Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

I don't recall seeing a clear picture of Terra's rend. One picture was with her cast in a shadow while the other was simply a PSX rend with her hair colored green. If there is a decent pic of her rend, I have not seen it.

Alright, I know that N already posted up a render, but as some of you might know, I started texturing this model with a 1024x1024 sized template. Once I finished it, we found out that it has to be 256x256, so most of the detail I made is now pretty much lost.

However, since a) This was just a test to see exactly what we could do, and I'll need to redo lockes texturing anyway if it's going to match with any other characters I'll be doing, I thought I'd show you how the texture looked when I rendered it on my computer.

(That, and I like showing off.)

So here, in full detail, is what it should have looked like.

Also, we already know his head is big. I've already explained about the model being 6 heads tall.

--------------------

"Some fight for justice. Some fight for law . . .
. . .Cecil, what will you fight for?"
~KluYa

He looks different from the Terra render because he's done by somebody different. I did the Terra render, and Narratorway did the Locke render, with the help of Ronin for the textures. Oh- and Ronin check your PMs, I have one for you.

This post has been edited by nyxojaele on 7th February 2008 01:36

It's definitely admirable to see a fan do something like this. It's even sadder when Square decides to put a stop to hard work, like they did with a 3-D remake of Chrono Trigger a while back. With the release of the 3-D DS versions of Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV, I wouldn't be surprised if Square Enix and Matrix Software were already working on the DS versions for Final Fantasy V and VI.

--------------------

"You underestimate the strength of a Jedi's mind, Brejik. A mistake you won't live to regret, " -Bastila Shan(Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic)

Quote (Aether Master @ 8th February 2008 05:46)

It's definitely admirable to see a fan do something like this. It's even sadder when Square decides to put a stop to hard work, like they did with a 3-D remake of Chrono Trigger a while back. With the release of the 3-D DS versions of Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV, I wouldn't be surprised if Square Enix and Matrix Software were already working on the DS versions for Final Fantasy V and VI.

Wow, this as an impressive and ambitious project. I can't really be of much help because I'm very new to game development and have done nothing in 3d due to lack of proper software/time/experience, but I wish you the best of luck and truly hope to see something as much as a playable demo come out of it.


I have heard rumours that DS versions of FFV and VI are planned.

Well, I've just managed to get the first iteration of my script manager working.
Basically what it does is reads in a "script" file (it's my own scripting language specific to FFVI3D), converts it into specialized operation codes, and strings all those codes together to form a coherent function to execute. It runs decently fast, and really for what I currently have planned for it, it's PLENTY fast. More details about the internals of it at my devblog: River Nyxx

What this all sums up to is that I now have actions implemented for all my of the user interface buttons, even going so far as being able to call functions inside my compiled code, which is really, the most powerful part of the scripting language I have now. It can also do simple math, but currently you have to spell it out for it (no more than 2 operands per line), which is fine for the time being.

Future plans for this script manager of mine is to use the scripts to control in-game cutscenes: things such as controlling where characters move, what animations they play at what times, what they say when, etc... That's ultimately what I wanted this script manager for, but it only makes sense to also use it for user interface actions, as what I had there was kinda a hack just to make it work.

It's barebones right now, but I'll be adding more to it as I need to, and I'll also be adding all the core stuff (beyond just what I'm using right now...) over the next couple of days.

Once this is all happily in place, I'll be back to touching up small parts of my code, mostly comments I left for myself while I was doing all the major reworking of it-- most of what's left should be relatively quick to fix, methinks, as this scripting thing was the biggest thing on that plate.

Alright- I've just made my 2nd iteration of the script manager live this weekend, and I'm VERY impressed by how clean I managed to get the code for it. Except for 1 single function- but if it turns out to be an issue later, I'll rework it, but for now, it's fine.

I've also gone thru and finished all of the comments I left for myself in my code, except for the 2 [remaining] largest:

1. Screen post-processing: When you try and select a menu item that's disabled, or try to back out of a menu that you can't back out of, you'll hear a "not allowed" sound effect, but additionally, you'll be given a visual hint that you're stupid: The screen with blur (or mosaic, or something- I haven't decided the effect yet) briefly. The easiest and least CPU intensive way to achieve this is via a full screen shader. This brings me to some compatibility issues I'll comment on later in this post.
2. Audio: When I switched from the LTE GE back to Irrlicht, I lost the audio that LTE GE offered. Not a big deal, but I'll still have to grab FMOD or something and implement it. I don't want anything fancy, just something that "works" for now. When I get later into the battle state, and need to start worrying about sound FX and such, I'll update it a bunch.

