Difference between revisions of "Temporal Flux Event Tricks"

Revision as of 05:04, 5 October 2007

1 Adding the Epoch
2 Battle with Monsters
- 2.1 Making an Enemy Walk Around
- 2.2 Causing the Battle
3 Change Locations with Fade Effects
4 Change the Opening
- 4.1 Getting Rid of the 1000 A.D. Scene
- 4.2 Adding a New Scene
5 Check for Gold Amounts Over 65535
6 Check the Game Clock
7 Draw Geometry
8 Drugged / Confused Effect
9 Fade / Darken
- 9.1 Darken the Scene
- 9.2 Fade a Character to White
- 9.3 Fade in Characters from Black
- 9.4 Fade in Scene from Black
- 9.5 Fade in Scene from White
- 9.6 Fade the Background to Black with Visible Characters
- 9.7 Combination Fade
10 Force a Cutscene
11 Increase Sound Volume with Approach
12 Make a Bed
13 Make a Character Turn White
14 Make a Conveyor Belt / Wind
15 Make a Save Point
16 Make a Treasure Chest
17 Make Treasure Randomly Grow or Appear
18 Make Doors
19 Multiple Planes
20 Prevent Crono from Speaking
21 Put More than One Room on a Map
22 Quickly Detect Text Corruption
23 Random Enemies or NPCs

Adding the Epoch

The first time you add the epoch to the game you will have to Do some memory commands in some arbitrary in your code and call that arbitrary.

Assign(Mem.7E0290=Pixel) //XCoord on Map
Assign(Mem.7E0292=Pixel) //YCoord on Map
Assign(Mem.7E029F=MapNumber)//Map LOCATION number 1FX
Assign(Mem.7E0294=XX)// A0 for wings 00 for no wings

Note: After some debugging it was found that the pixels for the X and Y coordinates should end in 0 and be far away from exits. Also make the width to two bytes for all assignments except the 7E0294.

Battle with Monsters

Making an Enemy Walk Around

StartupIdle
-load enemy (remember prm has to be 3--?)
-set coordinates
-return
-move sprite
-move sprite
-go to (first move sprite)

Arbitrary 0
-explore mode off
-move party to right spot
-move enemy(s) to right spot
-scroll screen
-Battle!
-remove objects
-return

Causing the Battle

This Code can be activated either by stepping on a spot (placing an object at the spot and making it's arb. 0 this code) or by touching an enemy (Making the enemies arb. 0 this code)

Arbitrary 0

ExploreModeOff
Move Party //move party to correct tiles
Move Sprite //if this is not the enemies arb do a callObjectFunction
Scroll Screen //params are upper left corner tile (x,y)
Battle
//if this is a random encounter (not touching enemy)
Remove (object)
ExploreModeOn

Change Locations with Fade Effects

In the first location, put:

Pause(0.250)
Darken(06)
FadeOutScreen
SoundCmd(SongVol, 18, 00)
WaitForSilence
Pause(0.250)
ChangeLocation (variant DF)

In the second one, put in Object00 after the Return:

Pause(0.875)
Darken(F6)
Pause(3.125)

Of course, the pauses are optional and can be adjusted to your liking.

I believe variant E0 will automatically do a fade in/out, though it may not do it at the speed you like. It may also not handle sound the same way.

Yes, the darken command allows to adjust the speed of the fades, and the song this way is also faded. I find this code useful to highlight special sequences such as ellipsises or "in the meanwhile" scenes.

Change the Opening

Getting Rid of the 1000 A.D. Scene

There's two ways:

Overworld event editing

Open up 1000 AD events
Scroll down till you see [2ab]
In the middle of that you'll see "init memory" and then Command 28
Leave the command 28 but you can delete all other commands below that
Leave AddObjects Mem.XXXXX='s, the Change location, and the end
Update and write to memory

Note: This method I think switches to 1000 AD for like a tenth of a second.

