Messages

1

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Scene.bin Revisited

« on: 2004-09-16 00:20:46 »

Maybe someone may remind of me, I was working on SCENE.BIN file there's about one year ago, and after a long break, I decided to continue my work about deciphering this file in order to release a document about it.

But before that, I wanted to ask you if you've already found new information since the creation of this topic ? It would be a shame to do things you've already done

Thank for your answer, and again, excuse me for my english mistakes. ^^

2

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Can someone send me/upload the uncompressed scene.bin please

« on: 2004-02-19 15:29:32 »

I need scene.bin from non-english FF7 for comparison, to see differences and to see how to implement it into Leviathan, please could someone send it to me or upload it here: http://bin.mypage.sk ?

I put my french scene.bin on my server, you can download it here.

3

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Can someone send me/upload the uncompressed scene.bin please

« on: 2004-02-06 20:03:39 »

Thank you Cyb for your remark about my english. I'm not accustomed to write long posts in that language, hence I'm reassured about that.

The unfortunate thing is I am not particularly good at reading french nor speaking it for that matter. So all that wonderful information is lost on me because Babel fish stops translating after I think 8000 words (hehehe).

And I think Babel fish does not translate very well this kind of texts
Maybe will have enough time during the next week, so I may try to translate in english all ressources we found about scene.bin (and kernel.bin for reason I will explain later, I've eaten enough of english texts today ^^) if it can be useful.

I am currently sectionally working on translating it. Hopefully I'll have some useful information from it. I'm curious about the .X files in that directory as well. There are severl BIN and .X files

Sorry for my questions but what are you translating exactly ? All informations in our forums ?
And what are those X files you are talking about ? I'm a little lost.

4

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / scene.bin compression

« on: 2004-02-06 15:30:51 »

Despite that there's 3 parts to Jenova Synthesis, the game uses only one set of data and load that 3 times and then alters the stats of the other parts. Really weird.

Now, the Bizarro is the same thing too. The 6 different Bizarro files are not for each part of him. They are for each battle.

Because of my english knowlegde, maybe wouldn't I give you a correct answer, but I'll try.
Concerning Jenova Synthesis, I agree with you. There are 3 "slots" in each file where you can describe a monster, and only one is used. I don't know why.

About Bizarro Sephiroth, maybe don't you know that you can not use multiple files to describe parts of one monster (monster's parts must be in the same file).

Not sure what order they are in, but these are all:
3 party - battle 1
3 party - battle 2
3 party - battle 3
2 party - battle 1
2 party - battle 2
1 party battle

And like Jenova, it takes one monster data entry and loads it for the number of parts available. I think there's up to 5 in seperate party's battle with him.

Seems kinda stupid that they just didn't make each part a seperate file.

It's difficult for me to answer you, so I'm going to tell you how scene.bin file is structured, I think it could help you ?

Scene.bin file contains 256 gzipped blocks. Each block has got the following format :

- Monsters ID (there can be up to 3 monsters ID) ID1 ID2 ID3

- Battle scenes informations (each block can contain up to 4 battle scenes (=the description of 4 different battles)) :
--- At first, there are some ID numbers, telling which music, camera and background to use for each battle scene.
--- Then you'll find 4 sub-blocks describing the coordinates of each monster in each battle scene (each battle can contain up to 6 monsters), using this format :
>BattleScene1 - Monster 1 : Monster1ID Xcoordinate Ycoordinate Zcoordinate WhereIsTheMonster(first line/second line) Flags
>BattleScene1 - Monster 2 : Monster2ID Xcoordinate Ycoordinate Zcoordinate WhereIsTheMonster(first line/second line) Flags
...
>BattleScene1 - Monster 6 : Monster6ID Xcoordinate Ycoordinate Zcoordinate WhereIsTheMonster(first line/second line) Flags
>BattleScene2 - Monster 1 : Monster1ID Xcoordinate Ycoordinate Zcoordinate WhereIsTheMonster(first line/second line) Flags
etc...

- Monsters caracteristics :
--- Name of monster ID1
--- Level, Speed, Luck, Physical Dodge, Strength, Physical Defense, Magi, Magical Defense, MP, AP, HP, Exp, gils, objects (and how you can obtain these objects), elements (ex:fire resistant, ice weakness, ...)
--- List of IDs of available actions (Attack, Right Hand Revived, Repeating Slap for example)
--- List of "manipulable" attacks
--- Flags (for example it says if monster can be minimized or transformed in frogg)

--- Name of monster ID2
--- Level, Speed, ...
...
--- Name of monster ID3
...
- List of attacks names (you'll find IDs of each attacks and their name)
- Scripts describing each attacks. They are quite complex and I haven't found how they are written yet.


