Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[Dragonsbrethren]

I think you're thinking of FF5; the Japanese version used a separate font for its end text, and RPGe's translation replaces it with a different font than the rest of the text.

FF2us' legend is stored at 0x9EBC5 headered. I think 0x9DA19 is a pointer to it, but haven't tested. I don't think the game supports DTE there.

[Pinkpuff]

Excellent. I will probably add it then. Though it will not likely be in the next update. The monster editor is enough work to merit its own update.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Also, the credits are just after that at 0x9F56D. They use the same indentation controls: $02xx: Indent xx spaces (just use $FF for one space, since $0201 is obviously a waste of a byte, even though I think it does work). Also, $D8 in the end credits is the Square A logo from the title screen.

[chillyfeez]

Cool - I'm pretty sure I didn't know the location of the credits. As for the legend, I think what I was remembering in my head was that it was displayed "star wars style," which is why I was so sure it was a visual effect. 

[Pinkpuff]

Kind of. It looks more like it's scrolling up the inside of a box. So like, it starts scrolling up the "bottom" of the box, "star wars style", then starts scrolling up normally (the "back" of the box), then starts scrolling back out the "top" of the box towards the screen, "reverse star wars style"

[chillyfeez]

I just wasn't giving the game's engine enough credit to be able to handle that kind of action with real text. My mistake.

[Pinkpuff]

MONSTER EDITOR COMPLETE! Or rather, ready for testing... 

Download the new version from the Time Cave link (I won't be uploading to RHDN until it's received a little more thorough testing).

I haven't written the documentation in the readme yet for how to navigate the monster editor but here's the basics:

Everything works more or less the way you'd expect except for two things: The "monster flags" and the "AIs".

Monster Flags
This is the list of flags indicating which "extra bits" the monster has, such as whether it has a reaction or a weakness or resistances, etc. Pressing enter will activate/deactivate that flag, as you would expect. However, to edit the details (i.e. which element(s) the monster resists or is weak to, or which AI it uses as its reaction) press TAB while the corresponding flag is active.

Monster AIs
This consists of five components. Pressing TAB switches between components. On "index" components, pressing ENTER will also take you to the next component.

• The AI index: This indicates which AI you want to work with. There are 256, but whether it will be considered "lunar" or not depends on whether you encounter that monster in one of the lunar domains or not.
  
  
• The condition set list: This indicates the list of condition set / script index pairs and appears as a tall, thin menu of numbers on the left. The numbers listed are only the indexes of the condition sets. When you highlight one, the script index display will automatically update to display the corresponding script index. To change an index, select it and press ENTER. To add a new index at the current position in the list, press INSERT. To remove the currently selected index, press DELETE (you can't delete the last one).
  
  
• The condition set: This represents the set of conditions corresponding to the currently selected condition set index. To change a condition, select it and press ENTER. You can then pick from a list of conditions. When you confirm one, it will start giving you other prompts to change the details of that condition which you may change or leave alone as you see fit, but note that if you do change it then any other places the condition with that particular index appears will also be changed. To add a new condition to the set, press INSERT. To remove a condition, press DELETE (you can only delete if there are two or more conditions).
  
  
• The script index: This represents the script index that corresponds to the currently selected condition set index.
  
  
• The script: This represents the list of actual executable commands corresponding to the currently selected script index. To change an item in the list, select it and press ENTER. To insert a new command, press INSERT. To remove a command press DELETE. Note that changing the script for a particular index will change it everywhere the script with that index is used (so for example, even though you may think you're only affecting the Imp's script, actually you're probably affecting the scripts for a lot of other monsters in the process).

And I think that's it. Questions, comments, bug reports, fire away!!

[chillyfeez]

Woo-hoo! I've been looking forward to this for months. Can't wait to play around with it (but I will have to until this evening)!

[chillyfeez]

Well, I've really only started playing around, but so far, it seems like it's interpreting the custom AIs I created with a hex editor perfectly. The controls will take a bit of getting used to, but I can't think of anything you would have done differently - think it's just a reflection of the complexity of the AI system.

One thing I've noticed: If, when editing the condition set list, you are at "1" and hit (down), FF4kster crashes (like it's trying to go to "0," but then realizes there is no 0 and self-destructs). Not a big deal if you're careful, but could cause loss of a lot of unsaved data for someone who's not careful.

A small suggestion: When selecting the monster's size, would it be possible to have the editor say, for instance, "4x4" instead of "1?"

A question: Wasn't there a plan to have the ability to edit monster formations as well? Please don't interpret that at all as disappointment - monster formations are a blip on the radar compared to what you've created here.

Also, I don't recall the Features (apparently previously Item Ranges) option in previous versions. Did I miss a version somewhere along the lines, was I simply not paying attention to what was there, or is this new?

Still need to do some more testing to see how things work in actual gameplay once changes are made, but so far it looks great!

[Dragonsbrethren]

Very nice to see this available. One thing I've noticed so far: If you hit tab to edit a reaction sequence, going back with esc will increment its index by 1.

 

Also I don't seem to be able to toggle the boss bit off on monsters it's already set on. Can turn it on and off other monsters fine.

 

Immune in weaknesses should be "very weak" or something similar.

 

Attempting to add elements to monster attacks sets statuses in the second column instead.

