How did they do that?

[Nove]

I was just going over some old games, and I was wondering how the world map was made in Final Fantasy 3/6 on the SNES (can't remember which one's the right version, It's the one with kefka in it). It looks 3d, but I didn't think the snes was capable of 3d. how could you recreate this in VB?

[Halsafar]

I was just going over some old games, and I was wondering how the world map was made in Final Fantasy 3/6 on the SNES (can't remember which one's the right version, It's the one with kefka in it). It looks 3d, but I didn't think the snes was capable of 3d. how could you recreate this in VB?

I am a FF master. I can walk you through any FF game at any point with great detail.

Its not 3D. Just a nice 2D image map clipped and scrolled across the screen.
I myself have been able to re-create the same look in 2D DirectDraw. You move the map as the player walks. So the background scrolls not the player as the player is trapped in a RECT the size of your TV.

I own Final Fantasy 6 on the SNES, beat it a thousand times.
I actually own every FF game except FF3 on the NES seeing they have yet to do an english tranlsation but I did play it via emulator.

As for the SNES and 3D. Do you remember when the carts started coming wth the SuperFX Chip? That was like a hardware based 3D emulator and it allowed the basics like StarFox and StuntRacer to run in a 3D environment.
Final Fantasy 6 I believe came out before the release of the SuperFX chip and thus cannot possibly have anything more powerful than its predecesors.

I must also say FF6 is my favorite FF game ever. That game was so well done in the sense each of the many characters pretty much has their own storyline, and Kefka evil is only matched by Sephiroth, otherwise square has yet to make someone as evil as Kefka.

(Terra, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Celes, Gau, Setzer, Mog, Relm, Shadow, Cyan, Strago, Gogo, Umaru)
Aint been a char list that long since.

[Nove]

Yeah, going through it a second time I really starting noticing the characters and plot twists and all that. I realize when walking that would probably done with a map, but what about when you're on a chocobo or usuing the airship? There's full 360 movement for both and in the airship you can move higher or lower. Also, could you send me an example of how you did it with directdraw? I think it would be fun to mess around with.

And to test you, I just got terra back (after the whole changing from an esper and stuff) and I'm in the airship and I really wasn't paying attention to what they were saying so I forgot where I'm supposed to go. tell me.

[Halsafar]

I hope I am asuming the right part? Not the beginning, but the 1/4 mark.
So Terra freaks out in Narshe when she comes in contact with the frozen Esper Tritoch. Then she flys away.
The party I believe then decides to travel to Edgars castle.
Enjoy the castle as it travels underneath the sand across the ocean. Gotta talk to a few people to trigger this event.
From there you go through I believe 2 towns then on to Zozo. From Zozo you will get Terra back and then you head to the Opera and let Setzer kidnap you.

The time for the clock in Zozo is 6:35 or 6:15...hmmm, forgot that one. If you tal to everyone in the town and do what they DON'T say then you will find the time...Assume they are all liars.


As for the 3d like ship movement...I completely forgot about that...I still doubt they used any 3D....the more I think about it though the more I seem to believe you.

They definetly did my 2D DD way for everything else, but that WorldMap airship...in 2D...would be very very hard. I'll think on that.

[Nove]

I figured it out, I had to go back to narshe. This was after going to the research facility. Anyway, I can't imagine how it would have been done in 2d either, unless maybe they had an incredibly large detailed image with enough pixels that they could stretch it at different angles and rotate it? Still sounds incredibly hard.

[Halsafar]

Yes after the the research facility...you mean the Magitek Factory?
I wasn't sure which part of getting Terra back you were at...But what I explained is correct.


That type of worldmap is plausable in 2D but the math and CPU strain would be amazing seeing it gives the aspect of 3D so a TON of pixel manipulation would be necessary to achieve this in 2D....The SNES probably couldn't handle that.

But I said earlier about the SuperFX chip. I must correct myself, I did some research.
Remeber 1970 Spectre (3d tank war game).
Spectre was one of the games that came out on the SNES along with the first set of games released.
So it is apparent that the SNES can handle really really basic 3D like Spectre which is all wireframe.

The SuperFX chip gave it the extra hardware boost it needed to produce StarFox type 3D (fully colored and rendered primitives at a relative speed).

So FF6 had no FX Chip.
FF6 could have used 3D.
The amazing part is that they even got the SNES to power their 3D world map.

Good programmers down at square.

Have you ever programmed in SNES? It uses a derived form of ASM. Pretty tough stuff, all hardware related. I attempted once to program a SNES game, but the language was to foreign to learn and there was no tutorials...So I didn't get far.

If you look though you can find SNES Compilers and such to actual compile you SASM code into a rom.