NEW TRAILER!!!!!

[Shademp]

@Mayo Master

Spoiler: My reaction every time I see your awesome work

 

[Jason Tandro]

Again I still see empty slots with light shining inward on the concaved metal surface, but I could be wrong. it's just odd that the materia orbs are nearly the same shade as the sword itself.

If they are materia I certainly hope that they're just uncolored test orbs.

 

[Channy]

Regardless (of how awesome Mayo's work is xD) it looks like the system is maybe taking into account then that the weapons and materia will be updated and seen during cutscenes?

 

[e.suna]

Regarding what might be materia in the Buster Sword round slots:
The way they look actually corresponds to a glassy material. Given the lighting and the place they're in, they receive very little light and don't yield a lot of reflection.
If you want the materia to "shine with magic", IMO you need to add a volumetric emission shader, like I did in my rendition of the sector 5 slums materia shop.

Spoiler: On the top of the shelf near the TV

*_*

Ummm can I please live in your CG recreations

 

[Mayo Master]

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week

Again I still see empty slots with light shining inward on the concaved metal surface, but I could be wrong. it's just odd that the materia orbs are nearly the same shade as the sword itself.

If they are materia I certainly hope that they're just uncolored test orbs.

If the materia in the trailer has been modeled as some kind of glassy marbles, then it's normal that they look so dull: there's little lighting and half of each faces an unlit metallic surface. That's just how light works.
EDIT: On second thought it also depends whether the material slots are like holes through the sword, or recesses into the metal. A "dull" aspect corresponds to the "recesses" design, while I think the materia would have looked shinier if light could pass through.


If I move my lazy ass (honestly since I dropped my work for Team Avalanche, I've done extremely little 3d modelling - maybe I had a CG-modelling indigestion), I could quickly make a dummy Buster Sword with slots and make a few test renders depending on what kind of shaders I assign to the materia, and we could make some sort of comparison. Might have some time tomorrow.

 

[Flare]

So then, does anyone think the materia will constantly be glowing and the 'materia' in the Buster Sword of the trailer is just in the testing stages, or will it be a glow only when used type of affect? I know they glow constantly in AC, but they could change that.

 

[Channy]

Well, it doesn't glow constantly in AC... it glows when it's being used tho.

Spoiler: Kadaj holding the (wrong coloured xD) materia to summon Bahamut and then it glowing when he summons...

 

[Flare]

^Oh yeah! Forgot about that moment.
I was remembering them glowing in the crate all the time.

 

[Loxetta]

I checked the first teaser trailer and the slots are holes. (it's easier to see in motion, but..)

Spoiler: pix

why am i so attached to this idea

The only other explanation for no light from behind would be that they're opaque, which they do look to be in the AC/C screens.

Regarding what might be materia in the Buster Sword round slots:
The way they look actually corresponds to a glassy material. Given the lighting and the place they're in, they receive very little light and don't yield a lot of reflection.
If you want the materia to "shine with magic", IMO you need to add a volumetric emission shader, like I did in my rendition of the sector 5 slums materia shop.
On the top of the shelf near the TV

THAT BG

 

[hian]

Am I the only one who think they just look like regular old bolts/screws set at the base (perhaps to secure the guard and hilt to the blade or whatever?)?

Also, I'm pretty sure in the original that materia obviously have some sort of glow, or at least light from the inside of them, whether they're in use or not. You see this quite often, whether it be the natural materia in Mt.Nibel, the materia on display in some of the shops, or the white materia that drops when Aerth is killed.

 

[Lex]

The fact that the white materia glows means that it's been activated by Aerith's prayer for holy though, they're pretty clear on that in the plot. Prior to that you can see it in her hair and it's just a regular dull colour.

The two circles in the buster sword are definitely the materia slots, that much is canon. From the shots we have I think it's pretty clear there's dormant materia in there, but that much is opinion.

 

[hian]

The fact that the white materia glows means that it's been activated by Aerith's prayer for holy though, they're pretty clear on that in the plot. Prior to that you can see it in her hair and it's just a regular dull colour.

Any good examples of the white materia in her hair apart from that scene?

The two circles in the buster sword are definitely the materia slots, that much is canon. From the shots we have I think it's pretty clear there's dormant materia in there, but that much is opinion.

I know they're definitely materia slots - however, it doesn't mean that there can't be something else in them at that point depending on how they plan to approach everything this time around.

Appeals to canon at this point I think is pretty pointless, since they've already stated they will be changing things, and they've already messed with the canon of the original several times throughout the compilation.
If anything, the FFVII universe is in a constant state of writing/rewriting so I'm not sure it makes sense to bank on "canon" in anything pertaining to its universe.

From now on, whatever the remake does will probably be considered the new "canon" by most people in either case.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Funny that everything we've debated about the remake so far involves the Buster Sword.

 

[Cloud_S]

Regardless (of how awesome Mayo's work is xD) it looks like the system is maybe taking into account then that the weapons and materia will be updated and seen during cutscenes?

