FFVI Explore Version 0.5d ==Introduction== This is a file/patch handling utility for the steam release of FFVI on PC. I am not currently providing support for this tool, however bug reports and realistic change/feature requests are welcome, as I am continuing to work on it. ==Disclaimer== This tool is being provided "as-is" with no promise that it will work in any way whatsoever, for any purpose. ==Features== * List all files found in the game's main archive "main.obb" * Extract files from the archive (this will decrypt and decompress them as necessary) * Add/Replace files in the archive (this will encrypt and compress them as necessary) * Create/edit mod patch packages (.fep) * Apply mod patch packages to the game's main archive "main.obb" * Save mod patch packages as a self-applying .exe file (installing a mod saved in this way will not require you to have FFVI_Explore installed) * Change your FFVI Installation into "Modding Mode", allowing you to make changes and see them in-game without having to rebuild the "main.obb" file every time ==Usage== ******* NOTE THAT FFVI EXPLORE DOES NOT NORMALLY BACKUP YOUR MAIN.OBB FILE! YOU MUST BACK IT UP YOURSELF IF YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT CORRUPTING IT! ******* ARCHIVE TAB * After running FFVI_Explore, open an explorer.exe window, navigate to your FFVI installation directory (usually c:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Final Fantasy 6/), and drag the "main.obb" file onto the FFVI_Explore window. FFVI_Explore will remember this file so you don't have to do it again. * When main.obb has been loaded, FFVI_Explore will show a listing of the files contained inside. There are a few unknown entries (not seemingly used in the PC version) without names - you can show these entries by turning on the "Show unknown entries" toggle in the top right corner. * Other than the obvious buttons, you can click (or ctrl+click for multiple files) to select files, then right click on them to open a context menu allowing you to extract only specific files. * Clicking on a file in the list will display it's details at the bottom of the window: The left side is the name (it's "Archive Path") the file uses within the archive (if it's blue and ends with ".gz", it's a compressed file), and the right side (only used for custom files) shows the path to a file on your hard drive -- note that once you save changes to your main.obb file, all entries will appear to be NOT custom. * While a file is selected in the list, pressing on your keyboard will remove that file from the archive. * You can drag+drop files from explorer.exe onto the file list, to add those files to the archive. They will appear at the bottom of the file list, with a beige colored background. Note that doing this will not guarantee they will be used by the game, you will need to change that file's "Archive Path" to replace an existing file. Simply giving an "Archive Path" with a name ending with ".gz" will ensure it gets compressed when saving the archive, however the new name will still need to match an already existing file for it to be used. You can't opt to compress a file that wasn't originally compressed, or vice versa! No 2 files can have the same "Archive Path". Also, see that the hard drive path (right side of the details at the bottom) is populated for your new entry. * After making changes to the archive, click on the "Save Archive" button to write your changes to your archive. This will take a minute or two, but FFVI_Explore will display a progress dialog with it's progress. Just give it time to finish. * The "MODDING MODE" button will make a variety of changes to not only the "main.obb" file that you currently have open, but also the entire FFVI Installation directory that it resides in, as described in the following section. PATCH TAB * By default, you will be looking at a blank patch screen -- this is a new patch that makes no changes. * By opening an explorer.exe window and navigating to an already existing patch file (*.fep) or self-applying patch file (*.exe), you can drag+drop that file onto the FFVI_Explore window (with the "Patch" tab active) to open that patch for viewing and editing. * The "Save Patch" button will save the current patch as an .fep file to your hard drive, for later editing, or manual application. * The "Save Self-Applying Patch" button will save the current patch as a stand-alone .exe file that can apply itself to an installation of FFVI without the need of FFVI_Explore. * The "Apply Patch" button will apply the currently open patch to the "main.obb" file that is open in the "archive" tab. * You can drag+drop files from explorer.exe onto the file list, to add those files to the patch. They will appear at the bottom of the file list. * Each file in the patch can be modified in the following way: ** Clicking on the "X" button on the left will remove that file from the patch. ** The left text box is the "Archive Path" for that file. It must match an already existing file path from "main.obb" in order for the game to use it. If you need a reference, just load your "main.obb" file (or "main_backup.obb" if you're in modding mode) in the Archive tab, to see all of the existing "Archive Paths". To the right of this text box is a button labelled "..." that will present a list of possible names that can be selected from. ** The right text box is the hard drive path to the actual file you want to put into the "main.obb" file when this patch is applied. Don't worry if this filename doesn't match the "Archive path", and don't worry if the "Archive path" ends with ".gz" and this path doesn't (or vice versa) -- FFVI_Explore will handle this for you. MODDING MODE * MODDING MODE IS INTENDED TO MAKE THE LIFE OF MOD-CREATORS EASIER, IT IS _NOT_ NECESSARY FOR ACTUALLY _USING_ MODS! * When you switch to modding mode, the following changes will occur in your FFVI Installation directory: ** Your "main.obb" file will have been renamed to "main_backup.obb", and your "main.obb" file will now be empty. ** /obb/ will now contain the complete contents of the "main.obb" file, extracted. **NOTE THAT COMPRESSED ENTRIES (ENDING WITH ".gz") WILL STILL BE COMPRESSED - THIS IS