FF9 Map Kit (ff9mapkit)

Author custom Final Fantasy IX content (Steam/GOG, via the Memoria engine) from declarative TOML projects, compiled into drop-in Memoria mods. Part of the Dream World IX project.

Capabilities: author any field camera from scratch (single / scrolling / multi-camera) with a pixel-accurate paint guide · fork any of ~674 real fields — camera, walkmesh, art, exits, encounters, music, and (verbatim mode) the real script and dialogue · NPCs, dialogue choices, gateways, events, story branching, cutscenes, shops, save points from one field.toml · custom 3D battle backgrounds + battle tuning · multi-field campaigns and journeys · custom 3D character models (Blender round-trip) and playable characters · overworld terrain/coast/entrance authoring · custom music/SFX · save and story-state editing.

Authoring surfaces: TOML by hand, the form editor (ff9mapkit edit), the Blender add-on, and the one-window PySide6 Workspace.

What it does

Given a field.toml describing one field — camera, painted background layers, walkmesh, NPCs, dialogue, gateways, encounter, music — ff9mapkit build emits everything a custom field needs:

• the background scene (.bgx/.bgs + overlay PNGs or atlas) and walkmesh (.bgi),
• the field event script (.eb) for all seven languages,
• dialogue text (.mes),
• the DictionaryPatch / BattlePatch registration + ModDescription.xml.

Battle maps (battle.toml), campaigns (campaign.toml), and journeys (journeys.toml) compile the same way at their own scopes.

Two steps stay manual, matching how the original pre-rendered backgrounds were made: painting the background art (over the kit's projected paint guide) and judging final in-game alignment. The pipeline rationale is in docs/PIPELINE.md.

Quickstart

pip install "ff9mapkit[assets]"                  # or from this dir: pip install -e ".[assets]"
ff9mapkit setup                                  # find the FF9 install, extract base assets
ff9mapkit import <field> --out myroom --verbatim # fork a real field — or `new` for original art

Full setup (extras, game-path resolution, the engine bundle) → SETUP.md. First-time walkthroughs → docs/tutorials/.

Commands

97 subcommands — ff9mapkit -h lists them; the grouped reference with flags is in SETUP.md §7. The families:

• Setup — setup · doctor · extract-templates
• Author — new · guide / paint-template · walkmesh · edit · camera · disasm
• Build & ship — build · lint · pack · export-art · repaint-native
• Fork real fields — import (--editable/--native/--verbatim) · import-all · import-chain · fork-report · list-fields / find-field / find-rooms · logic-map / lint-eb
• Campaigns & journeys — new-campaign / add-field / build-all / lint-campaign · gen-hub / lint-journey / assemble-journey / reference-arcs · deploy-campaign / deploy-journey / newgame
• Battle — battle-import / battle-build · battle-list / battle-scene / battle-ai / battle-seq · battle-patch / characters / ability-gems / ability-features
• 3D models — model-gltf / model-import / model-mint / model-anim / model-export / playable-anims
• Overworld — world-terrain / world-reclaim / world-coast / world-transplant / world-water / world-entrance / world-encounters and the rest of the world-* suite
• Audio — audio-import · music-list / sfx-list
• Catalogs & dialogue — catalog / models / animations / archetypes / items / scenes / flags / sps · dialogue / dialogue-import
• Saves — flags-inspect / flags-diff / save-edit · items-inspect / items-set-*

Docs

• SETUP.md — install, configure, the CLI reference.
• docs/tutorials/ — single-goal walkthroughs (start with 01 — First fork).
• docs/FEATURES.md — the full capability list.
• docs/FORMAT.md — the field.toml / battle.toml schema reference.
• docs/PIPELINE.md — the from-scratch authoring workflow.
• docs/ENGINE.md — stock vs. patched Memoria; the engine bundle.
• docs/FORK_FIDELITY.md — what forks do and don't reproduce.
• docs/PROVENANCE.md — the kit ships no game data; how base assets are regenerated from the local install.
• docs/TECHNICAL.md — the reverse-engineered foundations (camera math, .eb format, import frame).
• docs/GLOSSARY.md — terms used across the docs.
• docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md · docs/KNOWN_ISSUES.md
• docs/gallery/ — screenshots/GIFs.
• examples/vivi-hut/ — a complete worked example.
• blender/ — the Blender add-on (camera, walkmesh, markers, model round-trip; Blender 4.2+/5.x).

Validation

The package is organized by domain: eb (event-script codec + content injectors), scene (camera math, .bgx/.bgs, .bgi walkmesh, paint guides), build (the field.toml compiler), plus battle/, world/, models/, content/, deploy/journey orchestration, and the editor/+workspace/ front-ends.

Correctness is proven offline by a golden-master test suite (~2,850 tests): every codec round-trips real install assets byte-for-byte (regenerated locally via extract-templates — the repo ships none), and compiling the bundled examples reproduces in-game-verified output exactly.

pip install -e ".[dev]"
py -m pytest -n 6