Messages

1651

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2009-10-27 20:49:33 »

I've got moar info, now on enemy skills.

Playing around with custom E.Skills, I found that, as you might expect, the 'add 36' rule that applies otherwise doesn't work. Dayum. What to do? Mash the keyboard, of course, until I found an animation that not only worked, but that I could recognize.

I found that 6C looks like grand spark, and that 73 is sewer tsunami. Knowing this, I tried the entire section of attacks that covered. Here's what I found

66   Grand Spark   - 6c works         
67   Bomb Blast      - 6d works
68   Northern Cross   - invisible? No animation appears, but attack produces its effects
69   Dragon Cannon   - crashes game      
70   Rolling Fire      - 70h works
71   Twin Burner   - 71h works   
72   Sewer Tsunami   - 72h crashes game   
73   Sewer Tsunami   - 73h works like a charm

From this, I worked out that the number to add to enemy exclusive attacks when dealing with Enemy Skills is 2A.

Let me give an example to those who have been reading, but haven't quite followed my (fairly telegraphic) prose: If I want an enemy skill that looks like Dyne's S-Mine, relative animation index 58, or 3A in hex, I need to add 2A in hex to find the animation ID I need to enter into Wallmarket. That turns out to be 64. And what do you know? Setting the Anim. ID as 64, sure enough, makes the Enemy Skill look like S-Mine.

1652

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2009-10-27 20:18:25 »

Presumably the variable that alters Anim ID on the basis of Attack ID differs? That wouldn't be located in the KERNEL.BIN. I don't know where it sits in the PSOne version.

1653

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2009-10-27 18:05:08 »

I'll keep you updated on any findings.

The AttackAnims document itself seems to be correct, and the attack Anim no.s attached to the enemies in PROUD CLOD confirm it. It's just the +4E for enemy spells thing that seems to be in question. It's interesting, though, if Kudistos hasn't found this whilst working on the NTSC-U PSX version. Puzzling...

1654

FF7 Tools / Wall Market, FFVII KERNEL.BIN editor

« on: 2009-10-27 17:20:09 »

EDIT: Looking for info on attack animation indexes? Get the full table of offsets for PC and PSX versions here: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=9277.msg124615#msg124615

I'm not sure if this has been noted before, but I thought I'd share nonetheless.

I've been trying to make my own spells on the PSX version of FF7, but I've not had much success with animation IDs. For instance, using the anim. ID AA gives me a water effect rather than Aero 3.

After a little experimentation, it seems - and don't take this as gospel - that when using enemy attack animations on the PSX, you might need to modify the base index by 60h rather than 4Eh. BC gives me Aero 3. Yay! That would explain the prior difficulties: I'd been getting waterball rather than Aero3. (AA-60h = 4A = 74 in dec, which is the waterball ID)

I noticed that putting in E9 gave me Bizarro Energy. A quick look at the AttackAnims document suggests...

148   Bizzarro Enegy

148 = 94h
Add 60h to that... gives us F4  
This would suggest that some attacks demand a difference of 55h.

Well, let's try F4 then.



: /

However, according to the "60h rule", if I want to use

81   Sewer         
82   Hot Springs         
83   Magma   

I need to input -

81d = 51h, 51h + 60h = b1
82d = 52h, 52h + 60h = b2
83d = 53h, 53h + 60h = b3

And what do you know? They work just fine.

Interesting. Any explanations? I'm going to keep trying with 60h, and failing that 60h plus or minus multiples of 5. I'll tell you if I find anything of note.

BTW: This is the case on both a PAL and an NTSC version of the game. They are being run on ePSXe, and being patched via CDmage.

1655

Troubleshooting / Re: Can't get METEOR to run

« on: 2009-10-24 10:45:29 »

...Can anyone who is running it successfully spare a moment to share their OS details?

1656

Troubleshooting / Can't get METEOR to run

« on: 2009-10-23 18:24:40 »

Hello,

I'm having trouble getting METEOR to run. It just gives me the typical 'This program has encountered an error and needs to close' message. Trying to run it on other compatibility modes doesn't help. I'm running Windows XP with SP2, and .net framework 3.5, along with the VB power packs used to run WALLMARKET.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong?

1657

General Discussion / Re: Bring it on?

« on: 2009-10-20 13:48:53 »

Yeah... I'm kind of aware of that, but when was it called "seizure"? Where'd that name come from?

FF5?

1658

General Discussion / Re: What are the grunts?

« on: 2009-10-20 06:51:28 »

I always took the field models as my guide, and just assumed they were Shinra guards inside masks, with arm-mounted particle guns.

