Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[Entroper]

I'm not sure if FF4Ed is actually working on my PC.  I see the world map, but I don't see how to actually edit it effectively, there's no tileset.  There are some "view tiles" and "edit tiles" toggle buttons which don't do anything.

[chillyfeez]

Everything FF4ed edits (world map data and world map enemy encounter sets is it, if I'm not mistaken) is the same in both versions. So if you can somehow alter it to be able to load a 1.1 ROM, then that should work fine. To my j owledge, the only differences are minor details in the battle assembly (the 1/8000 block in ROM, 3/8000 in LoROM), so it makes a big difference for FF4kster, which enables quite a bit of modification options for battle commands, but shouldn't matter a lick for FF4ed.

[Bahamut ZERO]

There are some "view tiles" and "edit tiles" toggle buttons which don't do anything.

Yeah that's the biggest annoyance for me when using FF4ed, since I'm trying to slowly make a new overworld to run around in. If there was some way to make those options actually work (the view tileset one at least) it would make world map editing a LOT easier.

Basically what I've been doing is I'll have 2 instances of FF4ed up, and I'll copy and paste chunks of a world map from an unaltered rom over to my "project" (which is just an ff4 rom with all the land blanked out)  and then I'll use the eye dropper to pick what I want to use. It's a very slow and tedious process, but it's the only workaround I've been able to do thus far.

[chillyfeez]

Yeah, I think there's a lot of functionality that yousei intended to put into the program that he never got around to. My understanding - I think from the readme file - was that the whole thing was a project he was working on at one point for a programming class. I guess he finished the project and then never finished the program. Or dropped the class, maybe?

Anyway, copy and paste work within the program, so what I usually do is just go tile-by-tile, highlighting what I want to use, copy, then select where I want it to be and paste. It's a wicked-slow process, but fortunately for me, I'm not making any huge world map edits.

[Entroper]

Oh, so it's just unfinished.  Hmm.  That'd be... a lot of work to try and finish that.  Not impossible, but I don't think I'd want to start from this 11-year-old codebase.

I was in fact planning a completely new overworld.  :)  So I might have to put this idea on ice.  A friend of mine is messing with RPG Maker, which might serve our needs.  I really wanted to do it in a real FF engine, though.

I suppose you could create a "tile palette" ROM that just has all the overworld tiles arranged in a small part of the map, that would make copying and pasting easier.

[fedorajoe]

Hey, I have a FF4kster question.

Been using it for a while now with no issues.  Now I've encountered a strange situation.

I can open my rom in FF4kster just fine.  However, if I make ANY edits, then the next time I try to load the ROM, it hangs on NPC data.

Any ideas on what would cause this?  Is it something I could repair in my hex editor?

Any suggestions welcome.  :)

[chillyfeez]

Try thus for me, if you would:
1) make a copy of your (working) ROM
2) open one copy in FF4kster
3) don't make any changes, but "save," and exit
4) try opening the same ROM in FF4kster again
5) does it hang on NPC data?
6) if it does, make an IPS using the corrupted ROM as the "unchanged" file and the uncorrupted one as the "changed" file.
7) you can apply this patch to your ROM after every time you make edits in FF4kster to un-corrupt whatever is going wrong.

[fedorajoe]

Wow!  I'll try that, thanks!

I make backups every few days but I would still lose a ton of work (not lost forever, but things I'd have to manually redo, re-insert, etc.).  So this is very appreciated!

EDITED TO ADD: Thank you for the great suggestion!  I made the two copies like you said, then compared them in HxD (Why didn't I think of that?).  The only difference was the entire event trigger section, which was scrambled in the bad copy.  I hadn't intentionally done anything with the triggers yet so I hope I can just copy-paste that section back to how it should be and move on with my life.

Thanks for doing me a huge favor twice in one day!

[fedorajoe]

Hey, is there a known issue with editing the Cover command?

Selecting either the "Does the covering" or "Disable if present" items causes FF4kster to crash for me.

[Pinkpuff]

Confirmed. It crashes for me too.
 

[fedorajoe]

It's OK, you're still a genius and a savant! 

[Pinkpuff]

It seems as though a combination of work, other commitments, and other projects have taken over my ability and drive to work on FF4kster. However, I would feel bad if I were to abandon it completely; thus, I leave it in the capable hands of the community. I have uploaded the entire source code to Github for people to edit, add, subtract, remake, take over completely, do whatever they see fit with it.

https://github.com/pinkpuff/ff4kster

The code is written in FreeBASIC, and not very well commented.

http://freebasic.net/

That said, I will still be actively responding to messages, so I'm happy to provide whatever pointers or other insight I can.

[Squall]

That said, I will still be actively responding to messages, so I'm happy to provide whatever pointers or other insight I can.

By any chance you know something about SPC (music)?

[Pinkpuff]

I'm afraid not.

[fedorajoe]

Well Pinkpuff, I tip my cat-ear hood to you.  Corny as it sounds, you helped me realize a dream I had since I was 11 years old by making it possible for me to make my Golbez hack the way I always intended it to be.