[FF9 PC/Steam] Improved NPC and battle background textures

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Mcindus thank you very much. Also for your time to help me with some questions I had.
I'll still work on the worldmap mod and with your awesome help i think it'll look better than ever. :)
 
it's really not your place to put down the efforts of a mod creator.
Who said I was putting down efforts?  :roll:
Boy, bye.

I think you'll find that many people care about your sound mod.
image.png


don't make me laugh.
I have yet to see a Ratio where the sound mod matches up to this mod, or any other relative. I maybe see a 50:6
if you ever get access to the UI elements as .png's, I can definitely help you with the look of the game.
Already had access.
Sorry, I'm designing that part for what I do - going along with the sound mod. And I'm not looking to change that. Any of the UI's designs. Shrinking the battle command UI and getting it behave like psx; haven't yet to see that happen.
 
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Who said I was putting down efforts?  :roll:
Boy, bye.

I have yet to see a Ratio where the sound mod matches up to this mod, or any other relative. I maybe see a 50:6

Already had access.
Sorry, I'm designing that part for what I do - going along with the sound mod. And I'm not looking to change that. Any of the UI's designs. Shrinking the battle command UI and getting it behave like psx; haven't yet to see that happen.
Sorry if I misinterpreted your post - it seemed like you were putting Frag down for not 'beta-testing' his mod enough.  If that's not the case, please accept my apologies :)

As far as the interest - sound mods always have less 'visible' interest than graphical mods.  The only way to really know how 'essential' your mod is, would be to see the overall downloads after a period of time - and from personal experience, you may end up being surprised.  I know I'm interested in all of these mods as an essential 'package' for FF9 and am looking forward to using all of them :)

Oh, so you're doing all of the UI elements yourself??  Sounds like a beast of a project, but I hope you the best!  I will add it to the 'essential' mods list.  What is your progress like on that mod?

What is the difference in behavior of the battle UI in the Pc vs the psx version?
 
You actually lose detail when you apply such filters on them, it starts to look cartoony instead of pretty. The reason the backgrounds seem so pixelated in the PC version of the game is because you're running the game at a high resolution, the backgrounds stay the same quality but the models become super crisp. There's an easy fix, lower the resolution to 640x480.

Then the character models will seem to blend in much better just like in the ps1 game. In the ps1 version the resolution was even lower though. It would be nice if there was a mod that made the game run in 320x240 resolution, the original ps1 resolution. Then the updated character models and backgrounds will perfectly fit each other.

There is already a mod that fixes the sound in the game, there's only three things that need to be modified for the port to be perfect.
•Scale down UI elements in battle.
•Remove the talk/card icons when you walk next to NPCs.
•Remove the options to cheat.

I don't know how to code or mod games, but if you're a modder get to work on the above stuff. :wink:
 
You actually lose detail when you apply such filters on them, it starts to look cartoony instead of pretty.
I say the filter is lovely! Okay, they don't lose any detail, in fact, they show more detail (in my eyes at the least) especially at a high resolution.
But its whateva.

There is already a mod that fixes the sound in the game.
image.png

That Sdlib.dll only changes the sampling rate the game engine uses. But don't worry, I still use it anyways. But know Alboris got a launcher (it comes with the sound mod I do) that allows to change the sampling rate with various rates.

The sounds are botched eternally. I've went through 90% of all of them (still working on the rest, clearly)
All Silicon Studio's botched sfxs. Just EWW, like, no. Like, yeah, graphics are great, but, I tried playing through the whole game with no sounds or sound effects on, and, it felt... quiet.

there's only three things that need to be modified for the port to be perfect.
Scale down UI elements in battle.
Remove the talk/card icons when you walk next to NPCs.
Remove the options to cheat.
Removing cheating is done with Hades Workshop
And is included with the sounds mod.

If anyone else wants the Card Icons removed when talking to NPCs tell me now, and I'll remove it.


I don't know how to code or mod games, but if you're a modder get to work on the above stuff. :wink:
And you automatically assumed that a Sdlib.dll fixed all those sounds (even missing sounds)?
No. And yes, the enemy death sfxs are back, fixed included with the sound mod.
And instead of saying: "get to work" say: "hopefully someone can fix". None of us gets forced. Not me, you, Fraggoso, Tirlititi, Mcindus, anyone.
I've already done everything you mentioned except, the scaling down of the battle UI's. If anyone knows how to do that. Talk to me in this thread:

https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/12235/


Sorry if I misinterpreted your post - it seemed like you were putting Frag down for not 'beta-testing' his mod enough.  If that's not the case, please accept my apologies :)
Accepted. :)

As far as the interest - sound mods always have less 'visible' interest than graphical mods.  The only way to really know how 'essential' your mod is, would be to see the overall downloads after a period of time - and from personal experience, you may end up being surprised.  I know I'm interested in all of these mods as an essential 'package' for FF9 and am looking forward to using all of them :)
Yeah, when showing visuals over audio, eyes always win over ears don't they?

