[FF7] Dramatically improved pre-rendered backgrounds - FacePalmer (v3.0)

[bashful6]

Really wanted to try this but the torrent is down and I rather wait for actual link downloads.

[dssjr85]

I recently downloaded this and have since played FF7 with it. It basically does the impossible. It makes the greatest game ever even better. I work from 6AM-2:30PM right now so will limit seeding of the torrent during these times to 100K/bs but during every other time of the day, I will seed this as long as I own a computer. Oh and during all other times of day, I have a 10M/bs upload. Bravo to everyone who has worked on this.   

[Vgr]

Really wanted to try this but the torrent is down and I rather wait for actual link downloads.

I'm currently seeding, so you might want to test out now.

[Omzy]

I'm enjoying the feedback so far and am popping in as much as I can briefly.
As I've mentioned several times, I'm a bit too busy at the moment to work on the script. If anyone is interested in further improving this script, here are some hints as to what needs to be fixed. Please post new versions in this thread for people to use or post pieces of code that can be substituted.

The alpha layers (lighting layers that use Linear Dodge blending, type = 0, id > 65536) are messed up. If you look at Palmer's output you will see that some of the them have multiple files that come one after the other (only adding 1 to the filename), e.g. 65536 and then 65537 and 65538. If Palmer only adds 1 to the filename, these files are all considered to be a group, so they work together to make a single layer or image. When I outputted the images, I thought the baselayer (the 65536 one) could just be output as the composite of all the layers on top of one another (like you can do with the background). From what I've seen in game, this is wrong. You must cut the baselayer out like you must cut out other layers or it will actually shine through, causing the lighting artifacts. So, my cutting algorithm needs to simply be applied to the alpha baselayers in addition to the forelayers.

If that makes sense to anyone with some technical know-how, you can fix the problem in the meantime. If not, you guys will have to wait until I get a chunk of time on my hands, which will be weeks.

[bashful6]

Guess i'll have to watch for the times when someone is seeding.
BTW is that pacific/mid/eastern time?

[PitBrat]

It seems that most of the lighting textures (15 and up) work in the game and look beautiful.
I've only noticed a few minor artifacting glitches.
If the FacePalmer lighting textures were restored to the vanilla color palette, would the glitches go away?  Or would that just introduce more anomalies?
Is palette restoration a feasible project?  Or is there some more visually pleasing method of correcting the lighting textures?

[Omzy]

It seems that most of the lighting textures (15 and up) work in the game and look beautiful.
I've only noticed a few minor artifacting glitches.
If the FacePalmer lighting textures were restored to the vanilla color palette, would the glitches go away?  Or would that just introduce more anomalies?
Is palette restoration a feasible project?  Or is there some more visually pleasing method of correcting the lighting textures?

From what I've seen, the artifacts are not from palette problems, there are simply overlapping lighting layers (because of the way I cut them) that produce more glow than is necessary on some backgrounds (which looks blocky since only part of the lighting layer overlaps). The palette glitches are not something that can easily be taken care of as far as manipulating colors goes. The fractal method requires the generation of more colors in order to create new detail. On the plus side, Aali's driver seems to render all the layers despite the palette errors. So if he or someone that knows how could write a palette error suppression patch (like ff7lessdebug), we could get rid of those errors.

[dssjr85]

Guess i'll have to watch for the times when someone is seeding.
BTW is that pacific/mid/eastern time?

That would be mountain time. I'm seeding right now and am uploading at 1.2MB/s which is right on target with 10Mb/s after overhead.

[bashful6]

Thanks a lot for seeding it!
I'll install this tonight and I'll post some photos since there hasn't been any posted. If I get this working, I think I will be set as far as mods to FF7PC unless of course some finish with their own work will be glad to test it out. I would get into better quality models but, since I have no experience with modeling or importing not something I could do other than doing drawing layouts. ~should of gone for 3D animation instead of graphic design~
Going to be streaming this once I have it set.

