File Format Analysis Board

[s-cape]

Hi !

Im the creator of the "Final Fantasy VII Navigator", you can consult it here:

http://s-cape.biz/games/diapo/01/diapo-ch01.htm
(sorry for window resize, its an old fashion page)

As recent affirmation of SquareEnix confirm, there will be no release of the most waited remake of all time before maybe the ps4 -_-'

And so here i am to try to release a better version of my web comics of ff7 (in my navigator its the pdf version, a kind of screenshot based book)
But i want now to create a real comic, with good angle shooting etc.

Thats how i found this forum, following the path of biturn, wich dont extract models from my pc version correctly.

Most frustrating is that in the preview window, they look just perfect, with bones and textures, but when I convert them to 3ds, there is missing parts and wrong color on model.

So, two options:

Could you help me to find or extract confortable 3d models of ff7 ?

or

Is there a way to upgrade biturn ??

I think its not too difficult to upgrade a bit biturn to make a great shooting character tool with it, as he is really close to the original material. Here are the list of basic changes needed, im SURE its not so difficult.

-hide/unhide bones
-hide the cube background
-real zoom (not displacing camera, for choose the focus)
-full screen option for the viewer
-and the dream: render the image in x/x size in pixel (no need for antialiasing, as I want respect the original material most as possible)

Then, biturn turn into the ultimate character shooting tool ^^

I have everything to do this comics (battle field viewer, pro picture resizer, etc...) exept the way to shoot character. Would you help me ? If yes, I promise, I made an english version of the comics ^^

[mirex]

Hi s-cape.

3DS file format is limited. It does not contain vertex colors so that's the reason why converted models look wrong. I suggest you to use formats ASE (for 3DS Max) or LWO (for Lightwave) which work very well with FF7 models.

Here you can see some screenshots and ideas how to do it:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=2819

There are few 3D renderers whre you can render models nicely: 3DS Max, Lightwave (has trial version), Blender (free).

- bones can't be hidden in Biturn, if you don't want to see them you have to render the model in some renderer.
- cube background can be removed easily through Options button. You can also change the background color in Options.
- real zoom - thats a fancy feature which is not supported, you have to use renderer.
- full screen option for the viewer - available through options, you can separate view window into separate window and you can resize it to fullscreen. Though it is not a full fullscreen, there will be a window decoration.
- about the rendering pixel size without antialiasing - you can either turn antialiasing off in your graphic card settings, or use a renderer

cheers !
mirex

[s-cape]

Hi,

Ive done a lot of effort to do it, installing 3dmax5 on a virtual pc, using your ase importer (first you link in the post you give me), even specially working on US version to see if it was because my EU version... I just get black models. Whole black, no texture, no color, bugged sometimes.

Sometime some color appear, but they are all massively black and a huge list of error appear when i try to render. (vertex uvw coord error)

Also, everything is converted to editable mesh when i import, bones included. I dont know were I have made a bad setting, and i tryed loooooot of options.

Im on biturn 0.88, I dont know if inside biturn there are special option who affect the ASE export ?

It seem the same problem than NEO_CORTEX had.

In fact, im about to give up. We are in 2010 and there still no way to extract models of one of the greatest games ever made in 3dmax, just for taking picture.

Any miracle ?

[mirex]

s-cape : I suggest that you use older versions of Biturn , 0.85 or 0.86. I got some responses that newset version 0.88 has some problems with Final Fantasy 7.

Also note that as far as I know, 3DS Max does not display vertex colors in editor, it shows them only in redering window. It would be better to ask some graphician who is familiar wiht 3DS max to set up model correctly in Max. I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems with the conversions. You could also try 3Ds Max 6 with ase importer for version 6, or Lightwave editor. I recently tried Lightwave with ff7 models and it works well.

So good luck.

[s-cape]

Thanks for your help. I dont want underestimate your huge work when I speak so desperately, sorry if I did.

In fact, Im a good 3dmax graphist, but it seem that Its the day to try Lightwave ...well, I try biturn 85 first.

If I found any solution, I'll post it here.

-S