Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[Grimoire LD]

Hmm, I noticed that when you get to the Underworld Map trigger listings and onwards nearly each and every teleport marker is labeled incorrectly. Though I probably shouldn't say "incorrectly" but it only seems to be reading these maps as their Overworld varieties, for instance some of the first Underworld maps are Kokkol's Forge, but in the editor it is listed as Kaipo, which corresponds to it's Overworld location. Even setting on one of the Underworld maps will move it to its Overworld comparison.

  The treasure triggers seem to work fine. I haven't tried moving them but I recall hearing from another forum-goer that it won't work unless you set a treasure tile in that specific spot. Aside from the oddity in the Underground maps, the overworld maps have their teleport triggers working properly.

  2 The Event triggers appear to work perfectly! But as above if you want to include new ones or replace a treasure chest with an event you will need to edit the tile it is on.

Very impressive work! Now all we need is a text editor and I think there will be all the tools necessary to potentially make an entirely new game!

[Pinkpuff]

Hmm, I noticed that when you get to the Underworld Map trigger listings and onwards nearly each and every teleport marker is labeled incorrectly. Though I probably shouldn't say "incorrectly" but it only seems to be reading these maps as their Overworld varieties, for instance some of the first Underworld maps are Kokkol's Forge, but in the editor it is listed as Kaipo, which corresponds to it's Overworld location. Even setting on one of the Underworld maps will move it to its Overworld comparison.

Thanks! It never even occured to me to check that... 
Anyway it should be fixed now if you re-download.

The treasure triggers seem to work fine. I haven't tried moving them but I recall hearing from another forum-goer that it won't work unless you set a treasure tile in that specific spot. Aside from the oddity in the Underground maps, the overworld maps have their teleport triggers working properly.

  2 The Event triggers appear to work perfectly! But as above if you want to include new ones or replace a treasure chest with an event you will need to edit the tile it is on.

I mentioned something to that effect:

Changing its location will allow you to specify the X/Y coordinates of the tile that will launch the trigger. If you change this, be sure to update the corresponding map tiles accordingly (not possible with my editor currently but I'm pretty sure you can do that with Phoenix's FF4Tools), as only certain kinds of map tiles can launch certain kinds of triggers.

Very impressive work! Now all we need is a text editor and I think there will be all the tools necessary to potentially make an entirely new game!

Thanks! Actually I think Phoenix's editor allows changing text... so really all mine needs now is NPC editing and then between mine and Phoenix's we've got most of the plot-related stuff covered. Thus, I think I'll wait until I get NPC editing done before I upload this to RHDN.

That said, I think to really make an "entirely new game" I'd like to have some more editors done such as monsters and battle events, and at some point I will probably be implementing my own version of a dialogue editor and even a map editor if I can get the graphics read/displayed properly.

[Grimoire LD]

Oh I forgot you can't just just transport from the Underworld/Moon Maps to the Overworld maps. That explains the discrepancies.

A slight bit a of a shame, but I guess that can be worked around in some ways.

The real issue I have with Phoenix's text tool is it's speed... it's horrendously slow when you start typing.

I did completely forget about battle events... I know we know Something about them (Various hacks turning event battles into normal battles, etc) But aren't most battle events more or less part of the enemies various AI scripts? (I know it's that way with the Golbez/Shadow battle at least)

A good point on what it would take to make a real new game. The various enemy editors we have now are a bit finnicky as memory serves. Adding NPC's to this though does seem like the next great leap forward. (Did I write up an information sheet on NPC's? I don't recall if I did or not)


Hmm, one thing I must stress. Looks like Phoenix's site is all but down. We should probably upload the editor to the website so it's not lost through the loss of the webpage.

[Deathlike2]

I did completely forget about battle events... I know we know Something about them (Various hacks turning event battles into normal battles, etc) But aren't most battle events more or less part of the enemies various AI scripts? (I know it's that way with the Golbez/Shadow battle at least)

There are a few types.

1) Auto-battle. Things like the initial airship battle sequences are scripted. Those can be customized, but require some extra work.

2) Battle specific scripts - Despite being the same monster, Rubicante does different stuff to Edge, based on the battle formation #. This is written into its battle script, including such bosses as the Dark Elf (which is event based scripting whether or not you have the Whisperweed) and the FlameDog in the special treasure chest in the Tower of Zot.

There are special designations to certain battles... like forcing a back attack in the undead Scarmaglione battle... but something more complicated happens in Zeromus's final battle (the one where Cecil must use the Crystal), or the underground Golbez battle. Golbez's battle has "two versions" as the one that went unused has some odd bugs in it (it seems to "work in reverse" with regards to Golbez's invicibility). It probably has some hardcoded Hide for Rydia to start the battle (she is added behind the scenes there), so it depends on what you're accomplishing there.

[chillyfeez]

Hmm, one thing I must stress. Looks like Phoenix's site is all but down. We should probably upload the editor to the website so it's not lost through the loss of the webpage.

Wow, you're right. That's a shame... FFTools is still available through romhacking.net, though.

[JCE3000GT]

Shame Phoenix didn't add more to the FFTools.  I liked it for creating events and maps.  :)

[Pinkpuff]

Ok, the NPC editor is done, and as far as I can tell it is working. By all means, try it out and prove me wrong so I can fix it.