Oh, so you're doing all of the UI elements yourself??  Sounds like a beast of a project, but I hope you the best!  I will add it to the 'essential' mods list.
Yeah see:

1.png

2.png


Similar what I have for my game, but i just started from scratch with all FF9's UIs.

What is your progress like on that mod?
https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/12235/
See the percentage? I update that every day. That's how close!

What is the difference in behavior of the battle UI in the Pc vs the psx version?
In the PC version, it's one big fat UI with all commands listed.
In the PSX version, the UI is small and the secondary commands are accessed by pressing left and right.
Until someone helps me with this, I have this currently:

crispy.png


Just getting ready for what's possible; 'cause you already know its possible.

Little OFF TOPIC:
Silicon Studios botched FF9 just how HiJinx Studios botched Silent Hill HD Collection.
(SIlcinon preopbaly used a beta version like they did too!)
Leaving all these bugs in here.

Back on topic now.
 
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You actually lose detail when you apply such filters on them, it starts to look cartoony instead of pretty. The reason the backgrounds seem so pixelated in the PC version of the game is because you're running the game at a high resolution, the backgrounds stay the same quality but the models become super crisp. There's an easy fix, lower the resolution to 640x480.
Another 'cheap' and easy fix is to apply a greyscale uniform overlay noise layer at a minimum opacity level.   OR you can add a noise filter in photoshop/gimp and then fade the noise amt by 50%... AND you can also use less 'noise reduction' in Waifu.  The noise reduction actually decimates some colors in order to keep 'anime-style' blending in-tact.  This works well for characters and npcs, but not really for field images.
 
And instead of saying: "get to work" say: "hopefully someone can fix". None of us gets forced. Not me, you, Fraggoso, Tirlititi, Mcindus, anyone.
I've already done everything you mentioned except, the scaling down of the battle UI's.
Oh have you already done all this except the battle scaling, I sent this game as a gift to someone on steam and before that person plays it I want to fix the issues the port suffers from. I've looked around forums for several hours and the only thing I managed to install was the sound dll file which improved the sound a bit.

If it's not too much trouble could you maybe upload a folder of files that you can drag into the game folder which removes the card/chat icons and disables the cheats? (I wouldn't want my friend to accidentally enable some cheat that breaks the game) xD

I tried to install all those programs, I managed to install hades workshop but no cheat removal option or icon removal option in that program. I also tried to install memoria but for some reason it didn't work. If you could help out dclem it would be really kind of you. It's very impressive that you've managed to improve upon the game with these mods you've made. :)

Also have they still not patched missing sounds in battle? Is there a fix for that too?
 
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Mcindus what's the problem in FFVIII that character models are unable to blink once you apply custom character textures? It seems the same way in FFIX. In FFx i didn't had such problems.
I may be releasing an update today that lowers the texture for the field texture so it behave normally.
The ref needs to wait sadly (blinking eyes and things as garnet ribbon).
 
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I'll need some more people to know if I should remove the card icon showing with NPCs. Anything I do goes with the sound mod. (It's a multi-mod -not including HD backgrounds), which fixes everything (I try too) that everyone points out as a bug.
So everything requested goes in queue with the sound mod. Same goes for disabled cheats.
The most recent version of Hades Workshop can disable cheats.

Patching missing sounds:
If by "they" you mean Silicon Studios. Don't hold your breath. They aren't doing anything.
Yes it's already fixed. There's a link to it in thread on steam forums: Hades Workshop thread, I believe. It was a while back, though.
Nevertheless, it is included with the sound mod.

If that one person is truly scaling down the UI's, it would have to be compatible with Hades Workshop, or it won't all work out.
 
The problem is that shrinking the ui is code based and HW doesn't modify the files to that regard.
Hopefully albeoris keeps his word and make memoria compatible with HW any time soon.

The card and exclamation sprite doesn't bother me at all. :)

Edit:
Here's a temporary fix for the overworld stuff.
Again, I couldn't test that much but at least it worked for me for the parts I saw.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9iOUmoUbwc4ZVc1Y1N6QmtqQ0k

And here's the one package for everything texture related.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9iOUmoUbwc4N181dTRDckVRZlU

@Dclem The Polka is still going on in that one. ;P
 
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I'll need some more people to know if I should remove the card icon showing with NPCs. Anything I do goes with the sound mod. (It's a multi-mod -not including HD backgrounds), which fixes everything (I try too) that everyone points out as a bug.
What exactly does your mod do?
All I need is a mod that improves the audio, the dll file can do that, and some way to get rid of the cheats and the icons above NPCS. If the latest hades workshop can get rid of the cheats in the menus/F1 F2 F3 I would love to know how that works because I found no such option when I opened up Hades workshop.

The battle UI would also be nice if it could be fixed but it's probably possible to play the game with the ugly UI:
•Sound fix
•Remove icons
•Remove cheats

How exactly do you get rid of the cheats and the icons?
 
Open HW, load the launcher.exe and select your language.
Then navigate to CIL Code and below Macro. "Disable Cheats" -> Apply Macro -> Save Steam Mod.

