Crimson Echoes Task Schedule

[JLukas]

I don't know how to edit the game's palettes, so I had to make Glenn's hair and cape blue.

At $24F01B change $05 to $84.  That'll replace Ayla's palette with Glenn's.

As to how the sprites are jumbled in how the game stores them, I feel your pain. I've seen raw sprite sheets from Trigger and they are a mess. I frankly don't see why they were arranged in such a counterintuitive manner, but there you go. At any rate, I'm sure we can decipher them with enough time and effort.

It's basically another layer of compression.  Example, look at the first 3 frames of one of the FF3 sprites Chickenlump posted above.  The majority of the sprite is remains exactly the same between all 3 frames, just a few pixels changed at the bottom to show the character's feet walking.  It saves a ton more space to have sprite assembly instructions piece together a jigsaw of parts that are different, instead of storing the whole sprite for each frame like you see there.

[Darkken]

At $24F01B change $05 to $84.  That'll replace Ayla's palette with Glenn's.

Thanks for the tip, but for some reason the order of the colours changes when I leave an area.  For example, when I load a saved state, his hair is green, but then I enter a portal and the hair becomes yellow.  I'm having a few other problems with this palette, so I'm going to stay with the blue hair and go back to fix everything at the end.

It's basically another layer of compression.  Example, look at the first 3 frames of one of the FF3 sprites Chickenlump posted above.  The majority of the sprite is remains exactly the same between all 3 frames, just a few pixels changed at the bottom to show the character's feet walking.  It saves a ton more space to have sprite assembly instructions piece together a jigsaw of parts that are different, instead of storing the whole sprite for each frame like you see there.

Ya, unfortunately it becomes a real pain when you want to make an animation that moves more of the sprite.  Although it can save time as well.

[DivineDragoonKain]

Save states save just about EVERYTHING in the current area, and will need an area reload before any changes are noticable. This goes for event data, too...

[Oswego del Fuego]

Just thought I'd report my progress on the Schala sprite.

Basic walking animations are done.    That may not sound like much, but NPC Schala has waaaaaay fewer walking frames than PC Schala will need, so there's a lot of drawing.  I'm also limited in that I'm not allowing myself to alter the existing frames in any way.

I'd like to post a little animated GIF or some such, but I don't have a program that can do this.  Can anybody recommend a free one?

OdF

[teh Schala]

Use the email link in my profile and email me the frames, and I can take care of it later tonight.  I use Jasc Animation Shop.  I don't know of any freebies though, sorry.

[Agent 12]

http://www.whitsoftdev.com/files/unfreez.zip

I got that with a quick Google search, it doesn't look amazing but it's good enough to show us your work.  Plus it'll let you test the sprites as you work on them.  

--jp

[Oswego del Fuego]

I went ahead and downloaded the little program jsondag2 mentioned.  (But thanks for your kind offer, Jake-A-Roonie.)  Really a neat little app.  Unfortunately, I also had to download a program to convert images into GIFs....  Honestly, do we need so many programs?  All programs should be able to save files into all file types they support!!!  But anyway....

I'm hesitant to post this, because I have several more animations that aren't quite ready for prime time, and it would be nice to show them all at once... but since I already mentioned that these were done, I might as well post them.

Of course, these aren't entirely perfect.  They'll be getting touch-ups here and there, but you can get the idea.



That's going from three animation frames to six.  All of Schala's original frames are included, and no frames are duplicated.

It went more smoothly than I expected and was actually pretty fun.    I especially like her side view.

You can see the animations larger here:

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/dandymasher/schala.html

Hope y'all like 'em.

OdF

[Darkken]

Looks good so far.  Maybe you could try animating the hair as well, if you weren't planning to do so.  In-game the animation looks somewhat off when the hair remains static.  At least in my experience.

[teh Schala]

Meh...  I'm still at work, where half the Internet is blocked...  And so is Angelfire and anything hosted by them! >_<  So I can't see it 'til I get home.  Oh well.

*cough cough*

*gets sick*

*goes home early*  Just kidding...

EDIT: Could you email those animated GIFs to me, Ozzie?  (Oswego)  I'd really like to see.

[ZeaLitY]

Call me a perv, but the breasts look a little too pronounced in their movement. They might move an inch over the whole course of animation, but as it stands they're a little ... oh god, jiggly.

[teh Schala]

Dammit Zeality, are you trying to torture me?! >_<  SEND ME THOSE GIFS!  

[Darkken]

Oswego did say that the original frames were used.  That's basically how her breasts are.

[teh Schala]

We're having a discussion about Schala's breasts and I can't see 'em 'cause half the Internet is blocked up here at work.  Someone email those GIFs to me...

(And no, I'm not really this much of a perv, I'm just doing this for comedy.  But seriously, I really WOULD like to see the animation without having to wait 'til I get home.)

[Darkken]

Sorry, I'm about to log off, so hopefully someone else can send them to you.

Anyway, I'm taking a break from spriting Glenn because I can't find a way to change Ayla's running animation to something that looks good, so I'm putting this patch up to show what I've done so far.  Replaces Ayla with Glenn. I can't remember, put I think it should be patched to a headered CT rom.

Click here.

I test most of the anims in the End of Time because I can get the pondering sprites and the different poses that are used when the characters enter the gates.

So far these are done:
Walking animations
Pondering sprites
Shaking head animations (running into a direction until you hit an obstacle)
Some of the blinking anims
One or two other scattered sprites

Oh, and I haven't corrected the palette yet.

Edit: My apologies, it may have to be patched to a rom that's already been patched with the latest released beta of Crimson Echoes.  I'll have to check tomorrow.

[ZeaLitY]

Wow, that seemed easy enough. Yes, it's unheadered, anyhow. I'm still wondering how we'll tackle the problem of Frog's sprite height in-game; however, this is great progress thus far. It's strange, because now new player character garb seems oddly possible! It's tempting to simply change around the default clothes for even those characters who don't undergo a significant change in the game.