Final Fantasy Hacktics

I haven't had much time to code this week, but I've been working on mapsplit when I can. I think I might rename it, because instead of just chopping a map file into pieces, it's going to produce a single human-readable file that you can edit in a text editor. Then, it'll read that file and build a usable map file out of it.

It's probably still going to be a few more days until I get it all working, but here's a sample of the output it generates now for the primary mesh chunk:

# Format:
#           [ # Description of polygon (optional)
#               [(   Ax,    Ay,    Az), (   Bx,    By,    Bz), (   Cx,    Cy,    Cz)], # XYZ coordiantes
#               [(   Ax,    Ay,    Az), (   Bx,    By,    Bz), (   Cx,    Cy,    Cz)], # Normal vectors
#               [( Au,  Av), ( Bu,  Bv), ( Cu,  Cv), palette, page, (unknown)], # Texture data
#               (  X,   Z) # Terrain tile location
#           ],
            [ # Textured triangle 0 near terrain coord (2, 11, 12)
                [(   84,  -144,   336), (   56,  -144,   336), (   56,  -132,   336)],
                [(-2191, -1445,  3144), (-1120, -1030,  3803), (-1663, -1097,  3579)],
                [(168, 227), (187, 227), (187, 238), 11, 3, (0, 120, 3, 0)],
                (255, 254)
            ],
            [ # Textured triangle 1 near terrain coord (4, 2, 1)
                [(  112,   -36,    56), (  112,   -24,    28), (  112,   -24,    56)],
                [(-3408, -2088,  -895), (-1008, -3950,  -397), (-2896, -2896,     0)],
                [(148, 238), (167, 247), (148, 247), 1, 1, (0, 120, 3, 0)],
                (255, 254)
            ],
            [ # Textured triangle 2 near terrain coord (7, 4, 10)
                [(  196,   -48,   280), (  196,   -48,   294), (  210,   -48,   280)],
                [(    0, -2896, -2896), (-2568, -3009, -1064), ( -975, -1379, -3732)],
                [(168,  77), (168,  68), (177,  77), 1, 2, (0, 120, 3, 0)],
                (255, 254)
            ],

Oh so excellent Gomtuu great work. It is basically a map decompiler and compiler now. All that information there is detailed while not cluttered. Plus no more hex coordinate values! This should make is pretty easy for anyone to do this stuff after reading the info you have on the Wiki. Keep it up!

I found this online Isometric Pixel art tool the other day while looking for pixel art tutorials.

http://www.halfshag.com/iso/

Probably impossible, but it would make for an amazing interface if we could design maps with something like this. Though right now I am just so totally pumped to this update to the splitter/joiner.

Just so everyone knows, I'm still really excited about an update to this .

I don't know if anyone has posted this but it looks like a japanese person trying to accomplish the same thing...

http://74.125.95.100/translate_c?hl=en& ... YpHTyqQ1XQ

The whole site is pretty interesting actually.

http://74.125.95.100/translate_c?hl=en& ... HDDQYR-hEQ

yess! with my new pc i can actually use this program. only thing now is it doesn't help me fix Lesalia's maps or turn DD into lava

interesting read cidIII

At Germinas Peak, given X, Y, and level value :
X = 5, Y = 0, level = 0 the terrain is Grassland and the geomancer effect is Hell Ivy.

Do you know where the the following variables are stored in memory ?
- Terrain type ("Wooden Floor", "Grassland")
- Geomancer effect (Hell Ivy, Demon Fire)
- Height (5h, 0.5h)
- Weather effect (rain, thunderstorms, snowstorms, day, night)

I need this information for movement abilities hack.

Razele

I can give you where that information is held in the map files, but i dont know the offset for it in memory...
if zodiac knows where the ranges are, such as battle.bin is x address - y address is in the RAM, then i can easily tell you

The information in map files is enough, for Germinas Peak map.
I can search it in the memory based on map files structure.

I can't run gomtuu's mapviewer, since my VGA card is too old, and updating the driver with the official one reduce my Windows' color from 32 bits to 256 colors.

Fair enough Razele, ill get them for you shortly after i come home.

The mapviewer wont give you the bytes you need to search for anyway(not even in command prompt), youd still have to open the file and know where to look.

QuoteFair enough Razele, ill get them for you shortly after i come home.

The mapviewer wont give you the bytes you need to search for anyway(not even in command prompt), youd still have to open the file and know where to look

Thanks, but no need to search that information anymore in memory.
Gomtuu already explained most of the map's properties to me, so I learned a lot from him.

Thanks to Gomtuu's help, I know how to change the map's properties in real time :

Wow razele, if you come up helping for the map editor, il trow a huge party for you.

Wow this is really awesome stuff, definitely could be put to very good use. Any chance of finding a way to change the weather, or raise the water level of a map midbattle?

I haven't checked how they store the weather in-game.
Gomtuu said it's not stored in the map file.

I change that map properties in psx memory, so it's possible to raise the water level.
Well, actually, it's "possible" to make some abilities like Shiva to freeze Water area to Ice, Leviathan to splash water in battlefield, or Ifrit change Grassland to Desert.

There is Ice? Splashing water!? So freaking sweet. You show me a vid of a laviathan spell raising the water level of a map and I will...go nuts.

Quote from: "Razele"I haven't checked how they store the weather in-game.
Gomtuu said it's not stored in the map file.

I change that map properties in psx memory, so it's possible to raise the water level.
Well, actually, it's "possible" to make some abilities like Shiva to freeze Water area to Ice, Leviathan to splash water in battlefield, or Ifrit change Grassland to Desert.

Wha, wha! That would be amazing!

That is pretty exciting! I didn't realize you were going for in-game map manipulation.

Do you know whether you can trigger map events (like doors opening, or the map switch that happens when the sluice opens) within abilities? Because that might make it easier to do a water-raising spell, for instance.

Well Gomtuu I have been trying to change the map field colors (what you call ambient light color) and the background colors of a map using event instruction, but they get reset to the default if a spell is used that changes these and I loose my cool mood lighting. So I'm thinking that I am going to need to edit the colors for the actual map and change the defaults to have my changes be permanent. So I have two question:
1) I understand that ambient light color changes the color of the physical map, but does it also change the color of the units? Because for events this is done separately and I'm not seeing anything in your descriptions that would mirror this.
2) Any chance of you releasing a new version of mapsplit soon so that I'm don't split open my head with all this hex and crazy decoding? Plus I tried using mapslit recently and it just gave me grabbled text for some reason and I haven't gotten it working right yet.

Quote from: "Cheetah"1) I understand that ambient light color changes the color of the physical map, but does it also change the color of the units? Because for events this is done separately and I'm not seeing anything in your descriptions that would mirror this.

I think the map's lighting probably affects how characters are lit too, but I'm not sure off the top of my head. It's been a while since I experimented with those variables. You might have to change not just the ambient light, but the directional lights as well.

Quote from: "Cheetah"2) Any chance of you releasing a new version of mapsplit soon so that I'm don't split open my head with all this hex and crazy decoding? Plus I tried using mapslit recently and it just gave me grabbled text for some reason and I haven't gotten it working right yet.

Actually, just yesterday I started working on a visual map editor. It's still very early (doesn't even load or display maps yet) and I don't know how long it'll take before it's usable, but I am trying!

As for mapsplit, can you PM me a screenshot or something of what it's doing?