Final Fantasy VI SDK - Going Social!

[MagitekElite]

(How did I not get a email this thread has been alive for the pass couple days? :C )

Anyway, I was reading over the last comments and such and the answers given by Dargor, and I have to say, this is going to be the best project ever to be release for XP, which will soon be independent, of course. lol

The music extension sounds nice, although I've never heard of ogg. it sounds very nice.

The feature of using a boat is very interesting. I have a fan game for FFVI (completed the script and stuff) and the boat is very important. This feature, if added, will help it along nicely. :D

Also, there is no limits on how many parties you can have at the same time. So if you want a dungeon sequence to be done with 5 parties or more, you can. And about the 3 scenario party switching thing, it's clearly doable. I'm not sure if I would add this in my remake but it would only require you to setup (in an event) the 3 groups; in which map thei start, at which position, etc.

Oh, holy cow! I really like the sound of this! :D

I have a question though. What will you do about Figaro diving under the sand? Will this just be a simple fade screen, shake screen and then transport to the area of Kolhingen? Or will have to have a more advance way of doing it?

Also, what about implementing the features of t Soul Cave (I do believer that's the name of it) from the GBA game? Unless this is for the Snes version?

Well, if its Snes, I think it would be cool t be able to have the Soul Shrine added. Or a similar system encase someone wants to re-create it.

Also, what about the Colosseum? How will you go about making that? Would it be easy, or hard?

I have loads of questions, but I won't want this post to be too long lol

@clockworkbutterfly:
Me too, actually. I was trying to rip graphics whilst waiting for this project to be released. I have a rival? :D

 

[Dargor]

@Imzogelmo
The party selection menu will have scrolling effects for both the reserve members window and the parties window.
The reserve window will scroll like the item window (the content will scroll) while the parties window will scroll like when you access the item properties window (the whole windows will scroll).

However, I'm not planning on expanding the party size to 5 or more.

And about the battle commands, any actors can have any battle commands you want and each of these actors have battle command properties.
I mean, you can have 2 characters with, lets say, the Blitz command. The first one could have the command in the 3rd slot and enabled by default, the second actor could have this command in the first slot and disabled or even hidden by default. The relation between battle commands and actors is fairly customizable

You can also specify in which of the command windows you want an actor's command to be. So if I take the above example, actor 1 could have its Blitz command in the left command window (the one with the Row command) and actor 2 have it in the right window (Defense).

There are obviously 3 windows, Left, Center and Right.
There is no limit on how many commands you can have per window and if you have more than 4, it will scroll.
I'm not sure on how I will handle the "short" command windows yet...

@clockworkbutterfly
Thanks, I'm truly glad you like it

@MagitekElite

1) The Figaro to Kolhingen transition will be made with events, using animated sprite and screen effects.

2) All the features found in the GBA version will be there
The Sound Test, the Bestiary will be editable in the SDK. The Soul Shrine and Dragon's lair will be in the remake.
Also, I'll try my best to rip every extra resources the GBA version have and include then in the RTP.

3) The Colosseum will also have its own editor. In fact, I might simply add a "Colosseum Formation ID" property to the items and, when you select this item in the Colosseum selection screen, it will trigger a battle with the specified monster formation ID.
But, there is at least 2 scripted moments in the Coloseum: the battle with Shadow and the battle with Gilgamesh (GBA)
I'm not sure how I'll be handling this yet.

By the way, I'm not sure if I have already told you and I'm too lazy to go back in the thread and confirm that :P but I'm working on a new ID system for the SDK that will help organizing database objects. Contrarily to RPGXP which uses array index as ID, the SDK will be using real ID converted into an hexadecimal format to refer to these objects. That means that You can move any database object anywhere you want in the list and not loosing its references anywhere because it's id will not change. I have also changed the old listbox control for a treeview control. You can sort your database objects into custom folders and trust me, it's really really useful It helps organize your things a lot.

Take care!
-Dargor

 

[Celesinator]

I'm waiting to see how you recreated the intro @_@ I definitely can't wait for that. I'm trying to plan a game with my Ex-Scripter that will be made using the SDK lol...

 

[MagitekElite]

@MagitekElite

1) The Figaro to Kolhingen transition will be made with events, using animated sprite and screen effects.

2) All the features found in the GBA version will be there
The Sound Test, the Bestiary will be editable in the SDK. The Soul Shrine and Dragon's lair will be in the remake.
Also, I'll try my best to rip every extra resources the GBA version have and include then in the RTP.

3) The Colosseum will also have its own editor. In fact, I might simply add a "Colosseum Formation ID" property to the items and, when you select this item in the Colosseum selection screen, it will trigger a battle with the specified monster formation ID.
But, there is at least 2 scripted moments in the Coloseum: the battle with Shadow and the battle with Gilgamesh (GBA)
I'm not sure how I'll be handling this yet.

