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[BONKERS]

Which had to be magnified to get anyone to see anything. You posted an image with a bunch of Unabomber-looking circles on it, and no one could see what you were seeing.

Even now I look at that image and I can't see any seams unless I look at the blown-up versions.

RIGHT, so because "I can't see them. Therefore they don't exist" is an argument right?
Not all of us are blind as bats.

They exist. Whether the shots are blown up are not. Or else no one would've started bitching about them in the first place.

 

[AgeEighty]

RIGHT, so because "I can't see them. Therefore they don't exist" is an argument right?
Not all of us are blind as bats.

They exist. Whether the shots are blown up are not. Or else no one would've started bitching about them in the first place.

You are literally the only person here who's bitching about those lines.

Just because something exists doesn't mean it's important. Kind of like your complaints.

 

[BONKERS]

There is no way anyone with an eye and attention for detail can't look at this shot straight from the store and see that there are seams everywhere where objects don't line up like they should.
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/ste...d989739f3ccff2a19aba91b4d883.jpg?t=1452102661

Just look at the ticket booth.

So yeah, the integrity of the art in a new port of an existing game doesn't matter to present it properly when the majority of the game consist of these images being distorted from improper scaling.

OK. Yeah sure that's a totally fine sentiment.
And it's not like people didn't just get upset about the SAME thing with FFV and VI.

 

[KainXVIII]

Looks alright, hope that framebuffer effects will stay intact (like in Slow spell)
https://youtu.be/vhDPaJsy_No?t=82

 

[BocoDragon]

I'm happy BONKERS brought this to light. Yes it is lazy and WTF.

 

[AgeEighty]

So yeah, the integrity of the art in a new port of an existing game doesn't matter to present it properly. OK. Yeah sure that's a totally fine sentiment.

There's nothing wrong with the integrity of the art. It's got a few flaws and yes, it probably could have been done better if they'd put more time into it, but realistically there's only so much they can do with the compressed art, and overall it looks fine. So yes, that's a totally fine sentiment.

And it's not like people didn't just get upset about the SAME thing with FFV and VI.

Correct. It's not like that, because it's not the same thing.

Anything else?

I'm happy BONKERS brought this to light. Yes it is lazy and WTF.

I love how quick people are to call things "lazy" when they don't have to look at budgets or P&Ls like actual businesses do.

 

[BONKERS]

There's nothing wrong with the integrity of the art. It's got a few flaws and yes, it probably could have been done better if they'd put more time into it, but overall it looks fine. So yes, that's a totally fine sentiment.

Anything else?

There is a LOT wrong with it. It's not being displayed properly. It's been distorted and misaligned.

Fix it and I'm perfectly content. Despite wishing for higher quality. As I have stated multiple times.
It takes minutes to take a source background and batch it through a scaling filter with better results.

 

[AgeEighty]

There is a LOT wrong with it. It's not being displayed properly. It's been distorted and misaligned.

Cool. You go off and be angry in your little corner, while the rest of us enjoy what looks to be a surprisingly well done port that most of us didn't even think would ever happen in the first place. Let's take bets on which of us ends up being happier.

 

[Ampsicora]

People really think Square after 15 years could re-render the background for the re-release even after they lost the original files for doing it?
I know we have some of the hi-res background, but there's not all of it. Also some have animation, what you are asking is basically near the impossible.
Finally this game is release on PC after 15 years, after we all thought it was lost in time, and the only thing you guys are doing is complaining?
Come on.

 

[BocoDragon]

I love how quick people are to call things "lazy" when they don't have to look at budgets or P&Ls like actual businesses do.

And yet I am a designer myself, and understand how the word 'lazy' is often abused by fans.

This isn't one of those times.

A mere pre-rendered image has been displayed in multiple chunks. It would have been odd to do this 15 years ago. So WTF is happening here... and why would anyone be quick to defend it? It's clearly a less-than-ideal situation.

Is this the highest quality source material available? Is this some weird workaround due to the quality of the source or a limitation of the platform(s) being ported to? Maybe the answer is not "lazy devs"... but surely someone fucked up, whether that was in the year 2000 or the people porting this today.

 

[AgeEighty]

And yet I am a designer myself, and understand how the word 'lazy' is often abused by fans.

This isn't one of those times.

