Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[chillyfeez]

Hey, Pinkpuff,
I'm having some trouble with the NPC editor...
Specifically, I'm editing NPCs in "Smithy's house main floor," but I don't think the issue is isolated to this particular map. What's happening is, when I try to change an NPC's Sprite, it just doesn't respond. The sprite seems to be static. It lets you scroll through the possible sprites, but when you select one, it just jumps back to whatever the default was. It happens for pretty much every NPC (I've tried early ones as well as some in the 500s).
I've also experienced trouble with setting the NPCs' default visibility status. This hasn't really been a problem, since I can generally fix visibility within events, but it might become a problem eventually.

[Pinkpuff]

Confirmed. Investigating...

  Fixed. Uploaded.

[Grimoire LD]

Hmm... did you change something for how the program reads the maps? They all load so quickly and change tileset with barely a hiccup now.

[Pinkpuff]

Someone noticed a memory leak that was happening, I tracked it down and solved it. Could that be it?

[Grimoire LD]

Possibly, I thought I downloaded that version as well though? Well no matter, it's a welcome change.

[LordGarmonde]

Hey, Pinkpuff,
I'm having some trouble with the NPC editor...
Specifically, I'm editing NPCs in "Smithy's house main floor," but I don't think the issue is isolated to this particular map...

I see the same problem as well, but in looking at it I believe I've found another. For later maps (I tried 1st floor Smithy and Lunar Palace Lobby) scrolling through towards the high end of NPCs caused a crash. If I start low and work up it crashes at an entry for Dark Knight Cecil (see pic) but if I use 'end' to go to NPC 511 it works going down until I hit Namingway.

Someone noticed a memory leak that was happening, I tracked it down and solved it. Could that be it?

I think it may be a similar problem, but I don't know. I followed it into Visual Studio's debugger/disassembler, the results are attached. Good luck!

[LordGarmonde]

Here's the last one - I don't know if what the windows executable will tell you if anything, but it might help

[chillyfeez]

I'm not getting the crash LordGarmonde is getting, but the default visibilities still don't seem to be kicking in reliably. It's weird, FF4kster says "yes" for the NPCs visbility, but in game the NPC is not visible (unless activated via event).
On the bright side, the NPC sprite seems to work fine now.

[LordGarmonde]

OK me neither, whatever was changed also cleared up my problem. I assume it was some kind of pointer/index issue? I say that because in looking at the offending editor the defaults for Smithy's place are:

Cave Eblana Soldier, Cave Eblana Soldier, Cave Eblana Soldier, Cave Eblana Soldier, Porom Statue, Mythril Frog

vs. what is in the now working editor (Each using a separate fresh copy of the 1.1 ROM):

Invisible, Invisible, Sylph, Invisible, Invisible, Crystal Sword

- Weird; but mute - everything seems to work now! 

[Pinkpuff]

It was adding 100 for underground NPCs instead of adding 100 hex. 

[LordGarmonde]

It was adding 100 for underground NPCs instead of adding 100 hex. 

Gotcha - well it's not an issue any more so I say it's more like:    -> <- => 

[chillyfeez]

I don't know if this is significant enough for immediate attention, but... When you are in the NPC editor, the location's NPCs are numbered 1, 2, 3... 12. In the event editor, NPCs are numbered 0, 1, 2... 11. It's not an error, but it can lend itself to hacking errors.

[Grimoire LD]

Hello Pinkpuff, I think I have an idea for an interesting addition to the editor, but I don't know how difficult it would be to implement...

You know the 19 unused "glitch worlds" right? It turns out that starting at CFCF9(non-headered) there is a decent amount of unused space continuing until CFE5F. That leaves room for maybe... two decent sized maps. 166 (358) bytes left to use.

My idea was to allow the modder to click on a glitch world map and a separate menu would open up "358 bytes left to spare. Would you like to use the index of this map as a new map?" If yes is chosen, the index's pointer is changed to CFCF9 and a fresh map can be created. The program will keep track of the space used and if the player decides to click on another glitch world map the same prompt will open, except with the mention of the new amount of bytes remaining a Stark Warning that they Must be finished with the first map because this will write to directly after it. Should they go back and make changes to the other map it cannot have more bytes than it started with.

This will give the player a couple more maps to fool around with. Granted, you might already be aware of this free space and that is why there is no defined limit to map creation in FF4kster.

[Pinkpuff]

Sounds like it would be pretty compicated, but I'll add it to the feature request list anyway.

Incidentally, FF4kster figures out which maps have no data by the pointer information. So if you're feeling brave, you might be able to achieve the effect you're looking for by messing around with the pointers in a hex editor; you might be able to "fool" FF4kster into thinking a particular glitch map is real.

[Grimoire LD]

Ah, well then that might actually do the trick in all reality.

Also a syntax update... In the AI there's a command called "Cast Black or White Magic Spell" and "Cast a Special Spell". Now the first one tells the enemy to randomly single target an ally or enemy. The second one tells the game to Multi-Target. There doesn't seem to be much special about it. I can change that easily enough with the indexes, but its just something to keep in mind.

May I ask as well why Golbez and Anna's character data isn't shown in the Actor's tab? Golbez, I can understand in a normal game sense. He's used in a pivotal battle scene, has no actual level up system. But he does have default stats and even has several Commands set as well as equipment (even though that equipment consists of a Flame Spear and Trashcans) and Anna is a completely blank slate. But the game does reserve five commands for her, so that actor slot can be used and is virtually unused by the game itself.

Is it because the information of these locations is unknown? If so I can do a quick search and bring them to light.