Animation List Overhaul Announcement (GS2 patch incoming)

[Guest]

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[Salanewt]

Hello! Just making this post as a more formal announcement for a patch I have been working on over the past little while. It does things. The changelog as of 12:00AM EDT, 30/5/15 is below. Please note the "to do" portion, as a few of these IDs will likely be tweaked or wiped out once I combine related animations and make them utilize argument numbers. Yes, even ones that I have already added to the animation list. I have also cleared out a number of duplicate or obsoleted IDs, which will be listed once the patch is actually available.

Changes:
24 - Split code, only has Healing x03 (now tiers like other healing)
25 - Uses argument; x00 - Venus Revive, x01 - Mercury, x02 - Mars
26 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Purple Dull (unused), x01 - Impair, x02 - Weaken, x03 - Dull
27 - Changed, Uses argument; x00 - Impact, x01 - Guard, x02 - Ward, x03 - Granite
28 - Uses argument; x00 - Zephyr, x01 - Flash, x02 - Iron, x03 - Steam (unused)
29 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Shade, x01 - Coal, x02 - Fog Imapct (unused), x03 - Steam
30 - Uses argument; x00 - Guard Aura
31 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Taint, x01 - Poison, x02 - Delude, x03 - Paralyze
32 - Tweaked to use code for argument; x00 - Charm, x01 - Mystic Flame, x02 - Drown, x03 - Demonfire
42 - Tweaked code so Drain x02 requires argument 2 (old arguments still in place)
44 - Changed to Healing x04, replaced duplicate (now tiers like other healing)
48 - Added Anime Attack, uses argument; x00 - Boost Hack, x01 - Twin Shear
50 - Uses argument; x00 - Demon Night, x01 - Rumble, x02 - Haunting, x03 - Thorny Grave
52 - Tweaked to use argument; x00 - Comet Slash (unused), x01 - Quick Strike, x02 - Vorpal Slash, x03 - Lunar Slash
57 - Changed base animation function so it can use arguments (now tiers like slash)
60 - Uses argument; x00 - Planet Diver, x01 - Planetary
61 - Uses argument; x00 - Titan Blade, x01 - Acheron's Grief, x02 - Unfinished Blade
64 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Whorl, x01 - Gale, x02 - Lethe Albion, x03 - Poison Flow
65 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Raging Flood, x01 - Unfinished Purple Current
70 - Changed to Purple Blast/Nova (repositioned Thrash explosion, original still works fine)
79 - Uses argument; x00 - Bramble Card, x01 - Frost Card, x02 - Flame Card, x03 - Thunder Card
86 - Uses argument; x00 - Thunder Mine, x01 - Earth Force, x02 - Plasma Globe (unused)
87 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Sleep Card, x01 - Baffle Card, x02 - Death Card, x03 - Sword Card
101 - Uses argument; x00 - Heavy Divide, x01 - Strong Hit
106 - Uses argument; x00 - Dreamtide, x01 - Watery Grave, x02 - Combined Wave
113 - Uses argument; x00 - Shred, x01 & x02 - Star Magician Attack & Critical, x03 - Mine Ball
114 - Uses argument; x00 - Purgatory, x01 - Djinn Storm, x02 - Djinn Blast, x03 - Unfinished Gold
180 - Added Skull Gas x05 (background distortion effect)
183 - Added Dagger Rain (unused animation)
186 - Added Slash x08 (unused unleash; same as unleash, but also tiers like standard Slash and new Cutting Edge)
225 - Changed to Healing x0E, replaced duplicate (tiers like other healing)
230 - Uses argument; x00 - Balm, x01 - Tinder, x02 - Regen Dance, x03 - Non-Djinni Feather
234 - Uses argument; x00 - Waft, x01 - Aroma, x02 - Bare Djinni (unused), x03 - Purple Aroma (unused)
236 - Uses argument; x00 - Core, x01 - Cannon, x02 - Mars Ground Pound
240 - Uses argument; x00 - Rime, x01 - Haze
242 - Changed to Geode
243 - Changed to Serac
246 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Gasp, x01 - Parch (unused), x02 - Reflux, x03 - Djinn Counter