A mere pre-rendered image has been displayed in multiple chunks. So WTF is happening here... and why would anyone be quick to defend it? It's clearly a less-than-ideal situation.

Is this the highest quality source material available? Is this some weird workaround? Maybe the answer is not "lazy devs" but someone surely fucked up, whether that was in the year 2000 or the people porting this today.

Why would anyone be quick to condemn it when it's barely noticeable, especially someone who is a designer (a broad term if ever there was one)? This is nitpicking in the extreme. And we still don't even know for sure if those lines will actually be in the game; they could have been introduced when the images were uploaded to Steam. There's clear evidence that the artifacts aren't just limited to the pre-rendered backgrounds.

It's much ado about nothing.

 

[JayBabay]

I'll wait for inevitable PS4 release, trophy support and all.

 

[BocoDragon]

Why would anyone be quick to condemn it when it's barely noticeable, especially someone who is a designer? This is nitpicking in the extreme. And we still don't even know for sure if those lines will actually be in the game; they could have been introduced when the images were uploaded to Steam. There's clear evidence that the artifacts aren't just limited to the pre-rendered backgrounds.

It's much ado about nothing.

It's a flaw.

I'm glad you're proud that you don't care about a flaw...
but it seems like a typical "don't ruin my fanboy happiness" reaction on your part.

 

[aravuus]

And yet I am a designer myself, and understand how the word 'lazy' is often abused by fans.

This isn't one of those times.

A mere pre-rendered image has been displayed in multiple chunks. It would have been odd to do this 15 years ago. So WTF is happening here... and why would anyone be quick to defend it? It's clearly a less-than-ideal situation.

Is this the highest quality source material available? Is this some weird workaround due to the quality of the source or a limitation of the platform(s) being ported to? Maybe the answer is not "lazy devs"... but surely someone fucked up, whether that was in the year 2000 or the people porting this today.

So is it okay to call them lazy or not?! So many conflicting messages!

 

[JayBabay]

People really think Square after 15 years could re-render the background for the re-release even after they lost the original files for doing it?
I know we have some of the hi-res background, but there's not all of it. Also some have animation, what you are asking is basically near the impossible.
Finally this game is release on PC after 15 years, after we all thought it was lost in time, and the only thing you guys are doing is complaining?
Come on.

After FFVII and FFVIII both came out with less features, they find reason to complain. Like there was evidence to suggest the release would be otherwise.

 

[BocoDragon]

So is it okay to call them lazy or not?! So many conflicting messages!

It's either lazy devs or lazy porters.

Someone fucked up in not preserving a full 640x480 image of a CGI render.... something that would have been easy in 2000 and easy in 2016.

 

[BONKERS]

It's a flaw.

I'm glad you're proud that you don't care about a flaw...
but it seems like a typical "don't ruin my fanboy happiness" reaction on your part.

Exactly. If I saw this working on a professional job, it would immediately stand out and be a huge red flag to me that something is wrong if i'm trying to upscale the backgrounds rather than re-draw them.

If I released something with a flaw like this, i'd be embarrassed by my mistake. And would take every measure to fix it.
Better yet, it's not even released yet. So it should be fixable already.

Maybe calling the entire port lazy isn't the right thing (Because the new models look good, the new UI looks good).
But it sure hampers a huge part of the product (Because the majority of the game consists of these low res pre-rendered backgrounds) and looks like an incredibly amateur mistake to make for a port of a game they are so proudly proclaiming sold "Over 5 million copies" originally on the PS1.

 

[BocoDragon]

Exactly. If I saw this working on a professional job, it would immediately stand out and be a huge red flag to me that something is wrong if i'm trying to upscale the backgrounds rather than re-draw them.

If I released something with a flaw like this, i'd be embarrassed by my mistake. And would take every measure to fix it.
Better yet, it's not even released yet. So it should be fixable already.

Yup. If this were my project I'd be CCing everyone in an email right now... "Fix this".

 

[AgeEighty]

It's a flaw.

I'm glad you're proud that you don't care about a flaw...
but it seems like a typical "don't ruin my fanboy happiness" reaction on your part.

It has nothing to do with pride. It's called being reasonable and picking your battles.

There's still plenty about this port we don't know that could spoil my happiness. It could be a mobile-first port with all the UI problems that entails. Then you'd have a good reason to bitch.

