Final Fantasy Hacktics

umm maybe im missreading the readme file...

am i not editing the right text file? i tried to screw up the intro scene just to see if it worked but no changes occurred.

Hmm? In the event compiler?

Much greatness!! Map viewing and deciphering is just a small leap away from editing!

After a long break, I've started working on map2gl again!

Thanks to GodBeastX, I decided to try to use shaders to solve the 16-palettes problem (i.e. copying the map texture into memory 16 times). Actually, I had wanted to use shaders for a while, but for a different reason: the default ("fixed") shader in OpenGL doesn't work the same way as the PSX, so the lighting in map2gl has always been a bit off. So I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone. I haven't done the 16-palettes thing yet, but I do have a shader implemented that produces results that are similar to (and sometimes more accurate than (and sometimes less accurate than)) the fixed OpenGL shader.

There are also some never-released changes I made shortly after I posted the previous version (0.18). The biggest thing is the scenario chooser. This lets map2gl use the scenario data in ATTACK.OUT to pick the proper room arrangement, weather condition, and placement grid for a scene, and the data from the ENTD files to show enemy and guest starting positions. It's still not perfect because event scripts can change lighting/backgrounds and move characters around, but it's an improvement. So those will be coming soon as well.

The real reason I got back into this, though, was because I want to try to make a texture editor. I think I can do it... We'll see!

Anyway, here's a screenshot from my latest dev version, compared with one from Zodiac's map guide. The older version had weird phantom trees (Actually, this makes me think Zodiac was using 0.16, which was two versions ago) and way-too-contrasty lighting.

err I ain't gonna them again, took like 3 hours of macroing.

yesss!

well, except maybe that map (and another I think?) because of the buggy trees.

Excellent, Gomtuu!

much awesomeness. that screenshot looks better than what you get in the game!

hmmm brilliant me like

Hell yeah, great to have Gomtuu working on this again. Having some of the attack.out data implement would be great. Especially with scenario editing so I could get a better idea of what the map is going to end up looking like. The shading does look tons better, if you think these screen shots look better then the actual game then it is probably because this thing is running better then the emulator you are use to seeing the maps on. Is that actually possible?

Glad you guys are still around!

Work continues on map2gl. It's been more challenging than I thought to get the shader to work (instead of using 16 copies of the texture), but it's working pretty well now. Now I'm just trying to get it to run in both Windows and Linux again. Stay tuned!

Quote from: "Cheetah"if you think these screen shots look better then the actual game then it is probably because this thing is running better then the emulator you are use to seeing the maps on. Is that actually possible?

It could be. The emulator might be running in low-quality mode and/or scaling the picture up and/or stretching it horizontally (IIRC, FFT runs in 256x256 mode, which is not 4:3), any of which would make the image look crappy.

-Don

gomtuu, I'd have a request.

I'd want the geomancy effects (or just the tiles type) of all maps along with the height of panels.

I don't care for the format, but if you could even add a function to rip those to a file it would be awesome. That's pretty much all I need beside the move-find items to complete the map section.

Quote from: "Zodiac"I'd want the geomancy effects (or just the tiles type) of all maps along with the height of panels.

That shouldn't be too hard... I'll see what I can do.

I made a program that goes through all the maps and, for each one, dumps a graphic representing that map's terrain. It's still beta, but here's a preview of Magic City Gariland (022).

The idea is, you'll be able to put these terrain images side-by-side with the overhead screenshots you've got now. Or maybe make the terrain appear on mouseover. There'll need to be a key to the surface type color codes, which I can make my program generate.

Does anybody feel like making a set of simple 28x28 bitmaps to represent the various terrain types? Using patterns rather than just colors would make them easier to identify. The patterns should be subtle, though, so you can read the heights.

There's almost too much terrain data to cram onto a single square! There's the height and potentially depth, and then there's the height of each edge of the tile for sloped tiles. Plus, there are potentially two levels of terrain on each map (e.g. a bridge and the water below it). So I'm not sure how much I should try to put on there. There's also the Move/Find item data, as you mentioned.

Well you see I'm going to add a menu to select what to display. There will be a few radio buttons and a checkbox to switch low/upper level and another to show +brave and -brave items.

This is also why I'd prefer to have data and not an image. well of course an image can do but it'd be less practical for me to code.

Really? I'm surprised that you would prefer text data. I'm happy to do that, of course, but from your description, I don't really understand what you're looking for.

Outputting the data in different formats is pretty easy for me, so maybe it's best if you give me a sample of how you'd like it formatted. That way you won't have to go through a bunch of stuff and re-format it.

Oh that is cool. Definitely include the terrain viewing option to your map viewer either way Gomtuu.

Someday I'll post a new version of map2gl... As I said, I haven't been able to get it working reliably in Windows yet (it works on my home computer but not my work computer), which has slowed me down.

For now, here's another teaser. Those white triangles in the lower right corner of the texture are UV polygons. Palette 05 is selected on the right side of the window, and those triangles are showing you which areas of the texture make use of that palette. (You can turn this feature off by unchecking "Show areas used by polygons".)

So, I'm making progress, but I still need to write the actual exporting/importing stuff. And probably a feature that lets you edit the colors in the palettes...

Beautiful looking! This looks great, Gomtuu! Decompiling all of those pieces like this!