247 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Mold, x01 - Shine, x02 - Lull, x03 - Counter-rush
248 - Uses argument; x00 - Demon Eye, x01 - Claw Slash, x02 - Formina Sage, x03 - Beat Dance
249 - Uses argument; x00 - Element Swap, x01 - Cage, x02 - Clarion Cry, x03 - Psy Boost
264 - Added Unfinished summon/unleash sequence (most likely)
265 - Added Doom Dragon Battle Entrance
266 - Added Doom Dragon Transformation (boom, head shot)
285 - Added Venus ePow boost
286 - Added Mercury ePow boost
287 - Added Mars ePow boost
288 - Added Jupiter ePow boost
290 - Added Venus Djinni Set
291 - Added Mercury Djinni Set
292 - Added Mars Djinni Set
293 - Added Jupiter Djinni Set
300 - Uses argument; x00 - Sonic Wave, x01 - Shriek, x02 - Banshee Howl, x03 - Wicked Howl
301 - Uses argument; x00 - War Cry
302 - Changed to Sound (base) - Smooth blue rings, resulting from no defined argument?
303 - Changed to Gust
304 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Bear Claw, x01 - Bacteria Rush, x02 - Freebite Rush, x03 - Gust (same as 303)
305 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Ur Flash, x01 - Crusher Grip, x02 - Vanish Claw, x03 - Claw Attack
307 - Changed to Crazy Voice from 303
308 - Changed to Wing Beat from 306
309 - Changed to Wing Flutter from 307
310 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Mars Charge (unused), x01 - Mercury Charge, x02 - Jupiter Charge, x03 - Venus Charge
311 - Uses argument; x00 - Bone Charge, x01 - Onslaught
313 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Bone Chiller, x01 - Sticky Goo, x02 - Sticky Poison, x03 - Rotten Blood
314 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Mad Spatter, x01 - Decompose, x02 - Poison Ink, x03 - Mud
315 - Uses argument; x00 - Rising Venom, x01 - Formic Acid
322 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Double Fang, x01 - Poisonous Bite, x02 - Acid Bite, x03 - Cannibal Fang
323 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Vampiric Fang, x01 - Electric Bite, x02 - Numbing Sting, x03 - Twin Beaks
324 - Uses argument; x00 - Mortal Blow, x01 - Poison Tail, x02 - Rabid Fang, x03 - Drain Fang
325 - Uses argument; x00 - Mad Zephyr(a), x01 - Mad Zephyr(b), x02 - Heat Stun, x03 - Maneater
326 - Changed, uses argument; x00 - Angle Spike, x01 - Firework Fang (unused), x02 - Burst Bite (unused), x03 - Kill Sting
327 - Uses argument; x00 - Frost Bite (unused)
344 - Uses argument; x00 - Soothing Star, x01 - Sleep Star, x02 - Slaver, x03 - Unused Particle Test
348 - Uses argument; x00 - Spasm, x01 - Berserk, x02 - Recovery, x03 - Sack
353 - Changed to Flame Cloak x04
382 - Uses argument; x00 - Poison Beat, x01 - Spinning Beat, x02 - Plain Purple Tentacle (unused)
388 - Uses argument; x00 - Large blast, x01 - Small blast, x02 - Moderate blast
389 - Changed to Mighty Press from 394, and uses argument; same as 388, but now the explosions are red
395 - Changed to Slash x0A (Ice Breath, was formerly 402)
400 - Uses argument; x00 - Fire, x01 - Blue Fire (unused), x02 - Water, x03 - Deadly Gas
401 - Uses argument; x00 - Acid, x01 - Storm, x02 - Dark, x03 - Evil
402 - Uses argument; x00 - Petra, x01 - Fugue, x02 - Aging Gas, x03 - Fire Dance (unleash)
403 - Uses argument; x00 - Toxic, x01 - Sand, x02 - Desert Gasp, x03 - Black Ice
404 - Uses argument; x00 - Typhoon Blow, x01 - Djinnfest, x02 - Heat Kiss, x03 - Fire Dance (enemy)
405 - Uses argument; x00 - Gravel Blow, x01 - Darksol Gasp, x02 - Fury, x03 - Storm
406 - Uses argument; x00 - Char, x01 - Light Fire (unused)
433 - Changed to Charge x0A
437 - Uses argument; x00 - Human Hunt, x01 - Echo Cut
451 - Changed to Drain x05, old drain now arg 2 of animation 42
465 - Uses argument; x00 - Djinn Stun, x01 - Mystic Call, x02 - Djinn Stun+ (more particles)


