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First things first. I'm attempting the gargantuan task of creating a hack of FFVI playable on ZSNES. I have the sprite editing programs, and the ROM. I have the ROM loaded, and I want to edit Sabin's sprite. Now what? All I see are little blocks of colors. Can anyone tell me what to do next? Thank you.

Well... you just... draw.

Is there anything in particular you don't understand? All's you have to do is locate the sprites you want to edit and, well, draw. I would guess the problem here's that you can't find the sprite? Scroll down about halfway through the ROM; some images should start to appear.

Be aware that an image-editing program can only get you so far. Lots of data is compressed, and a bit of hex will be required. Sprites, as far as I know, are all uncompressed, however.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I'm seeing bits and pieces of sprites, but no complete sprite. And all the colors are f'd up too. Maybe I'm using the wrong program?

I'm using FF3usSpriteEd.

Everything is as it should be.

First of all, you'll rarely find perfectly aligned sprites. Short of using a program specifically designed for the game you're editing, that is. SNES graphics are stored as 8 pixel by 8 pixel blocs that get assembled together as needed. A lot of space can be saved by not repeating certain tiles: if a character is raising their hand while facing the screen, their feet and one of their sides looks the same when standing still; only the tiles for arm being raised tiles are stored.

Next, the SNES is only capable of 256 colors at once (out of a possible total of 32,768.) This means it has to maintain a 256 color palette into CGRAM (Palette RAM if you'd rather call it that; generally split into 16 palettes, as an SNES tile can only have 16 colors).

The game itself decides which colors to set. No actual color data is stored alongside SNES sprites, just palette indexes. That is, if palette's first color is red, the second orange, and the third yellow, a sprite with "1 2 3 2 1" would be a gradiant going from red to yellow and back. Without knowing what 1, 2, and 3 represent, however, we don't know what it really is. There's no way to get the exact colors short of running the game and seeing what's loaded into CGRAM when the sprite is drawn. Tile editors usually take a guess and try to come up with color palettes that allow you to reasonably make out sprites.

However, a few programs exist to allow you to edit character sprites for FF6. These programs already have a copy of the game palettes they themself apply to the sprites, as well as data telling it how to align the tiles. But these programs only apply to FF6 and can't edit anything more. They're also VERY version-specific: if the sprites in one version are at address "5000" and in the other, "5200", the edit will be 200 bytes off and you won't see the right thing.

Moderator Edit

After reading the last two posts, I realized I was probably in error to move it out of the FF6 forum in the first place. What could have been generally creation-based is more specific to FF6 discussion now. I'll probably move it back later. - R51

Edit: Simplified a few things and added a bit more FF6-specific info. Also served up some cookies for R51 during his brief but welcomed visit to my post (little stash I keep for guests...)

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 17th August 2005 01:41

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Umm...RuneLancer, I don't think he's talking about a generic tile editor like TLP. He's using FF3usSpriteEditor, which is the one with the Relm icon, I believe. In this editor, the tiles ARE mixed all around, but at the bottom there are a few windows in which the sprite is displayed.

Piffer, there should be an option in that program that will label the sprites at the bottom with a number. You can use that number up at the top where all the tiles are to look for the specific tile you want to edit. For example (this is just an example, the numbers aren't accurate), the tile for Sabin's left leg facing forward might be labelled 1C on the bottom. Look in the top for the tile marked 1C and edit it at will. The sprite at the bottom should change to reflect the tile you just changed.

I never did like that program...I suggest FF3SE for the bulk of your sprite edits, but use FF3usSpriteEditor for the sprites that you can't access in FF3SE (such as the chocobo riding graphic, and the dead graphic).

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Is PJ

A good thing to note when using these editors

I have been recently using these editors to alter some sprites in the FF3 rom
to my dismay during testing the sprites i noticed that some colors on the pa;ette were different in and out of battle (only in the bottom character slot during battle would certain colors wack out)

and since i've had the same thing happen with 3 different roms
(I've had to redo several sprites)

choose the colors you use carefully

and remember that with FFSE you can alter the colors on the palette to make sprite editing easier

also remember that palettes affect multiple sprites
so when chnaging a color be ready to alter another sprite, or replace the color on that sprite

Quote

...I suggest FF3SE for the bulk of your sprite edits, but use FF3usSpriteEditor for the sprites that you can't access in FF3SE (such as the chocobo riding graphic, and the dead graphic).

-caesar

I agree with this method 100%, it is the exact same order that i edit my sprites

*FF3Se misinterprets the sprite on the 1st row 6th column, don't bother trying to fix a sprite that isn't messed up*



This post has been edited by Cloud_Strife510 on 17th August 2005 11:25

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Quick note.

The last 4 (or is it 3?) palette entries in a battle sprite are subject to change in battle. Don't use them.

I learned the hard way. In your "ambitious hack" thread, I posted two hacks featuring custom sprites. One of the characters (the one whose sprite was based on Leo) suffers from this because I was not aware of this restriction at the time.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote

The last 4 (or is it 3?) palette entries in a battle sprite are subject to change in battle. Don't use them.

4. I, too, had to suffer the consequences of that. When I first made FuSoYa, he was bright yellow in battle, but perfect on the overworld. I fixed it, but now all the character sharing that palette have blue hair....hey, sacrifices hda to be made.

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Is PJ