Remaking FFVII Backgrounds: An Art Project (For Now)

[Death of Rats]

As you all know the backgrounds in FFVII are one of the two most horrible parts about the game.  The character models and everything else can be improved, but the backgrounds and cinematics can't.  It's a problem that everyone on this board has run into and one that numerous people have tried (and failed) to remedy.  The current engine just won't let us improve anything.

But looming on the horizon is Q-Gears, the wonderful new engine that will eventually allow for much more flexibility as far as art assects and other such things.  Two or three years from now it may be possible for someone to filter the backgrounds and cinematics and once again have a game that looks at least somewhat playable.  But to me that's not good enough.  If someone can go through all the headaches associated with reverse engineering an engine why can't someone go through the trouble of remodeling, improving, and re-rendering the backgrounds?  Not for the current engine, mind you, but for the new engine?  Would it be a huge, almost insurmountable task?  Most certainly.  But for someone who likes to model stuff in their spare time it'd be a rather fun and ambitious project, one that I'm going to start working on as soon as I get the resources I need. 

It's important to note, however, that this is just something that I'm going to do for fun at the moment.  I'm not expecting myself to be able to finish all or even one background, but what the hell, it'd be fun to try.  If nothing else I have at least until Q-Gears 1.0 is released.

Which brings me to why I'm here.  I need help with getting the full resolution background images from the game.  I'm rather ignorant when it comes to the FFVII tools scene, and I'm not sure what exactly I need.  So I'll just tell you fine folks what I have and hope you can help me with information.

I have the PC version of FFVII (I used to have the PSX copy, but I sold it in a desperate grab for cash).  I'm on a Windows XP system.  What would I need to do in order to extract the background images from the game?

[little-hollow]

lgptools will do it

how a re you planning to distribute this without having copyright problems?? since it seems it wont be using any files from the original game?? 

[squeeble]

Well noen's already modeled most of midgar but theres noway he'd let you use it for such a thing, my point being here is that he started that in 2005 and is still currently working on it. I reckon photoshoping would yeild a more desirable and more attainable result.

[Borde]

I think that the only viewer that can currently display correctly all the backgrounds (or most of them) is Aeris (look in the tech releated forum).

[Death of Rats]

lgptools will do it

how a re you planning to distribute this without having copyright problems?? since it seems it wont be using any files from the original game?? 

That's the thing, for right now all it will be used for is as an fan art project.  Just something to gain experience with modeling and rendering and all that jazz.  There's no way to insert anything like this into the game at the moment so there shouldn't be any problems with posting a few renders on a forum.

But once a version of Q-Gears is released that would allow people to insert high res backgrounds into the game I would have to do a blackout until the project is done.  Then, once it's all finished, I'd release it on bittorrent and no amounts of cease and desist notices would be able to stop it from being distributed.

[halkun]

...Except that right now Q-Gears renders the pictures at the same resolution as the original.

Don't be fooled by the hi-res demos. What is displayed within the white 320x240 box is what gets displayed on the screen. Q-gears actually can't handle anything bigger than a 320x240 viewport.

Then again, it really can't do much yet, it's moving though.

[Death of Rats]

This wouldn't be done with what Q-gears can do now in mind.  This would be done in preparation for when Q-gears can render everything at a higher resolution.

I mean, what's the point of Q-gears if not to allow improvements that the current engine just isn't capable of?

[Death of Rats]

Oh, and since I haven't started and don't have any wip images to show here's an animation I did about a year ago while I was still in school. 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4089174337961313357

It's not as good as I would have liked it to be, but hopefully it shows that I'm not a complete amature at modeling stuff.

[Salk]

Funny video! Best of luck for your project! It is one of my dreams to be able to one day play FF VII with decent backgrounds!

[Synergy Blades]

Man, this reminded me of all those years ago when I enjoyed doing some FFVII-related 3D in my spare time. I began to realise I'd prefer to work on original projects since as fun as it is, this will pretty much come to nothing; plus I went to uni, and concentrated on the technical (computer science) and I haven't done any 3D since then... 3,4 years or so. So, I dug out my old DVD of FFVII scenes and got a few screens from them... these were some of the better ones.

Couple of enemies: Custom Sweeper, and a fairly easy First Ray.

Nibelheim: Front/field camera view, Larger front view, Aerial shot.

Chocobo Farm: Field Camera view.

Underwater walkway: Test view.

Golden Gate floor: Texture.

Shinra logo: Texture.

Midgar: Train sector, Central towers view, Reactor walkway; a very out-of-date full-view shot of Midgar.

I did a lot of work on Midgar (as some oldies might remember), all in one giant scene (even though it's not entirely obvious from those shots) - unfortunately I don't have the same renderer I used back then to get some more (will look for it). Anyway, I ran a few shots through the default scanline renderer, you'll have to excuse the lighting/quality (or lack thereof):

Some shots from the animated camera (zipped), Sector 6 (walkway entrance), and finally a full shot.

