Higher Resolution in FF8

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Well, I took the next best option; I dispatched two of my minions to visit the lecture for me and report back on anything I need to know :grin:

OTOH, I think I should probably go to the one this afternoon ... going to *no* lectures during a day would be fairly bad :smile:
 
On 2001-10-29 10:06, ficedula wrote:
Video backgrounds? I'd *like* to, but I haven't got that far yet. It's certainly possible, of course.

Layering system ... you've not *quite* understood how it works. In effect, all 3d models have 2 depth values; firstly, their 3d depth (used to calculate occlusion with other 3d models); secondly, their layer depth (used to calculate occlusion with 2d backgrounds). So the Wutai shop gets rendered like this:


  • Render 2d layer 0 (background)
  • Render 3d models on layer 0, with proper depth for each other
  • Render 2d layer 1 on top of whatever's already on the screen, possibly covering some parts up
  • Render 3d models on layer 1, with proper depth for each other
  • Render 2d layer 2 on top of whatever's already on the screen, possibly covering some parts up

Scanlines ... well, I know what they ARE. I'm not sure how good it'd be, to be honest - it's not exactly that easy to implement in OpenGL and to be honest, I doubt it'd improve results more than the OpenGL texture filtering already would. Check out the screenshots of the Field unit from the Remake site; OpenGL's already filtering the backgrounds quite a bit by itself.
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Ah, I see. Small misinterpretation in how it was done. I was thinking it was done it one pass, but rather a multipass situation, that makes sense.

The video backgrounds shouldn't be too hard to implement. Use an open source codec(Divx probably) or any other coded that is known, and instead of writing it to an overlay for viewing, write it to a texture.

Scanlines can be implemented without too much effort. Since the backgrounds are already being stretched 2x(for 640x480), it would be easy to generate a 640x480 texture and overlay that over the entire scene. The texture would alternate each line with solid black, and a line of transparency. You could also change the alpha value of the black lines to 75% brightness, 50% and so on. Well, at least I think that would work :smile: Haven't tried it out.

For an example of scanlines in an OpenGL mode you can look at Pete's OpenGL renderer for PlayStation emulators. It is an option in there. I'm not sure if he uses the method I mentioned though.
 
OK, on further reflection I guess scanlines wouldn't be too hard. I personally don't think they'd improve quality at all, but ... I suppose it couldn't hurt to put them in.

Video codec: Well, if I use the VCM (Windows Video Compression Manager) I get access to all AVI codecs. And yes, you can upload the frames as textures. I'm just saying *I* have never done this!

My time is semi-short at the moment ... I should catch up soon. OTOH, I'm downloading anime quicker than I can watch it, so I'm building up a massive backlog of stuff to watch. Which is good, of course, but drains away yet more time :wink: I'm trying to multitask by only watching anime while cooking, eating, or similar :wink:
 
On 2001-10-30 19:46, ficedula wrote:
OK, on further reflection I guess scanlines wouldn't be too hard. I personally don't think they'd improve quality at all, but ... I suppose it couldn't hurt to put them in.
Click to expand...

Yeah, scanlines aren't all that hard. Just make sure that if you try the method I mentioned, you use GL_NEAREST for the filtering on the overlay.

And believe it or not, scanlines REALLY help FF7. I took a screengrab once and scanlined it(painstakingly, I couldn't be arsed to write a program to do it). It looked alot better(IMO).
 
My goodness ... do we have a fellow OpenGL programmer in here? You're quite right about how to do the overlay. Possibly I'll try that this afternoon.

Jari: Heh. My CD burner can intheory write at 8x, but not on my dodgy CD's ... bought a big stack of 100 shrink wrapped CDR's which only write at 2x. 'Course, what do you expect, they look sooo dodgy anyway ... but I really needed that many ^_^

Luckily our house server (Hal2k) has a nice 60GB drive solely for the purpose of storing downloads. That'll give me a *bit* more time...:grin:
 
FF8 uses Bink in RAD video tools (www.radgametools.com), meaning you'd get the resource usage of FF8 (and I personally didn't think compression in FF8 was all that bad, you get what you pay for (in resource usage in this  context)). The tools themselves are free, you have to pay for the SDK but that shouldn't really be a problem, a little TDUMP and a little ff8.exe disassembly and you're set. Except that it legally might be a problem releasing something using Bink without paying for it, perhaps they'd take action...
 
