Final Fantasy Hacktics

Modding => Help! => Topic started by: Leoni on August 16, 2016, 11:46:49 pm

Title: Adding characters
Post by: Leoni on August 16, 2016, 11:46:49 pm
Hi all.

I'm still starting to edit this game. My intention is to add some characters to a custom battle that I've created, but most of the characters simply do not appear inside the game.
I've heard that there is a limit to sprites and characters. Can anybody explain me more about it?

I attached screenshots of what I want to create. By the way, I would like to know if I can make them all undead, just like the undead knights in the battle against Zalera. After all, Wiegraf should be dead. Is it possible?

Is it possible to make him turn into velius again, after defeated?

Thanks a lot!
Title: Re: Adding characters
Post by: Xifanie on August 17, 2016, 04:17:07 am
Any battle can only have up to 16 units, it can be 11 monks + 5 of the player's units (this is an actual random battle in vanilla).
Any battle can only have up to 9 sprites loaded at any given time. It's just not possible to alter this for random battles. For story battles, vanilla pulls out a trick a few times, like at Orbonne (first battle) where it unloads the sprites of your opponents in order to load in Delita, Ovelia and the Chocobo.

In random battles, as soon as the ENTD has 4 sprites loaded (5 are reserved for the player; 9 total), it will completely ignore units that does not match one of those 4 sprites, and not even try to generate them. In story battle, you'll just have a nice graphical glitch; the sprite won't be loaded, but the unit will exist and will be functional.

AFAIK, "Always Present" means the unit will always be created if the game can afford to load a new sprite, or if it is already loaded. "Randomly Present" has ~50% chance of creating the unit or not. If it fails to, it gives a chance for the next unit at the same location to draw.

Sprites are different looking unit graphics. Male and Female Priests look different, they use different sprites. Chocobo, Black Chocobo, Red Chocobo do not look different, they're just different colours (i.e. a different palette). They still share the same sprite.

For example, let's take this ENTD (let's just assume they all have different X/Y coordinates):
[indent=2]









Goblin  Random 
Chocobo  Always 
Squidlarkin  Random 
Red Panther  Always 
Blue Dragon  Random 
Bomb  Random 
Black Chocobo  Random 
Red Chocobo  Random 
Female Priest  Always 
[/indent]

Legend:
[indent=2]
Failed to randomly create
Successfully created
Unable to create because 4 sprites were already loaded
[/indent]


It could generate:
[indent=2]









Goblin  Random  1st sprite
Chocobo  Always  2nd sprite
Squidlarkin  Random 
Red Panther  Always  3rd sprite
Blue Dragon  Random 
Bomb  Random 
Black Chocobo  Random  2nd sprite
Red Chocobo  Random  2nd sprite
Female Priest  Always  4th sprite
[/indent]

Or even:
[indent=2]









Goblin  Random 
Chocobo  Always  1st sprite
Squidlarkin  Random  2nd sprite
Red Panther  Always  3rd sprite
Blue Dragon  Random  4th sprite
Bomb  Random 
Black Chocobo  Random  1st sprite
Red Chocobo  Random 
Female Priest  Always 
[/indent]

Or still:
[indent=2]









Goblin  Random 
Chocobo  Always 
Squidlarkin  Random 
Red Panther  Always 
Blue Dragon  Random 
Bomb  Random 
Black Chocobo  Random 
Red Chocobo  Random 
Female Priest  Always 
[/indent]


As for the whole undead thing... you can't really make them undead. It's possible, but it's extremely complicated. What you can do though, is either creating a custom job with the permanent undead status (that's what vanilla did), or equip a Cursed Ring and give that unit Maintenance.

If you really want all those units available at the same time, you could only use 4 "Sprite Sets" total, and they would all need to be special character sprites, since you can't select generic male/female/monster sprites under the Sprite Set dropdown.
Title: Re: Adding characters
Post by: savantopus on February 04, 2017, 03:13:31 am
Thank you xif. Cleared some things up for me  :cool: