Ryrumeli

I know I don't have to, but it would be underused otherwise, which would be a shame. Since again when I said the bases that guide this project, one of them was that it was a project which was proud of it's public-content. And thus my decisions must be guided by this value. Thus, I found the solution classy and stuff, had I not thought so I wouldn't have gone through with it. :) And sorry I wasn't clear before on the fact the body only pops up in the 4th screen, my bad. XD If it was to pop up in all 4, I would have done it almost invisible, just like the background behind it. Or just a silhouette. :) And yep, it is funny the first time when you're not expecting it, I have seen people's faces when I show them that. XD Done! Now press the R button for the joystick of life and enjoy the new screen! :3

Just saying, Formal training in programming helps every now or then, but determination helps more than that. I learned ASM out of sheer determination myself, at least, and I don't find myself to be outstanding. :) And I don't think you lack intuitions, your code was very close to the real deal as it was. You just lack confidence in your basics. :) And to be honest I think a tutorial for ASM might be more helpful than a tutorial on spriting. XD Since spriting is an art, and ASM is a programming language, and thus more technical.

@Zahl: That is a very good idea Zahl. To be honest I plan to use the generic conversation system for FE for the advisor system. The new menu which will have access to it will connect to a generic talk event, by using what FE8 events have FE7 and 6's ones lack. ;) @Seph: Yep, it would be so much better in life if instead of risking to be slapped you could just r click any girl and check her bust data. :3

Celice, Trent, it was also a worry of mine from the start. Even before I started to code this I came up with a list of pros and cons of using halfbodies in the back of the screen. It went something like this: Pros: - Gives more use for halfbodies: Half bodies as they are are underused, just being used in conversations would be a shame, and it would be seriously quite a waste to request so many works of such talented spriters and not give them a use in a sense the player can trigger any time they want. Mugshots are used in stat screens so why not half bodies? Were I to change the mug on the left side of the screen to a body I would increase the amount of information on that side even further than I will(Since I will be adding 2 icons in the future in that side already), so it would be cluttered. Were I to add a 5th screen, not only the 4th screen would now have too little info(I honestly would lack something to add in the section reserved for the half body. - Gives more information to the otherwise weak skill screen: Like in the last video I posted I think you guys could see that, without half bodies the 4th screen ends up having less information than any other screen. While it does have skills, and even a system I came up with to add an extra skill to every unit in the map, honestly without the half body and that custom skill it wouldn't even be worthy a whole screen. The lack of information is still visible on most units on the map; For units without half bodies the system still compiles the screen without the half body, so it will not be as heavy to the eye as it seems now in the actual game I hope. -Classy looks: It is hard to not be impressed by the way it turned out, and I say this because even I, the maker, didn't expect it to look this good. It is among the 4 screens the one which is more visible if you just keep on passing them one-by-one. Specially in the red and green versions of the stat sheet. And the fact it was tinted not only works to make it different from the mug but also to hopefully turn it into a background element. The skills are the important element of that screen, and as the list of skills grows it gets more and more evident that effect, since when it grows it just goes shamelessly on top of the half body. Cons: - The fact mugs and half bodies are in the same screen together is visually boring: Hence why I came up with the tinting, to make sure they would seem like different things; Heck, if you pay attention even the mouth for the half body and the mug on screen are different. The half body is but a background element, as I said before characters without bodies like generic enemy characters just don't show it, and don't lose much information with it. It is just yet another thing which characters with faces have over characters which don't have them. This also helps to give bosses with bodies more visibility among generic enemies. - Too much visual information in the same screen: Having a beautifully done half body on a screen as a background element AND skill names AND skill icons AND background AND names would be very heavy on the eye. The Tinking also comes in play for this, making the half body seem like a colorful blob at first glance, and making the most visible element the text. It is specially true if you play it with an emulator with support to the actual GBA's colors(No$GBA mainly), there the visibility of menus and text is even greater, specially in colors red and green. - Where else?: If I weren't to put half bodies as a background element on the 4th screen, where else would I do it? There aren't many places one can use such a resource which don't involve text, and even though I am already with a plan to increase the talking role of every unit to use well that resource, still I need to find more ways to make said resource be well used. I could just make a 5th screen, but honestly instead of creating 2 screens with low information levels, I decided to condense them on a more general and useful one. (Plus, I need to invest what to add in the fifth screen. Growths? Bio? Age? Bust Size? XD) So as you can see I did a lot of thinking and conjecturing before I even started out the code, I expanded on the qualities and thought of ways to work on the flaws(The tinting being my main answer to them). Don't know about others, but I believe one doesn't make over 2k of raw compiled ASM(The TXT file I used to assemble this has over 350k of raw text) if he hasn't pondered a lot about the system before accomplishing it.. ;) I understand completely what you're guys are saying, and it was my main worry from the start of this, but believe me when I suggest you guys to wait for the finished result before deciding on a position, it flows way smoother when you play with the system than when you just see it in those videos I assure you. Coming from a guy who, honestly and saying this without ego, is impressed at how it turned out in the end. :) Oh no, that only appears in this screen. The other 3 screens are exactly like their GBA counterparts. It also moves with the data in the skill screen, and only exists with it. Sorry for any mix up. ^_^' [spoiler=The 4 screens] Also, hopefully I will finish the skills to show in this hack anytime soon, stay tunned for news. :)