Location Event editing:

Open up location {000}
Under if(mem.70061=00) is a change location to 1F0 (above it is the change Crono's name dialogue box)
Change that location to 10F (instead of changing to 1000 AD map we just skip to the "wake up crono" map)

Adding a New Scene

1. Open up Location {1b1} Title Screen.
2. Object 1 Arbitrary 1 has a "change Location at the end"
3. Change that Location to the location that you will have your new Title screen be
4. In the events of your new location make some sort of small intro, make sure at the end of the intro you have a change location {000} Load Screen

...but in the intro location events, add those commands in Object00 after the Return (delete the End):

-CheckButton (All, Type1)
--ChangeLocation {000}
-GoTo the checkbutton

Note that if you have some Pause or ScrollScreen in Object00 they will probably interfer with the Check Button, so move them to a new object.

Now if you push a button during your intro you will be teleported back to the load screen, just like in CT. Unfortunately this doesn't work for the Start button, but the other buttons are fine.

Check for Gold Amounts Over 65535

Use Memory Assignment commands to copy the 3 gold bytes (7E2C53, 7E2C54, 7E2C55) somewhere into the 7F02xx+ location event temp memory.

Then, use several If Statements on those bytes to check for the gold amount.

Example - check if 500,000G or more obtained ($07A120)

Assignment, Mem to Mem, Variant 48, 7E2C55 to 7F0200, Width 1 byte
Assignment, Mem to Mem, Variant 49, 7E2C53 to 7F0202, Width 2 byte

Comparison, Value to Mem, Variant 12, 7F0200, Value 07, Width 1 byte, Operation >=

Comparison, Value to Mem, Variant 13. 7F0202, Value A120, Width 2 byte, Operation >=

The second If Statement should be inside the first one. The code window will look similar to:

Assign(data)
Assign(data)
If(address >= 1 byte number)
   If(address >= 2 byte number)
      Code to use if gold amount or higher is obtained

Check the Game Clock

This is very similar to the above example. Copy the clock bytes you want from the 7E0400-7E0406 range to 7F0200+ location event temp memory and use If checks. Read the Memory Locations.txt of the Offsets Guide from Geiger's Crypt to find out how the clock values are stored.

Basic example - check if game clock > 99:59:

Assignment, Mem to Mem, Variant 48, 7E0406 to 7F0200, Width 1 byte

Comparison, Value to Mem, Variant 12, 7F0200, Value 00, Width 1 byte, Operation >

Draw Geometry

You can only see it's effects if there is a Brighten command right after it. The brighten command controlls the color, intensity, duration, etc. of the geometry, and the Draw Geometry data controlls what it looks like, how it forms, it's angle, various other stuff. Play around with both of them for cool effects. The other variables are fuzzy.

00 . Modality - which coordinates are active, etc.
01 . Point 1 X1 - which moves to...
02 . Point 1 X2
03 . Point 1 Y1 - which moves to...
04 . Point 1 Y2
05:08 . Point 2
09:0C . Point 3
0D:10 . Point 4

Someone else should take a look at this to confirm. The modality byte is fairly confusing. The coordinates are pixel relative to the screen (not the map). X can handle a value of 0xFF. Y cannot (not sure of maximum).

Now, for a demonstration:

Drugged / Confused Effect

Set these memory values to make the screen wobbly.

7E1DF9 to 1
7E1DFD to 1

Fade / Darken

All notes use

Memory Copy
Multimode 2E
Mode 40

Except where noted

Darken the Scene

Use this to darken the entire scene a little, making it appear gloomy.

Fade a Character to White

Use this to fade a sprite to almost pure white permanently; put it in that object's event code.

MemCpy88(40,0F,0F,01)

You can undo the effect and return the character to normal with this.

MemCpy88(40,0F,F0,08)

To use this, a certain MemCpy command must be employed:

Memory Copy
Multimode 88
Param 1 - F
Param 2 - F
Param 3 - 1
Data - Leave empty

Fade in Characters from Black

These two memcopy commands will start your characters out completely black, and then slowly fade them into color.

