Topic: Graphics info

[chillyfeez]

The lower portion of the first byte for character enemies indicates which "actor" the character will be. DkKnight is Actor 0, Dragoon is 1, Girl (Rydia) is 2, Bard is 4, Karate is 6. Think about them pretty much in the order they appear in the game. You can make any playable character an enemy by picking the appropriate ID.
According to Grimoire LD, the next byte represents which character's palette the enemy will use (so you can fight a dark blue Rosa by making the first two bytes "4500"). I've honestly never tried that though - I'm taking his word on it.
I'm guessing the "0080" is either completely necessary for character enemies or completely irrelevant, but either way, no reason to mess with that.

[Madsiur]

Well I started this week the actual coding of the editor and I had a question not directly related to graphics...

Where in the ROM is the game title in ASCII with the game version and country code?

I'm planning to make the editor compatible with the japanese version as well as the US version 1.0, if it ever exists....

[chillyfeez]

Sorry, not a clue.

Anybody else?

[JCE3000GT]

*edit*

Assuming NO HEADER and LoROM.  Add $8000 if HiROM etc.

$7FC0 = Title in ASCII for LoROM (22 bytes in length, some ROMs have 21 bytes)
$7FDB = Version # (1 byte (is X, V1.X))
$7FD6 = ROM Type (1 byte)
$7FD7 = ROM Size (1 byte)
$7FD8 = SRAM Size (1 byte)
$7FD9 = Country Code (1 byte)
$7FDA = Publisher / Company (1 byte)
$7FDC = Checksum (2 bytes)


ROM Type:
ROM = 00
ROM+RAM = 01
ROM+SRAM = 02
ROM+DSP1 = 03
ROM+DSP1+RAM = 04
ROM+DSP1+SRAM = 05
ROM+FX Chip = 13
ROM+RAM+Super GameBoy = E3
ROM+DSP2 = F6

ROM Size:
00-07 = Invalid Size
08 = 2MBit
09 = 4MBit
0A = 8MBit
0B = 10/12/14MBit
0C = 24/32MBit
0D = 48/64MBit
0F-FF = Do not know any factory ROM with this size

SRAM Size:
NONE = 00
16KBit = 01
32KBit = 02
64KBit = 03
128KBit = 04
256KBit = 05

Country code list:
Japan (NTSC) = 00
USA (NTSC) = 01
Euro+Asia+Oceania (PAL) = 02
Sweden (PAL) = 03
Finland (PAL) = 04
Denmark (PAL) = 05
France (PAL) = 06
Holland (PAL) = 07
Spain (PAL) = 08
German+Austria (PAL) = 09
Italy (PAL) = 0A
Hong Kong (PAL) = 0B
Indonesia (PAL) = 0C
Korea (PAL) = 0D

Publisher (Only listing a few exmamples):
Acclaim = 33
Enix = B4
TAITO = C0
Square+Squaresoft = C3

Does this help?

[chillyfeez]

I came this close to suggesting that you would probably know this, JCE3000GT.

[JCE3000GT]

Mind reader.  :D

[Madsiur]

Does this help?

This is more than what I was asking! Thanks!

[JCE3000GT]

Anytime.  :D

[Madsiur]

Now concerning special sizes, I want to load dynamically the special size data (starting at 0x7D000) if the monster has one or multiple entries in this table. I understand some monsters have multiple special size data, like D.Mist who has entry 0 and 1 (0x7D000 and ox7D005)... Is there a way to know how many special size data (how many forms) a monster has or is it only known by the AI script, which would have a command to change graphics?

[chillyfeez]

I documented them to the best of my ability (because, you would really have to looks at every size-changing monster's ai to know for sure) a while ago:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1713.msg18523#msg18523

[Madsiur]

you would really have to looks at every size-changing monster's ai to know for sure

I think I'll do that. I had a quick look at the AI scripts and graphic changing seems fairly easy to identify. D.Mist uses commands F0 00 and F0 01, which point to special sizes 00 and 01. However, there are oddities such as in script C5:

Code: [Select]

F0 60 F1 35 E1 FF

I wonder what F0 60 is since 60 would be an index beyond the speical forms (0x3F indexes)...

Also, I wonder what is the order of the AI scripts. They are in two blocks (normal enemies and Lunar Subterrane/Cave Bahamut). Are they following the same order as this document? http://rb.thundaga.com/monsters/monster_image_data_ff2us.txt

http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1713.msg18523#msg18523

Once again, a very helpful post. Thank you!

[chillyfeez]

Code: [Select]

F0 60 F1 35 E1 FF


I wonder what F0 60 is since 60 would be an index beyond the speical forms (0x3F indexes)...

Interesting... I wonder if this could be a key to the mysteries avalanche was pondering recently about monsters that change form in nonstandard ways.
given there are 0x3F special sizes, that leaves two bits unaccounted for in the "change form" command, leaving for the possibility of as many as three different nonstandard transitions...

[avalanche]

Code: [Select]

F0 60 F1 35 E1 FF


I wonder what F0 60 is since 60 would be an index beyond the speical forms (0x3F indexes)...

Interesting... I wonder if this could be a key to the mysteries avalanche was pondering recently about monsters that change form in nonstandard ways.
given there are 0x3F special sizes, that leaves two bits unaccounted for in the "change form" command, leaving for the possibility of as many as three different nonstandard transitions...

Darn, I just got so excited!  But I only see 3 uses:

 F0 60  - Q.Eblan in AI B8
 F0 43  - Titan (Rydia's) in AI 89
 F0 74  - Elements in AI D1 (reflex)

[chillyfeez]

Yeah, and I checked Bahamut's AI and Mombomb's, and neither uses those two bits in its transition.
Still, I'd like to experiment with them to see if there's any noticeable effect.
It would be pretty easy to try it out on D.Mist...

 
OK, so I tried it on D.Mist.
It does something, but it's weird...
Apparently, when you set bit 6 or 7 in the parameters of F0, the command makes the monster flash the second form, but then revert to the original form again.
And it appears that which bit(s) is (are) set determines the duration the second form is visible.
01:a literal flash
10:about half a second
11:about one second

So... Not really very helpful, but somewhat interesting to know anyway...

[Madsiur]

Apparently, when you set bit 6 or 7 in the parameters of F0, the command makes the monster flash the second form, but then revert to the original form again.

Well it is good to know.

Concerning the attack sequences, is there a table where attack sequences are assigned to monsters? I realized by looking at FF4kster that an single attack sequence (monster AI) can be shared by multiple enemies...