[HD Remake] WIP Sector 5 slums

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mayo Master
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About Makou reactor, maybe you could ask on the dedicated thread on the Tools section. You're probably right, but it would take someone to dig into the stuff to explore how easily the walkmeshes could be revised.
As for blender, I picked it up 2 years and a half ago - if you've browsed this thread you probably saw some progression on the way. I was lucky that I tried to get started after the 2.5 version; the interface looked a lot less user-friendly before that point. That being said, the type of work I'm into does not involve much camera control - on the contrary we want it to be rigged (SpooX's Shinratool script providing all the data in most cases). I admit that getting familiar with shortcut keys was the first necessary step, but once you know these keys then I do find Blender rather easy to use.
Oh, and by the way, bonus gift as I needed to generate a texture for ealin_2 ;)
7XvLbWD.png
 
Oh man the nostalgia, I immediately pictured Aerith " don't step on the flowers!!!!"

Those flowers are so detailed O.O

It's really surprising to be honest that square doesn't just do this with their PC ports of classic FF games,
simply recreate the scenes, animations, character models, textures, UI and fans would actually be satisfied with the quality of the ports  :roll:

It's really amazing the quality of content the modding community creates, it's just unfortunate that square leaves us feeling it is necessary to spend our own private time patching a game that we paid for

Still wonderful work as always really am loving the detail especially when compared to the original :DD

perhaps I will try to learn blender again then start overhauling the character models in game with more anatomically realistic ones
so we could have character models that fit in with excellent quality environments  ;D
 
perhaps I will try to learn blender again then start overhauling the character models in game with more anatomically realistic ones
so we could have character models that fit in with excellent quality environments  ;D
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That won't be enough. I'm already on the limits of the games possibilities (there is only room for textures). The main problem is the skeleton and the animation files with there Z-position. If we could edit them a bit better and could use wight painted models with a unified skeleton, then things would look a lot better. But we need also tools for this. I guess mesh deformation is possible with the current engine, because it seems to be used in Safer Sephiroth special attack, but someone has to enable it for the models and expand kimera to display such models.
 
Oh man the nostalgia, I immediately pictured Aerith " don't step on the flowers!!!!"

Those flowers are so detailed O.O

It's really surprising to be honest that square doesn't just do this with their PC ports of classic FF games,
simply recreate the scenes, animations, character models, textures, UI and fans would actually be satisfied with the quality of the ports  :roll:

It's really amazing the quality of content the modding community creates, it's just unfortunate that square leaves us feeling it is necessary to spend our own private time patching a game that we paid for

Still wonderful work as always really am loving the detail especially when compared to the original :DD

perhaps I will try to learn blender again then start overhauling the character models in game with more anatomically realistic ones
so we could have character models that fit in with excellent quality environments  ;D
Click to expand...
Actually, I find that remaking FFVII from Square Enix standpoint would not be straightforward at all. If they wanted to do a HD port, they would pretty much need to recreate all the assets (a/ apparently they've lost a lot of the assets of the original game  b/ said assets are for the most part completely archaic now), and get it to work with a new engine... and at that point, they might as well go for a full-fledged remake. Not to mention that a bunch of elements of the game (storywise or gameplay) were widely acceptable when the game was released, but the current customer-base wouldn't be able to stand it. I also believe that FFVII is unfortunately plagued by the syndrome of the unpleasable fanbase, in that respect I agree with Square's decision to dedicate resources to entirely to new games.
What would be nice, however, would be a more supportive attitude towards the modding community, because whatever we do, we'll always be at the mercy of a Cease & Desist.
That won't be enough. I'm already on the limits of the games possibilities (there is only room for textures). The main problem is the skeleton and the animation files with there Z-position. If we could edit them a bit better and could use wight painted models with a unified skeleton, then things would look a lot better. But we need also tools for this. I guess mesh deformation is possible with the current engine, because it seems to be used in Safer Sephiroth special attack, but someone has to enable it for the models and expand kimera to display such models.
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Indeed. And then there are severe limitations when it comes to shading (we can only do so much with only diffuse shaders)...

Oh, and by the way, it is DONE :)

eSAxdim.png
 
You've really captured the essence of the original which hit me right in the feels, just like when I played the psx game when I was 8. Do you think you'll release the set by the new year?
 
