ATTENTION Final Fantasy X HD CONFIRMED for PS3 and PS Vita

[Rostum]

Thanks HC for proving you know absolutely nothing about game development.

[Nebulance]

Your guess is as good as mine. It is square enix lol. They take their time to release info and it is not always when the fans want it. Look at versus six years and nothing. I don't have a ps3 but I will believe you about the aspect ratio on your tv. I am still not sure what it is going to look like on the ps3 or vita. Only time will tell.

I don't know if I'm just spoiled by the graphics of PS3 (especially those of Metal Gear Solid 4 and their HD collection looks fantastic), but I don't know, FFX's graphics just really get to me now.

[Hollycat]

If it really is just texture updating, that is an extremely easy thing to do.

[Mirage]

Is it? If the textures weren't made in a higher resolution than what was used on the PS2 version, they have to remake a lot of textures. For segments that are also part of pre-rendered movies, they probably have high-res textures available, but most of the game is not shown in the movies.

Then there's also code optimization, remaking the user interface, because the low-res 2D stuff from the PS2 version won't look good just zoomed up. Then there's also play testing to make sure they didn't mess up anything. And then there's also the fact that we don't even know how many people are working on it, and how many hours they're spending on it per week. For all we know, this might just be a low-priority side project.

[Hollycat]

I know most of that, but creating and replacing textures is very simple and doesn't take long. I didn't think about the fact they will need to make bigger letters and change the screen size from 1:1 to 3:4 for PS3 and whatever the Vita Has.

[Mirage]

1:1? Maybe you mean from 4:3 to 16:9. I don't think many games run with a square aspect ratio.

But anyway, that was something I didn't think about either. If you're gonna switch from 4:3 to 16:9, that means you might want to re-script certain cut scenes. If you just changed it and never checked what difference it made, you might end up with either some character's heads chopped off, or some dumb stuff being visible at the far left or right side that could ruin the overall feel of the cutscene. Who knows, maybe they're even adding an adjustable camera? In that case, they need to make sure you're not able to point it somewhere that they don't have a proper texture for, because that would look awkward. The fix for that would be to either put something there, or add custom limitations to camera movement for every area in the game.

The point, anyway, is that we don't know exactly what they're changing and how much work each of those changes involve.

[Hollycat]

Maybe it's just my tv, and yes I meant 16:9, it just didn't sound right in my head.

[Mirage]

Well if you're used to 16:9 and play a 4:3 game on a widescreen TV, it does look "kinda square". After all, 4:3 isn't *that* far from 4:4 (or 1:1 if you want).

[Hollycat]

No I mean my Tv screen that I play ps2 games on is square. it's like a perfect square.

[ReloadPsi]

Will the cutscenes be skippable this time? If they are, I might actually attempt to check it out.

[Rostum]

I know most of that, but creating and replacing textures is very simple and doesn't take long.

Take it from someone who has worked with texture artists before; you're absolutely very, very wrong.

Hand painting textures, hell even making textures from real-life references, takes an enormous amount of time. Especially for so many assets we see in FFX. Not only that, they probably will be either painting or sculpting (better results) normal maps for each asset and that also takes a lot of time.

[Hollycat]

I've created tons of textures for oblivion mods, and while I probably haven't made as many as is on the characters of ffx , It doesn't take very long to make textures. I had no idea about handpainted though, all mine were done in photoshop, then mounted using other programs

I was under the impression that this was going to be along the lines of jak and daxter hd, with just the character textures really increased and the rest just smoothed or sharpened with new colors.
If they are doing a full hd remake and adding new meshes, yes it will take a long time, because meshes are a pain in the ass to create, but if it is just updated textures, the actual art part shouldn't take too long.

Unless they are actually hand painting them, I would like to see where you came up with that.

[Nebulance]

Well, this doesn't bode well: Square Enix Hints At Final Fantasy XIII-3 - IGN

Dammit Square-Enix, just let FFXIII go already. Why couldn't they give FFX this kind of treatment -- a sequel to FFX that deals with Braska and Jecht, instead of the sorry result that is FFX-2.

(in addition to doing the HD remaster of course.)

[ReloadPsi]

Since I'm too lazy to read the thread have they made the cutscenes skippable this time?

[Rostum]

I've created tons of textures for oblivion mods, and while I probably haven't made as many as is on the characters of ffx , It doesn't take very long to make textures. I had no idea about handpainted though, all mine were done in photoshop, then mounted using other programs

I was under the impression that this was going to be along the lines of jak and daxter hd, with just the character textures really increased and the rest just smoothed or sharpened with new colors.
If they are doing a full hd remake and adding new meshes, yes it will take a long time, because meshes are a pain in the ass to create, but if it is just updated textures, the actual art part shouldn't take too long.

Unless they are actually hand painting them, I would like to see where you came up with that.

Wait, do you think texturing just involves some basic Photoshop manipulation of photos? Because if so, you couldn't be further from the truth. There's one thing to slap in some bad photo images on to a mesh and call it a day, to actually making something professional.

Even when it comes to say, for example, realistic rocks and cliffsides the process is usually that they sculpt it all in ZBrush and then hand-digital paint texture, tone and colour, then bake it on to the mesh (usually they just re-topologize the extremely high polygonal mesh) with light information (in the end you usually end up with normal maps, diffuse maps, specular maps, glow maps, etc.). There are ways to use photo manipulation, but it's also a long process and the results are generally too generic to bother these days.

Throughout the entirety of the Final Fantasy series, they've always used this method. Even during the more realistic pre-rendered cinematics. Even during the latest installments such as XIII and XIV. X especially is completely hand-digitally painted (beautifully done), chances are they have all the textures in much high resolutions as master files (like 2048x2048) but if they plan on adding normal mapping or they want things changed in the textures then it's going to take them a long time.

Go read up on the Polycount and CGTalk forums if you want to find out more about how the professionals actually work.