Qhimm.com Forums
Miscellaneous Forums => Scripting and Reverse Engineering => Topic started by: halkun on 2006-04-12 03:40:35
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Hi all.
Well, I went a did it. I have a SourceForge account for a GPL Final Fantasy 7 Engine. The account is currently pending.
It's called Q-Gears. The "Q" means nothing. (Sorry Qhimm, I just think it's a cool letter. You can *say* it was named after you if you want ^_^)
Here is the approval form I submitted.
Project submission
Created: 2006-04-11 20:41
Last modified: 2006-04-11 22:16
Submitter: Halkun (halkun) [True Identity: (Secret-For-Now)]
Project type: An Open Source Software Project
UNIX name: q-gears
Descriptive name: Q-Gears : A free Final Fantasy 7 engine.
Public description:
Q-Gears is a clone of Squaresoft's Final Fantasy 7 game engine. It is designed to be cross-platfrom and run on modern operating systems such as Win32 and Linux.
Trove categorization:
License :: OSI-Approved Open Source :: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Intended Audience :: by End-User Class :: End Users/Desktop
Development Status :: 2 - Pre-Alpha
Topic :: Games/Entertainment :: Role-Playing
Programming Language :: C++
Operating System :: Grouping and Descriptive Categories :: All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)
Operating System :: Grouping and Descriptive Categories :: All POSIX (Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes)
User Interface :: Graphical :: OpenGL
User Interface :: Grouping and Descriptive Categories (UI) :: Project is a 3D engine
User Interface :: Toolkits/Libraries :: SDL
Registration description:
Q-Gears is an implementation of Squaresoft's Final Fantasy 7 engine. The end goal is to create a game interpreter that will accept data from either an original Playstation Final Fantasy 7 disk, or from the PC port of the game. This is much the same concept as other SourceForge hosted interpreters as ScummVM and FreeSCI. A design spec exists, and is located in PDF form at http://www.qhimm.com/gears.pdf It is also available in wiki form at http://wiki.qhimm.com/FF7 The project is ran by a small set of international fans who have reversed engineered the original Final Fantasy 7 engine, taken steps to document much of it's functionality, and wish to write an implementation. The goal is to allow owners of the original game to enjoy Final Fantasy 7 on newer architectures. It also allows them the ability to take advantage of newer video/audio hardware. Lastly, it will also give the end user a choice of platforms to play their game on.
Current status: Pending Review
I'll let you know when we have access to CVS. Any questions?
-Halkun
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This is truly amazing! Good idea halkun!
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Just curious.
How is it legal to take something that loads proprietary file formats owned by Square Enix and make it GNU?
In other words, forcing the code that decrypts and extracts their file formats to be open for public access.
L. Spiro
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Yes it is legal, as long as we don't distribute squaresoft's data.
Do a google for ScummVM, FreeSCI, and Sarian
Same idea as what we are doing.
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But then my project of making Final Fantasy VII Online (under another name of course) would be legal.
I’m not distributing any of their data (which is what I was saying years ago when people told me it was illegal).
It’s exactly what I am already doing.
Making a new engine completely from scratch to load their proprietary data.
That is to say I am under the impression that you plan on making this engine somehow playable rather than just a neat screensaver.
After all, why else would you have support for your own custom models?
L. Spiro
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Hmmm I've nary seen the Q-gears project listed (whine whine) :D
Anyhow I created an account I'll just impatiently wait here ;)
Cyb
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It might be a while before we see even a playable version. Fortunately, we still have the official PC and PSX versions until then.
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^Duh, why wouldn't we? :love:
It might present itself as a problem if it gets too popular. Remember Chrono Trigger Resurrection? And with the remake coming up they might view it as a threat and kill us off. However, its not remodeled or anything, so who knows?
For anyone who wants to see the (original?) thread, http://forums.qhimm.com/viewtopic.php?t=3798&highlight=gears
http://forums.qhimm.com/viewtopic.php?t=3772&highlight=gears
Cyberman what did you mean by created an account? Was there a thread that I missed that mentioned it?