- Unset the Beam-family arguments, so each beam can use arguments 0-2.
- Animations 285-288 share the same code, but the new code uses subtraction to calculate the actual ID for the
  ePow boost animation; they also all have tiers, like healing animations; also doesn't do much to target.
- Animations 290-293 work the same as 285-288, only with a different base animation; no tiers though.
- Also removed a bunch of duplicates, but I can't remember which IDs they were. Oh well, there's a list of
  duplicates floating around somewhere anyway. You can also compare ROMs to figure that out yourself.
- Oh, and I even "combined" several animations to clear up some pointers in the list; many animations may no longer
  have their own IDs, instead being decided by the argument (functioning exactly like the Drain spells).
  -  One exception to this is 113 - Shred, where the other animations still exist in the same format they did before;
     this basically just adds alternate variations of those that use the casting animation.


Removed:



To do:
- Tweak 266 - Doom Dragon Transformation so it can also do two heads
- Make enemy attack animations more accessible
- Combine larger families into subgroups based on argument, like...

Consider:
- Rearranging pointers/IDs so they are better organized
- Add varieties of certain "poorly aligned" animations with fixed positioning

Now, the reason for this announcement being posted before the patch is even ready is because of something else I would like to announce. In the future, I will treat this patch as an "official update" of sorts for the base GS2 ROM. I plan on basing any and all future battle animation patches on this one. This is because a number of IDs and a fair amount of space have been cleared up, meaning that future patches can utilize this free space and minimize the risk of them being incompatible with other patches. As such, I also plan on removing the Jupiter healing particle patch; it is and will continue to be unnecessary.

Feel free to ask any questions that you may have about this little overhaul. This may also be a good time to get me to double check IDs if you want to plan ahead or otherwise need to know about a particular ID for whatever reason, since I'm doing a lot with them right now.

Spoiler for Irrelevant to topic:

Wow. There are three separate "divebomb into purple explosion" animations that are each used and all very similar; the only differences are in blast tiers and jump height.

[Rolina]

This pleases me.  Carry on.

[Salanewt]

Sweet, it's nice knowing that this won't be a total waste of time!

Also, yeah. I think I have gone through most of the animation families and combined them when possible. Many of them use arguments now; the only downside to this is it looks like the "may multiply damage by #" ability effects just simply overwrite the argument with a different value and proceed from there, so the animations that do this may not look so great with those effects. Silver lining is that it's a pretty easy fix, one which anyone can do by creating a separate pointer and manually assigning an animation/child argument with some extremely basic assembly (which more or less looks like "start -> value -> branch -> end").

Although those effects would probably be used a minority of the time by most people anyway, especially when there are so many other animations available. Shouldn't be a huge issue.

[Rolina]

We really need more stuff like this - anything to make the process of using the editor easier is a great boon.  This should help quite a lot when trying to make or edit spells.

[Salanewt]

Definitely agree with you there. That's the main reason I am thinking of reorganizing the animation list a little differently as well, but that could be a lot of work to worry about until near the very end.

Also, I'm currently looking to see if I can tweak the Blast (Nova) animation code and/or list ID animations (jumping ones like Thrash, of which there are three similar purple ones and no red ones) so we can have a little more variety with them. Almost like the Cutting Edge change. After this, I mostly just want to take a quick look into enemy attack animations and expand the Doom Dragon transformation thing for a little more variety. May or may not be approaching the final stretches for this patch.

Edit: Okay, so I think I figured out why two blast/nova variants are locked to the casting sprite's position. They aren't assigned coordinates, so they default to 0,0. Looks like there should be an easy workaround though; I'll see about adding a standard purple blast/nova in the list somewhere.

Edit 2: Just tweaked the base function slightly. Purple blast/nova should be in with no problem at all. I'll just see if I can update one of the Thrash variants with a red explosion and maybe call it a day.