[Edit] Actually, here's the only one I did work on since then, this was this year at uni when I got a bit bored; vector render of Bugenhagen's lab.

[Death of Rats]

Man, this reminded me of all those years ago when I enjoyed doing some FFVII-related 3D in my spare time. I began to realise I'd prefer to work on original projects since as fun as it is, this will pretty much come to nothing; plus I went to uni, and concentrated on the technical (computer science) and I haven't done any 3D since then... 3,4 years or so. So, I dug out my old DVD of FFVII scenes and got a few screens from them... these were some of the better ones.

Couple of enemies: Custom Sweeper, and a fairly easy First Ray.

Nibelheim: Front/field camera view, Larger front view, Aerial shot.

Chocobo Farm: Field Camera view.

Underwater walkway: Test view.

Golden Gate floor: Texture.

Shinra logo: Texture.

Midgar: Train sector, Central towers view, Reactor walkway; a very out-of-date full-view shot of Midgar.

I did a lot of work on Midgar (as some oldies might remember), all in one giant scene (even though it's not entirely obvious from those shots) - unfortunately I don't have the same renderer I used back then to get some more (will look for it). Anyway, I ran a few shots through the default scanline renderer, you'll have to excuse the lighting/quality (or lack thereof):

Some shots from the animated camera (zipped), Sector 6 (walkway entrance), and finally a full shot.

[Edit] Actually, here's the only one I did work on since then, this was this year at uni when I got a bit bored; vector render of Bugenhagen's lab.

Very nice stuff.  I especially like the work you did on Midgar.

[Guspaz]

Before you guys get too far ahead of yourselves, you should note that Q-Gears isn't going to allow you to replace models/backgrounds/cinematics/etc. They're planning to either allow no modified content, or entirely new content, but not a mixture of Square data and new data.

See this FAQ question:

Can you make it mod friendly? How about some mod tools?
No, not right away. I'm keen on using Square's original data first. If anything at least our engine will be a little more forgiving with what's accepted as input. However, there is a large likelihood that the system will be designed to make Square and non-Square data non-interchangeabe. This means you won't be able to add your mods to a stock game, but use new data with a different format to create new games. (most likely, text or XML) The less we step on Square's toes, the better.

Of course, there is no way for them to prevent you from using third-party content; Q-Gears is open source, so such restrictions can easily be disabled. Personally, I think the idea of trying to limit modified content is ridiculous, but that's just me.

[Akari]

Before you guys get too far ahead of yourselves, you should note that Q-Gears isn't going to allow you to replace models/backgrounds/cinematics/etc. They're planning to either allow no modified content, or entirely new content, but not a mixture of Square data and new data.

See this FAQ question:

Can you make it mod friendly? How about some mod tools?
No, not right away. I'm keen on using Square's original data first. If anything at least our engine will be a little more forgiving with what's accepted as input. However, there is a large likelihood that the system will be designed to make Square and non-Square data non-interchangeabe. This means you won't be able to add your mods to a stock game, but use new data with a different format to create new games. (most likely, text or XML) The less we step on Square's toes, the better.

Of course, there is no way for them to prevent you from using third-party content; Q-Gears is open source, so such restrictions can easily be disabled. Personally, I think the idea of trying to limit modified content is ridiculous, but that's just me.

Q-Gears will be allowed to use only user created content. You can add there everything you want, as RPGmaker which allows you to create your own rpg. FFVII data will be supported via exporters, I hope  .

[Death of Rats]

Before you guys get too far ahead of yourselves, you should note that Q-Gears isn't going to allow you to replace models/backgrounds/cinematics/etc. They're planning to either allow no modified content, or entirely new content, but not a mixture of Square data and new data.

See this FAQ question:

Can you make it mod friendly? How about some mod tools?
No, not right away. I'm keen on using Square's original data first. If anything at least our engine will be a little more forgiving with what's accepted as input. However, there is a large likelihood that the system will be designed to make Square and non-Square data non-interchangeabe. This means you won't be able to add your mods to a stock game, but use new data with a different format to create new games. (most likely, text or XML) The less we step on Square's toes, the better.

Of course, there is no way for them to prevent you from using third-party content; Q-Gears is open source, so such restrictions can easily be disabled. Personally, I think the idea of trying to limit modified content is ridiculous, but that's just me.

Eh, either way this is just an art project for me first and foremost.  If the backgrounds can never be used that's fine.

But it seems to me that Q-Gears will at least allow the level of modification that we can currently do with the PC FFVII.  If it didn't, then it would be somewhat moving backwards with the engine, not forward, right?  If user modified content isn't allowed at all what exactly would be the point of writing the new engine in a way where it would run FFVII content?  Why not just write something in the same vein as RPG maker (but of a higher quality)?

Also, the chances that the background images could be used for pirating purposes are just as likely as any mod being used for pirating purposes.  They'd just be images, not the actual field data itself.  Without the original field data they'd be useless. 

[The Skillster]

Synergy; I remember you posted that Nebelheim shots. I didn't know you had done Midgar - looks like a lot of work went into that one.