New spells...

[Vanya]

It actually depends on the OS. So I'm thinking I might need to get my hands on a very old program that I can run in an emulated version of windows.

Here's what it will take to make a program to handle all this crap for us.

1) must open x effect file.
2) find or be directed to raw image data in effect file.
3) find or be directed to 16-bit palette in effect file.
4) create a bitmap file by converting raw image and 16-bit palette to bitmap format and 24-bit palette
5) take the edited image data and convert it back into raw format with correct color indexing.
6) insert edited image back into the effect file in the right place.

Step 5 is the biggest pain in the ass.

[Vanya]

Big Announcement!!!

I have found a program that can display the effect file graphics seemingly perfectly!!

Use TileMolester! Open the effect file, set it to 8bpp, 2 dimensional, and get the palette directly from the file by inputting the byte offset and size of the palette in bytes!! Woohoo!! I'll post more later!!!!

[Zozma]

yay vanya! wooohhoooooooo!!! been waiting to hear something like this for a long time im so glad you've been drawing in attention to effect files

[DarthPaul]

this will make some of my better ideas more pertinent

[LastingDawn]

Does that mean *blink, blink* I might be able to actually input my four new summon ideas, as well as get replace Leviathan for a Shadow Dragon?

[DarthPaul]

hopefully LD i cant wait to see those summons in action

[Vanya]

This means we'll be able to do much more complex edits of existing effects. The only thing that will be a bit of a pain in the ass is that tilemolester does tile based edits instead of freehand like a normal image editor.

The problem of getting certain spells to function correctly in other slots still remains to be examined.

But hell, we could put make any edit we want! I could make every summon spell into a giant boob if I want!! =)

[Cheetah]

Ahhh but would the boobs bounce?

[Vanya]

Tutorial:

here's a step-by-step explanation of how to do this.

1) Open your effect file in TileMolester. (it can be downloaded from Romhacking.net or Zophar's Domain.)

2) Click on the view menu. Go to the Codec option and click on "8bpp linear".

3) Next click on the view menu again and go to the mode option. Now click on "2-Dimensional". Now if you scroll down the image you'll be able to make out the form of the raw image in the effect file.

4) This is the most complicated part. now you have to figure out where the palette is located for the file that you opened.

First let me explain the rules for locating the palette as read from the Final Fantasy Tactics Investigative Project.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070124055559/http://www.m-l.org/~greerga/fft/

If the effect file is larger than 70KB (71,680B)...
-the last 64KB (65,536B) of the file is a raw image 256x256 pixels.
-the palette is 1028B before the start of the raw image.
-the offset for the palette = the size of the file in bytes minus 66,564 bytes.
-NOTE to view the image correctly for files of this size you have to expand the width of the canvas to 32 instead of 16.

If the effect file is larger than 34KB (34816B) but smaller than 70KB...
-the last 32KB (32,768B) of the file is a raw image 128x256 pixels.
-the palette is 1028B before the start of the raw image.
-the offset for the palette = the size of the file in bytes minus 33,796 bytes.

If the effect file is smaller than 34KB (34816B)...
-the last 15,872B of the file is a raw image 128 pixels wide.
-the palette is 512B before the start of the raw image.
-the offset for the palette = the size of the file in bytes minus 16KB (16384B).

As an example take E161 - Wish.BIN
I'm editing it to make it look less like Esuna.

Size: 51,336B
Palette offset: 51,336B - 33,796B = 17,540B

5) Import the palette from the file. Click on the Palette menu and go to the "Import From..." option. Click on "This File...". This will open the "Import internal Palette" dialogue. In the box marked "Offset" type in the location we got for the palette. In this cast it's '17540'. Where it says "Size" always type 512 because it always used a 256-color palette with 2 bytes for each entry. then click OK and you're ready to edit!! =)

6) Make your changes. Save or Save As... You now have a brand spankin' new effect!! Woohoo!!!!!!! =)

Be warned the program is kinda finicky when undoing stuff so be careful and save often. Also, you can open multiple files to copy over stuff! =)

[Vanya]

As an extra added bonus...

I emailed Dot Warner, the host of the Effect file images? Well, he confirmed that the images were removed on purpose. =(

However, he was gracious enough to give the images to me in a zip! =)

the file is huge so I'm going to have to split it up into smaller files or post them into a new thread for stickying purposes.

[Cheetah]

Ohhh I want those files.

[Zozma]

w-wait, has anyone edited spell quotes? where are those again..... lol
i've got some new sword skills i need quotes for

[LastingDawn]

They are in Spell.mes, very easy to take out and edit.

[BeoulveBlack]

great, i was having trouble trying to find a niche for my character; it will be much easier now that i can edit some effect files! and btw Zoz, yo have any problem sending/posting the edited effect file for that edited Hydragon aka 'Charmdragon'?

oh yeah, does anyone know where the image for that golem hand protector thingy is located? i wanna change it into an AT field looking barrier for a new skill

P.S.
since i hate the ghost monsters, i removed them...not before placing a human sprite over it. i had to edit the sprite a bit (cut out certain things, like the singing poses, repeating fist poses, talk poses, etc. - just like the skeleton monsters), but i now have a human that's an undead without changing colors!

[Zozma]

yeah its up already on this page of this topic called "megacharm.ace"

http://www.ffhacktics.com/forum/viewtop ... &start=240

[Cheetah]

This might be useful. There is a new plug-in for GIMP that allows the opening and saving of TIM formatted images. These are use in psx games and I know there are some in FFT and they also might be the format of some of the effects stuff.

http://www.romhacking.net/utils/553/

[LastingDawn]

There are quite a few TIM's in FFT, but decoding the majority of them is the hard part. it appears.

[Zozma]

k, well this doesnt really belong here but...

skillsets A7 and A8
A7 has only the skill "Blood suck" and A8 has only the skill "Frog"

does this mean these are linked to the status effects bloodsuck and frog?

like when a black mage or character with black magic has the frog spell?

just a thought

[Archael]

k, well this doesnt really belong here but...

skillsets A7 and A8
A7 has only the skill "Blood suck" and A8 has only the skill "Frog"

does this mean these are linked to the status effects bloodsuck and frog?

like when a black mage or character with black magic has the frog spell?

just a thought

nice find

[Lydyn]

Probably not, is my thought ... just because SquareSoft seems to be found of doing things like that. If it were really true, we'd probably see skillsets with only Petrify and Sleep as well. *Shrug* I didn't know about the Frog skillset though, but Eldmor uses that Blood Suck one as a secondary inside the castle.