Final Fantasy Tactics Advance/Maps

Map Information

Data structures

struct FFTA_map

0x58 bytes

Member name	Length	Offset	Type	Maximum value	Description
Graphics Data	4	0x00	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to the beginning of the map tile graphics data.
Arrangement Data	4	0x04	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to the beginning of the data that arranges the tiles.
Unknown	4	0x08	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to something that has to do with clipping.
Palette Data	4	0x0C	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to the beginning of the palette data.
Height-Map Data	4	0x10	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to the beginning of the height-map data.
Animation Data	4	0x14	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to the beginning of the animation data.
Animation Graphics Data	4	0x18	Pointer	N/A	A pointer diff pointing to the beginning of the raw animation tile data.
Animation Destination	4	0x1C	Pointer	N/A	A pointer to where the Animation Data should be stored in the RAM. Usually 0x06000020
Further Animation Data	0x10	0x20	4 Pointers	N/A	An array of 4 pointer diffs pointing to the beginning of extra animation data.
Further Animation Graphics Data	0x10	0x30	Pointer	N/A	An array of 4 pointer diffs pointing to the beginning of extra animation tile data.
Animation Destination	0x10	0x40	Pointer	N/A	An array of 4 pointers to where the Animation Data should be stored in the RAM. Usually 0x06000020
Unknown	4	0x50	32-bit Int	N/A	Unknown. Never appears to be used.
Unknown	1	0x54	Byte	N/A	Unknown. The lowest 2 bits are used to determine what Palette data to use. Values: 0x00 - Use Palette Data Pointer from this structure. If the first byte at this data is 0x10, the Palette Data is compressed with LZ77, otherwise it's uncompressed. 0x01 - Load the half-word at (0x08427A04 + <Palette Index>) and add it 0x08427A04. The data at this location is LZSS compressed. Else - Load the half-word at (0x0842CC80 + <Palette Index>) and add it 0x0842CC80. The data at this location is LZSS compressed.
Unknown	1	0x55	Byte	N/A	Unknown. Appears to mostly be a copy of the previous byte + 0x10.
Palette Index	1	0x56	Byte	N/A	This is the index to be used if the Palette Data bits indicate it is required. (From byte 0x54)
Buffer	1	0x57	Byte	0x00	Never used.

All pointer diffs in this structure are against 0x08569104.

struct FFTA_map_tile

struct FFTA_map_tile {
    uint8 height;
    int8 cannot_walk_on;
};

• height: The height of the tile. There is no offset from what is displayed. Setting to higher than 99 (0x63) causes graphical glitches, but no crashing. Setting to 0 makes the tile invalid, such that it can't be selected. This value is unsigned.
• cannot_walk_on: 0 if the tile can be walked on, 1 otherwise. Other values seem to have the same effect as a 1.

Data layout

In RAM

Each block of map data starts at the top corner, and goes toward the right corner. The end of a row seems to be padded such that the last couple of bytes, until 0xXF, are zero. Unknown what happens if modified.

0x02007CB0(block of FFTA_map_tile): Beginning of map data in RAM

...

0x02007F14(void*): Pointer to 0x02007CB0. If changed, map data changes to correspond to the new pointer.

...

0x02007F1D(u?int8): NW-SE dimension of the map.

0x02007F1E(u?int8): Unknown. Set to 0x0C.

0x02007F1F(u?int8): NE-SW dimension of the map.

In ROM

0x08019E7C(4 bytes): 0x02007CB0 - Address to start reading map height data from in scenes

0x0801F0DC(4 bytes): 0x02007CB0 - Address to write map height data to

0x08569104 - 0x0856915B: Map data pointers for map 0

0x08569104(Pointer): Pointer to map tile graphics data in map 0

0x08569108(Pointer): Pointer to map tile arrangement data in map 0

0x0856910C(Pointer): Pointer to unknown data in map 0

0x08569110(Pointer): Pointer to palette data in map 0

0x08569114(Pointer): Pointer to map height data in map 0

Default locations of map data

	Tile graphics data	Tile arrangement data	Unknown data	Palette data	Map height data
Map 0	0x0856C8B4	0x0856F528	0x0856FEF8	0x0856F4A8	0x085704C8

• There are 163 maps, indexed from 0x00 to 0xA2. Most maps have a night version (palette shift), too.