Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[chillyfeez]

New WIP version uploaded:

• When you start the program now you will notice it itemized everything it's reading as it reads the rom. This way, if it hangs for some reason, people can give more useful bug reports than "I tried to load it and just got a black screen"

Sweet! Maybe I'll finally be able to figure out exactly what I did to my ROM that made it incompatible with modern FF4kster.

[chillyfeez]

So, if it gets through reading all of the data fine, but then crashes (crashes, yes, doesn't even hang anymore) when it gets to "Applying finishing touches," can you think of any particular implication that might have?

For the record, my FF4kster download isn't corrupt. It loads vanilla just fine.

Also, I know I'm attempting to use FF4kster for something it really isn't meant to do (edit a very messed-with ROM), so I'm not upset if I can't get it to work. Just thought I'd let you know what I get to see if you have any insight. Obviously if I can undo whatever it was I did that broke FF4kster compatibility, that would be dreamy.

[Grimoire LD]

Ah right, PinkPuff there was one thing missing from 8-6 Character Spell Names and that was when the spell is learned. Past 48 it bizarrely looks to see if it should be eight letters.

Which makes no sense in a basic manner considering the player's spell name would be screwed up in the first place.

In any event here is the fix...

$02/A542   C9 48   CMP #$48   A:0084   X:7506   Y:0010

Just change that to whatever is the end of Player's Spells so players can learn these new spells without the "Learned X" box trying to display an eight letter spell name.

[Pinkpuff]

Ah right, PinkPuff there was one thing missing from 8-6 Character Spell Names and that was when the spell is learned. Past 48 it bizarrely looks to see if it should be eight letters.

Which makes no sense in a basic manner considering the player's spell name would be screwed up in the first place.

In any event here is the fix...

$02/A542   C9 48   CMP #$48   A:0084   X:7506   Y:0010

Just change that to whatever is the end of Player's Spells so players can learn these new spells without the "Learned X" box trying to display an eight letter spell name.

Thanks! This will be fixed in the next update.

So, if it gets through reading all of the data fine, but then crashes (crashes, yes, doesn't even hang anymore) when it gets to "Applying finishing touches," can you think of any particular implication that might have?

The "finishing touches" are as follows:

• Flag moon creatures (look at the formations in the lunar encounters and flag each monster contained in them as being "lunar" so that the correct script will be displayed)
• Set event map links (look through the triggers and NPCs and assign the events they launch the corresponding default preview map)
• Read spell color names (the text in the rom that normally says "Black", "White", and "Call" for the menu)

[chillyfeez]

The "finishing touches" are as follows:
Flag moon creatures (look at the formations in the lunar encounters and flag each monster contained in them as being "lunar" so that the correct script will be displayed)
Set event map links (look through the triggers and NPCs and assign the events they launch the corresponding default preview map)
Read spell color names (the text in the rom that normally says "Black", "White", and "Call" for the menu)

Hmm... Any thoughts about what might make the game crash at that point?
-I have played around with spell names quite a bit, but have left the color orbs of the normal player spells alone. I have added color orbs to the beginning of a few enemy spells.
-I haven't touched any of the lunar formations, though it's entirely possible that I have used monsters that exist in lunar formations in non-lunar formations.
-while I've changed a lot of event triggers within maps and as associated with NPCs, all of that has been done with FF4kster (older version that doesn't crash when loading my ROM)

[Pinkpuff]

When I say "spell color names", that has nothing to do with spell names or orb symbols. It's only the text "White", "Black" and "Call", and even then, it's only the text for those words in the menu, not the battle command versions.

Does it get to the word "DONE" for the finishing touches? Or does it crash before that appears?

  Uploaded again. Now you can turn glitch worlds into real worlds and vice versa.

[chillyfeez]

No, it crashes before "done."
I have changed spell color names. Well, I've changed the name of "Call," and I've changed its length, too. Could that be it?
Easy enough to change that back and see. I'll try it this evening.