Ah, that's what I thought. While I was learning how to use RPGXP, I accidentally recreated the Figaro sinking scene lol
So I was interested in seeing how you would do it :D

@2:
Cool, it would be nice to make a Soul Shrine based on whatever enemies you wanted there. We can edit the monsters, right? Like add news ones or take old ones out...?
Ripping graphics is hard for me :crazy: how in the world can you stomach the patience it takes? :barf:
Either way, I'm sure FFVI (myself) will be glad for this and will appreciate all the hard work you've been doing. :thumb:

@3: I forgot about the Gilgamesh and Shadow part. :down: Will it be hard scripting, or something very easy and you have to think about how to go about it? :grin: (sorry if that made no sense lol)

By the way, I'm not sure if I have already told you and I'm too lazy to go back in the thread and confirm that :P but I'm working on a new ID system for the SDK that will help organizing database objects. Contrarily to RPGXP which uses array index as ID, the SDK will be using real ID converted into an hexadecimal format to refer to these objects. That means that You can move any database object anywhere you want in the list and not loosing its references anywhere because it's id will not change. I have also changed the old listbox control for a treeview control. You can sort your database objects into custom folders and trust me, it's really really useful It helps organize your things a lot.

Take care!
-Dargor

Oh, sounds very useful! The organize will help many people....especially me. I hate it when I can't organize things (is a freak about it).

Will implementing this be hard? It sounds like a difficult task to take...

Thanks for sharing updates and answering questions, Dargor! :cute: :heart:

 

[Dargor]

You can add/remove anything, monsters, items, spells, etc. So yes, this will be editable
And the parts with Gilgamesh and Shadow are very specific but I'll find a way to have this editable as user friendly as possible.

 

[MagitekElite]

Sounds great, Dargor.

I can't wait for further updates or maybe even a demo. It'll be awesome! :heart:

 

[clockworkbutterfly]

@clockworkbutterfly:
Me too, actually. I was trying to rip graphics whilst waiting for this project to be released. I have a rival? :D

@ MagitekElite
We're probably not thinking along too many of the same lines. Though it'll be interesting to see what we come up with side-by-side, it might be even more interesting to see what we could come up together. I don't recall what details I gave before (and am too lazy to look back), but I'm basically planning on doing a fairly basic retelling of FFVI.

It starts the same; nothing crazy new. In the beginning, on occasion, a few minor things happen differently plotwise. It might just involve a few new sprites, or a few re-scripted scenes, or perhaps a dungeon that has been totally remapped. These features will all escalate as the game continues, and I'm hoping that by the time the World of Ruin comes into play, veteran players will have no advantages over first-time ones because it'll be a wholly different permutation of how the events in FFVI could have occurred. I don't plan on making it super-hard or anything. I think the only real difference in gameplay from the original would be the removal of obvious glitches like Vanish + Death. This game would be all about the storyline and nothing else.

Want to work together?

 

[clockworkbutterfly]

Dargor,

One other quick question came to mind that is probably answered by RMXP, but again, I have never used it. Will you enable actual fonts (e.g. TTF) to be used, or will we have to use sprites for letters? If you haven't gotten this far, enabling TTF fonts would be extremely useful as then speakers of Asian languages especially would also be able to use this editor to write games in Japanese, for example. Or we could easily translate our games into Japanese or other languages as necessary. I ask because Asian fonts in Famicom/Super-Famicom sprite forms just look horrible and often can't accommodate everything needed in these languages. >.<;;

-- Clockwork Butterfly

 

[MagitekElite]

Oh, I was goin' to do a few things, actually. I was gonna make a fangame and then recreate the game :heart:

I think the feature of using TTF fonts would be great! But I think it would be extremely hard, unless scripts can do it...
We'll just have to wait for Dargor :D

 

[Dargor]

Yes the game will support .ttf fonts. There is currently 2 fonts 100% made by me.
The menu font and the dialog font. There is a Font folder in the game directory and the game automatically looks for the fonts in this folder before looking in the windows directory.

Font name and size will be customizable.

EDIT:

Woohoo!!! 1000 replies and almost 70,000 views!!! :O

 

[MagitekElite]

Sweet! I will most likely wanna be using the FFVI font either way, but its really nice to be able to freely edit it anyway we want

---->

Well, there are some really interested FFVI fans
Not a lot of people care for other FF games besides VII (sigh), I was probably the one that viewed it so much. I only recently became brave enough to make a account lol

 

[clockworkbutterfly]

Yes the game will support .ttf fonts. There is currently 2 fonts 100% made by me.
The menu font and the dialog font. There is a Font folder in the game directory and the game automatically looks for the fonts in this folder before looking in the windows directory.

Font name and size will be customizable.

Dargor, you are the MAN! I thought of one other thing that might be nice. Does it support playing movie files of any type? I suddenly recall the PSX version of FFVI having an intro and outro FMV and wasn't sure if there was a way to have those play as well.


