3-d field info? (where to find/how to edit)

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EmperorSteele

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Like the title implies, is ther currently a way to edit the background information?  I know it would seem stupid to do so, as one would need to have a bg image, and ff7 will likely not accept any more such things into its data files... but lets juts say for the sake of argument that that wasn't a problem.  Can i just rip the field info and edit it in a 3-d proggy, or would i need whatever they used to make ff7 (and therfor be SOL)?
 
Hmmm i don't think there is 3D used in field maps ... those are just a images ... only field with 3d is world-map ... and that is not decyphered yet
 
Well, there has to be a 3-d underlay, or else how would the game know where Cloud can and cant go, and when to access the world map or another field location?  How would the 3-d elevators work (in terms of carrying the sprites up through the field of view)?
 
The infamous walkmesh.

It's in the field file... ummm... somewhere. The pain about finding it is that it's not polygon based, but a mathamtical set of of coordinates. I've been looking for it onn and off for 4 years now ^_^

I was seriously thinking about putting a bounty on that. You could win a controller or a ps1 or something... I don't have the time to look now.
 
....

Well FUN!

Each field file has a lot more than just the background pic in it, and i can't make heads or tails of much of it...

aside from GAME TEXT which isn't even at that locaton!

For instance, sango1 is the place on the way to the city of the ancients... and it has, encoded with it, the text for when barret and tifa are to be executed.  WT M-Fing F?!

Didn't Terrance Ferguson do some field mapping work when he was finding the locations of all the items in Bone Village?  Or was he just reading coordinates which were rattled off to him from some kind of memory-address-reader proggy (if that makes any sense...)
 
WalkMesh eh ? i thought that was decyphered by Saint or Terrence or someone ... and i thought its in the Gears already :)
 
Nope, I remeber someone was messing with the camera a while back. But I've got nothing.

In a perfect world I would love to see a picture of a colored polygon walkmesh overlayed on a background. Just so you can see that the character "sees"

the debug rooms would be your best bet to find the walkmesh, as it's flat and has little data.

Startmap has everything at 0,0,0 (Player Character and camera). That would be the first thing to pick apart.
 
Well from what the Saint said the world is a sparse matrix. Basically it has a set of color and coordinates for each location on the globe. HOWEVEr, the world is round not flat so if you do a projection of surfaces you'll end up with one of those map projects that look like an orange peeled.  This means they needed to take into acount the curvature of FF7's world.  Apparently the data is pretty difficult to crack.  Sorry I'm not going to touch this tell I have the following working:


    • Battle Model's viewable again
    • Textures Viewable
    • Complete Object displayed from Animation information
    • Battle Scenes Viewable
    • Character Field models viewable
    • NPC Field Models Viewable
    • Use debugger and Debug rooms for walkmesh

    So it will be a while before I get to it. Erswhile C++ can be a class pain <grin> I keep getting exceptions because it doesn't like me typecasting something stored in a base class array into it's type (ARGH) and calling it's GLRender function.  So much for polymorphism  ARGH.

    A while back I messed with the world data.  At the time I didn't see an obvious set up.  My guess is they are using a height field with a computed grid model.   That is taking cartographic projections into account The first height and color are ordered by these choices.
    I noticed (convienently) they have water at the north and south pole regions. Meaning they are able to ignore the pinch problem that way.  There ARE surface models, the gold saucer Costa Del, Midgard the Chocobo farm Icecicle all of those are models on the world map. The sub ship buggy highwind and weapon are also models.  So it does have some way of painting a 3d model on the surface as well.  FF8 is a LOT easier to do this with (sigh).

    Cyb
 
Final Fantasy VII's world is not a sphere, it's a scrolling plane. The way it renders the map, it trails off roundlike in the background, but that's not the shape of the world. You can fly all around the perimiter of the square map, and you cross the side you hit the corresponding point on the oposite edge. It's not possible for it to be a spherical world with those physics.
 
The world map is a 256x256 tile map. The "Tiles" in this case are made up of of little 3d models. That's all I have.
 
