Messages

1

Gameplay / Re: Making playable bosses

« on: 2013-08-20 16:08:26 »

Before I begin, note that I may be wrong on some of these points, been a while since I did anything FF7-related (apart from helping users).

First, you can't simply "use" enemy models. You have to completely change the character models and animations. Oh and

There's no such thing as a "hitbox" in FF7. Which leads me to my next point. You probably come from games such as Skyrim where modding is easy and where tools were provided to make it easy, by the developers. FF7 is not like that. Modding was made possible by the time and devotion of fans, skilled programmers, graphical artists and simply devoted people. No tools were provided by Square Soft. While modding isn't illegal, it's definitively in the grey area. You probably got this game off Steam, where most games are easy to mod, have tools provided and even a workshop. FF7 is none of that (and it may be what you were unsure about).

As for stats, maximum any playable character can have is 32 767 (if I'm not mistaken, that can go up as high as 65 535) for HP and MP, while it's 255 for any other stat.

As for modding PSX games, that is much harder than PC games for many reasons.

To answer your initial question

The answer is, simply, you don't, too much, and none. In that order.

Yeah, I wasn't too sure about the hitboxes. Does this game not use collision detection, or is it just calculated differently? How does it know when an enemy has been hit and by whom?

Also, don't make assumptions like that about me, especially considering you're wrong on every single account. I thought I was pretty clear that I knew about how much work might be necessary, in spite of saying I want to avoid hex. I'm well aware this game, even as a PC title, had to be almost entirely reverse engineered through hex editing to accomplish anything because of a lack of official tools. I know it's not a cakewalk like Skyrim. I'm willing to work for what I want, which is why I've started trying to learn hex. You might say it's not worth it, but I've seen at least one post on here talking about rewriting the game's script and story all for the sake of playing as a modded character, so I don't feel like my goal is that unrealistic.

To make a boss playable:

• Get the game to point to and render enemy models for party members
• Match up the animations for moves
• Maybe fix animations for being hit and casting spells?
• Fix any spell / move camera angles that no longer work with large models

What you have to consider:

• How much time you can commit
• How much technical knowledge you really want to learn
• How well the community has reversed the parts of the game pertaining to the things you want to modify

The easiest method:

• Work on the PC build
• Work in small steps towards realistic goals
• Find a good hex editor

Ok, thanks. That looks to be fairly in line with what I had planned. I'm really getting into game editing so I've been slowly working towards learning every aspect I need (3d modelling, assembly language, scripting, etc.) I'd say I'm quite devoted although time is an issue with schoolwork and everything...

The battle interface would have to be completely redone as well unless you intend to leave the AI intact. Enemies use a special "command" for their actions that does different things in the game engine. That command would have to somehow be enabled in the menu (no easy feat) and handled in the battle engine. If you don't do this then their entire animation scripts would have to be re-written.

Stuff like this is definitely the biggest hurdle. It does look like I can't avoid learning hex, which is bad  because I'm completely new to it and kind of a slow learner. Any ideas where I can get a comprehensive guide for learning it? I've been looking around and there's a few guides here and there but it's all either assuming too much about what I know, or not relevant enough to how games are scripted.

2

Gameplay / Re: Making playable bosses

« on: 2013-08-19 16:22:42 »

Yeah, I'm curious....

3

Gameplay / Making playable bosses

« on: 2013-08-15 16:40:39 »

For the PC version.

Hey, what's up. I'm new to this whole modding/hacking thing, so I am pretty uninformed in some areas lol. If I say something that doesn't make sense, just let that be known. I've been thinking about making a party consisting of bosses but I'm not really sure how to approach this. Would it be easier to rewrite the script and force the game to load the bosses's models and animations in place of an existing character? Or, should I just replace a character's textures, skeleton, etc. with the bosses's? What are my limitations? It seems like either method has its problems.

I consider hex editing to be quite difficult, so it would be nice to minimize that to just changing certain values (like for importing new skins) and not having to rewrite how the game behaves just to accommodate a boss. Figuring out the way the game is scripted based on hex values alone just seems unapproachable to me. On the other hand, replacing every part of an existing character looks to be a lot more tedious because then I have to consider things like re-skinning meshes, changing hitboxes, editing character data like Str and Def, and possibly having to redesign how certain attacks work (whatever that involves). 

Things I know I need to consider, at least for the latter method:

Replacing Mesh/Textures/Skeleton
Getting rid of the weapons
Replacing Hitboxes
Replacing Animations (like what happens if an attack consists of multiple animations? It's something I didn't even think about before reading through this forum.)
Mapping the attacks (what if a boss has a multipart attack that a player character can't match? What if it involves a more scripted element like summoning an enemy? Take Hojo for example. )
As far as stats go, is it possible or not grant a player character a million HP? 
Moving the player spots further apart to accommodate for larger characters/re positioning the camera to fix the view

If it's any help to know, I am considering adding Emerald Weapon, Safer Sephiroth, and maybe one of the other Weapons.

One other thing. Assuming I wanted to do something like this for other rpgs that don't have a PC version to play with, how possible is it to import data into a PSX game? Is a script for importing data anything like one for exporting it?

If my point isn't clear after all the elaboration that I did; the question is, simply, how do I make a boss playable, what do I have to consider, and what is the easiest method?

So yeah lol. That's a lot of different questions thrown into one post and I don't expect any one person to have an answer for everything. Any little bit of info is helpful.  Everyone here seems to be talented and knowledgeable, and after looking through the posts I've seen stuff that I didn't even think was possible, so who knows.