The compatibility issue I mentioned is this: If I decide to go the shader route, either I'll have to come up with another way to program the effect on the PSP (as it doesn't support shaders), or I'll have to leave that visual effect out.

One thing I've been considering a bit is to drop support for the PSP, to allow myself and any team I have to be not quite so limited in our development.. and if another system (perhaps one of the most recent generation) presents itself in a manner so as to allow porting to it easily enough, maybe I'll put it on there.

Regardless, it'll be on the PC, but I'd really like to get more experience on a console.

What are people's thoughts on this?

So what I'm actually working on right NOW is the screen post-processing. I've already put some proof-of-concept code into the game, and it works, proving that I'm capable of adding shaders to it, so now I just have to put it in a cleaner, more extensible manner. I don't suspect this will take very long.

<EDIT>
Okay, so I -was- talking to somebody I knew about doing up a webpage/etc.. for the project, but it's looking like that's not going to come to fruition--

So now I'd like to amend my position availability listing to say that I'm also looking for a responsible, skilled webmaster to make up a webpage to use for the project: Skills required will be an eye towards design (it doesn't have to be fancy, but I don't want it looking like a high school student's computer class module), and skill with some 3rd-party modules such as forums, blog-esque news posting, password protected areas, media galleries, etc.. This website will be a means for the public to see the general progress of the project, but will also serve as a private location for the team members to discuss the inner goings-on of the project and keep each other updated on their own progresses.

Additionally I'm now accepting a respectably skilled shader (HLSL at least) programmer to write up some fancy texture effects for the game. I've discovered that while I'm capable of HLSL, I really can't justify the time I'll need to fully learn it to the point where I can develop more complicated shaders. I'd much rather spend the time on the game programming itself.

Anyone interested please don't be afraid to contact me.
</EDIT>

This post has been edited by nyxojaele on 11th March 2008 02:10

Well, it's been more than a month since my last update to you guys- and a lot has happened. I now have my own domain name/hosting for the project:

http://www.ffvi3d.com

While it's currently in a very unfinished state, the forums are at least functional, and I've put up a couple of public topics that will hopefully draw a few people to start chatting there- the most part of the forums' use tho, is the section dedicated to the team members to discuss the development of the game, so the general public can't see that.

The majority of my updates are being done on my blog, which will eventually make it's way onto my website, but I'm still giving you guys here the occassional update as well, since I've gotten some good response here!^^

I've implemented a lot more things-- I've finished off the Script Manager, polished it up pretty nice and such, and started work on the battle state of the game- this is where we start getting visuals to show off eventually.!

I've put basic audio in- it can play music, and 2d sounds (ie. GUI, etc..). It's capable of 3d sounds, I just don't have anything implemented yet to use 3d sounds, so I haven't put together the framework for that yet.

To allow me to properly implement battle states, I've had to write up enumerations/classes/loaders for almost all of the content data of FFVI: Items, Monsters, Characters, etc... Currently only usable items are loading, but soon up will be weapons/armor/helmets/relics, as to finish off the character class, I need to define their equipments. But monsters load 100%, and characters load everything except for their available commands (such as only Strago having access to "Lore" command, etc...), and their equipment.

Additionally, I've put into place a rudimentary system of allowing characters/monsters to have a visual representation-- that is, 3d meshes are now loading for them. Since we currently don't have any finished (or even unfinished!) meshes for anything yet, they are currently being displayed as birds, but they're loading at least^^

I've also put in some temporary code just to show the scenery for the battle, which is some random quake3 level I've got laying around. Pretty soon I'll have to write up a real scenery loader so it can be done properly, but I've been focusing on characters/monsters/items lately.

I'd like to extend my welcome out to Florrediore, who has joined me as a character concept artist, and to Ronin, who has joined me as a monster character concept artist & texture artist. Additionally, I'm in talks with another member of these forums about joining as well, and once things are official, I'll let everybody know about that too^^

Hmm! I'm afraid I don't have a clue as to most of what you've described, but I am pleased to see you are making progress and that you have a website now. I'll check up on it periodically. Thanks for sharing with us here!