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A reimplementation of the engine shoudn't land us in any hot water. The program will require square's data, and if you don't have that data, the program simply will not execute.
Period.
It's an engine clone. Read the first paragraph of ScummVM's homepage. (http://www.scummvm.org/) It's exactly the same concept.
FreeSCI (http://freesci.linuxgames.com/) is an engine with the same idea as well. Actually this is really close to FF7's fieldsystem. I suggest you read the FreeSCI FAQ (http://freesci.linuxgames.com/?page=faq#section-AboutSCI) and that will answer a lot of questions.
Sarien (http://sarien.sourceforge.net/) is another project of the same type, also pretty much any Z-Machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine) is the same concept.
We are writing a Virtual machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine) These are not illigal, and are infact a tennant of Computer Science.
I hope that solves some drama here ^_^
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Chrono Trigger Resurrection was free and didn't require the original game. Square didn't like this because it meant that they would no longer be able to sell the game since there would be a better, free version available.
This is different, because it only works if you have the game anyway; such a protection feature would have been impossible to implement in CTR. Thus, the biggest reason for their opposition was entirely removed.
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Q-gears was approved...
And I have run out of time to elaborate, I have to go be social now with some friends.
Here's the SourceForge project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/q-gears/
Here's the webpage (currently empty)
http://q-gears.sourceforge.net/
I also have CVS avialiable. I really don't have time to get everyone rolling along with me. I'll be back tomarrow, post any questions you have.
#### Quick edit ####
You have to be a sourceforge memeber to join development. To be incuded in the project, PM me your UNIX name for sourceforge (You will get it when you sign up)
This is for deveopers only.
###########
I gotta go, I'm already late.
-halkun
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Is it just me, or does "clone" have negative connotations?
Dunno, but something like "Q-Gears is an alternative engine for Squaresoft's Final Fantasy 7" sounds perhaps bit less... umm... something.
Just a thought. :)
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Ok dokey :D
Well hmmm it's your baby halkun :D
In any case I've not worked on the ISO system for a few days (lazy try it sometime!)
I'm going to do unit testing of the ISO object and then the ISO file object later.
I suppose I could after this work on the decoder for the PS1 varient's movie and audio data.
Cyb
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I dunno, a lot of clones are better than the original. Especially engine clones like this. "Clone" only really has (and deserves) a negative connotation when it's used in reference to homemade mario games.
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Chrono Trigger Resurrection was free and didn't require the original game. Square didn't like this because it meant that they would no longer be able to sell the game since there would be a better, free version available.
This is different, because it only works if you have the game anyway; such a protection feature would have been impossible to implement in CTR. Thus, the biggest reason for their opposition was entirely removed.
Chrono Trigger Resurrection was shut down because the project was USING Squaresoft Trademarks (the CT characters and story) to create a new game. It's not that Squaresoft didn't like it because there would be a "better, free version", it's because they had to protect their trademark.
In this case, nothing is being done WITH the actual content of the game. The only thing Halkun is doing is writing a new engine to MANIPULATE that content. He isn't changing it in anyway.
Halkun: Good luck with this! I'll be looking forward to seeing what becomes of it (maybe I'll even contribute a little.)
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A reimplementation of the engine shoudn't land us in any hot water. The program will require square's data, and if you don't have that data, the program simply will not execute.
I don't see any hot water bubbling over this either. That whole "Sith 2 Project" has been running for quite some time now. Of course LucasArts seems a lot friendlier to the mod community than other IP holders. Of course my knowlege does not include any credible legal training. Nonetheless, I wish all of you the best in the project. This really looks facinating.
Sith 2 Project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sith2)
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But this is exactly what I said years ago.
From the very start, my game was a clone that used the original game’s data or else it wouldn’t run.