Glad you two like it, the first feedback I got from the color change was negative, hence why I am hesitating about it. XD And thanks for the compliment, but to be fair the hardest part was the palette swap, since it required me robbing a routine from the game, adapting it, and then changing how it works. The body making was relatively quick, since I did the menus already with support for the body making.(It was my original plan all along, the coloring wasn't though.) Anyways, I am brewing some more ideas, so hope the next hacks can be as exciting to you guys as these were. :)

Oh, I believe I forgot to post this here, my bad: Here is a more advanced version of the skill screen: I just gotta fix the last kinks and the stat sheet model for my hack will be 100% done, I will get to it as soon as I have more free time. But as of now I am happy on how the 4th stat sheet screen turned out. Also, I will be running a small unofficial pool. Do you guys like the fact half bodies were colored based on the side color, or would you rather they were used in the back without any sort of effect on top of them, as they came to the world so to say?

Just leaving this here.

For palette editing, there is more than a tutorial on the subject, all palettes work in the same way so it should be pretty simple to do. Making your own portraits of characters? As in spriting or inserting them? For inserting I would recomend FEditor; Extract one with FEditor, use that template which you get off it, and insert it on top of an old one. As for spriting, it is a technique completely aside from hacking, the fact man hackers are great spriters is but a coincidence. Heh, this one is not hard; In that folder there is a .txt file with the pointer list which is in the dropdown; Edit it to add the new entry, and save. Use the template of the program for that. Spriting is like painting and writing music and any other art form; Besides for a few special individuals, it takes tons of time and patience, and the more of both you have to provide to your works, generally the better the end up. Asking someone else to do it for you is a good approach, but for that it takes having an artist as your friend, which is easier said than done. The easiest way I can suggest you is to just make simple splices for the mugs you need now, use those, and when you have more time and are more advanced in your project, you can replace them by upgraded and "better" versions overall. In fact, when you have something to prove your skills and the quality of your project, then the odds of getting contributers increase drastically. To get contributers is a matter of how creditable you are, since sprites are an investment from their artists, so you gotta prove you're a good investment. Hope anything I said was useful.

