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FEditor Adv Tutorial
#1
Posted 22 January 2009 - 06:35 PM
Just kidding about that, but really, I do believe it is easy to use, I think the only 'problem' is that people don't know where or how to get started and how to do it; I'm sure 99% of the people on these forums are capable of using Xeld's editor.
Anyway, on to the actual tutorial; my 6th FE-related tutorial, and my 2nd FE-hacking related tutorial. xD
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FEditor Adv Tutorialby Blazer
FEditor Adv created by Xeld
This tutorial is to give people a step-by-step method on using Xeldâs editor. I and others believe that the editor and itâs documentation is enough to use it, however because people have many questions and need things like tutorials to help them, I am creating this for the good of the FE hackers.
Special thanks to Xeld for making the editor, as well as all who have contributed to it.
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Table of Contents
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1. Text Editor [TXT]
2. Portrait Editor [PRT]
a. FE6 [PRT6]
b. FE7 and FE8 [PRT78]
3. Animation Inserter [AI]
4. Tutorial Credits [TC]
Text Editor [TXT]
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Overview: The text editor is a simplistic editor of text, obviously. It allows you to load scripts from files, dump scripts, and edit script with an internal user-friendly text editor.
1) Loading the Text Editor and itâs functions:
In the top menu (the only one there is) go to Tools-> Text Editor. A box will appear containing script from the game, an input index, and two buttons. The box you see is the script itself, and can be edited by clicking inside and typing. By clicking the arrows next to the index input button, you can change which text you are editing. Likewise, you can just type in a number in order to go to that text.
The apply button applies all of the text changes you have made so far. However, until you exit out of the text editor and save the ROM in the main editor, the changes wonât appear.
The quit button quits the text editor, or exits out of it.
2) Editing Text:
Universal for all GBA Games- Simply type in the words you want and use the control codes in the âdocâ folder of the editorâs files to get the right things to happen. Use already made text as examples for your new edited text. New lines in the game are recognized by pressing the âenterâ button. Also remember that there is a limit to how much text can be on one line, and that using other text as examples for your text is a great method to getting your text right the first time, so you donât have to make many changes. Lastly, all the control codes are universal for all the games, so once you get the hang of editing one gameâs text, doing the others is the exact same thing!
Note: Look in the doc for a note about the FE6 Translation; you have to have the translation patch applied to FE6 in order for the text editor to work. The version is 2.1 and can be found at http://www.romhacking.net (RHDN).
3) Dumping/Inserting Text:
In the top menu of the editor, go to Script-> Dump, and then click âyesâ to dump the text. Itâll create a file with all the text which you can edit later and then re-insert into the game, so you donât have to edit the text in the editor itself.
Once you make the changes like you would normally, re-insert the text by going to Script-> Insert and then selecting the file. Make sure you save for changes to be made.
Thatâs all there is to it, text editing is pretty easy, huh? Well so is everything else!
Portrait Editor [PRT]
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Overview: FEditor Advâs portrait editor is the easiest, quickest, and most efficient way of inserting portraits. Itâs as simple as making an image, pressing a few buttons, and pressing a few more buttons.
1) Formatting the Image:
Look in the âdocâ folder of FEditor Advâs files, and then look at Portrait Editor Examples. As you can see, the image has to be divided in a way that the editor can insert it into the game. First of all, the image as a whole is 16 colors; always count the colors using a program such as Paint.NET or Usenti to make sure it is 16 colors or less. If it isnât, fix it, because despite being a simple error, it is one of the most frequently encountered and annoying errors.
To start, the image is divided into tiles. I recommend placing the portrait into a grey box, specifically of the size below, and making sure it fits into it. If it doesnât, youâre going to need to edit the sprite or something to make sure it fits.
In order to divide it into tiles, select portions of the grey box and separate them from the rest of the portrait. Start with the top tile, which is 64x32 pixels. You can do this easily in MS Paint with the selection tool, and then looking at the bottom right of MS Paint to see how many pixels you have highlighted. Once you get the part of the grey box (as well as the portrait) that you want, simple move it away from the rest of the portrait.
Now, do another tile of the same size but do the next part. Separate that as well and you should have the bottom of the body and the shoulders left over. Now, you see the two pieces to the left and right? Well, each tile/piece is 16x32 pixels this time, so take them off. Lastly, cut the remaining part of the body in half horizontally, or dividing it into two pieces with the dimensions â32x16â each.