And that was understood by all, yet back then my project was “illegalâ€.
I even explained that my project was not illegal because I don’t distribute any files of theirs, yet I was shot down with someone saying that “copying†their data to RAM violates copyright.
So far the only real difference between our projects on a technical level is that yours is open-sourced, which in fact would make Square Enix a bit more unhappy, since the secrets to decoding their file formats is open for all to see.
So again, why is this legal but mine isn’t?
L. Spiro
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Yours was the multiplayer FF, right?
IMHO, this runs the original game on a new engine, yours would have made a new game using the characters, art and other stuff of Square's.
Just my two cents.
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Online is an extension of the copied engine.
But here the line between technicalities is getting blurred.
This is why I specified that on a technical level the only difference is the open-sourcedness.
After all, Square Enix wouldn’t be able to tell a judge they “feel†I have written a new game; it’s ephemeral. To prove a case you need solid guidelines and clear definitions, and exact terms for when those boundaries are overstepped.
Incidentally, I can just as easily write my base engine with plug-in support and add online play as a plug-in feature.
Now see how blurry the line gets?
After all, the addition of online play would be inconsequentual to anything related to Final Fantasy.
The base engine is a copy that does nothing but load data and accept commands.
The online layer only interfaces with the base layer so much as sending commands; it has no idea what data is loaded and thus has no relationship with Final Fantasy or Square Enix in any way.
In the end, both would result in the same game, so if implementation is enough to shatter their arguments then they never had an argument in the first place.
It just so happens I am writing my online play as a plug-in feature, seperate from the base engine.
With that being said, I once again would like to know why my game is illegal and this isn’t.
L. Spiro
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So in the far future when the engine has progressed to a decent level of completion will it allow for custom content such as new models and graphics to be loaded instead of the original content? If so what file formats are planned for use by the engine?
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What you are doing iseems to be a FF version of UOIris (http://iris.berlios.de/about.php)
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So in the far future when the engine has progressed to a decent level of completion will it allow for custom content such as new models and graphics to be loaded instead of the original content? If so what file formats are planned for use by the engine?
I'm thinking just adding on support for games like it. (Parasite eve, FF9, and PE2 with the damned "Tank walking" turned off) In the end the ability to add content will be cool, but I think in our own best intrest, make the data "non-mixable" with offical Square data. This is a good idea all around as Square's data is much more unforgiving and wierd than a standard Cali model, jpeg background, or what have you.
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That seems sensible, now if only this project was extended to FFX and FFX-2... :p
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That seems sensible, now if only this project was extended to FFX and FFX-2... :p
Err not likely until PS3 is at least a year out :)
Cyb
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And that's if you can figure out what each of the 9800 unlabelled files extracted from the hidden data track are ;)
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And that's if you can figure out what each of the 9800 unlabelled files extracted from the hidden data track are ;)
Barret play on date, aeris ressurection sequence, and "boxer".
Dyuh.
=P
jk =)
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So is my project illegal or not?
Last time it was deemed illegal. It seems to have changed over time.
Not that it changes anything…
L. Spiro
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I don't get it L.Spiro. Who told you your project was ilegal? I'm pretty sure you'd need a really good lawyer to convince anyone with half a brain that creating an alternative engine is ilegal. There are lots of those engines, and no one seems to have sued them ever.
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I believe that people told him that making a new game (http://forums.qhimm.com/viewtopic.php?p=52016#52016) that rips graphics, music and characters (among other things) from FFVII was very likely illegal.
You are free to draw your own conclusions about whether it is an alternative engine, or a new game.
If you ask me, someone seems to be just a little bit bitter.
Anyway, this is starting to derail badly. Halkun, split topic?
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I'm in the process of killing one thread, this one will split when the other shuts down
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This post has been magically whisped away.
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Well to get away from 'SCO suing IBM over Linux' issues.
Many things can be subjectively applied, and language as we all know is relative to the person interpreting it. Bottom line is even law can be twisted all sorts of strange ways. It really depends on the POV of the people viewing it.