There is a way without event editing; I believe there was some sort of module which was called "Chapter Unit". One of the unknowns or prologue ones involved editing the starting inventory of Eirika; She starts out with a single vulnerary in that one, and then Seth gives her a Rapier. I remember using that module to give Eirika a Fire tome just yesterday, but it was so mechanic for me that I don't even remember the name of the module, sorry. XD You could however, if you know how to give an animation to a weapon, turn her rapier into a white magic for the lord to use. Heck, turn the vulnerary into one. XD And all of these ways consider you just don't get the Event Assembler, dissasemble the chapter, go to the item giving comand, change the number to the number of a Lightning tome, and reassemble. The way dissassembling and reassembling work is discussed in more than one tutorial around here. Many ways to achieve the same goal, pick your favorite. ^_^

Amazing? If you knew the theory behind this you would find the way they did that silly, honestly. As I suspected it works pretty much exactly like Magic Sealing tiles. Indeed it takes some ASM to be able to create 2-4 ranges, sorry to say. Don't think it was due to your hacking skills, because that isn't the case. So don't feel bad for not being able to accomplish this. ^_^

The world map is one annoying beast to tame; I can't blame anyone for having issues with that bastard, the way the game programmed that was pretty hacky. And that is a game hacker saying so. XD Today I would say FE7 is easier to play around with due to most tutorials and stuff being focused on FE8; FE8 was easier in a few fields such as how inserting mugshots manually in FE8 was easier than in FE7, due to how they structured the data. Today we lean on tools for that sort of stuff, so I would say FE8's competitive edge would be the oasis of space available for hackers(The empty space is very easy to notice in FE8, and very vast as well) and also the things it can do FE7 can't. Unfortunatelly, FE7 can do a few things we can't yet do with FE8, like CGs, and also the documentation for FE7 is vastly superior than for FE8. Soon enough the scales on documentation and support will be equal, that I believe in. ^_^ Also, nice sprites there. While hacking sometimes becomes more a job of patience and bug fixing sometimes, I think that is surpassed by the sheer excitement of seeing your sprites and stuff in the game. As a hacker which also sprites(Or a spriter which also hacks like I am also called) I know that feeling very well. So yeah, I bid you good luck in your project, and if I can recommend somethings to a starting hacker I will say two things, which helped me to get where I am now(Where that is, you can be your own judge). 1) There isn't such a thing as "too hard" for when you want something. Everything has a structure and a logic, hacking isn't magic, sometimes it is closer to a contest of wits. 2) "Ambition" and "Feedback" are two key words. If your project isn't ambitious, you will find it hard to fall in love with it, and if you can't fall in love with it you won't accomplish much. And if you're not honestly open to feedback then I am sorry but don't go on with your project. For feedback is the way the world to tell you how you're doing. On-going projects which neglect feedback are "Walking Zombies" awaiting to die out sooner or later. So as hard as it is to do sometimes, one gotta learn to suck up one's ego and accept feedback, because from feedback at worst nothing will come; At best you and your project can grow from it. Hope my words can help even if a bit. Good luck with your project, and I expect to hear from it in the future. ^_^

I did consider doing something like that, just it didn't prove to be necessary; It works in a very similar way to what I thought, there is an array of possible outcomes for graphics in range which checks for pretty much every single possible range combination and give an appropriated pointer which in turn provides a number which will be loaded from another array which... *Takes a deep breath* ...will be making the appropriated tiles. So graphics and actual tiles are as dissociated as possible, this is very interesting. They just load a convenient range based on a very simplistic check. Making new ranges shouldn't prove to be an issue at all.(And cute thing is, they have a 1-4 range unused mode.) All these testings were done with a very usual weapon.

Believe me, if it is what I think it is, we have the original programmer's programming skills to blame, not your own. ;) if it is as hardcoded as it was with the magic sealing, then really. XD

I honestly wonder why this happens, honestly. I think that the lack of a 2-4 range is one thing which makes the idea most people have to improve a sniper and pretty much all bow users hard to achieve. Wonder if it works like Magic Sealing, I should check it anytime.

