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

[poofacetherisen]

NFITC1, I keep losing data in Wall Market after I edit any line in the "battle text" you know why this could be happening? A few minutes ago I edited game over on a mildly edited kernel.bin and I changed tabs to Armor and most item names were clipped. I tried reloading a reserve kernel.bin to restart, but this file too had the name clipping even though this file I never tampered with.
 Does your program store data in the cache (of the kernels it edits) or something?
Because I then loaded a clean kernel.bin and there was no clipping (as expected) and attempted to load all the other files again to test if your program stored file caches. But I still can't remedy this problem. Is there another method I can use to heavily mod a kernel.bin with your program (pieces)?

I guess this is a bug report.

[nfitc1]

NFITC1, I keep losing data in Wall Market after I edit any line in the "battle text" you know why this could be happening? A few minutes ago I edited game over on a mildly edited kernel.bin and I changed tabs to Armor and most item names were clipped. I tried reloading a reserve kernel.bin to restart, but this file too had the name clipping even though this file I never tampered with.
 Does your program store data in the cache (of the kernels it edits) or something?
Because I then loaded a clean kernel.bin and there was no clipping (as expected) and attempted to load all the other files again to test if your program stored file caches. But I still can't remedy this problem. Is there another method I can use to heavily mod a kernel.bin with your program (pieces)?

I guess this is a bug report.

Clipped? You'll have to show me a screenshot. I've never heard of this problem.
It used to use cache files, but I stopped that because it was just slowing things down.

[poofacetherisen]

Clipped? You'll have to show me a screenshot. I've never heard of this problem.
It used to use cache files, but I stopped that because it was just slowing things down.

Sure,
 
Seems the bug or occurrence is not limited to Battle Text editing. I attempted to fix up some of my grammar mistakes and shorten descriptions and I (even after attempting to use pieces as saves) was slapped in the face with this bug or occurrence. It also clipped more than just the Materia. Now I have a bunch of un-clipped piece files (If I choose to load them they won't have the clipping, until I save it to a kernel.bin) and a clipped kernel related to said pieces. Need more data? If I could get a sort of active program disassembler to compare the differences that are related to the bug we could understand what's going on.

Is there a limit to the size of a PC kernel or something?

[nfitc1]

Clipped? You'll have to show me a screenshot. I've never heard of this problem.
It used to use cache files, but I stopped that because it was just slowing things down.

Sure,
[img]
Seems the bug or occurrence is not limited to Battle Text editing. I attempted to fix up some of my grammar mistakes and shorten descriptions and I (even after attempting to use pieces as saves) was slapped in the face with this bug or occurrence. It also clipped more than just the Materia. Now I have a bunch of un-clipped piece files (If I choose to load them they won't have the clipping, until I save it to a kernel.bin) and a clipped kernel related to said pieces. Need more data? If I could get a sort of active program disassembler to compare the differences that are related to the bug we could understand what's going on.

Is there a limit to the size of a PC kernel or something?

Yes, this is a known bug. I don't know what's causing it, but I think it only affects things in listboxes (like the item names, battle text, etc). I haven't heard of descriptions messing up like this. It's probably some wayward character combination not being assigned correctly.

<typity, typity, typity, typity>

I suspect the problem is in WallMarket.dat where the characters are. Some of them are actually in the wrong place in the one I provided. I should probably either separate the characters from the battle addresses or eliminate them all together. I added them for support of new character sets in the battles, but I'm considering going in an entirely different direction with that anyway. For now, try renaming your WallMarket.dat file before you load the prog and make your text changes. That file was always optional.

[poofacetherisen]

Yes, this is a known bug. I don't know what's causing it, but I think it only affects things in listboxes (like the item names, battle text, etc). I haven't heard of descriptions messing up like this. It's probably some wayward character combination not being assigned correctly.

<typity, typity, typity, typity>

I suspect the problem is in WallMarket.dat where the characters are. Some of them are actually in the wrong place in the one I provided. I should probably either separate the characters from the battle addresses or eliminate them all together. I added them for support of new character sets in the battles, but I'm considering going in an entirely different direction with that anyway. For now, try renaming your WallMarket.dat file before you load the prog and make your text changes. That file was always optional.