Heheh. Quite. Personally I don't really see any other option than VCM, that way we get to play any AVI files we want, so we can reuse the original FF7 movies (crap though their quality was - by the time they've been through OpenGL they might look better...) and use (say) DivX's for our own movies. Or any other AVI codec you might feel is useful, for that matter.
 
On 2001-10-31 03:05, ficedula wrote:
My goodness ... do we have a fellow OpenGL programmer in here? You're quite right about how to do the overlay. Possibly I'll try that this afternoon.
Click to expand...

I can do a little bit :smile: I haven't done anything with OpenGL in a while, I've been too busy with work and other stuff. Right now I'm starting to look into merging the SMPEG library into the MAME source so that Dragon's Lair and other laserdisc games can be supported. Whether or not I actually finish that project depends on how hard it is to get it to fit into MAME's structures.
 
Well, I implemented a (very) basic scanline rendering using the method you suggested ... screenshot on the Remake site. I don't like it, but maybe it'd look nice with tweaking...

Oh; RE: Quicktime, there are Quicktime interfaces/components for Delphi, so I could playback Quicktime files in Delphi, or so it seems. Still lean towards VCM (=AVI's) myself, but it's *possible*.
[edited] 68 2001-10-31 16:43
 
Hmm...could you try 3 different things and see how they turn out?

#1 Same settings, but with 2d filtering disabled.

#2 2d filtering disabled, scanlines at 50% intensity.

#3 2d filtering on, scanlines at 50% intensity.

I think one reason the shot doesn't look the greatest may be because of the filtering of 2d elements, which isn't really needed in a scanlined situation. Or possibly just the overall darkness...I know in emulators that scanlines do make it alot darker(different scanline intensity values make it better), but it helps the overall image alot.

It's cool you tried it out though :smile:
 
No kidding.  My jaw hit the floor when I saw the swirl effect screenshot.  

What'd you do, ripimport the swirl code directly from the PSX version, or did you make it from scratch?

BTW, what are the minimum system specs for the remake going to be?
 
I'm guessing that the swirl effect is done by rendering the last frame to a texture, and then rotating and zooming that texture without clearing the framebuffer.
 
Reznor: Exactly correct! I coded that up from scratch but I think it looks *fairly* similar to the FF7 original swirl.

Minimum specs ... ehehe. Whatever runs it properly ... I haven't had a chance to test it on enough computers to be sure. If it's any help, the specs for my computer are on my webpage, and I can run it at a good framerate with power to spare.
 
Thought so :smile: And actually, I think that's how it was done on the PSX also.
 
k, posted three more scanline shots up that (cunningly enough) match the three situations you suggested :wink:

Incidentally, with scanlines on, filtering really isn't needed on the backgrounds (ok, no surprise) - but in the sense that you really can't tell the difference at all. Having it on hardly changes it at all. It's images with sharp edges (like the font) where filtering is *really* noticable, even with scanlines on.

50% scanlines do look a lot better than full ones though; again, I suppose no surprises there.


Another update: I've added scanlines in as an option configurable from the console. So, while you're in game, you can change scanlines to any level of transparency (and turn them off, of course).

Incidentally, scanlines *do* slow the engine down. Nothing to be done about that ... it'd just be a cosmetic setting, if you wanted them on. Didn't take too long to do, I suppose, so I might as well have it in though.
[edited] 68 2001-11-02 01:14
 
Awesome :smile: That's really cool that you tried it. I'll certainly use it once it's released  :cool:
 
Just curious...why are scanlines slowing it down? I would imagine it being implemented using a single quad, perhaps with some ortho settings and matrix push/pops... all in all not more than 10 opengl calls (being generous here). Which is really nothing...

What am I overlooking?
 
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