Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Ok this is how .a files work:
You have to load a skeleton (.HRC) file first but that's all you really need. The HRC file tell the system how many bones are there and the leanths and *the order that they are in* (That part is key) Now I dumped some .a files and marked down what I think everything is. I think I messed up my frame 2 offset in the second example, but I discribe enough so you guys can fix it in case I messed up. You have to excuse me as it 6:00am here and I've been tereing these things apart all night. Here's my dumps.
[ALL ROTATIONS ARE INTEL FLOATS]
AAFE.A
-------------------------
offset: data (what it is)
--------------------------
000: 01000000 (animation header)
004: 01000000 (how many frames of animation [1])
008: 15000000 (how many bones there are [21])
00C: 01000200 (always the same w/field humans)
010: 48E86701 (Bounding box1?)
014: 20AC6701 (Bounding box2?)
018: 00000000 (?1)
01C: 00000000 (?2)
020: 00000000 (?3)
024: 00000000 (?4)
028: 00000000 (?5)
02C: 00000000 (?6)
030: 00000000 (?7)
034: 86905841 (Time mark?)
038: 7FD69D3D (frame header?)
03C: 00008743 Bone1 X rotation [270]
040: 00000000 Bone1 Y rotation
****************************************
ABCE.A
-------------------------
offset: data (what it is)
--------------------------
000: 01000000 (animation header)
004: 17000000 (how many frames of animation [23])
008: 18000000 (how many bones there are [24])
00C: 01000200 (always the same w/field humans)
010: AC737901 (Bounding box1?)
014: FC1D7901 (Bounding box2?)
018: 00000000 (?1)
01C: 00000000 (?2)
020: 00000000 (?3)
024: 004CB343 (?4)
028: 0044AC43 (?5)
02C: 00000000 (?6)
030: 0351493D (?7)
034: 0CE52441 (Time mark?)
038: 90754DBD (frame header?)
03C: 00008743 Bone1 X rotation [270]
040: 00000000 Bone1 Y rotation
...(after the 24 bones)
16C: DFBB2741 (time mark?)
170: AC4939BD (frame header}
174: 00008743 Bone1 X rotation [270]
178: 00000000 Bone1 Y rotation
************************************
DF.A (racing chocobo from minigame)
-------------------------
offset: data (what it is)
--------------------------
000: 01000000 (animation header)
004: 14000000 (how many frams of animation [20])
008: 1C000000 (how many bones there are [28])
00C: 01000200 (always the same w/field humans)
010: 50FFED00 (Bounding box1?)
014: 741BEE00 (Bounding box2?)
018: 00000000 (?1)
01C: 00000000 (?2)
020: 00000000 (?3)
024: 00000000 (?4)
028: 00000000 (?5)
02C: 00000000 (?6)
030: 676646BF (?7)
034: E9E55C41 (Time mark?)
038: 45DCEB40 (frame header?)
03C: 004CB343 Bone1 X rotation [358.59375]
040: 00000000 Bone1 Y rotation
he order of the bones is exactly the same as the are defined in the HRC file. Now you guys can put your little dudes togeather by following this roadmap.
-halkun
Ok, everyone gather around. Remember to bring your pens and paper. You may have to take notes on this.
Ok, I've been taking apart the PSX version of FF7. Now this helps to figure out how the PC version works because it's a direct port. Now I'm going to show you how the field files and the texture management work in the PSX version and you should find the PC version working exactly the same way. Now before I begin with the nitty gritty, I have to get you guys up to speed about how a PSX does its graphics so we all know what's going on.
The PSX only has 1 Meg of video memory. Actually it's a "surface" that's 1024x512. Now we can allocate that whole thing to be viewable, but then there would be nothing left for textures or page flipping. Usually a "window" is created and the rest is left to textures. This leads us to the second problem with the PSX. Video memory is 100% off limits to the CPU. You have to manipulate everything through the GPU (Graphics prossessing unit). If you want to load textures into video memory, it has to be in TIM file format. Which is nothing but a PSX bitmap.