 

I think you need to work on memory usage, it increases every time you move the cursor over an option, and this adds up really quick when viewing monsters. Just scrolling down the entire list without doing any editing increases the memory used from about 8 megs to 391. I had it using over a gig at one point through fairly normal viewing and editing.

 

Lunar scripts don't seem to be loading for me either.

[Pinkpuff]

One thing I've noticed: If, when editing the condition set list, you are at "1" and hit (down), FF4kster crashes (like it's trying to go to "0," but then realizes there is no 0 and self-destructs). Not a big deal if you're careful, but could cause loss of a lot of unsaved data for someone who's not careful.

I can fix that Fixed

A small suggestion: When selecting the monster's size, would it be possible to have the editor say, for instance, "4x4" instead of "1?"

It certainly would, but I would need a list of what size indexes correspond to what dimensions

A question: Wasn't there a plan to have the ability to edit monster formations as well? Please don't interpret that at all as disappointment - monster formations are a blip on the radar compared to what you've created here.

There was and still is. It will be separate from the monster editor though. In fact once the monster editor is a little more debugged the formation editor will be next.

Also, I don't recall the Features (apparently previously Item Ranges) option in previous versions. Did I miss a version somewhere along the lines, was I simply not paying attention to what was there, or is this new?

It was in the previous version.

Still need to do some more testing to see how things work in actual gameplay once changes are made, but so far it looks great!

Thanks, and thank you for pointing those out!

Very nice to see this available. One thing I've noticed so far: If you hit tab to edit a reaction sequence, going back with esc will increment its index by 1.

I can fix that Fixed

Also I don't seem to be able to toggle the boss bit off on monsters it's already set on. Can turn it on and off other monsters fine.

I can fix that Fixed

Immune in weaknesses should be "very weak" or something similar.

The thing there is that it's reading the element names from a config file, and also it's using a stock menu component that is used for all element/status menus without regard to what launched it (whether it's relating to weaknesses or resistances or whatever). If you don't like the name you're certainly free to go into the config file and change the word "immune" to something more general-sounding.

Attempting to add elements to monster attacks sets statuses in the second column instead.

I can fix that Fixed

I think you need to work on memory usage, it increases every time you move the cursor over an option, and this adds up really quick when viewing monsters. Just scrolling down the entire list without doing any editing increases the memory used from about 8 megs to 391. I had it using over a gig at one point through fairly normal viewing and editing.

TBH I never really looked at the memory usage. Is this something specific to the monster editor or does this happen just using the tool regardless? In any case it sounds like there's some kind of memory leak somewhere. I'll see what I can do.

Lunar scripts don't seem to be loading for me either.

Ah yes I forgot to mention, that is a known issue. Until I'm able to determine which monsters appear on the moon and which ones do not, they're all just going to have the regular scripts. Soon I will go through the monster list and create a config file that says which monsters are on the moon, but this will simply be a stop-gap solution until there's an actual encounter list editor, whereupon FF4kster will simply read from the encounter information which monsters appear in lunar areas, and show lunar scripts for those and regular ones for the rest.

Incidentally, behind the scenes it actually is loading the lunar script data, and even saving it, just there's no way to edit it currently.

Again, thanks for pointing those out!

[vivify93]

I think you need to work on memory usage, it increases every time you move the cursor over an option, and this adds up really quick when viewing monsters. Just scrolling down the entire list without doing any editing increases the memory used from about 8 megs to 391. I had it using over a gig at one point through fairly normal viewing and editing.

That explains all the crashing errors I had when editing the dialogue...

[chillyfeez]

I've been noticing the high memory usage, too, for a while now. I've never monitored it, but if I am working for a while, Windows tells me I need to close some programs or risk losing unsaved data.
Since nobody ever said anything before, I figured it was only a problem for me because the computer I hack on is relatively primitive.

It certainly would, but I would need a list of what size indexes correspond to what dimensions

A few months ago, I posted (to this thread) an interpretation of all of the "special" (non-rectangular, etc) monster sizes. see here:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1713.330
As for the standard sizes:
0: 2x2
1: 4x4
2: 4x6
3: 6x4
4: 6x6
5: 6x8
6: 8x6
7: 8x8
8: 6x12
9: 12x6
10: ? (something big)  it's 20x18. no monster uses this, btw. weird.
11: 10x6
12: 5x3
13: 2x3
14: 3x3
15: 4x3
16: 4x2

Also, in the case of a "character" enemy (Dragoon, Girl, Bard, etc.) the "size" bit corresponds to which character it is.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Memory usage increasing is the same across the board, the monster editor is just really good at exposing it. I've never taken notice to it in previous versions, but I'm not one of those people who monitors it constantly, the only reason I took notice to it last night was Chrome became unresponsive and I figured one of my extensions was acting up again. I was surprised to see it was 4kster that was the culprit.

[Grimoire LD]

This is flabbergasting! No wonder this update took such a long time, haha. It is impressive how exactly they used their tools to make quite an indepth system of AI. Looking at it in these terms makes me better appreciate their work and your own, I can only imagine how much work it was to look at all of these and discern them into a possible pattern to put into a program.

Now maybe I'm just an idiot, but whenever I change an Index of a monster AI and hit Backspace to leave that specific portion the game resets the AI Index to what it was originally. Am I missing something obvious here?