Lamia

since it's just changing numbers, could this sorta thing be modified to work with say, FE4? I feel like it would be double the random (or unfair) fun due to holy blood, skills, and children (but would need some tweaking in other places)

'bad rom' will show up regardless if you patch anything since that's part of the checksum, it has no bearing on whether the ROM runs as said above, recheck if you need a header or not and if you need to use the NP or V.ROM version

for your dropbox links change the 'dl=0' to 1, that will enable download-on-click

Lamia here with some more FE4 resource nonsense for you. This time, I'll be going over the feature that is the coding of magic animations. This is complex stuff to do manually, so bear with me. In FE4, magic animation is broken down into codes that do specific things. Load graphics, change colors, make it move a certain way, all that stuff. Stringing them all together in wondrous ways can get you the animation you desire. Fair warning, pretty much all special animation during battle is classified as the same sort of code; things like the EXP bar showing, level ups, dialogue and more are called up in a similar manner, so don't mess with those. I can't be certain and say that this is all different from the GBA series due to my lack of experience in those games, but what I can say is that there's no special program required, just your wits and lots and lots of time for experimentation and testing. First off, the codes. Each code is separated into two bytes, and paired up as such in pattern: XX YY XX YY XX YY XX YY, and so forth. YY is the main part. Change it to certain numbers to define what kind of aspect you're changing in the animation, such as sprites and colors. XX is the variable for YY. Change it for different effects in the current aspect. Each code is read one by one per frame, unless confronted with wait commands. The list of codes: Now, let's take a look at an example custom animation I made: the Blazer tome. (no relation to the individual) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcg2pbxsg-M Location: $17929D (Fire's original location) Code: 3B 08 3A 02 3B 68 17 1A 0A 46 01 2E 1E 04 FD FF 0F 16 0B 06 0A 54 F9 FF 01 2A 03 1E 12 1A 02 2A FA FF 48 1A 10 16 10 54 FD FF FC FF 1F 04 12 56 36 08 FF FF Let's decode this, shall we? I have my own personal notes for all this, which I'll provide, of course. Detailed explanations are in bold. 3B 08 begin animation? (is this necessary?) I'm not sure if this code is needed, but it's at the beginning of EVERY magic animation. Won't protest. 3A-3B 02 wind This command preps the Wind tiles, by default 3A, and the pattern organizing them is 3B. I'm not positive the differences between 02 and 28, but left them be as it was how Wind originally loaded. 17 1A behind attacker location This positions the 'main' segment of the Wind graphic just behind the attacker's location. 0A-0B 06 unflatten appear (like fire, wind, etc) Preps the graphic for unflattening, making it appear out of thin air as the original Fire and Wind do. 01 2E (sound) Sounds are important! 1E 04 wind pattern? 04 codes display the tiles in a certain pattern, and no animation can function without one of these codes, without which there would be nothing to look at! FD FF attacker cast The first FD FF code makes the caster move their arm down and their cloak and hair whoosh in the wind until the next FD FF. 0E-0F-10 16 bolganon red Bolganone is very convenient for reddish colors. 0A-0B 06 unflatten appear (like fire, wind, etc) 0A 54 wait In this case, I wanted the timing to appear just right. Liberal use of this ensures the animation flows well in your eyes! F9 FF dodge if miss The defender will dodge the moment this code comes up and the attack was a miss. You can have multiple in one animation for flavor purposes, but be sure to use an extra FC FF code for each. 01 2A (sound) 03 1E super fast camera pan This code shifts the camera over. Obviously, this is very important. 12 1A scroll forward fast, defender detection Scrolls the displayed magic animation graphic towards the enemy until it touches their 'hitbox'. It's a big part of how the original Fire, Wind, and Elwind operate. 02 2A (sound) FA FF hit if no miss Strikes and damages the defender at this point. Don't use more than one of these codes. 48 1A something to do with bypassing target Haven't experimented much with this, but it's part of the aforementioned Fire/Wind/Elwind code. Didn't want to mess with it, and it seems to work with it. 0E-0F-10 16 bolganon red The 10 16 code makes the Bolganone color fade out. A fair number of stringed-together color codes fade in, animate, and fade out in their respective colors in that numbered order. Experiment! 10 54 wait FD FF attacker cast The caster lowers their arm and rests. FC FF defender dodge action and reaction If the target dodged, they will go back into a resting and/or ready pose so that they can animate on their turn. 1F 04 clear wind pattern? Several animations have an additional 04 code at the end. I can only assume it clears the RAM so that future animations in the same battle don't get mucked. 12 56 reset tile/palette effects This lovely code erases most graphics and resets colors to the base that the environment uses. Use it! 36 08 end animation (I think this clears most non-tile effects) Like 3B 08, this code appears at the end of every animation. It probably resets 06 and 08 codes just in case. FF FF exit animation The second most important part of all, of course. Blazer is a simple C-rank Fire tome I designed to obviously emulate the original Wind in a fiery way. Feel free to copy this tome for your own use if you so desire. My full magic animation notes text is here. Contained within are all of my code notes, the addresses for the regular magic animations, and some data on graphics locations. https://pastebin.com/h06s0XTE Extra Tips ----- - When choosing XX 16 codes, most of them animate a set of colors, but only certain 'single' colors in a palette. Not all of them cycle through them all and not all of them cycle period, so experiment thoroughly to find what looks best for your animation. There's a fair few colors to choose from, and I certainly haven't found them all. - Start from an existing magic animation close to what you're looking for (especially graphics-wise), and work from there. It's easier than starting from scratch. - Nearly all animations, when loading sprites, need a secondary or even tertiary code to load it all properly, as some of the 02 codes organize the tiles in a certain way as well. When loaded, they take up a specific place in the RAM, so it's important to use trickery or clear them when changing graphics in the middle of an animation and/or ending the animation fully, lest you make tacky displays. - Put a B7 16 code at the start of animations if you're having some color issues. It will clean up the 'base' color in the RAM so that the first one you load can 'fade in' proper. - Magic animations are in a specific section of the ROM and it is inadvisable to try and repoint them away. Errors have occurred for me and I don't want to see the same thing happen to you all, but feel free to give it a shot if adventurous. Maybe I just screwed up at that time. - Don't attempt to change the length of the space used for each without repointing to adjust when necessary. Each magic animation has its own length in bytes, listed in my accompanying notes. - Sound samples are hardcoded as far as I can tell, I can't find a way to change them. If you're modifying the animation for Thunder without changing anything else, it's only going to use the same samples as its item number for Thunder (43). If you want to use different sound effects, you're going to have to change from the item number itself. Don't forget to use the Magic Animation Editor in Nightmare as well if needed to shift things around. - Swords casting magic works in the same manner as tomes, no worries about those. - Keep an unmodified FE4 ROM on hand to check how the original animations were done. You'll definitely need them for reference, time and time again. - Long range tomes and ballistae and some other weapons have some sort of coding that adjusts the positions of the characters automatically at the start of battle. Use the Battle Positions Editor which is available in my FE4 resources topic. - If you need to add an extra magic tome to the list, item number 56 is notably non-glitchy unlike the rest, and uses Fire sound samples. Keep in mind that there's no way yet to change item icons, so you'd need to move broken tomes to a different number. - For the advanced, it's certainly possible to add your own graphics, so long as you use the proper codes to refer to them. Going step by step for this is really convoluted, and I'm not sure I'll even try to write a tutorial for that. Regardless, if I'm able to figure it out, I'm sure others could. Lots of credit to the japanese FE4 community whom I couldn't have gotten started on this without. Happy animating! Use this topic to ask about anything, especially if I didn't cover something, for the 3 other people into making FE4 projects.