Now this following http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/vidmem.png" TARGET=_blank>picture is what the video memory looks like after the movie stops running on the first field file. I've marked off key locations so you can see what they are. The framebuffer and backbuffer are where the animation is flipped back and forth. The 24 bit overflow area is when the movies play in 24 bit color, they need a little more memory. (The PC version didn't have 24 bit movies). Under that is the Color Look Up Table or CLUT. When you load a field file, the pallette goes here. The next thing is the GPU texture cache. This can be disregarded. Now the thing I have labeled as "field layers" is actually in a place I call the "transient texture cache" it's very easily overwritable. It happens to have the field layer textures in it right now. When other modules load, such as "battle" this area is the first to be overwritten. Below that is the "semi-permanant" area. What is written in there tends to stick between module loads. "Eyes" are the characters eyes (they randomly blink, even if you don't see the character on screen) and the section is for the PHS, and finally the text and status menu textures which never go away.
The next http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/trainvid.png" TARGET=_blank>picture is the engine in motion. Now you can see the display buffer and back buffer working. You can see some squares on the display buffer being drawn on the field picture, I'm going to go into that now.
This http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/prio.png" TARGET=_blank>picture shows the field file's priority layers. I had the computer put a box around all the textures. The color of the box shows it's priority. The lowest priority is white. You can see our friend Cloud is standing in an area of white priority boxes so no textures are "infront" of him. The next priority is purple. This can either be infront of or behind a character depending on location. The light blue and then dark blue are next. Light blue is higher than purple and dark blue will always be on top, no matter how close the character is. It's hard to see the difference between light and dark blue in this picture. but if you look at the train conductor farthest away, you can see it's in the light blue priority.
Now do you see the pipe on the train, the one sticking way out on top, and has a green outline around it? You can also see the building behind it. Ok, the pipe is in a light blue priority, but the green outline allows everything *around* the pipe to be shown through. (Jessie jumped behind this pipe at the beginning) That's why Mr. Far conductor is not being obscured by the train. The obscuring starts at the pipe in the corner of that square. You got it so far?
What happens when you get into a fight? Well, I'll show you. Take a look at this http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/battlevid.png" TARGET=_blank>picture here. You can see that the battle textures overwrote the field data, but not entirely. The rest of the field data is cached. Now, look at the frame buffer. You can see that one of the battle textures overwrote the 24-bit overflow area, that's fine. The battles are never in 24 bit anyway so clipping isn't a problem. Now the semi-permanent area at the bottom was filled with all kinds of textures. Those are common battle textures, such as limit auras, magic auras, potion auras, thinks like that. They won't go away after the battle is finished so the load times are kept down. The eyes are gone though. Actually. Clouds eye is next to the top framebuffer. That's the only texture there, when you get more characters those fill in, such as Barret's tatoo and Tifa's eye. Also when any special attack does off, such as magic, it will fill up after the battle textures eating away at the field texture cache. Wanna see the battle close up? Take a look http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/battlewire.png" TARGET=_blank>here Notice the little dust texture at the feet of Mr. bad guy? Thats in the semi-permanent area in video memory. It's a very popular texture.
So what about the video memory after battle? well if you look http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/afterbat.png" TARGET=_blank>here you will find the semi-permanent textures stuck, but the field textures overwrote the battle ones, except which was in the 24 bit overflow area.
This right http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/prio2.png" TARGET=_blank>here is another picture showing how priorities work a little better. Notice that Cloud's foot is in a dark blue priority box? It is being overwritten, but it's the pipe that isn't transparent. The lamp over on the left is priority color purple. Cloud can walk both in front or behind it depending on his location. The sign? That's priority dark blue. It's animated too. When animation is done, it's only the boxes that change get changes, not the whole priority layer.
