Feedback on FF on FFv3R mod at AFF

[abenavides]

Thanks for all the input so far everyone!

Especially GogglesPizanno, who has been both gracious and extremely helpful. I am happy to say that what I did will benefit greatly from what he has already worked out and he has offered to share info freely. For that, he has my thanks and I'll gladly credit him for anything I use. Isn't it nice when everyone helps out?

I've  set up this new thread in the Mods section as I didn't want to take over GogglesPizanno's thread, so I'll make mine separate for now.

[abenavides]

And here's a quick summary of what's been reported so far (my comments in bold):

1. Oconner's gun is held strangely (upsidedown).
I had run his mesh through EZNIf. Will check, maybe can hex it to look right.

2. --The chain link fence, crates, air ducts, etc. in mission 2 were very dark ... maybe they need nif conversion.
will check

3. --Mentor's talking head was pink and untextured (presumably because he's supposed to be using the "mysteriously hidden in shadow" effect and it isn't there?)
Thought this had been fixed before releasing, but will check

4. --The usual FF-in-FFVTR graphical oddities (sidewalk corners being too dark, weirdness with the bases of lamp posts, etc.)
will check

5. Mission 2 went fine until the very end--the game tells me to have Mentor Interrogate, but the Interrogate option doesn't show up on his context menu.
Had this happen once and once it didn't. Will look into it more

6. the game had a fatal error brininging in Lord Dominion's head nif for the frozen Sukhov cutscene.
This one I did expect, tommyman is working on a new head nif

7. I just played the third mission and like the second mission, everything went fine until the end when you have to interrogate Sukhov.  Neither Mentor nor Minute Man could interrogate him.  I used the Mission_Win cheat to end the mission.  Once it got to the next cutscene in the base it was very dark.  The dialog from the talking heads continued into the team selection screen and then started over with the entire dialog on top of the team selection screen.  I was never able to enter the fray for the next mission in the frozen park.

I wonder if using Mission_Win cheat affected what followed? IN any case will look into interrogate prob

8. Alarm lights don't light up. (level 2, i assume)
maybe missing an effect. Will check

9. Thug displays 'demonized' in the dialog window when they discover you.
Thought I'd fixed all these. This happens because skin in template is set to 'random' and FFv3R has these nightmare skin versions. May have missed one template, so I'll check.

10. Mentor is BRIGHT Pink (I think originally he'd be a dull purple in the greyed out sense) in the intro video
I think this is the opening cutscene? which I hadn't even looked at yet. It usually doesn't come up in Debug mod. Will check. Obviously a missing texture.

[Previsionary]

6. the game had a fatal error brininging in Lord Dominion's head nif for the frozen Sukhov cutscene.
This one I did expect, tommyman is working on a new head nif

If I'm reading this quote correctly, then this should be easily fixable by replacing the ff1 headnif with the ffvttr version [for lord dominion], no?

[BentonGrey]

Hey Alex, I've skoped several of those objects to fix the light problem, I'd be happy to share them if you want.

:EDIT: Alex, I'm sorry, I must have a mental block against you, I keep calling YOU Tommy!

[GogglesPizanno]

If I'm reading this quote correctly, then this should be easily fixable by replacing the ff1 headnif with the ffvttr version [for lord dominion], no?

Yes, that should work.
Just make sure that you copy over any textures that it needs as well,

[abenavides]

Problem is I don't see a lord dominion mesh or head.nif in FFfv3R. (unless I've missed it?)
That's why tommy's all over it.

[GogglesPizanno]

Yep yer right.
I just made do with the Praetor mesh...

I mean you seen one alien overlord, you seen em all right?  ;)

[Previsionary]

Actually, I believe all the alien meshes got an update as I recall testing them all when I was helping Shazam with his mod (as he also used aliens)...of course, I could be imagining testing that file. I'll give it a try the next time I test my own mod.

[edit] Just tested and I can say for sure that the ffvttr version of Dominion's head nif works without problem. If it helps any, Dominion's new head.nif is 130 kb. I believe the old nif is 88 or so kb.

[edit 2] Just to add some information, if you don't already have the meshes unzipped, you can find them in the art.ff file. Just rename it art.ff.zip and then you can search the file freely.

[GogglesPizanno]

5. Mission 2 went fine until the very end--the game tells me to have Mentor Interrogate, but the Interrogate option doesn't show up on his context menu.