[Pinkpuff]

I used your most recent patch and started poking around myself. It seems to be crashing during the routine for setting map links. Specifically, it's crashing during the check for map #349. It looks at the maps in reverse order, checking for triggers and NPCs to call events. Maps #384-350 are fine. In the original game, Map 349 is "Bahamut's Cave - Bahamut's Floor" if that helps...

[Pinkpuff]

OK found it!

You have only 86 event calls, but map 349 contains a trigger for event call #87. FF4kster tries to create a pointer, points to junk, tries to access junk, KABOOM!

[chillyfeez]

Huh, that's odd. I've never edited Bahamut's cave or intentionally referenced an event call 87. Wonder how that happened...
I'm not gonna be home most of the day today, but I'm excited now to fix that and give it a whirl. Thanks!

[chillyfeez]

Just a quick report. I fixed the errant trigger - also checked all other triggers to make sure there was no repeat of that bug - and FF4kster still crashes when I try to open my ROM.
 

NO!
I missed one!
It works!
 

[Grimoire LD]

Just a quick report. I fixed the errant trigger - also checked all other triggers to make sure there was no repeat of that bug - and FF4kster still crashes when I try to open my ROM.
 

NO!
I missed one!
It works!
 

That's excellent Chillyfeez! I must have missed this.

I do have a couple of (hopefully easy...) requests to add to the editor.

I noticed that Yousei's old monster notes mention several unused bits.

byte 09: "extra" byte. bits are tested from MSB to LSB (0 to 7).
    bit 0: attack status/elemental bytes used
    bit 1: defense status/elemental bytes used
    bit 2: elemental weakness byte used
    bit 3: spell power byte used
    bit 4: creature type byte used
    bit 5: reflex attack sequence group byte used
    bits 6-7: unused

byte 06:
    bits 0-1: unused
    bits 2-7: speed table entry

Those unused bits could be Very important for the future and as you've included them for Weapons I can't see why these would be ignored. Who can say? They may have some purpose that was missed in the initial testing and if not it gives us more room to create functions for them.

[chillyfeez]

So I'm playing around with editing events in FF4kster with Grimoire's flag-conditional event script hack, and I just want to confirm what I'm pretty sure is true...

When FF4kster says, "If [flag xx] is on/off do the next [yy] actions," the yy is actually the number of bytes of event script to run or not run (and not actually the number of actions), right?

Aside from this little tidbit, the two work beautifully well together. This is going to save me oodles of events where my Epic Choices are concerned. My original plan was to have two separate events for everything depending on which choice was made - this still will have to be the case in some situations. The event/fight at the top of Mt. Ordeals as well as the aftermath events are way too different depending on the choice - but for the most part, you guys saved me from having to do some huge hacking to make this all work (like, making the game read event script from an entirely different location in ROM depending on a particular flag, so there could be two sets of event scripts... ugh).

Cheers to you both!

[Bahamut ZERO]

That flag-conditional event script event is definitely a lifesaver in every sense of the word. Absolutely worth rearranging some NPCs so the player doesn't notice any NPC#1's spinning/walking haha.


Earlier I came to the realization that Item Descriptions cannot display icons correctly. From the looks of it the Item Description text is handled the same way as Job Names, as when an icon is used for either it shows as a solid black tile with an apostrophe.
It's kind of a bummer as I was using those icons to save space for accessory descriptions, but seeing as that's one of the scant few things I haven't been able to pull off with FF4kster with my very basic knowledge of the game, really shows off how great of an editor FFekster is!

[Shinryuu]

Great editor PinkPuff, this is truly awesome! Do you plan on adding compatibility with the inofficial FF4 Hardtype translation? That would be even better, seeing how the Hardtype translation is just infinitely better than that of FF2us (not to mention all the missing stuff in FF2us), so I'd like to continue using that one. I don't know how difficult that would be, but right now FF4kster can load the hardtype ROM and reads most stuff correctly, but it can't save. Whenever I try to save, I'm getting the message that Bank 1 and Bank 2 are overflowing, and the save fails. It works fine with FF2us, but that version just lacks so much content (and I don't know of any patch that restores ALL the missing items, spells, abilities, dialogue and monster stats), so it would be very much appreciated if support for the hardtype version could be added.