Animation? Did I say animation? If you want to see the video memory of a "full" field file with animation look http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/field/anivid.png" TARGET=_blank>here. The smoke that blows about is there and it's filled all the way to the semi-permanent textures. Just remember, if cloud leaves this scene and comes back, what isn't overwritten is cached.
I think that covers everything I've found so far. Do with this information as you wish. It may be in your best interests to save these pictures as I think I'm over quota at my ISP. I'll keep them up for about a week.
Anyway I'm going to bed. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
-Halkun
[This message has been edited by halkun (edited August 24, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by halkun (edited August 24, 2001).]
Third EDIT by The SaiNt in an effort to correct halkun's horrible spelling.
[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited August 24, 2001).]
Ok, That's not really good news for me, but I have my expences covered. Because of this, I can now can put 100% effort into FF7 hacking. (well, ok, maybe 75%, I could never get myself 100% motivated on *anything*) I've been contemplating on first creating a central reposotory for all the FF7 docs written and putting them in some sort of order. (Just like my PSX doc) This will allow us to have a "road map" of sorts to see what's left and will get me up to speed on what needs to be reversed. It will be on a module-by-module basis. In order to start I need permission in advance to copy Ficedula's docs, Terence Fergusson's docs. (I will be keeping those as intact as I can, just changing some of the wording to put some things into context and placing them into a binary text format.) and anyone else I can think of. Good idea? bad? comments?
Ok, all .a files sectioned up into a header and then some "frames" Eash frame is a "pose" that the character is in during an animation. The header tells how many frames there are and other things I haven't quite figured out yet. The frames after that each have thier own header and then rotation data for each bone after that in the order of the bones are orderd in the HRC file. Qhimm says that the rotation data is stored as floats. I'll give an easy example of a single frame animation (the "stainding" pose for the characters) Now a standard male character has 21 bones. these are hip, chest, head, l_chest, l_collar, l_uparm, l_foarm, l_hand, r_chest, r_collar, r_uparm,
r_foarm, r_hand, l_hip, l_femur, l_tibia, l_foot, r_hip, r_femur, r_tibia, and r_foot
The standing model is broken down like this. Oh this is from AAFE.A
Offset: data
-----------
00000000 01000000 .... ;header
00000004 01000000 .... ;Number of frames(01)
00000008 15000000 ....
0000000C 01000200 ....
00000010 48E86701 H.g.
00000014 20AC6701 .g.
00000018 00000000 ....
0000001C 00000000 ....
00000020 00000000 ....
00000024 00000000 ....
00000028 00000000 ....
0000002C 00000000 ....
00000030 00000000 ....
00000034 86905841 ..XA
00000038 7FD69D3D ...= ;Start frame 1
0000003C 00008743 ...C ;hip X
00000040 00000000 .... ;hip Y
00000044 00000000 .... ;hip Z
00000048 00C8AF43 ...C ;chest X
0000004C 00000000 .... ;chest Y
00000050 00000000 .... ;chest Z
00000054 00000741 ...A ;Head X
00000058 00000000 .... ;Head Y
0000005C 00000000 .... ;Head Z
00000060 00C8AF43 ...C ;l_chest X
00000064 006CA243 .l.C ;l_chest Y
00000068 00B09A42 ...B ;l_chest Z
0000006C 00B09A43 ...C ;l_collar X
00000070 0058A743 .X.C ;l_collar Y
00000074 0080F741 ...A ;l_collar Z
...
...
I think you guys get the idea. The question is I don't know the exact format the X, Y , and Z data is. Is it co-ordints or rotation data. Also this is all therory as I haven't actully tried it yet. The numbers line up though. Here's another example of a head with more than one frame. (from AAFF.A)
offset: data
------------
00000000 01000000 .... ;header
00000004 1E000000 .... ;30 frames (0x1E)
00000008 15000000 ....
0000000C 01000200 ....