MemCpy2E(50,80,80,00)
MemCpy2E(50,80,80,0F)

Of course, you can split these two up if you want them to stay dark while something goes on, and then fade them in afterwards.

Fade in Scene from Black

This 4 command memcopy segment is for the begining of an area, it fades the location in from black slowly (like it did for the characters, except this is for the whole screen).

MemCpy2E(50,00,1C,00)
MemCpy2E(50,1F,E0,00)
MemCpy2E(50,00,1C,0F)
MemCpy2E(50,1F,E0,0F)

Fade in Scene from White

Here is one that flashes the background white, like lightning, and fades back in, all smooth and cool-looking.

MemCpy2E(40,10,70,08)
MemCpy2E(40,10,70,80)

Fade the Background to Black with Visible Characters

This one fades the background to black, but your sprites remain visible.

MemCpy2E(50,10,62,F0)
Pause(0.500) (0.125)
MemCpy2E(50,72,0A,F8)

Combination Fade

This one fades the screen in from black, but the characters fade in first, and then the background.

MemCpy2E(50,00,80,00)
MemCpy2E(50,7C,04,0F)
Pause(3.000) (0.750)
MemCpy2E(50,72,0A,08)
Pause(4.000) (1.000)
Pause(2.000) (0.500)
MemCpy2E(50,72,0A,8F)
Pause(1.000) (0.250)
MemCpy2E(50,00,72,0F)

Force a Cutscene

How to.....Force a cut scene, the easy way!

For the longest time I didn't know this....You'll notice parts of crimson echoes where you have to touch a very specific spot to do anything. Now you can easily set a whole "area" to trigger a scene. Through the power of getObjectCoordinates:

First off your going to need a loop that continuously checks coordinates do do this simply follow these steps:

//I chose the last two myself, as long as they are above 7f0200 it's fine.
getObjectCoordinates, variant 22, PC, 00, 7f0220, 7f0222  //store crono's
pos in two memory spots

......//code goes here

goto line of get object coordinates

The goto command isn't the most user friendly. There's a very large drop down list and you have to find a very specific line number. But it's doable. Now in between those two lines you are going to put conditionals, for example if you want them to not cross a certain X coordinate you can do something like this

getObjectCoordinates, variant 22, PC, 00, 7f0220, 7f0222 

if( 7f0220 >= (x coordinate)
    - explore mode off
    -  begin cutscene

goto line of get object coordinates

If you wanted a specific block of the map to trigger a battle

getObjectCoordinates, variant 22, PC, 00, 7f0220, 7f0222 

if( 7f0220 >= (x coordinate))
   if (7f0222 >- (y coordinate)
    - explore mode off
    -  move party
   -  move enemies
  -  move screen
  -  battle

goto line of get object coordinates

It really is that easy. Stick that code in any startup/idle object and have fun.

Increase Sound Volume with Approach

Sounds that get louder when you get closer(ambient?) using music ...sort of. Works good for "Running Water", "Hail Magus", or Dungeon Drip sound, even "Lavos Breath"

represents == <= >= and such
set volume louder when getting closer

GetObjCoord(PC00, Xvalue, Yvalue)

If(Xpos or Ypos ** char_coordinates)   
Soundcmd(SongVol, duration, volume)   

If(Xpos or Ypos ** char_coordinates)   
Soundcmd(SongVol, duration, volume)

If(Xpos or Ypos ** char_coordinates)   
Soundcmd(SongVol, duration, volume)

Make a Bed

1) Draw the bed 2) When you want your character to go to sleep you call an arbitrary 3) In the arbitrary you

--set the coordinates (guess and check)
--set animation to 28 (I believe)
4)if you are having some tiles go over the sprite you
--select the tile
--On the locations tab you should see tile properties
--select which quadrant y ou no longer want to be over the sprites head (NW, NE, SW, SE)
--change priority to false

Make a Character Turn White

Chickenlump posted this in a similar thread a long time ago:

Category:  Memory Copy
Command: Multi-mode 88
MemCpy88
   mode = 40
   Param 1 = F
   Param 2 = F
   Param 3 = 2
   Data leave blank

Pause(3 seconds)

Category:  Memory Copy
Command: Multi-mode 88
MemCpy88
   mode = 0

Put that in a characters (or NPC) arbitrary and then use Call object function to call it.

