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Messages - ffta707

41
War of the Lions Hacking / Re: PSP Emulator
December 11, 2010, 02:19:21 pm
Quote from: "Kagebunji"God help us... Seriously, read some tutorials, FAQs, and then come back. If you don't even know what a firmware is, there is no point in explaining. Man....

Agreed.
42
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / Spriting
December 11, 2010, 01:13:45 am
Post your sprites here. Although they cannot be added into the game yet, you can create 2 or three frames showing your sprite.
43
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / FFTA: Rebalanced
December 11, 2010, 01:11:55 am
Post your Ideas for ffta rebalanced in here. Chances are, your Idea will be put into rebalanced.


Thank you.

The following are created by gotwald. This post will be updated with proposals, however, a change log of the actual project will be added later.

Special Jobs


Since the assassin is being removed from the player arsenal, it can be made into a special and powerful enemy only job! Increased growths, more equipments options, possibly double sword, maybe innate maintinence... Suddenly you have a very tough enemy which can be added into boss fights against you! Won't be everywhere, but definitly will be on the home stretch (with Llednar.)

Level

The suggestion has been made to use the average levels of your 6 best party members to determine the levels of the enemies. While this is a good suggestion, it leaves people the ability to only use Marche and be able to curb stomp the game that would be many levels below him.


Another idea would be to make the the enemies the highest character level of the party. This could work, except if one character levels above another, you can soon see that there will be a strength disparity. Fortunatly, this isn't all bad, as the xp bonuses for fighting stuff above your level are substantial, meaning that you would be able to catch up with your lower levels rather quickly.

Equipment


Equipment seems to be set on every enemy in the game; there is never any variation, which would lead me to assume that equipment will not get better with level. This means that equipment would have to be set. However, instead of facing guys with broad swords at the end of the game, we can set enemies to have much better and more synergistic gear. In fact, we can even set enemies to have AMAZINGLY over powered gear, and then just slap maintinence on them so that the player can't have access, making a stronger enemy.

This topic is about removing skills from the players arsenal which are overpowered and can be abused to make the game pretty much unfair.

Current ideas for skill removal include:

-Damage MP

Reason:

AI cannot see reactions, and this will allow you to absorb countless attacks and be almost invincible due to MP regening.

-Two swords

Reason:

Removal pending, if it can be innate added to ninja's then this will be removed as an ability but still usable on ninja's.

-Turbo MP

Reason:

Due to bad MP scaling, this ability is the only ability chosen by mages and increases the effects of magic to astronomical heights. If we did some number crunching, we might be able to make this work, but for now, it's on this list.

-Reflex

Reason:

The AI cannot see reaction until they attack them, so the AI will always waste a turn attacking the character with this ability, even though it says 0%, giving the player a free turn ALONG with the proteciton from regular attacks; if this can be fixed, this ability can go back to the player.

-Strikeback

Reason:

Same as reflex, but it is SOOOOO GOOODDD that the player can't have no matter what.

-Ultima (all)

Reason:

This skill is too powerful, as it allows you to deal more damage than the boss of the game and currently cannot be balanced for the player.

-Doublecast

Reason:

This skill is also overpowered. It allows you to attack two different players at once (Two groups of players), or just deal plain damage to one enemy. IMO, the skill should be weakened, like double shots formula.


These skills will still be present in the game, but they will not be useable by the player. For example, you may fight an enemy who has Damage MP and two swords, but you will not be able to use them yourself.


If you have anything with this you would like to discuss, such as that one of the skills on this list should not be removed or another you would like to add, please post.
44
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / Youtube Channel
December 11, 2010, 12:31:07 am
Our new, official you tube channel.


http://www.youtube.com/user/hacktactics ... ature=mhum


All of our community videos will be posted here, such as rebalanced. If you are needed to do something, you will receive the password to do so.


Subscribe! Any suggestions are appreciated.

If anyone wants to do a play through or anything else, PM me, and you can upload.
45
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / Sprite Limitations (Darthatron)
December 11, 2010, 12:21:09 am
This info was originally posted by darthatron.

So, each sprite has a limit to what it can contain...


Battle Sprites:

    * Must be <=16px (32px for monsters) wide and <=40px high.
    * Must  contain 15 colors or less (+1 background color). See below for useable palettes.



Portraits:

    * Must be 64x64px (needs verification)
    * Can have up to 47 colors (+1 background color).
46
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / Graphics Editing (By: Tuosinoc)
December 11, 2010, 12:17:26 am
Couldn't quite capture the headings for the sections he made. They are very cool.
 