00000010 207C8C01 |..
00000014 A4318C01 .1..
00000018 00000000 ....
0000001C 00000000 ....
00000020 00000000 ....
00000024 00000000 ....
00000028 00000000 ....
0000002C 00000000 ....
00000030 00000000 ....
00000034 338C4E41 3.NA
00000038 7FD69D3D ...= ;frame 1 data starts
0000003C 00008743 ...C ;hip X
00000040 00000000 .... ;hip Y
00000044 00000000 .... ;hip Z
...
... (later on)
0000014C 7FD69D3D ...= ;start frame 2
00000150 00008743 ...C ;hip X
00000154 00000000 .... ;hip Y
00000158 00000000 .... ;hip Z
0000015C 00C8AF43 ...C (you get the rest)
Now I haven't tested this yet, so my offsets may be off. I still havent counted for the "root bone" and .a files with varible leangths. Probably need to decode the header some more. I hope this helps.
Oh yea, and to the newbies. If you guys think you are all cool and get a big head just 'cause you have the milkshape ".p" thing going. I'll have to reverse the world map on your ass to show who's the l33t ones here...
Unless you guys think you can beat me to it ^_^
-halkun
Oh, the link is here.
http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/ff7/index.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/ff7/index.html
I have a wrm fuzzy feeling inside theat the .ta file is the texture alignment file so that all the .tex files have someplace to go on the map.
Gast can't load all the field backgrounds because the layers are being rendered wrong. There are a few backrounds that I like to call "floaters". As opposed to having a static background with a static overlay (The portion of the pictue that obcures the polygons when the walk "under" it) the foreground and background can "float" to give the appearince of distance in a pan. The "distant" background plane isn't being renderd and the "close" plan is using the wrong tileset. Things are getting messy when in overlay is also included.
I'm almost positive that the fields use byecode. In square's "radical dreamers" there was bytecode "yes/no" code in the actulal text script. This is why when you change the script in some field files it crashes. The "drama" module is tryng to make script calls that are no longer there.
I'm gonna be screwing with the field files hardcore when I'm done with status. I need to start execution of the first filed file and program in the holes.
It's easy to see what does what. Find a save spot right next to a major plot point with lots of people that *hasn't been triggered yet*. Then watch the scene. Then quit. Extract that particular field file, change a byte, put it back un the archive. Run the game again. Did anything change? did it load? if it crashes but the byte back and load again. If it works try another byte in another location. If you can change the text with little ill effect I doubt there is a checksum involved, but be on the look out just in case. Check everything this includes the triggers (check to see if the exit arrows moved), different people, text boxes in different locations, different music, remeber that everything is refrenced by number. "load song 4, load person 16, put person 16 at 102x762 on the field plane.
Oh reminds me, there is a "field plane" that the characters walk on. it's just a sequence of 3d vertexes that defines where the character can walk. be on the lookput for that too.
don't be afraid to change a .a file too. change it by only one byte up or down, you will see the change in the animaition without causing the system to overflow or something.
that's all I can think of...wait...no one more thing...
all your base are belong to me.
-halkun
You have no chance to survive make your time.
I will now proceed to braindump everything I know about FF7. My disks are still in storage and will not be cracked out until firday. I will uninstall FF8 and throw FF7 on the lab.
I also still do not have a linux box as a test bed. I'll be doing pliminary coding on a cross-platform game programming lib called "allegro" for it's fast 2d subsystem and openGL intagration.
Lets start with how the silly program works.
Every Final Fantasy has been split into differnt program modules. This makes it easier to have mutiple people work on it and have the effect of many games in one. The root modules in FF7 is status, dungoen, town, battle, world, drama, and minigame. The following ascii art shows how the systems communicate with each other. you may need to view with a fixed-width font.
--- status------
/ |
world --------|------- town----minigame
| | / |
| ----dungoen----- |
| / |
| / /
battle------------drama
In FF7 town, dungoen, and drama are lumped into "field"
Let me explan what each one does.
