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Topics - Shard

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1
https://www.twitch.tv/shardsoforly/v/66511277

I added the "Stop Zell from getting curbstomped" minigame to the prison area.

2
Those of you in the US who are eligible to vote and currently support Clinton or Trump, I honestly want to know what the fern is wrong with you.

What is the appeal of Hillary Clinton? Are you just so stupid and tunnelvisioned that you don't remember anything she says 5 minutes after she says it? If you tell me one thing she said that you agree with, there's a 95% chance I can find a video of her saying exactly the opposite. She's a chronic liar. She's just good at telling stupid people what they want to hear.

What is the appeal of Donald Trump? Ok, what I really mean here is, even if you think Trump is a good candidate, are you willing to risk putting Sarah Palin in a position of power? Voting for any ticket with her name on it should be considered treason because it will undoubtedly cause the government to collapse. I'm being completely serious. The only people who would ever vote for her are people who want to see the country fail. She's had 8 years of practice since the last election and she still can't complete a sentence.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. Most of the people in this community are pretty bright.

3
FF8 Tools / [PSX/PC] DelingScript
« on: 2015-12-21 23:23:18 »
So, I'm making a tool primarily for my use in editing FF8 field scripts that will transform the assembly-like instructions from Deling into a more workable format. I'll be uploading unfinished versions to get feedback and bug reports.

DelingScript v0.3

Instructions
Run the jar file, put the Deling assembly code on the right, click the left arrow.

Lines with _ before them have no conversion yet. Someday they all will. Right now over half the opcodes are supported.

Current features:
  • Converts Deling's assembly-like code to a format with syntax similar to C/Java/Python etc.
  • Converts the script-like syntax back to assembly. Supports all functions.
  • Removes redundant jumps and labels.
  • Removes some dead script code.
  • Allows comments
  • Customizable function names (for all you non-English people).

Planned features:
  • Ability to click or highlight a function and get documentation for what it does.
  • Syntax Highlighting.

It's in early development, so post any features or suggestions you want to see out of it. ALso post any bugs you find, because we all want it to be bug free when it's done.

4
General Discussion / Midgar GLSL Shader
« on: 2015-08-12 01:27:00 »
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XllXWN

For those who may not know, this shader was made with 100% math. No models, no textures, no sound effects.

5
Myself, Ficedula (whom you should know if you read this forum), and Aussieroth7 (FF7 co-director, creator of boatloads of youtube fandubs) spent two hours talking about random topics related to Final Fantasy 7, the voiceover project, square enix, programming, and a few off-topic things.

Here are the archived videos:
Part 1 (Ficedula and Shard only)
Ficedula, Shard, and Aussieroth

6
So, I've been editing many of FF8's scripts for the voiceover project, and I've taken the liberty of making a bunch of non-voiceover-related changes as well. Currently, no major mods exist for FF8 that change any of its scripts, so I figured I might as well go ahead and do them myself. Since this will likely be the first project to heavily modify the game's events, I figured I'd propose that other modders use it as a base for their mods.

Most of the script modifications I've been making are either bug fixes for cutscenes (like characters facing the wrong way or animating improperly) or are gameplay improvements (like giving the player the option at the start of the game to skip all tutorials). The only caveat of this is that some of the dialogue boxes have been combined or split for the VO mod, so players and modders will need to also use the text lists I've been using so that the correct dialogue boxes pop up in the right places.

I don't have a release right now because I'm still working on it. I wanted to open this up for suggestions of features/improvements that can be made to the game via scripting. A "skip all tutorials" option is just an example of something I can do. Cutscene bugs and continuity errors are also things I'd like to fix, if you know of any.

7
Before I started the FF8 voiceover project, I spent about a year working on a rules engine and game server/client for Magic: the Gathering. For legal reasons, it doesn't have online play or matchmaking. Multiplayer is only allowed on LAN. I did it for fun and for the challenge, and to get some exposure / resume fodder. The 3d engine is built on JMonkeyEngine.

It's not as feature-filled as Forge (the one most people use), but it does support almost every card ever printed, and it even supports drafts.

There's a demo video and some pictures on its documentation site.

I'm still looking for a job in the US, preferably in software development (especially for games), so if anybody works for a company that's hiring or knows someone in need of a good software engineer, maybe you can show them this ;)

8
The overture is the theme that plays right after the game loads past the Squaresoft logo, with some opening credits and concept art/renders in a slideshow. Has anyone actually listened / watched it the whole way through?

