Problems with sprites in cut scenes

[PunksNotDead]

I want to start by saying that I love this website. I started modding/patching less than a week ago and I have ran into a wall. I read on another post that the sprites in cut scenes are EVTCHR instead of EVGRP, I'm not sure what either of these mean, really, but I do know that I changed the sprites and portraits for Ramza. Every one of them from Chapter 1-4. I noticed afterwards during cut scenes, when Ramza turns certain ways, the sprite becomes broken, and you can see Ramza's original sprite through parts of it. so, my first question is: How would I go about fixing the broken sprite. The second one may be a little easier. I saw a video online of someone who had changed the magic sword attacks (Lightning Stab, Crush Punch, etc.) in both color and they changed the sprites around (the beginning of one attack with the end of another). Could anyone try and explain how they did that? So far the programs I have used to change aspects of the game are the following: FFTEVGRP FFTPatcher, FFTTactext, Shishi Sprite Editor, Graphics Gale Free Edition, MEMCARDREX, and CDPROG. Is there any other programs I need to change these two aspects? After reading a little more about the sprite cut scene problem, I have decided to wait a little longer, so I have a little more experience with changing the game. But I was wondering if the magic sword attacks were covered under Editing Effect File Graphics?

[Jumza]

0_0
May want to break up that paragraph with some spaces.

But your question at the end, you can change the effect files using the guide and it should cover everything. Changing colors is easy (but tedious because there are a lot) and editing the graphical portion is a bit more difficult. Just follow the guide and you'll do fine though.

[3lric]

To edit EVTCHR, you need to download the EVTCHR Viewer from the JP Tools pack. Find the EVTCHR you want to edit, extract it, and redraw it with the Ramza you are using.

It's really not an easy process until you are a skilled spriter, and even then it's still a pain in the ass.

[SilverRegret]

hey there.. im also quite new here.. well i too have tried change chp4 ramza, to be exact, adding a cape to it.. but in many event, for example when ramza handshake with delita his sprite back to capeless ramza. After browsing a bit here and there, finally i found a way to edit those event sprite..
here's the link.. http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=407.0
but a fair warning, its hard..because those sprites are unique and unless you patient enough to edit all the related event one by one (for example, just to put a cape on chp 4 ramza i had to edit each of his sprite from beginning of chp4 till last battle with ultima incl beowulf recruit, steel giant event, recruit cloud event)
at the end i finally gave up and ended turn ramza chp4 sprite back to it was..
the mores is.. just leave main chr alone and just edit non / little event sprite only..

[PunksNotDead]

0_0
May want to break up that paragraph with some spaces.

But your question at the end, you can change the effect files using the guide and it should cover everything. Changing colors is easy (but tedious because there are a lot) and editing the graphical portion is a bit more difficult. Just follow the guide and you'll do fine though.

I'm sorry about the jumbled mess, I was fighting sleep to figure some of this out.

But good news! I think I have the basic idea of Effect files editing. I still need to work on it, of course. This was, after all, my first time doing anything like this. but, I'm going to guess, it gets easier with practice.

[Jumza]

Most things do
Good luck editing effects, maybe post them when your done if you want feedback, or just want to share

[PunksNotDead]

One final thing and I will leave you all alone for a bit.

I've tried looking for a tutorial on making custom Bitmap images and sprites, but I can't find one. Do you know where I could look to get started?

And what is the best to start with? (ex: Changing the color pallet, making small changes to existing images.) Or could I just jump into making my own fully custom .BMP and sprites?

[Jumza]

It really depends on how much you think you can handle. If you want to try making fully custom sprites, go for it. I doubt there would be much success there unless you are extremely gifted. I would suggest starting with making little edits to existing ones, and then instead of getting your own colors, perhaps use some from other sprites. But it's all up to you honestly. Go with your gut.

[Aqueous]

Firstly, at least from a starting point: don't change the order in the palette for the EVTCHR BMPs. What that means is, if you want to change Ramza's purple armour to golden, that's ok if you change the purple "slot" in the palette to golden but if you change another slot that you think is unused and repaint him using that colour it'll cause all kinds of weird and whacky effects in-game. The palette "slots" need to stay the same as they are. So as an example, in the Vanilla EVTCHR BMPs, Ramza's purple armour is colours from palette slot 4, 5 and 6. You can change those colours to new armour colours and it should work ok, but if you change the colour of palette slot 10 to golden then paint that over his armour, it will -not- show up as you'd expect. That basically means you're confined in terms of how many colours you can use for each of the parts of the sprite, I'm afraid.

Secondly, in terms of practice, I'd suggest just starting off with colour scheme changes. You can take one of the BMPs, open it in an editor that has palettes loaded (like GraphicsGale) then copy this into a normal image editing program like Photoshop, change the colour scheme to something you'd like using Photoshop's colour adjustment functions (as long as it's within the parameters of the palette) then paste it back in to GraphicsGale. If you're prompted, always choose to use the closest colour in the existing palette (it might change slightly). If you don't it'll add the colours into the palette and we get the same issues described above.

When you import it back in to EVTCHR, the tool does have a separate image for each of the palettes you select. So for Event 27, Ramza's sprite is pulled from palette # 2, so when you import the BMP back in make sure you've selected not only Event 27 but also palette # 2 ("Import" is also the top ?????? ??... button, haha).

Hope this helps.

EVTCHR is pretty finicky.

[3lric]

He could actually add in a event command to choose which palette the specific evtchr calls and could then make it one of the later pallettes. Though that seems like more work. Basicly with EVTCHR. If the EVTCHR has the same native palette as the sprite it will automatically display correctly. If not you can still make it work just fine with the EVTCHR palette command that  I documented in the EVSP thread.

EVTCHR are actually extremely simple one you know what you are working with.

[Aqueous]

He could actually add in a event command to choose which palette the specific evtchr calls and could then make it one of the later pallettes. Though that seems like more work. Basicly with EVTCHR. If the EVTCHR has the same native palette as the sprite it will automatically display correctly. If not you can still make it work just fine with the EVTCHR palette command that  I documented in the EVSP thread.

EVTCHR are actually extremely simple one you know what you are working with.

Hi Elric,

Could I get a link to that thread? I probably won't understand it but hopefully it'll be fine! I find the EVTCHR palette stuff incredibly frustrating (had numerous cases of the character showing up with whacky colours).

Edit: Don't worry I found it, I thought EVSP was something else!

[3lric]

Glad you were able to figure it out

Are you an event editor? Id love to see some of your work

[Aqueous]

Thanks for the vote of confidence but unfortunately, nope, I'm not!

I'm mostly making modest changes to FFT for my own personal tastes which is the main reason any change to Ramza's sprite I wanted to be able to pull off without any event editing (and of course it'd require editing 20+ events etc.) My Ramza's default class becomes an Arc Knight in Ch4 which is why I needed to make some sprite changes.

I have played around with EVSP though and it looks simple enough I just lack a full knowledge of the syntax available