Shishi Spriting Help

[MajinAkai]

Okay, so I've looked all over the forums and I can't find anything to solve my issues. All of the spriting tutorials I see are related to before Shishi added the new all-in-one features so that it can all be done in app, and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

I'm trying to change Cloud to his Advent Children sprite, for instance, but every time I try to change the wldface or unit.bin, it always tells me that the sprite/bmp are not the correct size, or the correct dimensions, or the index is out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.

So I try looking through the forum for help, but I can't find any relating to how to do it through Shishi, and I can never get it to work. The in battle sprite works fine, but the portrait and everything won't change.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have a slew of sprites I want to change but can't seem to get it to work.

[Jumza]

Please post here the Unit and wldface images you're trying to import! I'll double check to see if they are the proper format for importing

[MajinAkai]

I have the unit image working, but now the issue I'm having is the portrait for Wldface. When I put it through Graphics Gale to make it 4bpp it destroys the color. If I leave it at 8bpp it looks fine, everything is fine with the format, pixel size and everything works, but I have to drop it to 4bpp to put it into Shishi, and when I do it ruins the coloring of the portrait.

[Nyzer]

You likely haven't expanded the ISO. It's an option in the dropdown menus, and used to just be a pop-up prompt.

[MajinAkai]

You likely haven't expanded the ISO. It's an option in the dropdown menus, and used to just be a pop-up prompt.

That option is greyed out to me.

[Nyzer]

Ah, I see. I misread this before. As soon as I saw "AC Cloud" I assumed it was the same issue it always is; the battle sprite.

You're using the wrong color depth, and not setting things up properly when reducing the color depth to 4bpp. You need to follow the parts of the older tutorials about actually setting up the images you're looking to import.

Celdia's tutorial should have you covered there. https://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6702.0

[MajinAkai]

Wow, I spent almost 10 hours trying to figure this stuff out but anyway. After much trial and error, perseverance and patience, I have discovered some very useful tricks that will help expedite your extraction and rendition process with sprites when modifying UNIT.bin and WRLD FACE.bin. I'll lay it out step by step.

[For Human UNIT.bin]
Step 1: Open Shishi Sprite Manager, Microsoft Paint (Optional), and Graphics Gale (I used Free Edition).
Step 2: Select a character you wish to modify. For the purposes of this example, I will select Ramza Chapter 1.
Step 3: From Shishi Sprite Manager, open your FFT ISO.
Step 4: When open, go to Ramza 1 (should be the very first one).
Step 5: Assuming you have not replaced Ramza 1 with your designated sprite, do so now (I chose Young Noble Ramza).
Step 6: From Shishi, go to Export BMP and Export the now modified Ramza 1 sprite.
Step 7: Open Graphics Gale and open the now Exported BMP file for Ramza 1 (we'll call it RAMZA1.bmp).
Step 8: You will notice it will have a spread sheet of the different parts of Ramza and such. Zoom in about 300-400% to the SECOND frame from the top left of Ramza. It should be him basically facing sideways or at an angle.
Ramza 9: Use the 'Rectangular Selection' tool to draw a 24 x 40 square around Ramza. It does not need to be absolutely perfect but be sure you get it as close as you can, and, of course, that he's completely inside the box. Otherwise he will be cut out.
Ramza 10: Once a Rectangle has been made around Ramza, go to the 'All Frames' tab and from there select "CROP". Doing so should give you a perfect Ramza sprite for the UNIT.bin without having to deal with the annoying Load Palette stuff. Save it as RAMZA2Body.bmp.

Note: If, for some reason, the FFTEVGRP program does not recognize the sprite or allow it due to it exceeding 16 bytes, you may need to manually alter its palette. To do so, I recommend you first go to Palette Window and click on the black arrow pointing down to open up a menu. From the menu, select "REMOVE UNUSED COLOR". This will eliminate whatever excess colors that are not being used in the BMP. From there go to "All Frames" and go to "Color Depth." From there, format the BMP to 4bpp (16 colors) [Type A]. If, for some reason, Dither is checked uncheck it. There should be a 16 in the option box. If it is not 16, change it.

[For Human WRLD FACE.bin, Portrait]
Step 11: Go back to Shishi Sprite and use the "Print Screen" feature on your keyboard to get a copy of your screen (should be showing the portrait of Ramza).
Step 12: Paste it into Microsoft Paint (alternatively, you could just use Graphics Gale but it's a bit easier to do it through MS Paint).
Step 13: With your Square Selection tool, draw a rectangle at the very bottom where Ramza's face is. I suggest you zoom in 400% to get an accurate capture. It must be precise. Be sure ALL of Ramza's face is selected. There should be no extra pixels. You will see why later.
Step 14: Copy, and Paste. A duplicate of the file should appear hovering on the screen.
Step 15: Go to 'Crop' and crop the file so that nothing else is there but just the file. Rotate the file Left/Counterclockwise as it will likely be horizontal.
Step 16: Now that you have an original copy of your port. Save it just in case you screw up as Ramza1Port.bmp (24 bytes).
Step 17: With Graphics Gale, click on "File" and open a New file. It will give you options to use either a preset or use whatever is default. I highly recommend you make a new preset if you wish to extract multiple portraits. It'll save you time. Either way, click on 'Preset'. It'll open a drop down menu.
Step 18: Click on "EDIT" and "Add". Type in the dimensions 32 x 48 with a BPP of 16 (64000 colors). The portrait must fit EXACTLY in this dimension or you will risk having a wonky portrait.
Step 19: After you're done, it'll open up a blank slot. Copy and paste your picture there.
Step 20: You will notice you cannot Delete the excess colors. That's okay, you don't need to. Just go to "All Frames" -> "Color Depth" -> "16bpp." This will give your port the correct color resolution without having to use/abuse load palette.

I'll upload a guide for monsters tomorrow-- specifically chocobos on how to extract Ports and Units. It's a lot trickier and tedious than humans seeing how you the Palettes MUST match for it to be read by FFTEVGRP. Otherwise you risk having strangely colored monsters.

Well, good night for all. My first contribution to FFHacktics. I hope that helps!

I followed this post here to complete accuracy.

[Nyzer]

I've never used the instructions in that post. What goes wrong when you follow Celdia's instructions?