[balsh]

hi really cool mod thanks 

like said above only a few glitches with lights on some fields (ie: Priscillia's house in Junon and the tree before MtNibel)
and some rare scenes are not converted:
lvl 69 shinra building with blood
nibelheim mansion library corridor
junon airport

I've been starting the game from the begining with the mod and that's pretty much the only bugs I've noticed (Im at Mt Nibel)

[Ying264]

Hey not sure if this was the right place to post, was just wondering if there is more seeds available for facepalmer or a direct FTP for it. I've had it downloading for days and im only on 26%! I can't wait to get this up and running!

Last thing i need to get my modded FF7 running 26% now DL'ing between 5-20kb and that's if im lucky!! I will continue to seed for a while when I have it! i'm currently uploading to someone else
Thanks people

[Ying264]

Bump for more seeds? currently 2 of us at 47%

[Soul XXcult]

sorry to bother you but  have you plan on working this for Final Fantasy 8  i wou be very appreiactd, it doesn't matter if you can't. FF7 looks amazing with scaling

[Omzy]

I have no current plans to extend this to FF8, but I or someone else will likely do it in the years to come.

Also, refer to the other thread for downloading the map pack (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=12260.0).

[Tenko Kuugen]

I wonder how long I'd take me to upload these in parts to megaupload
is that even conform with the rules here?

[UGerstl]

Hi KuugenTheFox,

you are at the wrong topic. I uploaded it, read here: >Click me<

 My max upload   : 640 kBit/s
 Upload duration : ~18 hours 

[Roamin]

This looks just to damn good! Thank you to everyone involved.

I just wanted to point out a few textures which seem to have been forgotten, or just dont properly load in a FULL preset install of bootleg 0036.

Airport : http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/2268/airportcursortexture.jpg
Lower Junon : http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/5739/lowerjunon.jpg
Mansion Basement : http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/8289/mansionbasementtexture.jpg
Upper Junon : http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/3875/upperjunon.jpg

As i keep playing the game (normal mode) i will take more notes if i see more "old" textures

[jdove]

how do you get these face palmer images to work i put em all in the mod_path but it does nothing are these in the right format to use as soon as you extract the rare files from the torrent after you put em all in seperate floders or do you have to turn them into a new flevel.lgp with some other program i dont have photoshop and lgp tools is missing files "lgpprop.dll" is missing i followed the directions to the T but FF7 wont load the new images is there a torrent with everything converted to w/e it is you need to use em in game these files seem like they are for the people editing them and arent ready to be used "right of of the box" please help

[Tekkie.X]

Do you have Aail's driver installed and configured?

[Vgr]

You have to extract all those RAR files after.

[jdove]

hi guys thanks for the response^^ yeah i had everything with the driver and everything else setup right i was using other mods when i posted, anyways i figured out my problem, When i extracted the files i saw someone say to extract them all into separate folders which i did but it turns out they were already in folders to begin with so i ended up with double folders so my directory i had it in wasnt working i manually moved all 667 folders that were in other folders into a single field folder and it solved my problem if that makes sense lol, was a mouthful. Thank you guys for all the awesome amazing work you all have done with this game.

[samGD021]

hey when i downloaded the pngs, the picks looks like this
http://imageshack.us/g/507/anfrst30000.png/

is this normall? and all the textures i downloaded doesnt seems to work , i put it in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\mods\DK\field

bt still doesnt work

[therage800]

hey when i downloaded the pngs, the picks looks like this
http://imageshack.us/g/507/anfrst30000.png/

is this normall? and all the textures i downloaded doesnt seems to work , i put it in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\mods\DK\field

bt still doesnt work

Yes, that is normal. That set up does work as that's what I'm using as well. However, I had the same problem as jdove (The post directly above yours). If using Winrar, you highlight all the archives, right click, and then choose, "Extract here". Do not choose, "Extract each archive to separate folder".

[ajthedj747]

The bootleg made by PitBrat made FacePalmer work flawlessly for me. I had to reinstall it five time over three weeks though. For Windows XP, I was missing the executive file called, "forfiles.exe" in my ../windows/system32/ folder. FacePalmer works great on my laptop with Windows 7 Ultimate as well. 

[Sun7zu]

This is awesome!! Thanks for sharing this (as a torrent also!). My computer is on 99% of the time so I'll seed this for a few years.