Thank you for the advice.
This seems to be only affecting the kernel2.bin as that holds the text. I don't know about other data yet. But yes, if the .dat is what is assigning characters it's most likely telling the kernel2.bin to load a non-existent character, thus it shows up as blank on the game screen not just on your OS (exceptions do apply).

Also, for some strange reason one of my previously "clipped" kernels loaded un-clipped. Whether I loaded from the pieces or not. Perhaps the .dat was not read (thankfully).

[DLPB_]

No it does happen to descriptions as well (if by descriptions you mean "attacks all enemies" etc) .... 

[nfitc1]

No it does happen to descriptions as well (if by descriptions you mean "attacks all enemies" etc) ....

OK, if that's the case then it likely has to do with the structure of the WallMarket.dat file. I did think it odd that it affected one and not the other, but I never heard anyone complain about descriptions messing up.

[DLPB_]

For some reason description corruptions seem to happen less often.

[nfitc1]

For some reason description corruptions seem to happen less often.

I think it happens more often to extra-alphanumeric characters because that's where the errors in the .dat files exist. I'll have to run some debug tests to figure out exactly what. Now I have a clue as to the source I can likely reproduce it easily enough. I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier. If someone makes a text file using all the characters it would probably tell me what I want to know. I'll give that a try later (maybe tomorrow).

EDIT:
I finally got around to playing with text and the thing that disturbs me is that B8h is being saved as FFh. That's the only thing I could find that would break strings up. The error that people are getting is that strings aren't being correctly terminated or being added in the wrong place.... that I still don't get.

[poofacetherisen]

I have difficultly understanding what exactly the "Level Bonuses" table describes. You seem to be able to edit it, but what does it do?
e.g.

[Bosola]

I have difficultly understanding what exactly the "Level Bonuses" table describes. You seem to be able to edit it, but what does it do?

It sets the baselines and gradients for stat growth. Find out more in TFerusson's Party Mechanics guide, specifically in the 'Level Up!' chapter.

[poofacetherisen]

It sets the baselines and gradients for stat growth. Find out more in TFerusson's Party Mechanics guide, specifically in the 'Level Up!' chapter.

Thank you for your assistance.


WM Bug Report?
- Under "Weapon" tab, "Usable in Item Menu", Battle Menu or "Sellable in Shops" (excluding not
  very many weapons) ticks are never saved. At least for me they are not. Also, I've edited it
  in the "Raw Data" window. Same thing.

- I think this is just a graphical incongruity, but the drawn down menus in like the "limit break" under the
  "Initial Data" tab and "Character Growth" sub-tab has a fixed narrowness (they're not stretched like other
  tabs) that disables the view of full names, but this 'glitch' may not be restricted to only that one.

- Cat's Bell, the item's effect is not listed. It still takes effect even if you modify it's available parameters.
e.g.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/CatsBellLowHP.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/CatsBellRestored.png

- Cursed Ring, still +20 to all skills whether you modify it or not. If find it awkward, if it can raise all stats
  by 20 why cannot the rest (raw data, stored in the .exe perhaps)? Some times it ups by your modifacation (20=150)
e.g.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/CurseRing.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/RemovedCurseRing.png


The attack texture hex values only reach 47h. Any higher game crashes, if the ID you input has
no data referenced (I word it like that in case you actually can make new ID hit textures). Also
incase no one knew (like I did) the hit sounds correspond directly to the audio.fmt sound values in Cosmo (etc).
ie. Sound "0" in Cosmo is a menu sound, 00h in Wall Market points to that sound (for some reason 00h won't
reference to anything, that could just be on my end, but the rest follow cardinally). Sound "18" in Cosmo points
to a 'weird resonating laser firing' sound, 13h would cause attacking to make that sound.

NFITC1, if you have the time, you should add these sort of informations (there is much through out the whole
thread) to the .chm file it would certainly help many novices like myself and others. I could gather them together
if you need help.


Another thing, is it possible to edit the parameters for Materia that raise/lower base stats in the kernel?

*I 'hot-linked' my images for those with dial-up*

[nfitc1]

WM Bug Report?
- Under "Weapon" tab, "Usable in Item Menu", Battle Menu or "Sellable in Shops" (excluding not
  very many weapons) ticks are never saved. At least for me they are not. Also, I've edited it
  in the "Raw Data" window. Same thing.

