Final Fantasy 7 2D

[hanetzer]

Yeah, I know what you are thinking. Either "Dear god what a terrible idea" or "He'll never finish it."
Either way, its how I feel like spending my free time at the moment, and it gives me an excuse to learn ruby

What's done:
Menu system resembling the original
Overworld and in-battle sprites (for main cast)
All music is available as midi
Materia System

What I need:
Better Battlers (using ff6 style sprites at the moment, would like some larger more detailed ones)
Face-sets (I have the original graphics from the game, but would like some nice anime-style ones) 96x96 px
Generic npcs/enemies (if you're interested I have a requests thread here.)
Animations (dear god the fmvs are gonna be hell to make)

What is on my plate:
Extracting magic animations from FF6
Extracting world-map textures from FF7

Any help/feedback would be appreciated, and I don't need doomsayers and haters posting in my thread. If all you have to say is negative, find another thread.

Screenshots

[MetalRenard]

Be fair though, you don't get many negative people around here, we cultivate open mindedness and a friendly community spirit. :)
In the name of learning! Good reason to do anything in my book.

So you're going to use midi music? Have you considered finding the mp3s of the songs online? I know it's a terrible thing to do but they're there, might as well use them. It's not like you can buy them anywhere (can you?).

[hanetzer]

Heh, In that case no one will mind what I said since we have no haters, right?
I was thinking midi for the authentic old school game feel and sound, plus my understanding is that looping midis works better than mp3, but correct me if I'm wrong on that. Getting the mp3s are no prob, I actually have the soundtracks myself. I frikken loved this game, its what started my long rpg playing life (2/3 of my 24 years) and I think this could be a very fun project :P

[yamina-chan]

Just as long as you are aware that you are not the first person to attempt this.
I've actually played a really good adaption of this a while back that was I believe about 1/3rd finished I think.

As far as looping MP3s: it works, if they're edited correctly. The problem you will encounter with the Final Fantasy songs is that most of them have a clear beginning and ending bit, and inbetween is the music that loops. You'll have that problem with Midis and MP3s alike.
There is a script somewhere in the forum that -if you get it to work- will help you getting arround of this, with the mp3s at least. But otherwise you'll either have to accept the fact that the music will either clearly restart at some point in the battle, or you'll have to edit it to the part where it does loop just fine and loose the intro/outro part. It's a bit annoying.
There is a perfectly working way for the VX (and VXace too, I think) for these things; one that sadly does not work in the XP and by the looks of it that is what you are using.

[hanetzer]

Yes, I am aware it has been attempted, yamina-chan. This idea originated (for me at least) as a rom-hack of FF6 but ended up as an RMXP project after looking into the FF6-SDK lol. I actually played Vanit's demo, but as there has been no change in it in over 2 years I figured I may as well take a shot at it, lol. I've seen your name around here alot yamina-chan, enough to remember you like the little y, not Y. Its a pleasure to make your acquaintance, or はじめまして！ I'm having alot of fun doing this, lol.

[Ace]

I was also working on a Final Fantasy Fan Game long ago, so good luck with that. When you finish it, I will play it :)

[RosyPosy]

Theres no shame in using existing material as practice. Musicians learn hits to practice arrangments. I used to write down anime scripts to improve my writting skills. stuff like that is good for you.

and Im curious to see how much FF7 you get done.
There lots of funny things in the game. like the two guards bickering in sector seven or the sign barret wrote. Crap like that was everywhere.

[hanetzer]

I was also working on a Final Fantasy Fan Game long ago, so good luck with that. When you finish it, I will play it :)

Well I feel foolish, lol. I thought you were dead because of that in pace resquiat, but now I see its in reference to you avatar Ace, lol. Thank you for your support, I hope to have some playable bits available for a demo in a timely fashion

Theres no shame in using existing material as practice. Musicians learn hits to practice arrangments. I used to write down anime scripts to improve my writting skills. stuff like that is good for you.

and Im curious to see how much FF7 you get done.
There lots of funny things in the game. like the two guards bickering in sector seven or the sign barret wrote. Crap like that was everywhere.

Yeah, I know what you mean as I am currently replaying it to re-familiarize myself with the game, lol. Yeah, I taught myself bash in a similar fashion, cobbling together other people's script and learning from it. I am considering adding in some scenes that, while being inside the game data, never made it into the final cut but elaborate on the story a bit more than the standard game does.

[JayRay]

I don't see any issue, but I will say, if you're trying to get resources... Final Fantasy 7 for PC is available on Steam right now, and might be a better tool for you and extraction. Taking say pictures of our characters during certain field animations and battle animations and then re-spriting them might work.

On the other route... I will say, if you're willing to invest money into your project. Reallusion Iclone 5 and CloneCloth would allow you to begin to create all the characters and outfits you need for your FF7 2d remake, as it allows you to take pictures of models from all angles, has an easy interface. and would allow you to put your own spin on the characters... (unless you wanted to try HKCP instead)