ROM Hack Fire Emblem Fates: ROM Hacking General Thread

[DeathChaos]

Hey, all. I've got some questions regarding custom portraits. Is the process outlined in the OP still the primary method of modifying them? Also, how would someone go about adding additional portraits for use with added characters? I'd assume it'd involve adding FID entries to FaceData.bin, but I'm not really sure. Still new to this whole thing.

The process for making portraits is still the same, however I'd suggest using the arc builder from the FEFatesTools nightmare modules repository, as that one works perfectly, while the one from the tutorial causes crash if the arc contains (around) 7 or more files.

As for FaceData, my best advice would be, pick a character that's in a super similar position as the character you want to make portraits for, and try to make your new character match the eye/height position of this new character, an example I could give is when I ported over Palla's portraits, I opened up Hinoka's portraits, made some nice bars to mark Hinoka's eyes, and then made a new bar for Palla's exact eye relative to where I wanted her eye positions to match Hinoka's (so that I wouldn't have to reposition every portrait and maybe have different heights among them, I can now just position them using the height bar I set), and this allows you to have an easier time.

Spoiler

Now you might be thinking, "Why the hell do I need to do any of this, why not just insert my portraits and call it a day?", this is because of FaceData.

The FaceData entries have a few position values that tell the game where to move the portrait on certain instances, I specifically mentioned the eyes because this is the most commonly used position in the game (when a character is paired up to someone else, the back unit's portrait only shows eyes, same deal if back unit on an Attack Stance), as well as other regular portrait positioning.

The regular bottom screen portrait during battle too, otherwise you could end up with something like this;

tl;dr pick a character and try to match their eye position as best as you can with your portraits, then just copy whatever position values their FaceData block has.

 

[AgahnimD]

Hey all, I have a question regarding the chapter text .bin.lz files.

If you have too much text in one section, the game will skip forward to the next after you reach a certain threshold. However it looks like the JPN version is significantly shorter than the USA version, cutting off a lot of custom dialogue that previously worked in the USA version.

Is there an additional file somewhere (possibly GameData?) which can be modified to allow these larger files to be used in the JPN version?

Thank you!

 

[Kingsbury8]

I am trying to repack dlc files into a CIA. But whenever I try to include a certain content file, makerom spits out an error. The first time this happened, I just removed the file and continued, until I noticed that Heirs of Fate II was gone from the dragons gate. I'm assuming that the file I removed was that level, and I want to be able to repack the dlc and include that level. Any suggestions?

 

[DeathChaos]

So, after much consideration and procrastination, I decided to make a small discord server for anyone who's interested in Fates hacking and whatnot, feel free to join, although I don't know much about server moderation, and might not necessarily be very active on it.

https://discord.gg/ePGj3BX

 

[fe_et]

Asking again since I finally got the tools to work on my laptop...when importing portraits, how do you avoid transparency issues like this or this? That first one feels especially odd, since I didn't touch the hair file...

It's been a while, but I was having this issue and couldn't find another post addressing it.

The problem is the white background you get when extracting textures with FEAT:


That's what it'll look like when you convert the png to tga.
The background should be black, but when FEAT extracts the texture as a png, color isn't preserved for completely transparent pixels and they're set to white (to shrink file size).

To fix, use your image editing magic to make the background black:


Don't just fill a layer black and put it under the portrait layer. The portrait is slightly transparent so it'll make it appear slightly darker if you do that.
If you're using photoshop like me, make sure your masks are disabled (image should be opaque) and you only have one alpha channel before you export to tga.

Before and after:

 

[KunoichiZ]

@DeathChaos25 Could you list what you did to get Chrom/Lissa/Frederick working without the extra data load times? Do you think it could be possible to do the same with Omegablu's Custom DLC as well?

 

[DeathChaos]

@DeathChaos25 Could you list what you did to get Chrom/Lissa/Frederick working without the extra data load times? Do you think it could be possible to do the same with Omegablu's Custom DLC as well?

Do you mean this method?


This is all ROMhacking, no custom DLC involved, hence the lack of Extra Data loading times.

I'm still working on finishing this since I've been very busy recently with other stuff, but most of this is doable thanks to FEFEditor, and it's also very easy provided you know what you're doing.

The only issue is inserting audio, which is, to say the least, a bit of a mess to work with.

 

[KunoichiZ]

Do you mean this method?


This is all ROMhacking, no custom DLC involved, hence the lack of Extra Data loading times.

I'm still working on finishing this since I've been very busy recently with other stuff, but most of this is doable thanks to FEFEditor, and it's also very easy provided you know what you're doing.

The only issue is inserting audio, which is, to say the least, a bit of a mess to work with.

Yes, that method.

 

[AgahnimD]

Does anyone know where the over-world Chapter Summaries are located, and if they can be modified? I swear I saw them earlier but I can't seem to find them.

 

[TsUnDeReAznGuY]

@AgahnimD Gmap.lz

 

[AgahnimD]

@AgahnimD Gmap.lz

Fantastic, thank you!

 

[Damin72]

Anyone manage how to edit bfnt?

 

[Deleted member 433820]

I'm having a little bit of trouble with the whole custom portraits thing. I've managed to import the face data into my patch, but I can't figure out how to edit the FID. Would I have to use a hex editor or something like that? If so, how would I go about doing that?

 

[thane98]

I'm having a little bit of trouble with the whole custom portraits thing. I've managed to import the face data into my patch, but I can't figure out how to edit the FID. Would I have to use a hex editor or something like that? If so, how would I go about doing that?

Use the FaceData injector in FEFEditor to add a new FID block to FaceData.bin. If you need to edit the block later, use the FaceData module.

For changing a character's FID, use the character module with GameData.bin.

 

[Deleted member 433820]

Use the FaceData injector in FEFEditor to add a new FID block to FaceData.bin. If you need to edit the block later, use the FaceData module.

For changing a character's FID, use the character module with GameData.bin.

Yes, I've followed that part, but I'm still not really sure as to what to do here. I already created FSIDs for the standard and battle portraits. I'm not entirely sure as to how to get them to show in-game. The character I've made already has her FID changed, but when I test her out she shows up with the hooded man portraits. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.

 

[thane98]

Yes, I've followed that part, but I'm still not really sure as to what to do here. I already created FSIDs for the standard and battle portraits. I'm not entirely sure as to how to get them to show in-game. The character I've made already has her FID changed, but when I test her out she shows up with the hooded man portraits. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.

What file names did you use for your portrait archives? I would follow the convention that the game uses for non-player portraits separate the portraits into a _st archive and _bu archive. Then have one block with Aversa_st as the file name and another with Aversa_bu. I don't think you need to specify anything in the unknown boxes.

 

[Deleted member 433820]

What file names did you use for your portrait archives? I would follow the convention that the game uses for non-player portraits separate the portraits into a _st archive and _bu archive. Then have one block with Aversa_st as the file name and another with Aversa_bu. I don't think you need to specify anything in the unknown boxes.

Well, here's everything that I've used so far. Hopefully these images will help solve my predicament, as I'd like to make a tutorial or something once I get this figured out.

 

[thane98]

Well, here's everything that I've used so far. Hopefully these images will help solve my predicament, as I'd like to make a tutorial or something once I get this figured out.

So did you try out that setup in game? Is it still showing the hooded figure?

 

[Deleted member 433820]

So did you try out that setup in game? Is it still showing the hooded figure?

Yes, I've tried that setup a few times now, and I still get the hooded figure.

 

[thane98]

Well, it doesn't look like anything's wrong with the blocks then. What format are the files inside your archives in? If you copied them from Awakening, you need to convert the portrait files to bch format.