Hey everyone! Confused about the topic title? Well, I guess it would be a bad idea to assume that you know what I am talking about, so I will try to explain it as quickly as possible. You know how there are several animations that are really similar, right? Well, these animations are related, as it turns out. However, it doesn't stop there - many animations are used and/or combined with others in order to achieve their full visual effects. For example, the Breath and Ether Djinn use particle effects that can very easily be isolated or separated and used in a similar fashion to Ply or Cure. This topic is meant to describe and/or list all of the known families.
When viewing the images, it would be best to keep in mind that you order them in a similar way as to how you would order the words in an English writing - from left to right, moving down to the next row when you reach the end of the current one.
Oh, and the table is located at 08197AA0, starting with Quake's animation. Have fun!
Anime Attacks
Moves like Vorpal Slash and such; I think they are all unleashes, but I can't remember if they are all used.
[spoiler=Anime BS](http://i.imgur.com/RkXgrfI.png)[/spoiler]
Big-@#$ Weapons
Sadly not a lot here.
0 - Heavy Divide (giant sword swings down onto target
1+ - Strong Hit (throws a hatchet at target, piercing them)
Beams
Basically moves like Beam and stuff. However, it seems like the "tiering" argument can be directly assigned through here as well. Tier 0 is the standard animation, 1 makes certain parts larger (i.e. Beam gets a larger ring, ball, and beam), and 2 adds a bunch of rings; each tier also enlarges particle effects. Each row corresponds to just one base animation, and each column is a tier. Oh, and x02 is basically a running smash while x04 is Beam without the beam or ball. Also kind of surprised Void Beam isn't here, but whatever.
[spoiler=Oh, Scotty! <3](http://i.imgur.com/Z7KwXrJ.png)[/spoiler]
Blasts
Okay, so this set is pretty unique relative to most of the others in here. The first two look decent as standard moves, but the others will look like they are too far below the caster. That's because they actually have some additional code to make the caster leap up into the air before playing them (think Thrash, one of the moves used by Toadonpa, and Severe Blow by Fusion Dragon). The code could potentially be tweaked to have something like Felix diving into the ground to cause an earthquake... Or something.
0 - Blast (Nova)
1 - Dynamite
2 - Purple Blast (centered on/below caster rather than target; has additional segment)
3+ - Red Blast (centered on/below caster rather than target; has additional segment)
Bombs
Very little. 1+ have no knockback.
0 - Blast
1 - Smoke/Sleep Bomb
2+ - Blast lookalikes
Breaths
Various animations that resemble Fire Breath.
[spoiler=Breaths](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousBreathGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Buffs
Buffs images appear, generally with minor graphical effects to accompany them.
[spoiler=Buffs](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousBuffGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Debuffs
Buff images appear before being broken. There aren't very many though - chances are, you have already seen them before.
0 - Dull
1 - Impair
2 - Weaken
3 - Mars version of Dull (red sword breaking)
4+ - Weaken
Djinni Buffs
Very little here.
0 - Rime
1+ - Haze
Charges
Basically like Bone Rush. Missed a couple details though; x05 seems to be a golden version of x04, and everything above a certain number is glitchy and/or unfinished; for example, x0A is x01 without the graphic.
[spoiler=CHAAAARGE!](http://i.imgur.com/AVJe3lT.png)[/spoiler]
Currents
Not too much to say here. Poison Flow is the red one, the rest are either potential Djinni abilities, and watery wave abilities. I think the purple one at the very bottom is misaligned, or else that would likely be a slightly angled version of the red one. Oh, and the first Djinni pulls, the other one pushes.
[spoiler=Currents](http://i.imgur.com/CB2CMEB.png)[/spoiler]
Dragon Tiamats
Not much here either really.
0 - Tiamat
1 - Dragon Driver
2+ - Tiamat with no dragon or fire breath (area fire still around, actually looks pretty neat)
Rainbows :)
Rainbow particle blasts!
0 - Djinn Stun
1 - Mystic Call
2+ - Djinn Stun with a lot more particles
Drains
Basically the Drain/PP Drain abilities, but there are also two additional variants (dark purple and tiny purple) and a bunch of other screw ups. For anything above 5, the screen may turn blue and varying collections of random pixels will randomly wander about, all with excruciatingly long delays before battle resumes as normal.
Something interesting to note is that the animation for Drain/PP Drain uses the "tiering" argument to decide which of the two to play, so I imagine you could just use the same animation for the purple variants if you want; the dark purple one seems to have its own assignment branch right after theirs for some reason.
[spoiler=Drains](http://i.imgur.com/r2isowp.png)[/spoiler]
Elemental Cards
The offensive card spells from the Pierrot line, including spells like Flame Card.