nightmare is just a tool to read data; if you can readjust the data yourself, you can make the necessary changes to nightmare to display more as far as I know, anyway; I don't know how FE7 works in this manner about supports, but my tip about nightmare is solid

it's all a great idea of course, but only for as far as you're willing to go; if monthly is too much of a drag, go for bimonthly or whatever floats your boat you're doing good though

as an addendum to the above, event codes play a big part in how the map functions; try not to mess with character numbers (ID), AI, alignment, or adding more castles/villages in FE4MAP than the chapter's default without knowing what you're doing the MoveBlock thing is part of the map data, however event codes are needed to unlock blocked portions (hence the 'custom' option too) there's a glitch that occurs with some chapters when saving village/castle data(like chapter 3): the placement of the villages/castles in the ROM are too close together, and the editor overlaps the data, causing serious problems, notably of which is corrupting the shop data for all chapters... you'll have to step into the ROM itself to correct that, but it should be easy (relatively) to search for the stuff and correct it yourself

asvel himself is an average mage recruitable in a side chapter but he has an overpowered personal weapon to take advantage of unfortunately FE5 has some of those no-win situations that can happen... for example where you might be able to be stuck due to the fatigue system, like your thieves not being available for a chapter with lots of locks and you can literally be unable to bring all of your A-team in the final chapter if they're fatigued and you don't have enough/any S-drinks to reset them there's also a chapter where you can be stuck and be unable to progress if you can't unlock all of the doors, so you have to choose between being able to recruit someone PLUS a side chapter or get through the doors, and then there's the last two chapters too...

