[Tutorial] How Palmer works - Get New Fields into game

[SpooX]

Part 1, how to get the layers out of the Game

needed tools:

• FF7-PC (for getting the lgp files, the version does not matter).
• Palmer

I'm not going into unpacking the field file, but make sure you have it extracted, giving 'itmin2'

now open Palmer,

left click on the window, select open field file and select the extracted field file.

If all goes well, the scene should be shown on screen.
once again left click on the screen and select 'Export PNG Files'

now you'll end up with several files;

• itmin2_0_00000000.png
• itmin2_0_00000128.png
• itmin2_0_00000129.png
• itmin2_0_00000130.png
• itmin2_0_00000516.png

Like this:

These are the different layers of the field file.

Now what you have to do is to recreate these specific files (with higher resolutions of course )
(that's for the next part)
 

 

[SpooX]

part 2 (how to recreate the layers)
(to be filled later)


Ok, now we have our different layers, what we do is import them in any graphical package that supports layers, I use Photoshop, but anything else should do as well.

Import the layers in the corresponding order (file-name-numbers from low to high).

After all layers are imported, they are aligned by slightly moving them to fit the picture, now it just looks like the background in the game.

To get the correct size we want we have to enlarge the layers 4 times.

depending on the method of enlargement, there might be some artifacts, which are typicly visible at the colored green layers

Now we have the right size of the different layers which need to be rendered.
The rendering of these parts vary from 3d tool to 3d tool, but in principle it should be similar.



As for creating the final renderings, one might be able to use different render passes. Use the property where you can differentiate the objects being rendered, as a layer, or a seperate pass.
This functionality differs between every CC-Tool (Content Creation tool).

As an example here you can see some different passes of a field file I created earlier (long time ago....when the earth was stil flat... :?)

Full render - Material ID's - Object ID's

This gave me in the end, as a quick and dirty not completely cleaned up version:

see note on enlarging the original layers...

Additional information on object seperation in the renderers can be found here:

• Blender - (see IndexOb)
• Maya
• 3ds Max - (See Material ID)

This list is not complete as it differs between the render engines being used...

 

[SpooX]

Part 3, how to get the new layers into the Game

Make sure to have the above images in the correct naming in a single directory.
Make sure there are no underscores in the directory names.

for this tutorial I only changed the original...since I don't have this field rendered...
now open Palmer,
reload the original field file

left click on the window, select 'import PNG files' and select the newly created png files.

If all goes well, the scene should be shown on screen, otherwise play around with the right click menu and turn layers on and off.

note the difference... ;D
If all new files are loaded, once again left click on the screen and select 'Write Modpath Textures'

now you'll end up with several files looking very scrambled;

• itmin2_00_00.png
• itmin2_01_00.png
• itmin2_02_00.png

These are the files which should be placed in the modpath, in this example:
mods/<modpath>field/itmin2/ (Palmer will tell you this also...)

If the above has been completed, fire up FF7 (it's usefull to have a savefile with a save located close to the field) and go to the field.
Don't have the old version installed, so maybe later I'll drop some screens here...
Basically that's all there is to it.


 8)

 

[Mayo Master]

Awesome tutorial SpooX, thanks a bunch.
However, I wanted to get started the other day by using Palmer with the 2012 version that I just bought. However, I'm not able to open any field file, presumably because they need "unpacking". I have no idea how to unpack these field files (though I tried to look around the forum and ended up more confused than anything else), I'd appreciate if you (or someone else) could explain, despite

I'm not going into unpacking the field file, but make sure you have it extracted, giving 'itmin2'

 

[SpooX]

Ok, for completion sake  ;-)

First there are several tools available

• Ali's lgp/unlgp - LGP/UnLGP (command line) Extracts and packs LGP archives via a command line. Forum
• Lucksy's ulgp (command line) - Extracts and packs LGP archives via a command line. Expands on Lgp/unlgp by placing both functions into one tool. Tool can add files to archives without the need to extract first. Forum
• Ficudela's LGPTools  - Extracts and packs LGP archives with a GUI. Replaced by LGP/unLGP.  link

all above tools can be found in the wiki
Note, Ficudela's is listed as obsolete, do not use, but it extracts fine, if I remember correctly it was the compressing that had an bug inside...



Original PC Version
Same as below, only different data path



2012 SE Version

browse to your game folder; <Where-everinstalled>\Square Enix\FINAL FANTASY VII\data\field
copy the flevel.lgp file to a (empty) folder of your liking.
copy one of the above tools, if command-line to the same folder I used Ficudela's which has a nice interface
extract the whole, or by Ficudela's only the selected one (mostly extract all)

now you'll end up with a directory filled with files without an extention, these are the files you need for the above tutorial.



2013 Steam Version
no clue, don't have steam  ;D



Hope this helps...
 

 

[Mayo Master]

Awesome, thanks a lot.

 

[Covarr]

2013 Steam Version
Identical to 2012 SE version.

The only real changes between the two was replacing the DRM with Steam's DRM, and some install directory stuff that only really affects game converter. Modding them should be identical.

