Messages

126

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2012-11-07 18:31:49 »

The problem is that I don't own a PC version of FFVII, I only have a Playstation version. Probably I'll need to have someone do that for me 

For the psx version you can use 7mimic to see the layers, but I don't think you can extract them seperately with 7 mimic.
 

[edit]
But don't worry about the layers for now, modeling everything is still the way to go for now, just look at the layers in 7mimic so you'll know which parts you should model, the rest will come when the scenes are finished.
 

127

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2012-11-07 18:11:19 »

To find out what the layers are, you can use Palmer and extract all the different layers.

What I did to create the following scene:


is to render the layer with object ID's (which I've put in manually) which gave me this result:

that makes it easier to select the different parts, and replicate the layers from Palmer in photoshop.

Apart from that, it's always possible to render just the different parts, but the catch there is the shadows and reflections you might mis.
 

128

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2012-11-07 17:00:55 »

However, how would you recommend to render the rays? Do I have to make a separate HD render of them on their own?
Thanks!

I think a light layer in photoshop might do the trick, or if Blender is able to, you could render out different passes.
some info

Actually, there are more layers (in this scene the light-rays are animated by flipping the layers) others have objects you walk behind.

you can see it here:

 

129

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2012-11-07 15:31:45 »

Nice work [thumbs up] 

note that the light rays are on a sprite layer



 

130

Completely Unrelated / Re: External HDD problem

« on: 2012-11-01 16:10:46 »

@ spoox

how do I make the RAW image?? it is still visible in the drive manger

I think your method might work I just need to learn to make that raw image..tut tut, gotta research more.. too early to give my drive a funeral

get winhex from x-ways,
it's a forensic/datarecovery tool, within that you have the option to connect to the drive (since it shows up in windows that should be a breeze).
Then you can make an image of the drive, provided you have enough space somewhere else to store it.
After that, you can go through the data of the image, when you're doing some editing it might be wise to make a copy of the image, so you can always revert back.
after done with making the image , you should remove your original drive, and don't use it unless you really have to.

If it's only the MBR (master boot record) which got corrupted, it can be repaired.
otherwise you can traverse the drive looking for specific fileheaders (that's how most datarecovery tools work anyway).
It's a bit beyond here to describe all possibilities, as datarecovery seems to be an art in itself.

and about magnets..... don't even think about it, it's a sure way to data destruction.
 

131

Completely Unrelated / Re: External HDD problem

« on: 2012-10-31 23:49:32 »

what brand and type of hdd is in it?

I had a simular issue with a two week old External Seagate drive in a LaCie case.... lost a lot of data, but fortunately I was able to recover some of it through a hardware hack.

if you're able to connect to the drive, the first thing to do is make a raw image of your complete drive, and run some data recovery on the image.
(might be as simple as fixing the mbr if you're lucky)
 

132

Team Avalanche / Re: [HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

« on: 2012-10-29 18:23:26 »

...You can actually find a bunch of these throughout the game (I already found some in my previous work on "the man in the pipe" scene), the following list reports a few of those in FMVs namely. http://www.ff7citadel.com/secrets/s_errors.shtml
Sincerely one could have ensured inside/outside physical consistency while keeping the same art style.

lol, how I know that feeling, just the starting field MDSTIN has already some issues, notice the stairs at the end of the stage where you go up left...
It is definitely a challenge to find the correct solution for those, I'd say, try it out and see what the difference is, if it is not noticeable, go with it.
And with noticeable I mean, it's going to be a pain when the walkmesh has to be altered, I believe no-one tried doing that...yet.

but of course, this is just my two cents.
 

133

General Discussion / Re: Show Square Enix how to do it...

« on: 2012-10-15 21:53:36 »

In exchange for the SE Luminous Engine (and toolset...) I'm in 
 

134

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-10-01 19:39:34 »

Just as a note, I uploaded the file as obj in the repo under 'testing files', I don't know if you have access to that.
and the double post her is on purpose, so the notification will be send
 

[edit] added 3ds version as well, as the obj version is screwedup when opening in Blender[/edit]

135

Completely Unrelated / The power of Blender...

« on: 2012-10-01 19:10:47 »

Check this out, completely done with open source.



click image..hint
 

136

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-10-01 18:44:35 »

Shall I transform the black cheese into a smooth, large metal ring then? I can do that.

Yes please.

Concerning the studs, I modified the right-most stud so that is is nicely fixed into the wall, which may be a difference from the original. However, I have a question: in your scene, does the last but one stud (the upright one) actually touches the pipe wall? Or did you twist the perspective by aligning it closer to the centre of the shelf? In my renders, the studs were aligned with respect to the edge of the shelf - I don't know if you'd advise a change on this.

yes they are, all connecting from the shelve to the surface of the pipe.

