276
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: FF8 Script extender?
« on: 2014-05-31 04:38:06 »
What kind of scripting capabilities did you have in mind? FF8's scripting engine is pretty robust.
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277
Completely Unrelated / Re: E3 2014 Predictions/Discussion Thread
« on: 2014-05-29 18:04:05 »
Microsoft announces their new system, XBox Graham's Number. They also announce some of its release titles, including Halo 5, Halo 5 mission pack 1, Halo 5 mission pack 2, and Just Dance Kinect: Halo Edition.
Square-Enix announces that FFXV will be a fantasy based on reality, except most realities have normal looking humans with normal looking hair. They will then show a "tech demo" remake of final fantasies 7, 8, and 9 in super HD for no reason.
EA will release its newest game before it's done, and nobody will be able to play it because it CTD every time you get past the loading screen.
EA Sports will announce that it's re-releasing all of its sports titles but changing the year on the cover of the box so people think they're new games.
Nintendo will show off something cool about Smash 4, then disappoint everyone by showing off something stupid about Smash 4.
Square-Enix announces that FFXV will be a fantasy based on reality, except most realities have normal looking humans with normal looking hair. They will then show a "tech demo" remake of final fantasies 7, 8, and 9 in super HD for no reason.
EA will release its newest game before it's done, and nobody will be able to play it because it CTD every time you get past the loading screen.
EA Sports will announce that it's re-releasing all of its sports titles but changing the year on the cover of the box so people think they're new games.
Nintendo will show off something cool about Smash 4, then disappoint everyone by showing off something stupid about Smash 4.
278
Graphical / Re: [WIP/FF8]FF8 field backgrounds enhancement
« on: 2014-05-25 00:46:30 »
Very impressive. I can't wait to see more!
279
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:
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)
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).
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)
280
FF8 Tools / Re: [1.0] FF8Audio, Successor to FF8SND
« on: 2014-05-22 06:39:49 »
I have the files on my laptop. The line that threw the error has to do with loading the sound file itself from the dat, which means one of the audio files (or both) are slightly different than FF8's files.
When I have some time, I'll try to make it compatible with FF7.
When I have some time, I'll try to make it compatible with FF7.
281
FF8 Tools / Re: [1.0] FF8Audio, Successor to FF8SND
« on: 2014-05-22 04:48:54 »
My program updates the FMT correctly, even if you replace an existing sound.
Run the .bat file that comes with the program (instead of the jar) and it should be able to open the FMT (I uploaded the new version just minutes ago, you should download it again from the link). If it still doesn't work, it means there's something different about FF7's FMT file. I don't have FF7 installed on this PC to test it.
Run the .bat file that comes with the program (instead of the jar) and it should be able to open the FMT (I uploaded the new version just minutes ago, you should download it again from the link). If it still doesn't work, it means there's something different about FF7's FMT file. I don't have FF7 installed on this PC to test it.
282
FF8 Tools / Re: [1.0] FF8Audio, Successor to FF8SND
« on: 2014-05-22 04:02:15 »[cosmo] adds sound files in the audio.dat and link the audio.fmt list to the new file, so it is a fake replacement. But I need a tool which replace the sound in dat and leave the fmt as it is.I don't understand (maybe it's a translation problem, your post was a little confusing).
The game needs the FMT file to load sounds. If you only change the dat, the game will never be able to find your sound.
I haven't tried it myself, but if you put this tool in the same folder as the audio.fmt and audio.dat ( FF7/data/sound/ ), it should work. The only difference would be that it still shows the FF8 Field ID for each sound, which would be much larger than it should, as FF7 has a smaller library of sounds.
You just reminded me to upload the version with the bugfix, though.
283
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: What would it take to fix FF8's backgrounds (field files)?
« on: 2014-05-20 16:16:35 »
You can't just port a game into another existing engine. It doesn't work that way.
284
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: What would it take to fix FF8's backgrounds (field files)?
« on: 2014-05-20 09:42:52 »I wish some team would re-design the game in an alternative engine like unity...This was something I was considering for a while. The problem being that the only legal way to make such an engine is to make it support the files that come with FF8, and we still don't completely understand how some of them work (as you can see from this thread). It's just not feasible at this time. Q-Gears is feasible because we know basically everything about FF7.
Given that we'd need to understand the game files completely before making such an engine (at which point we'd probably already have better texture support), the only real benefit you'd get is higher frame rates, shader support, and extended scripting capabilities.
285
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: What would it take to fix FF8's backgrounds (field files)?
« on: 2014-05-19 02:17:05 »
I thought D3D and DX interceptors like TexMod intercept textures based on hash checks (or a similar calculation), making it possible for multiple textures to accidentally get replaced by a singular texture. Texture mods with too many replacements break down with those types of programs for this reason. At least TexMod does, I've never used PIX.
I'm about as eager as anyone to get higher resolution texture support in FF8. Maybe when my VO project is done I can look into it more.
I'm about as eager as anyone to get higher resolution texture support in FF8. Maybe when my VO project is done I can look into it more.