9
FF7Voice / [In Development] FF7 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-09-01 21:10:38 »
Final Fantasy VII was released in 1997. Games on CD-ROMs can only store a relatively small amount of media by today's standards. Alas, in-game voiceovers at the end of the last millennium were rare, and for some games, impossible.

Ficedula has created a tool called Ultrasound that watches FF7 as it's running and responds to certain in-game events. In particular, it responds to dialogue boxes by playing a sound file from a folder on your computer. This tool is our road to a finished voiceover mod, all we need is the voices. That's where Aussieroth myself, and the wonderful VA community come in.

We have finished our initial cast list, and we are pretty happy with it. Everyone involved in the project is super excited about doing this, including us. We will be releasing the project in separate packs, with the first pack being the largest one - it will contain all of the game's mandatory dialogue (dialogue that you must view to get to the end of the game). Future packs will contain voice dialogue covering the game's optional areas and side quests.

We will be using a modified version of the "Beacause" re-translation from DLPB's Reunion project. Their translation is a more direct from-Japanese translation with intact meanings. No more "Here I am, Miss Yuffie."

Without further ado, here is the current cast list. We were primarily concerned with the major and recurring characters. Minor NPCs will be cast as needed.

CAST LIST
Cloud Strife - Justin Cabanting
Tifa Lockhart - Haylizabeth
Barret Wallace - Jeff Strange
Aerith Gainsborough - Nicole Mac Arthur
Red XIII / Nanaki - Anath Jackson III
Yuffie Kisaragi - Heidi Tabing
Cait Sith - Lee Koivunen
Vincent Valentine - River Kanoff
Cid Highwind - True Blue

Zack Fair - Cody McCulloch
Biggs -
Wedge -
Jessie -
Elmyra / Cloud's Mother - Ashley Rochelau
President Shinra - Jon Bailey
Don Corneo - Mike Bower
Reno - Loose Cannon
Rude - DrakeKid
Elena - Adrienne Cox
Tseng - Ryusuke
Hojo - Mike Varker
Bugenhagen -
Reeve - Steven Kelly
Scarlet - Jen McGregor
Palmer - Russel Fetzer
Heidegger - Mike Bower
Rufus Shinra - Mike Quarrato
Sephiroth - David J.G. Doyle
Dyne -
Ester -
Sierra - Roxi Taylor
Lucrecia - Sheila M. Gagne

A few of these are blank because we are waiting for people we contacted to get back to us to see if they are interested in the project. We already have backup casts if any or all of those people decline, we just don't want to announce them at this time.

I will be updating this thread with teasers and demos as we release them.

Videos
Ultrasound tech demo + teaser

10
FF8 Tools / [FF8] Debug Room mod
« on: 2014-05-25 00:41:20 »
DOWNLOAD

My debug room is finally done! And now, you can use it for your nefarious modding needs.

What's a Debug Room?
A debug room is an area that offers a bunch of cool toys for you to play with, mostly for the purpose of testing features. This particular debug room contains the following features:
  • Jumps to cutscenes / story points
  • Every boss battle
  • Access to magic, items, GFs, and more
  • Jumps to some of Squaresoft's debug rooms
  • Some empty script segments that you can add your own code to (more on this below).
What was wrong with Square's debug rooms?
Nothing, if you can read non-unicode transliterated gibberish. Most of Squaresoft's debug rooms work, but they're hard to navigate because half the dialogues are translated poorly, or are artifacts left over from asian typesets that don't exist in FF8PC (they look like this: aÎzÑ」»ÔÛËïËíÇÒioïÂÔ ). Some of Square's rooms have readable and useful dialogue, and you can jump to them from my debug room.

How do I install this debug room?
Download the files. Then, with Deling, import each field file you downloaded, overwriting the existing one you already have. They are test1, test2, test3, test6, testbl9, bgryo1_1, and bgryo2_1. Each area requires you to overwrite its corresponding .fi and the .fs files.

How do I get to the debug room?
In addition to the field files, I have also given you four save files, each one corresponding to a disc. These were saved in the debug room.

You can also get to the debug room by going to your dorm room (daytime only) and challenging the save point to a game of cards (you can do this on your own save files as well).