 

The Administrator (ffta707) has stated that he will upload all of the "old tutorials" to the site.  Presumably, those tutorials contain a guide on graphics editing (probably several, in fact).  Until they are uploaded, however, I thought I would donate the little knowledge I possess here.

 

 __        ,        ,

/  ` _ ._ -+- _ ._ -+- __ *

\__.(_)[ ) | (/,[ ) | _)  *

 

    - Introduction                    [INT]

    - What You Need                   [WYN]

    - Step By Step                    [SBS]

      - Making Backups                [BCK]

      - Finding the Palette           [PAL]

      - Molesting the Tiles           [TIL]

      - Play Testing                  [PLT]

    - Final Thoughts                  [FIN]

    - Credits                         [CRD]

 

 / _/_   _/  __/'   .

(/)// ()(/(/( //()/).                 [INT]

 

Have you ever played a game on an emulator and found yourself thinking "Wouldn't that character look great if he was a little more mage-like?", "Ugh! That is ugly! And it wouldn't be that hard to fix!", or something similar?  If so, then this guide is for you!  With a bit of patience and a modicum of artisitic skill, you can customize just about any rom's graphics.

 

(   // __/  (__/      /| )_ _ _/.

|/|//)(//    / ()(/  / |/(-(-(/ .     [WYN]

 

1. A Gameboy Advance rom (I'll be using Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but this guide works for any rom).  In my country (USA), it is legal to own a rom of a game so long as you own the original game (which I do).  Familiarize yourself with your respective country's laws, and do not ask for roms on this site.  See Rule 4 on the Rules page.

 

2. Tile Molester Alternate.  Tile Molester is a program written by Kent Hansen that allows the manipulation of graphical data within a rom.  The "Alternate" part was written by Central MiB, and it allows us to import palette files (which will be extremely handy later on). You can get it here: http://www.romhacking.net/utils/%5B515% ... ernate.zip.

NOTE: This program is rather bug-ridden, so keep the original zip file.  When the program starts spitting out errors, delete it and unzip the file afresh.

 

3. VisualBoy Advance.  To play roms you need an emulator, and I think this is the best available.  Besides, we need its ability to export palettes.  I use VisualBoy Advance-M, a variant.  You can get it here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vbam/f ... z/download

 

3. Patience.  Getting tiles to line up correctly can be a tedious process, and sometimes it seems impossible.

 

  __            __

 ( _/_    /    ( _/_  .

__)/(-/) ()(/ __)/(-/).               [SBS]

     /     /       /

 

Making Backups                        [BCK]

 

First, and most importantly, you must learn the Cardinal Laws of Modding, namely:

    1. When in doubt, make a backup.

    2. When not in doubt, make a backup.

    3. If you ever feel like not making a backup, see rules one and two.

 

Seriously, regularly backing up your work can save hours of frustration.

 

Say you've got a rom called "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance".  Make a copy of it and call it "FFTA - Experiment".  Then you change the way the Black Mage looks, you play test it, and you like it.  Rename it "FFTA - Black Mage Edit". Make a copy of it and call it "FFTA - Black Mage Edit II".  Then you change the way the Summoner looks, you play test it, and you like it.  Rename it "FFTA - Black Mage and Summoner Edit".  Make a copy of it and call it "FFTA - Black Mage and Summoner Edit II".  Etcetera.

 

That way, if you encounter a bug, you can test each modification in kind until you find the source of the bug.  If you have a large project, you can even have version numbers and a change log.  Just keep things backed up!

 

The modder who keeps a plethora of backups is not the modder who says, "Aaaargh! I can't find this bug! A week of work is ruined!".

 

With that out of the way, let's get started.

 

Finding the Palette                   [PAL]

 

Let us say we wish to modify the in-battle sprites for FFTA.  First, we need the palette for those sprites.  The palette file tells the game what colors the various sprites should be.  If you were to just search for the tiles right now, the sprites would all be the wrong colors.  It would make them almost impossible to find and difficult to work with.

 

So, run VisualBoy Advance and open up the rom (File -> Open GBA).

 

Then, play through it until the sprites we want (the battle sprites) are clearly visible.  Go to Tools -> Palette Viewer... and the "Palette View" box will pop up.

 

You'll see two palettes, "Background" and "Sprite".  Generally speaking, the Background palette is for the environment (things that don't move), while the Sprite palette is for the characters (things that do move).  Since we want the battle sprites, we want the Sprite palette.  To save it, press the "Save OBJ..." button and save the palette wherever you want to.

 

And now you have your palette!  That wasn't so hard, was it?  On to the tiles!

