Messages

26

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-23 17:30:15 »

Thanks for the tip, that's a really great technique. My attempts at making gritty "texturized" surfaces by hand have all been pretty poor. This method seems much more effective.

I believe I can fix the "cube" thing. I'm sorry for my lack of activity lately. I've been keeping up with the thread at the very least, but i've been simply exhausted lately. Several call-outs at my job recently due to co-workers either getting CV or being possibly exposed by a family member (among other things people call out for) which has translated to many late nights.

Today I will:

• Create a new screenshot gallery
• Work a youtube trailer (pre-lim work)
• Fix the cube thing - ps if I do this I'll try to document how I work with the transparencies just for educational purposes 
• Continue misc work on textures

27

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-21 04:17:35 »

Yeah, they are pure evil. After I did the initial work with the updated thread texture and saw the way it looked in game I felt pretty defeated.

28

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-10 17:19:10 »

It took me a while too to figure out the correct folder location, but here it is.
For PPSSPP all files need to be copied into the following folder:

<Your PPSSPP Install Location>/memstick/PSP/TEXTURES/ULUS10336/

For RetroArch all files need to be copied into the following folder:

<Your RetroArch Install Location>/saves/PSP/TEXTURES/ULUS10336/

You can change the RegionID (i.e. ULUS10336) to some other ID but from my personal experience it seems to load only a few. As "eqprog" stated before, textures are swapped based on memory location, some will be the same other will not.

Thanks. I will update the OP to include more detailed instructions. I guess I never considered that there would be different setup configs for retroarch or that people would have difficulties.

As far as being 100% finished, its hard to say exactly when that is going to happen. I think that the current experience feels rather good as is, there are just some funky looking textures due to poor upscaling. That being said, I don't think anything would ruin the experience for that average user, but if you're a purist, then wait. We'll eventually decide when its "good enough."

tl;dr: For the best experience, I agree with Devina that you should wait for the character models/textures to be finished (no pressure, Devina )

I managed to get three days off of work in a row this week (today-saturday) so I plan on getting some more work done.

Modified OP with more detailed installation instructions

29

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-03 20:22:20 »

Minor update: I am about 99% confident that getting upscaled FMVs into the game is essentially impossible right now. The only hope we have is if the emulator comes to support straight up replacing video files. I made some progress, in a sense, in that I managed to track down some software that would let me rip the audio files from the FMVs and demux the video stream. I just can't get them put back together (with higher quality video).

During my searches I noticed a lot of the resources on this topic have simply disappeared. If anyone reading this has any idea how this can be achieved, please please let me know.

30

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-03 16:06:13 »

As far as the text in the circle goes (if you mean in the circle on the Banora logo), its really impossible to tell if its actually text or not. I would just put circles or some sort of stylish meaningless symbol. If you mean the part in the upper right of the image you posted, I believe that would be the bottom of the can of banora apples. I don't know if the player ever really sees that or not.

31

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-03 00:07:25 »

Yeah, some textures are at such low resolution even at 4x upscale that they still don’t have the fidelity id like.

Devine, you’re welcome to do whatever work you would like to do or not do. No commitments!

32

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-01 21:36:32 »

I got about 38 textures modified today. I might get more done later on in the evening. I'm not going to post any screenshots but I mostly focused on fixing saturation issues with the textures in the opening scene of the game. I did modify the safety sign a bit by upping the resolution and using a different font with more anti-aliasing. The other one just looked too jagged for my liking.

33

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-09-01 15:43:10 »

Everything is looking very good. I apologize for my lack of inactivity recently. I had been working on the project in the mornings before going to my job mid-morning but I just haven't had the energy to continue doing so due to having to work overtime almost every day and getting home late. Because of this most of my contributions have been on my days off from my day job.

Today is one of those days however, so I am going to dedicate the majority of my free time to this.

34

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-28 21:18:07 »

The shinra sign in Lazard’s office is actually 4 different textures. Two for the text and a separate one for the shadows. Tldr I started it and didn’t finish it.

35

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-25 04:17:50 »

Looks great Devina! Thanks for your continued contributions. I’m off of work tomorrow so hopefully I can get at least a few things done.

As far as performance issues, only the NTSC-U version is supported at this time. Honestly it is likely to be the only version ever supported. I simply do not have the time to test every version of the game. The way that PPSSPP replaces the textures depends on memory location - in other words the textures will have different memory values for different versions of the game. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do a conversion - it’s just outside the scope of what I’m willing to do. Theoretically, I could create a table of hashes from all the dumped textures and cross reference them with dumped textures from other versions and try to convert it but I will be leaving that to someone else to figure out.

36

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-14 02:18:19 »

Still working on it, here and there. I tried my hand at fixing Sephiroth's hair but I think it needs a lot of work from someone more experienced.... so that's on the backburner for the time being.

I spent a lot of time fixing up the briefing room today. Not quite finished, however.

edit: I realized I didn't upload the version with the new textures...

