Renaming a status effect ?

[Armorvil]

I'd like to rename Dual into Seizure, so that when you're inflicted by Dual, you actually read the name 'Seizure' in battle. Logic told me that I could do that with Wall Market, in the Battle Text tab, but status effects are nowhere to be found

Any idea ?

[Bosola]

They are hardcoded into the executable. Gemini's translation tools should be able to help you, but you'll need to rearrange his source files and compile with Visual Studio if my memory serves me correctly.

[Armorvil]

Ha, thank you very much for the info ! I'll see what I can do

[Kudistos Megistos]

Is it that complicated? I'd have thought hex editing would solve the problem:



Surely one would just have to change

Code: [Select]

24 55 41 4C FF 00 00 00
to

Code: [Select]

33 45 49 5A 55 52 45 FF
desu ne?

[Bosola]

Good hunting. I would have expected it to be compressed and scattered around in lots of modules.

I already know that the party menu uses its own text strings, so 'sadness' and 'fury' will have to be changed there too.

If you want to resize the text strings, you'll need to find the text pointer tables. I don't know how to do that.

Still, let me see what happens when I rename my statuses...

Edit: As I thought. The strings KM has found are just for the status / equip menu. The battle module uses its own strings, possibly compressed. Change 'poison' to 'virus' and it'll appear as so in the status menu, but not as such in battle.

[Kudistos Megistos]

I've just checked, and there seem to be two uncompressed sets of strings for status effects. The second starts at 0x51EFA0, and that seems to be the one we see in the menu. The set I pointed out starts at 0x51D23C, and it's a slightly different set of strings.

Bosola, which set of strings did you check?

[Bosola]

I am using the PSX version. My strings begin at 0x793806. I can find no other relevant strings.

Perhaps the PC compresses less of the executable?

[Armorvil]

Thanks for the help, KM

On a side note, where did you get the FF7 text table ? I tried to download it from the link on the wiki page, but it doesn't work anymore

[DLPB_]

All of the menu stuff was placed into FF7.exe (any questions on the exe strings, I am your man ).  There are some exceptions but generally whatever was in the menu folder in PSX is now in the exe.  That includes character names (not including Ex-Soldier, which is in kernel2), non used shop dialogue, limit dialogue, menu text (like Equip), status effects, elemental effects. ff7text is here:

http://wiki.qhimm.com/FF7/FF_Text

and it does work.  With time you won't even need it.  Note that uppercase hex (in the game) is just h20 lower than the lowercase.  So 41 is a, and 21 is A.  Same for all letters.

Note that in the exe, Limit will come out as *IMIT.  It is just how they coded it.  Lower case will become upper case.  So if you want to search exe for say..  Fire.  You would search for IRE as a string, or use hex based on the table above.

There is a lot of stuff in the exe, some of it unused and some of it duplicated because it is used in multiple menus.

[Kudistos Megistos]

I am using the PSX version. My strings begin at 0x793806. I can find no other relevant strings.

Perhaps the PC compresses less of the executable?

Ah, I see. I sometimes forget that people work on that version

On a side note, where did you get the FF7 text table ?

I don't have one. It was possible to work out all the values from looking at the rest of the text.

[nfitc1]

On a side note, where did you get the FF7 text table ? I tried to download it from the link on the wiki page, but it doesn't work anymore

The wiki pages comes and goes sometimes. It was working for me yesterday.

As for the text table, I don't know where it is in the PSX version, but it's in the PC version inside the data/menu/menu_XX.lgp file. Inside that lgp file it's a paletted tex file with the name xxfont_*.tex (where xx is the language/country code). You'll have to find a tex viewer, but then it's just a table going from 0 to 255 characters (some are blank, particularly the last several).

[Armorvil]

That's not what I meant, about the table. Look at KM's screenshot of his hex editor, just above. On the left are the bytes, which is normal - but on the right, you have the actual text. And for the text to display, as far as I know, you need to load a table (a .tbl file) into your hex editor. Or is this screenshot from a program I do not know about ?... ...I tried Ficedula's FF7 Text and it works (I just turned the FF7.EXE.FF7 it created into a text file, so I can edit it and turn it back into a normal FF7.EXE), but I would have liked to use KM's method.

...Or perhaps my hex editor just sucks (I use Gold Finger) - but I don't know of any hex editor who can by itself intelligently turn bytes into the correct characters. You should need a file to do that, or to manually enter the correspondences between bytes and characters. Something I can't do with Gold Finger.

[Bosola]

Use this one of mine: http://www.mediafire.com/?sat2lc9gavi55i1

I'd appreciate advice on hex editors too. I'm currently using WindHex, but I'm looking for something with relative searching AND text table support. Anyone know of any?

[Armorvil]

Thank you again Bosola ; you really are a great help

[Kudistos Megistos]

Look at KM's screenshot of his hex editor, just above. On the left are the bytes, which is normal - but on the right, you have the actual text. And for the text to display, as far as I know, you need to load a table (a .tbl file) into your hex editor. Or is this screenshot from a program I do not know about ?

I'm just using a normal hex editor. HxD, to be precise. Under extras>options>view you can set it to show ANSI on the right. It's a standard hex editor function, not a FF7 specific thing.

[Armorvil]

Oh, that explains it. Thanks ! The wiki doesn't mention this, since it says that it's a particular format Square chose, for FFVII.

[Kudistos Megistos]

Oh, that explains it. Thanks ! The wiki doesn't mention this, since it says that it's a particular format Square chose, for FFVII.

FF7 does have an unusual format; that's why the lower case letters are shown as upper case and the upper case ones are shown as various punctuation signs and such. If FF7's text were "normal", it would appear on the right of the editor just as it appears in the game.

[Armorvil]

True that. And it's too bad HxD doesn't support .tbl files So yeah, Bosola's question still stands (Gold Finger's table support kinda sucks).

[DLPB_]

I use Neo.  It is pretty good even in freeware form.  If anyone knows any better let me know

[nfitc1]

I use Neo.  It is pretty good even in freeware form.  If anyone knows any better let me know

Me too. I have no problem with it even though some things don't work great in freeware. It does everything I need it to.

[Armorvil]

Neo doesn't support .tbl files though... I ended up using Windhex, just like Bosola ^^

As a side note, after turning the only 'Dual' into 'Seizure', in FF7.exe, I'm glad to say it works perfectly. When hit by Dual in battle, the status displayed below the character's HP/MP is indeed 'Seizure'

[Bosola]

Can you tell me more about dual / seizure in your mod? How did you implement it?

[Armorvil]

Oh, it's just another status effect that Remedies, Tranquilizers, Esuna & Frogsuna (the E.Skills that removes ailments, since White Wind don't remove them anymore) can cure. FF7 AV made it part of the Poison status, but in TG (=Total Grudge) they're separated.

[Bosola]

Only just saw this.

What I meant was, how do you get around the bugs in dual / dual-drain?

[Armorvil]

What bug ?