[FF9PC] Field Background replacement (patch?)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Meru
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
You need to select a folder where FF9-launcher is located. After it is done you should be able to see the results in log window. if there is anything but two OKs - something went wrong.

Actually now that I reviewed the code, I found what could be a culprit. I think it could be that if patch was unsuccessful it still removes the original file. I just assumed that patch will never fail. I will improve that at some point. So yeah check if there were two OK's. And make sure you patch the unmodified version of FF9.

As for languages - I have no idea. I used only English so far. You can always swap the layers temporarily though...
Edit2: actually maybe you can't since Japanese is much bigger in size and all that... haven't thought of that.
 
Last edited:
Like I said, I tried it on vanilla instead of my modded files.
It starts fine after re downloading but as soon as I apply your patch and chose my ffix install directory I get the black screen.
It shows 1. Using latest patch ok and 2 ok.
Still black screen. :/

Do you know of anyone who tested this? I'm running win 10 which could be the culprit on it.

Quick note: how to you intend to patch a background which is broken? Do you intend to let the players download the whole file again or do you plan on allowing patching later on? Just curious over here. :)
 
Does it say exactly "1. Using latest patch ok"? If so then ff9 definitely wasn't vanilla but the message is okay too.

black screen can only happen if:
- some file is missing (check if p0data11 is there)
- some texture or movie is broken (not gonna happen with my patch, i don't touch movies and textures whatever all ok or none)
- if you launch the game through FF.exe and not through launcher.

What do you mean background which is broken? I will not make a new version for the sake of one background. It will have to wait for more significant update. I did not expect players to actually play with that patch. It was to check things out. It is incomplete, what do you expect from version 0.002-alpha
 
Last edited:
I'll have a look later on but I didn't mess with the movies and I start from steam directly so it goes trough the launcher. Thanks though. :)

I just mean if you need to fix anything that maybe slipped trough or couldn't be testded ,(like the chocobo part which is an optional quest which is sadly missable) would that mean that everybody needs to download the whole thing again?
 
Last edited:
Assuming I'll make a complete patch and THEN some issue will be found, I will of course make a new complete patch but will provide a small update for existing users too. If that's what you are asking. But if you are talking about work in progress patch, I will not be making any small updates for it unless issue will be so bad that it will be not possible to complete the game.

Edit: anyway At this point I dunno what could be the issue for you. If both messages were OK it should work. If you suspect win10, try to replace Assembly-CSharp thingy with original one. If you will see broken backgrounds but not a black screen, the issue is indeed in that... But I don't think that will help."Using latest patch ok" message means one of 2 things. You applied my patch 2 times in a row to the same FF9 folder - that would probably break things, or that means that you applied HW patch before my patch. Which shouldn't actually be an issue.
 
Last edited:
Fraggoso
Okay I have an idea what could have happened.

You applied my patch to non-vanilla ff9 already patched by HW

it tried to patch one file, but it was already patched by HW so it said "Using latest patch ok", but then removed the file cause my patch is stupid (I am working on a fix)
it then patched 2nd file and said it is OK.
 
I just tested it as well and I can confirm it.
Without applying any patches to ffix (I thought at least the necessary things from the newest hw has to be copied over) and using your mod it works without any problems.

Thanks. :)
 
Here is an updated patch. It should be a little bit more sane...
Now it will not delete what it shouldn't. It also should support ffix-x86. There is probably still a room for improvement, also I barely tested it.

I have not added any new backgrounds. (but I completed Evil Forest :P)

Edit: FFIX was updated on steam since the patch was made so I removed the link because it will probably not work. I'll make an update at some point.
 
Last edited:
Uh, oh. So I've finished Cargo Ship... It was a hardest scene so far. HW bugs, PC port bugs (unlless they are HW export bugs too), and overall difficulty...
And in the end it still looks kinda ugly cause of these dirty edges, but generally plans haven't changed, most of the edges will have to wait.
Next one is Lindblum... I guess. Ouch, I hope there aren't as many animations as It looks.
 
Last edited:
Cargo shipped really sucked so far the most yes.
It gets better but Lind Blum also have some nasty animations.
 
Would anyone be interested in recreating entire scenes in 3D and re-rendering them for background use? I can probably manage to pull off some convincing ones that use mostly simple geometry. Hard-surface stuff, not so much the organic stuff.
 
