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Sprite Animation Pointer Question (FFTA)

Started by Edea, September 03, 2016, 05:58:27 pm

Edea

September 03, 2016, 05:58:27 pm Last Edit: September 04, 2016, 02:52:59 am by Edea
Would anyone happen to know the location of the sprite animation pointers in the FFTA ROM?

I was trying to give Hunters the ability to equip and use Knives, but the battle sprite vanishes the moment one tries to make an attack with a melee weapon.  I'm actually fairly certain the sprite graphics needed are already in the ROM, they're simply not pointer'd for Hunter when making a melee weapon attack (since it never makes a melee attack unless unarmed).

Any help would be appreciated, it's been a very long time since I've looked at this ROM and just started playing the game again recently.

EDIT: I think the "Action Indices" I'm interested in (Using the "Tactics Advance Sprite Editor", sorry there's no readme or other info to go along with that program name but I'm pretty sure I got it off of either here or romhacking.net) are numbers $28 through $2D; for melee-capable classes these are sprite pointer sequences that produce a 'weapon swing' animation, and Hunter's are blank (though the actual sprites needed are almost certainly in there, having seen them pointed to in other "Action Indices").

EDIT 2: OK, found it at $370204 (-ish), and discovered that putting in a brand-new series of pointers for an animation is...problematic, as there's no free space.  For now, thankfully, $1c and $1d (I think these are used for Sonic Boom, which all Humes can use) are close enough to the melee strike animation for most classes that it works for Hunter swinging a Dagger around, but I guess now my next question is where I might find free space to add in some extra animation pointer sequences...

dck

There's tools for this actually, bcrobert's nightmare modules allow you to reference action types that don't have an animation attached to them to basically anything.
There are sometimes problems with animations that linger too long or otherwise don't trigger the end of the animation and become stuck after being performed, but most humanoid animations don't do this and there's always safe bets like punch.

Remember to cover all three of the slash type one if you're going to add slashing weapons to them, since they cover the character attacking in height differences. They don't need to be different but 1 and 3 have to be covered as well or the sprite will disappear when attacking things above and below himself.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: adri#1824

Edea

September 04, 2016, 12:02:31 pm #2 Last Edit: September 04, 2016, 02:06:12 pm by Edea
Yep, had all three slash-types covered.  The Nightmare stuff's nice, though, I'd only ever used that for Fire Emblem games!  Thank you for the link, looks like the problem is solved completely now.

EDIT: Also, apparently Doubleshot is affected by Double Sword, meaning that the skill hits twice with each equipped weapon (giving a total of 4 hits).  Removing the 'half damage' (and 'no crit,' I believe) attribute from the skill results in what's essentially the Master's Scroll item from FF6 (I have it in Hunter's skillset at the moment to test repeat-use of the substitute animation sequence).  Also, criticals do not push the target back until the skill's finished (the test unit just critted four times in a row with knives while using it, that poor target suffered over 1,600 points of damage).

dck

Ha, yeah the interaction between doubleshot and multiple weapons is neat, I actually have a few instances of triple-wielders set up in enemy formations and it behaves properly. When pushing past three the damage calculations get screwed up, however, but a total of six hits is still cool :P.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
  • Discord username: adri#1824