[PSX/PC] KERNEL.BIN editor - WallMarket (v1.4.5)

[Bosola]

I thought I saw a GISO library. But I did see a glib.h inclusion. I think in your ISO.cpp?

I'll have to try compiling it without Visual C at some point. I haven't looked to see if it really needs VC.

Actually, tell a lie. I'll try tonight.

[Gemini]

What you saw as glib stands for Gemini Library, not GNU Library.

[Tenko Kuugen]

I need some serious help with the stat growth curves

a) Why in the name of god does the min / max value change when I switch the upper bounds value? It sometimes DECREASES when I switch the upper bounds higher than before
b) WHAT exactly is the 'upper bounds' value? is it the upper bound of the stat? of level?
c) is the formula from the wiki correct? aka

Stat Difference = Rnd(1.. + Base + Floor(Gradient * [Level Attained] / 100) - Current Stat
This difference is capped at 11 and the value located at &[0x01F8 + Stat Difference] is added to that Stat.

d) so in case the formula is correct, what does it actually add to the stat? the value listed at level bonus? ( if so, are there 12 values for a diff of 0-11? )
e) Why exactly do growth curves end up really messed up when you increase the stat limit in the .exe ( at 0x1C6DA7 ) For example, if I set it to 255, the max value anyway, stats are pretty much 1/2 of what they are supposed to be, or even less, and then suddenly spike to instant 255 around lvl 80-90


Or someone just give me a basic explanation of how those curves work. Because after a few hours of thinking it through, calculating and trial and error, I am seriously fed up with this. HP / MP / EXP works just fine, but stats are a bloody mess.

[TrinityCore]

I am kinda new to the editing thing but i have managed to edit the weapons how i want them.  But my problem is that when i play the game the text is all messed up all the letters in one line of dialog go into a single letter and the same thing happens in the menu and everywhere else.  I have been working on this for about a day and I cant seem to get it to work right. If someone could help it would be much thanked...

P.S. This editor is awesome.

[TrinityCore]

Kuugen the stat curves for them are basiclly anything but the lower the number the higher the stat gain will be so if you set them at 0 your natural max stat is going to be 100-102.

[nfitc1]

Happy Birthday WM! As of Saturday, it is now two years old. I meant to have had this uploaded on Friday, but other things took my time. Regardless, there's now a new version. If blogspot were up it would be reflected there, but it won't let me modify at the moment.

We're not seeing a lot of internal changes, but the main selling points of this are the attack damage formulas and the PC text limiter. I discovered that the text limit that people have run into with Teiho and such were not the result of the kernel2.bin file getting too large, but of the uncompressed data being too large. This new version will warn you before saving if you will exceed that limit.
Materia slots should be more handy now. It will take two clicks to get the materia you want now instead of several. Should be lots easier to modify it the way you want.

Continue to tell me if anything's not working correctly. I'll update the blog when I can.

[DLPB_]

Cheers!  and Congrats!

[Bosola]

We're not seeing a lot of internal changes, but the main selling points of this are the attack damage formulas and the PC text limiter.

Attack formulae?

I discovered that the text limit that people have run into with Teiho and such were not the result of the kernel2.bin file getting too large, but of the uncompressed data being too large. This new version will warn you before saving if you will exceed that limit.

...Uncompressed data? I assume the data is decompressed into separate buffers on the fly, so I'm surprised this would be an issue.

Materia slots should be more handy now. It will take two clicks to get the materia you want now instead of several. Should be lots easier to modify it the way you want.

Continue to tell me if anything's not working correctly. I'll update the blog when I can.

Shell menu, then?

[nfitc1]

Attack formulae?

Yeah, yeah. Shut it. I spelled it right everywhere else.

...Uncompressed data? I assume the data is decompressed into separate buffers on the fly, so I'm surprised this would be an issue.

That would make sense, but you'd be wrong. There is one LARGE buffer (of 27K in size) that it all gets dumped into and file location pointers get set up for. It's like:

Code: [Select]

char largebuff [6BFFh];
char* filepointers [11h];
then each of the filepointers points to an index in largebuff where the file starts. So it's a triple look-up to find a single entry.