[JCE3000GT]

Awesome, I will try it this weekend.  :)

[Grimoire LD]

Been away for the holidays and missed this update! I will definitely try this out and tell you how it goes.

Hmm... there are a few noticeable issues.

The first entire menu works, X/Y/Speed, etc and you can change NPC's without incident. There are no issues there whatsoever.

The entire second and third menus however appear to do nothing. You cannot change their sprite, you cannot set whether they are visible or invisible and nothing occurs in the third menu if you try to change their events. Also you cannot access the Flag requirements being On or Off in this menu as far as I'm aware.

[Pinkpuff]

Pinkpuff smash bug! 

Try it now. (Be sure to download from the timecave link for development updates, not RHDN)

Also you cannot access the Flag requirements being On or Off in this menu as far as I'm aware.

The flag menu should appear when you highlight an event call in their "speech" list. You should be able to tab into it (there should be three components you can tab between when editing speeches: the event list, the bank 2 message list, and the flag settings list).

[Grimoire LD]

Talk about efficient! Looks like the second menu works now and here's something really strange... I would have no idea what's causing the issue.

I changed the Baron Dancer's second event to be caused by a Flag of 12 and to test that I input Flag 12 in the opening event, yet when I talk to her, regardless of event chosen, it goes to the Fat Chocobo box. Yet, when I moved the Dancer by 1 Y the event I put there (Behemoth Battle Formation, is Mad Ogre's for Overworld) seemed to work?

Other than that oddity everything appears to be working great and will report any other problems I happen to find after work.

  Oh, how interesting. I was wondering why there appeared to be "incorrect" values and so many mentions of Tellah Joining at the Watery Cave, but now I see that's because it's loading an NPC, not an object that is Unique to that particular map, turns out I was looking at Tellah.

Good work deciphering that PinkPuff. Maybe that's what always confused me about NPC's, I never realized that it was in a different format, so to speak from other event matters.

  2 Hmm, there might be more wrong with this than I originally thought. Here's the thing... when I go to replace the Baron Dancer's event in virtually anyway, it's bizarre but another dancer appears inside of that dancer, which causes strange issues like NPC's randomly disappearing, fires being gone, and talking to the dancer will only cause the Fat Chocobo menu to appear.

  3 Is this a preview of the Text Editor portion PinkPuff? If so it looks pretty good!

[Dragonsbrethren]

That extra dancer is probably caused by the fact that they only changed the sprite assignments to censor the stripper, rather than the NPCs. The dress sprite and alternate dancer sprite are all placed on the same tile as the normal dancer, even in FF2. FF4 makes the dressed dancer invisible, makes the swimsuit dancer visible and makes the tossed dress visible, then reverses the process at the end of the dance. FF2 does the exact same thing, but the dancers share the same sprite and the dress's sprite has been set to none.

[Grimoire LD]

That extra dancer is probably caused by the fact that they only changed the sprite assignments to censor the stripper, rather than the NPCs. The dress sprite and alternate dancer sprite are all placed on the same tile as the normal dancer, even in FF2. FF4 makes the dressed dancer invisible, makes the swimsuit dancer visible and makes the tossed dress visible, then reverses the process at the end of the dance. FF2 does the exact same thing, but the dancers share the same sprite and the dress's sprite has been set to none.

Ah so that's how they censored it. I thought they actually removed it from the game rather than replaced it. I guess replacing it was easier for them. I guess in reality that's a Placement Spot that can be used for another NPC now?

[Dragonsbrethren]

If that's what you want to do. Alternatively, you could change the one dancer's sprite back to the dressed sprite (forget the value, look up Phoenix's doc).

[Pinkpuff]

I changed the Baron Dancer's second event to be caused by a Flag of 12 and to test that I input Flag 12 in the opening event, yet when I talk to her, regardless of event chosen, it goes to the Fat Chocobo box. Yet, when I moved the Dancer by 1 Y the event I put there (Behemoth Battle Formation, is Mad Ogre's for Overworld) seemed to work?

So, did this turn out to be related to the dancer/dress thing? Or does something similar happen with other NPCs as well?

Oh, how interesting. I was wondering why there appeared to be "incorrect" values and so many mentions of Tellah Joining at the Watery Cave, but now I see that's because it's loading an NPC, not an object that is Unique to that particular map, turns out I was looking at Tellah.

Good work deciphering that PinkPuff. Maybe that's what always confused me about NPC's, I never realized that it was in a different format, so to speak from other event matters.

I have to be perfectly honest... I have no idea what you mean here...

3 Is this a preview of the Text Editor portion PinkPuff? If so it looks pretty good!

  Ah I forgot to disable it! Oh well that's fine, I guess it'll serve as a little teaser for what's in store in the hopefully near future!
The previews seem to be mostly working (the combat ones aren't displaying things like name references correctly yet), so I need to fix up those a little, and then I'll be working on creating a component for entering multiline text such as the regular game dialogue on the map. It'll probably be similar to the existing "small" text input except with a visible, moveable cursor and a much larger box, and the ability to insert references to things such as character names or song-playing commands.