FFTEVGRP keeps crashing my images

[Cybaster]

Good evening everyone,

I just tried out FFhacktics today, and first of all I'd like to say how overwhelmed I am about this site. Nicely done! ^^

Sadly, I've been following multiple tutorials on the Forums on how to create a Custom Character (in particular this and this), and no success. I've gotten a fresh image that runs properly as-is. Created a .bin and .cue for it. Shishi Sprite Manager works fine (and I had these prepared already from editing the Female Parivir sprite sheet someone made from this site, as I wanted to try my hand at porting the Lucky Star characters into my FFT game <.< --- used Gimp 2.6 for it), took awhile to figure out how to get it working, but eventually no problems. FFTactext works fine too. FFTpatcher does as well. Then tried it on ePSXe, runs fine, sprite shows up properly in combat.

Then I got to FFTEVGRP (Melonhead's translation, not the original raw Japanese version) to port 'Konata's' sprite and portrait into the formation screen, and...no go. ePSXe won't start the game, it just crashes the moment it loads. Editing just UNIT.bin, no go. WLDFACE.bin, no go either. Both, no go. It's definitely FFTEVGRP, but no clue why it's doing this.

So yeah...I'm stuck. Any suggestions? Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks!

[Jon]

Hmm, the portrait and the unit are both 16 colors as a .bmp? Do you insert one (like first the unit or the portrait), then hit save, and then move on to the next and also then hit save right away once its imported? This is strange, the only time the FFTEVGRP crashes for me is when I forget to save right after importing something new...

You also said your ePSXe won't start the game, that's also pretty strange, try a clean ISO and see if that loads, then just retry everything. Why are you using Gimp? That program sucks, just use Graphics Gale if you're trying to import already finished sprites...

[Celdia]

I used to get crash problems when I'd create a wholly new image and try to import that. Now I just extract the original image with FFTEVGRP, load that into GraphicsGale and paste in the new image and palette, save over the original and re-import back with FFTEVGRP. Its an extra step or two but it works 100% of the time for me.

All the steps for this method are outlined here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6702.0

[Cybaster]

Hmm, the portrait and the unit are both 16 colors as a .bmp? Do you insert one (like first the unit or the portrait), then hit save, and then move on to the next and also then hit save right away once its imported? This is strange, the only time the FFTEVGRP crashes for me is when I forget to save right after importing something new...

Yes, and yes. I even tried importing only the unit or portrait, still no go. I have the actual PSX game disc as well and made a .BIN of it, and tried it there. Still crashed ePSXe.

But here's another thing: From your tutorial, Celdia, the Sprite Sheet is supposed to look like this, right?

spoiler

When I downloaded the .bmp from ffhacktics of, say, the Female Parivir, the portrait looks like this instead:

spoiler

Or in case you're not seeing the same thing on your computer, it looks all messed up like this.

spoiler

So I'm wondering if this is normal or if the .bmp is supposed to look different for you guys. What happens is that I end up directly screencapping the Portrait from elsewhere and editing that into FFTEVGRP to get the colors to emerge correctly. Am I not supposed to do that? Kinda confused... =S

Edit: I tried it again using Celdia's method of overwriting the original images and reimporting, and ePSXe still crashes when it tries to start up.

Sidenote: I'm using MagicISO to re-insert my Unit.bin and Wldface.bin into FFT.bin, because the link to CDMage on ffhacktics is dead, and the latest version of CDmage I was forced to download didn't let me insert files into the image. Probably doesn't have anything to do with the current problem, but just throwing it out there if it might help.

[Celdia]

That first picture you're seeing there is how the spritesheet looks when viewed in Shishi. Shishi automatically applies the correct palette to the portrait for in-game view because of how FFT handles multiple palettes for the same spritesheet. Step 5 notes that you need to grab a screenshot of the spritesheet displayed in Shishis and paste that into a new image in GraphicsGale for grabbing the proper-looking portrait out of. It may not be the most efficient method but its simple enough since most people can make use of the Copy and Paste functions in GG easier than they can the palette replacing functions. Hell, I still prefer the simple method even though I know other ways to do it.

As for it still crashing, I don't know how MagicISO handles things but it may be differently from how CDMage does it. One of the best things about CDMage is it lets you know when you're about to input a file that is a different size back to the ISO and it will extend or truncate as necessary. If you try to input a file that isn't EXACTLY the same size to the byte, it can ruin the whole ISO. If MagicISO doesn't do that check and balance for you, it could be causing your crashing problem after you modify any given file, even UNIT.BIN and WLDFACE.BIN as exported from FFTEVGRP. Ideally they wouldn't change size but in my experience I don't assume anything actually works 100% as intended. >_> Call me paranoid, I suppose.

[Cybaster]

I found the version of CDMage described and used it; The image and ePSXe now works perfectly with the Female Parivir sprite sheet. Thanks for your help!

Now I just need to try to create a version of the Konata sheet that'll show up properly in Shishi and try that out.