Code: [Select]

char* text = largebuff[ largebuff[ filepointers[x] + y * 2 ].toWord ];
where x is the file and y is the index of the entry we're looking for.
WITHIN the buffer there's almost no limitation in size for the individual files. If it goes over it's going to leak into the filepointers' data and then into who knows what. Kinda how setting the materia equip bonus to 15h gives you relatively massive bonuses, but that's just reading and not writing.

Shell menu, then?

Kinda, but not really. That's the way it functions, but not the way it's implemented. You'll have to see it for yourself. It's just more efficient....to me at least.

[DestroGalacticmon]

Umm... Hey, is there some kind of a bug with the new version? Ever since I dl'ed 1.4.5 I started seeing unnecessary letters in limit names and descriptions (well, actually, in everything that has a {BOX:RED} command). For some reason there seems to appear one each time WallMarket is launched or whatever (don't exactly know when). I had one of those marks deleted from every red box command just a while ago, and believe me, it's quite some work. And now there are two of 'em in every red box command. 

Ah, screenshot. That's what I have, to show what I mean:


Well, my question is, would this be WallMarket's doing or is something else screwing this up? The older WM didn't do this stuff, that's for sure. 

[nfitc1]

Hmm. That's likely a new WM thing. That's odd because I didn't touch the text creation. Is that the PC text or the PSX text?

[DestroGalacticmon]

It's the PC text.

[Tenko Kuugen]

I found that happening as well. And something different too.
It suddenly starts to display {BOX:RED} on limits in wallmarket. It does this only on a clean kernel.bin and not on my modified ones, for whatever reason.

[nfitc1]

I found that happening as well. And something different too.
It suddenly starts to display {BOX:RED} on limits in wallmarket. It does this only on a clean kernel.bin and not on my modified ones, for whatever reason.

It's supposed to do that. It's BEEN doing that.

[Tenko Kuugen]

The previous version NEVER did that for me, clean kernel or not.

[nfitc1]

It's supposed to do that because that text is prefixed with [FEh 02h] which tells the string display to override the default window color and use style 02h, which is red. It does that on a few battle texts too.

It's been doing that for a long time, that's version 1.3.1. If that's not what you're talking about then you should be more specific.

The adding closing curlies is new to me and I'll have to take a look at it.

[Armorvil]

I have some feedback. Not related to this new WM, but to all versions.

It has to do with the weapons tab, and damage formula 26: Exact (strength * 20). Apparently, it is Strength * 20 when this formula is used on a magic or item, but becomes Strength * 40 when used on a weapon.

I created a weapon supposed to always deal 160 points of damage, so I chose this formula, and set 8 as its strength. In game, though, instead of dealing 160, it deals 320. Always. And no matter which enemy I hit. I double-checked the enemies' elemental weaknesses as well as the weapon's element, but no, there are no elements that could cause double damage. So there is something funny going on. I can't find any explanation as to why this would happen, except for the possibility that the formula actually adds 40 points of damage for a single strength point, in the weapons tab. I also tested it on more weapons, and the damage dealt is also twice the one you would expect given the formula.

Or, if I'm wrong and I just overlooked something that would make this behavior something you can expect, please shed some light on the matter.

EDIT:

This is really weird, guys : even when I decrease the weapon's strength, it still deals 320. Now I'm completely lost 

[Tenko Kuugen]

sounds like a mechanism mess-up. aka, using a damage formula on something where its not intended.
i can test this and tell you if the same happens to me.

[nfitc1]

I have some feedback. Not related to this new WM, but to all versions.

It has to do with the weapons tab, and damage formula 26: Exact (strength * 20). Apparently, it is Strength * 20 when this formula is used on a magic or item, but becomes Strength * 40 when used on a weapon.

I created a weapon supposed to always deal 160 points of damage, so I chose this formula, and set 8 as its strength. In game, though, instead of dealing 160, it deals 320. Always. And no matter which enemy I hit. I double-checked the enemies' elemental weaknesses as well as the weapon's element, but no, there are no elements that could cause double damage. So there is something funny going on. I can't find any explanation as to why this would happen, except for the possibility that the formula actually adds 40 points of damage for a single strength point, in the weapons tab. I also tested it on more weapons, and the damage dealt is also twice the one you would expect given the formula.