@MagitekElite: I was actually originally planning to learn RMXP to remake FFIV, but once I played through the DS remake and heard about the sequel, I decided that justice had finally been done (for once) and there was truly nothing of value that I could add to it. Hence choosing VI instead... an epic ripe with characters who still haven't been pushed to their fullest potential.

 

[MagitekElite]

Well, if Dargor is keeping some of the features of XP, then I think (I could be wrong) that he will keep the movie importing part

@Clock:
There is always V or III

 

[Dargor]

Only RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 had support for movie files.

However, I must find a way to implement this in my SDK since there's a couple of moments in the game where I need these. For example, the cart ride that is in "3D". I have absolutely no clue how I woule be doing this unless I use a video. Save thing goes for the outro credits.

Maybe someday I'll learn more about those scenes and will be able to make them in-game instead of using a video.

 

[Imzogelmo]

So it would be possible to add additional battle commands? For instance, if I wanted to make a command "Kick" like Yang has in FFVI; could I actually make a targeting method for it, a damage formula, and an animation for it, and have it be visible in the editor to assign to whoever I wanted?

 

[Dargor]

Exactly

By default, attack commands use the normal attack formula but it is possible to have a damage formula specific to this command. You'll need to code it yourself though since this is an "Advanced" option.

Here's a list of things you can do when creating custom battle commands:
- Edit the name
- Setup it's targetting (only the targetting options from FF6 are available... for now.)
- Set wether it's an attack, item, magic, defense, row or custom command.
- If the command's type is Item or Magic, specify a category (black magic, tools, etc. Categories are customizable and you can have as many as you want) and a sub-window will open containing all the spells/items in the specified category. (Useful for Magitek or Tools)
- If the command's type is Item or Magic, specify the object display method in the window (1 or 2 Columns, Compact, Large, etc)
- If the command's type is custom, specify a script to run when excetuting the command (required for steal, mimic, or any other character specific commands. All special commands and scripts like that will be provided)
- If the command's type is custom, specify a spell to cast (useful for commands like Heal or Shock)
- You can specify if the command appears in Gogo's command selection screen
- You can specify if the command halts the battle when in Wait Mode
- You can specify a delay before the actor performs the command.
- Probably other things I'm forgetting at the moment

In FF6 there is no such things as "action delay" but there will be in the SDK.
Battle commands, items and spells will have an action delay property to help balance the game.
Action delay is the delay (in frames or second) before an actor actually performs an action. The action delay timer starts as soon as an actor confirms its action.

I was thinking this could be useful in special cases, for example, Ultima could take more time to cast than Fire.
Steal would be faster to perform than a Sword Tech.

Also, in the character battle graphic editor, it will be possible to specify a pre-action, action and post-action animation for specific battle commands, items and spells.

 

[MagitekElite]

Only RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 had support for movie files.

However, I must find a way to implement this in my SDK since there's a couple of moments in the game where I need these. For example, the cart ride that is in "3D". I have absolutely no clue how I woule be doing this unless I use a video. Save thing goes for the outro credits.

Maybe someday I'll learn more about those scenes and will be able to make them in-game instead of using a video.

What? Wow...I thought XP supported movie files lol
Well, thinking about adding it is good enough for me. :cute:

Here's a list of things you can do when creating custom battle commands:
- Edit the name
- Setup it's targetting (only the targetting options from FF6 are available... for now.)
- Set wether it's an attack, item, magic, defense, row or custom command.
- If the command's type is Item or Magic, specify a category (black magic, tools, etc. Categories are customizable and you can have as many as you want) and a sub-window will open containing all the spells/items in the specified category. (Useful for Magitek or Tools)
- If the command's type is Item or Magic, specify the object display method in the window (1 or 2 Columns, Compact, Large, etc)
- If the command's type is custom, specify a script to run when excetuting the command (required for steal, mimic, or any other character specific commands. All special commands and scripts like that will be provided)
- If the command's type is custom, specify a spell to cast (useful for commands like Heal or Shock)
- You can specify if the command appears in Gogo's command selection screen
- You can specify if the command halts the battle when in Wait Mode
- You can specify a delay before the actor performs the command.
- Probably other things I'm forgetting at the moment

FFVI fans will have a glorious time with this.

Eventin' new characters and giving them new attacks. I know this little feature will make my fangame so much better

 

[Dargor]

I just found a way to play .avi files in the game window using a Win32API call.
It works great

 

[MagitekElite]

Really? That was quick. :biggrin:

Thanks for adding the feature, Dargor! :cute:
Is it easy for the player, or easy to understand? :huh:

 

[Dargor]

Yes it is, the actuall code for the movie player is really small, about 40 lines long without the comments.
The only thing you need to do is place your .avi files in the Movie folder and then once the event editor will be there, simply add an event command command, pick your video file and specify the width and height if you want. But there is a limit in the size of the video which is 640x480. Larger videos will get stretched down.