--------------------

My FF6 project can be found here, y'all.

Putting up a public website is kinda asking for trouble with SE, isn't it?

Hey, I'm new to CoN, and I wanted to ask some questions. I have no programing knowledge and no 3D graphics knowledge, but I want to learn. Could you give me some guidlines? I've recently goten Blender and
Irrlicht 1.4 SDK, but I don't know what to do. I was hoping you could tell me how to use them, as I want to make FFVI3D, too, but for myself ONLY.
If I got in a feud with Squenix, I'd likely be sitting in prison, as I don't have nor can I afford a lawer. But, anyway, I do want to try making this game, but I don't know where to start. Oh, and REALLY good idea! FFVI in 3D is the whole reason I joined CoN, so I could ask you somethings.

If you have no programming/3D graphics knowledge, I'd say you are a rather long way away from being able to try such a large project as a 3D remake of a video game by yourself. I don't mean to discourage you, but if you really want to do something like this, you're going to be talking -years- of your time just to get up to the level of realistically being able to try. This is a very big time sink, and a huge investment of energy.

On blender: Great program, but if you intend to program the game, blender will do you no good. All it is, is a program to create 3d models. If you're going to program, you'll find plenty of example models online to use to make sure your code is correct. Dividing your time between programming and modelling will just be a detriment. I discovered that recently, and that's why I'm now accepting team members for my project, so I can focus on the programming.

So, instead of just giving you all sorts of warnings/etc... here's a rough outline of the steps you'd need to take to pull off what you're looking at. It's quite a mouthful, so good luck!

Irrlicht is written in C++, so what I would do is start learning that. When you first start learning C++, I would completely forget about wanting to use Irrlicht, or ANYTHING 3D, until you've got a good hold of programming in C++ first.

Once you've got that in the bag (I wouldn't be surprised if that took you multiple months or a year+, depending on how much "free time" you have to dedicate to it), you should start looking at some fundamentals of programming in windows. Now, that's not because you need to program video games in windows, but because the way a program works in windows is actually quite similar to how a video game will work as well. Things such as sending messages/events, your message/main loop, etc.. Odds are that your first projects will be in windows anyways, so it doesn't hurt regardless. I wouldn't worry about getting TOO involved in windows-specific things, just so long as you're good enough that you can recognize windows code, and can figure out mostly what it does. Then you can start looking at video game (possibly even of the 3D variety) theory/practices for code. One of your best friends for learning many different things (although they might be a bit advanced at the start) is gamedev.net . A good primer on OpenGL programming for video games is nehe.gamedev.net . And by far the most important thing is to keep writing small programs to demonstrate that you understand a certain concept. You can never write too many "insiginificant" programs- the best thing for a programmer is experience.

Odds are it will take you months and months of learning new theories and writing a bunch of small programs to test things out, before you even get STARTED on an actual full-fledged video game, even if it IS just tetris. I would personally wait until this point, where you can have a fighting chance at understanding Irrlicht, before attempting at an actual video game project. When you finally have a good foundation in C++ programming, and a decent understanding of 3D video game programming (you don't need to know this part great, because you'll learn a lot about it while dealing with Irrlicht), you can start actually looking at making a game in Irrlicht. This is where you finally will start seeing the fruits of your labors, which likely amount into hundreds of hours, easily. I would also highly recommend looking into 3D math at this point (or earlier!) as well. Cross products, dot products, trig, etc, are all VERY useful. Irrlicht will handle -most- of your matrix math for you, so if that's not your bag, that's okay- but it certainly doesn't hurt to learn it if you find yourself capable. It's a touch over many video game programmers' heads, but that won't stop you from making a game.

When learning Irrlicht, lurk the forums- search is your friend. Read the API docs, they'll help you more than anybody. But the only way you'll understand it all and how it works together is if you have a good understanding of programming and a lot of the basic practices/concepts used regularly by programmers BEFOREHAND.

Even before starting your "big project", my recommendation would be to write a "small project" first, instead. Get yourself a better feel for the engine, and how it works, as well as learning about different techniques and practices that can be applied to your big project. This will serve as a great learning experience, as well as a way to figure out exactly what you'll need for your "big project" beforehand, allowing you to plan out how exactly you want to structure everything for it. This will save you boatloads of time in the long run. Nothing worse than writing thousands of lines of code just to realize later on that it's all useless because it doesn't work in the grand scheme of things as it should.

