Job and sprite related questions. (back up to 2 of 3 solved)

[Kaijyuu]

(moved from the patcher sticky)

Few questions:

1) What's the best way to ensure an enemy calculator has access to a lot of good spells (flare, holy, petrify, etc) without modifying the normal generic jobs in any player noticeable way? I don't want to mess with JP costs or requirements. (giving them access to dummy jobs or something is fine though)

2) [solved] I seem to recall hearing that I shouldn't use the Lucavi sprites for regular enemies. Some quick and not very thorough testing showed that they worked fine. Any pitfalls I might fall into, or is my memory shot?

3) [solved] I found a list of sprite numbers for most the generic jobs (basically what shishi says +1), but this doesn't include calculators, bards, dancers, or mimes. If I want to force one of those sprites for a unit, what numbers should I use?

Elric's reply:

To force a generic. Select either generic male, female, or monster as the spriteset. Then choose the job for the unit you want.

When using Zodiac Beasts in other slots make sure to set their SEQ and SHP accordingly (Arute, etc)

I know how to set a character's job and how to set it to one of the generics. What I want to know is how to force a different job to use those 6 spritesheets, since Generic Male, Generic Female, and Monster interfere with the listing order. I can take a Holy Knight and make them look like a geomancer by setting their job to holy knight and sprite to 76-77. I can't do the same for those 6: sprite sheet number 80 should be Male Calculator (going by the listing shown by Shishi) but is instead taken up by Generic Male. Maybe Dancer and both Mimes are fine (I haven't tested), but even if they are, both calculators and bard seem unavailable.

As for the Zodiac Beast thing that advice sounds like it was meant for shishi, which I'm not making any edits with or anything. If I put a Queklain copy in a random deep dungeon battle alongside other stuff, will anything break or look weird? I'm only asking (and not simply testing myself) since I have a vague memory from years ago that this is a No No. My tests has shown everything's fine except the lack of a death frame. If no one else knows of anything worse than that, then there's no more issue here.

Still wondering about the calculator thing.

[3lric]

As for the Zodiac Beast thing that advice sounds like it was meant for shishi,

It was, because there is no other difference when using them anywhere you want. Except that, yes, they have no death frame. So you'd need to either edit that and then make them use MON instead of ARUTE or whatever, or you'd have to code an event to trigger when they die to remove them. Unless you are cool with it just looking derpy as hell.

[Kaijyuu]

Right, that's the answer I was looking for for that question. Thank you~

[Jumza]

When you have more than one zodiac monster on the field at once, things can get a bit strange. I believe that I encountered a graphical glitch when I put both Velius and Zalera on the Zirekile Falls map, but you should test it out yourself.

[Nyzer]

For the sprite thing, if there's just no listing for those four jobs, you may have to copy and reinsert those sprites into new slots normally used for "special" jobs in Shishi. It might not be the best fix, but it should work.

[3lric]

You won't find them for those spritesheets because they weren't used as undead units in vanilla like most of the others were (or other nonsensical things) if you want to force that sprite outright, you'd need to insert another copy of it in shishi somewhere. The generics are called differently than normal units, (which is why a lot of those other generic sprites exist outside the generic sprite section)

[Kaijyuu]

For the sprite thing, if there's just no listing for those four jobs, you may have to copy and reinsert those sprites into new slots normally used for "special" jobs in Shishi. It might not be the best fix, but it should work.

Yeah that's something I'd prefer to avoid, since if possible, I'd like the patch I'm making to be done entirely with the patcher. Keeps things simple to have one file. Will use other tools if I have to though.

I don't truly understand the logic of the sprite number, so maybe one of the unmarked numbers will give me the sprites I want. Generally speaking I know that sprite number X will give sprite number X+1 (as shown by shishi) and set the unit's base job to number X. Stuff like Generic Male/Female and Monster really muck things up though, along with setting a sprite number well outside the bounds of the job list (like sprite number B8 or something weird).

[3lric]

The spriteset number is the same as shishi. It was just badly documented. It's the same as shishi + 1. The only exception is generics.

[Kaijyuu]

Related to question 3: How do I force something to use a monster sprite?

I have several different monsters that I want to force to use the Uribo sprite (to avoid sprite limits, and as a joke), but I seem unable to actually set a unit to use it in the patcher. Setting them to use 8F just seems to pull random spritesheets out of the aether (usually humanoid). I tried overwriting one of the humanoid sprites in Shishi, but the Uribo seems to be larger than a regular spritesheet and the bottom part is cut off.

Any advice on how to force any arbitrary monster to use another monster's spritesheet?

[3lric]

Again... this is set by using the spriteset monster and selecting the job. Same as generics..

[Kaijyuu]

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, that would turn them into actual Uribos, not things that just have the sprite of a Uribo.

[3lric]

Yes. Same as the generics, they can't be called otherwise.

[Jumza]

Not exactly
In the jobs tab of the FFTPatcher, there are 3 boxes: M. Portrait/Palette/Graphic, you can use these to force portraits, palettes and sprites onto jobs. However it only works when the 'Sprite Set' box in the ENTD is set to 82, Monster. I believe that's what the M. stands for.

So you can set those to a job, say Chemist, then whenever you want a monster chemist to appear, set the sprite instead of generic female or generic male, to monster. When you do set it to generic male / female the sprite will be what it's supposed to be as a generic, so there's no harm done!

The numbers to set this to Uribo / Porky / Wildbow are set in those jobs respectively, so you can just copy the numbers from that.

[Nyzer]

So theoretically you could set the Chocobo job to have Delita's sprite, then have Ramza riding Delita to victory? o_O

[Kaijyuu]

@Jumza

Yes, that will work. Thank you!

I don't think this will fix the calc/bard/dancer/mime thing, as I don't see a similar option for humanoid sprites, but it certainly helps my current problem.

[Angel]

So theoretically you could set the Chocobo job to have Delita's sprite, then have Ramza riding Delita to victory? o_O

Kinda. You'd need to completely redo his sprite to draw properly (like, make him do exaggerated ninja run everywhere to make sense), and it would look more like he's carrying Ramza away from battle after he's had his lower torso removed, but yes, you could do that.

[Kaijyuu]

There might've been some riding involved off screen during and before chapter 1, if you catch my drift.

[DuxorW]

^ "Playing the reed flute" as they say.

[Jumza]

^ "Playing the reed flute" as they say.

Omfg. Hahahaha!

EDIT: Kaijyuu, if you're willing to sacrifice some sprite space, you could put the mime / bard / dancer sprite on one of the unique sprite slots. Then you can tack those onto whatever job you want regardless of what they actually are. That's what vanilla does for the undead units IIRC. That's why there are duplicates of things like the Knight and Wizard sprites. Of course, if you need them to be generics (for whatever reason) then I guess that doesn't work either.

[Kaijyuu]

Good point. I ended up having to move Serpy to the regular non-monster space, so yeah moving those over the unused male squires is probably what I'll do.

Markin' that one as solved.