Navigate to your FFXI Folder, you should have a new subfolder in there called "HadesWorkshopMod". Copy all folder into your main FFIX install folder and you're good to go.
 
Thank you, sound and cheats fixed. Now it's only the battle UI and ugly chat icons that need to be fixed and the game is as good as the original.
 
Analoge Movement needs to be fixed as well and some bugs needs some community love, too.
 
For the icons:
https://www.ff7catalog.com/posts/174492/

It's in the CIL Code panel. You need to search for the class "EIcon" in the left-most list, and then "PollCollisionIcon" in the 2nd list. Then remove the eight lines of code described in the above post.
It's a bit tricky to change the engine like this, but since Albeoris did a great job for that, I don't plan to make it more convenient.
 
ldc.i4.0
stloc.0
call 0x6000C49   // EventHUD::get_CurrentHUD
ldc.i4.3
bne.un IL_000F
ldloc.0
ret
call 0xA000141   // !0 PersistenSingleton`1<class EventEngine>::get_Instance()
stloc.1
ldc.i4.0
stloc.2
ldc.i4.0
stloc.3
ldloc.1
ldfld 0x4001B1A   // EventEngine::gMode
ldc.i4.1
bne.un IL_00B3
ldloc.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000BD5   // Obj::get_sid
ldc.i4.3
ldarg.0
ldfld 0x4001BFF   // Obj::ebData
callvirt 0x6000AFA   // EventEngine::GetIP
ldloc.1
ldfld 0x4001B05   // EventEngine::nil
beq IL_004E
ldc.i4.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000BD1   // Obj::get_level
clt
br.s IL_004F
ldc.i4.0
stloc.2
ldloc.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000BD5   // Obj::get_sid
ldc.i4.8
ldarg.0
ldfld 0x4001BFF   // Obj::ebData
callvirt 0x6000AFA   // EventEngine::GetIP
ldloc.1
ldfld 0x4001B05   // EventEngine::nil
beq IL_0079
ldc.i4.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000BD1   // Obj::get_level
clt
br.s IL_007A
ldc.i4.0
stloc.3
ldloc.2
brfalse IL_0094
ldloc.3
brfalse IL_0094
ldc.i4.2
call 0x6000B43   // EIcon::PollFIcon
ldc.i4.1
stloc.0
br IL_00AE
ldloc.2
brfalse IL_00AE
ldloc.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000AC2   // EventEngine::IsActuallyTalkable
brfalse IL_00AE
ldc.i4.1
call 0x6000B43   // EIcon::PollFIcon
ldc.i4.1
stloc.0
br IL_010B
ldloc.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000BD5   // Obj::get_sid
ldc.i4.2
ldarg.0
ldfld 0x4001BFF   // Obj::ebData
callvirt 0x6000AFA   // EventEngine::GetIP
ldloc.1
ldfld 0x4001B05   // EventEngine::nil
beq IL_00DC
ldc.i4.1
ldarg.0
callvirt 0x6000BD1   // Obj::get_level
clt
br.s IL_00DD
ldc.i4.0
stloc.2
ldloc.2
brfalse IL_010B
call 0x6000B8D   // EMinigame::CheckBeachMinigame
brfalse IL_0103
call 0x6000BC6   // EventCollision::IsWorldTrigger
brtrue IL_0103
ldc.i4.4
call 0x6000B43   // EIcon::PollFIcon
br IL_0109
ldc.i4.1
call 0x6000B43   // EIcon::PollFIcon
ldc.i4.1
stloc.0
ldloc.0
ret
That's the list, an these are the lines I need to remove.
ldc.i4.2 // Replace this 2 by a 1
call 0x600091F   // EIcon::PollFIcon
ldc.i4.1
stloc.0

ldc.i4.1
call 0x600091F   // EIcon::PollFIcon
ldc.i4.1
stloc.0
I'm looking for this value and I can't seem to find it.
0x600091F

Maybe I'm missing something?
 
Hum... it's 0x6000B43 instead of 0x600091F.
Maybe I wrote that post before Silicon's last update.
 
Silicon issued another update?
I wouldn't know I don't use steam, i don't want them breaking the game again.

Hmm, didn't know you could remove that sprite in the CIL code.
I actually don't mind the card sprite being there, it lets me know which NPC wants to play a card game or not.

Here's a temporary fix for the overworld stuff.
Again, I couldn't test that much but at least it worked for me for the parts I saw.
And here's the one package for everything texture related.
@Dclem The Polka is still going on in that one. ;P
That's okay, I'll wait for the full fix. :)

I've been browsing through all the models. Making sure the engine can be compatible with my higher poly models if a model importer comes.
Saw a few high poly models (enemy's and even main characters) good news for me!
Hopefully if it does come, it'll have some bone support so that new models imported matches with the bone structure of the original.

This is the last part (mostly) till the sound mod is finished.
 
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Silicon issued another update?
I wouldn't know I don't use steam, i don't want them breaking the game again.
:o

Confused. Was FF9PC released on another online shop as well?
 
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