Status is you status menu, but it's much much more. It conatins *all* the global varibles for the entire game. This is also in charge of what gets saved to the memory card, such as inventoy, money, time, field flags, field location, characters, stats, everything. you can not access the status screen for everywherem especally in drama, battle and minigame.
Towns are "safe" areas that you can rest and buy things in, but isn't reqired. You can batte here, but not random battles. Only though a plot point or "drama". you can follow the lines to so where that can go.
Dungoens have monsters every few steps. (atcually FF picks a number between 0 and 255 and cound down using modifiers, when it gets to 0, there is a fight) no inns, no shops.
Drama is a plot script that runs when you enter a field file. notice you cant get to status when people are acting out a scene. (you are in drama) but can when you talk to people (you are in "town" then)
battle: you fight bad guys get experince or die.
world is the world map, you can enter towns, dungoens and battles and get to status. you commonly fly airships here ^_^
minigames are the games you can play in "towns". Cards and such.
Now you can follow the lines to see what can go to where. you can only play games in towns. You can't get to status from a battle.
see how it works.
When you enter a field (a new scene) a script will run when you first get in. puts in people, what they say, and triggers. The debug room has a collection of all the fileds and executes the scrips when you select them.
This it for now. I'm going to start on status first as it's the most documented. Loding and saving is the man thing right now. for now. You are doing a good job on the field files. After I'm done with status I will move into attempting to execute field files, loading up the picture and displaying the text in the windows in the correct locations and colors. This is what I have planned so far. That is all for now.. Have to go home. I have already talked about field execution and flow and triggers in a previos post. More about fileds when I get to it...
-halkun
-halkun
After the story is written, the whole game is put out onto a storyboard. Then each and every scene is sketched out and the dialoge is attached to it. Let's take a look at the bery beginning of the game, as this has every single part of the engine in it. Here's a review.
You start the game, and you are treated to a little moviewith music, you see areith, pan back, long shot from the left, she turns, and starts walking. Pan out to the street, up and out, pan, pan, pan, pan, then the logo comes in on time with the music, pan in, pan in, train, pan in, train, pan in and you see the guards the train pulls in, stops, the good guys come out fihgt, cloud comes out last, barret turns, "'come on newcommer, come with me" he runs off. You follow. two guards come out, fight, then to the next screen, some dialog, you name youself, jessie open the door. Another movie pan, and you go forth.
I know this is long-winded but let me tell you what's going on behind the scenes.
You start at the title screen, with the sword, and select new game. Now the title screen is "outside" the main engine. When you start the game the loads the first "field" file. The field file (who's name escapes me for the moment) is really a script that the engine uses to tell the story, not just the speech but what the characters do.
The first field files tells the engine that it needs to load the opening theme, opening movie, the first poly cam pan for the guards, the npc models, the character models, the solders, the bone movement, background, and the speech script.
The field file starts the music and streames the movie. Now all the dependncies are loaded into memory, and the CD-ROM is busy so don't count on it loading anything. Now on the PSX version, when the camera is panning in and you can see the train below coming into the station, the color depth drops from 24 bit color to 15. The cam file is then started and the guards are placed on the "ground" ontop of the movie in every frame. As the train comes to a stop at the very last frame, it is replaced by a static "field background" made up of two layers of 128x128 square blocks. (or is it 32x32) the lower layer is the "ground" and the ipper layer is theing that the character can be obcured by.
The scene acts out using a script in the field dir of that moves the characters and the barrett says his dialog. WHen you move you hit a trigger in the field file that makes the guards come out. There is a fight.
AFter the battle the computer loads a *deffernt* field file. This one has no script and and exit to *another* field file.