0 - Bramble Card
1 - Frost Card
2 - Flame Card
3 - Thunder Card
4+ - Nothing
Ailment Cards
0 - Sleep Card
1 - Baffle Card
2 - Death Card
3 - Sword Card
4+ - Incomplete Death Card (Grim Reaper doesn't come out)
Fiery Globes
Includes Shred and Star Magician's standard attack (with what I think is critical hit), along with a blue orb that explodes. Oh, and 4+ is the same as x1, but the screen remains dark afterward.
[spoiler=Not AC/DC](http://i.imgur.com/cm9FJdY.png)[/spoiler]
Flame Cloaks
Move like Spasm and such. 4+ also causes the screen to shake briefly.
[spoiler=Burn, baby burn!](http://i.imgur.com/oyMlMA9.png)[/spoiler]
Gases
Various animations that resemble gaseous attacks; many of which are ailments but a couple are unleashes and such.
[spoiler=Gases](http://i.imgur.com/IdmKZjR.png)[/spoiler]
General Target
A lot of these animations have more random targeting options (such as an animation that focuses on the player but affects the target) and so forth. Some of the more unique Djinn like Luff and Meld can be seen in here, and then you have things like Formina Sage and the like. Also some water-based solar flare, no idea what's up with that. Most of these are very pretty.
[spoiler=General Target; Quite Pretty](http://i.imgur.com/AEWxgpt.png)[/spoiler]
Growth
Basically, these have graphics that come out of the ground and cover a small selection of units.
0 - Growth
1 - Punji
2+ - Green glitchy mass
Healing
Various particles are conjured near the target, turning them white for a brief second in most cases. Eddy's bubbles are also in here.
[spoiler=Healing](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousHealingGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Kraken Moves
Not much here.
0 - Poison Beat (green tentacle, minor)
1 - Spinning Beat (purple tentacle, launches target off screen
2+ - Purple Tentacle (no knockback)
Light Cylinders
Not too much here.
0 - Purgatory (red wide)
1 - Djinn Storm (rainbow wide)
2 - Djinn Blast (rainbow narrow)
3+ - Unfinished gold (yellow narrow)
Mars Charge
We have two used Djinn animations, and then everything else is a ground pound.
0 - Core
1 - Cannon
2+ - Mars Ground Pound (with particles, but little else)
Meteorites
Surprise, the Meteor summon is here! Not much here besides a palette swap though.
0 - Meteor
1 - Outer Space
2+ - Meteor
Particle Tests
Wasn't sure what else to call this. Basically particles that come out of the caster, and either swarm the part or swarm the target(s).
[spoiler=Particle Tests](http://i.imgur.com/OhuAtFg.png)[/spoiler]
Planet Diver
Both this and Planetary, nothing more.
0 - Planet Diver
1+ - Planetary
Plasma Globes
Only these three, though I can't remember what uses the third one.
[spoiler=AC/DC](http://i.imgur.com/bsQQLRp.png)[/spoiler]
Ransack
Surprisingly, Ransack and several other abilities seem to have a family of their own. The offending unit goes up to the target and slashes at them multiple times.
[spoiler=Ransack](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousRansackGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Revive
These spells mostly look like Revive, with feathers falling from the sky and causing light to emanate out of the target.
0 - Revive
1 - Dew's Mercury Revive
2+ - Spark's Mars Revive
Feather Revives
Not too much to say. The first two have particle effects that indicate Djinni usage, the others don't; as well, 2's feathers come up from the ground, whereas the rest of them have their feathers rain down from above. The first two have to be set as Djinni abilities to be Balm and Tinder, with vertical lines and everything.
[spoiler=Ashes to ashes...](http://i.imgur.com/0ToUkUX.png)[/spoiler]
Skull Gases
Abilities like Demon Night and stuff go here; the one with only two skulls will basically end before they move toward the enemy, and the one with no skulls is just that.
[spoiler=2Spooky](http://i.imgur.com/GJGpwzK.png)[/spoiler]
Slash
Moves like Slash, Cutting Edge, etc. They all hit their targets consecutively, repeating the animation for each target until they have all been hit.
[spoiler=Slash](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousSlashGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Sticky Vomits
Basically, moves like Sticky Poison go here. There is also a Djinni effect, Mud, but the Djinni graphic seems to be coded right into the animation this time.
[spoiler=Vomits](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousVomitGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Stinging Bites
The name may be confusing, but there are several bite/fang animations as well as animations for moves like Numbing Sting in here.
[spoiler=Bites and Stings](http://i856.photobucket.com/albums/ab125/Salanewt/GSVariousBiteGraphics.png)[/spoiler]
Sound
They are all 3-ring soundwaves. However, 5, 7, and 8 act a little differently; 5 makes the target jump when they get hit (looks somewhat normal), 7 makes them jump really high (does not look normal), and 8 slowly pulls the target toward the caster after it takes damage, but before the end of that turn.
