Final Fantasy Hacktics

Modding => Help! => Topic started by: Osmose on March 26, 2013, 01:42:31 am

Title: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Osmose on March 26, 2013, 01:42:31 am
Does anyone have an image of the background for the formation screen? I'm having trouble getting a clear shot of it myself and was wondering if anyone had it or knew of a tool that could extract it from the ISO. Thanks!
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Lijj on March 26, 2013, 05:46:02 am
There should be one in shishi sprite editor.. though you may have to organize the tiles on the outside most a bit in a graphics editing program.
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Osmose on March 27, 2013, 01:09:05 am
Quote from: Lijj on March 26, 2013, 05:46:02 am
There should be one in shishi sprite editor.. though you may have to organize the tiles on the outside most a bit in a graphics editing program.


So I grabbed Shishi's Sprite Editor from http://ffhacktics.com/downloads.php?id=23, but it only opens SPR files. I seem to remember a different version that imported from the ISO, but that didn't show backgrounds, just the character sprites.
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Osmose on March 27, 2013, 01:21:09 am
So I was able to grab a more recent version of the Sprite Editor, and was able to access the set of images from the ISO, but could find anything for the formation screen background. :(
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Celdia on March 27, 2013, 02:18:13 am
When your posts are all of a few minutes apart, don't be afraid to use the Edit Post button on them instead of double-posting.

Assuming you are talking about this for the formation background:
(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4411/formback.png)

This is located in FRAME.BIN in the ISO. If it is accessible via any single too like Shishi, I am unaware of it. I have long since made FRAME.BIN my bitch though so I will give you the long and difficult instructions for modifying it.

You will need the following:
- CDMage [Or an equivalent program that will let you import/export files from the ISO]
- tilemolester [Fun little java-based tool that displays raw data as graphics]

First, open your ISO in CDMage and locate FRAME.BIN in the EVENT folder.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/Framebintut01.png)

Right-click on FRAME.BIN and select "Extract Files", then save it to whatever your working folder is.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut02.png)

Next open tilemolester and go find your freshly-extracted FRAME.BIN file. You may need to set the file types to All Files (*.*) to see FRAME.BIN in the file list.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut03.png)

Now the program should be showing you something like this.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut04.png)

You need to set the Codec and Mode, both of which are under View on the menu bar at the top. Select Codec "4 bpp linear, reverse-order" and Mode "2-Dimensional".
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut05.png)

With those set you should start to see some familiar objects, but we're not done with settings yet. Under Image on the menu select Canvas Size and change Columns to 32 and Rows to 36.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut06.png)

You should now be seeing something like this.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut07.png)

Scroll down to the very bottom right. [If you haven't maximized your window for this you may get caught up on how TM will use two sets of scroll bars.] We're looking for a big block of useless pixels down that way.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut08.png)

Now for the last magic trick. Go up to the menu and select Palette, then Import From, and This File.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut09.png)

Change the Offset to 37312 and the Size to 16. Leave the rest untouched and click OK.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut10.png)

And there's your formation background in that little box of what was gibberish a moment ago. Fun how that works, eh?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut11.png)

You can use the tools provided in TM to modify it but only within that existing palette there. Modifying the palette will require a hex editor and some playing around with numbers but you can now easily find the location of that palette data [0x91C0] thanks to this handy guide. If you do want to change those colors, do so then reload FRAME.BIN in TM as you just did and it will display that section of the image with your modifications.

When you're happy with all your changes, just save FRAME.BIN in tilemolester and go back to your ISO in CDMage. Locate FRAME.BIN in the EVENT folder again and right-click it, but this time you want to select Import File. Then locate your newly-modified version of FRAME.BIN and it should insert it cleanly into the ISO, ready for use.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Celdia/Tutorials/framebintut02x.png)


Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Choto on March 27, 2013, 11:22:33 am
*applauds*

You wouldn't happen to have the rest of the palette locations would ya?
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Lijj on March 27, 2013, 12:41:35 pm
Now Celdia knows what's going on.
I stupidly had that background tile mixed up with this:
(http://i.imgur.com/4PpUixc.gif)
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Celdia on March 27, 2013, 03:13:09 pm
Quote from: Choto on March 27, 2013, 11:22:33 am
You wouldn't happen to have the rest of the palette locations would ya?