This post has been edited by nyxojaele on 17th May 2008 19:14

Hey, I'm fairly new to the CoN forums, and I wanted to express my support in this project. Keep at it, and you'll have one of the most elaborate FFVI... Fanart... pieces ever!

And to be completely honest, I'm not very good with all the technical aspects of this, so I don't even know if this would be a possibility for you, but are you planning on adding voices to the characters?

Thank you, nyxojaele. You didn't discourage me, I knew I had alot to learn, but I genaraly have at least 10 hours a day to spend on the computer. I'm also a quick learner, or so I've been told. I don't know about 3D math, tho, considering I'm in 9th grade, but I understand what I read on C++, even tho it was only 3 pages. I could probibly make SOMETHING unimportant in C++, tho, does it come in a separate program, or what? Where could I get it if it does? And thank you for even replying, it means alot to me. Oh, didn't you say you were using Blender?

@Witney:
Welcome to the forums! I'm not very new here, but since I only hang around in this thread, and on occassion reading a couple other "fanart" threads, I don't have much of a post count myself^^

Thanks for the support~☆ I have no concrete plans to add voices to the characters. Not that I can't- it would be actually quite easy, but I an scared to death about trying to find good voice actors. I -refuse- to accept mediocre voice acting, if I go that route. That's the thing that bothers me the most about dubbed anime, is that english voices are just SO incredibly terrible, that I want to hurl myself into traffic to make it stop.

@nrsisyourbuddy:
Well 3D math is definitely going to be an asset for you, but it won't apply to EVERYTHING you're doing, so if you feel more comfortable that way, you could leave it until later, or even until you get to the point where you will need it. 3 pages is nothing for learning C++.. there are whole books dedicated to it, and they don't even cover much more than the basics.

I honestly have no clue what it is you're asking about a seperate program.

I am using blender, yes-- but that's not for the programming aspect of it- and like I said, I'd rather focus on the programming aspect, so I have other team members to do the 3D modelling- and whether or not they use blender is entirely up to them. If I find myself in need of a temporary model or something tho, I'll fire up blender and make something quick. But that's just my personal choice.

What I mean by a separate program is where do I get C++? Or, is that just the language, and I need a program named otherwise? And, it's likely
that, if I started on it after I know what I'm doing, I doubt anyone would be willing to help me, seeing as how that's always my luck, and I would have to do everything myself, so that's why I got Blender.

C++ is just the name of the language. You'll need a "C++ compiler" to do anything productive with your code.

There's plenty of free compilers out there, but I use a commercial product myself- so I don't know any of them by name. I know there USED to be a free version of Visual Studio Express from Microsoft, available, but I'm not sure if it's still around..

I'm just giving you fair warning, but if you want to be able to do everything, you're going to have to learn all of the skillsets involved with doing everything. And that is a LOT of skillsets. Most people specialize in 1 of those skillsets in their life, and even then, they're always learning more. Trying to do them all just isn't going to allow you to excel at any of them, and only be mediocre at all of them.

I think I'll wait a few years then.

Hello.

I came across this project while googling around to see if anyone is doing a real-instrument (not synthesized) remake of the FFVI score. I'm planning to do such a thing over the next year or two, and I'd like to offer the outcome of this to your project.

I'm from Sylvan Lake (just outside of Red Deer), so it's exciting to see another Albertan interested in remaking various aspects of FFVI.. which is, of course, my most dearly favorite video game of all.

I'm in the middle of recording 8 albums of my own compositions as part of a project (I like big, long projects) and have been planning to do the music from this game for some time now. If I could contribute the resulting recordings to a project like this, it'd give me all the more reason to do it (which wouldn't hurt.. though one way or another I'm doing it eventually)!

So, is this project still on the go? I do dearly hope so. I'd also offer my skills as a programmer, but I'm not yet fluent in C++. I'd also offer my skills as a 3d artist/animator, but I don't have a decent setup for 3ds/maya anymore. Maybe in the future.

- Ivan
http://www.ganglion.ca (samples of my work, click "Ganglion").

This post has been edited by sisoft on 23rd March 2009 23:16

If you like my idea please PM or email me thanks I really like ff6 and was wondering if you like of i were to design an extra dungeon including script monsters ect