[Hidden-Palace]Biohazard Betas Released

[SonicBlue]

The grenade launcher scene?
This looks like Auto Aim and switching targets, a feature that was only implemented in the final Biohazard but not in (our) pre-release builds...
I've always found it interesting that the Japanese releases are generally easier in difficulty than the western ones.

The Biohazard releases have more ammo/health/ribbon items, less/easier to beat enemies and Auto Aim on by default!
The Resident Evil releases have Auto Aim turned off by default but it can still be turned on in the controller config menu, if I remember correctly...

Speaking of aiming, has anyone ever heard of this trick?

K: I'll give you one cheat idea. Do you know the "cancel cheat" that we call? When the character is aiming the gun at the enemy, you release R1 button and aim back, you can shoot hand gun quicker.
M: Just keep pressing shoot button and tap the R1 button. This cheat is really popular way to play inside Capcom.

I did not know about it until reading about it in an interview just recently...

Yes, Jill make a 45° turning that it's very slow to do manually, also in our build there are very few enemies (playing as Jill).

I've seen that trick in this video for the first time, thanks for explaining how it works

For the controller configuration, if you select the manually input and then exit you can't move your character nor changing the preferences

[killer7ITA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGeAX7DGjqw

Finally a decent quality rip :-) contains lots of footage of the debug build from capcom.

That's great! Now i watch it!

[Upaluppa]

I've found some kind of texture viewer mode in the 10/04 build:

I think I might be onto something here...

Edit:
Nah, it just loaded an invalid map texture and this came up instead...

The results of my messing with the Item Menu:

Map View Mode On:
3009B66D 0001

View Map In Map View Mode:
3009B66C 0001

Map View Mode Action Modifier:
3009B66F 00XX

00 = Reload Map
06 = Display Map

Inventory Modifier:
3009B6B1 00XX

00 = Chris' Inventory
01 = Jill's Inventory

Inventory Slot Amount:
3009B6B2 00XX

00 = No Slots
01 = 1 Slot
08 = 8 Slots
etc.

Inventory Mode Modifier:
3009B6E4 00XX

01 = Item Selection
02 = Action Menu
03 = Unknown

Trigger Item Combine Mode:
3009B6E4 0002
3009B6E5 0004

3D Examine Effects Modifier:
3009B6EF 00XX

01 = Zoom In
02 = Normal View
04 = Zoom Out

Trigger Item Menu Mode
3009E74C 0004

Open Item Menu
3009B6B0 0001

Item Menu Examine Option Selected
3009B6E8 0001

I was hoping to get access to the File Menu by messing with this...
I was really curious to see what kind of files (if any) there are in this build...

[Guest]

So, since this is taking so long to do, I thought I'd just post up all the flags I've got so far. There's quite a lot to mess around with, but I'm potentially not even half way through the game lol, there's just so much to keep record of that you end up spending an hour just on one small section. Through this though I've learned quite a lot about how the game works, on a physical (non code) level, so I'll explain as much as I can in a bit. For now, here's how to read my notes.

Basically I took each row and assigned it a letter, I also assigned each column that's a part of each individual row a number, so you have rows A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O and P (less in a couple of cases), and each of these rows has columns of 1 - 8. This was the simplest way I could think to jot things down, it shouldn't be too hard to read.




If it's too hard to make out, sorry and I'll make a better image showing it. I'll post a bit about each flag set and their purpose in a bit...

Also, I started off not knowing the names of rooms, to using the actual name set out in the warp menu, so apologies for the crude descriptions in some places...

[SonicBlue]

So, since this is taking so long to do, I thought I'd just post up all the flags I've got so far. There's quite a lot to mess around with, but I'm potentially not even half way through the game lol, there's just so much to keep record of that you end up spending an hour just on one small section. Through this though I've learned quite a lot about how the game works, on a physical (non code) level, so I'll explain as much as I can in a bit. For now, here's how to read my notes.

