FFVII - Menu avatars based on new Nomura art

[Rjenyawd]

Hey guys!

Long time lurker, first time poster here!

I picked up some random personal ff7 modding projects a few years ago, and have been chronically poking in and out of the modding scene ever since. I mostly spend my modding time around FF6, Chrono Trigger, and other random SNES titles. You see, I have this horrible infliction called Attention Defficit Disorder, that makes me loose track of my thoughts while I'm wor.... OH SHINY!  ....uh. ...while I'm working. Anyway this has derailed MANY attempts at actually finishing any project I start.

So saying, I decided to branch out and throw up something to this here public forum. Maybe putting it out there, in the real world, will help motivate me to finish.

Ahem. So let's start small, (baaaaaby steps) with these Menu Avatar Customizations:

I used Nomura's new(ish) G-bike Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, Barret, and Cid artworks and some of his Crisis Core promotional art as bases. (Except for Cait and Red, whom I edited from their original FF7 art, and Vincent who I hobbled together with some glue, popsicle sticks, and a bit of Gimp frankenspriting magic.)



Also, A screenshot so you can see what they look like in-game. ((Minus Male Tifa. Ignore him. That's a different project...))



The actual files (NOT the merged preview above) are converted with Img2tex from 24-bit BMP format, with a false transparency (using a fadeout) on the corners of the frame piping. If you don't use a black menu background like I do, the black pixels on the edges might drive you slightly crazy... but I tried to avoid it best I can with the Steam version and it's adversion to transparent layers. 

I'm posting these as a preview for  a work-in-progress, so I can still fiddle about with them some more and get some feedback from you guys. Namely, I want to rework Cait Sith a bit, tweak cid and young cloud, and maybe redo Vincent...

Anywhoodle, after I fix up some of the rough spots a bit more, I'll throw the .tex files (made .lgp friendly) y'alls way and move this over to the 'released Graphic mods" subfolder for all to enjoy!



Subnote: _{Seeing as I'm first and foremost an SNES modder, I'm still learning the ropes with FF7's hacking scene. Is there a batch patching process (like making a .ips patch) or somesuch that I can use to make these easily accessible to casual modders? I mean, It's not hard, or much of a problem for me to create a "how to" for manually inserting these into the .lpg (for those who don't already know), but if there is a tidier, more concise way of doing things, I'm all ears! ^_^}

[Covarr]

Subnote: _{Seeing as I'm first and foremost an SNES modder, I'm still learning the ropes with FF7's hacking scene. Is there a batch patching process (like making a .ips patch) or somesuch that I can use to make these easily accessible to casual modders? I mean, It's not hard, or much of a problem for me to create a "how to" for manually inserting these into the .lpg (for those who don't already know), but if there is a tidier, more concise way of doing things, I'm all ears! ^_^}

Perhaps look into packing it into a .iro file for 7thHeaven?

[Rjenyawd]

Thanks, Covarr! I will do that!

...but first, I have to look into 7th Heaven.  I've always directly inserted files, so I have no practice with it. In all honestly, mass installers kinda terrify me. Even using DLPB's Reunion installer made me anxious, because I couldn't see what it was doing. lol.

[Covarr]

7thHeaven isn't an installer; it's a memory injector. A .iro file is your data, as well as a bit of metadata telling 7thHeaven what to put where, without altering the real files. It's more of a mod manager than a mass installer.

[Rjenyawd]

That's awesome!

So, does it use an external archive? If I'm understanding right, does it just communicate to the game to use specificnamedfile2  from a different folder instead of using specificnamedfile2 from the FF7 data folder?

I know that some game's file archives work this way. (Dragon Age, and any Renply games) Where if an uncompressed file has the same name, the game will pull THAT file instead of the original. It makes modding way less stressful.  Like you mentioned above, you don't have to worry about messing up the original files.

I"m intrigued to know more now! lol. Going on a forum hunt! 

[Tsuna]

I can do it for you if you like? Will take no time

[KaidenJames]

These look great! Can't wait to try them out.