 

Molesting the Tiles                   [TIL]

 

Run Tile Molester Alternate by double-clicking on "TMLauncher.bat".  If you try to run it just by clicking TileMolester.exe, it'll behave oddly.

 

Once it's fully open (and it might take a few moments), go to File -> Open... and open up your rom.

 

(By the way, if the program decides to be buggy, it'll usually show up here. See NOTE underneath [WYN]-2.)

 

You should see a bunch of menus and a block window in full technicolor disarray.

 

Now we need to import our palette.  Go to Palette -> Import From -> Another File... and import the palette you saved earlier.  You'll notice the colors have changed (although they still don't make any sense).

 

It's time for the hunt!  The sprites we want are somewhere in that rom, but we don't know where.  Now that the palette is accurate, the sprites should look normal when they do show up.

 

Normally, you'd have to scroll through the whole thing searching for the sprites (and you may want to do that anyway for the practice).  But, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll give you the location.  Go to Navigate -> Go To..., enter 0069B600, and press OK (the other settings should be at their defaults, "Hex" for "Radix" and "Absolute" for "Mode").

 

If you're familiar with the game, you should recognize chopped up bits of a soldier in here. But, my oh my! What a mess!

 

Let's clean it up!  Go to the View Menu and click on the "Row-interleaved" option.  Notice how many pieces fit together now. (Some roms require this option on, while others do not.  You'll have to experiment.)  It's still messy, though.  Go to View again and select the "Tile Grid" option.  This will help differentiate sprite groups.

 

Now comes the tricky part.  Do you see those buttons on the toolbar in the upper right?  If you hover your mouse over them they'll tell you what they do.  Those buttons help you navigate inside the rom.  Tweaking with these will help to line things up correctly.

 

Try clicking the "Byte Forward" button (the one that looks like a plus sign) twenty-eight times.  You'll notice that our soldier fits nicer inside the red boxes.  That's a big improvement of our first view of him, isn't it?

 

If you're disappointed that it's not perfect, then I've got some bad news for you.  I've tried to make those little blobs line up perfectly for forever without success.  Sometimes, you just have to be grateful for a fair facsimile.

 

Well, now you can edit things to your heart's content.  The controls on the left side are remarkably similar to Paint, so a little effort will suffice to familiarize yourself with them.

 

Once you're done, go to File -> Save and you're done!

 

Play Testing                          [PLT]

 

Now you just need to rev up VisualBoy Advance again and play through the game 'til you get to your edited piece.  Make sure it operates as you wanted and make sure you test as many animations as possible.  You'd be amazed where little errors can creep in.

 

If everything conforms to your satisfaction, then congratulations!  You're done!  Enjoy.

 

 ___       ____

(_  '  _ /  /  /     _ /_/ _.

/  //)(/(  (  /)()(/(//)/_) .         [FIN]

                   _/

 

If you're new to this sort of stuff, then welcome to the happy community of modders! If not, then I hope this guide was somewhat helpful.

 

If I missed something or left something out, feel free to let me know (just post it below).  I'm pretty new at this, too, after all.

 

Other than that, thanks for reading and good luck!

 

  _

 / )_ _ _/'_/ _.

(__/ (-(// /_) .                      [CRD]

 

I would like to thank the following people/entities:

    1. ffta707 The Administrator for establishing a promising forum for stuff like this.

    2. Kent Hansen for making Tile Molester

    3. Central MiB for adding palette capacity to Tile Molester

    4. Nintendo for making the Gameboy Advance

    5. Square for making Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

 


 

____

 /       _ '    _

(  (/()_) //)()(_,
47
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / Job name Editor
December 11, 2010, 12:06:06 am
Here is the first program I made to simply edit Job name text. This is more of a test for future editors.

Enjoy!
48
FFTA/FFTA2 Hacking / FFTA Text offsets
December 10, 2010, 11:55:52 pm
Here guys. I took some time to record several vital offsets, so you can edit them at your will.

Enjoy!


Editing your generic characters name, and Montblanc is very simple. Monblanc would be in Main Character Names, while generics are in the random name database.


Have Fun!



0049B360 - 0049F490: Store, pub, prison, cards, monster bank quotes


 

0049F4A0 - 0049F600: After battle failure and secsess messages


 

0049F610 - 004A0020: Link messages


 

004A0030 - 004B5A70: encoded area (Snippets like: Roda I#olcanF#)


 

004B5AF0 - 004B6480: Things like: Thanks, this will help me fund my research.


 

004B6580 - 004B6830: Choices (Engage, surrender, give snowball)


 

00526240 - Status


 

00525FB0 - 00526410: Laws like Dmg to animal, copycat exc.


 

009C16F0 - End, I believe is the storyline text. Tried editing - too bugggy.