As for the light, actually I perceive the opposite. I think the air is colored in the original (namely I feel that the blue halo makes a clearly visible sphere, part of which are obvious in the down-left section, where the pipe is "cut". I think it also really shows in the deep section of the pipe, right below the hanging clothes (it is not directly lit by the tv, but blue scattered light comes in front of it). The light (as opposed to the scattered light) itself isn't that blue in my opinion, else it would change the hue of the blanket and pillow case as well. You're welcome to go ahead with a try on volumetric lights on your side to check things out.

if you walk outside at night, and see a room with only a (CRT)TV on, what color do you see?
In my renderer, there are no volumetric lights possible, I'll have to fake that to achieve that effect.

Well, I did try to align the camera to the original scene in the best of my abilities. True, making pre-alignment with Sketchup might have been better, but it was not within my possibilities (and unless someone else has the Pro version of Sketchup for exporting .obj files, it still isn't). Though I don't know if the camera position can be exported in the process.Interesting. However, here comes another question: for my scene, I put light sources where there could be "physical" light sources... I don't know if putting light sources where there's no actual item that emits light is a desirable course of action...

As for the camera position, here it is far away from the scene, don't know if blender can handle that. I used the walkmesh to position and create the tube. In my scene, there are also two lights (low capacity) at the ceiling of the pipe, in order to light the shelves.

For the 'invisible' lights, that's quite normal to use, and to fake light situation, it used to be used to fake global illuminosity before that came along. In FF there are many fields where this is used. take the NMKIN3 scene for instance....


at the place where you enter this scene ther is a hidden light (there are more in there), check out the original if you like.

For the tube and the lights, look closely at the shadows, also the towls have a shadow which can't originate by the TV.
Since we can use illuminated maps (as the image shown on the TV) that was not possible with the software Squaresoft used, so they faked it with a light in front of the TV.

my current scene looks like this:


Note, the pink cylinder is only used to block the light entering from the back side
 

137

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-10-01 17:55:35 »

and with an added light in front slightly above the TV.


 

138

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-10-01 16:52:27 »

Done a little test for the studs on the right side....

oh and the black cheese, is a ring according to the reflections.



with regards to the blue haze around the TV, it seems they used a simple point light, so the metal around the TV reflects this, and not the air around it. I might do a test for that as well, if you like.
 

139

Team Avalanche / Re: New Project: Bombing Mission!

« on: 2012-09-29 22:08:52 »

Just to warn you FF7 limits how much you can do with textures. Be careful with texturing everything as very little was textured in the FF7 engine. To be specific just the eyes sometimes totoes and specific parts. Everything else used guarad shading and 24bit RGB colours.

I believe you mean Gouraud shading...?
If the QGears engine is being used, there are different shadings possible, also the texture limit will be different.
 

140

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-09-29 22:04:33 »

hmmm...
I leave the country for just a few days, and suddenly there is a whole different discussion going on here....
snadboxed environment, is interesting thought....
however using the way overpriced professional Esri software package..... is a bit too much I think.
There are other solutions for that, for 3ds max for instance there is GhostTown, which looks good and is able to do the same within max. For blender there are also plugins to do that.
However....Will it still be Midgar? Will it still be FF VII?
One could easily go wild on details, such as water system, transports, food supply chain, etc etc. before you know it, we are wiring up all the electricity of Midgar, is there cable TV in Midgar? 

But... since the assets of FFVII are not logical created in that matter...

Personally, I try to get as close as possible to the original, although I do create assets in a reusable way, making segments, and piecing them together, like the way skyrim, fallout, and many other game assets are created. Looking at the details of the plates, a lot is reused, scaled up, down rotated and placed in a different spot. All these items can be called brushes for that matter.

For me a sandbox Midgar, would be nice, but not the primary goal.
 

141

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-29 21:40:33 »

@MayoMaster,

three comments on the render:

• The 'black cheese' should be a can, looking at the reflections of the original, it is an open can.
• The studs of the most right part of the shelves aren't correct, I think you've made them perpendicular to the shelves, however that doesn't look right, try to set the more like "/  \" (when you look at the front of the shelve) that should get a better fit.
• Still too clean to my opinion, throw some noise through the maps, that should help, add scratches, especially on the metal near the TV, the reflection looks too perfect. Try to differ on the metals, now all the metals have the same tone, the ribbed plates, circular steel rings, the hoses, they all have the same tone, reflection.

These are just my thoughts on the render, oh and for the smoke, Try replacing that with a volumetric light, from the TV.
oh..that's more then three 

I hope this will help.
 

142

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-09-07 20:31:18 »

yep, Goblins' is there, although not the final version yet.

note that the above render is an old version...
As I need to make some changes based on the intro movie.
The version that's out there is mostly based upon low res files.
I examined the video files of the 2012 FFVII release, and used parts, like in here.

Although the video's are not of the highest quality (unfortunately there is lots of detail information lost, compared to other sources....), it is still useable....
 

143

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-09-06 22:47:35 »

The render took almost 3 hours for that single frame... I need a new computer... I'm running almost 10 year old tech.

