Author Topic: FF7 any leader proof of concept  (Read 9896 times)

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
FF7 any leader proof of concept
« on: 2013-07-12 19:51:01 »
It's actually really easy, all you need to do is just merge Cloud's codes with the other guys. Here's 2 videos to show it does work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrCba7lzYWI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FXYlIssXAc

Simply put, in order to do that, you just need to take Cloud's scripts and put them on the other characters, moving any other scripts into other slots if necessary. So far I've managed to get Kalm town to the end of the mythril mines playable as Aeris, with only Kalm being able to have Cloud as a party member at the moment.

Sega Chief

  • *
  • Posts: 4086
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #1 on: 2013-07-12 22:03:18 »
How versatile can this method be? Could it let you organise parties like in FF6 where anybody could be the party 'leader' and swap in/out any character outside of plot-critical events (like the Cid train thing)? Or would it be a mountain of work to enable that for every character?

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #2 on: 2013-07-12 22:07:52 »
Pretty much like FF6, except you need to change screens for your leader to be updated. Once it's set up for one character, it's really easy to get the others in it too.

It would take a while to get it all done, but luckily it's mostly copy and paste.

Note that your leader can only be changed by PHS, NOT order in the menu. To get Aeris and Cloud swapped, I had to unlock Cloud, replace him with Aeris, then exit the menu, go back in, replace Barret for Cloud.

Sega Chief

  • *
  • Posts: 4086
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #3 on: 2013-07-12 22:30:13 »
It looks like a great project; unless there's a max file size limit for the flevel then this should work out really well.

I've been doing the whole replacing the main character thing a different way, going through the game's flevel and swapping the skeleton/animation file names around scene by scene and editing the models used by the mini-games and world map. Is there a way to get this mod of yours working for the world map, though? Is it going to need extra models, new animations, etc. added to the world_us.lgp to account for every character (assuming the game can be made to read them) or will it default to Cloud/Tifa/Cid's model?

BloodShot

  • *
  • Posts: 687
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #4 on: 2013-07-13 05:29:49 »
Very cool, I'd love to be able to swap out field characters.

I'm guessing there hasn't been any progress on the FFVIII style following mod you made a while back, huh? Was really looking forward to that too even with glitches :(

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #5 on: 2013-07-13 11:17:00 »
It looks like a great project; unless there's a max file size limit for the flevel then this should work out really well.

I've been doing the whole replacing the main character thing a different way, going through the game's flevel and swapping the skeleton/animation file names around scene by scene and editing the models used by the mini-games and world map. Is there a way to get this mod of yours working for the world map, though? Is it going to need extra models, new animations, etc. added to the world_us.lgp to account for every character (assuming the game can be made to read them) or will it default to Cloud/Tifa/Cid's model?

It'll end up using either Cloud, Tifa or Cid's model for the world map, unless that can be changed in the time I've been away?

Very cool, I'd love to be able to swap out field characters.

I'm guessing there hasn't been any progress on the FFVIII style following mod you made a while back, huh? Was really looking forward to that too even with glitches :(

No, nothing. If I recall the closest I got was just one following behind, and it was very messy...so after 3 years nothing really changed  :P

Sega Chief

  • *
  • Posts: 4086
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #6 on: 2013-07-13 14:01:04 »
It'll end up using either Cloud, Tifa or Cid's model for the world map, unless that can be changed in the time I've been away?

Nah, I don't think anything's changed in the last few months or so. Had a look through threads but it was still all a bit of a jumble when it comes to the World Map. I imagine if this project got itself to an advanced stage then maybe people will start looking into it a bit more. See, the flevel & battle scene can look up/refer to new models from unused designations without any modification to the code so hopefully it'd work the same way with the world_us.lgp. It's probably possible, but the reason maybe no-one's done it is because there's a lot of missing animations (no other character besides Cloud, Tifa, and Cid have chocobo riding animations, for instance) so it wouldn't have been worthwhile at the time.

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #7 on: 2013-07-13 14:02:44 »
Or it's referenced in the exe somewhere. Last I heard editing that was a nono.

There might be something simple in the world map lgp that we need to change.

EDIT: No, all that's in the lgp is just model data and some text.

There's a reference to bbe.hrc in the exe, renaming it to Tifa's loaded her model over Cloud.

cloud.../bbe.hrc....tifa..../dlb.hrc....cid./ata.hrc....

I think that's just a reference though, there must be a list elsewhere. I thought that the limit break animations were stored in the exe as well, but Borde proved that wrong...
« Last Edit: 2013-07-13 14:41:39 by ultima espio »

Sega Chief

  • *
  • Posts: 4086
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #8 on: 2013-07-13 14:48:37 »
Yeah, those're the three hrc files that the game uses to load Cloud/Tifa/Cid's world map models. The other hrcs are for world map structures, chocobos, etc. I was thinking that more hrc files could be added to the world_us.lgp like can be done with the battle.lgp so the first new .hrc file would be called enb.hrc (or end.hrc; there's a file underneath ena.a called enc_w) and it would carry on from there. It's just getting the game to read the new .hrc files, though. It's easy enough to add new battle models to the battle.lgp like this because there's an editor for the Battle Scene file but if the world map's equivalent is stored in the .exe then that might be a problem...
« Last Edit: 2013-07-13 14:52:36 by Sega Chief »

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #9 on: 2013-07-13 18:36:26 »
Maybe not, I mean white chocobo can edit the shops in the exe, so...

The wiki doesn't have much of interest on it, nothing on the exe it seems. Oh well, small problem that can be left for now.

Been doing some messing around, and unlocked the forgotten capital. I did this through a glitch years ago, it can be explored again after Aeris' death. There's nothing to do there though, but what's interesting is that you can get to the alter again by jumping. Nothing there either, but it's weird that it's set up to let you do that when you can't normally get there again.

Sega Chief

  • *
  • Posts: 4086
  • These guys is sick
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #10 on: 2013-07-13 19:40:12 »
You're probably right, the world map editing should probably be left for now. I think if this mod was complete or close to it then it'd be much better leverage for convincing folk to start poking around looking for a way to make the world map thing happen. At the moment there's too much going on with the Steam guys and making things compatible for Bootleg, etc.

If you need any grunt work done with scripting or with rewiring some animations though (some characters don't have a ladder-climbing animation, duct-crawling, etc. and their jumps can be a little off) then let me know and I'll have a go at making them; really interested in seeing this mod come together.

That Forgotten Capital thing might be handy for a mod I'm doing. Hadn't thought of it as a place you can get back to before.

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #11 on: 2013-07-13 21:23:52 »
You can get the game to load characters past the Chocobo ID. I set the Mythril mines to force a party of 12/Aeris/Red XIII, and set 12 to load Reno:


Of course he dies instantly in battles, but it's still neat  :P

Prince Lex

  • *
  • Posts: 882
  • Opinionfact is Redundancy
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #12 on: 2013-07-20 05:26:44 »
This is fantastic news Ultima, I still remember messing with the files over MSN trying to get this to work about 4 years ago 0_0. I'll be keeping an eye on this, it's something I'd like to use in the future. PM me on TLS if you need any help/ want me to test anything.

ultima espio

  • *
  • Posts: 1357
    • View Profile
Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept
« Reply #13 on: 2013-07-20 12:44:19 »
I'll Skype you :)

Anyway, before it goes ahead anymore, it needs to be decided which events should stay with cloud as the leader without messing up the story.

Here's something interesting, the Corneo scene in Wutai is set up so that anyone can be the leader. It's already set up to give them coordinates for being the leader, even though they shouldn't be.
« Last Edit: 2013-07-20 21:38:06 by ultima espio »