This isn't one. Stare long enough at anything in the world and you will see flaws. That doesn't mean you are clever to throw a shit fit every time you spot a flaw, no matter how insignificant it is.

 

[BocoDragon]

It has nothing to do with pride. It's called being reasonable and picking your battles.

There's still plenty about this port we don't know that could spoil my happiness. It could be a mobile-first port with all the UI problems that entails. Then you'd have a good reason to bitch.

This isn't one. Stare long enough at anything in the world and you will see flaws. That doesn't mean you are wise to throw a shit fit when you do.

It's not as if this is a "shit fit". Just an acknowledgement to the question "is this port ideal?"

The answer is "no it isn't ideal".

There's a big, weird artifact of its asset condition staring us right in the face, and it doesn't need to be there.

You should be on board that it should be fixed. It would benefit you. But I'm sure that this is just some internet argument that you've been dragged into, and hey.. I get it.
Just take a step back, let us complain about these factual flaws, and you just might benefit if they are fixed....

 

[BONKERS]

After FFVII and FFVIII both came out with less features, they find reason to complain. Like there was evidence to suggest the release would be otherwise.

FFVII and VIII were also just re-releases of existing ports from the 90s. And not good ones at that. http://q-gears.sourceforge.net/index.phtml?content=4

This is brand new. Excuse us for expecting a company to care enough about it's most highly recognized brand to do a good job.


But really, we should expect them to do a good job. But realistically expect a mediocre job. It's been the same story with ports since the 90s.


Asking for high quality new backgrounds, likewise is not impossible at all. Not even in the slightest. It's work. And work worthwhile. (Again, look at RE Zero HD. The game might not have as many backgrounds as a PS1 FF game in numbers, but that shows it's possible none the less even with Animations.)

That alone would've been enough for me to be OK with the FFVII Remake not being the remake I wanted personally. If they had done that for FFVII on PS4. Then everyone could've had their cake and eaten it too.

We could have a high resolution version with definitively better graphics. And the Reboot.
Instead we are stuck with the same old low res garbage.
(Because unlike IX here, they didn't even bother to do anything with VII's backgrounds on PS4.They slapped a bilinear filter on it and called it a day.)

Likewise with Star Ocean 2 for PS4/Vita they literally did nothing. They point scale everything and leave it as is. At least it's not distorted I guess.


It seems like some people put this shit up on a pedestal "That's impossible, that's not feasible,it's not realistic" It might be more of a risk to put the extra money and time into it to allocate resources. But that's it and that's nothing compared to the risk they took putting all their eggs in one basket with the FFXIII series or the original XIV (Which was a huge endeavor that failed massively)or even XV. Which pale in comparison to something like this.

But once again, for the Nth time. All they have to do is fix this issue with the scaling. Why is that so unreasonable to expect when the amount of effort and work to upscale these is extremely small?
It will take it from IMO looking like garbage to "OK".

 

[Falk]

It's not exactly clear if the scaling is being done real time, is it?

I mean, if it is, it'd just be fixing whatever process they have that's (presumably) scaling bits and pieces of the 2D backgrounds to scaling it all at once.

Spoiler

I'm not an expert

 

[Lain]

I'm happy BONKERS brought this to light. Yes it is lazy and WTF.

Yeah. I don't like his posting style, but I shake my head at people dismissing the criticism and concerns about the stuff he's complaining about.

 

[bobawesome]

The updated character models look great.

 

[TyrantGuardian]

This isn't one. Stare long enough at anything in the world and you will see flaws. That doesn't mean you are clever to throw a shit fit every time you spot a flaw, no matter how insignificant it is.

Lmao what are you even talking about? Its a garbage technical mistake that has literally no reason to be there and SE should be ashamed of putting out products like this. As has been stated before, they are not doing anyone a favor by porting this game - we're expected to pay money for a product here. A product I already own physically and can easily put into my PC and play without these issues. All other things equal, this graphical issue means that there is literally no reason for me to play this port.

Obviously, all other things will most likely not be equal and the ball is up in the air about which version will end up being the best of this game until it is actually released and people can look through the actual port themselves from more than compressed Steam screenshots, but if there's anything I've learned about Squeenix this past decade its to never trust them to do ANYTHING right, much less a port of an old game.

