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Kanji Space Nopper 2.0 - Obliterate Useless Kanji and SEE Your Free Space!

Started by RavenOfRazgriz, July 25, 2013, 06:44:55 pm

RavenOfRazgriz

*2.0 is a vital update.  Anyone using this please download this new version and get a fresh BATTLE.BIN and WORLD.BIN, the old one had several errors.

See: Title. 

With a program I made to generate a LOT of 00s and a bit of help from Xifanie and the FFHackics Wiki to be sure I didn't fuck it up, I've created a fairly large XML file that literally just nops out all the Kanji Space for each Character Graphics and Character Lengths in both WORLD.BIN and BATTLE.BIN, allowing you to see exactly what free and safe space there is on the ISO for making and placing ASM hacks.

This should also make things like identifying hack conflicts much, much easier since there won't be a bunch of garbage Kanji around. 

If anyone notice an error when using this, let me know, they should be pretty easy to fix.

Choto

Nice, you beat us to it :P

Although, one thing i'd like to suggest is using "FF" instead of "00" only because there are already large sections of nops. FF would be easier to pick out, but either way it's a huge convenience :D

RavenOfRazgriz

You want FF's, find replace those nops before you apply it. I don't feel like rewriting my program to shit out FFs right now. :v

Dunno why you guys didn't finish this ages ago, this took me literally 20 minutes starting at having no clue what I'm doing to make.

Glain

I feel like this should really be a stand-alone program, as opposed to being an XML file that runs through FFTorgASM, but I guess this way isn't too cumbersome since it's really just a one-time patch (though I can't help but lol a bit at the size of the XML file). Looks like there are no "00" strings in any of the write locations, so as Raven says, you should be able to find/replace 00 with anything you want.

Though since the encoding for nop is 00000000, if you replaced nops with FF, you'd divide the file length nearly by 4.  :)
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

RavenOfRazgriz

I don't really see what the use of a program would be.  Like you said, this is a one and done application, anyone who has the intelligence to ASM and in turn need this would be able to know how to do that correctly.  Making it some kind of a program with whatever that would entail (I don't even know what you'd expect this to do as a program) would be a large use of my time for minimal gain, considering that.

Xifanie

I really don't see how there's any issue with that .xml file. Don't want nops? Replace all. File too big? it's freaking 330kb, just .7z down to 2kb or something if you're that concerned, I don't know. It was made with minimal effort and it works pretty much as good as it possibly could.
  • Modding version: PSX
Love what you're seeing? https://supportus.ffhacktics.com/ 💜 it's really appreciated

Anything is possible as long as it is within the hardware's limits. (ie. disc space, RAM, Video RAM, processor, etc.)
<R999> My target market is not FFT mod players
<Raijinili> remember that? it was awful

Glain

A program would patch the ISO to replace the kanji bytes... what else?  It could also give the user a dropdown or spinner to select which byte to replace the kanji bytes with.  It would be more efficient than parsing a huge XML file to do the same thing, and it wouldn't be dependent on the write locations being free of 00 to support find/replace.

There's nothing wrong with this though; it's fine, it does the same thing, and the speed isn't a big deal anyway.  I just found the file size pretty hardcore (a 330 KB text file is more than 330,000 characters)!
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

RavenOfRazgriz

So you want me to code a program that writes to your BATTLE.BIN or .ISO/.IMG/.BIN when we already have one (FFT OrgASM), dynamically generate the replacement based on a spinner when I went in knowing full well none of the offsets would conflict a Find/Replace anyone can do with their favorite non-Notepad text editor, and likely end up uploading a file that would be much larger than a mere 330kb to do all this when any user with half a brain can do A) and B) on their own for little to no inconvenience of their own.  Considering the much larger amount of time I would have taken to do this compared to the near-0 amount of time it takes for any end-user to open OrgASM or a World/OpenOffice/whatever text file to Find/Replace with, I don't think our definitions of efficient are the same.

And yes, the filesize is hardcore, because there's that much shit to replace.  (Note that this also replaces the Character Length data, which I know Xifanie at least says is too small to be worth anything but can at least be used to throw tables in or something.)

Glain

You're reading a lot more into this than I put into it.  I never said I wanted you to do anything differently; I was simply describing another way it could work.  When I talk about efficiency, I mean how much work would be done by the computer, not the amount of work put into it by the creator.

No, it isn't worth changing, and you shouldn't change it; it would be a waste of time, and I believe I already implied as much.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown

RavenOfRazgriz

Apparently I need a first-grade math course.

Download updated to fix retarded errors I made making it the first time regarding certain characters because I was lax in testing it, this one's fully tested and works perfectly.


Choto

It doesn't make space, it clears all of free space so that it's easier to find empty space for hacks if you look at the file in a hex editor. Instead of sorting through stuff that /might/ be code... the empty space is just 00 00 everywhere. Nah mean?


Angel

  • Modding version: PSX
* Angel should quit being a lazy bitch
<@Elric> I agree to that as well

nyanyame nyanyajuu nyanyado no nyarabide nyakunyaku inyanyaku nyanyahan nyanyadai nyannyaku nyarabete nyaganyagame
At the end of the day, are we not all trapped inside lemons?


RavenOfRazgriz

Just so you know this still has a very small bug where it deletes some asterisks (*) that it shouldn't.

I'll fix it in a 3.0 later but it's not a problem when dealing with Vanilla PSX FFT because I'm 99% sure that character is never used.  But what Choto said, this doesn't actually make any space, it simply removes the Kanji you would normally write on top of so you can more easily see said space.

Xifanie

Quote from: Xifanie on July 27, 2013, 12:25:42 am
I really don't see how there's any issue with that .xml file. Don't want nops? Replace all. File too big? it's freaking 330kb, just .7z down to 2kb or something if you're that concerned, I don't know. It was made with minimal effort and it works pretty much as good as it possibly could.


I've been meaning to mention this for a while, but using 00 is literally the worst possible option for this .xml.
4 Uncoloured pixels = 00
So Unless you check my Font page on the wiki, you will likely overwrite those 00 bytes which belong to a valid, used character. Either at the beginning, or end of said characters.
So in the end, it's silly to ask -everyone- to replace all 00 to something else just so they can use your .xml safely.
  • Modding version: PSX
Love what you're seeing? https://supportus.ffhacktics.com/ 💜 it's really appreciated

Anything is possible as long as it is within the hardware's limits. (ie. disc space, RAM, Video RAM, processor, etc.)
<R999> My target market is not FFT mod players
<Raijinili> remember that? it was awful