Final Fantasy Hacktics

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=5404.0

^^ This is the nearest thing I could find. Great sprites, but no portraits and presumably unfinished? So... I'm assuming no but there is no way I want to start a project like this if someone else has done it well already so I'm going to err on the side of caution and ask here.

Wanted to do a Radd replacement as well, but as near as I can tell only two characters (with duplicates) can be added pre mid-chapter 2 without running into issues (39 and 3A), so I'm going to just do Alicia and Lavian.

I'd really appreciate it if someone could so some alternate color palettes for the Garnet sprite on this site (i.e. a blonde haired garnet, and maybe a pink outfit and blue outfit at as well).

Thanks to whoever does it. REALLY appreciate it

Quote from: Glain on September 27, 2011, 09:41:26 pm
Reused sprites don't count as part of the limit. So if there were two male squires, that's only one. Replacing one with a unique sprite to that map means you've added one to that distinct sprite count. It can't go over 9, or else you get... that.

The reason your units aren't lining up is probably because the event can't find them, as you changed the Unit IDs. You'd have to edit the event to put in your new IDs. I imagine EasyVent could do that rather easily?

Yeah, I'm guessing I need to change all references of x80 and x83 (the sprites I replaced) to x3A and x3B.

That said:



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^^ Anyone have any idea why I get glitches like this in the narrative voice? My tactics has always done this (even when I don't mod it), but I'm wondering if its a disk or emulator problem.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 27, 2011, 09:31:08 pm
You broke the Sprite Limit is all.

Male Squire
Female Squire
Male Chemist
Female Chemist
Male Knight
Female Knight
Ramza
Delita
Garnet
That Other Chick

Totals 10.  Only 9 Sprites can be loaded by the game at a time.  Just reduce how many Sprites are on the screen somehow and you'll be good.

Interesting. All I did was insert over older sprites so I wonder why that happened.

Thanks for the feedback.

P.S. To get the actors to line up with the other characters should I just change the x80 and x83 references to x3A and x3B?

Editing 188 seems to have glitched the guard at the start and also prevented the two characters from lining up. Any ideas?



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Here is the change I made:



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Obviously it seems number 3 is tied to the guard that enters the room in addition to one of the cadets.

Before I play that first battle at the monastery for the 47th time though I think it's prudent to ask which characters you guys have historically found okay to edit there.

Quote from: Glain on September 27, 2011, 07:14:15 pm
Wrong ENTD; the correct one is 188. I know it's unlabeled.

EDIT: That fixed the problem

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 25, 2011, 09:11:57 pm
You would find the ENTD for the Military Academy event in FFTPatcher and replace the generics there with the units you want to use.  If you edit the Unit IDs of the first male Squire and first female Squire present in the ENTD (something you'll want to do if adding non-generic units to Ramza's party using those slots), you'll need to open the event in EasyVent and fix the Unit IDs in their speaking lines to the new ones you set.

     [img=http://img37.imagevenue.com/loc555/th_162623153_Untitled_122_555lo.jpg]
        

^^Any idea what is wrong here? Units aren't showing up...

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 27, 2011, 09:54:24 am
You can edit the blank spaces if you know what you're doing, read my first reply.

I'll need to look into it some on the portrait, since you're doing the call from an unused entry.  The Age{0xE4} is likely just a call to variable x00E4, used to store Dycedarg's initial age because it'll change as you wander the world and allow years to pass.  You should be able to find an unused variable not related to anything and initialize it similarly for your character in either WORLD.BIN or during an Event.  I'll look to see if I can figure out what the other variables happen to mean later.  They might be related to Portrait, or one or two other things I can think of.  Either that, or they relate to something in FFTacText and I'm completely retarded, with Portrait being set somewhere else.

You could always play with messing around with those variables and seeing what it does to Dycedarg's Brave Story in the meanwhile to experiment, you might stumble onto what you need.

Been playing around in tacttext for a while. I've check World.BIN via tactext and can't find a location of where starting ages are stored. Since 0xE4 is a variable used to refer to pretty much all of the ages I'm assuming there is a singular place I should be able to find it. If anyone stumbles upon it let me know please.

Quote from: Glain on September 22, 2011, 10:30:04 am
Not sure if any such lists are available.

The alternative to doing that would be to just take an unused job and then edit the tables in WORLD.BIN/ATTACK.OUT mentioned in the first post of this thread (click 'show') to have that unused job point to unused unit/wldface entries, and overwrite those unit/wldface entries with FFTEVGRP. Those tables are in order of base job/sprite set. That way you wouldn't have to make any ENTD edits.

