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Y'know, the post just before yours should answer that question.

I have one thing to say, and it's a bit of a rant. I'll keep it short since nobody really cares about the mechanics anyways.

Square's programmers are stupid.

The long jump command had a slight bug in it that had me scurrying about the code all night last night until I found out something. See, SNES addressing allows you to use a variable to specify where to read from in the ROM, but it needs to be 3 bytes (since a ROM address is 3 bytes.) Animation scripts are in "bank" D0, that is, a 65k chunk of data called "D0". The rest of the address can be anything since it's an address inside bank D0.

The variables in memory which hold this address are 5B, 5C, 5D. 5D is the bank, and since animations scripts are all in D0, it's always equal to D0. The whole point of the long jump was to allow this to change so you could read from, say, bank F5 and gain access to another 65k of animation script data. All's I thought I'd have to do was set 5D to whatever was specified in the script and that's that.

Wrong.

Square's geniuses keep the address of the script in memory for various reasons. 5B and such are "temporary" addresses. This, I knew, but didn't care about too much since I made sure the long jump would write the 2-byte permanent address as well. The third byte, D0, gets loaded at the start of the script so I don't have to touch that. I can just change 5D and that's that, right?

For reasons unknown to me, the script, every frame, RESETS 5D to D0. But it doesn't just say, "Make 5D equal to D0." That would've been so easy to spot. No no no, instead, they keep D0 in memory (EVEN THOUGH IT NEVER CHANGES) and load it from RAM into 5D. Clever, Square, but why in the nine layers of hell are you doing this if you NEVER CHANGE BANKS?!

A frustrated rant, now that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the long jump fully works. It is my theory that Square originally intended to have animation scripts extending beyond bank D0, and this assembly code backs up that claim. But why it was scrapped and why the code does unecessary stuff now is beyond me...

IN ENGLISH, the long jump works 100% now. Caesar is set, and he's gonna Rock. Your. World.

Don't be prepared. Nothing can prepare you for what this man'll have to unleash once he gets his hands dirty with this command...

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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."

well, after 23 pages, one could assume that the hack was finished, and he was working on another one, is all im saying - but thats cool that its still an ongoing project, i'd definately love to see it once it is completed

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-In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
-Douglas Adams
Slow and steady wont win at the gold saucer
-me

wtg, Silver! You rock!

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

Quote (Wind God Gau @ 15th July 2005 21:48)

wtg, Silver! You rock!

The effort wouldn't have been made had Caesar not wanted it, so I think he deserves praise just as much for the idea.

I'm on a bit of a break this weekend, both on ES and toying around with FF6, so I won't have any new toys for the C-man to play with. But then again, tomorrow (my birthday ) may be a pretty empty day since my plans were shifted to tuesday to accomodate other people's schedules (and I'm on vacation next week so...) So who knows what new toys I'll cook up.

How Caesar puts them to use will ultimately determine just how good the animations will turn out, so I'm just as eager to see what's going to happen as everyone else, assembly hacker or not.

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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."

Alright, well I'm back from vacation (although I was technically back yesterday), and I did a TON of work on Omnislash. The long jump is up and working, along with 3 other commands RuneLancer gave me. I gotta say, I am having a lot of fun making this. You can always check it's progress in my sig. As of now, it occupies more than 2600 bytes, and hits approximately 160 times. No, I am not near finishing. It is really looking incredible. Thanks to a certain animation command RL gave me, I added a "time slip" effect to the attack, so it seems that time stops. This is where the animation really kicks into third gear. Cecil strikes the enemy 7 times from different angles, sorta moving in a clockwise pattern, gradually increasing each time he strikes 7 times. He then moves incredibly fast to strike 24 times (4 rounds of 6). This is my favorite part of all. He stands just to the right of the target and swings slowly 5 times (i figure each swing is exactly half a second in duration). He then produces a copy of himself which gradually shifts to the left of the target. He then swings at the same rate, but alternating with his copy (so there is a swing every .25 seconds). I plan to have each duplicate once again at least, making 4 copies and 8 swings per second. I may even have those 4 produce another copy, yielding 8 Cecils on screen with swings faster than I can program, basically. It will truly be a sight.

