ROM Hack Fire Emblem Fates: ROM Hacking General Thread

[jeremy1988]

So, I got further along in my hack, not that anyone cares... LOL.

Now, I'm reaching a point where I would like to be able to control more precisely how the camera works in scenes rather than just reusing existing setups. It seems like that just isn't going well because it requires me to load up the scene in the game every single to view the results of making blind changes to numbers that I don't really understand.

This means that in some cases, switching to a different "field" makes it nearly impossible to predict where the characters are going to wind up on it, or where I need to define the camera or the spots... like, there's no visuals here whatsoever... I have to go entirely by the numbers and what I can see in the engine after a random script edit to change these things. It would probably be fine if I were better at thinking in three dimensions, but I'm not. At this point I just feel grateful if I wind up creating a scene on accident where the characters happen to walk into view of the camera.

Another thing I was interested in somewhat is editing these TLP things that are technically stored as BCH files, but don't work like normal BCH files at all. They're used for scenes like when Takumi or Elise get sick, and 2D artwork fills the screen. It's turning out that those files are remarkably resistant to being edited... you can't change the position of the images within the file, and it seems like it's hard to do anything other than replace an existing image with another image, and even that takes a lot of work and has to be done "just right," with lots of weird restrictions that don't seem to apply to the "normal" BCH files that people usually edit.

So basically I feel a bit stuck because I really don't want to wind up with falling back to standard, dialog-only conversations and ripping out every single unique or cool cutscene in the game, but that really would be the easiest way to continue. :/

Like it was fine accepting that most of the FMV stuff would have to go, but it looks like even more is now going to be on the chopping block to make this work.. I'm willing to give up on editing the TLPs, but I really think there has to be a better way to figure out the X/Y coordinates I need to setup a scene with existing models and fields... or maybe I just need to get good through trial and error, I don't know.

 

[BuddhaHunterMac]

The more hacks the better

 

[jeremy1988]

So, I'm doing better at figuring out how to manipulate scenes, the only thing I've found that really helps is trying to set things up so the Cutscene I want to manipulate loads as early as possible in the chapter script so I can see the effects after editing in Exalt and then loading up the chapter, without having to sit through a bunch of stuff I'm not touching yet. This is particularly helpful for working on ending scenes without having to beat the whole chapter just to see them.

I've figured out the camera angles somewhat, and one thing that's really helping me is that I understand enough Katakana and Hiragana to be able to make sense of a lot of the unlocalized script functions, though the Kanji are still killing me. One odd thing I've discovered is that there are actually commands very similar to the ones in Exalt that happen inside dialogue scripts... that is, you have to set them up the actors and everything in a Cutscene script in Exalt, and specify which dialogue script to use... but then for more precise control of timing in relation to text, you essentially use those commands through $Bev in Paragon, though in that case the functions will be "raw" and almost always have the Japanese names rather than localized ones.

An example of something that I'm working on that is frustrating, but I can live without... is I want someone in a scene to have a horse and walk forward with the horse. The problem is that every time I use the "Walk" command in Exalt, the character gets off their horse and drags it forward before getting back on it. They apparently did not implement a way to have a mounted character walk forward outside of battle... or at least not an obvious way. Looking at the in-game scenes kind of makes me realize they worked around this limitation and left me no choice but to do the same... every scene where a mount would have needed to move is done as map sprites or something, and when mounts are shown, they are mostly static or attacking, not simply walking.

I suppose that's the fault of the game engine's creators, but it seems like such a frustratingly simple thing to be told I cannot do, and I either have to put the character without the mount or never have them move at all during the cutscene...