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Phoenix

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Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« on: February 12, 2008, 04:01:48 AM »
Has the black magic icon always been transparent in battle? Not in the magic list, but when it's actually casted, the black color is transparent through to the battle background. Was it like this on the SNES? I can't remember, but in SNES9x it's that way. I'm using the FF2us ROM.

Here's what's happening: since the text is only 2 bitplanes, there's only four colors -- black, gray, white, and transparent. The normal transparent is used to show the window background (blue). Apparently, black is used to show the battle background through, at least that's how SNES9x is rendering it. Does this happen in ZNES (or the other versions)?
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HHIPDragonFox

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2008, 05:12:43 AM »
I've notice that on various rom patches (usually claiming to fix bugs in the game), but the disappearing black outline does happen when it shows [ Character Learned oMagic ].
Unfortunatelly, I can't find my power adaptor to my snes, it's somewhere, so I can't verify the actual game yet.
                                     did                                                                          was                                   now

        [v--will be filled in soon]  editted 24 minutes later. (found the adaptor in a bag and not a box where the snes was.)
Edit:  Ok, here goes, the black outline does not disappear in battle it's default is set to match original window color(change window  color to gray/white), which is blue.
            The black outline also gets color matched(near darkened either to window color or similar)  in the Equip menu. It looks mid-dark gray if window color is gray, looks like it disappeared but it's there.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2008, 05:32:58 AM by HHIPDragonFox »
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Phoenix

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2008, 06:11:33 AM »
HHIPDragonFox, I'm having a hard time visualizing what you're saying. Could you possibly post a picture?

From what I'm understanding, it sounds like it's a SNES9x thing? Does this happen in anyone else's emulator? I'm using a Mac, maybe it's just my build...
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Pinkpuff

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2008, 07:47:38 AM »
I know what you're talking about and it's been transparent in battle like that in every version I've ever played; physical, emulator, or otherwise.
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Deathlike2

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2008, 11:27:19 AM »
Quote from: Phoenix on February 12, 2008, 04:01:48 AM
Has the black magic icon always been transparent in battle? Not in the magic list, but when it's actually casted, the black color is transparent through to the battle background. Was it like this on the SNES? I can't remember, but in SNES9x it's that way. I'm using the FF2us ROM.

Here's what's happening: since the text is only 2 bitplanes, there's only four colors -- black, gray, white, and transparent. The normal transparent is used to show the window background (blue). Apparently, black is used to show the battle background through, at least that's how SNES9x is rendering it.

It's been like this since the dawn of this game, emulated or not.





Quote
Does this happen in ZNES (or the other versions)?

 :banonsmash: :angry:
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Paladin

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2008, 03:20:43 PM »
Yup...I remember noticing it back in the good ol' days on the SNES hardware itself.

I think the "black" palette color for the 8x8 text is handled as transparent. On the item menu and magic menus, the background is black so it looks fine, but when the menus are placed over something you see through that value.

In my hacks I've been just removing the magic icons, especially FF-II hacks since it gives you 6 characters instead of 5 for magic names, and avoids the transparent icon... But that's just a personal preference. You could tweak the icons with the "grey"color since it seems to be handled fine...

 
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Phoenix

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2008, 04:32:28 PM »
 :bah:  :lame:

It's such a small thing, but it annoys me to no end whenever I'm playing. I could invert the gray and black colors, but then the call magic would have the same problem. Oh well, not important. Thanks for clearing it up.
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JCE3000GT

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2008, 05:33:05 PM »
The same things happends in the Item menu versus equip menu.  Some menus are using black as the transparent color and some aren't.  I just don't know how to fix it.  I know it will be simply a one byte ASM change--but I don't know where to begin. 
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Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2008, 03:22:05 PM »
The equip menu has an odd setup. An empty window is drawn on layer 1, this is what makes the transparent (black) parts of the icons "disappear." Layer 2 holds the equip screen text and layer 3 has the main menu character status text - it's used during the window transition. To make your icons black you could just disable the window on layer 1 and kill layer 3 after the transition but that would cause another problem, the item list is drawn on layer 4 and when you scroll that you'd be able to see it "through" the item icons on layer 2.
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Gemini

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Re: Black Magic Icon -- transparent in battle?
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2008, 12:43:24 PM »
I guess HDMA is the only solution for that (blank what's behind the first tile with 8 black lines), or just draw the icon in battles using a sprite with priority 3 and a different palette/gfx.
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