Edit: Oops, I forgot 4. No biggie though, it's visually identical to 5+ but knocks back the target normally (whereas the rest of the blue ones either do the above or slowly push it back).
Oh, and it looks like there may be another "smooth" variant that is light blue; one can use it by directly using the pointer for it.
[spoiler=Play that funky music!](http://i.imgur.com/KKnCBQk.png)[/spoiler]
Sword Swipes
Not much here.
0 - Human Hunt
1+ - Echo Cut
Titan Blade
There are only three unique ones here, two of which you've probably seen before and the other is glitchy and unfinished.
0 - Titan Blade
1 - Acheron's Grief
2 - Unfinished Element-specific blade (eg. golden if Venus, blue if Mercury); looks like a geyser with a glitched graphic in place of the sword
3+ - Titan Blade
Waft
A bunch of different variants, though all visually similar.
0 - Waft
1 - Aroma
2 - Waft slaps the target (no ribbons)
3+ - Like 1, but the ribbons don't change colour
Waves
Not a whole lot here either. Partially 3D wave effects that somewhat resemble a couple of the animations from the Currents family.
0 - Dreamtide
1 - Watery Grave
2+ - Water Grave with Dreamtide's contact swirl
Edit: Oops, the group revives are actually feather revives; the ability has to be set as a djinni for the vertical lines to show up. I removed the "Group Revives" section, and added a tiny amendment to the Feather group to explain.
You missed a "slash"-type effect. There is one that somewhat resembles a horizontal Slash Psynergy effect, though it also resembles a series of discs.
I might have missed it, but it might also not belong in this family - I'm not going by animation numbers as seen in the editor, but just by the graphical effects that I can get from each type of animation.
Wait, series of discs? I might know this one, do you know which ability it belongs to?
It isn't used by any in-game abilities, and I do not remember the animation or argument number.
Hm... Is it by chance a purple Slash lookalike, but with discs that appear when they make contact with the targets?
Oh, and Ransack seems a tiny bit larger, so I might not be able to post the image before bed. It would have been done already if this one animation weren't so fast, heheh...
Edit: I managed to get Ransack's up, but Sticky Poison's picture won't be up until tomorrow (because the vomit spells have a family too). Sadly, it looks like the djinni effect - Mud, I think - is coded into the actual animation, so that one can't be separated like many others...
No, it looked like purple discs being fired in place of the normal Slash effect.
Oh, interesting! So there's totally unused animation effects, eh? Heh heh!
There seems to be a few, while some seem to be combined with others... Oh yeah, the Vomit image is up.
As for Ransack, I guess I should point out something. For the second and third rows, each effect within its row is almost exactly the same, but with a crucial difference. The first effect of the row shows a single strike, the second shows the character attacking twice, and the third three times.
Do you know if you can capture video and use gifs instead, kind of like the animation project? That'd be preferable to the split up images... I don't know if you have the stuff needed to convert the vid into a gif, though...
Also, is the Thorn animation not part of the Growth family of animations?
Making the videos would be extremely easy for me, and I know a bit about preferable compression formats that the VBA software allows me to use, but I am not sure if I have the time to do it this way.
As for Thorn, apparently not.
Well, I'm actually talking about converting them into gifs. I don't think we need a full video for everything - gif for each one would let us see the full thing for each one. It should kinda help, you know?
Wait, .gif images? Well, these are .png right now... Photobucket has an awful habit of scaling your uploaded images if they are deemed "too large". I plan on finding a different place to host them in the future though.
Not .gif images, .gif ANIMATIONS, Sala.
Hm, right. Well then in that case, I'm not sure if I have adequate software to do it myself... But I will definitely add them to the first post if someone else makes them.
So yeah, any ideas on other families that might exist?
Yeah, that's why I asked you if you were able to do it. I ain't got the right stuff to do it either. Ah well, worth a shot.
It's been quite a while, but I think I found another group; gasses. Drown the unleash is in here too as #7/??, so that's cool. Will update with a picture chart later.
Edit: Updated with a few new ones, and also partially ordered them alphabetically (related effects, like buffs and debuffs, are still grouped together).
Are wave based effects part of an already existing family? I know there's at least four or five of them...
Also, off chance you can label which animation number and argument these use for reference?
Also also: Shouldn't Ragnarok and Undead Blade be part of the Titan Blade Family? Or are you using a different definition of what a animation family is?
1: Depends on the waves you mean. Sound waves have their own family, but the more water-based wavess are a bit different; Dreamtide and Watery Grave are in their own family, but two others (the psy seal unleash and another) are in the "Currents" family.