The only viable thing in that group among weapons is "Sellable in Shops". There's no circumstances that you should even attempt to use them (or any non-items) as if they were items. Still, this is something that needs to get looked at.

- I think this is just a graphical incongruity, but the drawn down menus in like the "limit break" under the
  "Initial Data" tab and "Character Growth" sub-tab has a fixed narrowness (they're not stretched like other
  tabs) that disables the view of full names, but this 'glitch' may not be restricted to only that one.

This affects ALL drop-downs. I fixed the width to be optimized for a display using 96 dpi. Anything higher than that and it will not show everything. Actually, even the Limit names will be a little squished in those boxes too. I do need to figure out how to allow the user to stretch those out.

- Cat's Bell, the item's effect is not listed. It still takes effect even if you modify it's available parameters.
e.g.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/CatsBellLowHP.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/CatsBellRestored.png

- Cursed Ring, still +20 to all skills whether you modify it or not. If find it awkward, if it can raise all stats
  by 20 why cannot the rest (raw data, stored in the .exe perhaps)? Some times it ups by your modifacation (20=150)
e.g.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/CurseRing.png
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/Onikapitua/RemovedCurseRing.png

I'm going to address this as one issue because the answer is the same. The game is hard-coded to have those effects for those unique accessory indexes. Look at the data for Cat's Bell, it's practically empty. The game "knows" that if "Accessory 27" is equipped then up the HP while walking. That's because the KERNEL.BIN is battle-oriented and Cat's Bell has a field effect. I don't know why, but Cursed Ring is the exact same way. It will increase every stat by a given amount, but that's hard-coded to "Accessory 25". If you make either those accessories do other things they'd still have those effects.

The attack texture hex values only reach 47h. Any higher game crashes, if the ID you input has
no data referenced (I word it like that in case you actually can make new ID hit textures). Also
incase no one knew (like I did) the hit sounds correspond directly to the audio.fmt sound values in Cosmo (etc).
ie. Sound "0" in Cosmo is a menu sound, 00h in Wall Market points to that sound (for some reason 00h won't
reference to anything, that could just be on my end, but the rest follow cardinally). Sound "18" in Cosmo points
to a 'weird resonating laser firing' sound, 13h would cause attacking to make that sound.

Sound is handled differently in battles. The more important value is the "Shift" which tells the game what sound bank to use. Changing a sound without changing the bank will give odd results. I tried to change Cloud's sword swipe once and got a door opening sound... Either way, there's not a way to define what sounds are battle appropriate so I'm not going to make exclusions.
Same thing about the textures. Interesting to know that above 47 causes the game to crash. I'll make a note of that in the readme, but it likely won't appear very prominently.

[Bosola]

I'm going to address this as one issue because the answer is the same. The game is hard-coded to have those effects for those unique accessory indexes. Look at the data for Cat's Bell, it's practically empty. The game "knows" that if "Accessory 27" is equipped then up the HP while walking. That's because the KERNEL.BIN is battle-oriented and Cat's Bell has a field effect. I don't know why, but Cursed Ring is the exact same way. It will increase every stat by a given amount, but that's hard-coded to "Accessory 25". If you make either those accessories do other things they'd still have those effects.

Yeah, these are hard coded. I'm not sure where the Cat's Bell function is, but you can easily find the location of character HP data, then trace the +2 that's added with every step in a debugger.

I have a feeling the Curse Ring's code is somewhre in EQIPMENU.MNU. It probably sets... some flag for the battle engine.

[poofacetherisen]

Sound is handled differently in battles. The more important value is the "Shift" which tells the game what sound bank to use. Changing a sound without changing the bank will give odd results. I tried to change Cloud's sword swipe once and got a door opening sound... Either way, there's not a way to define what sounds are battle appropriate so I'm not going to make exclusions.
Same thing about the textures. Interesting to know that above 47 causes the game to crash. I'll make a note of that in the readme, but it likely won't appear very prominently.

Yes, I'm aware of that I forgot to post that, I rushed...

I didn't post my notes because I didn't think it was necessary, but I still have to sort through the remaining
sounds. Also I all my characters could not critical attack (given the 3Xh damage modifier), so I had consistency
and did not mistakenly record the wrong sound. So with Shift F8, 01h - C6h will equal 0dec - 197dec in Cosmo.
C8h - D1h equal 198dec - 207dec in Cosmo. And finally D3h - FFh equal 209dec - 252dec.

