Final Fantasy Hacktics

Since I now had accurate model meshes the next step in the progression was figuring out the textures. Ganesha allows you to export a map's texture image but only in grayscale so it wasn't terribly useful.

At the time I started to read gomtuu's excellent breakdown of the game's map files (http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Maps) to understand more about what's there, but it was mostly greek to me (again, I want to learn more about programming but it's difficult for me to process code and hex and whatnot). I came to understand in principal that the game uses 16 different 16 color palettes that are applied to differing polygons of the map when rendered in-game. I don't understand exactly how this works but I was able to get a peak behind the curtain with gomtuu's map2GL map viewer program.

map2GL allows you to view the maps and export colored texture images but those images are with the 16 distinct color palettes that the game draws from to apply to the model (and not one image containing the appropriate palettes just where needed). Fortunately, the map2GL interface allows you to view each of the 16 texture image palettes with and without the used polygons drawn over them. With this, I took screen-shots of each texture image palette (with and without the used polygons drawn on), used Photoshop to layer all of the colored palette images, and cut out the non-used parts of each image...this resulted in one layered image (which I output to a PNG file) with the appropriate colors from all palettes in their proper places. The process is a bit time consuming but workable. Below is a screen-shot of what Gariland's layered image looked like in Photoshop. I'm sure a similar process could be carried out in GIMP or other image editing software which utilizes layers.



I won't go into great depth on the operation of Blender (unless someone has a question) but having a usable texture image is just a first step to texturing a model. The next step is basically to tell Blender how to lay the 3D polygon faces on the 2D texture image. Depending on the map and texture image this could be straightforward but where not I used Ganesha as a reference (remember Ganesha's interface shows the actual 2D UV coordinates for each polygon). With this process (and learning how to use alpha channels in Blender) I was able to texture my meshes. Below is Dorter Trade City in Blender. I textured six or seven of the maps I had produced (see earlier image).

My journey began on-line. At the Caves of Narshe (https://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fft/maps/mapsingle.php?mapid=056) I found images of the four directions of the Orbonne Monastery map. I used a PDF markup program to scale the geometry and produced a simple mesh. I later learned the true dimensions of the mesh's polygons but when I began it was only important for the measurements to be accurate relative to one another (I figured a basic square polygon to be 1x1 units and then scaled the height of a basic step to be 0.44 units). Below is an overlay of my mesh on top of the image reference that I scaled.



I had some perspective trouble with the main roof and didn't know how to address the air terminal at its peak, but overall I was happy with the model. I enjoyed making it and wanted to make more so I went back on-line to seek out more references images. This brought me to the map resource at this very forum (http://ffhacktics.com/maps.php). I was pleased as punch to find the four directions (along with an overhead view) of all the game's maps. Since the overhead view was a straight-on perspective of the pixels, it started me thinking about actually texturing the models, but that wouldn't come until later. I used the four direction images and my scaling method to produce Magic City Gariland along with 17 more maps. Below is Gariland along with all the others (ignore the textures in the second image for now, that comes a bit later in this story).





Working through these ~20 models was sometimes a struggle. Parts of the model in the four direction images could be obscured from view or the texture material made it difficult to understand the polygon geometry (this was especially the case with the white snow at Fort Zeakden). This being the case I searched through the ffhacktics forum to see what more I could glean about the maps. This ultimately brought me to gomtuu's Ganesha (0.60) program (http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Tools). Below is a screen-shot of Ganesha's interface.



In Ganesha, you can select any polygon on an actual game model and see the three or four coordinates of that polygon. This allowed me to understand the true dimensions of the basic square and step (28 and 12 units) and gave me info to fix any errors with my mesh geometry. Ganesha also shows a grayscale version of the actual texture image along with UV coordinates for each polygon when selected. This again made me think of texturing my models but I didn't understand the why the texture was in grayscale.

Hail hackticians.

This thread will primarily document my exploration of and work with FFT's maps. I've been enamored with the aesthetic of the game ever since my first play-through as a middle-schooler over the course of two or three rentals from the local Hollywood Video back in the 90s. More than 20 years on, I think it's awesome that there's still a fan-base and that there are tools for people to play with the the game's assets and breath new life into it.

I dabble very poorly with programming (but I want to learn) and I'm decent at 3D modeling in Blender. About a year ago (near the end of 2016) after replaying FFT via the iOS port (which I recommend) I decided to try my hand at modeling the simple geometry of the iconic Orbonne Monastery. I had a vague notion that I might use pepakura or 3D printing to bring it to RL...that was the beginning of this ongoing project. Since then I've worked the form a couple of ways and learned a bit of programming and more about modeling.

I share some high-lights below for your interest. Please let me know what you think or if you have any questions, I'd like to help others however I can. I've done a pretty thorough review of the forum so thank you to everyone who has contributed to the understanding of the game maps (especially gomtuu). Most of the traffic concerning modding maps occurred between 2008 and 2012 so I hope there's still some interest here.