Topic: Who Appears in Scenes

[Zozma]

thank you, that info is very helpful.

i bet i can manage by using the "silf" palette which is like 7 or something like that. even tho that was just an example. Now I also have 2 characters: Anna and Baigan that use palette 04 (03 being cecil's and the last pc palette) but since i have set it up for the game to look for their PC palette i hopefully won't have a problem when placing them on maps.

I'm using cecil's pally palette to make a black and gold golbez instead of the bright blue.

[fedorajoe]

I'm curious, how are you making your hack?  I just play through the game and make changes as I go.  Are you the same?

[Zozma]

thats pretty much what I do, except I end up having to restart for things like pre-learned magic and replaying event's i've already passed. I also have to go back and set some of the characters to higher levels since all of mine start on level 1. It might be a bit odd to meet tellah at level 1 for example lol but the only people who will get benefit out of that is the ones that use a save state edit and want to start them on low levels. the only thing is i have to set the calculated "already" earned exp in there too sigh what a pain lol.

[Zozma]

Ok, so I think ive got a pretty good hang of this thanks to your assistance as well as the info i collected here. Now i've changed the baigan looking Captains into normal guards, I noticed that the Captain that attacks you and rydia at the inn in Kaipo also uses the Guard sprite now instead which is excellent. and now Baigan's map sprite is unique to him (in place of cecil's paladin).

I now have enough space to do some special npc's:

Sandy Cindy Mindy, they just use one frame, I can make them all look unique on the map.
I made some decent battle sprites for this trio as bonus characters, but I don't know how to add them in at the end of the rom so I'll just have to do without.

Harley, I have enough space to give her an npc sprite in Damcyian (but will i be able to use the desired  character palette?)

Leanora, That should be simple enough of course she will look much younger here.

Yang's wife Sheila, Ill make her look a bit foxier even tho I will no longer be using her as a player in my patch.

---ones that already exist but updated---

Luca make her look like a child version of the tay version

Elder, using the black outline for his black robe is tacky, I'll attempt to give it more detail

Rydia's dead mommy, Making her look more similar to rydia. (how did a green haired girl come from a redhead anyway? lol)

As you can see I plan to play with overworld sprites a bit. I used to love spriting and so arranging npcs on the map is really the last obstacle I have left in order to have my changes make more sense. Im really hoping to be able to make better use of certain ones tho, Like turning naminguay into a special shop or something.

[fedorajoe]

Hmmm, you remind me.  I wanted to see about making a Call Shop item.

[Zozma]

Yeah, I might use either naminguay or harley as a moving shop for special items. I like the Idea of using Harley, as shes a non official blue mage and traveling the world would make sense in that aspect, especially after Damcyan. That would only be a side project tho.

As far as making a call shop item? Don't the summon orb drops that teach Rydia summons count as small events? I mean I assumed that they do which would make it easy to use for that purpose instead if you can find them?

[fedorajoe]

Yeah, I ended up using the (stupid) dummied-out Magazine item for this purpose.  Just replaced its normal event code with the Humingway Family shop.

[Zozma]

I'm glad to hear they can be used this way. that magazine plus the 3 summon orbs makes 4.

I might use them for the purpose of getting back certain characters.

I'm still trying to work out how I would go about getting back party members.

I have to deal with the fact that the following characters would default to their original level:

Tellah
Yang
Baigan
Cid
Edge
Palom
Porom

That is not such a big deal with exception of Palom and Porom who learn spells. since there is no event instruction to REMOVE spells from their lists when they leave, i cannot allow them to be added back to the game for bug purposes...

Those damn twins also create a second problem as well because Golbez and Anna are linked to the Twin command even if they do not have it.

Oh and then a THIRD problem with the twins because of the twin command, you would have to always have both of them and not just one.

as a result, they are gonna be the only 2 characters that you cannot get back at all....

[Zozma]

Ok, so I am understanding a lot more about npcs, I guess i still dont quite understand everything but I have many scenes where the game apparently re-uses the same npc, mainly the characters that are supposed to be in the party. is there an instruction to make an npc change its gfx? i know theres one for the pc... (at zot, you see baigan where yang would have been, but edward is supposed to be there...)

