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07th-mod / higurashi-patch-compiler

Compiler for Higurashi patches. It's still under development.
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Upcoming features for Higurashi #47

Closed enumag closed 6 years ago

enumag commented 6 years ago

This issue is a bit overdue because I got sidetracked several times (by Tsumi, then by Tarai, then by Orian's fixes for Hima and the switch release) but I'm finally writing it now.

Here I'd like to discuss what features we want to work on next so I'm writing down a list of all the ideas from the past that I can remember. Of course if you have something else on your mind that's not listed here, please tell us.

Re-remastered original audio

@ItaloKnox said he wants to take another shot at remastreing the original BGMs. Switch also has some remastered versions for original songs but it seems they are mostly worse than Italo's current remasters. (Tell us if you disagree.)

Issue: https://github.com/07th-mod/higurashi-patch-compiler/issues/38

Sui/Switch audio

Many people would like to see a patch with the PS3 backgrounds and ideally sound effects as well. We have a tool to automatically insert the BGMs but it is most likely not accurate enough. I'm unsure if this even can be done fully automatically. Any suggestions?

For long-term maintenance we would also need some customized DLL functions so that the scripts can contain both versions of the audio.

Issue: https://github.com/07th-mod/higurashi-patch-compiler/issues/34

BGM names

From what I heard PS3 shows which BGM is playing whenever a new one starts. Some people mentioned they would like to see this feature in our release too. If some of the devs are also interested then we can discuss this in a separate issue. (I'm not creating it for now.)

More textboxes

Some people mentioned on Discord they would like to have a cleaner textbox (without logo) and some others wanted the PS3 textbox. Petsnew has some experimental DLL with this feature but it would need to be redone on top of our current DLLs and tested.

@Petsnew If you're still planing to finish this, please create a new issue about it in this repository.

Related issue: https://github.com/07th-mod/higurashi-patch-compiler/issues/35

New spectum files generator

As most of you know, we don't have the program that was used to generate spectrum files used for LipSync. Here are the reasons why we would like to have a new generator eventually:

  1. Some people mentioned that the current lipsync doesn't work very vell for characters with deep voice like Ooishi and for laughter voices. I can't confirm this myself though, I didn't play any chapter since we added lipsync. What is your experience?
  2. Even if the first point turns out to be untrue or not serious, it is still a fact that we can't really do any lipsync changes unless we have a configurable spectrum generator.
  3. Switch release has around 3000 new voices for the previously unvoiced chapters. These won't have a good lipsync unless we implement a new spectrum generator. Of course it will take a long time before we will need to use those voices.

@drojf You mentioned that you know a thing or two about this kind of stuff and that you're willing to try it. Is that still true?

Switch release graphics

From what I got on Discord the full HD backgrounds and CGs seem to be upscales and actually look worse than ours and the new CGs are only for the chapters that were not on PS3. Is there anything from the switch release we should use to improve our graphics patches then?

Flags for video openings

Some of the PS3 openings contain spoilers so we want to add a dialogue to let the user decide if he wants to play it or now.

Issue: https://github.com/07th-mod/higurashi-patch-compiler/issues/46

TIPS screen improvements

Currently the TIPS screen in all arcs have a bunch of problems:

From what @idealpersona told me it would be quite difficult to hack the DLL in a way that would allow us to fix these problems. I'm not sure if it's worth the time that would be necessary to implement it. How important is this in your opinion?

Custom fonts

Currently we can't change the font used in the game (we can only switch between the 4 options the engine has). This hinders any possible readability improvements and also there are problems with the engine being unable to render certain japanese characters. Translators who are trying to translate higurashi to other languages also reported similar problems. Does anyone has an idea how to find out more about how fonts are handled by the game?

