Final Fantasy Hacktics

no, thats cool as long as everyone else can use it

ill just ask someone to make edits for me, i really dont want to change anything big except maybe making one more map with lava. and some sunsets and stuff. i can ask someone to do those if i need them.

thx for helping me figure out what was wrong, i could have spent forever on that.

Hmm well I'm having a bit of difficulty getting it running. I had to download msvcp71.dll, after that it at least started opening up. But as soon as it showed like the actual program it...closed? Obviously I want to be ripping and editing textures even if I can't quite yet implement them yet, so any suggestions? Oh and do the maps use multiple light sources? Like does the lava actually produce it's own light and shadows in this game? I don't think so but I'm curious.

PS: Gomtuu you are the man. Come by the IRC Chat sometime so we can give you more of the mad props you deserve.

Just a quick question about my error messages.

Here's map2gl version 0.20. This is a bugfix release only. It's intended to fix a bug preventing map2gl from working on ATI video cards. I don't have access to a computer with an ATI video card, so I don't know if it'll work. Please try it if you have one and you weren't able to get map2gl 0.19 running.

map2gl 0.20 binary version (32-bit Windows) (6.9MB)
map2gl 0.20 source version (Cross-platform) (35KB)

Both of these ZIP files were made with 7-Zip and might not work with WinRAR.

With help from Cheetah, I was able to find and fix the ATI compatibility problem introduced in map2gl 0.19. Probably. This new version should work on both ATI and NVIDIA video cards, as long as they're relatively new (3-4 years).

map2gl 0.21 binary version (32-bit Windows) (6.9MB)
map2gl 0.21 source version (Cross-platform) (35KB)

Enjoy!

Oh hell yeah it is totally working now and so kick ass. I love the palette viewer/exporter. I'm definitely looking forward to more capabilities being added to this now that it is running on a greater variety of graphics cards. Hopefully I will find some time to play with what you have so far though.

Glad to hear it! By the way, to answer your previous question:

Quote from: "Cheetah"Oh and do the maps use multiple light sources? Like does the lava actually produce it's own light and shadows in this game?

No, the lighting that the game uses isn't sophisticated enough to produce actual shadows or have objects that emit light. In FFT, there are 3 directional light sources and an ambient light source. Each light has a color, and each directional light also has a vector that specifies which direction it's shining. Basically, the closer a surface is to being perpendicular to a given light's direction, the more that light illuminates the surface. This is a very common method of lighting 3d scenes because it's fast, but it's not very flexible. Any time you see an object casting a shadow in FFT, the shadow is part of the texture.

For anyone who's interested, I just spent some time documenting a lot of what I know about the map file formats in the wiki.

Oh this is freaking awesome information. Some Questions?

So XYZ is obvious but what is UV?
What does the tile heights and slopes have to do with the Terrian data? How is that not part of the maps polygons?
So I was looking at the textures last night and noticed the gray scales. When are these actually used and how?
Is Vertex animation data like the windmill?
Will the polygon visibility thing make it so there is an easier fix to get more maps usable? Or is it usually a case of missing polygons?

Some of that stuff you touched on in your descriptions, very good job presenting all of it. The question I have that I didn't see anything on was for objects in any given map, where are they stored? I know that there are some maps where you can get rid of the chairs, but where is the data that stores what the chairs look like and where they go? And obviously there must be some objects that are actually basically terrain with just different palettes right?

Did I ask enough questions?

I know the map viewer cant edit maps yet, gomtuu, but can we edit make appearences and such through a hex editor?

Quote from: "Cheetah"So XYZ is obvious but what is UV?

UV coordinates are texture coordinates. (This is 3D graphics lingo, not something I made up.) Each point in a polygon has XYZ coordinates to locate it in space and UV coordinates to define the area of the texture that should be applied to the polygon.

The UV polygons are the white triangles you see when you view textures in map2gl.

Quote from: "Cheetah"What does the tile heights and slopes have to do with the Terrian data? How is that not part of the maps polygons?

The mesh data only defines the appearance of the map. It's completely independent of the terrain data, which affects how the game actually works (the height your character appears to be standing on, whether you can jump up to a ledge, where your cursor shows up, etc.) You could have a map where everything looks completely flat and grassy, but in fact when you walk around there are sloped tiles, tiles of various heights and depths, and different surfaces (sand, wood floor, etc.) The terrain data is what makes the map really work; the mesh is just pretty pictures.

Quote from: "Cheetah"So I was looking at the textures last night and noticed the gray scales. When are these actually used and how?

Map2gl doesn't show the grayscale palettes I mentioned on the wiki. If you're seeing grayscale palettes, either something is wrong or it's a coincidence. The grayscale palettes are a separate set of 16 palettes, and map2gl doesn't use them anywhere. As for where the game uses them, I don't know. I haven't investigated it a whole lot, though.

Quote from: "Cheetah"Is Vertex animation data like the windmill?

Yep. There are continuous animations like the windmill, which map2gl supports, and then there are animations that I'm pretty sure are event-driven and just happen once and then end. Interestingly, the Zirekile Falls map appears to contain an animation that makes the bridge fall... But I've never actually seen it (It's not in the game, right? I don't remember it...), I'm just guessing based on the numbers. You could probably trigger it by messing with an event script on that map.

Quote from: "Cheetah"Will the polygon visibility thing make it so there is an easier fix to get more maps usable? Or is it usually a case of missing polygons?

I'm pretty sure it's a case of missing polygons, at least for the three maps I mentioned before (97, 98, and 99, I think).

Quote from: "Cheetah"for objects in any given map, where are they stored? I know that there are some maps where you can get rid of the chairs, but where is the data that stores what the chairs look like and where they go? And obviously there must be some objects that are actually basically terrain with just different palettes right?

I don't understand the second part of your question, but as for chairs and things: The chairs aren't stored separately. For map011 (Office of Igros Castle), for instance, there are several complete meshes, some of which have chairs and some of which don't. Map094 (Broke down shed: Stone building) has a version with a table in the middle and a version without, but the table isn't stored separately. These different versions are what I call room arrangements, and you can see them and switch between them using the Information window of map2gl.

That said, for maps with objects that move (like the windmill), the moving objects are stored in the animated mesh chunks, as you guessed.

Speaking of arrangements, map064 (In front of Bethla Garrison's Sluice) has a low-water-level arrangement and high-water-level arrangement. I'd be interested to know what triggers the switch from one to the other. Is it this instruction?

Quote from: "Cheetah"Did I ask enough questions?

Definitely.

The bridge falling!? That would be so sweet. Okay such great information and I have so many more questions, but I suppose they will have to wait till I have time. Keep up the great work Gomtuu.

Very interesting, Gomtuu... I'll see if the bridge falling is in an event.

speaking of the falls bridge collapse thing, there is a seemingly unused effect file with an explosion that seems to run in a line, and it looks like pieces of wood are flying away from it....

Makes you wonder what they originally had planned for Zirekile, eh?

or it could have been a second go around like when delita and ovelia are at the falls once again

In case you haven't been following the Editing Maps thread, I posted mapsplit and mapjoin there. These utilities let you split a map file up into pieces, edit the pieces (with a hex editor), and then recombine them into a map file that should work in the game.

3-4 hours later and the first bit of progress towards "completing" a map has been made. I basically just completed the bit of wall that Gomtuu started on with his initial preview. In game testing will occur next.

can you highlight the new part?

wow, its missing alot more walls than i thought. im excited to see it completed

thats a pretty nice map