Thank you, thank you
Now regarding your questions
Can we use those textures with 7H + Yarlson fields configured ?
It should be doable. I asked EQ2Alyza if it was possible to combine TA's fields onto whatever other series of fields the user would like to pick. I didn't have confirmation though.
I've been tracking Avalanche's progress for quite some time now, and I must say these new backgrounds all look absolutely superb, but I do have two big questions about them:
What do you mean by these models sizes? Should you manually change the sizes of all your character models every time you enter a different area, or should you just use models the size of Kaldarasha's?
Also, are you guys eventually going to release the models that you're rendering these areas from, in case someone with ambition wants to do a full remake of FF7 in a true 3D engine, like Rich Whitehouse tried to do a while back?
Regarding model sizes: When doing the modelling work, I paid very close attention to the relative size of the characters vs. the size of the objects populating a scene. There were many inconsistencies, mostly because small items were grossly enlarged to make them be recognizable at very low resolution, but since HD can make one see the small details, many things had to be addressed (tea cup the size of a salad bowl, beer can the size of a bucket, etc.). In some cases, nearly all the objects have wrong dimensions with respect to the scene layout, while walkmesh and layering constraints does not allow me to change these sizes. Example: in ealin_12, originally, if you pay attention you'll realize that the table height reaches Cloud's
shoulders, it should be actually twice smaller. The only way to address these inconsistencies is to actually change the characters sizes, and keep most of the objects relatively similar. Objects were also designed using Kaldarasha's models to get the proportions right, chibi models may look more awkward (if something is realistically designed, it obviously cannot fit chibi design).
The characters sizes can be changed using Makou Reactor, and the changes you can make there will affect the characters sizes
regardless of the ones you're using, so you can make adjustments even if you're not using Kaldarasha's models.
Doing this with Makou Reactor is unbelievably easy: you open the flevel of the field, change characters sizes there, save, and then you're done - you do it once and then it works every time the scene loads while you play the game.
I'm not totally sure how that's going to be worked out for 7H users, but I think it will be pretty much about fiddling with Makou Reactor before you use 7H. As a last note, 4 fields in the release pack are concerned with this issue (ealin_1, ealin_12, ealin_2 and mds5_w).
As for your second question, the short answer is "hardly". These 3d models were designed for CG renders, not gaming. One notable difference is that it usually took more than 30 hours to render each scene, while for gaming you want this rendering time down to 1/30 second. They were not optimized in terms of poly count, and the shading (textures, bumpmaps, etc.) was made for them to be rendered with Blender's cycle engine. If someone wants to reuse these assets for a real time 3d gaming engine, at least the shading was to be reworked.
I personally do not have the ambition to work on a full 3d remake (as things currently stand). As a whole, I believe our modding situation can last as long as user play a mod which works on a purchased copy of the game. We can be tolerated as long as what we do can financially benefit Square, somehow. If you make a standalone remake which doesn't need the original material to work, then it's a short trip to Cease & Desist IMO.
Talk about derp.