Q-gears I believe has no intention of modifying the original content.
However I do believe that it's intention is the possiblity to make new content to be run by the engine.
Cyb
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If you ask me, someone seems to be just a little bit bitter.
I don’t blame you for getting that idea; I have a way of hiding my motivations.
In that case I'm surprised to see that you are not hiding them. :P
Relax, I'm just teasing. I just found it somewhat silly that you would pursue that issue with such enthusiasm in this thread, that's all.
In the end, no one here is a lawyer, and I don’t trust anyone here’s grasp of the law (not to be taken offensively, but literally).
Which is exactly why I found it so silly.
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My own humble opinion on this matter is that anyone claiming a project like this is perfectly legal is either desillusioned by wishful thinking or is plain old naïve. Q-Gears (*giggle*) will use copyrighted content, its name and application will be closely interlinked with a trademarked product, and it will encourage additional intellectual property violations by indirectly granting access to the game content (the file format code will let anyone extract data and use it for any purpose = encourages dilution).
This is not "perfectly legal", it is not even "relatively safe". If it gets shut down it won't be in the US Supreme Court; it will get slammed out of existence as soon as someone at Square-Enix becomes concerned enough to pick up the phone and send out a single sheet of paper labelled "Cease or Desist". Unless someone here is secretly rich and can fund a team of lawyers for a case where there's a considerable risk of losing anyway, neither the spirit nor the letter of the law is going to be any deciding factor for us.
The project is risky even if we're incredibly strict and perfectly reproduce the original game, and it gets even riskier for every single improvement we try to make (technical or otherwise). And here we are, at the very start of the planning of the project, and -- this never fails -- people are already asking "what kind of custom data will we be able to put into the game?".
The answer is none at all.
That being my two cents. I'm not too sure about the whole open source idea for a project like this, as it very much raises the risks of being shut down before we ever get anywhere, but if everyone involved has the same cautious goal in mind and won't strive beyond that, there's a good chance that the project will keep going long enough for us at least to see some very fulfilling results.
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This project is a load riskier than mine just for the fact that it exposes the file formats, by force.
Then the custom data part, which again pushes towards making it “a game separate from Final Fantasy® VIIâ€.
Lastly, the publicity.
Getting a team together (teams talk, but then again in your case you have no choice if you actually want to see your dream come true), and worse, getting a SourceForge account for it.
For all intents and purposes, legality doesn’t stop people from making illegal things; getting caught does.
I wish you luck with what you’re doing but you need to step back and re-evaluate how you approach it.
L. Spiro
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Well, I personally have to say that I don't like the idea of having a "new" engine open source... Qhimm already mentioned one reason in his last paragraph.
Secondly:
(...) people are already asking "what kind of custom data will we be able to put into the game?".
When the project is open-source, then it won't be any problem for a skilled programmer to implement functions what will load custom data.
Thirdly:
We have a big "We do not support pirated copies of ..." written in our forum FAQ.
FF7 is copy protected (even if not very well), so what about the free engine? It would be also able to play pirated content, at least if it's open source.
A simple Seek-And-Destroy job on the source code would disable any copy protection routines we would implement...
As for my personal opinion:
I have been waiting months for someone to start this project.
(I cannot start a project like this, I'm simply not skilled enough to write a whole game engine :erm: )
But: We should keep it closed-source.
- Alhexx
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Since we're already talking about legality here, I have one question:
If an engine is able to run custom content, too, is it then "more illegal" than an engine that runs only the original game content?
If yes, then why?
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In case anyone missed it, I too am in favor of closed source. Or at least keeping the sensitive parts closed source. We could maybe have some "modules" like the field rendering engine and the game mechanics as open source, but I'm definitely thinking we should keep the actual "core" closed. More specifically, enough of the important code so that someone can't just take all of the open source code, write a tiny .cpp with a main() function and then have their own "FF7 engine".