While I am adding some finishing touches to this animation, does anybody have an idea where I should throw this? I'm thinking as a desperation attack so it can't be abused or anything, although I might just make it his final SwdTech with some sort of limit on it's usage, or some drawback (destroys the users sword or something).

Depending on RL's schedule, I may be getting a damage command to use in my animations. This means that I will have damage inflicted every time he connects. That means upwards of 200 separate inflictions of damage. Of course, I would have to make it incredibly weak, such as 500 damage per hit or something, but it will still be enough to cripple any non-Caesar boss.

Also depending on his schedule and mood, I may be provided with a command that lets me program a new animation for every attack usable by the characters, depending on their HP level. So start thinking of what you might want for an alternate animation for some of the basic spells (fire, ice, bolt, bio, ultima(!), meteor, merton, quake, cure, life, rasp, etc, etc, etc). You can post them here if you want, or you can keep them to yourself. I don't care really. I don't even know if I will get such a command, so I don't want to waste your time.


I have a feeling that some of you might cry when you see Omnislash the first time. It is THAT good right now.

Edit

It seems I forgot a few words in the middle of some sentences. Way to go me

This post has been edited by Caesar on 22nd July 2005 02:39

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Is PJ

Quote (Caesar @ 21st July 2005 21:38)

Depending on RL's schedule, I may be getting a damage command to use in my animations.
...
Also depending on his schedule and mood, I may be provided with a command that lets me program a new animation for every attack usable by the characters, depending on their HP level.

The damage command itself is a joke. Having damage appear onscreen is the tough bit, though once I isolate the code that handles that I'll just copy whatever I need to my little home away from home (bank F1) and that'll be that. With all the free space I have in there, the only limits' my knowledge and understanding of the original code.

The branch on HP command will be easy to implement. Far easier than the damage command. Expect it sometime soon (I'm on vacation right now, so working on this is a little slow.)

Though I don't have the authority (nor the desire) to take decisions on what goes where, I think it'd be a good idea if you guys suggested ideas on how to influence spells and what effects could be interesting. To be honest, I've been a little low on imagination as of late, and all that free space is just BEGGING to be used. Giving Caesar new "toys" to play with could lead to interesting results in the hack. And god knows I won't be satisfied with merely giving him the two commands he mentionned: short of having damage appear onscreen, it's too small of a challenge.

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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 thought I'd treat everybody to some screenshots:


Cecil moving blindingly fast. There is no sword visible since he is swinging too fast to detect in a screenshot.


Cecil and his copy (left) attacking the Lunatis. Again, it's too hard to catch the sword in a screenshot when there's so much going on at once.

Both screenies were taken during the "time slip" phase of the animation.

And please, like RuneLancer said, give me or him any suggestions you might have for the animations. I would like suggestions to only involve new ideas for alternate animations (such as with an alternate animation with low HP) or new commands for RuneLancer to program. Though you prolly won't know much for the latter, any new ideas regarding what you might want to see here would be appreciated.

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Is PJ

well, i dont know much about ff6, but if the spells were to have a "desperation attack" quality to them, maybe increasing the speed at which the spell effects come? that would certainly seem a little desperate to me

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-In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
-Douglas Adams
Slow and steady wont win at the gold saucer
-me

Not sure I follow. Are you talking about increasing the rate at which desperation attacks occure? That's pretty easy to modify.

If you're talking about animation speed, there's already a command to set it. Caesar uses it in his Omnislash, like mentionned in his post.

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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."

When their hp is low and the cast, say, fire (1,2 or 3), make the sprite stop with their hands out, then a few small flames at their hands (sparks for Bolt), then the animation.

How long is Omnislash? I mean like, in seconds not in bytes.

FBM, that would be very possible, however, I would like to make an entirely new animation for each. For example, for Fire 1, I will prolly make a fire pillar around the target (think the flames from Fire 1 spinning diagonally upward around the target). Note that all new animations will still have to use the old graphics, though. I can only change their movements, background effect, target motion, caster movement, etc. I can't change the graphics as of yet.

If Omnislash was a desperation attack, I would certainly want it to come more frequently than usual, otherwise nobody would ever see it.