Thanks a lot! When I found the time I'll try to make into the sheet I've done, or in another one, for now I'm trying to do something unusual with 10/04, since I can't extract the TMD files due to BioFAT crash...

[Upaluppa]

So, since this is taking so long to do, I thought I'd just post up all the flags I've got so far.

Thanks a ton for doing this for us! This is incredibly helpful!
Thanks to your notes I can examine which RAM changes connect to which Event Flags and create codes which allow us to do all the stuff from the Flag View Debug in any other Biohazard build!

I will openly admit that I was too lazy to document the Flag View Mode myself but since you did it for me I'll be able to use this info to my advantage for future Biohazard code hacking!

Edit:
Hey, my 100th post in this forum!
Thanks to this I am an Ivy now, I guess...

Too bad I totally I hate Ivies...
(I'd rather have Giant Ape's and Spidermen in my RE2 than walking plants, really)

[Guest]

Thanks a lot! When I found the time I'll try to make into the sheet I've done, or in another one, for now I'm trying to do something unusual with 10/04, since I can't extract the TMD files due to BioFAT crash...

No problem!

Scenario Flags are typically story based, when the plot progresses through cutscenes, FMVs or conversations, although other events do use them as well, sometimes solving a puzzle or walking into a room is considered a scenario flag, although not as often.

Common flags are basically interactive events that are to be remained unchanged, such as emptying the water in a bath, pushing the statue off the balcony, or most commonly solving a puzzle. Their uses seem to be pretty random, a lot of the time crossing over into a map will trigger a common flag for reasons I do not know. Perhaps they have an effect somewhere in the world, but I've experimented and never really found any of these potential effects. Common flags are exactly that, common, most of your non based story progress is through common flags.

Item flags and enemy flags are pretty self explanatory. Key flags, for some reason share the same flags as enemy flags although always two rows appart. When you kill an enemy, it goes on both your enemy flags and key flags. When you unlock doors, these are also stored on key flags.

Room flags, lol, oh what a mess these things are. Basically, a room flag is a kind of switch that determines how you interact with objects in a room, they're basically random switches that, do stuff lol (you can't really control them half the time). The best example is the Painting Puzzle, in which each time you flick a switch on the painting, the correct or incorrect order of paintings will be stored in the room flags so it knows if you're solving the puzzle correctly. Another good example is the Armour Room Puzzle, in which pushing one of the statues over the grates in the floor will check off a room flag so the game knows if the puzzle is being solved correctly. Pretty standard stuff. The problem is, Capcom somehow use the same flags for completely different purposes in different maps, what might be part of a switch in one map, might be part of a camera angle in the next, or part of a conversation in the next. There's no possible way by looking at them in the game to say this does this, and that does that, it's impossible because one flag does multiple things (probably coded on a map per map basis). In the end the room flags do what Capcom want them to do and unless we can look at and undrstand code, we're really not going to understand them... I think however, if people ever manage to get really serious about modding this build, or any BH1 build in general, understanding what these do in each map will be pretty important.

Thanks a ton for doing this for us! This is incredibly helpful!
Thanks to your notes I can examine which RAM changes connect to which Event Flags and create codes which allow us to do all the stuff from the Flag View Debug in any other Biohazard build!

I will openly admit that I was too lazy to document the Flag View Mode myself but since you did it for me I'll be able to use this info to my advantage for future Biohazard code hacking!)

Now worries, this is why I did it! Plus it's fun to examine the game and learn how Capcom have built it, actually seeing how each individual part of the game functions is pretty interesting. It's just sllloooooowwwwww lol...

[ANDYARKLAY]

If my memory serves me right the last name of "John" was never revealed in the final game...

Its possible to hack Bh trial edition and find John's last name in the same file but its really nice to read it in right room without hacks.

[Upaluppa]

Its possible to hack Bh trial edition and find John's last name in the same file but its really nice to read it in right room without hacks.