New website

Last but not least Italo is working on a new website for our group. Give him your feedback. ;-)

Current version: http://07th-mod.com/home/ Repository: https://github.com/07th-mod/website

ItaloKnox commented 6 years ago

My take on it:

BGM

I definitely want to go back and remake a few songs. It's not going to be a full remake but I plan on remaking everything that features strings, especially Fascism, which I plan on taking apart and remaking it from scratch (note by note). Synths will take me more time, but at least I hope we can feature the remakes as the default sometime soon? 🤔

Sui audio

I'm all in for putting a high bounty on it. We really need to get this done, mostly because I hate how there is an "alternative" version of our patch that can't be supported easily. With this change, I think I can also put some changes on the installer behavior to enable the user to make an actual custom installation.

BGM and textboxes

Yes, just yes. In my opinion, we should focus on making a new default textbox right now. At least before we implement multiple textboxes and the BGM thing.

New spectrum generator

This is definitely one thing we should start looking into, but I don't think we need to rush it yet. I remember P-Chang gave some details about it on Discord a long time ago. If you search for his username you might find some inspiration.

Switch graphics

I actually retract my comment about them being upscaled. I think they might be the direct source (just the art style that makes them look a bit blurry) but they don't really look any different from our upscales. Looks like a waste of time. But if they have the same filenames I guess we could make new patches using them? I want to take a look at the sprites before giving a definitive opinion about this.

Opening flags

We really should have this ready for the next batch of updates.

TIPS screen improvements

IMO, low priority. We should have someone else not focusing on anything right now to fix the console arcs and tsumi.

Custom fonts

Looks interesting. Maybe we should ask Doddler about it? Just a lead would be nice.

New website

It's bugged but it's pretty, isn't it? I will try to fix some bugs this sunday.

drojf commented 6 years ago

@enumag @ItaloKnox Re: the spectrum generator, it's very much something I would enjoy working on, but at the same time I don't want to do it until it's necessary because I tend to lose momentum/don't want to have too many things on my plate at once. I'd estimate it wouldn't take me long to get it working, so when you guys think you need it just ping me.

With regards to the Sui stuff, I re-wrote my python merger (because it was very messy/hard to maintain) in C#. In doing so, I noticed I did some stuff which caused poor matching - the matching is now much better. Unfortunately I haven't documented it yet or put out any builds yet for this tool. It's currently at: https://github.com/07th-mod/cs-sui-merger

Here is an example script which used to have lots of problems, but now works OK: tsumi_025_3_merged.zip

Edit: added more info in #34.

irlPM commented 6 years ago

Original BGM

I really want Italo's remake to have a better exposure in our patch. He made it and I feel like there is a lot of people that don't even know that exists, the remakes are great, probably with a custom installer that would be a good place to put it on.

Sui BGM/SE and stuff

Drojf new script is pretty good, I'm working on porting a lot of future features to our current script, not only bgms but other good features about sui as well, including the naming feature you mentioned it.

Textboxes

Please, I think that our current adv textbox is too much polluted other version of it would be gladly accepted.

Switch

I didn't see too much difference on the CGs, BGs to be worthy of a remake really.

Opening flags

It's already done, just need to port for all the episodes.

TIPS screen improvements

Kinda meh, not really a priority now, it's really a pain to do those images but I guess after some time I can make the tips screen for tsumi.

New website

Really liked the design, just need to fix those buttons problems I think.

enumag commented 6 years ago

ping @Petsnew @Grelo @idealpersona @DoctorDiablo @orian34 @InochiPM @jwgrlrrajn @Norgus

(we don't need everyone's reaction I'm just not sure if you guys know about this issue)

DoctorDiablo commented 6 years ago

Re-remastered original audio / Sui/Switch audio

I like giving the users more options here, but we need to do it in a way that's seamlessly integrated with the release. The users should be able to either select these options during installation, or be able to toggle between them in-game. It would also be nice if we had some way for the users to preview the various different versions and compare them so they can decide which they prefer.

This sounds difficult but it's also something a lot of people want, so I think this is a medium priority.

BGM names

It makes sense to implement this after making the audio changes above (or alongside them). Otherwise we'll have to add names for any BGMs we implement afterwards. Low priority.

More textboxes

This seems like one of the easier things to do and it's something a couple people have requested in the past. Seems like good payoff, so I think we should make this a high priority.