Now you should have the whole portrait, just in lots of pieces. What to do from here? Easy. Take a good look at the picture and put the portrait like it is in the picture. Since they all share the same base format (the format for the main portrait) do it in the following order:
1. Top of the Head (64x32)
2. Next to it, mid-body (64x32)
3. Next to that, the two bottom body pieces, the left-part on top and the right-part on bottom (32x16)
4. Next to that, the two shoulder pieces, the left on the left and the right on the right (16x32)
Now that youâve done this, it gets different between FE6 and FE7/8, so here the tutorial dividesâ
FE6 [PRT6]
To the right of the main portrait are the 4 talking frames. In order to get these, go back to the portrait in the grey box, but make sure they are undivided (a whole piece). Start from the top-left corner and use the selection tool. Keep on going down until you reach the mouth frame of the character. Now, while still holding it, look at the dimensions of the area you have encased. The height (Width-x-Height) MUST be a multiple of 8, like 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, etc., so make sure itâs a multiple of 8. If itâs not, which it most likely isnât, then move the selection tool a little bit up until the area you selected is a multiple of 8.
Now, the mouth tiles are 32x16 pixels. This being said, the area under the area you selected will be the area where the mouth frame is. Let go of selecting that area and then select the pixel to the far-most left of the grey box that is RIGHT under the area you just selected. Then, with the selection tool, take out a tile with dimensions 32x16. If you did it right, the mouth frame should also be in there.
Now, take this mouth frame and put it in the formatted image like shown in the example. Do the same thing for the other 3 frames, but obviously it should be faster since it isnât your first time. Once you get used to all of this, it should take 20 seconds or less to get the talking frames in.
For the final frame, which is the closed mouth frame, do the same thing but before you place it, divide it in half like shown (cut it left-to-right, or horizontally) and then place the frames next to each other like shown.
Youâre almost done! The final thing to do is to take the chibi (which I pray has the same palette as the main portrait, because if the colors are even a tiny bit
different, the insertion wonât work) and divide it in half. Then place it next to each other, right under the talking frames, like shown. Lastly, fill in any white spaces with the background color (whatever that is, whether it be grey, blue, pink, green, etc.) and then check for 16 colors again. Then save the file as a 24 bitmap OR a PNG (if it isnât already saved as one). Now itâs time to insert the image.
Open up Zeldâs Editor, FEditor Adv, load your ROM as an FE6 ROM (if FE7 or FE8 is the button thatâs hit, itâll say âinvalid ROMâ and wonât work) and then go to Tools->Portrait Editor.
Find the portrait you want to edit by navigating with the arrows or the numbers in the âInput indexâ spinner and then hit âInsertâ at the bottom. Navigate to your inserted portrait and then open it. If you did it right, no errors should occur; if you didnât, an error will occur, of which I recommend you listen and 1) check the size, 2) check the colors, 3) check the image format (24 bit bitmap or PNG, preferably). If it does insert correctly, now you have to align the talking frames by clicking the buttons that say âMouth X Pos ââ and the such. X positioning is left to right, where â is left and ++ is right. Y positioning is up and down, where â is up and ++ is down. Get it to fit in (hopefully it does) and if it doesnât, go back and shift the frames around until itâs perfectly aligned.
Once everything is inserted and aligned and looks right in the editor, click the âupdateâ button at the bottom (not the save portrait button). Then exit out of the editor and save using File-> Save (you should know this by nowâŚ)
Then test it out and hopefully itâll work; if not, look at the image and see if you did anything wrong. Congrats, youâre finished!
FE7 and FE8 [PRT78]
To the bottom of the main portrait are the 4 talking frames. In order to get these, go back to the portrait in the grey box, but make sure they are undivided (a whole piece). Start from the top-left corner and use the selection tool. Keep on going down until you reach the mouth frame of the character. Now, while still holding it, look at the dimensions of the area you have encased. The height (Width-x-Height) MUST be a multiple of 8, like 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, etc., so make sure itâs a multiple of 8. If itâs not, which it most likely isnât, then move the selection tool a little bit up until the area you selected is a multiple of 8.
Now, the mouth tiles are 32x16 pixels. This being said, the area under the area you selected will be the area where the mouth frame is. Let go of selecting that area and then select the pixel to the far-most left of the grey box that is RIGHT under the area you just selected. Then, with the selection tool, take out a tile with dimensions 32x16. If you did it right, the mouth frame should also be in there.
