[FE8] Sprite addition help (Pupil using a Staff)

[EdeaCreamer]

I am extremely unfamiliar with any sort of graphics-related hacking beyond simple palette swaps, so apologies if I do not provide enough information to work with.

Basically, I would like to have an additional animation sequence for the Pupil sprite (Ewan) which is used for activating a Staff-class weapon. This would use the same progression of frames as the class's normal casting animation sequence, except that a vertically-oriented Staff graphic would float in front of the Pupil (visually reminiscent of the way this is handled with the Druid class). In fact, said Staff graphic would probably just be copied from the Druid, though it would probably need to be re-pixeled to properly inherit the Pupil's sprite palette.

My main problems would be inserting this new sequence into the ROM, getting it pointered so that it played whenever the Pupil used an appropriate Staff, and timing the sequence so that it terminates at the correct moment after the attendant spell animation is finished playing. I'd also have a hard time getting the staff to 'float' convincingly from frame to frame, but that's minor compared to the other listed issues.

I'm comfortable with using Nightmare and am quite willing to use other utilities, but might there be a pre-made sprite sequence that addresses something this specific, or an easier way to insert and pointer the result? If not, what are some tutorials you would recommend that might help me in trying this out?

Thank you very much for any assistance provided in advance.

Edited November 9, 2016 by EdeaCreamer

[Kyne]

So you wanna make Ewan have an animation for staves eh? That doesn't seem too difficult. The animation itself should be relatively easy (just find yourself a sheet, make every single frame with the added staff and then essentially remake Ewan's script with the new frames.) To add it afterward is even easier. I recommend reading Blazer's Ultimate Tutorial ( http://www.feshrine.net/ultimatetutorial/ ) as it has a section on this that is excellent. (You're looking for chapters 57 and 58)

First you'll need FEditor Adv. Look around in the forums here, it's super easy to find.

As soon as you open it it should ask you for the rom that you want to edit. Find it and open it, then click Tools > Class Animation Manager.

For the sake of example, I'll have Hector be able to use swords (since it's a similar thing to what you're requesting).

There's already an animation for this in the FEditor animations thread in the resources section (which you should totally check out if you want any other custom animations btw) and I already have it on my computer so we'll just have to add it.

The textbox labeled "Max Index" indicates the number (in hex) of Different animations in the rom. You can add more of them by simply increasing the max index. For FE7 it's A2 so I'm going to alter it to A3 because I only want to add one animation.

After that I'm going to write A3 in the "input Index" textbox as well and scale one frame on the arrows next to the "Frame" textbox and then back down to 0. It should say "Failed to load". This is good as it tells us that we are on the right index. Then we click insert.

This is the file we are looking for: a file with no extension(for some reason >.>)(Also excuse the random portuguese)

If we load it...

Alright, it's there. now we save the rom and take note of the indexes for all of Hector's animations. (In this case 07 for axe, 08 handaxe, 09 unarmed and our shiny new sword animation on A3).

Then we close FEditor and open Nightmare. (You have the rom open in both programs and stuff gets weird. Pretty sure if you have it open in both Nightmare changes won't actually save.)

We open our rom and the Custom Battle Animation Editor (pretty sure it's also called that for FE8)

We then pick a pointer, and get to work.

We pick a weapon (or weapon type), pick whether we want it to be specific to a weapon or universal across all weapons of the same type (all swords and the like), and then indicate the index or the animation. We have to do this for each weapon type the character uses as well as any custom items that they use (axe users always need two "custom animations" for the handaxe and tomahawk since they are not their own weapon type) as well as one for their disarmed state. After that you need to leave 4 0 values to indicate the end of the animation. The first of this is the separator present after each individual animation and then all three next values must be set to 0. (In this case I ran out of room on the first pointer so I simply used all 4 slots on the first pointer and then moved on to the second one for the last animation and the "ending 4 0 values".)

Enter , Ctrl+S as usual and then load up the class editor.

Pick the class in question (in my case Hector Lord);

We add the base weapon rank needed for that class to use that weapon and change the Battle Animation Pointer into the one we just made, save our changes and that should be it!

(I'm gonna edit Lyn Real quick to be a Hector lord.)

Axe works...

Sword does too!

That's how you add them in. (in retrospect this was worthless since I told you to go read the Ultimate tutorial anyway. Whoops, the whole scripting and MAKING of the animation is explained there so you should still go read it.)

[EdeaCreamer]

WHOA, thank you so much for all the information! It's gonna take me a long time to even get through all this good stuff LOL, so I'm going to go ahead and mark this as solved. When I manage to get something done I'll edit this post with it.