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[Aureon]

Guys, i think the chunking is standard Unity texture packaging. Chunk big, non-square images and make square textures out of them.

Only.. i can't figure the order.
If someone wants to try at it, here's a row decomposition of one:
http://imgur.com/a/saz9F
(I can get you tiles if you want.. 174 tiles for my test image)

There's also going to be some manual work involved in opening the atlas-es and deciding what backgrounds are in it, obviously.

The main issue (and why i haven't worked too much on the decomposition) is that those aren't upscaled much. The backgrounds are mostly saved at resolutions between 360p and 480p: Re-chunking them at the same resolution wouldn't accomplish anything. I need to try re-packaging a 8k texture in place of the current 2ks, and hope it doesn't try to chunk them as 36px again.

I need to track down someone that knows how to upscale chunked textures in Unity projects; which admittedly isn't a very common skill, especially since all my contacts are Unreal-side...

 

[Falk]

Guys, i think the chunking is standard Unity texture packaging. Chunk big, non-square images and make square textures out of them.

For what it's worth, FF9 on PSX similarly had backgrounds stored as tiles. No idea if they translate 1:1 to the chunks in this port and/or if it has any bearing.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I heard Zagnhol can show up in districts other than the Business District? How does that happen? The FF wiki says it only appears in the Business District.

 

[DrForester]

I heard Zagnhol can show up in districts other than the Business District? How does that happen? The FF wiki says it only appears in the Business District.

I think it's still just the Business District, but only after a certain time has past.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I think it's still just the Business District, but only after a certain time has past.

That one user must've made that up then. I thought so.

 

[Hyllian]

I passed adaptivesharpen over the earlier waifu2x files I posted. Here's the link. I can easily tweak the sharpness strength, if you find it too strong.

 

[Professor Beef]

That one user must've made that up then. I thought so.

It shows up as a regular enemy around the time you go to the Iifa Tree, but before the vilage.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

It shows up as a regular enemy around the time you go to the Iifa Tree, but before the vilage.

I know.

 

[Visualante2]

This game really loses speed when Dagger becomes

Spoiler

the queen of Alexandria

.

 

[ryushe]

Can't seem to find the answer anywhere, but is/was this game not starting/running for anyone else? Keep trying to boot it up and it's just not opening for me. Validated my files and everything, too.

Win10
R9290.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Nvm I got it.

 

[theta11]

The controls really kill this game for me. :/

 

[Aureon]

What I'd be interested to know from Aureon is exactly how many background assets he finds in the Unity files.

It seems all of them. Somewhere around two hundred, most of them layered - animated stuff is layered on the static background.

 

[AgeEighty]

The controls really kill this game for me. :/

What's wrong with them? Just plug in a controller and play the old fashioned way. The 8-directional movement is annoying, but I wouldn't call it game-killing.

It seems all of them. Somewhere around two hundred, most of them layered - animated stuff is layered on the static background.

Thanks, that's what I figured. Even in the original release, the animated parts always had a subtle seam around them that made them look a little like they were pasted in. Are they stored separately, or are the background, layers, and animated segments of each background stored together? How about the individual frames of the animations?

 

[Hyllian]

It seems all of them. Somewhere around two hundred, most of them layered - animated stuff is layered on the static background.

Did you give up on extracting the backgrounds?

 

[Aureon]

Did you give up on extracting the backgrounds?

I'm waiting to hear back from a friend with some know-how if putting in backgrounds at higher resolutions is feasible.
I have no particular interest to go through the whole thing and find out offsets are hardcoded so there's no way to use bigger tiles \ more tiles per image.

Until i find some info on that, it's pretty useless to make more efforts against the jigsaw puzzles.
If somebody wants to figure out said jigsaw, though, i'll happily upload the backgrounds - both atlas'd and segmented.

Thanks, that's what I figured. Even in the original release, the animated parts always had a subtle seam around them that made them look a little like they were pasted in. Are they stored separately, or are the background, layers, and animated segments of each background stored together? How about the individual frames of the animations?

The animated images are generally normal. Some big ones may be segmented though.
The 'main' background images are in their own 2048x2048 atlas, stored in chunks of 36x36, and i'm still trying to figure out of it's standard Unity megatexture or something specific.

 

[Hyllian]

Here are some samples at 4x original size. They're so big that abload refused to host them.

 

[telasoman]

Game complete....

Now to hope that in another 15 years they will have Final Fantasy IX Remake....