Now, take the mouth frame and divide it in half, with half being the top part and half being the bottom part. If itâs a smiling frame, place it at the top like shown; if itâs a normal talking frame, put it at the bottom like shown. Do the same thing for all frames making sure you keep everything aligned during the process. once youâre finished, itâs blinking frames time.
In order to do the blinking frames, d the same thing you did for the talking frames except a different area; the eyes, of course. Also, you donât have to divide the eyes in half; just place the half-closed eyes on top and the closed eyes on the bottom like shown (the example is all you need, xD). As for the statsheet frame to the right of it, simply used the closed frame from before but donât divide that either.
The chibi is probably the easiest part; simply place it in the area left over, making sure that the chibi is no larger than 32x32 pixels. A tip when itâs in game, if the chibi is too close to one of the edges of the little info-box in the game, just shift it over a little; itâs an easy thing to do, after all.
Alright, now youâre almost done. Lastly, fill in any white spaces with the background color (whatever that is, whether it be grey, blue, pink, green, etc.) and then check for 16 colors again. Then save the file as a 24 bitmap OR a PNG (if it isnât already saved as one). Now itâs time to insert the image.
Open up Xeldâs Editor as usual and go to Tools->Portrait Editor. Find the portrait you want to edit by navigating with the arrows or the numbers in the âInput
indexâ spinner and then hit âInsertâ at the bottom. Navigate to your inserted portrait and then open it. If you did it right, no errors should occur; if you didnât, an error will occur, of which I recommend you listen and 1) check the size, 2) check the colors, 3) check the image format (24 bit bitmap or PNG, preferably).
If it does insert correctly, youâll notice that the frames are unaligned with the portrait. In order to align them, press the buttons that say âMouth X Pos ââ and the such. X positioning is left to right, where â is left and ++ is right. Y positioning is up and down, where â is up and ++ is down. Get it to fit in (hopefully it does) and if it doesnât, go back and shift the frames around until itâs perfectly aligned. Remember to do the same thing for blinking frames, just use the set of buttons below them.
Once everything is inserted and aligned and looks right in the editor, click the âupdateâ button at the bottom (not the save portrait button). Then exit out of the editor and save using File-> Save (you should know this by nowâŚ)
Then test it out and hopefully itâll work; if not, look at the image and see if you did anything wrong. Once itâs working, congrats, youâve inserted a custom portrait with FEditor Adv!
Animation Inserter [AI]
Overview: The animation inserter is a feature unique to Xeldâs Editor, FEditor Adv. It has the ability to insert custom sprites and combine the sprites with effects and codes that create a fully customized battle animation. It has the greatest range of customization between all the editors (that is, you can do a ton of things with it). Iâm glad you are reading this tutorial on how to work it out.
Notes on differences between games: The main differences between the games that you need to worry about are all in the 0x85 commands. Each game has its own commands, although many of the commands are similar. While doing this process, simply make sure that you use the right command codes for the right game, and you should have little worries.
Tutorial:
1) Making the Sprites:
Making or obtaining the sprites is completely up to you and I canât really tutor you on this. Either sprite them yourself, get them from another game, or get them from somebody else. The two things to make sure are that they fit, and that they are 16 colors or less; if you canât tell by glancing at it, use Usenti or Paint.NET to check and if itâs only a few colors over, see if you can reduce it to 16. Ultimately, however, this job is up to youâif you arenât able to get sprites ready for the job, then youâll have nothing thatâll work.
2) Formatting the Sprites:
1. Palette
Before you even start coding, you have to prepare the sprite sheet for insertion. If youâre making use of a shared palette*, then read ahead, if you donât know, read a little bit more to see if you are, and if you arenât, then skip ahead until you see the next -----.
Shared palettes is when the animationâs palette needs to be aligned so that one character can use the same palette for two different animations. This is imperative when a class has two different animations for two different weapon types. In order to make sure you have the right palette, you need to do continue reading; if your animation doesnât have a shared palette, then just skip ahead.
At the top-right of the image is a column with a width of 8 pixels that is reserved for other things, mainly the palette. At the top-right of the image is one pixel that should be the transparent/background color. If the background is grey, for example, this color should be that exact same shade of grey. Likewise, the
palette colors go from right to left. After the first 8 colors it goes down to the next line and does the next 8 colors, from right to left.