I've added jumps back to my debug room from Squaresoft's rooms. Talking to the giant cat, talking to Zell, and playing cards with the galbadian soldier on the world map will let you go back to my room.

You said something about adding my own code?
View the field test1 in Deling. Go to the "scripts" tab, and click on the entity named "torake." Click on its "talk" script. Near the bottom, you will see a bunch of green text, followed by UCON and RET 8. Between this green text is where your custom code will go. Each label, starting with LABEL9, contains the code to run when you talk to the NPC in the bottom left of the debug room (right now it's all empty). Just put your first script below LABEL9, the second one below LABEL10, the third below LABEL11, and the fourth below LABEL12. DO NOT put anything below LABEL13.

To run your scripts, talk to the Selphie in the bottom left corner of the room. All the blank labels are listed there.

Disclaimers
You should always back up your game files before installing any custom mod. I make no guarantee that the features of this mod will always work properly. Parts of this mod may crash or freeze your game, especially if you decide to use Square's broken rooms. If using your own save file, be aware that this mod changes story related variables and you may lose or skip story progress.

Debug room layout


The dialogue when talking to lower-left Selphie (where you run your custom scripts)

11
Completely Unrelated / FF8 Missing Monsters
« on: 2014-05-14 07:59:38 »
It's FF8 related, but doesn't fit into the above forum cat, so I'm posting it here.

While debugging some battle stuff, I came across a slightly bugged Ultimecia fight. At the start, she immediately said "I will junction myself unto Easy boss (Griever)" and I was like "Hmm, she's supposed to say that later" but otherwise didn't think much of it. I proceeded to kill the various final bosses, and then this happened:


I thought it was too funny not to share. This isn't modded in any way (unless Aali's driver did this, which I doubt). This is what FF8 does when it's supposed to show a monster but can't find its model.

12
Troubleshooting / Garden and field files
« on: 2014-04-29 00:37:08 »
I'm trying to use Garden to extract FF8's field files (the ones listed by the .fl files and contained within the .fs files), but every time I decompile, it decompiles everything BUT the field files. I only get the expected structure of /eng/battle, /eng/menu, /eng/world, and /magic.

I've used the exe linked from the main site, and also tried the Polish version that's floating around. Neither seems to work, though I'm pretty sure I've done this in the past.

My field files are modified, but not corrupt. Deling and the game open them with no problems.

13
WIP / [In Development] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-03-08 10:48:21 »
This mod will be available for all PC versions of FF8 (original, Square re-release, and Steam re-release). No release date is set.

We will be voicing all mandatory dialogue. That is, all the dialogue that the player has to view in order to get to the end of the game. Some additional dialogue will be voiced, especially dialogue which builds on the characters' histories, explains the game's lore, or just happens to be humorous. Much of the dialogue will be edited to fix localization issues, or to improve scenes that were previously lacking in emotional depth. While much of the game's dialogue will be different, the overall point and feel of each scene will be unaltered. We're still telling the original story in the same way, and almost all of the game's most memorable lines are untouched. Yes, Seifer still calls Zell a chicken-wuss.

We will also be adding new dialogue to the game that will play as you explore the world and carry out your missions. This will make many of the more boring areas of the game a little more fun to play through. In addition, you may find some alternate dialogue that characters will sometimes speak depending on how you've treated those characters with your dialogue choices earlier in the game. We will also voice over most of the game's battle dialogue, in the hopes that someday we will have the ability to modify battle scripts. The total size of the download is estimated to be between 500-600 MB before compression.

I'll post updates on my twitter feed for projects @ShardFenix

Cast List
Squall - Steven Kelly
Rinoa - Kawaii_Ash
Zell - SenorCape24 (BTVA)
Quistis - Guildencrantz (BTVA)
Selphie - Elle Boleyn Dekkard
Irvine - Christopher Dooley
Edea - Amy Perkins
Seifer - Joey Martin
Laguna - Ben Albright
Ellone -
Cid - MicTheMatt
Fujin - Bluewind61
Raijin - gameusurper (BTVA)
Odine - Alex Beckham
Dr. Kadowaki - Rose Franklin
NORG - Aussieroth
________________________________________________________
Completion Progress
Scripting: ~90%
Lines finished: 3631 / 6649 (54.6%)
________________________________________________________
Videos
Tech demo ft. Rinoa and Zell
Annoyance dialogue demo
Squall's Speech
Squad Assignments
________________________________________________________