The Trial Edition predates the debug sample...
It is more than likely that all the pre-final stuff found in the debug sample is also included in the Trial Edition!

[Guest]

The Trial Edition predates the debug sample...
It is more than likely that all the pre-final stuff found in the debug sample is also included in the Trial Edition!

So, I don't know if I'm asking you the right question, I don't know much of the technical side of things, but have you been able to look at a Room Flag in the memory? Can you see what's going on or make any sense out of it all? Again I don't know if I'm asking the right question or even if I'm asking the right person, but I'm interesting to hear what it actually looks like it there. Like whether it's messy, or... Every other flag seems to have it's purpose, Room Flags are something else...

[Upaluppa]

So, I don't know if I'm asking you the right question, I don't know much of the technical side of things, but have you been able to look at a Room Flag in the memory? Can you see what's going on or make any sense out of it all? Again I don't know if I'm asking the right question or even if I'm asking the right person, but I'm interesting to hear what it actually looks like it there. Like whether it's messy, or... Every other flag seems to have it's purpose, Room Flags are something else...

To be honest, the room flags (or any other flags for that matter) look not much different from what you see in Flag View Mode when you look at them in the memory...

They are just values which represent changes in the game.
There's no indication in the memory as to which flag has which effect, if that's what you mean...
In the memory things are even more complicated as the values can be literally anything, not just 0 for off and 1 for on like you see them in Flag View Mode...

That's why I need your notes to find out which flag is represented by which address+value in the memory!

Here's a picture of what the event flags look like when you view them in the memory:

A bunch of random numbers nobody understands just from looking at them...
(The "whitened" window is a crashed Biohazard Trial Edition - I tried to load a savegame from the debug build and opened the item menu, just ignore that)

If you want to find out what the room flags represent the only thing you can do is doing "stuff" in the game and carefully watching how the flags change accordingly! Another method is comparing memory captures for differences but that's exactly what I am doing at the moment...

[Guest]

To be honest, the room flags (or any other flags for that matter) look not much different from what you see in Flag View Mode when you look at them in the memory...

They are just values which represent changes in the game.
There's no indication in the memory as to which flag has which effect, if that's what you mean...
In the memory things are even more complicated as the values can be literally anything, not just 0 for off and 1 for on like you see them in Flag View Mode...

That's why I need your notes to find out which flag is represented by which address+value in the memory!

Here's a picture of what the event flags look like when you view them in the memory:


If you want to find out what the room flags represent the only thing you can do is to do "stuff" in the game and see how the flags change accordingly...

Thanks! Yeah I get what you mean. So basically looking at room flags in code is worse than looking at them in the game? That's pretty much what I was thinking. The main difference with room flags is that they're map dependant, so I don't know how that effects their presence in memory or how they behave. Perhaps room flags are simply switches and nothing more, entirely blank and useless unless it's given a purpose and instructed to do something by the map. :? It would explain why things are so messy in game as it wouldn't really matter which flags Capcom used, as long as they were "wired up" for lack of a better phrase.

Well I just ran a little experiment. I've never actually tried this, but I took my notes and attempted to solve the Painting Puzzle simply by using room flags, specifically the fewest amount of room flags as I possibly could, and I done it. This one flag hightlighted here solves the whole entire puzzle. What it basically means is, the last painting I selected was the Bold Looking Old Man, and every other painting I picked before it was in the exact right order. This flag here only appears under those specific circumstances, according to the game it doesn't matter what I did, when this flag is checked, the puzzle is ready to be solved.



The result...

[Upaluppa]

Flagmania!!

Well I just ran a little experiment. I've never actually tried this, but I took my notes and attempted to solve the Painting Puzzle simply by using room flags, specifically the fewest amount of room flags as I possibly could, and I done it. This one flag hightlighted here solves the whole entire puzzle. What it basically means is, the last painting I selected was the Bold Looking Old Man, and every other painting I picked before it was in the exact right order. This flag here only appears under those specific circumstances, according to the game it doesn't matter what I did, when this flag is checked, the puzzle is ready to be solved.