Funny huh, very confusing isn't it? Well that's because 00h, C7h, and D2h don't call sounds. They're either
dividers or 'no sounders.'

For Shift F9h DCh, DDh, and E8h have no sound. They're either dividers or 'no sounders.' On to the 'how',
from 00h - DBh you (add 1dec if your calculator isn't all great with hex) to your value and add that to 252
and search Cosmo for the result there's your sound. DEh - E7h you subtract it by 1 (or 2 if you added 1 in
the above method) add 252dec and search for the result in Cosmo and there's your sound. E9 - FF subtract by
2 (3 if you subtracted 2 or/and added above) and add 252 search that in Cosmo and that sould be your sound.


Sorry I didn't post information on the shift, (makes my post dis-informational) thanks.
It has also come to my attention that these MAY only equal my findings IF you alter the hit sound. I don't
know about others. This is just too funny and mind shattering.

Code: [Select]

Shift:
Displayed in Hex. A new field as of 1.3.
With different values this will "increase"
the other sound indexes by 100h:

F8 - no increase
F9 - Hit & Miss +100h
FA - Critical +100h(?)
FB - Hit, Miss & Critical + 100h

No weapon uses value FA so feel free to test it.
If you change sounds of one weapon to sound like
another without changing the shift then you'll get
really weird sounds. What did you mean by this? That only hit and miss will be functioning on sounds from +256 in Cosmo? I checked with Shift F9
and that is not consistent with the sound I heard (used 00h and 01h). Under current evidence it should be a piano key sound (which is in that range), there instead was a strange club sound. I know what it should be, updated my evidence.

Yeah,  these are hard coded. I'm not sure where the Cat's Bell function is,  but you can easily find the location of character HP data, then trace  the +2 that's added with every step in a debugger.

I have a feeling the Curse Ring's code is somewhre in EQIPMENU.MNU. It probably sets... some flag for the battle engine.

 
  Thank you, however I am using PC non-emulated version of FFVII, I have  one question, were I to use disassembly codes, would they be compatible with  the PC version? Also do you know the equivalent of "EQIPMENU.MNU" for the  PC?
 
 
 

[Vgr]

Every .MNU file are in the FF7.EXE but, as far as I know, there isn't good compiler/decompiler to extract FF7.EXE data. If you find so, tell me

EDIT : I have a request for the next release (if there is so) : The possibility of editing limit breaks data. Some can be edited, but not all. It would be good IMO.

[poofacetherisen]

I know double-posting isn't generally allowed, but I have a request for the next release (if there is so) : The possibility of editing limit breaks data. Some can be edited, but not all. It would be good IMO.

You know, not many people are active everyday so regardless, they'll see your posts. Just edit them.

Secondly, I doubt NFITC1 will update his program, unless there are some bugs that need ironing or someone figures out what the many "unknown" values control. All should be editable, but they're not all in the KERNEL.BIN they're in the ff7.exe (for the PC version)

[Vgr]

You're right. Message edited.

[Bosola]

I know double-posting isn't generally allowed, but I have a request for the next release (if there is so) : The possibility of editing limit breaks data. Some can be edited, but not all. It would be good IMO.

You know, not many people are active everyday so regardless, they'll see your posts. Just edit them.

Secondly, I doubt NFITC1 will update his program, unless there are some bugs that need ironing or someone figures out what the many "unknown" values control. All should be editable, but they're not all in the KERNEL.BIN they're in the ff7.exe (for the PC version)

Limit data isn't held in the KERNEL. Use my application, Libre, to modify their stats in the LIMITMENU.MNU.

[Vgr]

Yes, I realized that afterwards. That's what I do. Thanks

[nfitc1]

...I doubt NFITC1 will update his program, unless there are some bugs that need ironing or someone figures out what the many "unknown" values control....

While not entirely true, I am not accepting new feature requests. There are still more things I'm going to do with WM, but they'll be cosmetic rather than functional.

[DLPB_]

I renamed that WallMarketdat file, but text corruptions still happen.  Also still happening is the Limit Breaks having } before them.  This was a clean Kernel file original, and I saved 1 change (I changed D.blow to D-Blow).