In order to make a successful shared palette, you need to get the two palettes for the two classes. Now, align them so that the skin colors are in the same spot as the skin colors, the armor colors in the same spot as the armor colors, etc. For example, if the lightest skin color is the 2nd color in one palette, it also needs to be the 2nd color in the other palette. Even if the colors arenât the same, they need to be applied to the same thing, or the colors will get mixed up (the skin will turn red, hair will be brown when itâs supposed to be orange, outline is white when itâs supposed to be black, etc.).
Once you align them, place the colors of the animation you are inserting at the top-right of the image, from right-to-left (like mentioned before). Youâre now done forming the palette.
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If you arenât using a shared palette, then the inserter will automatically export the colors from the image and make the palette for you, so if you didnât just create a shared palette, youâre all done with palettes without even doing anything.
2. Making the Frames:
Use a base/example frame and copy it into the folder that will be your animation folder, if you havenât done so already. I recommend naming the frames something like âattack1, attack2â, âstanding1, standing2â, âs1, s2â etc., so you can easily know what is what when looking through. Before you place your 16-colored sprite in the image/frame, you need to know WHERE to put it; which is what the example is for. Align the feet with the feet of the example and you should be set. Once you have your first frame, it gets a *little* easier, in a way.
Now save that frame and then get the next sprite for the next frame; letâs say itâs a dodging frame. Hopefully you know a little about sprites and animation, because youâll need to in order to align it very well (aligning it well results in a good, clean-looking animation). Once you place the new sprite in, make sure to delete any pixels of the old frame and clear up any white space or background-space that isnât the background color. Once you do that, save it as a NEW image and name it something else.
^^Do the above process for all frames, taking note of where you position things. A good way is to look at the distance between the enemy and the ally in the game itself, as well as look at the positioning of your mouse. Position your mouse right under/on top of the bottom of the foot. Look at the co-ordinates for that; the height should be somewhere around 100-104, hopefully. Make sure that all your frames are also at that height unless they are jumping into the air.
Once you are done creating all the frames (it WILL take a while, especially your first time; once you get faster, youâll be able to do a frame in 5-10 seconds) you can start coding the animation.
Use a base/example animation to start. The format is rather simple and explained in the documentation, but Iâll go over the basics anyway. ~~~ terminates the âmodeâ of the animation you are in; the mode represents a different part of the animation, such as attacking, critical, ranged, standing, etc. (check the doc). /// is comment, C## is to use a command where ## is the hex of the command (look in the editorâs doc for a list of commands), and frames can be done by # p- nameoftheframe.png, where # is the duration (5-6 is average, perhaps; experiment to get a good feel of it) and where nameoftheframe.png is the name of the frame and the extension (if itâs a 24 bit bitmap, which btw take a lot of space, the extension is .bmp, not .png). Put together something for the attack, and do a simple standing animation.
Note that for the standing animation the duration doesnât really matter unless youâre doing an animated standing animation, which I will not help you with here because the timings are a little bit âmehâ and if this is your first animation, I would NOT recommend getting into complexity.
Do a simple dodge animation, as explained in the text docs, and get the basic modes an attack done. Once you do that, proofread to make sure you didnât do something like forget an important code, type in âc23â or â23â instead of âC23â, etc., and then save. You can always go back and make your animation kick-ass once you learn how to actually get it working, which is why Iâm not covering doing that. Making it cool is as simple as making cool sprites and adding commands, which takes 3 letters to do.
Once youâve done all the frames AND coded it (whether itâs the basics or whether you wanted to get fancy) you can open up Zeldâs editor and go to Tools-> Animation Inserter.
From here, go to âLoad from Scriptâ at the bottom and load the script of the animation. If all the images are 16-color PNGs or BMPs of the right size and you didnât somehow mess up the script real bad, you should be good to go. If they arenât, re-check the images and fix them. Keep on re-loading the script (make sure you load it from the beginning by resetting the animation, or itâll screw up) and if itâs done correctly, the progress dialog box should soon get to âMode: Completeâ, of which if it does, you are complete.
Note that if you are inserting an animation package that you downloaded, it should have no problems. If it does, report it to the person who created it.
Back to the tutorial, the âInput indexâ is once again which âthingâ to replace. Before it was text or portraits, but now itâs animation. Use the list of animations found in Nightmare in order to find the right animation, where 01 is Eliwoodâs animation. Remember that the nightmare list is in hex while the animation input index is in decimal, so using animation 0D wonât work, while using animation 13 (0x0D) will.