New spectum files generator

The spectrum files we have work well enough, so we won't need to generate new spectrum files until after Matsuribayashi release. Low priority.

Switch release graphics

Graphics in the Switch release aren't enough of an improvement to be worth updating, in my opinion. We'd probably introduce a bug or two while replacing all the graphics in all the previous chapters, so I think it's best to just keep moving forward with what we have.

Flags for video openings

This seems relatively easy and the community does tend to be concerned about spoilers, so I think this is a good thing to do. High priority.

TIPS screen improvements

This sounds rather difficult and I don't think many people are concerned about this. But in the long run, it's worth doing. Low priority.

Custom fonts

I'm working on trying to change the font atlas to see if that'll fix the red X problem. I think that was the only real reason to add new fonts (unless people just don't like our current fonts?). If the font atlas fixes the problem, translations to other languages should be able to generate their own atlases with the appropriate charactersets following the same procedure. That means they'll have to maintain their own version of the .assets files though.

New website

As someone who knows nothing of web design, it looks good to me. Maybe we should add a news feed that lists what we're currently working on.

ghost commented 6 years ago

To be honest, I don't have much interest in a lot of these features, so I will only comment on the parts that I have an opinion on etc.

OP flags - To me this is a big priority, specifically for Onikakushi. Custom fonts - @DoctorDiablo if that proves intractable, there was also a mention of the Unity built-in font rendering, the drawbacks being it scale up as well and I fuzzily recall that the game is tightly coupled with TextMeshPro. BGMs - seconding @DoctorDiablo on the need for choice here, by whatever mechanism deemed appropriate. But yeah it would be great to have Dawn default to something not painfully loud and clipping. TIPS - yep, unfortunately that one is looking more difficult, but if the team decides this is immediate priority I can look into it more.

It would be nice to have some graphical improvements such as the updated F10 menu, but that would be a longer effort. However there will probably be some similarities between that work and the BGM names, assuming we use NGUI for both. I just need to figure out a good workflow for learning/experimenting with it.

Petsnew commented 6 years ago

More textboxes

The dll is more of less fully functional, though I'd like to add more features. So far it can detect new textboxes (either nvl or adv) and switch between them flawlessly. Fully automate. You can also switch between adv and nvl without interfering on the textbox since they have separate flags.

What I'd like to add is a config file for each new textbox, so you can change stuff like their position, position of the text, if it has any special behavior (like having a variation for narration and another for dialogue), etc. But I'm not too sure how easy that'd be too implement.

enumag commented 6 years ago

Thanks for everyones feedback! Now to summarize:

Re-remastered original audio

We're looking forward to Italo's remakes. If they turn out well we can try to better incorporate them into the project.

Priority: medium

Sui/Switch audio

We have some progress here, needs more discussion in #34.

Priority: high

BGM names

I'll discuss this with @idealpersona and we might do it alongside or after Sui/Switch audio.

Priority: low

More textboxes

I'll create a separate issue and we'll discuss this further there. EDIT: See #48.

Priority: high

New spectum files generator

Postponed until we will need it.

Switch release graphics

For now it doesn't seem we have much use for them. Still we should finish the script to extract sprites since we'll surely need them later on.

Priority: low

Flags for video openings

Yeah, we need to finish this.

Priority: high

TIPS screen improvements

Difficult and without much benefit. Postponed for now.

Custom fonts

DoctorDiablo is making some progress here. Some DLL hacking might help too.

Priority: medium

New website

Everyone seems satisfied so it can stay as is for now. Great job Italo! :-)

@ItaloKnox About the tips screen...

IMO, low priority. We should have someone else not focusing on anything right now to fix the console arcs and tsumi.

Tsumi can be handled the same way as previous chapters but it takes a lot of time and some skills. Console arcs however can't be handled that way.

@DoctorDiablo About the news feed on website. I was considering it but for now the site is static and doesn't require any maintenance. Maybe we should create a twitter account, tweet about such things there and put a widget to show our latest tweets on the website.