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i have the game on my rom for the computer but when i try to use the hacking programs it says that it cannot use the file because it is read only.... did i do something wrong or do i just need to download the game from somewhere else?

If you're trying to use that one editor by Yousei, you'll likely get that error. I think his is called FF3Edit. Don't bother trying to get that to work; it'll just ruin your game anyways.

If you really want to hack the only "real" way to do it is just with a hex editor. If you're bent on using an editor, though, I can really only suggest the FF3 Multi Editor and the FF3 Sprite Editor. Both can be found right here at CoN: http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/ff6/downloads/editors.php

If you make a hack using just editors, though, good luck getting someone to take it seriously and play it. If you're doing it just for yourself, though, feel free to use those.

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 11th April 2007 10:39

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Is PJ

Back in the early days, I used to use Yousei's editor. The only problem I ever had with it was that it'd screw up my sprites under certain circumstances and once crashed the game entirely while editing the overworld.

Check if the file is set to read only. Right-click on it, go to properties in the popup menu (should be the last item), and look for the readonly checkbox near the bottom of the screen. Make sure it is left unchecked - uncheck it if it is. If that's not the problem, Yousei's editor is at fault, though personally I never ran into that problem and I think it's been abandonned by its original creator (unless someone picked up the project anew.)

You may want to try out working with a hex editor. It's a difficult, daunting task at first, but the learning experience is very cool and when you start knowing what you're doing you can do pretty crazy stuff. You should see the kind of things Caesar and I discuss over emails for our FFV hack.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Okay i got FF3usME, but when i try to edit things on it all the options that i can pick like monsters or characters or even weapons and armor it just turns up blue and i cant read what i am picking, whats up with this?

And then i tried hex editor but i dont know what codes to change to get certain effects. is there a website that has these codes?

This post has been edited by aleaking on 11th April 2007 23:37

You need to load a ROM first. Also, the ROM cannot be read-only. Considering you're getting this problem again, your ROM is probably read only. Try what I mentionned in my previous post. Placing a file in read-only mode prevents other programs from modifying the file. It's a safeguard, but not a very strong one because you can uncheck the option anyway - sometimes you can even do it from within the program you're trying to edit the file with (ex: TextPad.) Regardless, well-behaved programs won't allow you to edit a read-only file, and it has to be set back to read enable first.

Working with a hex editor is difficult, and you're going to fall back on editors for quite some time. If you want to do serious hacking, you'll have to spend a bit of time getting used to working with a hex editor and learning techniques to find and understand data. You should know a ROM is split up into a number of "banks" 64k in size (65536 bytes; 0x0000 to 0xFFFF in hex.) Banks are numbered from C0 to FF, and the first few are generally filled with code - until you get more familiar and used to working with hex, don't bother with the first 256k of the ROM as it's mainly code.

You'll also need to learn hex. You can fall back on the Windows calculator (start menu -> run -> calc) Put it in scientific mode (View -> Scientific) and hit F5. You're in hex mode. Hit F6. You're back in decimal mode. You can convert by entering a number while in the appropriate mode and switching to the other mode (ex: hit F5 to go in hex mode, put in A0, hit F6 to go back to decimal mode, and you can see that 0xA0 in hex means 160 in decimal.) Ideally you should learn how this works so you don't have to depend on the calculator; hex goes from 0 to 9 and after that A to F. After F, it's 10, 11, 12... 1D, 1E, 1F, 20, so forth. A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, F = 15. Just multiply the first digit (nybble) by 16 and add the second one. For instance, 0xA5 is 10 (A) x 16 -> 160, add the 5 -> 165.

Let's suppose you want to find enemy data. Find yourself a corruption program (most ROM hacking sites have some) and corrupt each bank one by one. Run the game and note the changes. Once you end up with enemies that have screwy stats, you've found the bank the data's in. Restrict your search to this bank (hint: you can get the offset of a bank easily by subtracting 0xBFFE00 from it: bank D1 for instance, is at... (0xD10000 - 0xBFFE00) -> 0x110200.) and look for stats you're familiar with (like the amount of health an enemy has.) If nearby values correspond to other stats the enemy has, you've found your enemy.

