Tech issues

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Actully, there are several "stroy" flags in there as well, I was playing with the honeybee inn data, then there exactly 4 of those. One when Cloud comes in for the first time, and arith waits on the way left, the second one is when arith waits outside the honeybee inn door and everyone is pestering her. The 3rd is when cloud is in a dress and they crowd around him not alloing him to enter the field, and last is when the shinra solder is blocking the door and says that shinra took over. It appears that when a field is "Called" from the last field, it also passes these "story flags" as well. (You can pass these flags from a dialog choice too) ^_^
 
Obviously there are some flags defining how far through the story you've got ... I always assumed they were 'global' though, in the sense that any level *could*, if it wanted, modify any flag.
 
Hmmm, I too always thought that those flags were global.
Are you trying to say that those flags also define when you access a field?
You could be right though...........Anyway, I just wanted to point out some things here.

The save games files actually do save which disc you are on so I'm sure this info is important in some way. Thus, I tried to make the first field file(the railway scene at the start of the game) into 3 savefiles. Each as Disc1,Disc2 and Disc3 respectively. Then I copied my movies to my hard drive. What's odd is when I get to a movie scene, where I first see the mako reactor, the game will crash if i use the save games from disc2 or disc3 but not with disc1. So, I guess the movies in the game only run on a per-disc basis. Even with all the avi files stored locally, the game still jammed.

2nd, thing. Assume I load an edited savegame with a party of lets say Barret, Cait Sith and Aeris(Seems stupid and likely to crash right) The thing is, the game will not crash. In fact it will still run normally. One thing which is special or rather what I'm trying to point out is your main character will usually not appear in the field screen. The field character is not missing, he's only just invisible; you can still exit the screens and interact with everything. The most important part is this: Upon entering certain field files, the character will actually be displayed and you will see him appear. Doesn't this mean that the possible people to appear in a field file is also defined?

[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited March 25, 2001).]
 
Yes.If you extract a field file from FLEVEL.LGP and decompress it, one of the sections right at the start is a list of 'names' - things like "cloud", "tifa", "reno", plus others. It's only a guess, but it seems reasonable to assume it's a list of the models required by the scene.
 
Aha! That answers everything In the field files the movies are not refrenced by name, but by *number* so the program loads it *knows* what disk it's on and assumes that if it's on disk three, it the movie video must be movie #1 on that disk. But you can fool the program by changing the disk number. but keeping the other disk in at load. (looks like the only time the disk is checked is when you are told to change it)Wait enlighenment!

On disk 3 there is the metero in the sky and the gun in junon has been moved...Check to see of, by switching the disks in the dave data, the world is changed. It may use the same data from the disks, but the game thinks "Hey, I'm on disk 3, put a metero in the sky" even through you have disk one actully in the drive. you follow?
 
If it helps, the midi files are referenced entirely by number. The field file contains a single byte specifying which midi to play by default when the location is loaded. If you look in the EXE, there's a list of all the .MID's in the game, which are (surprise surprise) in the order used to number them. (This is how I got the midi change feature in Cosmo). I suspect it's the same with the movies. Sound effects, of course, have no filename so they have to be referenced by number.
 
I could try it if you really want to.
But if the PC version is a direct port of the playstation, it should work exactly the same. Why? When you play the PSX version and use the swap disc trick during videos, you will actually see other videos and you will resume the game from that disc!
 
naa i dont think the movies work that way on the PC version, why? cos if u use the reg hack, and place all the movies to your harddrive then it works without a hitch, or if u use the crack which produces a set of fake movie files with the same filename, in the movies dir. this prooves that thet r referenced by filename thru either a reference file (like a list ina specified order) or thru a list in the EXE
 
Well, obviously they have to be referenced by filename *somewhere*. What I'm saying is, it's probably by a list in the EXE, since that's what happens with midi's. The level file says essentially "Play midi #75" and the EXE has a list to look up which filename that corresponds to. Movies probably work the same.
 