Or, if I'm wrong and I just overlooked something that would make this behavior something you can expect, please shed some light on the matter.

EDIT:

This is really weird, guys : even when I decrease the weapon's strength, it still deals 320. Now I'm completely lost 

Damage Formulae 26h (yes it's more than one) is Magical and, if it hits, does 20x the damage of the strength of the attack. It doesn't consider players' stats or anything.
BUT!
Weapons were designed to be physical attacks. If you call a magical formulae from a weapon it's going to act weird. Attacks' and Items' damage strength is located at 0x0F so it's probably looking there in the weapon data. That happens to be the upper byte of the equip mask. That IS a little strange though since that would mean the upper byte would have to be 16h which would mean nothing to the equip mask. Damage Strength is also one byte from the damage formulae indicator so you might want to check the byte after that on your weapon too.
Bottom line is that for that formulae it might not be checking the traditional place for damage strength. Find where your weapon has a value of 10h and see if changing that makes a difference (tell us if it does).

[Armorvil]

Mmm... Aside from this one, most magic formulae work well on weapons... Anyways, I did as you advised (I searched for 10h in the weapons data), but didn't find anything. And since I tried to make such a weapon with Cloud, Tifa and Barret and they all deal 320 damage, something tells me this 10h is not in the weapons data itself (or at least, not in each weapon's data).

Did you find anything, KuugenTheFox ?

[Akari]

Formula 0xX6 uses attack modificator but weapon doesn't have it. It is set to 0x10 by default during init attack from weapon data. Weapon has it's own parameter which is calculated based on unit's strength. And then set as base attack for any formula to use.

[nfitc1]

Well there's a good answer. btw, Akari, where are the damage formulae in the executable? I've been looking for a while and I can't find them.

[Akari]

Well there's a good answer. btw, Akari, where are the damage formulae in the executable? I've been looking for a while and I can't find them.

This is functions spread through all code. I didn't work with executable - I disasm whole psx ram.
Look in svn. There are all addreses.

[nfitc1]

Umm... Hey, is there some kind of a bug with the new version? Ever since I dl'ed 1.4.5 I started seeing unnecessary letters in limit names and descriptions (well, actually, in everything that has a {BOX:RED} command). For some reason there seems to appear one each time WallMarket is launched or whatever (don't exactly know when). I had one of those marks deleted from every red box command just a while ago, and believe me, it's quite some work. And now there are two of 'em in every red box command. 

Ah, screenshot. That's what I have, to show what I mean:
<screeny removed>

Well, my question is, would this be WallMarket's doing or is something else screwing this up? The older WM didn't do this stuff, that's for sure. 

OK, this has been addressed and fixed and the links in the first post have been updated even though the version didn't change. Oddly, it has nothing to do with the 1.4.5 update and appears to have been an issue for a while. I don't know why no one has been affected with this until now....


VERY QUICK UPDATE:

Anyone remember this conversation from years ago? Well, it's been on my mind ever since then and I had an epiphany on how I could actually accomplish this AND remove those stupid single characters from the first 256 lines of the Wallmarket.dat file. I never liked doing that. A future version is going to allow importing a menu font map like the one he showed a few posts down. I'm going to modify the "raw data" window to show what text will look like from the game's perspective. That will also have a grid that you can click on to add special characters and stuff. I don't know yet if I want to add this 'feature' to PrC. I see it being useful in AI editing, but that would be exceptionally difficult to pull off. Other than that there's actually very little text in the scene.bin file itself so it probably wouldn't be worth it. If you're trying to save space in the scene.bin, shaving a FEW characters out of the attack and enemy names aren't the best ways to do it.

[Bosola]

...It would probably be simpler to manually edit the YAMADA.BIN and place the SCENE.BIN in a 'expandable' location, then provide that patch for FF7 NTSC / PAL/ JP modders.

Anyhoo, anyone who really cares about space will just, y'know, delete the redundant scenes.