I can't really speak of projects but one of the things I like most in any FE is class and item variance to keep things interesting as far as combat goes, and being able to handle most situations

photobucket? it's 2015, use imgur or dropbox pretty neat though, however I have to point out something/remind you to test about fire, wind, and resire: they use hitbox detection in FE4/5, so do the spells still look right at all ranges in your animations?

feplus, your examples aren't actual problems, as they only seem problematic because the player would choose to ignore them; it's their own fault if they miss out on something explained to them, and it seems whiny going on that Mass Effect example, you ever play them at all? there are many points in the series where choosing not to act on commands or recommendations given to you could end up hurting your results, and when you learn after the fact, are you going to blame the game's design for your choice to ignore them? so why wouldn't you rescue them, is it too difficult? the player did not follow orders and did not do the humanitarian thing, so should the game handfeed you for not doing something other than just clearing the map? IIRC the other FEs don't exactly spell out their gaiden chapters either, and while you say it's pretty much unfair for a game series to do that, frankly I enjoy discovering hidden content, which you should keep in mind is a big part of videogames in general in fact, finding hidden stuff tends to make the game far easier than it would be without, not making the game harder if you didn't find them... and there's a big difference in that way, regardless of whether the hidden stuff is spelled out to you, hinted at, or totally secret the pugi axe is a personal weapon, an overpowered thrown killer axe, and the hero axe is strong for its low rank of D, and you get them in chapter 1; of course they're not necessary to beat the game, especially if you don't decide to focus on axe users, but they make fighting easier, just like any other missed good items (or characters like Tiki, Haar, Navarre clones, and others the games hint at being recruitable) in other FEs if you ask me, the game's difficulty wouldn't drop, because all that's changed is clearer information, which doesn't have an effect on the actual challenge, but the game would be less immersive and perhaps more... amateur? and unenjoyable, if you get what I mean, if everything was spelled out to you take for example if the game listed these off out of the blue: Chapter 16B Shanam: Recruit by talking with Homeros. Sara: Recruit by talking with Leaf. Miranda: Recruit by ending Leaf's turn on the castle. Item: Luna Scroll, steal from enemy. Item: Pugi Axe, steal from enemy. Item: Wind Sword, steal from enemy. Item: Berserk Staff, steal from enemy. Item: Master Bow, steal from enemy. Hazard: Warp Tile, located at (x, y) Hazard: Warp Tile, located at... and so on and so forth... the game shouldn't be making the checklists for you, you should be doing it yourself by trial and error and learning about the game(although as stated before the warp tiles are bad design), and not being given a strategy guide from the get-go, because then what's the point (these are my own preferences talking)

still been working on my project on and off, mostly off, I did add a chapter progress meter to the original post though not exactly sure how much progress I'll be making anytime soon with dungeon fighter online being rereleased, ohoho but here have a pair of custom B-rank magic animations, if I can quit being lazy I'll probably write a tutorial sometime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MITRuNslkus

cryptic hints are pretty much a staple, I mean FE7 had a whole feature that was about that (augury) but I think having hints in conversation or in-chapter events works better while having leaf and lifis get captured in chapter 4 is a pretty big surprise, I don't think it detracted much, and you can get their original items from the chests anyway (and with a few extras IIRC if you didn't load them up) things like the above mentioned capturing and escaping could have been handled better as it can be a pretty annoying thing, I don't doubt my first time playing FE5 I saved over my savefile when having leaf escape earlier than most, thankfully I had savestates at the time despite how cheaty it is, but all in all it's pretty gross

well in that particular case there's no question that the warp tiles in 16B and 24x are fake difficulty some proper event editing can easily remove them if a balance patch needed it

two parts of strategy are learning from surprise situations and mistakes, and gambling can still provide a kick as well FE is replayable from restarting the chapters, and sure it can get frustrating in some areas, but it's a learning experience as much as a careful decision experience

my opinions in bold

oops

rule of thumb is to reload the ROM every time you switch to a different tool's window, if you're not reverting progress on purpose for testing things

I think FE5 is probably the most underrated because it's often handwaved away by its bad rap given over time by people that suck at the game [/elitism] also FE11 is overrated because to me, remakes are put on a pedestal and it failed expectations to provide something better than the original, and in my humble opinion I can play FE3 book 1 instead and not feel like I'm missing out on anything important in FE11

what I mean is, if you ask someone (like myself) about their project(s), it would be handy if you had a list of stuff to go over, like an interview, covering all the bases while leaving room for personal input and tastes can go over one's project with a bit more detail the first time, while in subsequent 'issues' minor updates can be noted alongside other projects as sidebar-stuff I'm just throwing out ideas though, trying to help with coming up with things also I wouldn't mind at all if you wanted to talk about mine, and/or get my input if needed

this could be groovy but making formulaic guidelines and junk will help streamline things for the modders

cool beans, very thorough and something nice to look at now make one for FE4! or do I have to do that, sadface

hey you know I'm all for spicing up this moderately sparse community I'd make nominations but I haven't really played any like a hypocrite and unfortunately my own hack is not eligible due to the lack of a public demo, perhaps next time spectator mode enabled

there should be some basic nightmare modules in the proper topic for you to start out with additional and more advanced things can be found in the FE4 stuff link in my signature

face it, FE3 is just not as tasty anymore especially due to the remakes, and it has charm, but not enough charm to hold the interest for a lot of people if you're desperate enough to make an awesome hack though (FE3), you will need to make your own resources (modules, et al.)