Once it applies the animation, it should say âAnimation Inserted!â but technically, youâre not done yet. Exit the animation inserter and save the file using the main part of the editor. Once it saves, test it outâŚ
Hopefully, it works, and youâre thrilled. If there is a problem with the palette, try and set the palette pointer for that character to âGeneric Default Colorsâ which will make it the default colors of the classâs battle animation. If it freezes, something is wrong with the frames or the codes. If you still havenât finished all the modes, go back and do so now so it doesnât freeze when it uses certain modes.
If it only shows the map animation, create a custom battle animation type by using the custom battle animation editor by Pukachi. Simply add a new animation for the character and the certain weapon type, making sure it applies to an animation for all weapons of a weapon type (unless itâs a custom animation for a specific weapon). Then apply the changes in Nightmare and look at the pointer at the top of the module. If the pointer is 0x8FFF800 for example, youâd go to the bottom of the class editor, and in the slot saying âBattle Animation Pointerâ type 0x8FFF800. Now hit enter and ctrl+s and apply changes. If you did it right, when you test the animation, they should use their animation rather than a boring map animation.
Thatâs all there is to it! Even though itâs a large tutorial, I went rather in-depth and step-by-step. Doing everything may take a while, but it doesnât take days, and it gets much faster. Youâll be able to do everything I told you to do in a paragraph faster than you can even read the paragraph! xDD
Hopefully your custom animation worked and this tutorial was a help. Major thanks to Xeld/Zeld/Hextator for creating this, of course; if he had not created FEditor Adv, then this tutorial would be non-exist, right?
Tutorial Credits: [TC]
Xeld (creator of FEditor Adv)
Fire Blazer (writer of tutorial)
Pukachi (custom battle animation editor)
Flyingace24/NomadicTrooper Girl (grey box/division related stuff)
Signature thanks to Shu.
#2
Posted 23 January 2009 - 12:17 AM
First off, it's great, very helpful. But we need moar pictures.
All I see is OMFGWALLOFTEXT.
youtube.com/vivekbob
And yeah, I'm still learning how to hack, be easy on me. Unlike some *Cough Xeld Cough*
#3
Posted 23 January 2009 - 12:53 AM
#4
Posted 23 January 2009 - 01:52 AM
And um considering both the easyness of the editor and the fact that Zeld doesn't want me taking pictures of the program or making videos of it a ton, just find what you need to find and read through the text... If you need visuals, just follow the directions and you'll "see" the text editor and "see" the formatting and stuff...
I may include some more pictures later, but I'm not going to explain everything to the last little detail, nobody has the time or patience or anything else.
Also, I hate to say this, but if you can't understand how to use the editor by experimenting, using common sense, the doc, a text guide, and following directions, then I don't think hacking is for you (or at least it's not for you at the stage you are at right now).
EDIT: Yes it is up for criticism btw. lol I have to update it sometime tomorrow to make some fixes/changes/updates and possibly add more pictures because I've gotten criticisms from several people now, IMO not allowing criticism makes you weak because you're limiting yourself by not allowing for others to help you improve yourself in what you are lacking... If that made sense, congrats (I just pulled out a load of bull xD).
Signature thanks to Shu.
#5
Posted 23 January 2009 - 01:58 AM
Following me?
youtube.com/vivekbob
And yeah, I'm still learning how to hack, be easy on me. Unlike some *Cough Xeld Cough*
#6
Posted 23 January 2009 - 04:16 AM
Signature thanks to Shu.
#7
Posted 23 January 2009 - 04:42 AM
youtube.com/vivekbob
And yeah, I'm still learning how to hack, be easy on me. Unlike some *Cough Xeld Cough*
#8
Posted 24 January 2009 - 07:01 AM
Forgive me if this is somewhat of a noobish question, but is there a feature in Paint.NET that counts the colors for you? I always get off track somehow when I try to count them manually. Also, does the portrait inserter work with portraits that are larger than the original data, to where I can repoint them?
#9
Posted 25 January 2009 - 12:40 AM
#10
Posted 13 March 2009 - 11:17 PM
Is it just ignored?
#11
Posted 14 March 2009 - 02:09 AM
#12
Posted 14 March 2009 - 06:25 PM
Signature thanks to Shu.
#13
Posted 14 March 2009 - 07:59 PM
#14
Posted 21 June 2015 - 06:12 PM
Anyone have the images of the tutorial? i cant see anything! and yes, i have a imageshack account
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