2: I might be able to do that for some of them, but not all of them are actually used or even available in the animation/pointer list. For example, the Steam fix patch that Caledor made uses a buff variant that isn't in the animation pointer list despite having code prepared for its use (a pointer could easily be added in to access it anyway though). There may be several like that actually; for example, the animation for Cure Poison and Restore is actually decided on argument number (uses one animation if 0, the other if not 0), but then immediately after that the one for Restore (I think) has its own animation. There are also three separate pointers that all point directly to Cure, and they are literally all the same. I may consider making a patch that adds a bunch of them at some point, but it could take a while because of school and stuff. Might even throw in two unused solo animations (uno (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znHF1c8vT5Y) and dos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiHNf0nNC7c)) too.
3: Oh, each of these families is basically "these animations share a bunch of code" and is largely unrelated to how the animations look when compared to one another. If I recall correctly, Ragnarok may actually be unique and not a part of a family like these other ones. Can't remember testing Undead Blade though. The General Target family is probably the best example of just how random they can be, with Stinging Bites being a close second. Then you have something like the Beam family, where there's a second argument that changes the animation further. And then I think there are a couple animations that use additional code for positioning and the like...
Oh yeah. Just curious, but do you by chance recognize the animation in the upper right of the "General Target" picture? Also curious about the one below Formina Sage (same picture) too, since I just can't remember either of them ever showing up in the standard game.
1: I meant ocean waves. Was looking at the stuff when it reminded me of the wave-based attack I wanted to give Piers in some of my old ideas.
2a: Hmm... sounds like things are a bit more complicated that we'd like, huh?
2b: Holy hell, that first animation is great. Second one reminds me of the background to megiddo, actually.
3: Oh, so it's based on code, rather than similar animations. Okay, I get the angle you're going on now. That's... huh. Maybe there should be another one that groups similar animations or themings? Either way, it'd be nice to have some good way of having a pointer of sorts for them. It'd help a lot when making spell groups, especially trying to chain EPA/Power attack animations together. I guess it just stems back from my desire to have a full animation catalog of sorts to help people chose animations for their spells.
4: not in the way they're presented, no. I'd need to see these animated to get a better idea, rather than just having a bunch of stills stitched together.
1: Ah yeah. Um, the last family has two wave effects, while another has stills of two waves that work more like Poison Flow, or the djinni that forces enemies out of battle. Can't remember if there are any other ocean waves though.
2a: Maybe a bit. It would actually be pretty easy to make all (or at least most) of these animations used, it would just be a tad time consuming. The primary concern would be making sure there are no duplicate pointers (even though there already are a few), and then filling a lot of the blank slots with pointers to unused animations.
2b: Definitely about the knives. Also fun fact, but that one is also in GS1; I think it was one of the earliest animations coded for the games (Ice is the earliest in the code). The other one is GS2-exclusive from what I can tell, and it kind of does feel like it could have been related to an unleash or something.
3: Makes sense. I remember there being a topic that lists and briefly describes what a lot of the animations are and stuff, but it doesn't really group them and there are at least 0 images included with it.
4: Good point. I'll see if I can quickly get a video of those up sometime soon. Oh, well, here's another unused one at the very least (http://youtu.be/z3EyOzRU8m8). It actually seems moderately buggy when used as a djinni effect for some reason; this is the final animation in the healing particle family.
If you could somehow edit that second animation so it ends with a massive implosion of the blue steam from the beginning, we'd have a really cool reference to the Tales series. It seriously makes me wanna quote:
"O admonishing melody, arise in the name of the Necromancer! Mystic Cage!"
Oh gosh! Well, I'd be open to it if animation code weren't so long. They are super long, honestly.
Also, for the pleasure of those at home, I've started working on a patch that basically wipes out all the duplicate animations (the ones in the ID list that can be seen in the editor) and adds some of these normally unused ones, like that last healing particle effect. I also found what may be a second copy of that never-ending animation, and have added both of those and the two Doom Dragon ones just for fun; debugging and/or testing and such.
[spoiler=Changes so far, still WIP]24 - Split code, only has Healing x03 (now tiers like other healing)
42 - Tweaked code so Drain x02 requires argument 2
44 - Changed to Healing x04, replaced duplicate (now tiers like other healing)
183 - Added Soundwave x01
184 - Added Dagger Rain (unused animation)
221 - Changed to Buff x07, old buff now 223
223 - Changed to Buff x0B, replaced duplicate
225 - Changed to Healing x0E, replaced duplicate (tiers like other healing)
451 - Changed to Drain x05, old drain now arg 2 of animation 42
265 - Doom Dragon Battle Entrance
266 - Doom Dragon Transformation (boom, head shot)
267 - Unfinished summon/unleash sequence (most likely); copy A
268 - Unfinished summon/unleash sequence (most likely); copy B[/spoiler]
Goal is to aim for every newly discovered animation so far, plus anything that only plays under certain circumstances like djinni setting and such.