Also... I'm getting there a little more.. So now I have Anna standing in front of the sealed door, i made her facing you and walking in place. so i am figuring it out a little bit... now the whole speech data thing and all of that? well
I basically need her to be the event trigger and not the door... (I am using npc B2 FuSoYa) as i ended up using Paladin cecil for Baigan's sprite. But he doesn't seem to have speech data or whatever, nothing happens when you try to talk to the npc..

Ok so clearly Im not sure what to do. the information on npcs confuses me. like i can find how to change ones appearance, but not the other part with the direction facing and palettes etc...

[Zozma]

sweet. scene edit: Anna departs from Kaipo on foot instead of disappearing like a ghost, hinting at her reappearance later.
In pursuit of the Dark Crystal, you next see her trying to access the Sealed Cave

[fedorajoe]

Hey man, looking good!  Keep it up, I enjoy seeing what you come up.

OK, you've inspired me to post more pics.  Please indulge me.

[fedorajoe]

A few showing the playable Golbez....

[Zozma]

oh sweet! Btw I notice that edge and Golbez appear to have the npc blue palette. any bugs?

I myself have actually made use of palette 04 (Red/Gold/White) (after altering the yellow chocobo palette)

i think 05 is the blue one yes?

On a side note, I still see kain in your party. If you have him that means his shadow party slot and 3rd actors are free right? you know if you have an empty party slot or are about to remove/add a character you can Add Golbez, remove him and then add whatever other character is going to go there for now, all during the same event; then when it is REALLY time for him to be in your party, his level will be closer to the same level as your party. of course you have to load him back through another actor, perhaps Kain's freed up actor.

Then I have another question. I see that Golbez has only "Black" visible in his magic set, I was using the original Golbez actor in mine and in the menu, even though he doesn't have White or Call magic, they show in the menu as well. Did you completely dummy out Edge for Golbez's sprite? (I dummied Piggy and Mini status instead, preserving all the characters)
(Golbez Portrait overwrites the Piggy, portrait, His map sprite also overwrites the Mini sprite, and his full sprite starts where Piggy originally starts (leaving exactly enough sprite space for a Full FuSoYa if you remove the moon Gfx from the title)

[fedorajoe]

I kept Golbez's palette exactly as it was.  Edge was demoted from a playable to a non-playable character (think Siegfried but less weird), so his palette got demoted as well.  But I'm actually pretty proud of how he turned out with so few colors.

I have encountered two bugs so far:

- Any palette assigned to a playable character outside of the "normal" selection of palettes will fail to appear inside the Chocobo Forests.  I'm willing to live with this, although if I could find a fix, I'd take it.

- In some dungeons, Golbez does not display properly if you save, exit, and resume the game.  Not a huge deal since this is all on emulator anyway.

The Kain actor was used for Cid #2.  Cid rejoins when he rescues the party from the Tower of Bab-il, and he stays until you get the Big Whale.  Golbez then took the Edge actor's slot.

So yes, Edge is completely dummied out.  Or rather, converted into Golbez.  Really, I just switched the two characters.  Edge is the one who fights beside FuSoYa at the end of the game.  I did not take the "real" Golbez and try to turn it into a 100% playable character.  This seemed to me like more trouble than I could handle.  Much easier to take an existing character and change him into Golbez.

Nothing against Edge, but he is my least favorite and is less important to the story than Cecil, Kain, Rydia, or Rosa.  So he's the one who got the boot.  Edge is also the closest thing to what I think playable Golbez would be like.  So, using Edge means fewer tweaks are needed to stats, etc.  I even kept the portrait palette the same.

[Zozma]

i swapped cid and golbez sprites. since the last 2 character slots magic doesnt display in the menu.but cid has a full sprite so you cannot tell the difference.

btw about the golbez and baigan npc palettes 04 and 05 u can change the chocobo palette to match the baigan palette then re organize the chocobos colors to make it look normal again. do the same with palette 05 golbez, and you can make your 'black' chocobo use the blue palette

problem 1 solved.

i know how to fix problem 2 (the save/reload black palette issue) but i havent done it yet. you just have to assign the maps that he does that in the npc palette use. which most dungeons dont use normally being zero'd out by default