Last time I clocked it, it was up around 46 seconds. It is prolly 5-10 seconds longer now, and will be ever longer after more copies are produced.

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Is PJ

Quote (Caesar @ 22nd July 2005 10:47)

Last time I clocked it, it was up around 46 seconds. It is prolly 5-10 seconds longer now, and will be ever longer after more copies are produced. O_o

Careful! Making an animation too long will really take away some coolness points after the player'll have cast it a few times.

"Well... I COULD use omnislash again... *holds the fastforward key*"

On a related note, though I'm on vacation currently, I've gotten ahold of a hex editor and the ROM, and I'm going to look into completing my map notes once and for all. Once dungeon/town maps become editable, I'm quite sure Caesar will be interested in some info. I may start a hack of my own at that point, as a side project.

God knows I could put a few spare banks to good use. >:)

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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

Careful! Making an animation too long will really take away some coolness points after the player'll have cast it a few times.

Yea, I am fully aware of that. I'm thinking of getting rid of one section that doesn't really flow with the others. That way, it's just the initial little bit, followed by the time slip phase. I'm planning on ending it after he's finished with all the duplication.

Also, since it is so long and so powerful, I don't want it to be usable every battle. I don't have any ideas of how to limit its use unless I break the user's sword or make it a desperation attack. "Whoa! I just dealt 200,000 damage to Caesar! Oh no, I lost the strongest sword in the game..."

Hmm...map notes, eh? This could prove very useful...

Quote

I may start a hack of my own at that point, as a side project.

Dangit, more competition. It's bad enough with all the hacks over at mnrogar's. Haha, I'm just kidding. I'm sure your hack would be incredible. (if you want some help, just gimme a call).

Edit

Yea, the section is all gone. I never really liked it that much.

This post has been edited by Caesar on 22nd July 2005 17:56

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Is PJ

well, what i really meant, was that, say you're casting fire 1 (keep in mind i've never seen the magic from ff6) the spell animation appears several times, with the spell animation speed increased a little bit, ya know like boom-boom-boom

--------------------

-In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
-Douglas Adams
Slow and steady wont win at the gold saucer
-me

It may be possible to do that, but in some cases the animation speed is already at the fastest setting. Plus, it wouldn't really look right with some spells to play more than once. Spells like Ultima and Meteor have closure in their animations, so playing it multiple times would take away from it.

Plus, I'd like to make one from scratch.

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Is PJ

aah, i getcha (i have no grounding in teh haxxoring skillz or ff6) good luck on your hack though, i'd definately love to see it when its done

--------------------

-In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
-Douglas Adams
Slow and steady wont win at the gold saucer
-me

Just a thought for a boss..
Cactuar King
A huge cactuar. Uses 1,000 Needles and 10,000 needles. Thassit. Drops: Cactus Needle, a sword that randomly casts 1,000 needles.
And yes, I said 1000 needles. Not blowfish. 1,000 needles sounds infinitely cooler.

This post has been edited by Wind God Gau on 27th July 2005 00:15

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

Anything new, Caesar? We could really use an update. =^-^=

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

Although I don't want to make any statements on Caesar's behalf, being the brains behind the animation-related assembly hacks I do know Caesar has asked me for a few animations commands (one of which will be quite a handfull, both in terms of concept and implementation). Unfortunately it's going to be hard for me to find spare time to work actively on writing assembly code, what with getting ready to move and all (the keys are already in my pockets )

Hopefully this isn't the only thing left to work on and Caesar isn't stuck waiting because of it. I'd feel kind of bad if he'd be unable to proceed because of this. I do expect to have a few commands up for him sometime this week (I was expecting last night, but stuff came up. And tonight I'm going to get my contact lens checked. And tomorrow I have to drop by the bank to handle account-related stuff. Whew. At worse it might be this weekend, but if the contact lens thing tonight or the bank tomorrow don't take too long I might try then.)

Well, that's my end of things, at least.

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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."

Sorry everybody, I was waiting until I finished Omnislash before I updated you, but I need one command from RL before that happens.

