Let's Hack FF6 Stream - 5/12/2016

After a crazy week off (for me, anyway) I am back to streaming this week! Really missed you guys last week and can't wait for another stream.

First off, as part of an informal vote in-thread... do you guys think it would be worth creating a sub-forum for my stream and/or all of our streams to keep track of topics individually, as well as a hub for sharing the videos, patches, etc... created by the hacking streams?


So this is less of a "what should i do THIS week?" and more of a "Here are some ideas, let me get some feedback." I've got a couple of ideas. I know we aren't quite finished with the Desperation Enhancement yet, but I'm going to use this thread to explore a few project ideas with you guys, and see what you want to do with the stream going forward. I want to take this a bit more seriously and really try to improve the quality of the stream content. I am leaving multiple options on the poll, so pick the topics that you are most interested in, not just for this week.

Here are my current ideas:

Q&A Nights/Hack Let's Play Commentary
I lump the let's play idea together with the Q&A as a sort of backup for if there aren't specific questions to explore. Maybe we could plan to have 1-2 of these a month depending on how much enthusiasm they generate. I like the idea of the stream very specifically helping people instead of just being me blah-ing out content on you guys. Let's Play Commentary would be me playing any kind of FF6 Hack and talking about it with a specific focus on what it would take to do on the hacking side, or whatever idea's about hacking it makes me think of, even if the hack doesn't currently have it in there (I say this because a lot of hacks are primarily graphical/story edits, with limited ASM work).

Hacking Beginner Series Tutorials
These would be from the ground up FF6 Hacking tutorials in various aspects... things like Hex Editing, Event Editing, and Battle Scripts are my strong suits, but can also do some spriting/MML work too (tho I am FAAAAAR from the best).


Some specific topics I'm looking at for the near future:

Desperation Attack Enhancement
Ok, so some things I'd like to hear from you guys about... first off, of course we have the option to continue with the Desperation Attacks enhancement... spell edits can be fun and have a bunch of places they need to hook to...

Primal Ifrit Boss Battle

Spoiler (Click to View)

A while back I did a Titan Extreme hack that was, *ahem*, a little over-the-top... I was really excited to work on my AI Upgrade hack and coming off of a FFXIV kick and wanted to make a superboss, and didn't make it very accessible or intuitive. Well, its time for Titan EX's little brother, Primal Ifrit to have a go... This would not be geared towards max level, super-geared characters, nor require near-perfect execution to win... However, I am a big fan of skill-based boss battles and not something to just run over with Ultima... That being said... out-leveling or out-gearing the boss will still be possible to lighten the experience on those who can't handle all the mechanics well... All that to say... I've got a neat idea for this boss, and I'd be happy to build in on stream... One of the big bonuses for doing this kind of thing on stream is that there is a lot of play-testing, as well as it being very presentation-based in nature so it will be a lot less dry than pouring over hex all night.

Low-Level Superboss!
Yes, another boss hack idea... I don't have a sprite/backstory worked out for this one (lots of room for input!) but I've wanted to do a low-level optional boss for a long time... I've always been a proponent of the idea that content should be spread out throughout a game, not be solely focused on the end-game... but one of the major problems is skillsets and itemization in low levels are limited... This will be especially true with this super-boss. I am taking this one all the way back to the Narshe Mines, and it will be fought by Vicks/Wedge/Terra in their Magitek Armors... I've got a few good mechanics in-mind and think it would be a really fun project. I would definitely like to hear some ideas on themes, mechanics, and a backstory for the boss (that would make sense for it being there). Once we've got a good idea, I'd be open to original sprites from our spriters here on the site.

FF6 Expansion Toolkit
This may be something I put together off-stream, or coordinate with others on the site... but I want to put the idea out there... The idea basically stems from the vanilla version 1.2 idea put forth by Imzogelmo. What I'd like to see is the majority of the bugs in FF6 found/patched, as well as expansion of all the primary expandable categories (ROM size, sprites, music, battle scripts, item names, monster sprites, maps?, etc...), with full documentation to be released as a new base ROM for hackers to work with. This would standardize expansions instead of making everyone do it themselves and help avoid potential conflicts... Also, how many times have you come across code that you have no idea what it is because it came from a patch you applied but exists in the same section of code you want to work with? Creating and annotating a disassembly of all these standardized changes means for the majority of the grunt work, its all right there in plain English for you. This would make the only you have to worry about in your hack is your hack.

Children of Vector

Spoiler (Click to View)

This is a thing... it probably isn't going to die, but it will probably also never live... it is a bottomless pit of things to do... as morbid as that all sounds, working on Children of Vector would be a great way to spend time on-stream, and allows me to do a bunch of different topics. This would also be a great place to talk about FF6 in general... Theories, speculations, general geeking-out... This project was my baby, but is much too big a project to actually complete.

Other...
I really love input from you guys. Seriously, the only reason doing the stream is interesting at all is because you guys are there... I like bouncing ideas around, I like discussion, I like togetherness. "Other" really is a major category... So let me hear what you guys want.



***UPDATE:*** We are going to be starting on the Primal Ifrit boss fight tonight! Lot's of good topics tonight. Here's what we will be covering!

Applying AI Upgrade Patch
AI Upgrade Patch and overview
using lunar ips

Monster Sprites
.png format
GIMP 2
FF6 SE (Sprite Editor)

Hexwork
HxD
C2 Disassembly
Mold editing!