Upon exitin the first screen the old fild file(s) get dumped and new data is loaded. Now bacground, new characters, the door that jessie opens, another cam file for the pan behind cloud, and another movie is readied to be streamed. (because it's with polys it's 15 bit) You talk to the right people, certian triggers are trpped to make them say things, and to change your names. then the script follows through by moving the door, everyone running through, and then the movie sreams with the cam overlay. cloud runs off and aonther field file is loaded in the nex scene.
Every field file has a scene in it (Think about it) each field file points to another and togeather the script makes a story. crack the field file format, and you have a new game.
***** The debug rooms *****
This thing is a huge field loader. This is where you test your fields after they have been compiled, and also test each aspect of the engine. The trigger room (The one with the big airith) the cam room (The one with the people lineed up in a square so you can see the camera axis during the movie) and the battle room with the monsers with exactly 10,000 (1000) health and even starts so you can test weapon/armor math so it all works out. If you want to crack the script, crack the debug field files.
I think I've rambeld enough I'm going to bed now.
-Halkun
^_^
-halkun
First we take an emulator like Snes9x. Then what we do is run an install progam that takes all the chunks from the FF6 PSX cdrom and put it back togeather into a SNES rom. Any missing bits are replaced by a patch in the install program. Then the moves are ripped from the CD, hacked up by scene and put back togeather again into order. A new soundtrack is layed. Then we program Snes9x to wait for certian flags and play the appropite video at that time. Hows it sound?
here's a few of them.
http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/pics.zip" TARGET=_blank>http://www.execpc.com/~halkun/pics.zip
I think I made my quota of cool things to do for the week.
1) Religion in Science Fiction:
I don't know. Even thegoigh Gaia crops up in most if the later FF games. Seeing the story put out as "this is what happens when you die, that's a fact" I couldn't help but feel preached at. Kind if like if you went to a christain movie and said that basicly your going to hell if you don't beleave in Jesus. The christain reviews on the web will have a field day with this aspect of the move. Saying it's trying to convert the youths to saitanism and that it's based on an RPG and sumsuch. Maybe it's my american thinking, but isn't religoin pretty much a no-no in Science Fiction. Sakaguchi was pretty brave to go that on the big screen.
2) Jeez Aki, get a figgen tissue!
I think she cried too mich. The story of how she go infected was kind of sad. It's not really that, when she was kind-of whimpering during the second "kissing scene", it was really pethetic. On the flip side, I think Aki gave him the tounge.
3) I didn't hate the bad guy enough:
Is it me or did Zeifer just die his hair and put on a black trenchcoat. He seem the annoying pion and I was waiting for the *real* end boss to show up.
4) stock footage:
there were some scenes *I swear to god* was ripped from FF7. The whole cliff and the lifestream bit for example. and the lifestream floating up to the sky remininded me of FF7s opening.
5) "Oh, it's warm!" (The ending)
Whenever the move was slow I just sat back and gawked at the animation. I do that with the games too. But I think the last words were supposed to inspire you. It just came off, however, like Cid just peeed his pants. I felt like the move didn't end. Like they didn't finish rendering it. I saw the moutains, that looked real, but the was no animation to gawk at execpt for the eagle. Not's not much to leave me with. The could of just had the music go to a high pitch and then fade, or switch to black. Silence, Then the music. (They could of snuk prologe in there somewhere My buddies and I was singing it at the top of our lungs in the threater during the credits)
-You guys have anything to add?
Yes, you date a head in a flowerpot.
The E3 press release is here.
http://www.thegia.com/news/0105/n22a.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.thegia.com/news/0105/n22a.html
I want this game sooo bad.
The second is I'm trying to beat all the final fantasies, but stuck on the floating island in 6 (before kafka moves the statues) that's annoying me too.
Of course My ongoing project of finding a Japanese wife is going well. I've been accepted to a collage that offers Japanese as a major and have a good shot of going to a collage next year in Japan. I should really update my project page with that as it's one of the only "full time" projects that I cannot stop.
