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well well well im impressed! the first time we can EXPORT background files, and the layers can be seen individualy thats a biiig step in the right direction..
if u dont know what im talking about go get ficedulas latest cosmo v0.85 i think from his site (cant remember the new url :()
check out the FIRST ever exported background from ff7 pc! from me, level md8_1: http://members.tripod.co.uk/TheSkillster/ff7/md8_1.gif
well done fice, its a good first step :D
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I've fiddled around with the background editor and imported some changes. Too bad you can't save them, though. I've noticed that after you open the background editor, you have to reload Cosmo before you can open any other file or edit text, even in that same level. Good work so far. I can't wait to see even more!
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I love the background editing options. Cant wait to save.
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Congratulations, fice on yet another fantastic release of COSMO. I don't have time to fiddle with it though, my exam's pretty near now.
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hes right as well, once u open the background editor u cant load up other levels, u can go to open lgp then preview some levels but it wont decode the text etc if u open it and if u open the background editor u will still see the old bmp in there.
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Ah right. I'll have a look at that bug ... probably turn out to be really easy to fix. Importing the backgrounds and saving changes is possible but I haven't really done any work on it yet...could take while.
Thanks for all the commments!
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hey thats why we r here u know? to "bug" u!!
naa last time bugs got reported this fast a new version was out the door quicker (hint :wink:)!
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Actually, I already know what's happened before even looking at it. When the background editor (or the other tools) start up they force Cosmo to close any files it has open so *they* can open them for editing. That means you won't be able to choose Open from LGP since Cosmo's closed the LGP file. File/Open *should* work though. At least, that's my guess.
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thats the prob' it will allow u to choose and all even see a preview, but it wont load the text or let u edit the background (the new background is not viewable in the editor)
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Now that I've messed around with the background editor for a bit, I can safely say that it's going to be pretty darn awesome once it's finished. I honestly can't wait. I also like the increased compatibility with viewing the backgrounds. I've a question about that, though. Why do many of the pictures have one or more areas with a little series of black dots? It looks kind of like a tear in the picture. I did a little investigating, and Gast has the same thing. IIRC, the backgrounds don’t have these “tears†in-game. Is it just a problem with the background viewing code?
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Srethron: Yes. Qhimm's code has comments in it to that effect ... don't know why they appear. They do. Probably 'cos we don't understand the format completely.
Skillster: Yes, but you should be able to use File/Open and choose the LGP again to "re-initialize" it. Open from LGP won't work for the reasons I gave above.
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thats wot im saying, the open from lgp button dont work at all, but if u open the lgp again, it sometimes files to open the selected level properly
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Oh? OK ... I'll have a better look at it...
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OK ... I *think* I've fixed this.
http://www.legacy-ovwp.org/~ficedula/download/cosmo086.zip I am planning to update Cosmo properly (i.e. not just a quick bugfix) by the end of the weekend so don't bother getting it unless you really want to...
Annoying thing: This was the first bug I could have solved with the new plugin system. What happens? I find a fatal bug in the plugin system.
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LOL :D
ive sent your email so have a look :O
anyway im off ill see u guys in the afternoon
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have the palettes be saved as .pal (Microsoft Palette File) so people can edit the background with the palette colors.
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I think that would make editing easier.
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naa it is saved as bmp
but i see your point , pal also works for paint shop pro i think.
but i believe that getting rid of the palletes will also allow for the removal of "some" 8 bit palleted texture requirements?
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Can't be done. Palettes in most paint programs are ONLY used for 256-colour images. So the palette can contain - at most - 256 entries. FF7 palettes contain a few *thousand* colours. I don't know of any image program that can handle that.
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A while back halkun said that Square rendered the backgrounds in Lightwave. Therefore...
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where u get that from? he said they were done in render farms lightwave was for the 3d models
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Yes and no I'm afraid.
The backgrounds are in 16-bit colour. However they don't use the *full* range of 16-bit colour, it's paletted. Like I said, a few thousand (of the ~65000 colours 16-bit gives you) are actually used.
Most paint programs use 256-colour palettes. Why? One byte can store a number from 1-256 so each pixel can be only 1 byte (8 bits) but 'reference' a 16 bit - or more often 24-bit - colour.
*NO* program supports a palette with more than 256 colours. Why? The palette index each pixel held would take up more than 1 byte. And if you're going to take up 2+ bytes for each pixel then you might as well just store the colour value itself!
What Square probably did was render the background in full 16-bit, un-paletted images, then when the images were converted into field files, work out which colours were used and build a palette.
What THAT means is that the palette can't be exported as a standard 256-colour palette file. Originally the images *weren't* paletted. Now they are.
You may be thinking, why can't I convert them back into 16-bit images, then when you import them, palettize them again. The answer to that is I haven't written the code yet! Yes, it's possible.
OK ... do you understand now why I can't export the palette as a standard 256-colour PAL file?
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Hmm...
Fice, what you're saying sounds exactly like the GIF file system. Although the GIF file system can only display 256 colours at a time, it's palette can be made up of any combination of colours.
In other words the palette is a selective colour pallete that can only contain 256 colours of which 255 are and colours from the millions of colours out there and 1 colour for transparency.
Is that what you're trying to say?
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited April 11, 2001).]
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nope hes not saying that either, let me explain (like i can!)
he means
the pallette is from a 16bit range BUT it aint just a 256colours for the whole scene.
they are flexible pallete designed simply to reduce the file size.
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SaiNt: All palettes are like that.
Skillster: I think you've got it. I've looked more closely at the file format and the answer is each 16x16 "tile" uses a 256-colour palette. Actually, they use up to 256 colours out of the full, 3000+ colour palette for the whole level. So while I *could* export a standard 256-colour PAL file for each 16x16 pixel tile ... that's a helluva lot of palettes! It's easier to export the whole palette in a BMP format. You can edit it without too many problems in that format - and you ARE editing the actual palette that way.
Of course, most people want to edit the background itself, not the palette. Some day...
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yep thats wot i meant :wink:
if u have played with the RAW tiles of the ff7 backgrounds then youd know that 8bit colour isnt enuff. hmm, editing ? how soon fice'?
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I honestly don't know. I'm looking at doing it at the moment but since I haven't tried it I've no idea exactly how many problems I'll run into. Once I've got it working once - in one level - I might have an idea how hard it'd be to make it work properly. I've not even got that far yet (through lack of trying rather than difficulty ... though it might be difficult) so...
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Ah, I see.
Got it now :)
I haven't been following the progress very closely lately