Animation Tab of ver. 0.457 FFTPatcher

[Vanya]

Not the dolls, but rather an animation that might have been intended for them.
There are 2 sets of three animations that if used by a humanoid sprite has the sprite stick their hand out.
These are the byte 2 values if you want to check them out:

44 - Upper holding out hand (no wep1 or wep2 animation at all)
47 - Middle holding out hand (no wep1 or wep2 animation at all)
4A - Lower holding out hand (no wep1 or wep2 animation at all)

45 - Upper holding out hand (with a wep1 animation, no compatible weapon found)
48 - Middle holding out hand (with a wep1 animation, no compatible weapon found)
4B - Lower holding out hand (with a wep1 animation, no compatible weapon found)

They could be the shield block sequences, but they didn't use the equiped shield's graphics, only the weapon's.

I also found these to be interesting:

43 - Upper throwing weapon strike (the cloths and hand bags are compatible, has no return anim. Used for thrown items & Throw skills?)
46 - Middle throwing weapon strike (the cloths and hand bags are compatible, has no return anim. Used for thrown items & Throw skills?)
49 - Lower throwing weapon strike (the cloths and hand bags are compatible, has no return anim. Used for thrown items & Throw skills?)

[Vanya]

Has anyone ever tried to mess with the weapon data in raw hex?
It would help solve the mystery of the missing weapon animations if we could see exactly values and if there are any possible combinations not normally supported by the editor.

[Cheetah]

So I have a question since I have spent very little time actually working with FFTPatcher. Is there a known value that determines what weapon graphic is used that relates to the specific weapon equiped? Like if you are using a Coral Sword, how does the game know how to use that weapons graphic/palette instead of a different sword graphic? This would be the next step in figuring out using these unused items, among other things.

[Vanya]

To the best of my knowledge that data is still a mystery. The patcher only lets you change the icon in the item menu, not the graphics in battle. It could be hard coded, but I don't know for sure. The best ppl to ask I guess are either melonhead or zodiac.

[Zozma]

the odd thing is i managed to create a harp that had a blue icon and blue batle gfx.. but other weapons wouldnt change the gfx in battle, they just used defaults

[Vanya]

What did you change exactly?

[Zozma]

just changed one of the cloths/rugs into a harp and gave it a blue palette

[Vanya]

And it looked like a harp? Interesting.
I tried changing a pole into a staff, but it ended up looking like a sword.
I really need to hit up the pSX debugger to try and track the code/values that determine the weapon graphic.
I also need to experiment with the weapons to see what data can be extrapolated from changing their types around.

[Cheetah]

I found part of this on the Japanese wiki the other day. I will post the info when I get home.

[Vanya]

Cool, I'd appreciate that. ^_^

[Wasabi]

Is there any more info on Byte 1 for the rest of the monster sprites?

[Mega_Tyrant]

Unfortunately there isn't any new info on Byte 1 yet (I did have some but my laptop's hardrive got a bad virus and IT had to wipe the drive).  This task has been on the back burner for while now, I had to refocus my attention on school because my grades were slipping badly.  Juggling work, school and this was a bit harder than I thought.  Thankfully this semester I don't plan on working so I'm hoping to be able to make some headway on this despite taking 18 credits this semester.

[Mega_Tyrant]

NOOOOOOOOO! NOT AGAIN! CRUD! My hard drive crashed again! Why does this keep happening to me?  I lost lots of important school documents, *@$#.

[R999]

Speaking of weapon animations, I've also found the animations for striking weapons (knife, sword, staff, mace, etc.). guns, crossbows, thrust weapons, books, harps, throwing weapons, and bags/cloths. Some of these were already on the wiki. If we could some how expand the routine that checks for swords, we can do an entire array of abilities designed for specific weapons.

While searching for specific weapon animations, I came across the Wiki as well and tested some of the weapon animations listed there. What annoys me though, is that a lot of these animations do not actually seem to display the actual weapon your caster is holding. It displays a blue / default palette weapon. At least it is for the ones that I have tried.