If you do end up doing that and use job 3A or 3B, there'd be one other WORLD.BIN edit to fix the job wheel, which I could dig up.

I may end up answering this question for myself as I read the topic you posted, but...

Quote<Patch name="Jobs [3A,3B] use unit/wldface [08,09]">
    <Description>
      Jobs [3A,3B] use unit/wldface [08,09], respectively, for formation screen and battle preparation sprites.
    </Description>
    <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="458B0"> 
      3C
    </Location>
    <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="74B88">
      080009
    </Location>
    <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="AA1DC">
      080009
    </Location>
    <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="AA92C">
      080009
    </Location>
    <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="ADE6E">
      0809
    </Location>
    <Location file="EVENT_ATTACK_OUT" offset="16C24">
      080009
    </Location>
  </Patch>

How did you know every instance of the WORLD_BIN to search in for the characters 39a and 3b, respectively?

Specifically, as I work through this how should I go about identifying all of the places I need to edit?

Okay, I'm now in FF TactText and have found character bios in the WLDMES.BIN file.

Is there any particular blank space I should be filling in here? There are several entries with nothing in them.

Further, how do I assign a picture to come up alongside the bio? I'm guessing it has something to do with the data filled in each space. i.e.

{0xEC7B}{0xF566}{0xF664}{0xF508}{0xF601}         Dycedarg Beoulve (Age:{0xE4}){Newline}

^^ My custom added character must have similar information, correct? How do I identify this data? It uses file 08 in the unit.bin & wldface.bin and 39/3a as a sprite and job class, respectively. So I'm guessing the idea is that I find the identification information for one of those character IDs (not sure which) that corresponds to the unit information used on the bio page (like what is posted for Dycedarg above).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I guess what I really need to understand to go further is how to identify what the text above means/corresponds to.

Thanks to both of you.  

Got it.

Follow up question:

Which iteration of Gafgarion and Argias would you recommend me using, in this case? It seems like 34 and 17 are the way to go, which is what I'm planning to do tomorrow after I get some rest, tentatively.

Also, summing it up as I understand it what I'm going to do is:

1. Assign the custom sprites I want to add to (duplicate?) sprites 17 (H61.SPR) and 34 (AGURI.SPR) in ShiShi.
2. Read the topic Glain posted earlier on so that I can understand how to map sprites those sprites to the 0A and 0B UNIT.BIN and WLDFACE.BIN by basically editing this .XML that he wrote:

Quote
<Patch name="Jobs [3A,3B] use unit/wldface [08,09]">
   <Description>
     Jobs [3A,3B] use unit/wldface [08,09], respectively, for formation screen and battle preparation sprites.
   </Description>
   <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="458B0">  
     3C
   </Location>
   <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="74B88">
     080009
   </Location>
   <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="AA1DC">
     080009
   </Location>
   <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="AA92C">
     080009
   </Location>
   <Location file="WORLD_WORLD_BIN" offset="ADE6E">
     0809
   </Location>
   <Location file="EVENT_ATTACK_OUT" offset="16C24">
     080009
   </Location>
 </Patch>

3. Assign all instances of Agrias using 34 to use 1E in the FFPatcher (under ENTD)
4. Assign all instances of Gafgarion using 17 to use 11 in the FFPatcher (Under ENTD)
5. Use Easyvent to script in events adding the custom characters as permanent members of the team post chapter 2 (when 11 is dead, 1E has joined the party and 34 and 17 are non-factors)

(For that matter, I also need to script in events for my other original two characters already in the game (the ones using 3A and 3B). I'll have to add an event for the C1 battle, as I just added them via the FFTastic save editor initially.

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=5166.0

^^ That said, I can't use FFTactText anymore. I'm getting that error when I try and patch the game and the solutions proposed in that topic aren't working. Seems like I might just need a clean .ISO and to re-do everything I've done so far.

Just as well, I guess. I was planning on patching Tactics with the 1.3 Easymode and that would have required me to re-do everything anyway. ^_^

Quote from: Glain on September 26, 2011, 12:16:19 am
Replacing 0A/0B in UNIT/WLDFACE is probably fine. The problem is finding unused jobs. 3A and 3B are nice and convenient because they're completely unused, but there's really nothing else that I can see that isn't used in some way or another, perusing the job list in FFTPatcher. There are a few blanks at the verrry end of the list, but those are probably assumed to be monster jobs, so it's hairy.

If it were me, I'd probably identify characters that have two jobs and think about replacing one of them. For example, Gafgarion has both 11 Dark Knight (enemy) and 17 Dark Knight (guest). You may be able to take, for example, 17, and always make Gafgarion 11. It requires editing the ENTD for every place that character shows up under the job you're taking, but afaik there are no unused slots left, so what can you do...

