man. too many people automatically assume that square graphics are unattainable. well this is not true and anything that you would use to make your halflife mods or anything at all, can make Final Fantasy models. the textures are nothing special too but they are painted directly onto the mesh in 3d which makes them look so perfect. I am trying to adapt this for myself but no program that i have seen does it the way i imagine it.
Essentially, final fantasy models are just very creative uses of very few polygons. Obviously the playstation has very little memory which makes super high poly shit impossible to do. If you want some really nice examples of this technology, go rent soul reaver for ps. this game is brillient in its use of pollies and texture mapping. (I SHOULD NEVER SAY MAPPING, ITS SO IMPERSONAL)
I guess what makes final fantasy so great is its fantasy look. I have never seen more personal models in games . Characters that are just perfect and feel very much alive. If you are in doubt about what these graphics are like, we should sit down and try to make our own renditions of them. Yes, they take some time but they are not all THAT complex. the more complex issue is makes them render over a 2d background. THat is a bitch and requires crazy timing and planning. I would so like to sit and make a Final Fantasy clone demo to prove this point. if anyone is interested that is.
I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.
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Final Fantasy
- There''s a post of Ahw about creating textures. Check that out.
- They use the reference provided by their conceptual artists.
- A variety of tools. I''m guessing mainly proporeity software (watever that word is. i suck at spelling) made by their own programmers. I know they used Maya for vagrant story and ff8.
- Techniques? They just painted the texture on the models.
- Again, that''s what the concept artists are for. They make up the stuff and later hand a copy to the modelers to model it.
Like Fantasy Edge said, it''s not impossible. Personally I believe that ppl overate Square. Not just Square, most big name companies. They make it seem almost impossible. I thought it was impossible to do 2d animation but i finally got a demo reel of 7 second using a 8mm camera done. (True animation, heh. I gota kill the sucker who invented that 24fps crap. Took me freaking long cuz I had no lighttable.) Yeah I know this is way offtopic but I gota spill my pissed off thoughts cuz im never gonna do this again til i get a light table ( or a technique which makes animation easier).
Dude1:Look at this!
Dude2:Ugh! That''s disgusting.
Dude1:Its art!
Dude2: Its your puke.
Dude1:Its abstract art,dammit!
- They use the reference provided by their conceptual artists.
- A variety of tools. I''m guessing mainly proporeity software (watever that word is. i suck at spelling) made by their own programmers. I know they used Maya for vagrant story and ff8.
- Techniques? They just painted the texture on the models.
- Again, that''s what the concept artists are for. They make up the stuff and later hand a copy to the modelers to model it.
Like Fantasy Edge said, it''s not impossible. Personally I believe that ppl overate Square. Not just Square, most big name companies. They make it seem almost impossible. I thought it was impossible to do 2d animation but i finally got a demo reel of 7 second using a 8mm camera done. (True animation, heh. I gota kill the sucker who invented that 24fps crap. Took me freaking long cuz I had no lighttable.) Yeah I know this is way offtopic but I gota spill my pissed off thoughts cuz im never gonna do this again til i get a light table ( or a technique which makes animation easier).
Dude1:Look at this!
Dude2:Ugh! That''s disgusting.
Dude1:Its art!
Dude2: Its your puke.
Dude1:Its abstract art,dammit!
personally im quite impressed by the graphics for threads of fate. they arent that exceptional but they demonstrate how graphics can suit a game.
generally, they are between 2 and 400 pollies and they animate really well. texture painting is really important with this i think but not the be all and end all... im not sure what they use to paint them but i want it. Actully, an interesting challange would be to paint a character useing something like ms3d. anyone up for it? just to prove that square graphics arent unattainable, we could create a cast of characters and get a programmer to do a simple battle or something.
I got a character already, just need to model her.
I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.
generally, they are between 2 and 400 pollies and they animate really well. texture painting is really important with this i think but not the be all and end all... im not sure what they use to paint them but i want it. Actully, an interesting challange would be to paint a character useing something like ms3d. anyone up for it? just to prove that square graphics arent unattainable, we could create a cast of characters and get a programmer to do a simple battle or something.