REQUIRED IN ORDER FOR MODDING MODE TO WORK. SEE "MOD HELPER TAB" BELOW FOR HOW TO DEAL WITH THIS** * To remove modding mode, just swap your "main.obb" (the empty one) and "main_backup.obb" (the original one) files. You don't need to delete the extracted files in the obb/ folder, however you can if you want to. * While in modding mode, you can just make changes to the files in the obb/ folder, save them, and run ff6.exe to see those changes. ** Since modding mode requires that compressed files remain compressed, many of the extracted files in the obb/ folder will have a ".gz" file extension. This is just a standard gzip document, so you can use the gzip utility of your choice (such as 7-Zip), or you can use the "Mod Helper" tab provided with FFVI_Explore. ** TYPICAL USAGE SCENARIO FOR FILES ENDING WITH .gz: *** 1) Drag+Drop the .gz file onto the "Mod Helper" window. This will decompress the file and save it without the ".gz", ready to be modded. *** 2) Mod your file as you see fit. *** 3) Drag+Drop your modded file (without the ".gz") onto the "Mod Helper" window. This will compress the file and save it with the ".gz", ready to be used by the game. **NOTE THAT THIS WILL OVERWRITE THE ORIGINAL FILE** *** 4) Run the game and see your changes! * To make a patch while using modding mode, you need not worry about whether your modded file ends with ".gz" or not. FFVI_Explore will automatically handle it depending on what it needs. MOD HELPER TAB * This tab will display nothing but a simple instruction of what files you can work with. * GZip Section: Drag+Drop a file with ".gz" extension onto the window to have it automatically decompressed and saved without the ".gz" extension. * GZip Section: Drag+Drop a file without ".gz" extension onto the window to have it automatically compressed and saved with the ".gz" extension. * AKB Section: Drag+Drop a file with ".akb" extension onto the window to have it automatically unwrapped and saved as an Ogg Vorbis or ADPCM format file. * AKB Section: Drag+Drop a file with ".ogg" extension onto the window to have it automatically wrapped into an AKB file. DISTRIBUTING YOUR MODS * The difference between .FEP files and .EXE files is that the end-user must have FFVI_Explore in order to install a .FEP file, whereas there is no such requirement to install a .EXE file. However, some users are wary of running .EXE files (because of concern about viruses), so you should always include the .FEP file for people to manually install your mod if they want to. * You should generally provide access to both the .FEP file (Patch File created by clicking on "Save Patch"), and the .EXE file (Self-Applying Patch File created by clicking on "Save Self-Applying Patch"). * For smaller mods, it should be okay to include both of these files in a .ZIP file, so the user can decide which one they want to use. * For larger mods, it's probably best to provide separate links for the .FEP and .EXE files, just to save on bandwidth usage. COMMAND LINE USAGE * FFVI_Explore has very limited command line support: ** -mainobbpath="c:\path\to\main.obb" : Define the path to the main.obb file you wish to target ** -moddingmode : Convert the loaded main.obb file into modding mode ** -quit : Quit FFVI_Explore after completing command line operations ==Known Issues== There are 3 unknown file entries. * Thankfully they all appear to be unused by the PC version of the game. The game is a port of the mobile version, so there are a lot of files that aren't used by this version. ==History== Version 0.5d Added command line support for a couple of specific operations. Version 0.5c Implemented proper attempts at detecting the steam installation directory for FFVI in self-installing patches. Version 0.5b Fixed a bug causing saved patches to fail to apply (and be unopenable in FFVI_Explore) when using Windows installation with a non-English locale. Version 0.5a Fixed critical bug causing causing a specific configuration of entries in a saved patch to be double compressed when saved into main.obb Version 0.5 Fixed critical bug causing certain entries in a saved patch to be double compressed when saved into main.obb Version 0.4b Further improved Ogg Vorbis wrapping to handle more cases of looping information, as well as reading length information from the original .ogg file Version 0.4a Improved Ogg Vorbis wrapping to use looping information from the .ogg file. Version 0.4 Added limited audio (.AKB) file wrap/unwrap support. * AKB files with Ogg Vorbis content are unwrapped normally as an .ogg file. * AKB files with ADPCM content are unwrapped as a .vox file, with an accompanying .txt file containing necessary extra info. * OGG files are wrapped normally into an .akb file. * VOX files are currently unsupported for wrapping. Added intelligent internal path detection for creating patches from a "Modding Mode" installation. Added ability to select an internal path from a list. Improved file detection for cases where a file with the same extension, but wrong content, is provided. Fixed bug causing self-applying patch progress bars to appear behind other windows. Fixed bug causing incorrect entry count reporting for Patches in some cases. Version 0.3a Improved Archive/Patch tabs so that it doesn't matter whether you drop a gz file or a non-gz file -- it will "just work" based on the Archive Name used Added proper detection to whether the active Patch is dirty or not, so the user isn't asked to save an unchanged patch Fixed bug causing an error in Archive use after a file has been dropped on the Mod Helper Version 0.3 Added "Modding Mode" support Added "Mod Helper" tab to make it easy to convert to/from .gz compressed files while in "Modding Mode" Added support for loading a Self-Applying Patch so it can be viewed/edited Version 0.2a Fixed incorrect version number appearing on titlebar Fixed a few crashes when dealing with empty archives Fixed a few crashes when using the UI while an archive isn't open Version 0.2 Added patching support * Create/Edit/Save/Apply patch files (.fep) * Save self-applying patches (.exe) for installation without FFVI_Explore Version 0.1 First public release! ==Contact== Twitter: @rivernyxx Email: nyxojaele@hotmail.com