Not completely unrelated...

[Ulvenoko]

Seeing all the amazing work people have done in the team avalanche section of this forum. Have none ever considered creating their own Final Fantasy-esque game or small demo maybe. Like maybe a few maps you can run through with a custom made character. It's quite simple really...

-Sketch out some maps, storyboard.
-Create and render the scenes on different layers.
-Export to photoshop and retouch the images.
-Line the images up in a 3D game engine.
-Create collision boundaries and set up basic controls.

Then of course create the rather simple coding that is needed for character movement and yeah you got a cool concept. Why keep on modding Final Fantasy VII when you could create something original and fresh using current day technology. Like imagine a Final Fantasy VIII like game, with super high resolution models but with prerendered backgrounds that have been fixed up in photoshop. Maybe one could keep some elements in the image animated, like trees blowing with the wind or a particle simulation of water. Think of it as a animated panning painting with high resolution characters in it.

It's possible today and seeing your backgrounds and all the work you've done easily accomplished. You easily improved upon what was already there, why limit yourself to Final Fantasy VII, let's create a 10 min demo game that is similar to the old JRPG games from the 90s. Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX. We could use the blender or unity game engine, why not?

[Tirlititi]

I don't get it. Are you saying "we" or "you" in the end?

Creating a whole 10 min game would take a lot of time if someone do it from scratch. But there are workarounds using some already made game engine (rpg creator(s)/starcraft's editor...).

I think the modders here will respond better than myself about how "easily it has been accomplished".

[Covarr]

Are you recommending prerendered backgrounds? In theory, this could all be done as a FF7 mod; we've got the tools to do so already. The issue is, designing and rendering backgrounds is most certainly not easy; it takes a lot of time, and sometimes scenes have to go through a lot of revisions in order to look good. Granted, it'd be far easier, at least in some ways, to do something original, because it doesn't have to match up with existing walkmeshes or someone else's artistic vision, but even that would still take a good bit of time to build.

Consider this: the bombing mission portion of FF7 is roughly ten minutes of content (a bit more, since there's a bossfight and an escape through previously-traveled areas), and Team Avalanche hasn't even finished with that yet.

It's not that it couldn't be done, but this community simply doesn't have enough graphics artists with enough free time to take on a project like this and get it done anywhere in the near future, not even a basic demo.

[Ulvenoko]

I actually tried to make this some time ago now in blender and it worked out quite well. Only thing that is tricky is lining up all the layers in the scene to the panning camera and figuring out the perspective. Think of it this way, first you need to design the scene, next you need to decide on how the character should move through the scene. Then using the resolution you've decided upon beforehand, let's say 1024x768 decide on how big resolution the actual background should be rendered in.

Maybe 4040x2000. With this big a background the camera would be panning either to the right or to the left, problem is that the camera must pan through the background when the character lines up to the center of the camera's view. You could make the camera "trace" the character when the character hits an invinsible plane, but it's very very messy to get everything to work smoothly with the camera.

But if we'd only get a preset to work from getting the right dimensions on the thing would be easy. When the technical difficulties are solved the fun bit would be:

-Designing the character
-Designing scenes
-Take advantage of modern rendering capabilities for the PRERENDERED backgrounds.

One could use particle simulations to create streams of flowing water, use wind simulations to create falling leaves or cloth simulations to create something else. Why mod Final Fantasy VII when you could make a much better Final Fantasy-esque game. And it doesn't need to be ten minutes, I'd get a kick out of just seeing a high resolution  character run around in a high resolution beautifully rendered MODERN Final Fantasy scene.

Ever since XII the games have turned 3D and completely ditched the prerendered charm that the older games had. Let's try to make a modern Final Fantasy, but go beyond the graphical limitations that even a prerendered game had back then! COME ON BROTHERS, LET'S DO THIS!

/Hermoor

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

[Covarr]

/Hermoor

Nope. ~Covarr

Edit: to clarify, both for any new users and anyone else who may be interested, hermoor was banned a few years ago for a variety of reasons (which I'd rather not bring to attention again, but suffice to say it was very necessary). The thing about bans is they are permanent unless you are explicitly unbanned by staff; creating a second account or otherwise evading an existing ban is not, and never will be, allowed.