[FF7PC-98] Omzy's Field Pack - dramatically improved backgrounds! (2013-07-13)

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Update 7/13/13:
I've playtested through 75% of the game and have a larger list of erroneous fields (~20). Whenever I get around to finishing the game (for the 15th or so time), I'll release more fixes  :-)
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Hi Omzy!

Great to know you are going to make Omzy's FFVII Field Pack even better in a (hopefully) near future! I am looking really forward to have it cover 100% of the game's field background!

And yes, it would be MARVELLOUS if your method could be applied to the battle scenes as well! Great suggestion there, EQ2Alyza!

UPDATE: Only now do I notice you did it, EQ2Alyza!! Kudos!!  :-*
 
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Working shaders would enhance those static lighting textures. Maybe 7th Heaven will swap shaders too.
 
Sorry if somebody has pointed this out, but something that has bugged me for a while is whenever characters walk in front of something in the background that obscures them, like a railing or something, it's like the alpha for it (forgive me if I'm wrong, I've no idea of the correct terminology for this) is still the original 320x200 resolution and it makes it look like the original lo-res background

igQhTd8S76GDY.jpg


Here's what I mean since I'm not sure how to describe it.

Is there any way to remedy this?
 
I stared at that a while, man. I was totally onboard for a while, too. I was gonna suggest we ask Aali. But then I'm thinking maybe... there's a bit of an optical illusion going on in your screenshot. It looks like a fairly normal pattern of extreme jaggy sloped railing that has been upscaled, but here the palette "swirls" of the railing compliment the floor, which has the same effect on it. But when your eyes see the transition from that almost subliminal pattern of fractalized upscaling to the sheer native hi-res models with their shading being calculated correctly, it just makes it look like the bumps in the rail are more pronounced. That bump pattern continues throughout the rail, but both Barret and Tifa happen to be standing in front of bumps, and they make them look larger than the others. Maybe I don't have the right answer at all, but I gave it some thought!
 
I's really obvious if you look at Tifa's right leg. It's clearly visible OVER the railing.

The problem is that the masks need to be made manually. They can't be auto-generated and turn out well. If they were upscaled using the same method as the backgrounds themselves, you'll get jaggies smoothed out, but not necessarily in the right places, which leads to these weird effects.
 
Well, it is completely compatible with bootleg40, but you still have to download the 3.2GB Facepalmer file separate. There is an option for Field Textures in the bootleg setup which includes sets like Blackfan and Bootlegged, personally I prefer the uniformity of the plain old Facepalmer set. If you click the "fix glitched lighting" option it will get rid of all the hi-res lighting, but it may simplify your life if you don't want to figure out how to get around the few broken spots.
 
For this to work on the steam version it has to be compiled down to a lgp with the PNG's converted to the proper TEX format.

I am very new to the FF7 modding scene but not modding in general.  I am already working on converting some of the shader mods to the new HLSL format that the steam version appears to be using.  However the one mod that is truly lacking the steam version (with achievements) is the backgrounds.

Before spending tons of time on this, has this been done already?  Can one convert the PNG structure Omzy to the proper field map textures which I understand might not be the same as the other textures in the game, so will image2tex work?
 
Hey halsafar, unfortunately the backgrounds are not textures (*.tex files) so img2tex would definitely not work... Each background are custom file type and sometimes includes several layers which would be extremely difficult to do so, as far as I know, there's no such tool (yet) for reconverting a resized PNG into the game custom background file (and then back to *.lgp).

As for the HLSL shader, there is some information here: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/9711/, a xBR HLSL shader (for both 2012 rerelease and steam version) would be a dream come true, you have my full support halsafar !
 
A live shader would also has an effect on the models and the menu. What you need is something like TexMod or Dsfix (texture replacer for Dark Souls). I think that these tools are working similar as Aali's driver and updating the vram.
 
Edit: Oops, I lied. I believe there is a way to do it, just not what I previously said.
 
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As for the HLSL shader, there is some information here: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/9711/, a xBR HLSL shader (for both 2012 rerelease and steam version) would be a dream come true, you have my full support halsafar !
Click to expand...
From first inspection this CG Shader can be easily converted to HLSL with some guidance:
https://github.com/libretro/common-shaders/blob/master/xbr/4xbr-v4.0.cg

The only problem I foresee is these shaders require knowledge of the internal rendering resolution.  That may have to be hard coded, I know little of the FF7 engine.  It may need to be changed on a per user basis.  However for xBR I think most people will be tickled regardless of set backs.  I have pretty good shader knowledge as it is my job and my hobby. 

Off topic though. 


I plan to research Omzy's work a bit more and see if there is a way to pack it up so it works with the steam version.
 
Nice halsafar!
As Kaldarasha said, a shader would affect the 3D models and menu; on the other hand, repacking the flevel.lgp (with resized backgrounds) means a huge amount of work but the result could definitely be a must-have but don't throw away the shader idea, I'm looking forward to see how it looks !
 
xBR might not be possible.  I hit an unusual dead-end when porting, just stopped working if I inserted a new instruction.  This leads me to believe it is using PS_2_0 as the shader model internally which has an low instruction slot count (~64).  If this is true then xBR will be problematic.  I am concerned as to why they would change to HLSL and yet stick with PS_2_0, so I need research or info.
 
ANother user and I (mostly another user) tried Xbr many different ways and it doesn't work.
 
Yeah I got a fully functional xBR working but FF7 wouldn't accept it.  My research leads me to believe FF7 loads up on pixel shader 2.0 which has a very low instruction count max.  Even hq2x is to many instructions for PS 2.0. These boil down to individual arithmetic operations.  So when you unroll a lot of the math in these shaders to asm it reaches far past the instruction count limit.

Might still be possible with an external app hooking into ff7_en.exe D3D.
 
Not in the Steam version.  It clearly uses HLSL (pixel.hlsl, vert.hlsl are the shader files) and interally loads up D3D as you can see with D3D SDK Utilities.
 
Hello I have a problem with Omzy's Field Pack
why though nothing had happened when i install this mod ???

this is the printscreen
1175757_420415398060504_544470237_n.jpg


this is where is install the mod
C:\Programs Files x86\SquareSoft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\Mods\DK\Field

and this is my laptop specs
Lenovo G570
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Intel Core i3 Mobility 8gb RAM
AMD Radeon HD Graphics 7370M

Is There any problem with my Install ???
I hope there's a solution :(

Sorry for my bad english :P
 
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