The world map is a 256x256 tile map. The "Tiles" in this case are made up of of little 3d models. That's all I have.
Click to expand...
Ohh.. now this could be good, because they used the same 3d model setup for all the 3d data in FF7 PSX version thus far. This includes the Field Models Battle Models, Battle Scenes and NPC Field Models. So it's likely they are doing something similiar with the world map.  Textures are likely to be in a bin file like with the NPC's and Field models.  Well I guess I'll find out sometime :lol:


Cyb
 
The world map is a 256x256 tile map. The "Tiles" in this case are made up of of little 3d models. That's all I have.
Click to expand...

and those models are what i need to export to max.
 
AHA! And that the problem. they are *embedded* in the cordiniate data. It's  like a tree. if you take the map in split it in half, then fourths, then eightths, and then sixteenths. You do this all the way down to the tile, but then the data "branches" into a bizzare tree format of vertices and stuff. It least that what it appears to be, but if you move a vertex, the tile is damaged and is not rendered, and the map becomes very unstable.

That's what I remeber anyway. You can "prune" branches and move them around all the way to the tile level, but if you actully try to alter the branch or create a new one, the whole map becomes damaged.

It's really a toughy to figure out.

If I aslo remeber right, the map files are split into four quadrents. Each one of those are modular with each "subquadrent" inside swappable with each other.

That should get you started.
 
Hmmm let me think about this.
I think the questions one needs to ask are these.

    • What is the easiest way for them to load in model information from disk since there physical memory is limited?
    • Does it help to compress the data?
    • What's the quickest way to determine what data needs to be loaded.
    I think answering these questions will answer what they did or close to it.  They likely keep in memory a small tree or graph structure of information.  Close by information is the highest detail. I have noticed they fade detail in the world model (it makes perfect sense). So my guess is the tree is actually a level of detail possibly and you keep a list of nodes iin memory that you need. As you cross nodes into parent nodes etc. More data is loaded and likely freed up as new nodes of the tree are filled in. Base information such as cities and various details such as that are likely end nodes that get loaded and unloaded as you get closer and further away.  For example how far away can you see the gold saucer?

    So the real question is more like 'how do they use this data?'  I suppose I'll have to get working on that debugger interface soon again :D

    Cyb/Stephen
 
Squeenix/Eidos should just release an SDK.  That'd make our lives easier ^_^

And how'd the discussion turn from "field info" to "World map info"? =P

Well, since it doesn't look possible, i'll fill y'all in on why i started this topic.  You all know that "Cave" near the city of the ancients that you can't get to?  I figgured if there wa a way to edit the filed info, I was going to add a "ladder" so you could climb the vine and enter the cave... but after mucking around with lgp tools, it doesn't look like there's any information for that cave within the game, so it's all terribly moot now, i guess =/
 
Such a large alteration would require a recompiling of the field file.

Not only the field walkmesh would have to altered, but the field script as well. Things like ladders and climbing is handeled by the field script, not the walkmesh.

Most likely there isn't anything really "there". The "cave" is just a 2d picture of a cave. Just because an artist draws a door on the field, doesn't mean it goes anywhere, or even that there is logic behind that.
 
Well, mebbe there was -supposed- to be?  Hell, i saw a ff7 pre-production video where they had towns and battle locations and battle models and character icons that weren't used in the final product.  And given that every other such background element has a purpose (you can enter any OTHER cave and climb up almost any OTHER vine), well... blah.  Wishful thinking... =/
 
Squeenix/Eidos should just release an SDK.  That'd make our lives easier ^_^
Click to expand...

Well, wasn't Gears aiming to be an info dump of FF7? I mean when Gears has more info, I'm sure it'll be like the un-lazy person's SDK! :D
 
You put that into ther past tense. The correct usage is "Gears is aiming to be an info dump of FF7." I'm still scibbiling notes. I just don't have time to do massive formatting like I used to. If I see a post that's worthy of input I'll replace the "Lorim Ipsom" in that section with what has been posted.
 
Well likely they had more data than they used. FF7 as you know was unfinished.  Square is notorious for doing those things. Look at Xenogears half the story is unfinished in the game it's just long audio playing sequences instead.  More than 4/5's the action on disk 2 is like that if you didn't notice.   This is where Xeno Saga comes from by the way.  The original makers of Xeno Gears left Square as a result of the game being rushed to production after it's released and began rewriting the whole thing from there concieved begining.

Bottom line is about 1/3 of FF7 was left unfinished.  That's why midgaard is so detailed but almost no other place is.  A lot of stuff was simply left out and a few things added in.

Cyb
 
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