[nfitc1]

I renamed that WallMarketdat file, but text corruptions still happen.  Also still happening is the Limit Breaks having } before them.  This was a clean Kernel file original, and I saved 1 change (I changed D.blow to D-Blow).

On further inspection that file will soon be out anyway. It is the cause of a lot of problems. I've had some promising results from WallMarket.xml recently. Allows for WAY more customization and even partial language support! You will now be able to fill in those missing functions yourself without having to wait for me to hard-code that result in the program.
Take the Attack Effects drop-down. Right now 0Ah-0Dh are blank. They may not have any effect, but assume that they did and you made an attack with one and found out what it does. Hooray! Right now, you'd have to tell me what that was so I could insert that information into Wall Market so it wouldn't be a "??" anymore. With the WallMarket.xml you can just add the line yourself and tell EVERYONE to add that line too! I'd like to be able to make this an online thing where you could check for the latest xml file and all that, but it'll probably just be a separate download from my Filefront/Mediafire pages. Battle Address info could be handled much the same way. Much nicer than some clunky old flat file.
And the character thing is going away soon too. I'm going to allow the user to play directly with the strings like Loveless does. Even be able to import their own font faces so it could even (in theory) edit the Japanese texts.

- I think this is just a graphical incongruity, but the drawn down menus in like the "limit break" under the
  "Initial Data" tab and "Character Growth" sub-tab has a fixed narrowness (they're not stretched like other
  tabs) that disables the view of full names, but this 'glitch' may not be restricted to only that one.

I fixed this in the best way I could figure out. Every drop down window ought to be able to show all text in it including the limit attacks. For some reason, the method I'm using to resize them (dynamically and programmatically so you, the user, don't have to do anything different) cuts it a few pixels short and some characters from the longer texts like "{BOX:RED}Doom of the Living" gets cut off a bit.

[Bosola]

Even better, you could add validation, so that circulated Wallmarket.XML files can't crash users' machines. Writing an XML parser / validator might be handy for future projects.

I'm a big fan of your idea to push interface strings into an XML file. I don't know if VB.NET is very good at that sort of thing (I think it prefers to work with resx or something?), but it'd be a cool feature. You mentioned that you were developing WM / PC to gain work-related experience, and learning to create translatable interfaces would be a great boon.

If you ever have to work with a tech. comms department on an interface, being able to give them a transportable, easy-to-open file would be a huge advantage. And if you can find a way to store these interface strings in XML, you've won gold - tech. comms folk use XML for just about everything.

Sounds really promising.

[nfitc1]

Even better, you could add validation, so that circulated Wallmarket.XML files can't crash users' machines. Writing an XML parser / validator might be handy for future projects.

ATM, the only "validation" is if it doesn't work, report it and end. Yes, I'm going to make it revert to a set of defaults if it doesn't work. Nice thing about it the way it is currently set up, I can choose to include only a few entries. Say I don't have anything in the <Effects> tag. I can leave it blank and the defaults will come up. If I figured out what 0Ah does I can add:
<Effect index="10">Nifty little effect</Effect> and that will appear along with the "default" effect descriptions that are built into WM already.
Pretty much everything that's in a drop-down that isn't an item or materia list can be altered. That includes Command Cursor descriptions to Status Effect Names to Stats.
I kinda jumped the gun describing it, but I want to make it more non-English-user-friendly and I thought I'd let people know.

I'm a big fan of your idea to push interface strings into an XML file. I don't know if VB.NET is very good at that sort of thing (I think it prefers to work with resx or something?), but it'd be a cool feature. You mentioned that you were developing WM / PC to gain work-related experience, and learning to create translatable interfaces would be a great boon.

VB.NET isn't great at it. I had to track it carefully at first to see when I needed to force a .Read() and when I didn't need to. I thought it would load an entire node at once, but the reader that I'm using doesn't work that way. Oh well. When you see the file the format will be evident.

If you ever have to work with a tech. comms department on an interface, being able to give them a transportable, easy-to-open file would be a huge advantage. And if you can find a way to store these interface strings in XML, you've won gold - tech. comms folk use XML for just about everything.

Sounds really promising.

XML is a little less reliable for interface strings IMO. You have to load them in separately and I've already run into formatting issues. A language pack (which may or may not be an XML) would be the better way to go since you can link all the items to an entry in that database. I suppose it's up to the platform on which format to store those languages in.