Btw Vanya, are you updating the Wiki right now? I am very anxious to get my hands on some of the weapon anims you described.

[Vanya]

Make sure that the skill you're using to test has the weapon strike flag set. If you use a skill with a weapon animation and that flag isn't set you'll automatically get weapon 00 with palette 00; which is the blue dagger.
I haven't added anything in a while, but I have a bunch of notes. I'll add it ASAP, though.

[R999]

Oh that makes sense... But just to make sure, I am referring to the 2nd byte for the animation.

I am aware that if the 2nd byte is 00, with weapon strike flagged, it will perform a one time weapon strike (attack animation basically). It is one time only because formulas that can hit multiple times (Hydra, Malak, etc) will only show the weapon strike once, afterwards it becomes fists (all this refers to 00 being the 2nd byte).

So say if I wanted a forced sword/dagger strike animation, using the actual weapon wielding, do I use one of the following along with the Weapon Strike checked?

0x5B weapon strike???
0x5C weapon strike???
0x5D weapon strike???
0x5E weapon strike???
0x5F weapon strike???
0x60 weapon strike???
0x61 weapon strike???
0x62 weapon strike???
0x63 weapon strike???

I also tried 0x6E (Attack) with weapon strike before, and that works (but it still uses the blue dagger). I'll come back after I tried the other ones with weapon strike. Unless there's other animations that you haven't listed in the wiki.

[Vanya]

I believe those are some of the ones. I'll check my notes to be sure.

[R999]

Edit: I got the weapon strikes to show up properly now, at least some of them anyway.


Now, here's some testing on Vanya's findings,

Use the values 0F, 6A, and 00. Then make sure the ability is single target only.
This will give a bad ass jump kick / short dragoon jump animation.

0F 71 00 is similar but uses the Steal animation. It might be useful for a new steal ability.

0F 3C 00 is kinda wierd. The unit jumps up off screen, then the effect happens on the target and the unit reappears in their original spot with the teleport effect.

0F 6A 00 -> supposedly, same animation as a regular jump attack.
However...
1) Regardless if the given ability is instant cast or not, the caster will lose his/her Shadow (black dot) permanently throughout the entire battle, making the sprite looked like it was cut and pasted on the game (looking very ugly).

2) if this is not instant cast, the caster will go into a charging state, and is permitted to Move -in mid air-. However, this appears extremely glitchy; the caster will move and jump in mid air showing all sorts of glitchy looking things.

Video Demostration of some of these behaviors

>>>>>> Note that the Lancer loses his Shadow permanently after landing.

So my conclusion with regards to this is... while it looks cool at first, it is basically not useable. This is regarding the first part 0F being a Jump initialization animation. It looks like the animation code itself actually moves the sprite location semi-permanently.


0F 71 00 -> using a steal animation on the 2nd phase.
1) This looked cool at first, but upon further testing, the steal animation behaves very strangely, sometimes leading to a double steal animation, sometimes looking really weird, with inbetween animations of jump and steal, and this random behavior is completely isolated to these animation flags. Basically unusable.

0F 3C 00 -> haven't tested this yet. But if it could work, it'll be the only way to make for a "Pseudo Jump" effect.



And yes I am indeed interested in a working Pseudo Jump animation.



edit3: 0F-76 does indeed work better, without the problems stated here earlier.





============================
edit:4  Just posting here to remind myself that I have tested all of the Bow animations from the wiki. Namely, 24, 36, 53 and 54. Without weapon strike,

54 actually looked liked a Throw animation, with a glitched blue dagger.
53 looked like a bow animation but again, with a blue glitched dagger.
36 caster kneels down with eyes closed
24 caster kneels down with eyes closed

All of them with the exception of 24, behave as if it was animation 00 if weapon strike is flagged (basically, useless; if you had a sword, it'll do a sword swing. if you had a book, it'll do a book animation, etc).

[Skip Sandwich]

@R999
regarding weapon strike and multi-hit formulas, the first hit references the right hand weapon graphic, and all subsequent hits reference the left

[R999]

^ Thanks very much for this info.