Edit: And no, you can't see the tiles on the 3D models, I am almost 100% sure that is just an optical illusion. These backgrounds are fucked up. The only reason I could see behind this is to bring down the size of the Android/iOS versions, of which this is almost certainly a straight port.

 

[heringer]

IX is the best. If you don't like it, you'll know FF isn't for you. If you do, you can try VI and some of the older ones since that's where it draws its inspirations from (and stop cuz every other post-SNES FF isn't that good).

What? Why would you say that when most of the games are so different from each other and opinions about them are highly divisive? Might as well say "if you don't like Final Fantasy IX you won't like any JRPG ever".

To me, IX wouldn't be the best even if they fixed the slow ass gameplay.

 

[Ampsicora]

There is no way anyone with an eye and attention for detail can't look at this shot straight from the store and see that there are seams everywhere where objects don't line up like they should.
https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/ste...d989739f3ccff2a19aba91b4d883.jpg?t=1452102661

Just look at the ticket booth.

So yeah, the integrity of the art in a new port of an existing game doesn't matter to present it properly when the majority of the game consist of these images being distorted from improper scaling.

OK. Yeah sure that's a totally fine sentiment.
And it's not like people didn't just get upset about the SAME thing with FFV and VI.

Even the "black boards" have the "seams". I dunno, I've spotted "seams" even on the full 3D images. What happen if it's truly the shitty compression?

Let me be clear, It was pretty invisible on the 3D images and hardly to spotted. But it kinda weird the 3d models on the 2D background have the "seams" problem.

 

[Alvarez]

They're not compression artifacts. The seams are almost certainly a result of seam carving, a method of changing image aspect and/or ratio.

 

[Falk]

They're not compression artifacts. The seams are almost certainly a result of seam carving, a method of changing image aspect and/or ratio.

I swear every time you post in a Final Fantasy thread it's gold.

 

[Ampsicora]

They're not compression artifacts. The seams are almost certainly a result of seam carving, a method of changing image aspect and/or ratio.

Kinda weird, but probably you're right. But I want to wait the release before criticize the port. After all the "seams" are pretty visible when you zoom the image, not like FFVI where you can see it pretty easily. Also it seems they at least worked a little bit more for this one. I don't want to kill this port before the time, but probably because for me it's a kinda incredible we had it

 

[Lumine]

I'm not surprised they didn't re-render those pre-rendered backgrounds in high resolution. They never did that for any re-release of FF7 or 8 either. Yet I'm still slightly disappointed seeing them like this. They used to look gorgeous.

 

[Kenzodielocke]

Can someone explain me, why the title has "releasing before FF15"?

 

[Human_me]

Can someone explain me, why the title has "releasing before FF15"?

Because it's releasing before FF15.

 

[artsi]

I'm not surprised they didn't re-render those pre-rendered backgrounds in high resolution. They never did that for any re-release of FF7 or 8 either. Yet I'm still slightly disappointed seeing them like this. They used to look gorgeous.

I'm not an expert on this technique but even if they had the 3D files, textures etc, wouldn't it be more work than just pressing the "render" button?

Don't these backgrounds have a lot of layered elements, like foreground objects (stuff that is over the player model instead of behind) that need to be separated from the background? Or is that done dynamically?

 

[GhostTrick]

I'm not an expert on this technique but even if they had the 3D files, textures etc, wouldn't it be more work than just pressing the "render" button?

Don't these backgrounds have a lot of layered elements, like foreground objects (stuff that is over the player model instead of behind) that need to be separated from the background? Or is that done dynamically?

Its just a picture though.

 

[texhnolyze]

Can someone explain me, why the title has "releasing before FF15"?

It seems that a mod changed the title.
Not sure what was the original one.

 

[Unai]

Can someone explain me, why the title has "releasing before FF15"?

It seems that a mod changed the title.
Not sure what was the original one.

Steam said the game was releasing in January 2016, and so said the thread title. Later on the release date on steam was changed to "Ëarly 2016" instead, so a mod changed the thread title.

 

[artsi]

Its just a picture though.

Of course but I mean this stuff.

Zidane is behind the bed, so there has to be some kind of layering going on. I'm just wondering if those layers are separate elements that would need to be worked manually, or is it a dynamic system that separates elements on the fly from one single 2D background?

 

[Corpekata]

Can someone explain me, why the title has "releasing before FF15"?

