Topic: Spell/Item visual effect

[Deathlike2]

Think of the "black magic" statement is the default result. Everything else has to be checked otherwise.

The only code that I'm aware of that involves the spell icons is Phoenix's spell learning code. I would assume that he may have bound the animation and Will Power stat to White Magic as well, but you'd have to see....

[Zozma]

I wasn't able to use that nifty patch on my game due to it being a different version of ff4 IIRC, if im able to paste that in thru a hex editor later Id do that (as well as the safe and shell patches)

so anyway, unfortunately i have not been able to test that out...

[Paladin]

This excel file might be helpful:

http://www.finalfantasyiv.net/host-files/hacks/MagicCompendium-R1.xls

This is my magic data compilation workbook most of the raw hex data came from the Bab-il docs and from some of you guys...probably JCE and/or Dragonsbrethren.

I defined all of the Sound Effect bytes from 0x00 - 0x7F (I don't think 0x80-0xFF are valid). Please excuse my craptacular descriptions of the noises (I tried to provide examples where possible). However some spell animations have hardcoded sound effects that seem to ignore the SFX byte.

I also got along pretty far in defining the Visual Effects but I kind of got bored with it and never finished it all.

I did manage to make a few new spell effects by playing around with a test ROM but I never did anything with it. I did think about changing the L3 elemental spells to use the appropriate "Fang" elemental item graphics and make them "target all" spells similar to what Zozma is doing; however I wanted to modify the L1 and L2 spells as well but I wasn't sure what (if any) monsters actually cast these spells in battle...so I was still researching it. It is totally do-able and pretty easy. The palette byte is definitely all that needs to change for Zozma's spells to look right.

It can be kind of fun to play with, like you can add a screen shake to spells that didn't have it and so forth. However some spells require both the 0x02 and 0x03 visual effects set properly to work right, for example flare and holy (holy is somehow hardcoded special when you set it's effects),  you kind of just have to take a ROM and trash it by playing around with the spells and see what happens.

Anyway, it's not a totally complete document but there it is FWIW.

[Zozma]

thanks a lot paladin! :) I did add a "shake the enemy" effect to the "Flood"  spell in my patch too as well as making the palette for the water a bit more vibrant

yeah in the x3 slot for holy, even the sound effect is hardcoded in there, so odd. having the sound info is great because, currently my Demi spell sounds like Piggy lol. and Nova also sounds like mini which is aweful. I managed to make Comet use the "spheres" instead of the stars but what i wanted to do for Nova was use the comet/meteo effect but flash the screen blue instead of red and use the little ice2 sparkle (which would also look good for cure3 if i could figure out how to make that work lol

[Zozma]

Thanks again Paladin for the info, Ive managed to change the sounds and looks of several spells

Example, here Is the new look of Palom and Porom's "little flare" spell which i now call Nuke


I still cant find out how to change the look of spell casting animation from Black to White or Summon... :( oh well. nobody seems to know

+ a screenshot of the new look for the dark swords (note, this is a separate gfx from the katana)
This is the "Deathbringer" sword

+the gravity hammer skill in action hehehe

[fedorajoe]

Wow!  Good work, man!  I missed this thread earlier.  Love the Fire4 (Firaja?), etc.  Looks great!

[Zozma]

Btw, do the menu name display summons actually DO anything? because i want to use their slots for weapon only abilities that dont need name displays.

I plan on making all the spells cast by weapons/items into custom ones
Like perhaps "black ice" or "ebon fire" etc etc

This should give even more uniqueness to everything. I just wish i could find the visual data for "Dark Wave"

I dont understand why its nowhere to be found lol... oh well

[Deathlike2]

I'm not sure what you're asking.

If you're talking about the item descriptions for summons, I believe that is broken. If someone ever figures a way to fix that, please post a patch for it.

[Zozma]

you know what i just answered my own question about that anyway.

sorry i was unclear but.
what i meant was, in the list of spells, there are 2 versions of each summon spell

that is, the ones that appear properly in the menu, (which i think is actually for menu display purpose only)
and then the ones that are the actual spells themselves that actually have enemy skill length names.

for example the visual effects for the 3 fang items red/white/blue are found in the fake Ramuh/Ifrit/Shiva slots.

that last line is how i answered my own question. I can create visual effects, for example a purple Fire2 effect "EbonFire" in one of these slots, and then attach it's visual effect to a weapon. and i have a new weapon only bug free spell... sorry i only just got the hang of how that works but i already got it

[Deathlike2]

There is some linkage in a sense in how they did all that. I believe they did that to increase the spell power of the summon, but I could be wrong on that.

You can't make monsters use summons, but in its place, you have the spell targeting to all character/enemies... this is how the Dark Elf operates its listed spell attacks.

[Zozma]

dark elf?  off subject but.

his tri elemental attack is weird, is he actually casting the real fire/ice/bolt2 spells because it only shows damage once...

[Deathlike2]

The spells are real from the Dark Elf. That is an effect of chained attacks (other than the regular 2 straight attacks). For the "spells" that the Dark Elf casts, subtract 48 from the spell to derive the original spell that is being multitargeted.

Another rare one is the FF4ET version with the Red Dragon. The monster chains Heat Ray with a regular attack.

[Zozma]

interesting. thanks for the info..