**IF WE HAVE TIME**
Event Editing
Event Script
FF3 LE Rogue+


Happy Hacking!

https://www.twitch.tv/b_run_
https://countingdownto.com/countdown/let...down-clock

As usual I'll go with the QnA option, though a lot of my doubts have been cleared recently. I would like to know more about event bits, and what do I need to know to successfuly change the event flow of things and spice the gameplay up a bit.

I'm also interested in making battle commands, like those I've seen in RotDS or even on CoV, I found the girl's special ability quite interesting.

And if you need a hack to play if the questions turn out too short, why not play my hack? I welcome any kind of feedback

These are all some great venues to take a stream, nice ideas. I could see any of them being enjoyable to watch and learn from, save the expansion toolkit which I agree could be done off-stream just the same. But yeah it's nice to have a diverse selection like this at our disposal. I'm all for enjoying a custom boss hack, low level custom event optional 'super boss(es)' is something that's crossed my mind before as well. Or picking back up on the assembly with the desperation attacks, that seemed to be going nice. Or some custom skills in general like Kuga suggests. Various beginning hacking teachings would be great for those that could benefit from that, which I'm sure there's quite a few. And of course continuing work on CoV sounds fine just fine! Anyways looking forward to Thursday's stream!

Edit: Picking back up on the 15th man project might be a thought...?

I've chosen beginner's hacking tutorials. While there's plenty of Hex tutorials online, something like absolute, lorom and hirom offset explanation could be good. Event and ASM 101 too, maybe focus on event stuff I have not covered in my two tutorials? As for ASM I'd strongly suggest you wait until you get used with an assembler, because showing newbies to calculate manually branching and learn hex values of opcodes is adding one layer of complexity into something that can already look complex. It's not useless to know how, but the use of an assembler makes that learning very secondary. AI scripting and events seems to be two good alternatives for now.

As for expansion toolkit, it serve little purpose of expanding what we have no editor for I think. While the modified FF3se expansion is static for now, I have plan to make the expansion with my other editor(s) customizable to both FX banks and exhirom banks. I don't mind tweaking my FF6LE+ in that regard and remove the use of the patch. FF6ExED already allow customization and I plan to do the same for FF6EME (both editors should eventually merged into a single one). FF6EME will render the modified and original FF6se outdated.

Aargh, it's hard to make a meaningful choice here because they're all pretty good ideas.

I think a Let's Play would be a relatively strange direction to go, but I agree that Kuga's hack is probably a good choice if you choose to go that route.

The Expansion Toolkit sounds dry but oh-so-useful. I'm not sure it's the best candidate for a stream necessarily though (whoops, why did I vote for it?).

I partially feel like it would be cool to watch you work on Children of Vector, but I don't want to see everything go down a bottomless pit either.

Well, out of 8 options... its currently a 6-way tie -_- .

I Think Mad's right about the toolkit... as much as it's something I'd love to see, it would force a lot of extra work without utilities to handle relocated data. But then we run into causality paradox... we need editors to work comfortably with expanded data, but without expanded data there's no reason to make the editors compensate... its going to all have to be done in one go... which I definitely can't do.

I need to spend some time working with xkas so I can start doing hacking streams without Wall'O'Hex... so in the meantime I am leaning towards events (which have to be in hex anyway) or AI scripting... I already have plans for Primal Ifrit... so that's the front runner currently (unless anyone has a good concept for a Narshe Mines super optional)... I do want to do maybe one night a month doing Q&A and a chill-run of a hack... so let's say on the last Thursday this month (26th) I will answer hacking questions and play Kuga's hack in the meantime (which i know almost nothing about). Sound like a plan?


I would still love more feedback... Even people who do not make the stream, I want your input too! I want to know what interests everyone... feel free to use the write-in option. Also, what do people think about a sub-forum? There could be a Primal Ifrit topic, a Desperation Attack Enhancement topic, etc... that way as we jump in-and-out of topics we can revisit threads... This would also keep me from having to make a new topic every week for the stream as I could have a stickied thread at the top for general stream announcements and such.

Thoughts?

Ok guys, I've got a bunch of prep ready for tonight (so a lot less floundering). We are going to start working on the Primal Ifrit boss fight. We probably won't get to the actual scripting tonight because there's a ton of back-end to work on first (yay!) We will be hitting these hacking topics.

Applying AI Upgrade Patch
AI Upgrade Patch and overview
using lunar ips

Monster Sprites
.png format
GIMP 2
FF6 SE (Sprite Editor)

Hexwork
HxD
C2 Disassembly
Mold editing!

**IF WE HAVE TIME**
Event Editing
Event Script
FF3 LE Rogue+


I strongly encourage you guys to follow along with your own copy of the ROM as I will be walking through this literally step-by-step. Feel free to do this with your own bosses instead of Ifrit to get yourself rolling and add some flavor to your hacks. Seriously, this stream is to get you guys to feel less intimidated by doing "big stuff" on your own hacks. I hope to see a lot of questions and general chat tonight... I think it's going to be a really good stream.

See you all there!

Happy Hacking!

I missed the stream because of work but I'll catch it on YT and give feedback probably tomorrow. B-Run's post is a nice program though!

Rats, I thought it was Wednesday yesterday. When I found out today that it was Friday I was pretty surprised.