I heard that Nomura himself could have been somewhat involved I can't really agree about changes made on Squall.. I mean.. those hairs are totally different and I never recognized him in that new "dissidia-look".. he just look like someone else just dressed whith the same clothes.. and since they're not going to remake the cinematic cutscenes that difference is going to be a non-sense change to me rather than a real improvement.. for sure the first thing I'd like to mod.

16

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8 steam]Character importer

« on: 2018-03-30 10:02:27 »

Hey Shun! it's been a while and I see you're still on FF8 stuff (and you're doing geat as well! )

Can't wait to see how this is going to evolve..

Hopefully my newly acquired 3D skills will be of any use for creating a HD mods or something sooner or later 

17

Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] SeeD Reborn - FF8 Menu Overhaul v3.5 *UPDATED*

« on: 2017-05-27 08:02:16 »

For all i know, the problem we stumbled upon may be caused by some mistake/s i made during various tests processes. Maybe you can find what's the problem.

I'm not good at coding but if it's a texture/UV problem maybe I could figure out something (yet I have to see it first)

The more, the merrier!  Community projects are always better. 

If this isn't clear about me:  I want everyone to dig in to my mods and make them better.  These are the community's mods.  With  my mods as a template, people should be able to just replace my art with thier own - and since Omzy, FatedCourage, Shunsq, and I have already paved the hashmap road, the sky is the limit!

My only request: If you're working on tonberry mods, let the community know!  We need people working together on projects to make sure these mods are completed!

I agree and I'm willing to share my results especially because this community gave me a lot to me and I'd like to give something back

18

Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] Project AngelWing v1.0 - Field Upscale

« on: 2017-05-25 22:27:47 »

Let's say I want to improve/customize a background..(bgsecr2 in particular)

Could anyone explain me how the bg is composed from an HD version of the image?
I see the png in this mod folder are splitted in many stripes/fragment but I can't get what's the logic behind it to try make my own HD BG

19

Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] SeeD Reborn - FF8 Menu Overhaul v3.5 *UPDATED*

« on: 2017-05-25 22:11:21 »

I've actually got all of the starting intro images with hashcodes, etc. and 'upscaled' a few of the replacements.  It's impossible to replace the intro 'text' and the square logo with the current version of tonberry, but I can send the intro files to you if you like, as I don't have time to work with them right now.

I can work on those images (I actually have something ready to use too)

Yup, we're working on it
We might release some sort of "incomplete version" sooner or later, but that is for Mcindus to decide.

That would be good already!
I couòd help whith it also (whith the graphical part I mean)

20

Releases / Re: [FF8PC-Steam] SeeD Reborn - FF8 Menu Overhaul v3.5 *UPDATED*

« on: 2017-05-24 20:14:44 »

any news about italian version (the one coming "very soon") ?

Also I'd like to ask if anyone already made a mod to replace the intro images (should be the lsz files or somethig..) ..you know.. the SQUARE logo and the  black and  white images while the overture music plays.. those ones

I could help a bit whith the HD images if someone tell me how to write the code

21

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8PC/PSX] init.out editor - Quezacotl (v1.0.0)

« on: 2016-09-07 20:02:44 »

glad to be in the credits of this ^^

(anyway on my 4k monitor it looks a bit weird.. I thinks there is something wrong )

22

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] battle.fs/MAG files, r0win, b0wave and a9btlfnt.bft

« on: 2016-07-03 00:54:49 »

Oh my Gold Maki.. do you even know how sexy you are? XD

23

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Import/export sounds - FF8Audio (1.1)

« on: 2015-08-21 13:45:28 »

The offsets to what? The offsets to the sound in the dat are unpredictable unless you know the structure of your dat file. My program actually rebuilds the dat, removing any unused and/or blank data, so the offsets will change every time a sound is added, changed, or removed.

The offsets in the fmt file are also unpredictable, since blank entries take up (35?) bytes, while usable entries take up 70 bytes. Inserting and/or removing sounds changes the offsets of every entry after it.

Can you be a little more descriptive about what offsets you need and what you need the offsets for?

Don't worry I solved it myself

24

FF8 Tools / Re: [FF8] Import/export sounds - FF8Audio (1.1)

« on: 2015-08-20 18:29:08 »

I hope this will not be considered necro-posting but I noticed this tool only now and I'm really interested in it and it's improvement.

I'm tryng it right now since I'd really like to catalog every FF8 sfx (I already started that job some time ago but stopped then.. I want start again sooner

Update:

Ok I tested it and it's very useful and the size column is useful but I wonder if you can add an offset column too (that would be EXTREMELY USEFUL for my research)

..or share the source code

25

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: FF8 PC and Steam - bad UV's?

« on: 2015-08-20 16:05:30 »

Why does the railroad texture flip 180 degrees every time it's repeated?  It looks almost like it's pulling in a pixel from the 'next' texture over.

That's probably not a "bug" (and it's probably because of the original UV texture-optimization).
Take the Garden Halo ring for example.
you don't have a full ring on the texture but still you can enjoy a full ring since they mirrored it on a 4 quads plane.

This kind of stuff were really good whith low quality graphics but nowdays whith higher resolution texture you can easily see the seams-repetition..

You could maybe try to fix this changing UV of the 3d models in a 3D editor but it could take a lot of time and there is not yet a way to re-import a model into the game so..