The OP originally read "releasing in Jan" because the Steam store page listed that, but then SE changed it to just Early 2016 so a mod had fun with updating the title.

 

[Slaythe]

Of course but I mean this stuff.



Zidane is behind the bed, so there has to be some kind of layering going on. I'm just wondering if those layers are separate elements that would need to be worked manually, or is it a dynamic system that separates elements on the fly from one single 2D background?

Lol.

Of course it has different layers. How would anything interpret 2D "perfectly", especially from that era.

 

[artsi]

Lol.

Of course it has different layers. How would anything interpret 2D "perfectly", especially from that era.

I understand that perfectly, I'm not dumb. But I'm asking the method of how they do the layering in this game. Is it compiled from multiple image files, or is it one single file that is dynamically layered during gameplay?

 

[Falk]

I'm not an expert on this technique but even if they had the 3D files, textures etc, wouldn't it be more work than just pressing the "render" button?

Don't these backgrounds have a lot of layered elements, like foreground objects (stuff that is over the player model instead of behind) that need to be separated from the background? Or is that done dynamically?

Its just a picture though.

The renders are only step one.

They're also manually touched up, and in some cases manually animated. I wouldn't be able to say for sure, but I'm reasonably certain those two would be done post-resizing-to-PSX-resolution since the resize loses major detail and you want the touched-up work to be as effective as possible. (In fact I daresay some touch-up work is specifically to restore minute details lost in the resize)

It's also the reason the HQ art in Mama Robotnik's thread, aside from not being close to anywhere near a significant fraction of all backgrounds in the game (seriously, there's a shit ton of them in PSX era Squeenix RPGs) while nicer to look at, isn't exactly an adequate replacement as-is. Well, it probably would be for a modding community, but not a retail release. Completely different perspective.

 

[Lumine]

I'm not an expert on this technique but even if they had the 3D files, textures etc, wouldn't it be more work than just pressing the "render" button?

Don't these backgrounds have a lot of layered elements, like foreground objects (stuff that is over the player model instead of behind) that need to be separated from the background? Or is that done dynamically?

Oh I wasn't trying to imply that it would be easy or cheap. Honestly I have no idea how much work it would cost, doing it properly. I'm quite sure there's several layers to do them, yes, and if I remember right, quite a few of them had FMV animations to them as well. Or perhaps that was just FF8. Anyway, like I said, I'm not at all surprised they aren't doing this. I would have loved it if they did though.

 

[indigo-cyclops]

Bought is my preferred post. Can't fucking wait. The PS1 version is such a chore to play anymore.

 

[pottuvoi]

Of course but I mean this stuff.



Zidane is behind the bed, so there has to be some kind of layering going on. I'm just wondering if those layers are separate elements that would need to be worked manually, or is it a dynamic system that separates elements on the fly from one single 2D background?

Image is stored as tiles and layers are stored as different layers.

This gives the basic information.
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15898.0
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14532.0

 

[Falk]

Image is stored as tiles

WELL

It's not exactly clear if the scaling is being done real time, is it?

I mean, if it is, it'd just be fixing whatever process they have that's (presumably) scaling bits and pieces of the 2D backgrounds to scaling it all at once.

Spoiler

I'm not an expert

Question is if those tiles are stored upscaled, or being upscaled realtime. Latter case, easy fix by performing the upscale on entire composite layers rather than individual tiles, so that the bordering pixels take into account neighboring tiles, which eliminates the seams.

 

[artsi]

Image is stored as tiles and layers are stored as different layers.

This gives the basic information.
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15898.0
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14532.0

Thanks, this is exactly what I was interested in.

 

[Parsnip]

Bonkers living up to his name as usual.

 

[Dragon1893]

My favorite FF.
Got it from PSN last year to play on my Vita, even beat Ozma. Oh well. This port seems to have enough reasons to revisit the game.

 

[Arkeband]

I appreciate BONKERS actually pointing out visual flaws with the game's port more than AgeEighty doing Square's PR for them by assigning importance to the game's flaws. The former starts an intelligent discussion about why these flaws exist and how modders could potentially fix them, while the latter serves no purpose.

It might be minor, but it's still disappointing, considering that this announcement came out of nowhere, so it could have been in the chamber for an incredibly long time, way longer than they'd ever need to touch up backgrounds (since they actually upgraded character models).