Original announcement and audition threads:
http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?91813-Final-Fantasy-8-Voiceover-Project
Audition Thread 2
http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?99892-Final-Fantasy-8-Voiceover-Project-(wave-2)

14
I'm making this thread for two reasons.
1) There's currently no way to know how many frames are in a particular model's animation without just playing one, and trial-and-error is a pain because if your frame counts go outside the animation length, the game freezes.
2) People trying to crack the model/animation format of FF8 can look here to get clues based on the frame count of each animation.

Not much yet, but it's a start.

How to read this:
ANIME <animation ID>: <frame count> (description of animation)


d043 (Laguna)
ANIME 0: 3 (stand idle)
ANIME 1: 29 (walking)
ANIME 2: 21 (running)
ANIME 3: 255 (Spazzy vertex stretching)

15
FF8 Tools / [PC] Import/export sounds - FF8Audio (1.1)
« on: 2014-01-19 20:08:42 »
DOWNLOAD

What is FF8Audio?
FF8Audio is an upgrade of Qhimm's FF8SND. In addition to everything FF8SND offers, FF8Audio also lets you add and/or replace sounds to the sound database, lets you add descriptions to each sound, shows you the Field ID for each sound effect (which is different from the FF8SND IDs), has an "export all sounds" button, and can write all the sound data back into the database files.

How do I use FF8Audio?
Extract FF8Audio.jar and FF8Audio.bat (the Descriptions file is optional but you should use it) to the same folder which audio.dat and audio.fmt are located (usually within "Final Fantasy VIII/Data/Sound/" ) and run the bat file. ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR FILES!! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR FILES BECOME CORRUPT! The buttons should be self-explanatory, but just in case. . .
  • Load FMT loads all the sound data from the aforementioned files.
  • Save FMT writes all the sound data you've loaded/messed with back into those files.
  • Play Sound plays the currently selected sound.
  • Extract Sound saves the currently selected sound to the "/export" folder this program creates (in the same location).
  • Extract All saves all valid sounds to the "/export" folder, named by their Field ID.
  • Mass Import imports every sound contained in the /import folder. The file name of each sound file will be its Field ID (for example, to replace the "escape from battle" sound (Field ID 7871), place a sound file named "7871.wav" in the /import folder)
  • Replace Sound replaces whichever sound you're selecting with a sound file from your computer (a file chooser dialog will pop up)
  • Add Sound adds a new sound file of your choice to the end of the list.
FF8 supports only one type of sound format: Microsoft 4-bit ADPCM WAV. No program I know of can make these anymore, but luckily, Audacity gets close enough that my program can import a file made by Audacity and do a little housecleaning on it to make it work. To prep a sound file in Audacity, do the following:
  • Make sure your Audacity project is 1 channel, 16 bit PCM
  • Export the sound with the following options: "Other uncompressed formats -> WAV Microsoft -> Microsoft ADPCM"
  • You can then import it with FF8Audio. To make sure it imported correctly, extract the sound back from FF8Audio and open it in whatever media player you use, because the "play sound" button sometimes doesn't work (see below).

What can I do with this?
FF8Audio only lets you modify the sound archives. It doesn't have any functions that let you actually change anything in the game (of course, replacing existing sounds will affect the game). Beyond switching sound effects for better (or different) sound effects, you'll need to have some knowledge of the field files and the script language to make big changes to FF8. With that kind of knowledge, you might be able to do something as spectacular as this.

I guess I should mention that this only lets you change sound effects. This program can't change the game's music.

Are there any bugs
You betcha!
The only known bug is that the "Play Sound" preview doesn't always load the sound properly. This is because Java doesn't really like playing 20-year-old sound formats. The sound files themselves are fine. If there's a sound that doesn't play properly (or doesn't play at all), just export it and open it with your favorite media player to hear it correctly.

The highest field sound ID that FF8 will load is 19999. This program has no way around this limitation. The IDs start at 7850 and FF8 only comes with 2700 of them (the highest ID that comes with the game is 10640), meaning you can add 9359 new sound effects that will work.