Since we're already talking about legality here, I have one question:
If an engine is able to run custom content, too, is it then "more illegal" than an engine that runs only the original game content?
If yes, then why?
In my non-lawyer opinion, I'm suggesting that it is probably "more illegal", but it is definitely more offensive. It means that not only are we altering the presentation (new engine), but also the content. Even if we do not do any content modification ourselves, the fact that we made it a whole lot easier will probably make us a hotter target.
Say what you want, but even with the current state of FF7 hacking going on here, it is far from easy to do any form of large-scale modification of FF7 that actually alters its "essence" to any significant degree (except perhaps the translation projects). The new engine, if it allows (or is easy to modify to allow) custom data, will make it easy. This is problematic, since Square-Enix won't like if someone turned one of their best-selling games ever into a mod-able game, without their permission.
And no, I seriously doubt we would get permission to do this if we asked. To them, we say we're making an application that can run FF7 like the original .exe, but are they supposed to simply trust us on that? They won't accept that someone else's copyrighted engine claims to run their game, and they won't accept any attempt to circumvent this, such as us granting them ownership, since they certainly won't accept responsibility for it either.
Our best shot is probably to use every means to try and stay below the provocation radar, and maybe we'll actually get somewhere before the proverbial fecal matter collides with the equally proverbial oscillatory ventilation device.
And now that I've done so much to lower everyone's morale on this, let me clarify that I to am very much in favor of the project, and I'll do my best to help out where I can. I put forth my above points simply because I don't want the project to be found out, found offensive and then found dead because we did it in too provocative a fashion.
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Qhimm: Well, it's hard to say what S-Es reaction to this will be. Only, and ONLY if they are making a remake or they issue a re-release*, will this project run counter to thier money-making goals. They've made every cent they will EVER make on Final Fantasy Seven in and of itself. Any store that still has it already paid for it; otherwise, you're looking on e-bay, which S-E does not gain profit from; in fact, that copy was already bought. So as logn as we're not interfearing or threatening to compete with thier active products, we're safe.
Now, note my remake or re-release note up there. The PSP is now compatable with PS1 games. If square decides to re-release ff7 (remade or not), that's the ONLY reason I can see for them to mind this project. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time for them to care, and I think they know it.
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By throwing a blind eye to any project that may generate any notable wealth of publicity they are sending a message to the community that it’s okay to tamper with their products and use them as if they were your own.
Not only that, but any project that does generate any substancial amount of attention ultimately means SquareEnix Co., Ltd. must now begin competing with you, over their own product.
For them to create a product that is better than this project is a non-issue, but the fact would still remain that people would have a choice between a free open-sourced(?) game and their game, which may have better graphics and sound but costs money.
Competing with a popular brand that’s freely available isn’t as easy as competing with a no-name brand that is free.
And the fact that it is their own brand just adds insult to injury.
Ultimately, they still own the license.
What does that really mean?
It means they have full dictatorship over how that license is used.
What if they don’t want Final Fantasy® VII to be playable with high-resolution graphics unless users pay for this extra treat?
L. Spiro
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What if they don’t want Final Fantasy® VII to be playable with high-resolution graphics unless users pay for this extra treat?
I suppose we hope they don't want that...
Doesn't Square-Enix already know about these boards? I mean, I thought at least someone from there knows what goes on here. I figured they'd realize that people here strive to better this game. I dunno, maybe they don't mind turning a blind eye to what's been done thus far, but that just goes back to what L. Spiro said. They might not care so much, though, since this isn't exactly an internationally revered message forum. The only other website that I hear reference of this site is GameFAQs.com. But then again, maybe they don't feel threatened by what's been done so far, so I guess on that note we have to hope that they continue to feel unthreatened.
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Eidos definitely knows about this site, and they have gone so far as to link to it. I believe Eidos holds the publishing rights to the PC version, so they'd have to do the complaining, which I doubt they will.