FFXI HD Mods (xiPrime)

This icon pack is heavily inspired by RadialArcana's from this post.

Frankly, my entire endeavor to get into .DAT modding in this game is from RA's XIView variant release, and my desire to "tweak" a few things here and there (which then became much more). The 57.DAT file in my pack is based off of his, and includes some of the icons from his pack (most of which have been modified in some way). I also continued his trend of using FFXIV icons as a basis for JAs when modding 15.DAT and 95.DAT.

I also took inspiration (and a couple icons) from the Caradog/Kenshi releases of XIView (Caradog, Kenshi). I also use recolored versions of the 'circle' icons (Ancient Circle, Holy Circle, etc.) from Jean Paul's set.





My goals for this icon pack were to:
▪ Keep the icons stylistically similar to the default game icons- the goal is to enhance the FFXI experience, not replace it.
▪ Make the icons vibrant and easily-discernable from each other, as soft subtle coloring makes it difficult to find a specific buff/debuff out of a list of 20+ in the middle of content.
▪ Keep the icons informative without having them too cluttered.
▪ Loosely maintain a consistent coloring convention throughout the pack (there are a few intentional exceptions such as pro/shell, marches, etc.):
In general, this guide should help give a rough idea of what kind of stat an icon is boosting if the icon isn't immediately recognizable.

Also, I took heavy inspiration from RadialArcana's COR roll icons. Although I made these myself, they follow the same convention of lucky number on the left face of the die and unlucky number on the right face. Also, I use the artifact headgear for each job to illustrate the associated job for the roll, and the coloring of the die itself loosely follows the color guide above.

To install the pack, just copy the entire 'ROM' folder from the 'DAT Mods' directory in the attached .zip, and overwrite the 'ROM' folder in your Final Fantasy XI installation directory.

Alternatively, for those using the XIPivot addon for Windower/Ashita, the status icon files (ROM/0/12.DAT and ROM/119/57.DAT) are compatible with XIPivot, so you can use that instead to prevent overwriting system files. Unfortunately, the game loads the menu icons before XIPivot loads, so those .DATs must be replaced manually as per the above instructions.

For PartyBuffs, XIVParty, and other addons that use .png icons, the 'icons' directory from the attached .zip can be simply copied over the addon's directory, and replace the default icons there.

▪ I use a different method for upscaling the nameplate icons, so it is not natively compatible with the alternate icon packs provided with different versions of XIView. I can provide some help for those of you who’d like to customize your own icons, but I don't plan to offer alternative variants of the mod (please keep in mind this is a personal-use mod that I’m sharing). The upside, though, is that this mod upscales ALL of the nameplate icons, instead of only the most commonly-used ones, as is the case in RA’s mod. This offers support for popular fan-favorite content such as Pankration, Beligerency, Brenner, and more…

▪ Secondly, and this change is important, there are no widescreen or condensed variants of the mod. I use a great plugin made by Velyn for Ashita/Windower to handle the widescreen stretching compensation.

▪ For context, the game was designed for a standard screen aspect ratio, and when playing in widescreen, the nameplates appear stretched horizontally. Other XIView mods have tried to compensate for this in a variety of ways by essentially ‘pre-stretching’ the images. This has worked well, and I am grateful for those efforts. Unfortunately, while pre-stretching looks ‘better’ on widescreen displays it still doesn’t display everything completely correctly (true to the source image files in the .DATs), it’s resolution-dependent (will look different on different widescreen aspect ratios), and pre-stretching and then re-stretching the images degrades the image quality (albeit minimally).

▪ On the other hand, a member of the community, Velyn, has developed a fantastic plugin for Ashita/Windower that eliminates all of the game’s nameplate stretching (as well as providing a ton of other nameplate customization features such as the ability to resize nameplates and hide/show nameplate contents including stars, icons, and text on the player, PCs, NPCs, etc.). The mod I’m posting keeps all of the image files in their standard resolution, and assumes that one is using Velyn’s nameplate plugin to compensate for the nameplate stretching.

▪ The advantages are that all icons/text display correctly regardless of screen resolution, and I only have to update/maintain a single version of the mod. The downside is that the plugin requires the user to use Ashita/Windower along with a 3rd party plugin. So, while the .DAT mod itself works fine, nameplate stretching compensation is not compatible with vanilla (for all the folks who play that way).

Another thing I should point out is that unfortunately Velyn seems to have disappeared. Their site where the plugin was hosted has been taken down, their Github is no longer active, and they’ve left some (all?) of the FFXI Discord channels. I am including their nameplate plugin in my download link. Previous releases of XIView have historically bundled supporting software such as ChangeTex, Tex Hammer, FFXI Icon Change, etc., so I hope bundling Velyn’s plugin with my mods is acceptable.

