Topic: Zeromus Graphic Replacement

[Dark Knight]

I've always wanted to replace Zeromus' FFIV sprite (Brain thingy) with the one from the Easy Type version (Sword wielding). I am limited in my knowledge on graphics and such, and the only program that I have used for swapping/modifying graphics is yy-chr. The question here is which program(s) will allow me to replace Zeromus' current graphic? Or is replacing his sprite a little more complicated that just swapping the spritesheet?

[chillyfeez]

It's more than a little more complicated than swapping the sprite sheet. It'll take some doing, that's for sure, but it's not impossible.

In addition to swapping the sprite sheet, you'll also have to alter the sprite arrangement.
For most monsters in the game, it starts at one sprite and just fills in a preset rectangular area with each sprite all in a row. There are, however, 64 custom sprite arrangements (mostly used for bosses), and Zeromus is one of them.

I've discussed the matter at length - and created a tutorial for manipulating the arrangements here:
http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=1890.msg19384#msg19384
I don't come from a programming background, so most of what I say should be generally understandable, but feel free to ask if anything isn't clear. I usually check this board a couple of times a day at least.

[avalanche]

I don't come from a programming background, so most of what I say should be generally understandable

hahaha   coming from a programmer background, that was an awesome dig

[chillyfeez]

I wasn't purposely digging at programmers, but not coming from a programing background, reading some of the ROM hacking literature out there can be kinda daunting...
Like this:
http://emu-docs.org/Super%20NES/General/snesdoc.html#BGBasics
Sheesh...

[avalanche]

I know it wasn't on purpose, that's part of why it was funny.  I know what you mean though.  That page has really helped me make some of my breakthroughs figuring out spell animations and other graphics-related code, but it's definitely not very clear.

[Dark Knight]

Okay, I've succeeded in inserting/fixing the new spritesheet and the new sprite appears in battle correctly. So, the next step is to get Zeromus's correct palette. He currently appears bluish with gray areas, and it looks pretty bad. I've search and read the available documents and couldn't find anything related to palettes, well at least something that would change Zeromus's palette to anything besides bluish gray color. All my attempts failed to alter his palette. Anyone knows the offset to enemy palettes? I guessing I'll need to bring Zeromus's palette information from Easy Type.

[chillyfeez]

I don't actually know, but I'm sure I could figure it out when I find some time to do so (maybe tomorrow?). I thought it'd be on the forum somewhere, but I can't find it either.

probably mixed among the banks of monster sprite data somewhere. You could try loading the ROM in snespal (http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/32/) and scrolling through that area to see if you can find it. Careful, though. If you edit something that's not the palette, you never know what you might be messing up...

[chillyfeez]

OK, found Zeromus's palettes. Yeah, he has two, somehow. They're one right after the other, so it's almost like it's one 16-color palette, but monster graphics normally only use eight colors. Odd...

Anyway the colored parts (blues, reds) are at:
E7C90 (headered) or E7A90 (unheadered)

And the gray parts are at:
E7CA0 (headered) or E7AA0 (unheadered)

[avalanche]

He's 4bpp, so it's treated as one 16 entry palette.

[chillyfeez]

Is he the only naturally 4bpp monster?

[Gedankenschild]

Is he the only naturally 4bpp monster?

Yes, he is.