Question about making custom characters.

[busterff7]

            Hello, I'm new here and I wasnt sure where to post this question. Here goes; it was years ago that I used Gameshark to mod FFT in order to add the Beoulve family. Using specific codes I was able to replace generic characters with the special ones. How it worked was like this; say I had generic male unit in spot 2 in the formation screen, I was able to replace him with Zalbag, base job of Arc Knight included, without removing Squire from everyone else's Job Wheel. My question is this; can I do the same with FFTPatcher? I want to add the Beoulves again while only changing thier respective base jobs. Also, I was wondering if I can add Balbanes and create a custom job the same way, without sacraficing a generic job? I know this is a long post, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Sorry again if I posted this in the wrong section.

[Torn338]

            Hello, I'm new here and I wasnt sure where to post this question. Here goes; it was years ago that I used Gameshark to mod FFT in order to add the Beoulve family. Using specific codes I was able to replace generic characters with the special ones. How it worked was like this; say I had generic male unit in spot 2 in the formation screen, I was able to replace him with Zalbag, base job of Arc Knight included, without removing Squire from everyone else's Job Wheel. My question is this; can I do the same with FFTPatcher? I want to add the Beoulves again while only changing thier respective base jobs. Also, I was wondering if I can add Balbanes and create a custom job the same way, without sacraficing a generic job? I know this is a long post, but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Sorry again if I posted this in the wrong section.

I won't be able to give the best answer possible as I'm new here myself. But to answer your question easily... Yes, yes you can.

Open up an unedited version of FFT in fftpatcher. Move over to the ENTD section. and scroll down to 184 in the menu. Leave Delita alone or could cause issues I believe. Other than Delita, you'll see an enemy list. I believe Balbanes doesn't have a battler graphic sprite so you can pull one from the custom sprites page here and insert it in with the sprite editor. Other than that...

There are 5 enemies in this battle. You'll simply need to edit the enemies that show up into the ones that you want to be in your party. Ignore inputting Balbanes for now if you're confused -- Let's go with Zalbaag, Alma (make sure you use the one that is actually her in-game guest battler sprite .. she has event sprites as well I believe.. not sure how that goes, and Dycedarg.. Click on say "Generic Male <Random> Squire" .. chose the custom sprite set, Name (make sure to use the right one), I would assume birthday is irrelevant, their job (cleric and all that) , and their level (I would suggest setting it to level 1 if you want to play with them and actually have fun). After that...

Select "team color" and put it to blue. Make sure it's set to male if they're a male, female if Alma. Not sure if unit ID matters at all, so leave blank. Tick the "Join after Event" box and I believe the save formation box as well. If you do not tick the control box on, they'll be guests until after the battle .. I guess experiment around with what you feel is best.

Here's to hoping I answered that right .. I'm learning as well. Also, it's important to note that the game can only draw so many unique sprites at the same time.. Not sure if that would be a problem or not.

[busterff7]

Thank you! That definately helps a lot. I'm also curious, can I make a custom character with a custom base job without sacraficing an already existing job for everyone else? Example; Ashley Riot - Base Job: Riskbreaker, while still having Squire as the base job for generics?

[busterff7]

New issue lol (I am such a n00b) I now have Dycedarg, Zalbag and Alma in my party, but when I open the main menu and select Formation, thier sprites and portraits are all wierd. Is there a way I can fix this?

This is the problem:

Zalbag has Ramza's Ch.1 Sprite

Dycedarg has Ramza's Ch. 1 Sprite with glitchy colors

Alma... I dunno, she has the Portrait and Sprite of some guy that looks like a High Priest

[Glain]

The formation screen sprites are in UNIT.BIN and the portraits are in WLDFACE.BIN; you should be able to use FFTEVGRP to edit the entries, then the UWEntries spreadsheet to generate a patch to use with FFTorgASM that maps which jobs use which sprites/portraits.

Alma should already have a correct sprite/portrait though, although maybe only the guest Alma has the right one.  You should be able to just use the spreadsheet to repoint the job you're using to the correct UNIT/WLDFACE entries.

[busterff7]

Alright, I'll try that out. Thanks for the info. 


Edit: I have the spreadsheet and I change the jobs to a different UNIT.BIN and WLDFACE.BIN entry, but on the XML tab there is no change. It looks exactly the same as before editing. Sorry if I sound stupid, but I'm kinda new to using spreadsheets.

Re-Edit: Yeah I'm lost on the part where it says to copy XML from XML tab. Nothing changes in the XML tab.

[Glain]

As long as you're editing the yellow column, the contents of the XML tab should change... some of it will remain the same, but parts of it change.  It probably wouldn't be immediately apparent just by looking at it -- Are you comparing the original one and the new one side-by-side exactly?

If it really is the case that nothing at all is updating, all I can think of is that since I used OpenOffice to make the spreadsheet, maybe one of the formulas is having a problem in Excel?  If so, it's the first I've heard of it, though...

EDIT - Looks like it works fine in Excel.

[busterff7]

I'm using Office Suite X 3.3, could that be the problem?

Here are some screens so you can see what I mean.

[Glain]

That looks like it worked to me.  Row 16 changed from "0B0C130D" to "150C130D" and Row 42 changed from "0B000C00" to "15000C00".  No?

[busterff7]

Boy, do I feel silly... I appreciate you pointing that out for me. Thank you!

UPDATE: It worked like a charm! Thanks again for all your help!!