286
WIP / Re: [Auditions Open] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-05-17 07:22:49 »
Most of the readings were perfectly paced for Squall. The mod itself is going to be pretty big (I haven't numbered all the sound effects, but I'm guessing there will be close to 4500 sound files packaged with this thing), so I want most of them to be spoken faster rather than slower to make the final download smaller.
287
WIP / Re: [Auditions Open] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-05-15 02:34:15 »
I haven't cast anything yet. There's another month and a half of potential auditions to listen to. Only one person has hit a character dead on so far, and that character isn't Squall. If I don't think your voice fits someone, I may cast you as something else, or I may ask you to read another character as the deadline is coming up.
There will be no combat voicing (I assume sounds like "UGH" and "HIYAA" is what you meant). We don't have the capability to edit battle scripts yet. I will probably voice battle scene dialogue, though, despite the forum posts saying otherwise. Eventually the battle files will be understood and I'll be able to voice over some of the in-battle cutscenes. I'll just hold onto those sounds until that.
There will be no combat voicing (I assume sounds like "UGH" and "HIYAA" is what you meant). We don't have the capability to edit battle scripts yet. I will probably voice battle scene dialogue, though, despite the forum posts saying otherwise. Eventually the battle files will be understood and I'll be able to voice over some of the in-battle cutscenes. I'll just hold onto those sounds until that.
288
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.
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.
289
WIP / Re: [Auditions Open] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-05-14 07:55:45 »I actually took a peek through a complete FF8 script, and there's stiff and unnatural lines all over the place. As a whole, the game reads fine for text only, but it really falls apart when you try to imagine people actually saying some of these things.I'm one step ahead of you. I've rewritten lines like that so they're more natural to say, and/or made them phrases that English speakers actually use.
290
WIP / Re: [Auditions Open] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-05-14 00:28:30 »
Like covarr said, there's some real talent from many of the auditioners (not just at BTVA, but also from the other forums and from the email inbox I set up for this). A good Seifer or Zell would please me very much, because those are the two main character nobody's really gotten close to.
I'll most likely end up having a second round of auditions for some of the minor roles, especially the ones with unique voices (Raijin, NORG, etc). So for those of you who auditioned, if you don't get a part on July 4th, you could still get one later.
Just send me or link me to a demo reel of some voices or characters you can do. The only requirement is that you have a decent microphone (voice sounds clear, no crackling, no hisses, no static, etc) and have the time to record all of your assigned dialogue. The only thing I ask is that your demo reel contain multiple voices. It's hard to tell what someone can do if they just use one voice.
I'll most likely end up having a second round of auditions for some of the minor roles, especially the ones with unique voices (Raijin, NORG, etc). So for those of you who auditioned, if you don't get a part on July 4th, you could still get one later.
If I'm not to familiar with the characters and don't have a set favorite can I just addition and you go with who you think my voice would go better with then I'll read up on that character and give it more life to it?Absolutely. I will explain your character and/or the story to you (unless you want to research on your own), and the script explains what's happening in every scene you'll read.
Just send me or link me to a demo reel of some voices or characters you can do. The only requirement is that you have a decent microphone (voice sounds clear, no crackling, no hisses, no static, etc) and have the time to record all of your assigned dialogue. The only thing I ask is that your demo reel contain multiple voices. It's hard to tell what someone can do if they just use one voice.
291
FF8 Tools / Re: [0.7b] Deling - a FF8 field editor
« on: 2014-05-13 20:53:37 »
Nobody does. The unused dialogue was left in because the text indeces are needed in order to call up a dialogue box in the scripts. Deleting a single textID breaks the rest of your field dialogue.
You have to guess where unused dialogue is supposed to be used and add it to a cutscene manually. There isn't a "switch" to turn it on.
Oh, one thing I will say is that Deling isn't 100% accurate about which dialogues are unused. It only detects MES calls that are preceeded by only PSHN_L functions. There are some (not many, but some) dialogues that are preceeded by other functions. For example, some fields control where a dialogue box appears based on which side you enter the area, and that information is pushed from a variable instead. Deling thinks those are unused, even though they aren't. There are also some dialogues that are called in scripts, but those scripts are never actually run in the game. Deling thinks they're used, even though they aren't. Just be careful when you see a grayed out textID.
You have to guess where unused dialogue is supposed to be used and add it to a cutscene manually. There isn't a "switch" to turn it on.
Oh, one thing I will say is that Deling isn't 100% accurate about which dialogues are unused. It only detects MES calls that are preceeded by only PSHN_L functions. There are some (not many, but some) dialogues that are preceeded by other functions. For example, some fields control where a dialogue box appears based on which side you enter the area, and that information is pushed from a variable instead. Deling thinks those are unused, even though they aren't. There are also some dialogues that are called in scripts, but those scripts are never actually run in the game. Deling thinks they're used, even though they aren't. Just be careful when you see a grayed out textID.
292
FF8 Tools / Re: [0.7b] Deling - a FF8 field editor
« on: 2014-05-13 20:03:44 »
I check the forum every day, and I have a debug room that I use to figure out what all the opcodes do, so if there's an opcode missing that you might use, feel free to PM me about it and I'll try to document it ASAP. I know what most of the missing functions do, I just haven't gotten to documenting them. There are only a small handful of opcodes I'm clueless about.