It would be a great feature to see not only weapons but materia and accessories change on field and cut-scenes as you upgrade them.

 

[Lex]

The fact that the white materia glows means that it's been activated by Aerith's prayer for holy though, they're pretty clear on that in the plot. Prior to that you can see it in her hair and it's just a regular dull colour.

Any good examples of the white materia in her hair apart from that scene?

I tried google and every single image is from the front. And I am lazy

 

[hian]

The fact that the white materia glows means that it's been activated by Aerith's prayer for holy though, they're pretty clear on that in the plot. Prior to that you can see it in her hair and it's just a regular dull colour.

Any good examples of the white materia in her hair apart from that scene?

I tried google and every single image is from the front. And I am lazy

lol. Common problem =P

Not saying I'm skeptical by the way. Just saying I never noticed before.

Many things I never noticed despite clocking in over 400 hours on the game.
Now playing it in Japanese, and only now did it occur to me to try to beat Midgar Zolom first time around and get Beta, which, with proper strategy was exceedingly easy even with a party at level 15.
(technically, beating it is really easy if you use Barret's Mindblow limit break, it's getting Beta that requires some clever tactics)

The depth of FFVII's combat system is a god damn wonder to this day.
Seriously, Kitase. Nomura. Good luck trying to replicate it. You're going to need it, especially granted the new format.

 

[Channy]

The fact that the white materia glows means that it's been activated by Aerith's prayer for holy though, they're pretty clear on that in the plot. Prior to that you can see it in her hair and it's just a regular dull colour.

Any good examples of the white materia in her hair apart from that scene?

I tried google and every single image is from the front. And I am lazy

Spoiler: noobs

You can see it in her Wall Market dress where it's more of a normal, Magic Materia green colour. When it's activated, it shines white. That's why Aerith says there's nothing special about it because it looks like normal Magic Materia but she didn't know how to use it at the time.

 

[Lex]

When it's activated it shines pale green (that's Bugen's line), not white (unless you are referring to how it looks, because IMO in the FMV the glow is white but the green is still clearly there).

Thanks for finding an image channy - remember though that it looks a bit more dull than that in game because of the way models look in-engine.

 

[Mayo Master]

Spoiler: So, I spent a fair amount of time doing BS today...

Full resolution is 1920 x 1080 (if you open the image in a new tab)

It's untextured so far, I'll work on the materials later. Then I can add some materia orb, change shaders (namely to check out the difference with/without volumetric emission), and we can see how that compares with what we've seen so far.

 

[Mayo Master]

Spoiler: I've kept on doing some BS today...

So... that's the version I've come up with given what I could glance from the newer trailer. I aimed at an anodized aluminum look for the black metallic part, and it took me some time to figure that the guard seemed to be made of a similar material. Then I aimed for a worn brushed steel for the blade, and a reddish leather for the guard strap.
I would like to add that the appearance of materials is not simply a matter of applying textures, it is about how the objects interacts with light. Thus the lighting of a scene has a huge impact on how materials look like. So, if we were to see the Buster Sword in another lighting environment, it may look different, and also provide more insights into how the materials behave with light and give a more faithful look overall. For now I focused on making a lighting environment which would be somewhat similar to the remake trailer (I even used a background image of the trailer to make an "enviro-light). My version may not be perfect, but I think it's good enough for what we wanted to check out.

Spoiler: If you have materia which looks like glass marbles...

To be more precise: that's how they would be if materia had the optical properties of greenish diamonds. In my opinion that's fairly close to what we've seen in the recent trailer.

Spoiler: If you have materia glowing with magic

I actually copied the material I had used in my background scene of the materia shop, which I showed earlier. Here I used volumetric emission to make the orbs act as a light source.

There you go.

 

[Tennyo]

That's pretty awesome, actually.

Maybe you can help envision the whole case-over-the-hilt scenario?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That's gorgeous.

Also, I'm convinced those are materia. But then I'm also firmly Team Gold in the new LTD (the Long Tang Debate).

 

[Mayo Master]

That's pretty awesome, actually.

Maybe you can help envision the whole case-over-the-hilt scenario?

To be honest I haven't really felt like participating to the case-over-the-hilt discussion, namely for 2 reasons:
- From my experience in 3D modeling, as long as you don't have really clean cut screenshots of objects in near orthographic view, it's very difficult to judge of sizes and length with enough accuracy. Or, you could probably back-calculate them using camera tracking techniques, but that would be a huge amount of work - not a kind of work I would enjoy doing besides.
- I'm personally not very interested in the question As it has been mentioned elsewhere, the Buster Sword has gone through many design changes throughout the games where it has been featured, and I don't find there's a very precise design it should be faithful to. That being said, I'm rather supporting the idea of being able to customize the Buster Sword in the remake, so as to extend its gameplay lifetime.

 

[CrashOuch]

@Mayo: That is beautiful and amazing dude!

 

[SirVival]

Just watched the trailer.

Meh.