It can be done with Hades Workshop[forums.qhimm.com], though you'll need to search a bit inside the game's script code.
It requires changing the script of all the fields where you are given the choice to change team (Hildaguard 3 and Invincible mainly), but that's not an hard modification. Search for the line "Party( 4, 1 )" and change it to "Party( 4, 0 )". This way, Zidane won't be locked anymore. Those lines can be found :
- in the Blue Narciss, in one of the Cid's functions (the SpeakBTN one),
- in the Hildaguard 3, in one of the Sailor's functions (the SpeakBTN one),
- in the Invincible, it should be in one of the non-model related functions, that is either a "Code" function or a "Region" function.

There are other moments in the game where you can change your party and you would need to do the change for each one of them. However, that's not such a good idea for several points in the story that require Zidane to be or not to be in the party (the Oeilvert/Desert Palace dungeons, for instance).

Here is a patch I made to make Zidane optional in the 3 places above for the US language.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ac7sr4q3z2cx9vp/AACQDfqXPvn8c3ylXeGUrBKEa?dl=0
It's the mod "PC_OptionalZidane.zip".

Originally posted by Albeoris:

I just edit sources and compile a new version of Memoria.dll insteed patch IL-code. o,o

Fair enough. Since I only patched the IL code, I forgot that you could compile dll usually and that the decompiled C# code wasn't so nice for that.

@Moogy : it's a tool to create mods. You can configure the game a bit like the spreadsheet edition in Memoria.

I saw how you modded things, but I don't see how it'd be more convenient to modify Memoria.dll instead of Assembly-CSharp.dll ^^'

My native language is russian... just kidding, I'm french :p

Yes I change that .dll.

Do you mean integration of Memoria into Hades Workshop? Or the other way around?
Both cases will need work as you're in C# and I'm in C++. There seems to be solutions to use both in one project, but those are quiet heavy. The COM feature seems to do that, though I didn't take the time to look at it.

What I can do is replacing parts of IL code's methods by custom parts. It shouldn't be too difficult to copy your custom IL code for, let's say, the fast battle swirl, and add a feature in HW to integrate it.

What's the purpose of having an external Memoria.dll, by the way? You're modifying Assembly-CSharp.dll already, so is there a reason why you don't do all the modifications inside it?

Hades Workshop is the most complete Game Editing Tool available for Final Fantasy IX. Its development started for the PSX version and it became compatible with the PC version as well.

It's available on Qhimm:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14315.0

If you want to contribute, you can read this post:
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14315.msg248197#msg248197

This tool is not compatible with Albeoris's Memoria for the moment.

The Namingway card can be found either in the Desert Palace or during the card tournament if you battle against Mario of the Slums. Show it to a guy in Daggereo and he'll rename your characters (you don't loose the card).

Wut? There's Namingway for that. No need for a mod...

I was closer than expected... Here are two samples for the background :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98687557/Resources/PrimaVista_CargoRoom.xcf
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98687557/Resources/LindblumCastle_Hallway.xcf

Those are GIMP files because there are several layers and it's easier for me to save them in this format (either that or uncompressed .tiff, which are 50 times heavier ^^").

I'm not sure about the light filter ; I've set them on "Screen".
Also, there are granularities around the layers' border. I think I messed up with the reading of the alpha somehow... I'll fix that sooner or later...


About the other textures, they are in the unity archives :o
I see plenty of textures in "p0data2.bin". That can't be something else than the monsters textures.

Hum... Are you talking about the background images or the 3D model textures? In both cases, it'd be better to just get the texture files from the archives than trying to dump them at runtime.

I'll make so that you can export the field backgrounds in some time ; it uses tiling files to make the images effective.
The 3D models' textures should be fine as they are in the unity archives (well... they look like all 3D model textures... the UV mapping is what makes sense for them).

If you're indeed talking about the field background and can't wait to work on them, I'll try to export a sample or two. I'm not on that particular problem now, but I don't think I have so much left to do about it to get an extractor works.

"56" is the index of the spell ID "25" inside the Command Ability list.
I reproduce that Command Ability list here and I add a line break before all the indices that are present in the _FF9FAbil_ComData setup :


"56" here is the index of the "25" at the start of the 6th line. If you want to change Zidane's ability, it's better to modify the "101" in this list instead of changing the index in _FF9FAbil_ComData.
If you want to modify the amount of abilities (giving 16 to Zidane instead of 8, for instance), you can't avoid computing that list again, though.