In my conversion i was able to interrogate, but when I did, nothing happened.
It was an issue with the Interrogation 'end_cs' failing that required moving a couple lines from one branch to another (dont quite know why).
Cutscenes tend to be really twitchy to me, and since the Add Interrogation function is generated in the 'sukhov_cs' cutscene, maybe its a similar issue of a cutscene being finicky and crapping out.

8. Alarm lights don't light up. (level 2, i assume)
maybe missing an effect. Will check

I think thats it.
You probably need to copy over the effects from the FF directory: \Art\library\fx\fx_levels
This is where the alarm light effect is.... among others that are needed.

[detourne_me]

And here's a quick summary of what's been reported so far (my comments in bold):

1. Oconner's gun is held strangely (upsidedown).
I had run his mesh through EZNIf. Will check, maybe can hex it to look right.

I released a series of FF meshes converted to FFVTTR ones.  you could update OConner to one of these,  since it fixes his gun in hand, and the darkness issue he has.

[abenavides]

detourne_me, thx I'll check em out

GogglesPizanno - thx as always for the input!

Previsionary - do you mean the Ffv3R art.ff file, That's where i've been looking and I can't find dominion. Or do you mean another art.ff file (from a mod or elsewhere?)

[tommyboy]

Dominion is in there, I'm pretty sure.
At least he is in my data/etc.

[Previsionary]

Previsionary - do you mean the Ffv3R art.ff file, That's where i've been looking and I can't find dominion. Or do you mean another art.ff file (from a mod or elsewhere?)

Yeah, that file. The direct path would be: art.ff\art\library\characters\Dominion  (right under Deja Vu)

Dominion is in there, I'm pretty sure.
At least he is in my data/etc.

That's where it is if the art file was unzipped.

If it helps any, I can just send it to you or upload it.

[Shazam]

Hello,
Just to confirm Dominions head nif does work and is there. As prev stated I'm using it in my mod.

[abenavides]

Egads! I found it!

Only thing I can think of is I must have been looking lord_dominion all this time :)

Will fix that one easily then.Thx !

[Cyjack]

For whatever technical reason, I am no longer able to run original FF on my computer (even with 1.3 patch).  I am therefore watching this mod with great interest.  I have played thorugh it thus far, and had about the same experience as everyone else...cant get past the mentor interrogation of Suhkov.

Thanks for all your work on this.  As Vid card Drivers, Windows versions, and Direct X builds keep advancing, this may eventually be the only way anyone can play FF without keeping a "retro" machine in operation.

[lmalonsof]

Hi everyone,

5. Mission 2 went fine until the very end--the game tells me to have Mentor Interrogate, but the Interrogate option doesn't show up on his context menu.
Had this happen once and once it didn't. Will look into it more

I tried three times and I couldn't interrogate him.

Keep up the good work!  :thumbup:

[Lunarman]

I got up to where nuclear winter froze but then it crashed due to dominion's head. Are you using the new FFVTTR one or the FF one?

I also agree with IPS. The jaggies may be possible to sort out by upping resolution and dds quality (and fiddling with the alpha somewhat). I also noticed that many of the meshes are very simplified. is this how they are in FF1? (I can't remember having not played it for so long).

Otherwise, it was great fun!

I do have a feeling that they remade every ff1 mesh for ffvttr and they included with the sequel so a little bit of art asset replacing would fix many mesh lighting problems.

[GogglesPizanno]

I played around with one of the terrain files in nifskope tonight while converting a few maps, And it looks like at least some of the "jaggy" problems with street textures can be improved by turning off the mipmapping on those decal meshes.

[tommyboy]

RE: Objects being dark. This can be fixed by running them through EZNifconverter with the "fix lighting" box checked (you have to use the convert list function in tools, which takes a few minutes to set up, or do them one at a time).
I thought I'd done that already for the pack I sent Alex, because All the FF objects I have in my various FFV3R Mods are now the correct light levels. However, I confess I dont think that I've downloaded the Mod from his site yet and checked, so I'll try to do that...
And I dont have texture problems if I simply copy over the FF textures unconverted rather than use DDS(obviously those without FF cant do that).
There are still some objects I didn't convert (from the FF base, pans island etc) so the FF for FFV3R objects pack will need updating at some point, but most of the most common  (ie city based ones) work correctly, at least on my system.
Don't know why so many people are stalled at the same place. My guess is that I copied over a head that none of you noticed missing (probably Dominions which is in FFV3R's Data dir) and it never got into the Mod (hence it being a beta).