Make a Conveyor Belt / Wind

Make a Conveyor Belt (I guess also can be how to make wind):

Choose tileset with Conveyor belt
Draw the belt
Open up Tile properties (window-->location-->tile properties)
turn on Movement (Map Movement (ctrl+7 to, if you are going to use TF a lot learn the ctrl+??s))
Set direction of conveyor belt under Wind direction
Set Speed (3 means you can't run against, 2 means it slows down if you run against)

Extra! (this is actually why I made this)

To change the direction of the conveyor belt draw the opposite direction of the belt somewhere off the scroll screen of the map (remember to put it's wind movement/speed)
Add the switch on the map and as an object
Open up its activate
Put a copy tiles, make the source your new belt and it's destination your old belt (remember to drop the 3rd digit in coordinates)
In the unknown put "B"

Ta da.

I believe the copy tile "layer properties" only copies solidity. You need to set the unknown to something to change other tile properties (Z plane/wind direction etc). Because I have had the problem before, I learned to set it to B by looking at blackbird events.

Make a Save Point

First off put a save point NPC on the map (for simplicity make the last digit of the object coordinates 0)

Next put an object at the same location as the save point

Now have a getObjectCoords for PC 00

If( X of PC 00 ) = (first 2 digits of object coord)  // he's at the right X
  If (Y of PC 00 )  = (first 2 digits of object coord) // he's at the right Y
    if (Memory & bit)
        If (a button is pressed) // he pressed A
            Special Dialogue --Save (under category text)
        go to getObjectCoords
   play save point sound
   set Memory bit
   go to getObjectCoords
 reset bit
 go to get object coord

I'm not sure what the point is of setting the object Bit. In the example I pulled up it was 7f01CF bit 80. It may be a bit that allows Saving in the menu (just a guess hopefully someone can confirm this). But the main point is to check the X and Y coordinates of PC 00 (just drop the 3rd digit of the object coordinates).

Make a Treasure Chest

Make A Chest:

1. Place on Map, Place Open Chest off map 2. Make an Object and set Coordinates on the chest 3. Pseudo code that Object

Startup/idle:

set Object Coord //at chest area
if(MemorySpotOfChest && Bit)
---Copy Tiles from open chest on map
---remove this object

Activate:

ExploreMode Off
Copy Tiles as before
7f0200==Index of Item
"you got {item}"
BitMath(MemorySpotOfChest, Bit, Set)
RemoveObject
ExploreMode On

Note 1: Every memory spot of chest has 8 bits you can set to either true of false, thus every memory spot can be used for 8 chests.

Note 2: 7F0200 is the memory spot used when you put {item} in a string. You set 7F0200 to the number of the item you'll be receiving then by saying "you got {item}". It'll display you got Wood Sword (for example).

You can randomize the contents, too!

First you must make a chest like the one in "Castle Magus: Hall of Deceit", the chest here uses event code to make a treasure chest instead of using defualt game style.

Then just add a random number generator, certain values would give you multiple random items.

Here is an example:

Random Number
If RandomNumber < 75 (item drop chance)
Random Number (new random number from item type)
If RandomNumber < 30
~Give items 5 Tonics
~Goto 1000
If RandomNumber < 70
~Give item Mid Tonic
~Goto 1000
If RandomNumber < 90 (rarer items have smaller chances)
~Give item Full Tonic
~Goto 1000
If RandomNumber < D0
~Give item Elixir
~Goto 1000
If RandomNumber < FF
~Give item Mega-Elixir
~Goto 1000

[1000] ...

(here's where you could end the script or add another random item possibility.