There are a bunch of characters that are this way; Agrias has 34 (guest) and 1E (join); Mustadio has 22 (guest) and 16 (join); etc. If you were going to replace one, you'd always want to switch them in the ENTD everywhere to the join/enemy version and then you'd be able to take the guest version and do whatever you want with it. Don't do it the other way around or I think there would be some issues with events not being able to find the correct units, because the Unit IDs that get loaded in from characters you field are their base job IDs.

Based on which jobs you decide to take and edit, you'd have to edit different entries in those tables in attack.out/world.bin to point to the proper places in unit.bin/wldface.bin.

Got it. I think I'll use Gaf and maybe Agrias based on what I read on the forums. Hopefully there is a list floating somewhere of all the instances using both.

Thanks a bunch.

Quote from: plandr on September 25, 2011, 09:42:05 pm
This is the right topic to ask this in, not the other one so I'll bump it:

Are 08/09 the only unused sprites in wldface.bin and unit.bin?

I'm trying to make a four person unit to fight alongside Ramza and looking for another (2) good candidates. Are 0B? and 0A simon used?

I feel like I should be able to figure out how to amend the patch/hack Glain posted so that I can map two of the three unused ??? marked sprites in ShiShi that are (presumably) never used to any other spare slots in the UNIT.BIN and WLDFACE.BIN aside from 08 and 09. There seem to be two priest that are never used in UNIT and WLDFACE.BIN (0ASimon and OB?) but its hard to say for sure.

I'm always for being as clear as possible so I'll ask the question another way in case that didn't make sense:

5D   ???   DAMI.SPR   ???   44690   45056
5E   ???   KASANEK.SPR   ???   40516   40960
5F   ???   KASANEM.SPR   ???   40516   40960

^^I want to use the ShiShi editor and tie two of the three (unused?) sprite sets above to 0ASimon and 0B? (WLDFACE.BIN) and 0ASimon and 0B? (UNIT.BIN) in the same way that Glain tied 3A/3B to 08 (Unused) and 09 (Unused).

First I want to ask here about any redundancies/issues with the ??? mark sprites and/or 0ASimon and 0B? that I need to be aware of, however. Further, if there are better candidates than the 0B? and 0ASimon I could go with those instead.

An older post from 2009 here:

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=1832.0

Quote from: Vanya on January 06, 2009, 02:18:13 pm
I see. Your problem is your choice of sprites. There are only a hand full of sprites that can be manipulated to work as new party members. Formation sprite assignments can't be changed yet.

You can edit these and change their Formation sprite without messing up any other characters too much:

1 - Simon, SIMON.SPR, uses Simon's formation sprite.
(You'll want to move Simon's sprite to a new file like Kasanek and change his sprite assignment in the ENTD. This way Simon won't show up as your new character.)

2 - Malak, GANDO.SPR, uses 'old priest' formation sprite.

3 - Alma, GYUMU.SPR, uses 'young priest' formation sprite.

4 - Balmafra, BARU.SPR, uses Balmafra's formation sprite.
(you'll need to move it to a new .SPR file like with Simon.)

If you use Zodiac's sprite Expansion patch you can use this one, too.

5 - Tietra, FURAIA.SPR, uses 'mage girl' formation sprite.
(needs to be moved & reassigned, too.)

^^ Also seems to suggest a few options, but that same topic was made before a lot of things that are possible now were made possible so I'm not sure what to use from there in formulating an approach.

Quote from: Glain on September 22, 2011, 07:53:11 pm
If you do use the patch, it should make all those edits I mentioned earlier, so no need to look at that thread unless you feel like it. You should be able to just copy/paste the XML into one of the XML files that comes with FFTorgASM and use it to apply the patch, then do the rest of it (replacing 08/09 unit/wldface stuff, using SSE, etc).

This is the right topic to ask this in, not the other one so I'll bump it:

Are 08/09 the only unused sprites in wldface.bin and unit.bin?

I'm trying to make a four person unit to fight alongside Ramza and looking for another (2) good candidates. Are 0B? and 0A simon used?

I feel like I should be able to figure out how to amend the patch/hack Glain posted so that I can map two of the three unused ??? marked sprites in ShiShi that are (presumably) never used to any other spare slots in the UNIT.BIN and WLDFACE.BIN aside from 08 and 09. There seem to be two priest that are never used in UNIT and WLDFACE.BIN (0ASimon and OB?) but its hard to say for sure.