 

[sl1982]

SpooX you rock. Saves me the time doing one myself. I dont have any tools or even the game installed anymore so it was going to be a pain.

 

[Mayo Master]

A small note about unpacking the files:
I downloaded Ficedula's LGPTools first, but it didn't work because it was missing Ficedulla.dll.
Then I downloaded Aali's ulgp v.06, but I had a bug (?) with it: the command window was self-closing as soon as it was opening. Does Windows 8 have anything to do with that?
Then I downloaded Aali's ulgp v.07 with GUI, and this one worked fine (super-easy to use), so this one has my recommendation.
Went through part 1 of SpooX's tutorial without problem, testing colne_be3.

 

[Kaldarasha]

Then I downloaded Aali's ulgp v.06, but I had a bug (?) with it: the command window was self-closing as soon as it was opening. Does Windows 8 have anything to do with that?

I have the same problem on Windows 7.

 

[Covarr]

Then I downloaded Aali's ulgp v.06, but I had a bug (?) with it: the command window was self-closing as soon as it was opening. Does Windows 8 have anything to do with that?

It's a command line program meant to be used with command line arguments. Open a command prompt first and run the program from there.

 

[anaho]

It never worked for me because I didnt know you had to import the original file again.
Now it is working beautifully. Thanks a lot.

 

[Aavock]

Thanks for the tutorial SpooX but is there a way to make the 2012 re-release read the recreated layers without converting to the 1998 version ?

 

[sl1982]

There isnt. The steam release uses a different video driver

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 4

 

[SpooX]

...is there a way to make the 2012 re-release read the recreated layers without converting to the 1998 version ?

There isnt. The steam release uses a different video driver

The only way I can think of would be to re-import the files back into the LGP files.

But I've not tested that.
 

 

[Mayo Master]

I would like to add complementary information regarding Part 2 of SpooX's tutorial, about creating the layers with Blender.

My personal recommendation is to group the objects by layers as one would in a classic image processing software. Blender users should be fairly familiar with this. Now, when it comes to rendering, there are 3 main things to set up:

First:
In the Scenes section of the Properties panel (see image below), add as many Render Layers which would correspond to each “layer” that should be brought into Palmer (and which correspond to the ones previously extracted).
For each Render Layer in the Scene section, in the Layer tab, all layers visually involved in the scenes (directly, indirectly, or masking) should be checked in the “Scene” side (left).
For each Render Layer in the Scene section, in the Layer tab, only the layers directly visible in the layer to be imported in Palmer should be checked in the “Layer” side (right), while the others should be checked as Mask Layers.

In the example below, the Scene involves 8 layers, 7 of them to be visibly rendered and one set as mask.

Second:
In the compositor (Node editor, icon on the left, Use Nodes ON), add as many Render Layers as defined in the Scene section (Add>Input>Render layer), and set each node to each render layer, as shown in the image above. Likewise, when everything is rendered, all you need to do is to connect a Render Layer node to the composite, save the image, change the Render Layer connected to the composite, save another image and so forth.

Third:
Set the transparency for the background of the rendered images. In the Cycles render, it is set by 2 things in the Render section of the Properties panel:

In the Output tab, the output should be switched to RGBA to allow an alpha channel. As far as I recall, that's the only thing to set up with the Blender internal rendering engine.
In the Film tab, the “Transparent” box should be checked.

I hope that helps.

 

[anaho]

Or optionally you can do it like Spoox suggested:

1.) Set up your scene normally
2.) Set up the neccessary cutout objects on another layer
3.) Switch to Internal render and assign a new material ( or multiple ) to cutout objects with shadeless option and render preferably twice the res
4.) Cut your objects out in an image editor

Pros:
- No need of complicated layer setup in Blender
- Faster render (?)

 

[Mayo Master]

Or optionally you can do it like Spoox suggested:

1.) Set up your scene normally
2.) Set up the neccessary cutout objects on another layer
3.) Switch to Internal render and assign a new material ( or multiple ) to cutout objects with shadeless option and render preferably twice the res
4.) Cut your objects out in an image editor

Pros:
- No need of complicated layer setup in Blender
- Faster render (?)

In the method I suggested above, you don't need to go through step 3) and 4) of your method. Besides, the layer setup is still pretty simple (may be useful if you need a bit of compositing, also). I find it simpler that way. But eh, to each his own 

 

[EQ2Alyza]

https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/7962/

I sent a PM and email to Omzy a few days ago but have not received a response yet, so I figured I would ask here.

Does anyone know how to do Step 7 of the Script Instructions for the link above? I have tried using the Palmer Frontend and the Batch Import option within Palmer v0.7b, but it gives me a message stating, ""LZS decompression would overflow, not doing that." I'm able to use "Import PNG Files" for every single PNG that was modified, but that would take a boatload of time and not indicative of what his instructions say.

 

[Mayo Master]

Just some blind and wild guessing from my end (I don't even have the tools to test, and I'm not knowledgeable  :-[ ): do you get the same "overflow" message even if you try to make a batch import of a small number of fields?