To install the nameplate plugin (for Windower, I don't use Ashita personally so I assume it's installed like any other Ashita plugin), place the .dll in your Windower/plugins directory, and use the command in game. After loading the plugin, you can use the command to see a list of the customization commands.

To install the pack, just copy the entire 'ROM' folder from the attached .zip, and overwrite the 'ROM' folder in your Final Fantasy XI installation directory.

To get the window background to display properly, make sure to set
from your in-game menu.

First, install the Balloon addon from the above link. Then. download the attached .zip, and place the xiPrime folder in Balloon's themes directory. Load up the Balloon addon in game, and use the command to turn on this theme.

In the FFXI Modding Discord, atom0s posted a tool he made to extract the encrypted images from POL, and Vekien used that to dump all of the images including the cursors. I made some matching in-game cursors from those source images if anyone is interested.

Just copy all of the cursor files into your FFXI installation directory (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\PlayOnline\SquareEnix\FINAL FANTASY XI) overwriting the cursor files in there.

This game has had a long history of .DAT modding, both for 2D and 3D assets. For 2D assets, there have been (and continue to be) a variety of modifications to the 119/57.DAT (status icons) and 119/51.DAT (nameplate icons and text). There used to be an active .DAT modding community with a widely available selection of custom icons and fonts for people to use. Unfortunately that site is longer available, and the community as a whole has shrunk considerably, so available mods have mostly been scattered around if folks managed to keep backups. Right now, newer mods are generally available on smaller Discord servers, forums, Nexus Mods, etc. All of these mods are generally named by their creators.

'XI View' is not a name given to the *act* of modding 119/57.DAT and 119/51.DAT. 'XI View' is the name of a *specific* combo icon pack / nameplate mod created by (I believe, someone please correct my history if I get it wrong) Wildman, Mystical, Darkshade, and possibly others a while back. Unfortunately, they left the community. However, due to the popularity of this specific pack, Caradog and Kenshi have very kindly taken to updating those mods every time an SE update breaks them.

Now if you would take a look at the currently maintained versions of 'XI View' available from either Caradog's or Kenshi's pages (linked in my original post), and compare them to what I have posted here, I'm sure you'll agree there is very little similarity. I don't believe I've used a single icon from XI View in my mod, just some inspiration for color themes and such (for instance, my March icon is blue...). Also, if you dig into 119/51.DAT between what I have posted here and XI View, the source image files, resolutions, and even the texture coordinate mappings are completely different. Saying that some of the mods I've presented here could not have been done without the hard work of the XI View team over the years is completely accurate, which is why I acknowledged my appreciation. However, I believe we can all agree that this isn't XI View, it's something different, and hopefully Caradog and Kenshi will keep the real XI View alive for years to come.

Now, this brings us to RadialArcana's mods. What he released was fantastic. However, despite what he decided to call them, his icons were *not* 'XI View', and his nameplate mod was also *not* 'XI View'. They were something very different, but he chose to re-use the name 'XI View' because it had familiarity within the community. Personally I disagree with his decision, as it (1) was piggybacking on the popularity of someone's mods by re-using their name, and (2) has caused confusion as to "which XI View are you using?" that I've seen in Discord servers and such looking for support. This confusion is further evident by the very post I'm replying to. Seeing as my mods would also be different from the others, source images would not be cross-compatible, and mine requires a whole 3rd party plugin, also calling my mod 'XI View' would considerably further compound this confusion.

Now, a significant portion of my icon pack in 119/57.DAT is largely based off of RA's source images (which were in turn taken mostly from other sources such as FFXIV). Also, while I completely made my own upscaling of the nameplate icons in 119/51.DAT (different source image structure, resolution, texture mapping, etc. - menu ustatshd primarily) to offer full HD in a way that no other mods have done before, I *did* re-use RA's upscaled font, as I feel what he made was downright perfect and I couldn't improve on it. I've done my best to give RA the credit he deserves and acknowledge which portions of this mod are based off of his. I've been upfront with the fact that this started as a mod of his files and has since evolved into something much more. If RA didn't re-use the name 'XI VIew' for his mod, then perhaps I could see the logic in naming this mod after his, but this was not the case.

Overall, this project intends to upscale, modernize, and add consistency to an inconsistently styled patchwork of UI elements in the game through the use of addon themes and .DAT modding. I simply chose to assign a name (a dumb one, but it works) to this overall theme to make it easy for the community to download and use elements that are intended to work well together. Overall, what I am releasing is much more than XI View, and while I am offering modifications to the same files that XI View modifies, this mod uses none of the resources from XI View itself, and bears virtually no similarity. Yes, if you were to download each individual mod from my post and use all of them, then this would effectively replace XI View (and then some). Alternatively, you can always do something like use 'my' icon pack with the 'XI View' nameplates/fonts based on your preferences.