I'm always for being as clear as possible so I'll ask the question another way in case that didn't make sense:

5D   ???   DAMI.SPR   ???   44690   45056
5E   ???   KASANEK.SPR   ???   40516   40960
5F   ???   KASANEM.SPR   ???   40516   40960

^^I want to use the ShiShi editor and tie two of the three (unused?) sprite sets above to 0ASimon and 0B? (WLDFACE.BIN) and 0ASimon and 0B? (UNIT.BIN) in the same way that Glain tied 3A/3B to 08 (Unused) and 09 (Unused).

First I want to ask here about any redundancies/issues with the ??? mark sprites and/or 0ASimon and 0B? that I need to be aware of, however. Further, if there are better candidates than the 0B? and 0ASimon I could go with those instead.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on September 25, 2011, 09:11:57 pm
You would find the ENTD for the Military Academy event in FFTPatcher and replace the generics there with the units you want to use.  If you edit the Unit IDs of the first male Squire and first female Squire present in the ENTD (something you'll want to do if adding non-generic units to Ramza's party using those slots), you'll need to open the event in EasyVent and fix the Unit IDs in their speaking lines to the new ones you set.

Okay, this is a bit more to wrap my head around but I'll get it. Will post my results as they come for archive purposes in case others want to do the same thing.

Thank you.

I'll start working on this now.

Follow up question: If I want to assign new characters to start the game with Ramza (first battle of chapter 1), I would use the event editor for that, correct?

Expounding on the topic title:

Is it possible to add or edit entries to the "Brave Story"? (world map options menu).

I have entries I want to add there under the characters section.

This may be done under Easyvent, but as that program is a bit more involved than the others and I'm still learning it I wanted to check and see if you do it another way first.

Quote from: Glain on September 24, 2011, 12:50:22 am
Yeah, looks like you're figuring it out, but what's going on there is that the numbers in TacText are in decimal while the ones in Patcher are in hex. So for the case of, for example, jobs 3A and 3B, they're 58 and 59 in TacText, respectively, because 0x3A = 58 and 0x3B = 59.

Same with 23 Magic; 0x23 = 35. And yeah, it's Teta's skillset; good call on giving her a different one... I forgot that step.

20 Dark Sword -> 0x20 = 32; 27 Dark Sword; 0x27 = 39; etc, etc.

Anyhow, in case I wasn't clear before, before you edit any of that stuff in TacText, go to the Text menu and select QuickEdit; that'll change every relevant file the text is in. Without it, you'd have to edit every file in that list that contained that same text.

Thanks. I'm editing Jobs 58 and 59 now (title and description).
Editing Skill sets 35 and 32.
Highlighted quick edit.
Will let you know how things go. Thanks a bunch.

Quote from: Glain on September 23, 2011, 10:31:55 pm
Glad to hear I've been helpful FFTacText is another program in the FFTPatcher suite. It takes some getting used to, I suppose, but using 'QuickEdit' in there should make things a bit easier.

I'm looking through 13. Job Descriptions and don't see 3A or 3B.

Similarly, under "20. skillset descriptions" I see that 20 is named "throw" and 23 is named "dance" which are different than what I've been editing.

Any ideas?

EDIT: In the Tactext editor under skill set names "35.Magic" appears to be the same magic as the one I edited in the patcher, although its tied to Delita's sister which I didn't notice before (I assigned her "0A White Magic" in the patcher instead just in case).

That said dark sword shows up in TactText as both "32" and "39" under skill descriptors. I'm going to edit the first one since that is the one that I edited in the patcher (20 as opposed to 27).

Will see what I can find under jobs.

Quote from: Glain on September 23, 2011, 08:35:45 pm
This is all FFTPatcher territory. In the Jobs tab, the very first thing you can edit is "Skillset"...

spoiler: Show

You can change that to anything you want. Check the Skillsets tab to see what's available (and edit which abilities are in which skillset!) You might be able to get away with using a blank skillset and editing it, but it may be better to edit an existing one; there are a few unused/unnecessary ones. If you are going to create new skillsets for jobs 3A and 3B, I recommend taking/editing 23 Magic, which is unused, and 20 Dark Sword, which is a replica of 27 Dark Sword (Gafgarion's skillset). If you do take 20 Dark Sword, you'll need to change Gafgarion's 17 Dark Knight class to use 27 Dark Sword instead (Jobs tab, again).

If you want, you can even edit the abilities themselves in the Abilities tab... there are a few blank slots above Potion (but the last of those blank slots is reserved, as it's for normal attacks).

If you want to change the names of abilities/skillsets/jobs/what have you, that is all done in FFTacText.

I don't know what FFTacText is, but I'll learn. You are my hero. This is my favorite game ever and you are helping me to mod it in the ways I've dreamed of... omg you just have no idea.