Thanks for the nice feedback. ^_^ So far I have listed 39 different skill icons which a character can have, and up to 7 appear in the same screen. One of the hardest parts will be making this system match with the skill scrolls I have planned, honestly, but for now I am just enjoying a minor victory(And around 2k of raw ASM done with X_X)

Sorry if double posting isn't allowed in the rules here under these conditions, but I have to make this pronunciation. Sorry for the lack of updates regarding the hack lately; From the weekend I went camping on I had a tough period of terms in college, and decided to obviously prioritize my college grades over my hacking project(Due to the fact that out of the two I am paying for only the first, and not cheap. >_>) , so yeah. Things should be normalized at least for a while, so expect a few more updates in a small while. Also, as for updates I am sorry but the only one I can share is the beta of the latest one for now. Some graphical kinks here and there, but the graphical core works pretty nicely already.

Does this link help you rohan? http://www.nwbbs.com/viewthread.php?tid=250950

Those are for the american version, I am afraid. What codes do you need for the japanese version?

Yo Krad, cool to see a hack like this going around. To be honest just porting/updating mugs would have been IMHO a better option for FE4 advance, so I congratulate your thinking. My only complaint of your graphical choice regarding all mugs is that the speech bubble seems too high up for all heads. Since everyone is like 2 tiles shorter than the maximum of FE7's height, it just stands out. Would you want an ASM hack to lower the speech bubble in two tiles in all conversations? I could do it and send you a patch if you are interested.(And if this is still on-going obviously)

Use a code that makes their XP 99, then turn it off, and then let them level, then turn them on, then rinse, and repeat, and stuff. Codes for FE7 are very easy to find in gamefaqs. I believe there is more than a single faq in FE7 full with diverse codes to use. (I use those codes for my ASM work, so I would know they exist)

Just going to drop this bomb here. The TSA for those is a bit hard to edit if you want to edit it manually. Can't give much details since FE7 isn't my cup of tea, but the way it works altering the TSA isn't your walk on the park if my memory doesn't fool me. Oh, and also, out of curiosity, those tiles also exist in FE8, and are loaded in the same way as they are in FE7, so bringing back those to FE8 would be a matter of using the FE7's TSA in FE8.

My exact thoughts. XD Your voice actually matches your looks very well IMHO, I like the vibes I am getting here. The lines are pretty amusing, makes me wish I had over 16 mbs to work with for this project honestly. :) Oh, and I didn't say this before, but I like what you did for the name. "Rex" for king, and "Gambol" does give an aura of a trickster. Really nice vibes going on here. :) (Also send me the blinking and talking tiles, and I can work on inserting your character in the game and giving out a video of that. :)) Also, guys, if anyone wonders what is happening here, in a TF2-style, "Meet the rogue". :3

The recordings will be mixed like that; Those that are available to talk through skype and match their conversations should do so, to give a more "conversational" feeling to the whole thing, and those who aren't will be at least get feedback on the thing. I just want all the people involved in the conversation to hear the conversation finished before deciding if they don't want to try to run a line again. Oh, and if your mic is better for your ITouch then you might use it, but again there isn't a need for an absolute amount of quality here(Samples need to get decreased in quality when they get in after all.) Also, I will have to check on that, but if the program I have in mind has a specific kind of optimization I believe it does, then the original recording format will be meaningless. ^_^

If the newer GBAGE is unable to mess with compressed TSAs and Palettes(Hm. Good to know), then yes. ...albeit to be honest, I am almost sure the TSA, and I think the Palette for battle frames were uncompressed, so in the end it is do-able with both versions.

The aid equation for mounted males is 25 - Con if I am not mistaken. So any mounted male is just going to have his Aid linked to that. The more con a male rider has, the least aid he has(Which makes sense, his mount can only carry a specific amount of weight anyway.) Aid isn't something you can modulate easily on a character-to-character basis; Either you changed the whole equation which rules all characters's Aid, or you reduce his con back to the original position. It would take a small but considerable amount of ASM to give a specific character or class a different equation for aid. Then again considering the biggest characters have like 15 con, but the average is much lower, it isn't such a bad thing to have a wyvern with good con. We have paladins and pegs to do the rescuing after all!