How did they do the movie lookups in FF8? Cause the movie loading time for FF8 is far greater and synced than FF7 is. Would it be possible to change it like that, so if we load a movie, we don't have the pause?Sephiroth 3D

"One who seeks knowledge from another person, doesn't learn half as much as the one who seeks knowledge for himself." - Vincent Valentine, The Sephiroth Chronicals, Book 1: Resurrection

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I believe the delay is caused by your CD Drive spinning up. In FF8, the CD probably spins up before the video is needed thus making the video appear to have no delay. Mind my comment though, I haven't played FF8 in a long time.As for the movie files being referenced by a list in the EXE file, could flevel.siz be for that purpose too?

BTW, fice in the text dialogue section, is there a function located right after a choice?
For example, the text box

Give flower to
Tifa
Marlene

Is the function call to give the flower to tifa or marlene located right after the text choices, or is it located in a whole new block of the flevel.lgp?

If it is, do you think it's linked by order again?
 
I'm pretty sure it's located in a whole different block in the level file. So yes, it'd be referenced by number again. Somewhere else in the file, there'd be the equivalent of:Display text item 11 as choice
If option 1 chosen, goto action 3
If option 2 chosen, goto action 5

...or something like that.
 
There are two unique files besides the .TUT and field files in flevel.lgp
They are :-
maplist
flevel.sizI really wonder why they're there...........

Anyway, I think that each field file can only have one automated(scripted) scene since there are several field files that have the exact backgrounds in the flevel.lgp file.
Any opinions?
 
Maplist is possibly the index for location files, so that they can be referenced by number too.
 
The Skillster: IIRC, the crack has to edit the registry based on what disc you're on. If you're on disc 1, it has to name it disc 1, if you're on disc 2, it has to name it disc 2, etc.
 
srethron: im afraid its a rare case that o have to correct u on this one  :D
yes it hacks the REGISTRY but it doesnt hack the cd number, it does edit THE CD DRIVE LETTER AND THE DIRECTORY FOR THE MOVIES. it places fake AVI files in to the "final fantasy VII/Movies" folder and points the registry to those if the game eva needs to use a movie...
i know i hacked the reg myself numerous times
i also once used a "virtual drive" from memory to bypass the CD reading routine. I USED to keep the movies on my hard drive, i actually converted ff7 movies from the PSX one time, but i forgot what the outcome was...
 
About playing FF7 without the CD's,
in the registry at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARESquare Soft, Inc.Final Fantasy VII
If you change the value for the key "datadrive" to
and the value of the key MoviePath to where your movies reside,
FF7 will run without the CD's and no patch is required. But before you load FF7, you will need to change your hard drive label to FF7DISC1 or DISC(whatsoever) depending on the disc you need to load. When you're required to insert a new disc, all you need to do is ALT-TAB out of the game and change your drive label.
Okay, back to the topic.
Remember when I said earlier that the if you try to replace cloud with sephiroth in the field files you might get a distorted version of sephiroth that can do impossible angles of movement? Well, at first i thought the problem occured only because of some problems with the HRC, P , A file systems.
After thinking for a while, I think those few files don't contribute to the problem at all! Why?

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S
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P
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O
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I
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L
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E
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R
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Just before the scene where Aeris gets killed, you will notice that Vincent seems to have the same problem as Sephiroth who replaced cloud. He's legs appear in stupid angles and he stands in stupid poses too. But the odd thing is, that it only happens at this section of forgotten city. It doesn't happen anywhere else such as forgotten capital or any other field area. This has led me to believe that the errors we get are caused by the field files themselves. I don't think this problem occurs in the PSX version, so this clearly shows a port problem and since it does not happen any where else I'm sure it's a problem with the field file.
Anyone want to confirm this for me?
 
i still dont understand that, xplain abit simpiler and ill get onto it
 
I think it is indeed a problem with the .P/.A files, but the field files are related.Why? We know that the field files specify models to load (and they can change them too, e.g. when Cloud crossdresses in Wall Market). So if a Square programmer screwed up in that one field file and mis-specified Vincent's filenames, that'd account for the problems you mention. It *is* all to do with matching .P and .A files, just that one field file had the instructions mixed up.

That's my guess, anyway.
 
Do you guys want to move this thread to the tech forum?
After all, it seems to not exactly remake related. It would be good if the public wants to read this.
We can always start a new one in here anyway
 
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