Would anyone be interested in recreating entire scenes in 3D and re-rendering them for background use? I can probably manage to pull off some convincing ones that use mostly simple geometry. Hard-surface stuff, not so much the organic stuff.
Click to expand...
I am skeptical about that.
- too big of a project to complete in reasonable timeframe given very limited resources. I, for example, don't have that big of an attention span.
- too hard to make it look close enough to the original. If I'll render re-created scene at PSX resolution, I would expect it to look virtually identical. Anything less won't cut it.
- this game is not that popular overall. People are struggling with projects of that sort even with much more popular games.
 
So I've finished the first Disc. Also I made a small webpage. If you are curious about progress, from now on you can check it there.
 
I noticed color loss(washed out colors) in the two screenshots you provided when compared to the originals. The problem is visible in both waifu and yours. Does this happen with all of the backgrounds you're working with?
 
Last edited:
I noticed color loss(washed out colors) in the two screenshots you provided when compared to the originals. The problem is visible in both waifu and yours. Does this happen with all of the backgrounds you're working with?
Click to expand...
Are you talking about that locker-like thing at the back? If so then no, it is specific to that background. The process of making these textures is not fully automated and I may do manual changes to some parts of the backgrounds. I agree that this place may have to be tweaked a bit, but I try avoid doing so for the 1st pass (unless i see something really ugly or for test).
If you are talking about stone wall however, the way it looks like is what I believe it should look like. Most of the color loss in this case is due to it having less color noise.

There are other differences compared to the PC textures that are not visible on provided images. Many of my textures have a bit different levels (a bit brighter) It is a subject for a separate debate which is more correct, PSX or PC levels as there are reasons to think that either or both are incorrect. But for now I am going with psx ones. It shouldn't be very hard to switch to PC-like levels if I'll decide so in the future.
 
Last edited:
Here is a different version. Do you like this one more? I'm not sure I do. What works for one (part of the) background, not necessarily works for another. At this moment I cant say what the final version of this one would be. Maybe this, maybe that or (most likely) a combination of two.

Edit: woops, wrong link. Fixd.
 
Last edited:
Although the visual impact might seem subtle on Guardhouse's first picture, it can get much worse on other backgrounds with more color intensity and micro details if that problem persists. "Main Street" is a better example where more prominent colors are too washed out or fading out, and important details are lost because of that.

I agree it's important to apply chroma denoising on FF9 (PSX) backgrounds and it's normal for color properties to change with resizing and filtering, especially on sources like this. But I believe that washed/fading out color problem in fine details can be avoided, giving your backgrounds better visual quality and fidelity. Your last picture doesn't have that problem so I think it'll be easier for you to identify what's causing it.
 
Although the visual impact might seem subtle on Guardhouse's first picture, it can get much worse on other backgrounds with more color intensity and micro details if that problem persists. "Main Street" is a better example where more prominent colors are too washed out or fading out, and important details are lost because of that.

I agree it's important to apply chroma denoising on FF9 (PSX) backgrounds and it's normal for color properties to change with resizing and filtering, especially on sources like this. But I believe that washed/fading out color problem in fine details can be avoided, giving your backgrounds better visual quality and fidelity. Your last picture doesn't have that problem so I think it'll be easier for you to identify what's causing it.
Click to expand...
It is pretty hard to guess what are you talking about.
Flags on windows (or whatever that is)  or flowers (if they are flowers), that sort of thing?
If so, this is known. From computer's perspective there is no difference between details and noise so just like any kind of image processing, this is a trade-off between removing what I consider bad and keeping what I consider to be good. It is practically impossible to tune processing in such a way that will fit all parts of every image.
Posted images may be a bit outdated, but they are made in a way that produces consistently-pleasant results for me across all images. Anything else requires manual tweaks (like limiting processing for certain parts ff the image) which I'm not doing much. For now this is a very low-priority stuff for me because I quite like the results as is. Huge amount of work on edges and animations concerns me much more.

But I believe that washed/fading out color problem in fine details can be avoided,
Click to expand...
To put it simply, no it can not be avoided. An attempt to do so also exposes stuff that I do not want to see. On the main street image, except flowers and flags I do not want to see anything else on other parts of the image (not counting badly made sky that, I believe, was fixed since.)

Edit: you said that last picture of Guardhouse does not have a problem. Well, for me it does. The most obvious things like "lockers" look better indeed, but I don't like most of the other things. And this will affect some of the other images much more strongly. That said, most of the stuff that you call a "problem" is most likely made on purpose and/or known but not sure when or if it will be changed.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top