Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[Pinkpuff]

That's what I used to make the bmp files as well, I just ripped them from FF4Tools and mass-converted the file format. But that's not what I mean.

I'm talking about, you know how there are some tiles with red arrows or boxes on them? Well those red arrows and boxes are part of the bmps themselves, not separate bmps with transparent backgrounds that are layered on top, which is what I would want. That means you can't just make arbitrary tiles appear as f.ex. warp tiles. I would need to manually go through and separate the red arrows from the tiles themselves and make separate transparent bmps with those arrows and boxes and such so that in the tile editor when you make a regular tile into a warp tile, it will appear as such with a red arrow indicating so.

[LordGarmonde]

Oh, OK - gotcha -- me iz smrt 

red dots and arrows - those are the only two overlays, right? I'll extract them; I have photoshop (CS6) - shouldn't be too involved to separate them - my bigger problem (I imagine) will be keeping the sizes consistent - but since I'm planning to start with a real tile with the arrow the picture size itself shouldn't change - but I've seen it happen anyway.

I'll go through and look, but if you have a semblance of a list of the tiles I'll need to make non-warp versions of let me know - either way, most of them (I'd think) would have a dot and an arrow version - so removing the dot should be no big deal.

Let me know if I'm following right - and please correct me as necessary 

[Pinkpuff]

There are also tiles with a red border, like the items hidden in grass and such. Anyway yeah I would certainly welcome the help if that's something you feel like doing... though I don't off hand have anything resembling such a list I'm afraid.

[LordGarmonde]

Happy to help. 

I've attached 4 images:

Box Around Items
Dot Pattern for Passing Into Walls, etc.
Return Arrow
Warp Dot

That seems like it covers everything - but if not just let me know. It really was not much trouble; and as I say I'm happy to contribute.

On a related note I've been watching a series of interviews of Richard Garriott (of Ultima fame) that The Spoony One conducted. My favorite is definitely Garriott talking about working out graphics from the Apple II days:   graph paper --> binary --> hex, and all the ways he could mess up along the way - also his advocation for even programmers of today to adhere to the minimum tileset approach:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/game-reviews/make-apple-ii-artwork/

- It also has the very appropriate tagline: "You kids and your Photoshop…"    - Well, pretty much 

Here's the full series if you are interested:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/game-reviews/ultima-retrospective/richard-garriott-interview/

[chillyfeez]

Hey Pinkpuff - did it ever end up being possible to change whether FF4kster recognizes a monster as Lunar? I see that there is a "lunarmonsters.cfg" file, but it's blank.

[Pinkpuff]

Thanks very much LordGarmonde. That's part 1 done. Next I will have to remove those arrows and other symbols from the tiles that had them to begin with. Some of them are easy (the ones with "normal" counterparts) but as I recall there were some that only existed in symbolized form. For example, I'm pretty sure there are no closed town doors that didn't have any red marks on them.

Hey Pinkpuff - did it ever end up being possible to change whether FF4kster recognizes a monster as Lunar? I see that there is a "lunarmonsters.cfg" file, but it's blank.

Didn't realize that was still being packaged with the program! I doubt it will have any effect even if you change its contents.

Right now what it's doing is searching the lunar encounters list to see if that monster appears anywhere there. If it does, it will display as Lunar. If it doesn't, it won't. Unfortunately this has the side effect of lunar monsters that only appear via plot-triggered battles appear as non-lunar... But fear not! On my to-do list is to create a "toggle button" in the monster editor that will switch the display between lunar and non-lunar. I will stlil use the existing method to determine what its default display will be, but this way you will be able to view what any monster would look like if you were to drop it onto the moon as-is.

[LordGarmonde]

Thanks very much LordGarmonde. That's part 1 done. Next I will have to remove those arrows and other symbols from the tiles that had them to begin with. Some of them are easy (the ones with "normal" counterparts) but as I recall there were some that only existed in symbolized form. For example, I'm pretty sure there are no closed town doors that didn't have any red marks on them.

Quest accepted! 

There shouldn't be all that many overall. If you can think of any others off the top of your head let me know. I should be able to knock it out later today.

and...I'm off! 

[chillyfeez]

It might not be packaged with current versions, now that you mention it. I don't typically elect to erase any of the config files when I unzip a new FF4kster. I just copy out the ones I want to keep, "yes to all" the overwrite prompt, then copy them back - the process would leave any defunct files untouched. Thanks for the info.

[LordGarmonde]

Here are the first few replacement tiles. They are labeled according to their appropriate set and then which tile(s) they are to replace - both numbers following the FF4Tools convention.

More are on the way, but if you spot a flaw in these let me know. 

[Pinkpuff]

Looks great so far! Thank you so much!

[LordGarmonde]

You're welcome! 

It makes for a welcome distraction between bouts of "real work" 

[LordGarmonde]

    Two more sets ready to go 

[LordGarmonde]

Two more sets to go:  (08+0A+0B)  &  (0C+0D+0E)

[LordGarmonde]

"Almost there..."

"...stay on target..."

[LordGarmonde]

That should do it. Don't hesitate to request anything I may have missed.