 

00526420 - 00526640: Map location Names!


 

00526650 - 00526670: Month's/ Moon Phases? (Look like, S#a#g#e#m#o#o#n#)


 

 

00566A00 - 005680D0: Random Names Database


 

00565880 - 00565CC0: Clan names


00558000 - 0055A310: all Mission names


 

005541B0 - 00554600: Places like monster bank, selections like "Action" "wait" skill levels "negotiate"


 

00554600 - 00554990: All skillset names including special jobs, and monsters


 

00554990 - 00556020: Ability names and combo names


 

00556330 - 005564D0: no clue, some Weapon types (robe, gauntlet, armor, Spear)


 

005564D0 - 005566D0: Law fines (No AP reward... HP max -)


 

005566D0 - 005567E0: Options (i.e.Color mode, Cursor speed )


 

005512A0 - 005516C0: Main Character names (Marche, Pam Le Fay, even Odd statue XD)


 

00525580 - 00525FB0: Mission Items


 

00525580 - 00523960: Item names


 

00523370 - 00523920: job names! Also, did you know that there is (Ark knight, rune knight, and others?)
49
War of the Lions Hacking / Re: PSP Emulator
December 10, 2010, 04:49:30 pm
Não há nenhum emulador do psp direito agora. Você tem que começar firmware e material.  

Hows that for Portuguese? (Translator lol)
50
News / Re: New Adminship
December 09, 2010, 08:37:22 pm
Good job eternal! I know you'll do a good job.
51
Spam / Re: Sexy Party Tonight for Eternal
December 09, 2010, 08:15:37 pm
Make it 9:00. I need to catch some z's tonight. I have a physics test tomorrow...
52
I don't even think it should be 1.4 to be honest. Why not make a new name. We could get the hole community involved, and it would be a much better patch, without all the haters. That is just my opinion.
53
Archives / Re: EasyVent 3 (EV 4 in the making!)
December 06, 2010, 03:27:03 pm
Quote from: "RavenOfRazgriz"Will the Event list (Orbonne Prayer, etc) be contained by the program or will that be a file like TEST.EVT or PSX Events that the user can edit to their needs or restore to default?

Also, will the final version list the setup events or leave them omitted in the way the files I sent you had them?

Regarding your first question: They are contained in the program itself.


How you sent them.
54
Spam / Re: FFH Memes!
December 05, 2010, 09:36:35 pm
Quote from: "PX_Timefordeath"Doming - To spam things without thought.

(See Joning)
55
Help! / Re: New Story help
December 05, 2010, 08:53:49 pm
Quote from: "Ramza incarrnation"Dang..I'll fina a way..my whole idea isto make Ramza leave and join Deletia and travel to a differnt area and have the preivieous area dissapear so you dont get a glitch

That gets into world instructions. Just like most things, it's not something that can be tutorialized here.
56
Spam / Re: FFH Memes!
December 05, 2010, 08:33:36 pm
Regarding Tidus's Post.

R9ing - Having extreme pipe dreams and/or creating a stupid idea on marketing a mod. R9ing can also mean quitting for no good reason.

Arching - Rage Quitting (See R9ing)

Joning - To say something without thought.
57
Archives / Re: EasyVent 3 (EV 4 in the making!)
December 05, 2010, 07:22:59 pm
Okay, here is another update showing you EasyVent 4. Please note that this is not the final GUI.

Things Added

1. Credits/ Help (Mid - top region)
2. Every Event (Click one you want to edit; Offset information will display)
3. Added several Instructions (Compatibility with newer instructions!)

Things yet to be added

1. Camera Helper (Several Directions will be displayed in a list like: West, northwest - The basics)
2. Possibly the ability to compile to the Test.EVT
3. Possibly the ability to view each map by selecting it
4. Unit Animation has generator under it (You click the one you want - creates an instruction)

This has hardly anything, but I made an .exe to show you. Please suggest ideas for GUI.
58
Help! / Re: Help
December 05, 2010, 05:57:22 pm
Quote from: "btei16"someone,help ? :P
59
Spam / Re: True or False Game
December 05, 2010, 05:08:38 pm
Quote from: "Gotwald"False. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Next poster likes to dunk their cookies in milk.


Who doesn't? (Other than the lactose intolerant) By the way gotwald, glad to see you got your old avatar back.

Next poster has been baked while playing tactics before.
60
Help! / Re: Help
December 05, 2010, 12:03:18 pm
Gameshark isn't as fun though. You are getting something that isn't permanent. With patching, as long as you have the patched ISO, it will never change, because it actually changes the data in the ISO.