Even though everything is 99% done when it comes to modelling and texturing, I'm afraid I won't have it ready before the new year. Here is what still needs to be done:
- Make a few textures. There are a couple missing in mds5_m, mds5_w, 5min_1, 5min_2.
- For each scene, the final renders (with very high amount of samples) plus the re-renders each corresponding layers. Even though rendering time is much less than modelling time, it's still non-negligible.
- There is still a lot of layering, cutting out layers and testing them in-game. Sometimes the way the original layers are cut is not actually optimal. So, there's a loop render-assemble layers-test in game-back to re-render which needs to be done. Of course, I can quicken the process by making test renders with few samples, and only go for the final renders when I know exactly what to do.
However, I'm aiming to have that done by early January, and finishing these scenes is my priority (meaning: I'm not starting anything else) - except for enjoying Xmas holidays, that is ;)
 
I've been messing with 3D fields in QGears, here is what I could hack together in an hour using one of Mayo's scenes:

export.png


export2.png


wire.png
 
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Thanks for sharing. It looks like what you got are the shaders from the Blender Internal engine, whereas the scene was made for Cycles (I have an older version of the same scene with Blender Internal shaders, but it does look very good in comparison). By the way, it is possible to do texture baking in Cycles, so maybe you'd like to check that out. Unless you'd like me to upload that older version to the repo?
 
54 fps... not too shabby for just dumping the scene with no optimization.  :mrgreen: Which blender plugin did you use to export the scene, i've found a few but all seem buggy. But I also have no idea how to use blender-soo many buttons
 
Thanks for sharing. It looks like what you got are the shaders from the Blender Internal engine, whereas the scene was made for Cycles (I have an older version of the same scene with Blender Internal shaders, but it does look very good in comparison). By the way, it is possible to do texture baking in Cycles, so maybe you'd like to check that out. Unless you'd like me to upload that older version to the repo?
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Ah so thats what its doing, if you have a blender internal version that'd be cool (to see how it looks :)). I don't have access to the repo though, I was just given this one file directly.

@Knife, I dunno what I'm using, I just used whatever the first google result was.

Edit: Oh btw about the 54fps, that was just a dip, it hits 120fps easily, and in a few years you'd prob be able to get 250fps easily too. If the project ever went down the real time 3d route then optimization probably wouldn't matter due to the hardware speed when its all finished being so much faster.

I was thinking that it would actually be technically possible to get FF7 itself to render 3d fields with hook that replaces the rendering functions.
 
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Could I get access to a blender scene or two? I'm messing around with/testing the ogre3D side of qgears-there are some pretty interesting guides over at their wiki o.O
 
I was thinking that it would actually be technically possible to get FF7 itself to render 3d fields with hook that replaces the rendering functions.
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Theoretically we could use 3d backgrounds as a character model. Problems are only to place them correctly on the field and the texture management of the game. It would easily blow up the size of the char.lgp.
 
I was thinking more external files, for example Aali's driver has that "direct" mode, well it could say if the file im loading is "reactor.field" (or whatever) then disable the 2d field rendering and load all of the meshes and things from some where else and render those itself. It would require hooking a lot more stuff in the game though.
 
Even if it could be done what would be the point? The renders that we do take days to complete and look vastly better then anything that could be done realtime? Its not like we could use the scenes to create fully rotatable 3d.
 
They would probably look better - in qgears at least with updated models too and real time shadows. And more future proof, one day even the best we can do now will look low res (say when 4k is the norm) at least polygons tend to scale better.
 
I don't see the harm in experimentation.  :mrgreen: Real shadows from an actual light source would be really awesome. Having a higher range of motion running around the field would also add a touch of newness. Animations for standing still and a smooth transition from running to standing still or running to walking would also be a nice touch.
 
I was not suggesting not trying it out in qgears, I just dont think using aalis direct mode and the ff7 engine itself would be of much benefit.
 
Oh I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about qgears. Qgears is by far, a better time investment, it's kind of crazy to think what it is capable of. It just really needs the rest of those damn function reversed first
 
Ah so thats what its doing, if you have a blender internal version that'd be cool (to see how it looks :)). I don't have access to the repo though, I was just given this one file directly.
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I can try to send you the older version with Blender internal shaders.
By the way, I have a question: do you know how the lighting and shading works? Mostly, I would like to know if there are ways to do better than what Blender internal engine can do - physical lighting (i.e. with light bouncing on objects to provide indirect light sources) and the kinds of shaders which can be used are important.

By the way, I'm into the layering process of ealin_2, and it's a pain in the butt. The way the layers are pre-cut is very annoying: the doors are glitchy, I even had to redesign them. For that matter, the original field has glitchy doors, if you pay attention (namely when the doors are open). I think I may have a workaround, but it's not straightforward (meaning, I have to deviate from how the scenes are originally pre cut for it to look decent).
 
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