The game sets a room flag for every part of the puzzle to keep track of your progress!
So after every correct switch you have pressed one flag will be set!

However, when attempting to press the switch on the last picture the game only checks whether the previous flag (bold man right or wrong?) is set to determine if you get the item or not. This is only logical as it would be unnecessary work for the game to check every flag even tough it is obvious that the bold man flag can't be set (Normally, without debug mode) without having the earlier parts of the puzzle already done!

Yeah, in order to get the last picture to reveal the item you just need to set the flag of the bold man switch, none of the previous ones!
If you only set the flag of the last switch before the bold man you should be able to do the same thing and just "continue" the picture puzzle by pressing the bold man switch and then the final switch without ever having to touch the other, older switches.

I apologize if this confused you more than it helped!

Edit:
Besides, shouldn't there be one more flag which is set AFTER revealing the item?
So that you could set that one flag and the game thinks the picture frame hiding the item is already gone?

That way you could just go to the last picture and grab the item even tough the picture is still on the wall...
(Or it'll just start playing the short cutscene in which the picture falls after setting that flag)

Edit2:
Ignore the previous edit...
A flag which determines whether the item is already revealed can't be a room flag!
The game would "forget" about it after leaving the room and you could do the puzzle over and over...

This flag must be a constant flag, something that is kept in the game memory even after leaving the room!

[SonicBlue]

This flag must be a constant flag, something that is kept in the game memory even after leaving the room!

Stored maybe in Key Flag2, along with Item Flag2 and Enemy Flag2, or whichever they store the not counted things we have found.

[Guest]

The game sets a room flag for every part of the puzzle to keep track of your progress!
So after every correct switch you have pressed one flag will be set!

However, when attempting to press the switch on the last picture the game only checks whether the previous flag (bold man right or wrong?) is set to determine if you get the item or not. This is only logical as it would be unnecessary work for the game to check every flag even tough it is obvious that the bold man flag can't be set (Normally, without debug mode) without having the earlier parts of the puzzle already done!

Yeah, in order to get the last picture to reveal the item you just need to set the flag of the bold man switch, none of the previous ones!
If you only set the flag of the switch before the bold man you should be able to do the same thing and just "continue" the picture puzzle by pressing the bold man switch and then the final switch without ever having to touch the other switches.

I apologize if this confused you more than it helped!

Edit:
Besides, shouldn't there be one more flag which is set AFTER revealing the item?
So that you could set that one flag and the game thinks the picture frame hiding the item is already gone?

That way you could just go to the last picture and grab the item even tough the picture is still on the wall...
(Or it'll just start playing the short cutscene in which the picture falls after setting that flag)

Edit2:
Ignore the previous edit...
A flag which determines whether the item is already revealed can't be a room flag!
The game would "forget" about it after leaving the room and you could do the puzzle over and over...

This flag must be a constant flag, something that is kept in the game memory even after leaving the room!

Yeah, that's the way I observed it!

In reply to your edits, that's exactly right! That would be a common flag, specifically this common flag for this particular puzzle! I just set the flag and teleported here (or walked in the door, same thing) to activate it...



I've just been trying a few other puzzles and things aren't as simple as this one. This time I tried the Armour Room Puzzle, and failed lol... With this one these two flags indicate the grates are covered, one per statue, however these particular flags can't be selected. Not sure why, but this is what I mean about how random the room flags can be. This one requires the objects actually be pushed into position before the puzzle can be completed. Perhaps there's a way to do it that I haven't thought of yet, bit I don't know. Different maps have different rules for room flags, so hard trying to make sense of it all.



I think I'm going to ditch room flags in my current run and just focus on the rest. My methods of doing this don't work for room flags, I think you need to catalogue room flags by room and not by flags!