Then, for example, if we see the part of scene.bin about Bizarro Sephiroth (ID=145), and if we translate it, we will see something like that (in the battle scene part of the block) :

Code: [Select]


                      ID    X    Y    Z   ln  ln2 flags
Scene[0]-Monster[0]= 145    0    0 ec78    1    0 ffffffff
Scene[0]-Monster[1]= 145    0    0 ec78    1    0 fffffffe // flag "hidden"
Scene[0]-Monster[2]= 145    0    0 ec78    1    0 fffffffe
Scene[0]-Monster[3]= 145    0    0 ec78    1    0 fffffffe
Scene[0]-Monster[4]= 145    0    0 ec78    1    0 fffffffe
Scene[0]-Monster[5]=ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffffffff // empty slot



Another answer is that blocks are limited to 256. Maybe does it explains why monsters parts are not splited into different files.

5

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Can someone send me/upload the uncompressed scene.bin please

« on: 2004-02-06 00:13:56 »

Lord_Skylark : I've already released few programs about scene.bin file. Here is a link to 2 "command line" programs (so you have to launch them at prompt) :
Link to scene.bin programs (tar.gz can be uncompressed using Winzip).

The first program, scene_extract, has got the following syntax :
scene_extract.exe scenebinfile.bin
For example :
scene_extract.exe scene.bin

It will read each gzipped file in scene.bin and writes them on your disk (file0.gz, file1.gz, ...).
Then it will call "gunzip.exe" to uncompress them.

The second program, scene_create, will use "gzip.exe" to recompress your files and to create another scene.bin file.

Please note that I haven't tested those programs under Windows, but they must work correctly.


I've done another program too, which generates a huge text file which describes a lot of informations we (friends and me) have found in scene.bin file. Its size is about 6Mbytes and a compressed version is available in my web server :
Link to scenestats.txt.gz (from the french FF7 scene.bin file)

Note this file is not documented, not updated, and that more informations about scene.bin can be found in our french forum (sorry). We have already found about all main specifications of scene.bin file, but there remain the battle scripts on which we are working. So if you need more help about something, I could try to help you, with my "bad english speaking".

6

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / Re: Yeah...

« on: 2004-01-29 12:40:12 »

I saw that actually...all it says is that it's lzs compressed. And Ficedula's lzs program doesn't work on 3 computers that I've tried so I can't compress it. So I was hoping someone would be able to decompress it for me. I don't want just a text file of it. I want to be able to actually decompress the information from the actual scene.bin file so I can view the stuff myself.

~Sky

You'll find in FF7's .BIN Format Spec topic that files in SCENE.BIN archive are compressed using gzip. You'll find a PDF which describes how SCENE.BIN file is structured too, with my bad english. Note this description hasn't been updated, and that we found a lot more, we have a board in French where we discuss about it. If it can be usefull for you, I can try to update the english version of "my" documentation file so as to you don't have to discover again what has already been discovered.

About Elements, when I discovered them, I tryied to understand what they are too. So I found a few of them :
Cut : I can be used for example by insects, sorry but I don't remind of any name.
Punch : The greatest example is "Gobelin Punch". Maybe Tifa's attack too ?
Shoot : Vincents guns are actually good examples
Scream : All Cait Siths MegaPhones are using "Scream" element.

I'm not sure yet, but if I remind, health element is often used to "describe" undeads, which can be kill/damaged with Cure/Potions/Life, like you wrote Lord_Skylark.

P.S.:Sorry, I didn't finish my answer : so if you want to (un)compress gzip data, you'll have to use gzip tool (homepage). Note that you can find a Windows version by searching for it with Google. If you want to recompress data blocks, note that you may need to use "-9n" parameter, to follow the file format used by Square
Hope this helps.

7

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7's .BIN Format Spec

« on: 2003-10-08 01:50:32 »

Ok thanks for Element and Rate, I wasn't hard to understand, but I prefer human readable format

In fact, I found special values too, I've put them in my nutshell (see bellow) but, like you, I don't now what they mean.

Element 20h | Absorb (06h) : Ghost, Ghost Ship, Dragon Zombie, Zenene, Cripshay, Vargid Police
Element 26h | Weakness (02h) : 3rd Soldier, Corvette
Element 22h | Weakness (02h) : Palmer

Those are the only exceptions I found in my version, and they seem to be the same in your version. Maybe did I forget one or two.
I tried to add elements 20h, 22h, 26h with 06h/02h for test purposes, but I didn't find changes during battle. Element 20h/06h seems to concern Undead, but I don't know what those values can change.

8

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7's .BIN Format Spec

« on: 2003-10-06 23:29:41 »

M4v3R : I only understand now that M4v3R = Maver  
I see you made a very great piece of work. Thank you to put online those informations. I see we have found the same things about monsters (although you find them before me), but I don't understand your lines about "Elements". Maybe is it something I didn't find, but for me elements are small values. For example, "3" means "Earth", "7" means "Wind" and "6" means "Water" (the data containing elements informations follow "Magic Defence" value in each file).

So I want to ask you what are the elements you often call "E3 - R3", "E4 - R5" ? Has it something to do with elements ?