I was going to release my debug room about a month ago, but it's not done because I haven't found the Diablos, Tonberry King, or Jumbo Cactaur battles yet (they're not called from field scripts, so I can't find them with Deling). I've been going through every encounter one by one and I'm only in the 300s (there are over 1000 battle encounters in the game).
I was going to release my debug room about a month ago, but it's not done because I haven't found the Diablos, Tonberry King, or Jumbo Cactaur battles yet (they're not called from field scripts, so I can't find them with Deling). I've been going through every encounter one by one and I'm only in the 300s (there are over 1000 battle encounters in the game).
293
FF8 Tools / Re: [0.7b] Deling - a FF8 field editor
« on: 2014-05-13 19:19:34 »
It's all on the wiki. To show dialogue, you just need the AMESW command preceeded by other functions that place values on the stack (typically PSHN_L). To show the "Faux Pas!" dialogue in that field, you'd just insert this where you want it (without the commented parts):
Code: [Select]
PSHN_L 0 ;message channel (0 is most common)
PSHN_L 0 ;dialogue box ID (ie the text# in the dialogue list)
PSHN_L 30 ;X position of window
PSHN_L 30 ;Y position of window
AMESWThis might look very foreign if you have no experience with assembly language, and even with exposure, it's hard to wrap your head around sometimes because the only control structures are jumps (especially since you can't use comments in Deling to remember things)
294
WIP / Re: [Auditions Open] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-05-13 19:15:49 »
It doesn't have a mass import feature for partial fields. It only imports fields in full (which is bad for file size, and also illegal if I distribute it that way). FF8's file structure is something like this:
- Top level : field.fs. (ie basically the whole game)
- Inside field.fs, each area in FF8 has its own fs file (bghoke.fs, gpbigin4.fs, etc). Deling can mass import these, but they're big and illegal to distribute in full.
- Bottom level: Each field has one script file, one dialogue file, and a bunch of other files I'm not using. These are what I want to distribute, but Deling doesn't import these en masse, so it's not a very good installer.
295
FF8 Tools / Re: [0.7b] Deling - a FF8 field editor
« on: 2014-05-13 01:51:56 »
It is. Use the script editor. About half the script opcodes for ff8 are documented now (thanks to yours truly 
)
)
296
WIP / Re: [Auditions Open] FF8 Voiceover Project
« on: 2014-05-13 01:21:27 »
Auditions are still open, I won't have any updates until July 4th-ish (when I hope to have at least the major roles cast). I've taken a little break since I finished everything I needed until the casting needs to be done.
Technically, the only problem I've run into is how I'm going to package the mod. I want to only distribute the edited dialogue/script files and have a program that imports them, but nothing like that exists. I'll probably end up making my own, possibly one flexible enough to mass import any type of field file so other modders could use it too.
Technically, the only problem I've run into is how I'm going to package the mod. I want to only distribute the edited dialogue/script files and have a program that imports them, but nothing like that exists. I'll probably end up making my own, possibly one flexible enough to mass import any type of field file so other modders could use it too.
297
FF8 Tools / Re: [0.7b] Deling - a FF8 field editor
« on: 2014-05-13 00:38:32 »
You can use the unused text in Deling. Use the script editor.
298
FF8 Tools / Re: [0.7b] Deling - a FF8 field editor
« on: 2014-05-12 23:04:53 »
FF8 has a LOT of unused dialogue in it. That's just one of them.
Strangely, a lot of the unused dialogue was very well written, so IDK why Square didn't use it. I'm using some of it for my VO project.
Strangely, a lot of the unused dialogue was very well written, so IDK why Square didn't use it. I'm using some of it for my VO project.
299
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Is there some dissassembly freely available?
« on: 2014-05-10 03:40:02 »
We've been able to update menu graphics for a long time (that's what Project SeeD is, it's a menu overhaul/retexture). The current issue is just with character models.
This is the thread I was referring to, about someone else working on it: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14846.0
This is the thread I was referring to, about someone else working on it: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14846.0
300
Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: [FF8] Is there some dissassembly freely available?
« on: 2014-05-08 17:33:32 »
The brick wall that most people want to get around for FF8 is the model, texture, and animation format. We understand a lot of it, but replacing models and textures with better ones is currently impossible (obviously, solving this problem opens the door to boatloads of potential graphics mods, and a lot of people here really want to get Magochocobo's textures into the game).
As I understand it (I haven't gotten that much into the model or texture formats of FF8), the problem is that models have texture coordinates that are pixel based, rather than ratio based, so you can only replace textures with new textures of identical size, or you get ugly texture mapping results.
Someone around here was messing with texture coordinates by hand with minimal success (it was impressive nonetheless).
As I understand it (I haven't gotten that much into the model or texture formats of FF8), the problem is that models have texture coordinates that are pixel based, rather than ratio based, so you can only replace textures with new textures of identical size, or you get ugly texture mapping results.
Someone around here was messing with texture coordinates by hand with minimal success (it was impressive nonetheless).