When I DID finish Omnislash, I was going to ask for ideas for the alternate animations, but I won't get that command, either, for a few days. No worries, though. Go ahead and post your ideas for alternate animations for all of the magic spells you can learn from espers, and maybe even some Lores. What I'm looking for in these ideas is just something new and cool-looking for me to program. Basically, the alternate animation will be used whenever the caster has near-fatal status effect (similar to desperation attacks, except these are ALWAYS used when you have that status). They might do damage twice, they might just look cool. I'm not sure yet, but I AM sure that I can't think of them all by myself.

There is one requirement: each new animation must use the same graphic as the old. For example, for Fire 1, the new animation will still only be able to use the flames. Therefore, I'd be looking for something along the lines of a fire pillar for the new animation (where the flames circle upwards around the target). In fact, that's what I'll do for that one. It might be difficult with spells like bolt and ice 1, but post anyways and I'll see what I can do.

There are other things I could do in the meantime, basically tidying up some things, but nothing too big. Animations are the last big step I've got to do, besides the final battle and a few custom battles.

So, let's hear some ideas.

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Is PJ

How about just adding a little something extra to the animations? For instance, fire 1 is three gouts of flame travelling across the field at the enemy's feet. You could have a low-hp effect where the screen flashes red briefly, fades back to a red tint, and the animation plays.

It'd be less work for you, for one, and would allow players to identify with the alternate spells without being too confused as to what was cast.

Other ideas could include, for instance, a wavy background during Flare with slower-moving particles and a longer, larger explosion. Same spell, but enhanced-looking. Think Secret of Mana level 9 magic.

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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."

Ahh...SoM level 9 magic. Love those spells. I get what you're saying though. So basically, just enough to make it noticable. With some spells, though, I WOULD like to make something really crazy. Maybe for the third-tier spells only, like Fire 3, Bolt 3, Ice 3. I dunno. Depends on what ideas come out of here I guess. I'm up for anything.

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Is PJ

On a related note, I could have a begin special effect / end special effect command that would put the game in a special state during that time (like how SoM froze the screen during the spell animation.)

An interesting idea would be to have the casting animation altered if casting a low-hp spell. I was going to suggest a small hack that would check if the caster is in near-fatal status, but then I realised this can be done quite easily with the on near-death command and the casting animation. What you could do is alter the three standard casting animations to have this particular branch at the end that would run an extra command (BeginSpecialEffect) which would place the game in a special state (I'm thinking inverted BG, which wouldn't require a new command, and maybe that command which turns echoes on). Or maybe fading the music out for the duration of the animation and back in afterwards. Just some brainstorming. Or maybe have the BG fade entire to black, leaving only sprites.

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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 suppose that could be done, yes. The music fade is a nice touch, but I think I'll stay away from invert BG. Maybe the background waver, too, but I don't want to go overboard. Music fade and then a redeeming secondary animation should suffice.

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Is PJ

Hmmm... esper-taught spell mods...
Got a few.
W. Wind:
3 tornadoes at once
Meltdown (Merton):
The flames, instead of appearing from the side, rise up from the earth
Curaga:
Uh.. make it more glowy.

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Uwao. aooh! I'm Gau!
I'm your friend!
Let's travel together!

My only concern with the three tornadoes would be a potential graphic glitch, but I guess we never know until I try. I haven't even looked at W.Wind or Merton's code yet, so this should prove interesting.

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Is PJ

Three tornadoes would be impossible. IIRC, it sets a clip region and moves it across the screen. Only one is possible.

IIRC.

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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 figured there was something goin on there. Maybe some screen shaking and dramatic background effects then.

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Is PJ

For the W. Wind thing, you could have the people do their freak out sprites, but have a dialogue box open up at the bottom of the screen that says "OMFG!!!!".

Also, make Sabin do a Blitz that shoots fire out his ass. XD

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John: So you don't want your screen saver to come on for another four hours?
Me: Where does it say that?
John: Here where it was 240 minutes.
Me: Is that four hours?
John: Yeah, 60 X 4.
Me: Is that four hours, though?
John: ....They'll never take you back in school.

xD;

Quote

Also, make Sabin do a Blitz that shoots fire out his ass. XD

No.

As for the "freaking out" sprite, I do kinda like that idea. Might be a nice touch.

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Is PJ