Every page on this site takes a long time for me to load for some reason, so I can't do a whole lot of searching. I'm new to hacking FFT, but I already accomplished a lot with my hack. I just have some questions that I hope can be answered easily.
1. How do I get some classes like the ninja class to use the new abilities I made? The Throw command, and I think the Lancer's Jump command don't let me use the new abilities. Is there a way around this?
2. Is there any way to get enemy abilities to be used as my player abilities without having a weapon appear while they are used?
3. The samurai class abilities vfx also show the weapon when they are used. Is there a way to not have the weapon show up?
4. Can someone direct me to a page that helps me modify sprites? I want to change all or most of the player sprites except for Ramza (because I heard it's best not to modify that sprite). I assume I can download new sprites and modify colors somehow. I haven't yet started to change sprites, but I want to know the basics.
5. If there is any suggestions for the beginner besides the general stuff I should know? Any common problems people run into when trying to hack FFT that I can get a heads up on?
1. The Generic Skillset Fix will do what you want there. Something to keep in mind that I don't think is mentioned anywhere is how those skillsets will mess with skills with Charge Time. If a unit is using a GSF-modified skillset like Lancer to say cast a spell like Fire, then tries to move they will stop charging and lose their action. Just try to keep anything you put in those skillsets as instant-cast to avoid this. If anyone has a fix for this I'm not aware of it.
2. Not quite sure what you mean by that one but...
3. ...if you want a unit to change how they move while casting a spell, you need to change the values in the Animations tab of FFTPatcher. I don't believe there is an accurate listing anywhere of what these do exactly. If you compare values on different skills you can figure some things out pretty easy though. [Ex: the Break skills are all 07 00 00 which makes a unit swing their equipped weapon and do nothing else]
4. Spriting tutorial: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6617.0 Importing Custom Sprites tutorial: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6702.0 If those don't get you on the right track for that I don't know what will. Also, GraphicsGale is your friend.
5. Probably the most common first big "HELP ME" I see for new folks is when they try to use FFTacText and they get an error when applying their changes. Always SAVE FIRST before applying your changes. TacText likes to fuck things up if you don't. When using it, save early, save often and save before applying to the ISO. Another one I still have problems with is don't hit Alt when using FFTPatcher. If you've got a box of checkboxes highlights when you do it'll revert all your changes back to default values. Alt+Tabbing has cost me probably a few hours of redoing work I'd already done over the years.
Thank you very much Celdia. This helps quite a bit.
Happy to help. Hopefully some other folks will come along and drop in their answers to your #5. I know there have got to be a lot of different things that everyone got hung up on early on. A good thread to read for some other stuff is over here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9675.0
I didn't think to link that earlier.
I have far too many FFH tabs open just so that I don't have to bookmark or write down or otherwise remember where certain threads are. Sometimes it pays off!
Quote from: Celdia on April 08, 2014, 03:22:47 pm3. ...if you want a unit to change how they move while casting a spell, you need to change the values in the Animations tab of FFTPatcher. I don't believe there is an accurate listing anywhere of what these do exactly. If you compare values on different skills you can figure some things out pretty easy though. [Ex: the Break skills are all 07 00 00 which makes a unit swing their equipped weapon and do nothing else]
This (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8352.msg165621#msg165621) post is rather informative. It's not exactly perfect, but it makes for a wonderful starting point. From there, comparing values is ideal - for example, if we check Jump, we can see that one of the "spell charging"s listed in the first spoiler is used as the first byte for all the jump skills. If we give a normal skill x76: Land Jump as the second byte with something else as the first byte (such as one that causes crouch charging), the first animation will play, then the character will immediately jump up and then land on the enemy. It's not very smooth, but the skill quote would probably appear before the jump happens. If instead we pair them up like the Jump skills do, the character will jump as their prep animation, then land on the opponent as their execution animation. If the skill has a quote, this leads to them jumping in the air, saying their quote while in the air, then crashing down on the enemy. Pretty cool if you ask me!
That said, according to some testing I did 5 seconds ago, you should NOT give animation x0F (byte 1) to a skill with a charge time, and you should certainly make sure to pair it up with x76 (byte 2) afterwards (otherwise... you don't come down). When you use a skill with charge time, then move, then change facing, the charging animation replays each time you switch - necessary (I'm assuming) for skills where the animations are normal and not hacked to pieces, but here it means that you can just keep jumping, upwards and upwards, as far as you like, and it's possibly capable of causing skillset glitches in other characters (which is wacky enough that I'll probably ask about it in its own thread, if I don't find anything by searching).
In any case, this is all related to...
Quote from: Murex on April 08, 2014, 02:17:13 pm2. Is there any way to get enemy abilities to be used as my player abilities without having a weapon appear while they are used?
*I KNOW NOTHING, THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS NOTHING BUT EDUCATED GUESSWORK*
You'll notice that some of the animations state that they use temp weapons. This (I'm assuming) indicates that the dagger sprite is used in the animation. Presumably, some animations call something they can't find, so it defaults to using the dagger sprite as a placeholder. For example, when using a Yagyu Darkness as a normal weapon, Pokeytax saw that it would call the dagger sprite when used to attack. (http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6505.msg185889#msg185889) When I have one of my human units use Triple Attack, without editing it, the unit will raise its arm, which is suddenly holding a Dagger outwards, and then the attack will happen. It looks REALLY cool (if somewhat jarring and nonsensical) and should be manipulable by editing whichever sprite it calls. As for making the enemy abilities usable as player abilities WITHOUT the dagger popping up... you might find success with changing the animation bytes. Triple Attack and friends are running off the MON spritesheet, so their animations are different - the post I linked before has the human ones, so see what happens if you change it to one of them. Of course, this'll break it for use by monsters, so if you want a blue mage you may just have to learn to love the dagger... or find another solution, like an animation that works for either one. Of course, if it doesn't work that way, then there may be other solutions still.