I got a character already, just need to model her.
I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.
Author
I agree that character modelling is easy. I want to know how they do the background (e.g. buildings, architectures, trees, caves etc). Are these rendered in 3d? If so, how is the texture/material created?
For what I''ve seen, not only the textures are very important, but the most important part of their modelling is in detail. Have you ever looked at any wall of a house in every Final Fantasy ? never left blank. The most of the time, walls have special textures, or they put a lot of stuff here, a lot of stuff there. What makes their scenes so realistic are the details and the light. If you want to know how to place your lights in a scene, look at the way their scene are lightned !
Remember, all is in the detail, in the light and in the textures. Not at all in the modelling. I know, I''ve seen in a ff9 movie alexandria''s town enterely modeled (impressive : hundreds of houses and the castle), have you ever looked more closely to each house ? They are low polygon models, but what makes them less cubic is the motion blur applied in the fmv''s and
always the great textures and the light. If you don''t agree restart again ff9 and look how are the houses built in alexandria!
Amazing huh ?
for their software, i don''t know what is in use at squaresoft
but all that i know is that they used Maya for the Parasite Eve 2
backgrounds and movies. But you can use the modeller you want !
I hope that this all can help you a bit !!!
Remember, all is in the detail, in the light and in the textures. Not at all in the modelling. I know, I''ve seen in a ff9 movie alexandria''s town enterely modeled (impressive : hundreds of houses and the castle), have you ever looked more closely to each house ? They are low polygon models, but what makes them less cubic is the motion blur applied in the fmv''s and
always the great textures and the light. If you don''t agree restart again ff9 and look how are the houses built in alexandria!
Amazing huh ?
for their software, i don''t know what is in use at squaresoft
but all that i know is that they used Maya for the Parasite Eve 2
backgrounds and movies. But you can use the modeller you want !
I hope that this all can help you a bit !!!
- Buildings : All made low-poly with perfect-fitted textures
- Trees : I don''t really know, I think the trees are
painted by a background designer and then
scanned
- Textures : Never leave a texture blank, if you have a brick
wall you shold draw anything on the brick texture.
- Materials : they were only used in ff7
- Backgrounds : all is pre-rendered cg, not real-time 3d. At
the beginning, a designer paint alls backgrounds
and then they are modelled (in ff9 that''s amano
who have made them.)
- NOTES : squaresoft always use bump-maps. every texture is
bump-maped.
Is you want to do a town you should think before what is it gonna like. you should perfectly study each position of each house and then model every house alone, and finally assemble them all and do the final touches (blur, light, light effects...)
- Trees : I don''t really know, I think the trees are
painted by a background designer and then
scanned
- Textures : Never leave a texture blank, if you have a brick
wall you shold draw anything on the brick texture.
- Materials : they were only used in ff7
- Backgrounds : all is pre-rendered cg, not real-time 3d. At
the beginning, a designer paint alls backgrounds
and then they are modelled (in ff9 that''s amano
who have made them.)
- NOTES : squaresoft always use bump-maps. every texture is
bump-maped.
Is you want to do a town you should think before what is it gonna like. you should perfectly study each position of each house and then model every house alone, and finally assemble them all and do the final touches (blur, light, light effects...)
buildings and scenes get a lot of attention. they are all done by hand as far as i know.. (by hand, i mean everything modeled and placed just right before any rendering. this is all done in the concept sketches first. these guys have REAL artists who do that. the 3d guys just copy it. I was flipping through my ff9 art book and man, the concept paintings for alexandria are pretty much exactly the same as the final renders.. minus animation of coarse. the hard part is not makeing the scene. its making the 3d character render over it right. THAT IS TRICKY!!! and i really dont have a concrete answer for this at this time. but we are fucking with this concept so with luck, we will emulate this (my verge team)
I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.
I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.
Proper lighting and textures, man. Read Digital Lighting & Rendering by Jeremy Birn. Check it out at www.3drender.com.
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