37

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-09 22:07:24 »

I have no idea. You could try it... Sorry I don’t have the French version of the game.

38

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-07 17:37:46 »

Sure, I can work up a template for it. I’m not much of a lore guy so I’d be worried about adding any text.

No worries about the inactivity. I needed a break, too.

I’m also thinking about trying to reorganize things based on their location in the game.  Maybe it’s not exactly necessary at this point but I think that would make things easier to work with - less searching around for textures and it would be easier to prioritize our work. It should be easy to do, just need to modify my programs a little bit and basically play through the game again. I kinda held off on that because I kept working on things that stood out to me. Maybe it’d be better to play through and just make a more complete list.

39

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-06 19:24:52 »

There are some really weird things going on with some textures, I've noticed.  Extreme sad face.





Notice how these straight lines don't get rendered straight? I'm going to rip my hair out, I think.

40

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-08-05 20:25:02 »

So I ported over the changes to zack's model with the exception of that from the ending scenes. Started to work on doing Kunsel's skin as well but there is some alignment issue going on....

41

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-28 19:43:03 »

It’s kinda contradictory. After you get the 1st class uniform you can talk to the other soldier in the room wearing the purple/maroon uniform and it says he’s a soldier 2nd class. It kinda implies that the color doesn’t matter but with Zack, it clearly does.

42

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-28 03:19:04 »

I edited about 40 textures today.

>

>

>

43

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-27 15:03:31 »

Go for it. Check out  "zack_blue" and "zack_black" in the /edits/ directory. Feel free to add your changes and then I can use that file to basically batch edit all the rest.



Basically edit it in all the changes and mask out the face.

44

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-24 16:19:58 »

Still haven't gotten to Zack, I needed to finish up something else first:

I did take some liberties with the design on this one but I feel it adds variety and is an improvement.



Edit: I should note that I’m not entirely done, just wanted to post a progress report.

45

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-22 20:00:15 »

Cool, I will get to it when I can today.

Edit: Obviously I wasn’t able to get to it yesterday. My wife unexpectedly needed help with something.

46

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-21 13:59:41 »

Devina, if you look in "edits/linked objects/" I have files there ready to edit in your changes for the low-poly versions. If you just want to update this file I have an "artboard" set up so I can implement the changes to all the files at once and export them in one step. (Its too big to upload to github, apparently).

edit: Looking good, by the way.

47

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-21 02:16:33 »

I think I've got a pretty good technique down for doing these plants. This is probably the most important plant in the entire game!

48

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-20 17:29:36 »

So I'm more awake now, lol, and I am looking at your screenshots on my pc monitor. Zack is looking better than ever! Amazing work, Devina! I agree that Zack's textures are the most important in the game because the player is going to be seeing him basically 100% of the time.  If you want to take the lead on that one, be my guest. Once you have a near-finished version I will provide some more detail feedback to you. I don't like giving too much feedback while work is in-progress because I feel that I might disrupt your creative vision.

So you can get to know me, I will provide a little background on myself.  I took a course in middle school on using photoshop (version 4.0!), but besides the requisite art class in high school, I don't have any formal or advanced training in the visual arts. The photoshop course really made me take an interest in editing photos and graphics but my strength certainly isn't creating artwork from scratch. Lately I have had interest in learning more, however, and this interest is part of the reason I decided to take on this project. That being said, I recognize that some of my work may be amateurish because, strictly-speaking, I am an amateur at this. I want the end result of this project to be the best we can manage to do, within reason, of course.

And finally, a call to action!

This thread has 3533 views as I type this - a ratio of about 44 views per reply! If you are reading this and have any interest in contributing to FF7CCUP in any way, I formally invite you to make a post here in this thread! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Even one additional team member would go a long way. If you choose to participate, you will be choosing to take part in a truly unique project. As far as I know, FF7CCUP is the only upscale/texture replacement project for a PSP game that aims to replace and enhance every asset. Let's be a part of history! (Albeit, very minor and likely obscure... lol).

49

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-20 11:28:58 »

I’ve found threads on other forum for his version and he as a patreon ... just saying.

50

Releases / Re: FF7 Crisis Core Upscale Project

« on: 2020-07-19 16:21:05 »

If you look, most of the elements in the high poly texture are the same as the regular one, just kind of shifted around in the file. Of course, the face is on a separate texture.  Point is, I did improve the straps but I know I’m not the best at creating art from scratch and I won’t be offended if you can make it better (and I think you can). If you look in “/edits/linked objects/“ You should find some files called zack_blue.psb and zack_black.psb in which you can see my previous work.


(Here you can see the improvements I made in the straps and metal pieces)


the tricky thing is that the game really has no modern lighting engine or texture shaders. Everything has to be simulated with the artwork but can still be seen from any angle. It also doesn’t help that even at 4x scale we still don’t have many pixels to work with.

What would you think about making the high poly model texture even higher resolution? More resolution = more detail.

Do you mind if I ask how you are applying the grainy texture? I don’t know much about those techniques.