battle.lgp question...

[DocZwei]

Yes this is a new person.  Nice to meet all you.  Now, to get down to business!  I first went back through the history of the board, reading most posts pertaining to this, but I have yet to understand this.  I read the battle.lgp database file on Alhexx's site, and think I have a somewhat simple understanding of it.  What I am trying to do is take the not-so-complete Sephiroth patch I have found through searches on various search engines, and add some stuff to it.  I know various characters such as Ged and The SaiNt have worked and updated the patch before, but I didn't wanna bother them by asking for their updated patch, cause that would've been rude to do.  Besides, they both said they lost the updated patch in a harddrive crash or something.  Anyways, I remember reading a thread started by Ged stating about editing the battle.lgp to alter Sephiroth's battle model's animations to use the animations that of Cloud for his limit breaks and such.  Instead of begging around like an idiot, I decided to try it myself, and taking what info I could gather from that thread, went into LGPTools and tried my dumb guesstimate on how this could work.  Unfortunately, my results weren't very impressive.  I noticed that, from reading in Ged's post, that AB is for the limit breaks, hurt pose, etc.  And from the battle.lgp database file I decided that SA prefixes are the Sephiroth files, and RT is the Cloud files.  So, my idiotic logic decided to try and extract the RTAB file for Cloud, rename it SAAB, and replace Sephiroth's SAAB file with it.  So I do so, and then load up the game.  Everything goes fine, Sephiroth's battle model isn't messed up, or so I thought, until I tried a limit break.  It surely did go through the correct Cloud animation for Braver, but Sephiroth's model got all screwy and weird looking while doing it.  Kinda like he was all bent and twisted.  Now comes my question.  What did I do wrong?  Hopefully someone can help me figure what I did wrong.  There's probably even more that I'm missing, and my simple mind isn't realizing what it is yet....

[Sephiroth 3D]

The problem lies within the battle Animation files. It's sending specific information to the model to rotate this, that way, that this way, ect. However, since you changed the models, it's trying to move the Sephiroth model the same way as it would move the Cloud model.

Now, since you copied all of the Sephiroth files, and therefore, the animation files, any general movements, such as walking & attacking would work perfectly, while custom movements, such as Cloud's Braver don't exist, and it pulls that information from the Cloud model and tries to apply it to the Sephiroth model.

The Sephiroth model is very different in it's skeleton construction than the Cloud model. When animations from other characters, even ones with similar skeleton layouts, are applied to models they weren't designed for, they go screwy. You can see examples of this using Ficedula's Ifalna or Mirex's Leviathan. That's what happening to your Sephiroth patch. It's trying to run animations on a model that it wasn't designed for.

Does that answer you question? Let me know, I could be wrong, but I'm sure that's correct. (95% sure at least...)

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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[DocZwei]

Yes, I understand that perfectly!  It makes sense.  Now....what to do about it.  I'll figure it out hopefully.  I'm still very new to this, but everybody's gotta start somewhere, right?

[Sephiroth 3D]

Well... There are three options I can think of off-hand, but all three require a lot of time.

First, you could wait until Mirex or Ficedula figure out and develop something to properly edit & save battle animations.

The 2nd option, would give you a bit more satisfaction, but would take most of your time... Use the descriptions both Fice & Mirex have developed, you could program a battle editor that saves the animations to a battle animation file for use with FF7 battle models. A slightly different track for this same option would be to work with Mirex to develop a battle animation output system for Leviathan. From there you could re-create Cloud's Braver animation with Sephiroth. (Unless you make animation importing part of the program, then it could do it automatically, and then you'd just have to adjust the animation a bit.)

The 3rd and final option, would be to figure out and edit the Limit-break animation signals and redirect them to existing Sephiroth animations.

Good luck!

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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[Ultima]

Question: what programs do you guys use for all this cool hacking graphics etc?

can you give me some links... and are they really hard to use?

of course... the first prerequisite is FF7 PC....

[Sephiroth 3D]

Require Items:

1) FF7 PC (Check your local bargin-bins and Ebay)
2) Ficedula's LGPTools (http://ficedula.cjb.net)
3a) Alhexx's Ultima (http://www.8ung.at/alhexx/)
or
3b) Mirex's Conv program (http://mirex.mypage.sk/)

You now have every means of ripping, converting, and altering models from FF7 PC! We have yet to be able to export animations (Hint Hint! ), nor have we had any success in importing new models into FF7. Sorry for the dissapointment.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
[email protected]

[Ultima]

Dissapointment? Not in the least!

would it be possible to distribute some sort of universal patch *maybe .ff7, hehe* which changes all the things you've edited in the Graphics, Text etc for our edits?

Basically like a multiple-file IPS patch which applies itself to the FF7 install directory?

If somebody could make that, then there would be a much bigger point in hacking!

I'll try that out actually...

[ShinRa Inc]

I thought it was possible to export(and even edit, with Ifalna somewhat) field sprite animations?

And I'd advise waiting to get Ultima until Alhexx gets back.... 0.31 was majorly overhauled from .30, and is *really* buggy...   :z

[Sephiroth 3D]

Even if we can get to a point where we could export the animations as a skeleton only (no models or textures) into some 3D prog like LW (HINT!), I'd be happy. I could work with something like that.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
[email protected]