My voiceover project will eat up most of that space, I will edit this when I know exactly how many sounds it uses. If you plan on making a mod with new sound effects (as opposed to updated/replaced sounds) that's compatible with the voiceover project, you will have to avoid the IDs that I use.

Is source code available? Can I modify it?
I have released the source under the GNU public license.
https://github.com/ShardFenix/FF8Audio
You are free to use/modify/fork the code as long as you keep me and Qhimm as authors.

Special Thanks
I of course have to thank Qhimm for figuring out the file formats for the audio files and for releasing his FF8SND source code, which I used to get started on this project. I'd also like to thank the rest of you for releasing all these cool mods I love using.

16
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF8 Script OpCodes
« on: 2014-01-15 20:46:13 »
This thread will be my notes on opcode usage in FF8's script files and what I'm currently trying to figure out. I'll list everything the wiki doesn't have a page for. I'll remove things from this thread as I add them to the wiki.

UPDATED 3-13-2014

BATTLE
Some battle flags are still unknown
2^0 (+1): unknown, used with the +128 flag in some boss fights, also used in every deep sea research ruins battle
2^3 (+8): unknown, used in bahamut's room, probably for the bahamut battle. When used on +0 battles, prevents XP and items from being earned
2^5 (+32): unknown, used in the scripted fights at Dollet
2^6 (+64): unknown? Used in Laguna Pandora flashback and in Bahamut's room. Also used in some X-ATM battles
2^7 (+128): unknown, used in oilboyle, abaddon, minotaur/sacred and bahamut's "ruby dragon" fights. Also used in the missile base if you choose to fight everybody
2^8 (+256): unknown, used exclusively while trying to board lunatic pandora from Esthar

CTURNL and CTURNR
These functions seem to do the same thing given the same inputs. They both pause script execution while running. L and R don't appear to mean Left or Right (I've tried near rotations, far rotations, and 120 degree rotations (half circle). They always rotate the shortest angle)

EFFECTPLAY2
The first 2 parameters are almost definitely volume controls, but I haven't played much with them. Many sounds have 127 as the first parameter and either 127 or 128 as the second parameter.

It's also unknown why the channel number is a power of 2 rather than just an integer, but this isn't really important.

CLEAR
My suspicion is that this will "reset" the game's memory (temporary variables). It's used in a bunch of debug rooms and in start0 right before it sets up a new game. The problem with testing this is that I don't know very many of the game's variables, so I wouldn't know how to tell what data is being cleared. (Maybe myst6re knows some of them?).

MESMODE and message channels
There seem to be five usable message channels (from 0-4) in FF8's scripts. MESMODE has three options (0-2). Some channels have different behaviors than other channels even when MESMODE sets them to be the same (for example, channel 1 mode 1 stays on the screen while channel 0 mode 1 does not).

UNKNOWN17
This function's only parameter is a field map ID. It is always used in a script before one of the MAPJUMP functions. Maybe it's a preloader?

17
General Discussion / Wiki editing
« on: 2014-01-15 18:40:14 »
I've noticed that I can't register an account on the wiki. I assume I have to request an account or something? I'm working with FF8's script files and would like to contribute to the (mostly undocumented) opcode list.

18
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF8 wav format
« on: 2013-12-15 12:49:40 »
Long time viewer, first time poster.

Using Qhimm's FF8SND I've been able to write a program that reads and writes FF8's sound effect data (audio.fmt and audio.dat) and has the capability to add or replace sounds. However, the waveform format that FF8 uses seems to be archaic (or uses some compression I don't know about). I'm not talking about the wav file format, just the waveform data.

I was foolish enough to write my program in java, and java has trouble playing the sound files (reading and writing them works fine, and WMP opens extracted sound files perfectly fine). I've been messing with each wav's format data, trying to trick java into playing them correctly, but haven't had much luck yet. The files sound distorted and scratchy, but I can hear remnants of the original sound in each file, which suggests that the correct data is playing, just in the wrong format. Being able to play sounds isn't really necessary of the program, but it led me to another problem. . .

I'm not sure if adding/replacing sounds will be possible, if the imported sounds aren't of the exact same format that FF8 uses for wavs. I really wouldn't know where to start, and was hoping someone else knows more about waveform data than me. At the very least, it would be nice to have a program that can convert any sound to FF8's wave format (opening and saving one of FF8's wavs in audacity about quadruples the size of the data segment).

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