(my project page can be found at http://www.execpc.com/~halkun" TARGET=_blank>http://www.execpc.com/~halkun )
the #psxemu guys are hinting at me to do a rewrite of my psx doc. I would really like to do this so it will be finaly an original derivitive work. (I've taken a little too much from my sources without it being enough of me talking about it. Nothing was taken from Sony, but it does read like a manual from IDT.) I'd also like to add info on the pocketstataion, bios calls, more MDEC innies, and interrupt timing, as those are the next logical steps in emulation. It's soo tempting, and difficult to do by myself. I wish someone would add to the doc, but everyone kinda just uses it as the end-all auth on the PS1. It's needs to be updated. I feel as if I'm negecting it.
Oh, I have a rule I can only work on three projects at a time. Keeps me from procrasinating.
When I go to school full-time however I will be dropping off the face of the internet for a year. Has to be done though as all of my resourses will be used to look for a Japanese wife...errr...studing so I can go to Japan. I'll probably hand my PSX doc over to someone to maintain. I plan to go to school in Augest.
I have absolutly no Idea why I wrote this. Maybe you guys can tell me if I've been any help. have I become "important" here or a lurker with bas spelling that comes up with ideas once in a while. Just wondering.
I have to go to bed. 3rd shift is a pain.
-Halkun
(Ok, I'll stop now)
-halkun
Hehe ^_^
-Halkun
First and formost, Square's "even team" is working on this one. they were responsable for FF8 which I wan't a big fan of. You can visually tell it's the same dev team from the character designs to some of the aspects of the battle system, which I will be getting into later.
Let's talk about what's diffent.
The engine uses a extramly modded version of the bouncer engine. Kind of like when FF8 used a modded version of the parasite eve engine. The Anti-alising is done in software using the "fuzzy-blur" method. It's a shame that the hardware AA is sooo slooow. Oh well, every PSX must have a critical hardware bug in it. (The original PSX had a clipping bug in the GPU, that's why clipping looked so bad in many many many games)
The fields are not pre-rendered anymore. I have mixed feelings about this. Will square give up some detail in thier renders for 3d graphics again (I know, the renders were only 320x244, but they looked good on a TV screen) The backgrounds I've seen so far have been less then stellar. The game isn't done yet though.
The battle module and the field module have been merged so the system can go from drama to battle seamlessly. There is no "whooh" with a cool mosic and then a 3d battle stage. I havn't seen if thw world map still enters battle the old way or not. When you run from a battle, the monster is still in the environment The battle menus are gon though.
The battle system has gotten cooler and dumber at the same time. Here's how it works.
The battle uses three characters like in 8, but you can swap in your other party members during battle. In the upper right hand corner there are icons of the three characters in battle with an ATB bar after them. below that you have the monsters icons and thier ATB bar (yes, you can see them now) and then the remaining characters that are "banked out" are placed under that with full ATB. I'm not too clear on how characters can be switched in.
Every character has a job class like in 9. Yuna is a summoner, lulu is a white mage. That is cool. There is also an antho-lion who is a dragoon (has the "jump command") But with sadness I must announce that the "one-shot" magic system from FF8 is back again.
There is no drawing from what I can tell. Also junctions appear to be absent. When you aqire spells from a yet-to-be-determined way. You will only have so much. The menus I saw had "blizard 8 firga 22 stop 12" selectable after the magic command was issued.
The commands are also swappable, you have three slots (as opposed to FF8 which had four) I beleave one of the battle commands can not be switched out (The "intresic" one if you will) but I've seen "item" switched for something else. The menus are semi-trasparent blue. They look pretty.
Mogs are there.
Speech! augh, square better get some good voice actors, Trust me, if we get some sort of Resident Evil voices, square would know.
That's it for my report now... comments ^_^
--------------------------------
YAY! I'm a CRAZY POSTER !!!!!!!
[This message has been edited by halkun (edited April 09, 2001).]
