Character Graphics Swap hack.

[Mauron]

Right now all portraits are loaded into RAM at the same time when the menu is first loaded. Swapping them would involve some code rewriting.

[IHBP]

I was successfully able to change Frog's portrait to Crono's by an event command, it also took his name as well. Tried also changing it to the Epoch, he took the name and palette but it was Crono's portrait again.

Was an 8th character portrait slot not added in the 8thy project?

[Mauron]

Did you set 7E2740 to 0 to do that? Some documents have that value labeled Portrait ID, but it does more than that and shouldn't be changed.

8thy's portrait was handled a little differently than the Epoch's. When you first open the menu, the 7 character portraits are loaded into RAM at the same time. 8thy's hack expands this to handle 8 instead. The Epoch's is only loaded for its name screen.

[IHBP]

Yup that's what I did, if we could create an 8th alot identical to the 4th slot except for portrait would that not work?

[Mauron]

It would need a fully functional 8th character patch.

[IHBP]

Damn, that's unfortunate. So that means any characters done with the graphics swap will be keeping the original portraits? I guess I'm ok with that.

On a related note, how my bytes is each Sprite assembly and "animation" and are there any empty slots?

[Mauron]

Sprite assembly is determined by sprite size and number of frames. Animations are determined by number of animations and animation length.

[IHBP]

What I'm trying to do is import all the completed  Glenn data from Flames of Eternity, I have the palette already,  all the data is in Frogs slot (04) but I dont but I dont know if Sprite assembly and animation uses his existing data or just overwrite it, so I want to find out.

[IHBP]

Ok so I found Frog's Sprite assembly data, unfortunately its almost 10K bytes long, and its different from Glenn's in Flames of Eternity. Importing it seems really out of the question at this point, so I'm wondering if the best thing to do now is make a duplicate of Frog's sprites in the rom and draw Glenn over top? This would mean that only the graphics and palette need to be changed,  it I'm not sure if Frog is too short.

What's the best way to set it up to have it useable at this point?

[Mauron]

I'd start with adding a copy of Glenn's sprite assembly and graphics with different packet indexes. See if that works with the current animation data.

Probably stick it in a test ROM at first.

[IHBP]

Is there an easier way to copy the Sprite assembly than copying 10,000 bytes in a hex editor? I can probably get the graphics though.

[Mauron]

Depending on the hex editor, you should have an option to copy more without selecting that much data.

[IHBP]

Hex editors have the option to export huge chunks? If I'm not mistaken I need 1C7490-1C9AD7.

[Mauron]

I know Translhextion has a copy that manually lets you select the ending offset.

[IHBP]

Ok I think I exported it properly, unfortunately there isnt any room to put it with the rest of the Sprite assembly.
I assume it'll have to go in the vast emptiness at the end of the rom and just repoint the appropriate index?
Are any of the indexes actually unused?