Grim Fandango Deluxe - Original Thread [Locked]

Pirateguybrush · Post by **Pirateguybrush** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:21 am

If you check the discussion/history of that wiki page, you might be able to track down the person who wrote it, and ask them for help. You need to register to view those though, and registration is closed. You need to contact this guy to register.

http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?tit ... media_Mike

Jumba · Post by **Jumba** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:19 pm

Thanks, I'll look into it.

somaen · Post by **somaen** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:10 pm

There is code for reading VIMA in ResidualVM, but, do you really need to redub them? The soundtrack might just as well be read from the original files (as long as you didn't change the length, which a 2x frame interpolation wouldnt do)

Pirateguybrush · Post by **Pirateguybrush** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:21 pm

I'd imagine that might be harder than it would seem. You'd have to tell Residual to read the video from one file, and the audio from another.

Jumba · Post by **Jumba** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:49 pm

The question is, what is the final format of the videos going to be (codec/container)? If residual contained support for h264 (x264) or similar modern codec that would be ideal.

Either way, it would be good for me to be able to convert the .wavs to a format that's usable, even if just for preview purposes. A matter of adding in the correct headers I believe. I can record the sound from the videos as they play but it's a long process, hence the preference for some sort of util that can do the conversion for me.

Pirateguybrush · Post by **Pirateguybrush** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 10:47 pm

Not to mention that would entail some quality loss.

somaen · Post by **somaen** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 11:26 pm

A little heads up:

Reading the videos from anything other than smush will require specific handling anyhow, and thus a hack here or there, actually, reading the audiostream only from the smush-file and drawing the video from something else wouldn't be too hard if we are to add any such hacks.

Why is a hack needed?
Well, currently we support 2 codecs, with a third in the works (but not yet fixed as we don't have a test-case):
SMUSH - Grim Fandango
Bink - Escape From Monkey Island (PC/MAC)/ Myst III
MPEG2 - Escape From Monkey Island (PS2), not working right now.

There is also a possibility that QuickTime-support will be added for the Aspyr-logo-video in the mac-version of EFMI. (But no work has been done in that direction).

The reason why a hack is needed, is simply that the choice of codec currently is hardcoded based on game-id, meaning that Grim will ALWAYS get a smush-decoder.

Adding x264-support is extra work, that doesn't really pay off for us at the moment, will MPEG2/Bink do fine for you guys?

JohnnyWalker2001 · Post by **JohnnyWalker2001** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:01 am

Wow, great to see so many new faces!

I received the following 3D version of Manny from Javier Duran. He says it follows the "rules" that somaen and cplhenshaw laid out.

http://www.thunderpeel2001.com/grim/Man ... xen_v2.rar

Pirateguybrush · Post by **Pirateguybrush** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 7:34 am

I just took a look. It looks great (though I think we could still up the poly count significantly), and I like the way he's done the sleeves and hands in particular. That said, it's not going to be suitable. Here's the reasons why:

There was an issue with the exporter that I was working out with cplhenshaw, and at the moment it means when you export to obj, you need to do some work in a text editor. If you don't, the pieces will lose their unique names when imported and exported, so the game won't recognise them.

This same problem (along with incorrect importer/exporter settings) causes all the objects that make up Manny to fuse together in the file. 3d software can separate them, but they need to be separate to begin with.

He's scaled and rotated the mesh in order to work on it. That's all well and good, but he forgot to scale it back down and rotate it again, so it would completely break in-game.

Great attempt though, and we should work together on the models - you clearly have some nice skills there. It just needs a little work in the technical side of things is all.

cplhenshaw · Post by **cplhenshaw** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:23 am

Yes, unfortunately on the way out of Maya it seems all the pieces were fused into a single group called "default", rather than the various pieces. When exporting I think you need to check a box which ensures that the vertex groupings are exported in the .obj file. Pirateguybrush can probably elaborate on which settings to check / uncheck as we had it mostly working previously.

If you need to undo any rotations / scaling, reimport the original model to use as a guide. Scale, position and orient your version in the same place and direction, then delete the guide model.

Darxen · Post by **Darxen** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 12:00 am

Hi! i'm Darxen, from Spain. I'm the author of that manny.

well, i'm trying to export it piece by piece, but i don't know how to do it in Maya. when exported in obj, Maya groups it all automatically.

Well, here is the Manny with correct scale and orientation (sorry for that) and a FBX version included (it contains the mesh separated correctly)
if you know a way to separate the mesh using obj export, please let me know!
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Manny/Ma ... w=69671b4d

thanks!

please if you see a mistake in my english, tell me. i have to improve my english

cplhenshaw · Post by **cplhenshaw** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:01 am

Hola Darxen!

I get an error for that dropbox link, saying I should log in.

I'm downloading a student version of Maya so I can play around with the exporting process and see what works the best.

cplhenshaw · Post by **cplhenshaw** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:17 am

Okay, so when exporting as OBJ from Maya you need to ensure that the setting "Point Groups" is set to OFF. The rest should be on by default and are fine.

If this is left on it lumps all (or almost all) of the pieces into a single "default" group, so make sure it is off to keep the pieces separate.

The resulting .obj file will still not be quite right, but I can fix that simply by importing and then exporting it through Blender.

Pirateguybrush and I had worked all this out the other week but I couldn't quite remember the specifics.

Darxen · Post by **Darxen** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:42 am

Hi!
well, i exported it setting off "point groups". i hope that it works!

the other dropbox link is bad, here is the good one (i think)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41508931/Manny_ ... xen_v4.rar

Pirateguybrush · Post by **Pirateguybrush** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:03 pm

I remember I had to change some "o"s to "g"s in a text editor or something as well, didn't I? Also I'm not sure the student version will let you export, will it?