[FE7] Inserting Maps: How do I get more than one without the game glitching out or having some kind of error?

[Avril Lavigne]

I am having one hell of a time. You guys have probably seen me around here lots lately. I appreciate your help, by the way.

I have another thing I have been doing hours of testing on. I did this because I didn't think I would have to ask you guys, cause I could have swore, when I started creating my own FE a year ago, this didn't happen.

Alright, I know how to insert maps. I know how that I must open HxD, go to the last offset, point to that offset in the program that inserts the map (Tiled, or MAR array. I use MAR array, I haven't gotten around to Tiled yet), I know I have to go to nightmare and open "Event References" and add 08000000 to the pointer, I know I have to change the palettes/tileset data to match the tilesets I used to make the map.

Here's the problem:

I insert my first map (Prologue), all good.

I insert my second map (Chapter 1), I use HxD, find the last unused offset (and sometimes the last few unused offsets, and use the last of the unused, if that makes sense), repeat the same steps. 9/10 times the game will crash, when the chapter the map is supposed to load on, opens. It'll make a really high pitched continuous noise as well. Sometimes it'll work, I don't know why. I did the same process and it worked sometimes, sometimes it did not.

Now after many frustrating hours of making attempts at inserting my Chapter 1 map, and am successful, I go and insert my Chapter 2 map......Same process as before, chances it may work, chances it may not.......success! Wait. The game is straight up glitching. I can see my map in the game, but it's frozen. I am getting an error.

(If the picture is really small, I'm sorry. Click on it and it should enlarge. I don't know how to upload and have it be a decent size by default.)

So I don't know what the hell that means. But when I click "OK" it just does a continuous loop of some glitchy noises and a little tiny small fraction of the in-game music. Not that any of that description matters. I'm assuming after this point, adding any other maps would most definitely not work if it can only make it to Chapter 2 and then stop working. I tried changing the events to see if it would start the way I wanted it to, instead of the default, and it still glitched.

I didn't think this would be a problem....so I've seen games completely altered. Every chapter a custom, original chapter. Yet somehow I can't even get 3 successful ones in there. Someone please tell me what I might possibly be doing wrong, again?!?!

Maybe this is a sign I should be doing something else with my time....

[Rickochet]

You probably overwrote something in your ROM. Another thing could be your event scripts have errors in them not caught by EA. Example of an error like this would be using Lyn instead of Lyn_t for the units identifiers and proceeding to tell the game to move a Lyn_t when you used Lyn instead. This is a good rule of thumb when your ROM glitches out with the music and crashing to start screen.

There are a list of confirmed free spaces located in your FEditor folder. I haven't use any other method besides Tiled to insert my maps yet because Tiled and the map inserter works like a charm for me so I can't tell what the error message means. So my suggestion is to use Tiled to make your maps and TiledMapInserter to insert them. There is a list of offsets and pointers to use with the map inserter located at MarkyJoe's website and as well as the tutorial(s) in case you need them. Just follow them to the letter and everything should work out fine.

[Primefusion]

It would be helpful if you told us where you were inserting your maps to, and what you're changing inside the Event References.nmm.
It's possible you goofed on a pointer or something, and providing that information can help us narrow down the issue.

[Avril Lavigne]

It would be helpful if you told us where you were inserting your maps to, and what you're changing inside the Event References.nmm.

It's possible you goofed on a pointer or something, and providing that information can help us narrow down the issue.

I switched over to using Tiled. Still does the same thing.

I inserted each map to these three pointers:

Prologue - 0x9000000

Chapter 1 - 0x9000140

Chapter 2 - 0x9000280

Now if you minus 08000000 off of each of those, that's the offset I was using to insert each map. When the maps were too close on the offsets, I had to space it out (by adding more lines) because it would glitch. The further away they were, it would sometimes work. Chapter 2 was successfully inserted, however, the game just completely stops working (I even tried making more free space for it to point to, but after a certain point, it was done for). So I had the same problem with both map inserters. I also made sure I was using a clean rom from the start every time. So I have no idea how any other person that's fully hacked the game has gotten in like 30 custom made maps, if I can't even get in 3.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Avril Lavigne

[CT075]

0x140 bytes is assuredly not enough space

try spacing them out by a lot (as in, try writing to 0100:0000, then 0100:0500)

Edited March 10, 2015 by CT075

[Avril Lavigne]

0x140 bytes is assuredly not enough space

try spacing them out by a lot (as in, try writing to 0100:0000, then 0100:0500)

I tried spacing them out a lot, and as soon as it gets to Chapter 2, it just does the exact same thing. I wish one of you could sit down beside me and walk me through. Of course, with my luck, I have to dig extra deep to figure something out

[Avril Lavigne]

0x140 bytes is assuredly not enough space

try spacing them out by a lot (as in, try writing to 0100:0000, then 0100:0500)

If you look at my picture at the original post, it's doing that exact same thing. And I spaced it out beyond what you told me to.

[Avril Lavigne]

It only seems to be chapter 2 that's the problem. Or so what I know of. I skipped to chapter 3, inserted a map there and it worked fine. I even downloaded another clean ROM, and the same thing happened on chapter 2....except once. ONCE. I had a successful attempt.

[EldinnerPlate]

I wasn't aware that people write things at the end of the game. Have you tried using the free space around D80000? Pretty sure there is more free space before that offset but that's where I start my maps, that works flawlessly for me every time. Not sure if that would have any affect on your problem but if you are out of ideas it may be worth a shot.

[Rickochet]

Everytime you write something to your ROM with EA, you can have EA tell you what the last offset is with this line: MESSAGE Events end at offset currentOffset placed on the last line of your event script. HxD should also help you visually picture how large any one of your chapter events can be. This should help you not overwrite your own stuff. And try what Eldinnn said about using D80000, should help immensely. Triple check your settings in your nightmare modules to make sure no settings are conflicting.

[CT075]

there is no functional difference between writing to the end of the ROM and writing to free space, except that the end of the ROM is confirmed unused but the 08D0:0000 to 08E0:0000 area is not

[Primefusion]

I switched over to using Tiled. Still does the same thing.

I'm going to assume you're using the Tiled map inserter.

What are you putting into the inserter for these 3 maps?

- Offset?

- If you have the pointer options selected, what are you entering there?

I have a hunch that you may not be understanding pointers correctly, and this will confirm/deny that hunch.

[Avril Lavigne]

Okay, I'm sorry that I never replied again.

I'll tell you what happened. I just figured it out.

So after I would apply my nightmare changes, my offsets to which I added my map to would go blank (00 00 00 00 00 00). I had to reapply the map through Tiled Map Inserter so the game had a map to point to. That's it. I just had to look at the offsets after using nightmare to see if it took out my map or not.

[Aura Wolf]

So after I would apply my nightmare changes, my offsets to which I added my map to would go blank (00 00 00 00 00 00). I had to reapply the map through Tiled Map Inserter so the game had a map to point to. That's it. I just had to look at the offsets after using nightmare to see if it took out my map or not.

Yeah, it's recommended that you don't have multiple programs up at once because some of them (maybe it's only Nightmare that applies, idr) don't work with the most recent version of the rom, but whatever it was like when it was loaded.

Just reload the rom if you want to work with a bunch of programs at the same time (or just do one by one).

[Lamia]

rule of thumb is to reload the ROM every time you switch to a different tool's window, if you're not reverting progress on purpose for testing things

Edited March 14, 2015 by Lamia