 

[Azar]

I'm waiting to hear back from a friend with some know-how if putting in backgrounds at higher resolutions is feasible.
I have no particular interest to go through the whole thing and find out offsets are hardcoded so there's no way to use bigger tiles \ more tiles per image.

Until i find some info on that, it's pretty useless to make more efforts against the jigsaw puzzles.
If somebody wants to figure out said jigsaw, though, i'll happily upload the backgrounds - both atlas'd and segmented.

If you haven't already, check out the modding discussions on the Steam forum. In this thread someone is working to upscale the backgrounds in a similar way. The more useful thread is probably on the Memoria tool a modder is making, which seems like the best shot at getting the backgrounds in the game, based on what he's done already.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Shit, 16 years later I'm still finding out stuff about this game.

 

[theta11]

What's wrong with them? Just plug in a controller and play the old fashioned way. The 8-directional movement is annoying, but I wouldn't call it game-killing.

Smooth controls are important to me. I'm not going to play a game that doesn't control well. I didn't have to compromise in 2000, not going to now. I'm sure someone will work on a solution to this and I have no problem not playing the game again until then.

 

[AgeEighty]

Smooth controls are important to me. I'm not going to play a game that doesn't control well. I didn't have to compromise in 2000, not going to now. I'm sure someone will work on a solution to this and I have no problem not playing the game again until then.

Eh, I still think it's a really minor, barely noticeable thing, but I'm sure you're right and that someone will patch in analog control before too long. I'll certainly welcome that.

Well, minor and barely noticeable to you.

That's what I said.

 

[aravuus]

Eh, I still think it's a really minor, barely noticeable thing, but I'm sure you're right and that someone will patch in analog control before too long. I'll certainly welcome that.

Well, minor and barely noticeable to you. I absolutely need smooth analog controls if I'm gonna play with a controller.

Tons of other games to play right now, though, so maybe they've patched it in when I finally have the time to give this version of IX a try.

 

[Zantetsuken88]

Eh, I still think it's a really minor, barely noticeable thing, but I'm sure you're right and that someone will patch in analog control before too long. I'll certainly welcome that.



That's what I said.

Well, minor and barely noticeable to you. I absolutely need smooth analog controls if I'm gonna play with a controller.

Tons of other games to play right now, though, so maybe they've patched it in when I finally have the time to give this version of IX a try.

I'm playing it despite the 8-way controls but it is annoying. Particular when playing Chocobo H&C or frog catching with Quina.

It seems like such a strange thing to not have working out the box. Same with the FFVIII music in the Steam release tbh. I wish I could understand why these games have such odd things missing.

 

[Aureon]

If you haven't already, check out the modding discussions on the Steam forum. In this thread someone is working to upscale the backgrounds in a similar way. The more useful thread is probably on the Memoria tool a modder is making, which seems like the best shot at getting the backgrounds in the game, based on what he's done already.

Interesting!
reading his code, it seems it was indeed Unity megatextures, and he's done very similar work to mine in attempting to reconstruct them.
The difference is that i was attempting to work the .paks, while he's seemingly making a RAM injector.
My unity hacking knowledge is very limited, so i'll probably go ask if he needs help for anything rather than do the same work in parallel.

 

[Aureon]

He doesn't have working atlas recomposition either, let alone getting them back in : (
More hacking to do..

 

[Wok]

He doesn't have working atlas recomposition either, let alone getting them back in : (
More hacking to do..

When you say atlases, it is only piecewise affine transformations to compute the matching, right? Maybe even piecewise rigid transformations? How hard would it be to brute force it?

 

[Aureon]

When you say atlases, it is only piecewise affine transformations to compute the matching, right? Maybe even piecewise rigid transformations? How hard would it be to brute force it?

I tried all reasonable brute forces.
Admittedly i didn't get into matching edge pixels, though. I can send the fragments your way if you want to hack up something?

Getting into the part of putting back in upscaled backgrounds is probably more important though.

 

[dawid]

The game is kind of stuttering or skipping frames sometimes for me on PC. It's not a hardware issue and seems to be happening in both regular gameplay and in FMVs.

Anyone else with the problem? And maybe solution.

 

[hlhbk]

So what is the word on this? Is this the definitive version of FF IX?

 

[AgeEighty]

So what is the word on this? Is this the definitive version of FF IX?