It's almost 4 AM and I'm rambling, so it's probably time to post this and hope it's coherent enough to be helpful! As for #5, it's in the thread that Celdia linked but it never hurts to repeat it: Never patch over an already-patched file! It's both an easily avoidable mistake if you know about it and an easily makeable mistake if you don't, so it's really great for beginners to hear about. Good luck, and I apologise for any errors in my "helpful" guesswork :P
Quote from: Celdia on April 08, 2014, 03:22:47 pm
Something to keep in mind that I don't think is mentioned anywhere is how those skillsets will mess with skills with Charge Time. If a unit is using a GSF-modified skillset like Lancer to say cast a spell like Fire, then tries to move they will stop charging and lose their action. Just try to keep anything you put in those skillsets as instant-cast to avoid this. If anyone has a fix for this I'm not aware of it.
Something made me look at this recently and I realize that the problem I have with this is very likely unique for my project due to edits I've made to the GSF to customize it for CCP, so your mileage may vary.
If Ramza sprites are in the Custom Sprites section here, is it okay to change the default Ramza? I'm afraid of screwing up my hack with bugs I won't notice until way later. I just found it strange that I read to not change Ramza's sprite, but there are custom sprites for him. I know the story scenes can easily get messed up from changing sprites, and I'm somewhat okay with those problems only because I don't care about that aspect of the game- the story scenes just annoy me, and I'm not making this hack for anyone besides myself really.
Quote from: Murex on April 14, 2014, 04:05:54 am
I know the story scenes can easily get messed up from changing sprites, and I'm somewhat okay with those problems only because I don't care about that aspect of the game
Then go ahead and change his sprite! The only things that happen are
He has some unique story animations that look weird
His formation sprite won't match up (but this is fixed the same way other sprites are)
His world map sprite won't change, that little ramza that walks from dot to dot
Allright then. I didn't know if there were any other problems that can occur from changing Ramza's sprite. Thanks for that!
One other question-
Why are some sprites all black when there are other sprites of the same type in the same battle that look normal- even if they are dead characters that start the scene dead on the ground? I thought it was the color pallete, but there doesn't seem to be a problem with that. Is it just the number of different sprites in battle at once? Can this be fixed while keeping all the new sprites I've added, or is it something I'll just have to deal with?
You can have 9 different sprites in any scene/battle and any combination of palettes therein.
The max character limit is 16, but you still need to stay within the 9 sprite limit.
Are you sure the sprites you are using actually have other palettes?
I'm not sure what that last question means really. Are you referring to the palette number in ENTD? I messed around a bit with this, and got some success with one battle map, but not so much success after that. For the last battle I modified, I made all the opponents the same class, but they would show up black as geomancers, but normal when I changed them to wizards. This doesn't make sense to me considering the limit on sprites per battle.
I mean when you view them in Shishi, do they have other palettes?
Also in the ENTD they should never be above 4 on the palette
They do not.
Just a quick note: If I turn the male knights into female, they look normal. I don't see any real difference between them in Shishi or FFTPatcher, so I'm really stumped. Also, if I make all the enemies on the map male, they are all still black- so the sprite limit isn't being reached because I can make them look normal if they aren't male knights, so it isn't the number of sprites.
Please post screenshots of the entd
(http://i.imgur.com/NbXcgI0.jpg)
Are you using a custom sprite for the male knight? If so, which one?
Yes. The Berserker sprite near the bottom of the sprites page.
It looks fine when one of my characters is that class, just not enemy characters.
...I really hope you are not talking about this one
(http://ffhacktics.com/sprites/s/Zerke.bmp)
...because it only HAS 1 PALETTE
while you have the sprite set to PALETTE 5, which does
not exist... This is why it works for your characters on the
first palette and appears black for enemies since they don't
use the first palette.
Quote from: Murex on April 16, 2014, 07:28:37 am
They do not.
I think you missed Murex already saying that the sprite didn't have more than one palette :P
Murex if you go into the ENTD and set the male knight's palette to 0 they will show up correctly.
No, I saw it, I was putting it in a way that he could connect the 2 with,
as he didn't understand that you need more than 1 palette to make
it work as he was attempting to do.
Thanks, that helped.
How can I go about making a file with multiple color palettes? I don't get how a .bmp file can have multiple layers.
You can edit it in graphics gale or GIMP. I think those ones are used the most.
You'll notice the sprite has rows when you open up the palette, the top row is the sprite, and the one that's more in the middle is the portrait, but this is only the first palette. The rows under these are then the second palette, third, fourth etc...
There's also the Palette Editor that I think Xif made. It's super easy to make palettes with that. Should be in the important links page
Quote from: Choto on April 19, 2014, 09:25:46 am
There's also the Palette Editor that I think Xif made. It's super easy to make palettes with that. Should be in the important links page
I always forget about this thing :P But it is indeed a great tool. Here's the link http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=3901.0
the easiest way (for me anyway) is to duplicate your original palette 4 times in GraphicsGale
then use Xif's Palette Editor to adjust the 4 new palettes. (Make sure to use FFT colors!)
Thanks guys. :mrgreen:
Got another one-
Sometimes a character (NPC or one in my party) is immune to all magic and physical attacks. Does anyone know what causes this?
The first thing that comes to mind is that the unit has Wall status. Since there's no visual cue for when that is applied to something you could have given something that and not noticed. Easy way to check of course is when you see a unit acting that way just check it's current status effects. It should list there normally even though Wall was never implemented in vanilla FFT.
Yep. It's Wall status. Just got to change it to protect and shell instead. Thanks for informing me Celdia. :)
Happy to help. Just glad it was as simple of a problem as it appeared. ^_^