Make Treasure Randomly Grow or Appear

First create the desired item with an item editor.

Code:
Hide Sprite
Random number
if random number > X
Draw Sprite ( sapling )

use another random number generator to choose the sprites position if you want (example)
if random number > X; setObjCoords (10,F)
if random number < X; setObjCoords (1A,23)
 
when you activate the object, it display a textbox that tells you "you got ..."
give the item to the player
remove the object

I use this code for finding random gems that appear in cave walls too.

Make Doors

To make doors: put the door tiles on layer 1, and in the tile propriety of the bottom door tiles, set the "door trigger" option to yes (simple, but the thing to remember is that there's no need to put the opened door tiles on the map and no need for CopyTile events).

Multiple Planes

jsondag2: This is a really cool feature and quite literally adds a whole new dimension to your map (i crack myself up). This is something that had bugged me for a really long time and actually now that I understand it it helps me realize what is going on in the maps alot more. First off what is the multiple planes? Well have you ever wondered how at one point in a map you can go "under' a bridge but then at then you climb a ladder walk around and all of a sudden you go right over the bridge...how does this work on a 2D map? Well it turns out it's all cause of planes.

Now I realized that there were planes while toying with TF but I never knew how to use them. It turns out it's actually really easy I just had been missing one piece. First off open a map and turn on the "Z plane" by going map -> Zplane or just press ctrl + 8 (you want to learn these shortcuts trust me). Then open up tile properties by going window -> location -> tile properties.

If your map already has 4 colors you can go on to the next step, otherwise you'll need to do the following:

Make a tile of Plane 1 (dark blue): in the tile properties window go Z plane make it Plane 1 and click a tile
Make a tile of Plane 2 (light blue): In the tile properties window go to Z plane make it plane 2 and click a tile
Make a transitional walkable tile (gray): In the tile properties window go to Z plane make it plane 2 and click a tile.
Make a transitional solid tile (pink): In the tile properties window go to Z plane make it plane 2 and click a tile.

Now that we have all of the Z planes we can start making a cool map. Now I know it's tempting to use solidity to make walls and such but if you are making a map with multiple planes you might as well use planes as walls (except for corners and such since Z planes don't have "corners).

Wherever Crono loads becomes the first plane that he is on. Whatever plane he loads on he can walk on and the opposite is solid. Now here's the cool part once Crono touches a "transition tile" (gray) the roles reverse I.E. if he started on dark blue then dark blue becomes solid and Light blue becomes walkable. Finally the pink is always solid. So in a nutshell, always make solid things pink (walls) make the ground blue and make the upstairs light blue. Then stick a transition tile at the top or bottom of ladders (or stairs).

What's even cooler is some tiles have different properties if crono is on a certain plane. I'm still working on mastering that but currently I just use pre - existing examples (one is grates in robot levels when you are on plane 1 crono is under them when you are on plane 2 crono is above them).

I'm working on a map right now so if I figure something out I'll add to this post.

Prevent Crono from Speaking

How to prevent Crono from talking:

In textboxes, the tags {PC1}, {PC2}, and {PC3} can be written to insert the name of each character from the party. This is useful to make the party members speak with their names (like {PC1}: text).

However, to make sure that Crono doesn't speak one of those generic sentences, a small trick must be used. There are many different way to do it but this one is simple: Mem7e2980 is PC1 and is equal to 0 if it's Crono. So:

Assign Mem7e2980 to some other free Mem
If the other free Mem == 00

- Textbox ("{PC2}: the text")
- Go To (the rest of the code)

Textbox ("{PC1}: the same text")
(the rest of the code)

Thus, if Crono is in the first position in the party, the second character will speak for him. If Crono is not first (he may be second, third, or not in the active party at all) then the first character will speak normally.

Put More than One Room on a Map

How to put more than one room on a map.

Credit again to chickenlump:

Ever wonder how some of the CT maps can have so many rooms close to each other but you still don't see them?