People have given all kinds of opinions on this throughout the thread already, but yes, I'd say it is. It improves on the original in a lot of ways without many drawbacks... and the drawbacks that it does have are likely patchable, with people working on those even now.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Is anyone else having issues with this game? I love Final Fantasy IX, but this PC version is annoying me. I have half a gig less than the system requirements, but some of these things I'm experiencing I don't think pertains to it. On the Red Rose I had issues talking to Vivi. Whenever I stood in front of him it would make me talk to Freya instead of Vivi. I could only talk to Vivi after clipping through his model and talking to him from the other side.

In Black Mage Village I couldn't examine the owl in the shop and instead would talk to the shopkeeper. Same thing happened in the inn with the npc in there and sometimes during battles and enemies attack animations I get a close up of one of my characters instead of the enemy.

 

[AgeEighty]

So, Final Fantasy X is now out on Steam just a month after IX, and it seems to have stolen most of the spotlight, coverage, and excitement away. Which means, in a way: Square did the same thing again to FFIX.

 

[Lime]

Any notable mods or fixes I should get for playing this?

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

So, Final Fantasy X is now out on Steam just a month after IX, and it seems to have stolen most of the spotlight, coverage, and excitement away. Which means, in a way: Square did the same thing again to FFIX.

Do you think IX would have large sales after the initial launch with those blurry backgrounds?

 

[AgeEighty]

Do you think IX would have large sales after the initial launch with those blurry backgrounds?

That's not really what I was talking about. But it seems to be selling pretty well even a month later according to the Steam charts, so yes, I think it will do just fine despite the backgrounds.

Which, again... were never going to look awesome. It was an issue with both VII and VIII on Steam so of course it's going to be one with IX. It's what you are always going to be dealing with when it comes to pre-rendered 240i background art.

 

[Eusis]

The games would run at 240p actually. And that shouldn't be relevant for the resolution of static backgrounds regardless.

 

[TonkatsuAddict]

The games would run at 240p actually. And that shouldn't be relevant for the resolution of static backgrounds regardless.

It what way is the resolution of the game not relevant to the resolution of the artwork in the game files?

 

[AgeEighty]

It what way is the resolution of the game not relevant to the resolution of the artwork in the game files?

He's talking about the "i" vs. "p" thing. He's correct, but it's kind of an irrelevant thing to point out, since my statement is true either way.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I never knew the characters in this game had idle animations. Doesn't seem like much other people do either because I hardly find anything relevant on Google. So far it looks like Zidane, Vivi, and Garnet have idle animations. I'm controlling Steiner right now, but he has a sword so maybe that's why it's not showing up.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Is anyone else still playing this? I want to talk about it with other people.

 

[Professor Beef]

Is anyone else still playing this? I want to talk about it with other people.

What's on your mind

 

[Unai]

Now that I'm kind of done with Dark Souls 3 I came back to this game. I'm not really sure if I'm on the "second disc" already. Does the game tells it in some way? (Steiner and Dagger section at the station)

 

[The Last One]

Now that I'm kind of done with Dark Souls 3 I came back to this game. I'm not really sure if I'm on the "second disc" already. Does the game tells it in some way? (Steiner and Dagger section at the station)

I'm pretty sure this is already second disc.

 

[Professor Beef]

Now that I'm kind of done with Dark Souls 3 I came back to this game. I'm not really sure if I'm on the "second disc" already. Does the game tells it in some way? (Steiner and Dagger section at the station)

The Beatrix fight in Burmecia is the end of Disc 1.

 

[Lime]

Is it possible to change the character you are controlling when exploring or is it always that 90's dude with his tail? Only in the beginning of the game still, but just wondering.

 

[glaurung]

Is it possible to change the character you are controlling when exploring or is it always that 90's dude with his tail? Only in the beginning of the game still, but just wondering.

Unless I am misrememembering, you could change the party leader later on.

 

[GinoFelino]

Annoyed that this isn't on consoles yet. I don't own a PC and refuse to touch-screen my way through this game. It deserves better than that.

This sold pretty well on mobile/PC, right? What gives? PS4 got a similar port of FF7...

FF XII and FF IX this E3, Square pls

 

[firebricks3]

Is anyone else still playing this? I want to talk about it with other people.

I just got to what would be disk 4 yesterday and it's somehow better than I remember it. Fantastic stuff.

 

[Zantetsuken88]

Is anyone else still playing this? I want to talk about it with other people.

Yep - I'm on 'Disc 4' also. I always lose steam a bit during the grindy bits at the end of these games, but the fast forward is making it bearable.