Again, thank you all for your nice help, _Ombra_ for your mail and M4v3R for your support.

9

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7's .BIN Format Spec

« on: 2003-10-06 19:54:09 »

wow i could add this info to mine Leviathan, monster info would be more complete with it ... i'll credit you all ofcourse

Some friends and me are continuing working on scene.bin specifications. We already have found more specifications.
We found each battle scenes (coordinates of each monster, ID number of each monster, ...), special attack texts and in the end of scene.bin, there are something like scripts we are trying to understand.
So maybe could you wait until we release the whole specifications of scene.bin, with source code examples. Of course you can do as you want.

If someone wants to see what we found in SCENE.BIN, there's a new version of "my scenestats.txt" you can find there (5 MB). For each "file*" contained in SCENE.BIN, you'll find :
- ID of the monsters
- 2 tables (battleUnknown and battleUnknown2) we are working on. Maybe are they camera coordinates ?
- Battle scenes descriptions (up to 4 battle scenes in each file, and up to 6 monsters in each battle scene).
- Monsters description (name, level, luck, ...) with their actionID and actionTextID (they have something to do with special attacks)
- After monster description, there is an "UnknownStructure" we are trying to understand the meaning. (Any idea ? ^^)
- After there are the special attacks names followed by another "unknown structure"
- In the end of scene.bin, we have found scripts. We have written them in hex and when the program finds strings in them, it displays them between "[[[" "]]]".


Hence we're trying to understand battle scripts syntax, and to find the meaning of remaining "unkwnown structures". If someone has got any idea, they would be welcomed


M4v3R : Thank you for your answer. I'll add your ICQ in my contact list, and I will contact you soon.
Oh, please note something : I'm not "Freemen" but "Fremen", like in Frank Herbert's Dune

10

Archive / FF7Music Crashing FF7 at song change

« on: 2003-10-04 02:16:29 »

Rubicant_II : Please don't be sorry for that, I know that my bad english can not be easily understood. And thank you for the plugin out_ds, I'll try it, maybe would it work better.

Thank you Aaron for the explaination of what I said. In fact, I only wanted to say that disk access may be the cause of those crashes. Or maybe not.

11

Archive / FF7Music Crashing FF7 at song change

« on: 2003-10-02 18:33:23 »

Thanks for your help but I tried different plugins, and I got the same problem.

Maybe does it come from a "synchronization" problem. In fact this problem seems to only appear when there are "big" disk access. For example, when I use out_disk plugin, FF7 will always crash very quickly. And, as we see, this problem occurs when the playing music is changed.

Of course it is a supposition. I didn't find anything else.

(At last, I have to remind you to excuse me for my english mistakes ^^)

12

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7's .BIN Format Spec

« on: 2003-10-02 18:23:13 »

_Ombra_ : Ok thank you for your answer. But if a friend and me finish the editor we are working on, I hope you'll let me put your name in the credits ! If I didn't know that scene.bin was gziped, I wouldn't find anything.

13

Archive / FF7Music Crashing FF7 at song change

« on: 2003-10-01 23:39:41 »

I have got exactly the same problem under Windows 95. So it seems it isn't caused by Windows XP. And I didn't find anything to fix it.

I give you my config, maybe it could help to localize the problem :
Windows 95 4.0B
AMD AthlonXP 2200+
576 Mo SDRam
ATI Rage 128
SoundBlaster AWE64

I'm using out_ds plugin.

The next time I play to FF7, I'll try to change my plugin.
If I find something which can help, I will post again.

14

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7's .BIN Format Spec

« on: 2003-10-01 23:28:43 »

I'm sorry _Ombra_, I didn't see (in this board) that Maver and you have already found some of the specs of SCENE.BIN. So if you agree, I'll add your names in my PDF. I don't want this work to be said as plagiarism

I see it could be useful for anyone, so I'll continue to post there if I find other specifications of SCENE.BIN.
_Ombra_, I would be very grateful if you had any link to give me about the specifications that Maver discovered. I didn't find them in this forum. (With the Search tool, I didn't find any post of Maver). It will allow me not to have to discover again things already discovered

15

Scripting and Reverse Engineering / FF7's .BIN Format Spec

« on: 2003-09-30 06:29:37 »

At first please excuse me for my english mistakes.

I was looking for informations in order to find where were located monster's specifications (HP, MP, strength, ...). And I found them with your help. Thus I want to thank you for sharing your knowledge on this board.
My project was to write a command line program to allow me to modify monster's specifications in FF7 PC and PSX, and I finished my first "quite working" version today. Hence I thought that the few informations I've found about the SCENE.BIN file might be usefull to someone.

I uploaded a PDF file there.

About my project, if it interests someone, I can upload it and explain to use it.
Shorty, it reads data I've "understood" in SCENE.BIN file, generates a text file you can modify (an example is there) and creates a new SCENE.BIN.

At last, thanks again to all members of this board, your work is very interesting and I hope you'll continue for a long time.