1659

General Discussion / Re: proud clod - Emerald Weapon AI

« on: 2009-10-20 06:49:28 »

Terrence says, "Only used when at least one Eye is alive, or as a C/A under certain conditions". He renders the AI script as,

} Else {
      Count = 5
      If (BattleVar:EyesLeft != 0) Then {
         Choose All Opponents
         Use Aire Tam Storm on Target
         If (Emerald Weapon's HP > 50% of Emerald Weapon's Max HP) Then
         {
            TempVar:Angry = 0
         }

with the counter as

 If (Last Attack was Knights of Round) Then
   {
      TempVar:Angry = 1
      If ((Emerald Weapon's HP <= 50% of Emerald Weapon's Max HP)
            AND (Stage == 1))
      {
         Choose All Opponents
         Use Aire Tam Storm on Target
      }



So, it's used on attack count 5 if at least one eye is remaining, or it can be used as a counter to KOTR when Emerad Weapon's HP is below 50%

1660

General Discussion / Re: Bring it on?

« on: 2009-10-20 06:46:38 »

Seizure is a dummied-out status, the opposite of regen. Inflicted chars. suffer 1/32 damage per 4 v-units.

It was going to be implemented as part of Waterpolo's bubble, but was instead replaced by a different script.

It exists in-game, though there's no associated status-colour. Faster than poison, and not elemental.

1661

General Discussion / Re: Bring it on?

« on: 2009-10-19 15:22:22 »

I'd been thinking about creating a proper homebrew hardcore for a while. Namely, a variant of the Queen Ochu who saps the player's health (could always use the Seizue status - it's been sat there nearly 13 years without doing anything, after all), inflicts nasty statuses and all sorts of wonderful stuff.

1662

Completely Unrelated / Re: VIDEO GAMES ARE RACIST!

« on: 2009-07-18 19:03:37 »

I always equipped Barret with the Steal materia.

Am I racist? : D

1663

Archive / Re: The most PERFECT, awesome character mods of all time!!! (includes cel-shadin

« on: 2009-07-17 02:14:22 »

You really have to wonder what's going through their minds when people do that. They aren't going to lose a penny from letting a few fans make fanart. If anything, potentially copyright breaching stuff that falls short of episodes made available for download (like fanart, image macros, music videos etc.) can sometimes raise awareness of anime, at least in the West (admittedly most people will then just pirate the episodes, but a few will buy the DVDs and other paraphernalia). I know that I discovered all of the anime I watch (which isn't actually very much) from stuff like that. Does anyone other than lawyers benefit from such protectiveness?

If anything, I suspect that fanart and fan-led projects can really keep a franchise alive. I'm not saying that a few pics of Sephiroth on Deviantart have made Advent Children a success, but I do think that the 'cool' factor to watching people rebuild or tinker with games they fondly remember really can keep a brand in mind. I can't see how that's harmful to the holder of the intellectual copyright.

1664

Completely Unrelated / Re: Hello...

« on: 2009-07-16 23:54:44 »

Well, it's a small step, but I made my first patch. It's pretty unambitious, but here it is: http://www.filefront.com/14057945/FF7_PC_text_patcher.exe

It updates the Spell texts to make them more consistent with the other FF translations. I know, a patch to turn all mentions of Fire2 into Fira isn't anything special, but I wanted to get to grips with the basic programs with a simple exercise. As is, it's really given me a feel for the programs, though I must say I was surprised by just how easy WallMarket is to use.

1665

Completely Unrelated / Re: Hello...

« on: 2009-07-11 07:53:41 »

Ah, thanks.

I didn't know about the AI altering for the PSX version. Does that entail ISO patching?

1666

Completely Unrelated / Hello...

« on: 2009-07-10 19:19:21 »

Well, I hope I haven't missed some 'Introduce yourself' board and ended up filling the wrong board with my rubbish, but here goes anyway -

I'd like to say hi. I'm Bosola, who's spent an awful lot of time trying to customize and rejig FF7 for *PSX* the hard way, by using GS hacks. I've done work on Homebrew Hardcore projects, where we create custom enemies.

But options are limited. At best, one can alter stats. I'm the only one who's managed to alter AI, it seems, for the PSX version, as you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6glyaXOpP4Q

Of course, that's not particularly impressive. And you can see how many GS codes it requires - it's rarely stable.

So, the next option - editing FF7 for PC. After finally getting my hands on a copy via eBay, I've now managed to get FF7 running (a little problematic on a WinXP laptop with a bad-tempered graphics card), and I'm ready to go.

Eventually, if things go well, I'd actually like a go at a full modification of FF7 that rebalances the game. Less like a hard mod, more like, say, what Shifter did for Deus Ex: rebalancing the game.

What would a rebalance entail? A few things, though some would be more difficult than others:

1. Reduced enemy 'species', but greater variation: Too often, FF7's enemies don't really seem particularly individualized or memorable. One way around that would be a smaller number of enemies with their own idiosyncracies. Status/ elemental strengths and weaknesses would be made more consistent through members of the species, and also a little more intuitive. Think of a bestiary more like that of the original roster in Pokemon Red/Blue : enemies whose weaknesses make sense, for one thing. Who on earth looks at a Wolfmeister and assumes it has a weakness to water?

2. Eliminating mime chains - i.e. a mime cannot be the 'subject' of another mime. Not sure how easy this would be to pull off.

3. A greater number of Added Effect, Counter and Elemental materia, but stronger enemies, to prompt more strategic thinking.

4. Stress the differences between weapons more - force more choices and compromises between materia slots and attack power.