Remake Inquiry

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As it happens, stuff like towns and so on are separate 3d models to the actual terrain mesh, and in fact we can already view/edit them (they're just normal HRC/P models). Like I say, though, we really need the original world map mesh; even if we modify it, obviously we need something to start from!

That is a ways in the future though, yes. At the moment, it's not a priority ... it's getting the storyline done - and into actual field locations - that needs doing at the moment.
 
Hey i think i saw some picture of wireframe of terrain here on board, some time ago. I think Saint posted it. Ill try to find that topic ...
 
Yeah, I found that thread while browsing last night, but it's probably easier to just look at RPGamer to find them.  In fact, lemme get the link...

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff7/ff7loc.html
I don't think they like direct-linking to the graphics, so just scroll to the "World Map" links down at the bottom.
 
Well, um - that's cool and all, but it doesn't give us the 3d mesh. Just shows some other £*%&$ (probably a Square developer) had access to it.
 
o.o  Uh, I was just posting the link because Mirex mentioned it... I didn't mean to imply anything by it.  I'll just keep quiet until I hear back from Saint... -.-
 
Oh, that was the picture Mirex was talking about; no problem with the post. Just saying that the picture doesn't really change anything...
 
Well, I'm just trying to think of anything I could be helpful with, which is kind of hard since this is a bit new to me.
 
Skillter: I WAS moving it to c++, but it's been a tad-bit too difficult to learn it. I already know a ton of VB, I was just going to c++ for the better 3D support.

Fice: Correct. 3D is the next step. The background wil be the same (if I can help it.) The reason for the 3D is for making the 3D-planes, and positioning the camera & objects. It'll also help with the Kefka Script Editor I plan to add into Alpha 4. Why for the script editor you say? Just a little thought I had... You'll see when I get it up.

mirex: Really? Hmmm... I just named it after the bad-guy of FF6... Who knew?

re: World Map: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the world map simply a height map of some kind? If so, we don't need a mesh... we take the height map and apply it to a mesh of proper size, and we have it.

Oh, the wmap04.jpg is the same as the b&w one, if you desaturate the colors from the bottom image. I have that image, if you want me to post it...

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
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World map: Well, it's not exactly a height map. More specifically, while you *could* generate the terrain from a height map,
a) The height map would need to be fairly detailed. Anyone got a detailed heightmap handy?    and
b) Still doesn't tell us what textures to apply!
 
b) Still doesn't tell us what textures to apply!
Click to expand...

Uh, I've been browsing all the various LGPs with the various different tools and whatnot.  I could probably figure out which World-Map textures went where fairly easily (same with other textures, really), but I'm probably interpeting the post wrong again.  x.x  

On a similar note, I've been browsing the Audio.Dat file with FF7Sound (Some friends of mine are working on a CS Mod for the ShinRa Building, and I'm basically providing them with the raw data and interpetations.  The shot he sent me of 60f was jivetastic.), And I figured I might as well jot down what the sounds were to make finding them again easier...Not sure if it would be of much use, but Here's a HTML'd version of it:

http://members.aol.com/acaiitoarms/ff7snd.html
And yes, I did use the FF7sound.txt file from Fidecula's site, and I hope that he doesn't mind, and is satisfied with the crediting I put on.  If not, let me know and I'll revise/trash it ASAP.
 
SI: Fice wants to know the specific code that tells FF7.exe what textures to use for this section of the map. It's probably some sort of tag or attribute, which is what he wants to find out.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
[email protected]
 
Ahhh...  I get the impression that you can't find that code for *any* of of the Models/Meshes...  Dumb suggestion, but that seems to me that they'd probably be similar routines or tags or whatnot (since the same function is performed), wouldn't figuring out the least complex of the models that has texturing (Which would be Field Sprites, I think.  Or the World Map's models?  I'd think a lot of them would be a simpler than anything else, such as the Weapon Seller's house)
 
Although there's no way to tell for sure until someone pops open the files enough to render them, I think it's unlikely that FF7 is using a plain height map since the meshes you get from them have a lot of polygons, and the tesselation to triangles is nontrivial.  The easiest way to tell would be to watch FF7 PSX -- the Playstation can't do subpixel coordinates or texture filtering, so you can figure out where polygons are by the jittering.

As for the RPGamer picture, it's a hexagonal grid instead of the usual rectangular, and you can see obvious grid artifacts in the mountains in the lower left of the rendered shot.  Those definitely don't show up in the game.  I wouldn't be surprised if the game model is a polygon-reduced version of the picture's model, though.
 
SI: Seph3d has the idea. Even it is a heightmap - where's the heightmap stored??! Except we don't think it is.
Plus, d'you want to try positioning textures for however many tens of thousands of polygons make up the world map...
And no - the world map isn't stored in the same format as the other 3d models - nothing like it. Dammit.
 
It's not a heightmap.
I can confirm that.
[edited] 1 2002-04-06 18:13
 
I think I might have been misunderstood...

SI: Fice wants to know the specific code that tells FF7.exe what textures to use for this section of the map. It's probably some sort of tag or attribute, which is what he wants to find out.
Click to expand...

What I was saying, is shouldn't the tag or attribute used to apply the textures be the same, or at least similar, regardless of what exactly they're being applied to?  Be it one of the simple models applied to the world map (Towns, Junon's Cannon, etc), a field sprite, battle sprite, or the base World Map mesh?   I'll try a HTML'ing analogy....

Whether you're applying an alignment to an Image, an embedded media file, a Paragraph, header, or just about anything in HTML, the basic coding for it is to put ALIGN="{left/center/right}" in the tag, whatever it may be.  Maybe that'll make more sense...

And, uh, if I'm starting to be a nuisance or anything, feel free to tell me to STFU or whatnot.
 
You'd think the file formats would be similar, wouldn't you? They're not. The world map is stored in a *complete* different format to any other 3d data in the game that we know of.
 
On 2002-04-06 13:53, ShinRa Inc wrote:
What I was saying, is shouldn't the tag or attribute used to apply the textures be the same, or at least similar, regardless of what exactly they're being applied to? I'll try a HTML'ing analogy....

Whether you're applying an alignment to an Image, an embedded media file, a Paragraph, header, or just about anything in HTML, the basic coding for it is to put ALIGN="{left/center/right}" in the tag, whatever it may be.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how "in the loop" you are, but from everything I've heard from Fice, Alhexx, Qhimm, Saint, and just about anyone else who's trying to decode FF7 formats, the FF7PC team was NOT the smartest people in the world. They did a lot of stupid stuff with the code, as many of us could testify to...

More than likely, they have those functions, however, my guess is that they have 3-26 functions for the same operation of applying textures to models. That's how screwed up FF7PC is...

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Sephiroth 3D.com
[email protected]
 
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