[FFTPatcher] Limitations of Effects

[R999]

After a lot of testing, I have found a lot of the effects for FFT have a fixed behavior that cannot be changed via FFTPatcher.


Note: By Effects, I am referring to the "Effect" selection part in the Ability tab of FFTPatcher.


The following limitations cannot be completely circumvented by changing the Animations flags.

1) Effects that are limited to a single target only, no animation for secondary targets, regardless if your ability can target multiple targets.
Almost every single effect in FFT are like this, with the exception of the ones that we have already seen (and perhaps a few more) being able to hit AoE as intended.

Examples of effects that can appear on multiple targets: Cure and Haste (each target gets its own individual animation), Cure4 and Haste2 (one main animation, followed by a secondary animation on each target). Some effects will work on multiple targets, like MBarrier (even though it was never intended to be like that in the final release of the game).

Examples of effects that will always only appear on a single target, never on other targets: Potion, Most monster skill effects, Dragon Spirit, Scream.

Note that if the effect cannot appear on secondary targets, the HP/MP/Status changes will not be shown, which is a big problem for AoE spells.


2) Effects that will only appear on the caster, never the target.
0C0 Summon Angel/02BSummon Demon/1E6 Summon Ultimate in particular. I am sure there are others as well.

3) Effects that were designed for special sprites, resulting in glitchy graphics, like a random weapon/sword/knife being drawn near the caster.
Sometimes this can be fixed via the Animations tab. However, to get a desired behavior is not always possible. For instance, if you try to use the Samurai character animation code along with the Saumrai Sword effect, on a non-samurai sword skill, you might look a little glitchy.

4) Effects pre-associated with sound effects.
If you try to use an offensive spell effect for healing, or vice versa, it will probably sound very strange. Changing the Animations tab to show a Punch or Weapon Swing (with Weapon Strike flagged) will help in the latter case, but not as far as actually changing the sound effects.



I would like to know if anyone was able to overcome some of these limitations that I am not aware of.

[GreenGiant]

No solutions from me, but I'd like to add attack animations to the list, i.e., making sword swing, bow shot, etc. part of the spell animation.

[Vanya]

The attack animations have nothing to do with the effect files.
So anything specifically concerning with character animations are dealt with in the animations tab.
However, as you yourself have seen, GreenGiant, all the individual animations are defined somewhere as yet undiscovered.

As for the effects, they have all their animation data, etc. within the effect files themselves.
If you use my effect editing tutorial to calculate the location of the palette and graphics of a given effect file, the left over bytes should be the animation data, sound effect settings, and color effects. I've never verified this myself because the data is most likely in ASM and I don't know this particular flavor of it. On the other hand, unlike the SPR files that have .SEQ files for animation, and .SHP files for graphic defines, the effect files are self contained. Also, no one has ever found any exterior data for effect files like Unit.BIN has.

[GreenGiant]

Ah, I wondered what the animations tab was for. After messing with the checkboxes there, I was able to fix the issue with weapon swings. Can't speak for R999's issues, but it seems like that might be able to fix some of those, as well.

[Vanya]

Yeah, we should make sure and note a distinction between effects and animations here.

[Atma]

very cool research!  I saw a video with Zozma's Miluda edit that has a skill he called 'Venom Blade' that used the hellcry effect, but tinted purple.
i can imagine a lot of potentially awesome stuff coming from this, but i bet it's gonna be a pain in the ass  

[R999]

From what Zozma told me, that's actually a duplicated Hellcry effect with all the frames recolored manually, and manually inserted over an Oracle effect. He was saying that the sound effects, framerate, AoE property, etc are retained in the effect - but as for changing that, it'll need some ASM hacking into the effect files.

[blade8531]

I'm not sure if this has been asked before but, I was wondering if it is possible in FFTPatcher to have an effect animate even if there is no target?
specifically the monk's earth slash.  I want to make it look like a fissure instead of just animating only under a target.

[Zozma]

ive been wondering how to do that myself, for similar skills.

the only thing that seems to hit empty panels with animations are the ramdom strike things like truth/untruth skills and triple thunder/fire effects