[Previsionary]

I got up to where nuclear winter froze but then it crashed due to dominion's head. Are you using the new FFVTTR one or the FF one?

Sir Lunar, Alex already had that figured out...the discussion kinda took place right above your post. :P

Don't know why so many people are stalled at the same place. My guess is that I copied over a head that none of you noticed missing (probably Dominions which is in FFV3R's Data dir) and it never got into the Mod (hence it being a beta).

Most of the complaints seem to happen before DOminion even comes into play. It sounds more like a script error and some hooks/codes in ffvttr are funny like that, though I was able to get pass that mission with no problems. (mentor intro mission for clarification)

[Cyjack]

Any news to report on this? :)

[mremustard]

First off, I'm thrilled to see this FF in FFvtR mod having lost my copy of FF- thanks to abenavides and tommyboy!

I hit some issues that won't let my campaign progress and figured there's no sense keeping it to myself. So, here's the problems (not yet posted in this thread) that I've stumbled on by mission:

03b_thin_ice:
-Diablo too weak to complete mission on normal setting (he's a really big wuss!)
-objects 'fall' beneath the ice and cannot be seen or interacted with (an issue for any map with ice)
-mentor is frozen 'beneath' ice and can't be seen or freed (prevents mission completetion, I moved him to shore with the editor as a quick fix).

04a_winter_enterprise
-opening cutscene freezes (did a little messing around and realized the problem is the map, seems movement is all kinds of messed-up)

[GogglesPizanno]

Im not sure about the weak diablo issue, but the other problems are map issues.

I should still have the fixed Maps I did for my conversion that addressed these issues on my harddrive.
If you wanna PM me your email I can see about sending you the fixed map nifs.

[mremustard]

Okay, after getting a fixed enterprise map I stumbled onto a few more issues and eventually hit one I couldn't work around. Not surprising, I'm near clueless when comes to scripting.

Mission 4a (frozen_enterprise map) still crashed during the opening cutscene. I changed the following lines in the mission script:
             #I'll take this for safekeeping
   "speakNoCB('nuclear_winter', 'MISSPCH_4_NW_13')",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_1', 'cold_move_1' )",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_2', 'cold_move_2' )",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_3', 'cold_move_3' )",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_4', 'cold_move_4' )",
   "Trigger_Pickup('nuclear_winter', 'abomb', 'onStepCB')",
to:
            #I'll take this for safekeeping
   "speakNoCB('nuclear_winter', 'MISSPCH_4_NW_13')",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_1', 'cold_move_1' )",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_2', 'cold_move_2' )",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_3', 'cold_move_3' )",
   "AI_IssueMove( 'cold_warrior_4', 'cold_move_4', 'onStepCB' )",
   #"Trigger_Pickup('nuclear_winter', 'abomb')",

This let the cutscene and mission progress... I've no clue if the issue is with the Trigger_Pickup() function or with abomb object or what.

In mission 5a, nick_craft was missing a head.nif and the civilian_boy head.nif wasn't loading (I just replaced with renegade's default head)

In mission 5c, the nick_dead object can't be interrogated. As a quick and dirty fix, I used a nick's character nif in place of the nick_dead nif and moved his spawn point out of harms way (so he wouldn't get killed in crossfire).

My dead end was mission 6, where the starting cutscene (after briefing and team select) did not play. I took a peak at the mission script and immediately realized this was over my head :P.

[GogglesPizanno]

I ran into a couple of these as well.
I think I might have some script fixes (at least for some of them)
I'll look tonight when I get home.

[Previsionary]

abomb may have caused the problem since it doesnt point to an object in FFVTTR.

civilian_boy head nif may not work because it also may not point to a nif (or it wasnt converted to ffvttr format)

But those are just my guesses without doing any looking. :P

[The_Baroness]

Hi Hi... i just copied the mappack from GogglesPizanno into the mod folder and that solved some problems , now characters do properly stand on ice and all... but in the enterprise mission have the same problem that the cutscene does not end...

Also after copying the maps, the first mission rocks had a proper texture while before they didn't


Hope this helps a little and that this great conversion keeps alive :)

[The_Baroness]

ok.... was playing around with the editor and noticed that the abomb on the cutscene in the enterprise mission  is directed to the abomb_det_only template... wich is not wieldable.. i changed the template to abomb and in templates i changed where it said wieldable to 1 instead of 0 and IT WORKED