I haven't noted them in detail, I just poke around the end of the file's data there and see what comes up. I usually start from the end of the file at like Offset 37046 for a Size 256 palette and click through the various sets it loads with those big arrows at the bottom to either side of the displayed palette. Just adjust your Offset by a few digits here and there [+/- 2 per color you want to adjust the palette by] to change it up. If you ever tell it to load the palette and you see no change at all, you've told it to load past the End Of File and it just does nothing. There is no alert message from TM when you do this.

Post-post thought edit: Is this tutorial too specific to copy to the Tutorials section you think?
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on March 27, 2013, 03:56:54 pm
Quote from: Celdia on March 27, 2013, 03:13:09 pmPost-post thought edit: Is this tutorial too specific to copy to the Tutorials section you think?


Mind me not knowing every Tutorial like it's my job or anything (shut up), but if you happen to already have a FRAME.BIN editing Tutorial for other things like Status Names or a few other things or wouldn't mind writing one I think then we'd have something Tutorial-y enough.  As memory serves it's all just the same basic stuff you did here with variations on the end based on exactly what you're editing so hobbling together a more cohesive Tutorial with what you already did here can't be all that hard.
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Celdia on March 27, 2013, 04:06:17 pm
You're not far off about it being just variations on the same general methods. However I'm still waiting for Xifanie to roll through here and post about how using TIMUTIL to convert the BIN to a BMP and modify that is a better method for everything like she tends to do, though every time I've followed those instructions I've ended up with some kind of error that I still needed to use TM to fix.

I dunno. Maybe I'll get around to fleshing this out at some point into a proper tutorial for FRAME.BIN modifications. Really need to make some solid notes on SA's findings about the WORLD and BATTLE data for status names and whatnot.
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on March 27, 2013, 05:45:41 pm
Quote from: Celdia on March 27, 2013, 04:06:17 pmReally need to make some solid notes on SA's findings about the WORLD and BATTLE data for status names and whatnot.


Sounds like a perfect opportunity to get to doing that. :v
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Osmose on March 28, 2013, 12:54:18 am
Quote from: Celdia on March 27, 2013, 02:18:13 am
This is located in FRAME.BIN in the ISO. If it is accessible via any single too like Shishi, I am unaware of it. I have long since made FRAME.BIN my bitch though so I will give you the long and difficult instructions for modifying it.

...


This is an awesome answer. Thanks a ton for posting it! Tile Molester in particular is an awesome tool I've never heard of before.

For anyone interested, here's the texture in question in 1x, 2x, and 3x sizes as PNGs (my intent is to use them as the background of a webpage, hence why I made these :D).

EDIT: Hmmm, these aren't tiling quite right. I didn't actually follow the steps for the tutorial so maybe I'm missing some extra parts of the texture? Looking into it...

EDIT 2: Aha, so it tiles them differently than I thought. If you take what was in the screenshot from Celdia's tutorial and split it into two halves A and B, then the game tiles them like so:

AB
BA

I've updated my attachments with textures that should work properly. As a bonus, I'll also include a screenshot of what the forum looks like using the 2x as a background. :P
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: RavenOfRazgriz on March 28, 2013, 04:31:45 am
If it didn't make the non-bordered text so difficult for me to read I'd say that should be the default background from now on, that looks incredibly legit.
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Osmose on March 28, 2013, 01:06:43 pm
Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on March 28, 2013, 04:31:45 am
If it didn't make the non-bordered text so difficult for me to read I'd say that should be the default background from now on, that looks incredibly legit.


I'm sure some tweaks could make it work: Make all links outside of the boxes white with an underline would be my first try.
Title: Re: Background for the Formation Screen?
Post by: Lijj on March 29, 2013, 11:57:27 am
Can we have this as our background?
I'm sure with white text or yellow it would look fine.