Well the easy answer is to use the "scroll" locks of a location but sometimes you don't want to use a whole bunch of for all these small rooms. Well thats where the RAM location of the scroll locks come into play.

Here is the memory locations for scroll:

7E1D1A:  Left
7E1D1B:    Right
7E1D1C:    UP
7E1D1D:   Down

(thanks to chickenlump for figuring this out)

First off since it's all one one big map you need to know which part of the map your character is in. Lucky there's a getObjectCoord command

Category:  Object Coordinates
Command:  GetObjectCoordinates
Variant:  22 (not sure this matters)
Mode:  PC (your getting your playable character)
Obj/PC:  00 (there's always atleast one character in your party)
XCoord:   7F0220
YCoord:   7F0222 (these can be any temp memory)

Now that you know have the x/y coordinates you can know which room your character is in and set the scrolls appropriately. Here's an example. Imagine a map with 6 rooms in 2 columns, 3 rows. Put this in object 00's activate:

if(mem.7f0220 < 0F )  //he's in the left column TF calls this Comparison, value to mem
  if(mem.7f0222 < 11)  //he's in the top row
         mem.7E1D1A = 0
         mem.7E1D1B = F
         mem.7E1D1C = 0
         mem.7E1D1D = F
         return
  if(mem.7f0222 > 23)  //he's in the Bottom row left column
         mem.7E1D1A = 0
         mem.7E1D1B = F
         mem.7E1D1C = 23
         mem.7E1D1D = 2f
         return
  //he's in the middle row
         mem.7E1D1A = 0
         mem.7E1D1B = F
         mem.7E1D1C = 11
         mem.7E1D1D = 20
         return

You can do a similar thing for the right column. A few notes:

Object 00's activate gets called automatically after the player goes to a menu. That's why you put this code there (that way if they hit a menu and come back it's not reset.....this is also where you put code for copytiles that need to stay copied after a user hits menu).

Make sure you make your scrolls atleast the size of one screen otherwise there are bugs......and really annoying hard to figure out ones too.

Quickly Detect Text Corruption

How to quickly detect text corruption:

Just a little trick to quickly detect text corruption when you're working extensively on a location. Put a text command in Object00 right after the Return, with a short placeholder sentence like "Text{null}". Each time you'll enter the location in the game, this sentence will be shown before the rest of the events. This way, if the strings in the location get corrupted (they become non-ending garbage texts), you'll know it as soon as you enter the location. This is useful to avoid spending time coding something while not realizing that at some point the location strings became corrupted.

Random Enemies or NPCs

I make use of the Random Number generator and have some comparison commands decide which monster gets loaded into the scene. In this example, I have 2 monsters, Gato, and Masa& Mune. Only one of them will load, based on the random number written to memory. Walk into Gato's Exhibit and Gato may be there, but the next time, maybe Masa & Mune will be there waiting. Imagine dungeons and areas where the monsters can be as unpredictable as you want (with a little work). If there are 255 possible random numbers to be generated, you could code in a monster for each possibility.

That would make for an awesome Colloseum type area (think FF6), where one party member is chosen, to face a random monster, and win a random prize...Here is my code, not copied from anywhere in the ROM, just sort of thrown together (I'm surprised it works).

The Random Number is written to a different space in memory (It's 8 bytes off) but it's easy enough to see where using Geiger's Debugger RAM viewer. (That's why my comparison checks are checking a different location than what the Random Number command says it's writing to).

Remember in Final Fantasy 7, in the Golden Saucer, the shady guy that would appear at random and sell you points in exchange for your money? That would be cool to have a super rare occurance of some sort of merchant that sold great items, like one value out of 255 possibilities the player would run across this salesman. Or a powerful optional enemy that the most unlucky players will come across when they least expect it...Hey... random title screens! Why just have one? Every time they power on, they get a different title screen.... Nothing too fancy, just some fun automated events to watch, give the player more reasons to keep coming back. Anything is possible!

Thanks to Jsondag2, Chickenlump, Zakyrus, Chrono'99, and others

From: Modification