I know that feeling, working on a 6 year old laptop doesn't make things fast either, the more I add the slower it gets....
Still, my colleagues call it a 'blade-server'

Thanks for the feedback, always welcome and motivating

Some more details:

Theatre is closed


Evening stroll at Midgar's

Might have a slight problem I would like your opinions of....

Right now I'm building Sector 8 mostly based upon the intro movie, this version is different then on the whole Midgar scenes, in that one the theatre etc is not there, basically there are some houses stuffed on the basic plates. Now every plate is more or less industrial, no houses or anything. That doesn't seem quite logical....
Any ideas or suggestions on that?
 

144

Team Avalanche / Re: Midgar Remake

« on: 2012-09-06 00:01:02 »

Let me join the competition with some details....

Welcome to Midgars Entertainment

enjoy.

 

145

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-09-05 23:52:36 »

I can put "make the trophies more dull" on my to do list, if you think that'd be better *nods*

After closer examination of my Hi-res render, I was considering the additional revisions:

- Instead of making corrugated metal sheets and grids with bumpmaps, I should do them with actual 3D meshes
- I should revise some junction between the floor and the mattress

There's something I could really use some advise about: overall, I feel like the place feels "too clean". I tried to fix it by putting some subtle "dust" textures, but I think it doesn't achieve the effect I would like. To be more specific, I feel like the scene needs to convey a certain "thickness" to the light, and I'm not sure how to do that. I thought about particle modelling (for floating dust) but I'm not sure that's the way to go. The lighting effects in the renders by anaho and Spoox are pretty awesome, and I really don't know how to do something like that.

I totally agree with your revisions, I was looking at the feet of your telly, and it doesn't look right due to missing mesh, also the shadows look to straight.
That can be fixed with replacing the bump map (partly) with actual meshes.

For the textures, it looks extremely clean, start by adding some noise, stains, scratches,rust, etc. to the maps.
Tone down the colors, look close to the reference what colors are used.
Tone down the illumination of the TV screen, right now it's too bright. (it's in the slums, the TV is an old one, just like the rest of the slums).
The general light (ambient) should be a bit warmer, it will change the overall color and feeling, do some experimentation with that. (I don't have the original as a reference right now).

As for comparing it with my renders, that's something totally different, I work in 3ds Max with a physical render engine. I don't have a lot of experience with Blender, so I can't give you much advise on the render settings you should or could use, but the above tips should (hopefully) help you on your way.

By the way, I'm impressed with what you've achieved so far, keep on going
Also like the shinra-cola

- Is it feasible to implement this scene into the game as a dynamic scene? In which case, we could play a movie on the screen (such as the post-bombing mission short FMV with the reactor exploding) to enhance all that.

I've been asking myself the same thing, when I worked on the TA Headquarters, as I made a complete animation for the screen, however the current FFVII engine uses layers where only two or three frames are displayed. However with the new engine Akari is working on it should be possible if we use the fields as models instead of pre-rendered backgrounds. With Ogre there are some plugins where you can map a video as a texture on a mesh... But I'm not sure if that is somewhere in the roadmap of QGears.

 

146

Archive / Re: New Layout

« on: 2012-08-29 23:41:22 »

I hope you don't mind me making a note here...

I mainly ask because my one attempt to skin SMF in the past ended in disaster. In static HTML or wordpress, it's easy as sin, but SMF's weird tables make all kinds of excess difficulty.

did you notice that the stars (?) are not available, and thus showing [X]
looking at the props:
http://forums.qhimm.com/Themes/Curve_Rc5_New_Generation5/images/stars/gmod.gif

will end up in

Code: [Select]

Not Found
The requested URL /Themes/Curve_Rc5_New_Generation5/images/stars/gmod.gif was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at forums.qhimm.com Port 80
 

147

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-27 19:07:48 »

There is a list, but only for the Bombing mission, and, if I'm correct, it hasn't be updated in a long long time.
 

148

Team Avalanche / Re: Noob willing to help

« on: 2012-08-25 09:32:10 »

Just a little find while working on importers in Max, I found out that 3ds Max 2013 can import sketchup file without any problems.
This can have some benefit, as there is a nice camera match function within sketchup...

As an example, here's a frame of the opening movie overlayed on the 3d model.


 

149

Graphical / Re: ATTENTION MODELLERS

« on: 2012-08-23 21:20:59 »

Do you mind if I keep on going with the backgrounds...? 

Allso as part of that I might need some ordinary walking/standing/sitting people to inhabit Midgar, unless nobody minds having only the basic crew running around there....

But I think that would be weird, as the team Avalanche is supposed to be somewhat hidden, instead of everyone pretending as a look alike.....that would be a really psychotic Midgar, I think
 

150

Team Avalanche / Re: Field Scene Screens (non bombing mission) Gallery

« on: 2012-08-21 23:27:11 »

update...



enjoy.