The final step is identifying how big the enemy structure is (they should all be the same size) and what each byte means (they're always the same; for example, if byte 5 for enemy X represents the amount of strength an enemy has, you can be sure byte 5 for enemy Y will also be strength.)

It's complicated at first but eventually becomes second nature. And between you and me, there's only so much an editor can do. Caesar and I have nearly all of the FFV ROM decoded. We can alter what we've found in any way we like - for instance I found a bit of data that tells the game how to represent the world map in mode 7 while in the airship, and made a Terranigma-like effect by changing it. Even if there were editors for FFV, they'd probably only let you edit items, spells, enemies, text, and a few other things like that. Which is hardly impressive...

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

at the risk of sounding like a complete idot
what?

What part do you want more detailled information on?

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 13th April 2007 14:02

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

It's likely that aleaking is using FF3usME 6.41.
I'm having the exact same issue with it (I came here trying to find a solution, unsuccessfully).

The comboboxes (all the drop-down menus that use the FF3 text) are blank. The entries are there - just can't see them.

All the graphics (monster sprite in the monster editor, background graphics in the Formation editor) are blank. Again they're there, just can't see them.

Makes it almost impossible (or at least extremely difficult) to use.

FF3usME 6.31works perfectly, but I was looking forward to testing the ROM expansion features of 6.41 (Can't test 6.4, at it was cancelled).

So, aleaking, unless you're up for taking a nosedive into Hex Editing (which is easy, once you grasp the basics), I'd recommend heading to Lord J's Website (<-- Link) and getting FF3usME 6.31, instead of the most recent version.

If you want to learn how to REALLY hack the game, The Unoriginal White Sheet (<-- another Link) is where you want to be (Specifically, check the Enemy command script tutorial)

Good luck~

This post has been edited by GLoC on 24th April 2007 02:03

Rune, do you have any info on the FF5 SPC format? I believe it uses a header of 22 bytes, but beyond that, I'm not really sure.

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Food is like magic in my ears. - Djibriel
Ogopogo lives.

I'm fairly sure that this thread's about FFVI ROM hacking, and that a PM would've worked just as well, but who am I to judge?

The SPC format is identical in all games - it's a chipset programmed to work in a specific way. I'm assuming you meant the format the music is stored in, though, which is then converted by the little SPC driver FF5 loads up into something the SPC7000 can use.

FFV stores its music in a scripting format. Each channel runs a script and all channel scripts run at the same time, producing a stream of information for the SPC7000. It works very much like FFVI, though there are some differences in the instructions and such.

I mentionned in the FFV hack thread that I would not be releasing my notes until the hack is complete. Partly to keep the hack a unique project, but also to ensure the accuracy of my notes (I'm sure we all remember how the tile assembly data turned out wrong. ) You are right about the header (IIRC) being 22 bytes: I forgot what the first couple of bytes were but most are pointers used to determine the offset and length of each channel's script. The rest of the data is the script data (with no terminator, seeing as they can and often do loop, so the game relies on the pointers for that.)

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

FF3usME 6.42 is out if anyone's still having problems with 6.41.

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The Unoriginal White Sheet

-Master ZED

I'm having to dabble in Hex for model editing for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (editing lightsaber hilts and such...), but I had no idea people were using hex to decode FF6! Impressive! What does this eman, that when its all decoded, you could change the game around, or add new content (like mods in modern games)?

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"Sometimes I amaze even myself." -Han Solo, "Star Wars: A New Hope"

Data is stored as hex. So long as you know where to look for it (trial and error is rarely the right way to do this - there are tricks, even if you don't know assembly) you can edit it.

That pretty much goes without saying for anything. Be it a ROM, a binary executable, anything really. Data is data.

Have a look at this for an example of what can be acheived with ROM hacking. Doesn't take too much talent, just some good creativity and the ability to be resourceful in hunting down things you need.

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 22nd May 2007 03:28

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Are there any editors for mac?