Reverse engineering FF7R

[picklejar]

I didn't see any threads about reverse engineering FF7R so far, so I figured I'd get one started.

Note: Use this thread to discuss reverse engineering FF7R only. If you want to discuss your thoughts on FF7R in general, please do that elsewhere. I say this because we already have plenty of drama in this General thread: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16190.225

Now, on to business.

Q1: Who is interested in reverse engineering FF7R, and/or developing tools for it? On the one hand, many people have already spent valuable time developing fixes and enhancements and hacks for the original FF7, so maybe it kinda sucks that the interest (of players and especially the developers themselves) are now divided and will probably slowly gravitate towards FF7R and away from the original FF7 and from all the hard work put into it. On the other hand, we've been working on FF7 for almost 20 years, and we've done almost everything possible with it, such that the only remaining projects are the really big or difficult ones (like separating out the engine, doing a full HD remake, fixing deep-rooted issues like limitations with FPS/timing, etc.). So, my question for you guys is, are you "committed to the original until death" (DLPB maybe?), or are you "it's WAY too early, I'm not gonna waste time on this now, but hey, if you find any info, please share it with us" (perhaps the majority of us), or are you "I'm excited, let's trailblaze and start proactively pursuing this!"?

Q2: For those that are planning to get involved, what strategies and ideas do you/we have for reverse engineering FF7R? You may think "it's nowhere near release time so we don't know much yet". But what I'm asking is, what do we know, and what can we do to find out more, sooner, and when will we start thinking about organizing and documenting what we know on Wiki or something? For example, we know it will be released on PS4 first, and it's somewhat likely that the engine will be the same as, or similar to, FFXV, and possibly file formats and such. So, some of us could start trying to reverse engineer FFXV (demo now, releases later) and/or PS4 games, and at the very least we'd learn valuable things from that process, right? And as we hear leaks/rumors, we can track and document those, etc. What other info/ideas do we have?

[Kaldarasha]

Don't forget that we have someone here who is involved in the creation of the engine of FFXV. But don't expect official help (business secrets and so), but it's good to have someone around here which you can ask if you are on the right or wrong path.

[picklejar]

It was recently announced that FF7R will not be using Luminous Engine (which is what FFXV is using).

I guess it's still way too early to be thinking about FF7R from a reverse engineering standpoint anyway.

On a side note, I finally picked up the FFXV demo and I have to say that I'm digging it! I'm looking forward to the FFXV release way more than FF7R. (I might even be interested in RE efforts for that, but that's a totally separate topic.)

[nfitc1]

I doubt FF7R will be as easy a task as the original or even Steam versions. FFXIII had better memory security and I imagine that any remake would be at least as complicated. I've seen Flash games with better security.

Generally, my strategy has been "make a change; see what changed". That works reasonably well with things like HP and sometimes stats. FFXIII stored them differently and characters never leveled up so it was easier to get a "inf CP".

That said, the easiest thing to look for would be HP since that can be changed the easiest (except for in-game timer). I'm not sure what tools would be needed. Perhaps a Cheat Engine script (that's all I have for FFXIII and FFXIII-2) to give inf items and possibly max AP after battles.

[Maki]

If we're talking about FFXIII-2, then here's:

Code: [Select]

ffxiii2img.exe+7543C6 - movaps [edx],xmm2
This opcode is related to position hack. NOP it and fly whatever you want.
Also this:

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ffxiii2img.exe+77A88B - movaps xmm0,[eax-10] - NOP'ing deletes distance to interaction object, so you can interact everything on level whatever you are. Took me... 30 minutes? Things like money, HP etc. are one of the easiest things. The more difficult thing would be format reverse.

Hey, isn't it too early to talk about reversing a game that wasn't even released?

Who is interested in reverse engineering FF7R, and/or developing tools for it?
I am. I would look at files when FF7R get released. Especially maps/props models. Strategies for that? Well, as soon as it gets PC release I could work with memory and see which file it stores, then realtime manipulate it, to see what gets changed in drawing.

[Kaldarasha]

Let's see how much they modify the Unreal 4 engine and if we can't use use already created tools then.

[Maki]

Epic games confirmed FF7R is UE4 powered.

• There's currently no way to unpack PS4 PKGs (or something new released in the meantime I don't know - tried to reverse P.T. models, but all I could get were icons and related PS4 files, not game files itself)
• UE for console is known for cooking assets into different endianess than PC (this simple 'change' makes majority of tools be unusable without changing source code)
• Gildor (author of UModel/UE Viewer) still frequently adds support to new games, so FF7R UModel support should be released quite quickly [If core engine filesystem would be untouched]
• Ubisoft for example, is well known to use some custom protection and even if UModel supports some game, then not fully. Some games have no support at all. However, Square Enix never applied some custom edits to 3rd party engines, so... WIN for us.
• I had some fun with Console-exclusive UE releases before, and it's a bit tougher than PC releases. Like sounds are in XAudio (.XA) [Thankfully, someone released converter on Xentax some time ago] instead of clear waves (.WAV) for example.

[Covarr]

It's still a bit early to be worrying about reverse engineering a game that doesn't even have a release date yet, but it is worth noting that it's coming "first on PS4". It's a safe bet there will be a PC release also eventually, which should be much easier to deal with.

[KnifeTheSky77]

Totally hypothetically, getting the character models, or anything really, from the remake and putting them into qgears would be an interesting sight.

[obesebear]

Totally hypothetically, getting the character models, or anything really, from the remake and putting them into qgears would be an interesting sight.

A model viewer/extractor would also be awesome as it would allow for manipulating the maps so that screenshots could be taken to match the same camera angles as the original background art