[Rolina]

I wish animations were a multi-layered thing.  Imagine if we could mix and match animations for the ability, pallet, pose, and if there's a djinn popping up...

[Salanewt]

The hilarious thing is that some animations are just shy of being exactly that. Healing particles are a good example, and Cure is excellent; many (if not all) of the healing particle animations will double up as djinn and apply the graphic if the ability is set as a djinni one. A lot of these also have set palettes (which are either linked to the graphic or assigned afterward) that are pretty easy to change as well. Like, Cure's animation is literally Flower the djinni. As for pose, there are other animations that practically set that up before linking to the actual animation. You can also get jumping, sliding, etc. in before and/or after an individual animation plays if you know how to do it.

But yeah, it would be great if more were like this. Oh well!

[Rolina]

Yeah, there's several animations that I'd love to use, but they're tied to specific caster animations.  If only we could pick and choose whether they're casting, attacking, casting then attacking, jumping at some point, etc.  That would open up so many possibilities...

[Salanewt]

Oh, you mean the tri-bubble and stuff? I use a version of the editor that lets me change certain things like that, so I guess I kind of take this animation stuff for granted in a way.

Also decided to search for more unused animations, and I found about three more (four if I count what is either a second copy or a second part to the fireball battlefield thing). Also found about 1-2 functions that looked a lot like animations, but they refused to play. I guess I'll find out in the future.

Newly discovered animations, with some names and basic descriptions to hopefully give people an idea of what they look like:

184 - Added Brine (unused Mercury djinni unleash)
 - Reminds me of Salt, only it's pure blue. The djinni goes directly above the target before pouring healing particles on them, which go downward in a sort of V shape; not quite
   like Wish, but this djinni is practically a combination of the two
 - Particles also have a set destination; may be set just a little too high (just above Jenna's head when she uses it, really high above a Vermin)
 - Multi-target works well, as the djinni will just go to the middle of the target range
185 - Added Elemental Harvest (unused animation)
 - Basically, a bunch of djinn/element-coloured particles are drawn toward a central point in the middle of the battlefield before coalescing into a small particle before vanishing;
   they do not actually target anyone in particular; there are four colours
 - Alternate name: Djinn Companions Union (DCU) Local 8
187 - Added Grim Omen (unused animation)
 - It's almost like Gasp, but with a single graphic that is layered over the target in a similar manner to the candle in Curse (no sound)


Unfortunately, I can't really confirm if there are any more. Went through the huge block of code where all of the animations are stored, and these were some of the only new ones that I could find.

[Rolina]

Yeah, I tried to make a spell out of the Mad Zephyr animation a while back... kinda awkward when your character always swings their weapon to do it.  The annoying thing is that I know how you've actually figured out what determines that, it's just that it's likely stupidly difficult to code for the editor.

[Salanewt]

Oh man, yeah. It's the same thing with Star Magician's attack and related variants, though at least this overhaul adds versions of those that use the standard casting animation as well. Come to think of it actually, I think I inadvertently did the same thing with Mad Zephyr back when I grouped all of the child animations up using argument IDs... might be worth a test when this patch is done.

But the weirdest (or second weirdest when you consider all the duplicates in the list) thing about some of these animations by default is that they have rather unnecessary restrictions placed on them. Cutting Edge is a perfect example; the function it shares with Slash and the like is set up so Cutting Edge can't tier like Slash can. I think it even manually sets it to tier 2 so it always uses the largest graphic? Can't remember, but the point is that it would have even made the code a tiny bit shorter if it just didn't do that to begin with.

[Rolina]

So if we were to dig a bit deeper, and made a more versatile version of the editor, we might be able to manipulate it so you could customize animations to a degree?  A brown version of Mine Ball sent from a Venus Caster, for example...

[Salanewt]

It's all assembly, so it would still be fairly difficult. Especially because not all animations have segments to reassign palette (i.e. Volcano does, Growth doesn't), and the ones that do may not necessarily have them line up with the start of the function the same way.There is one notable exception though, aside from changing graphic flags to use element-specific palettes rather than graphic-defined ones.

The 101 Unleashes. All of the animations that use argument 4 and have base IDs from 100-200 are part of the same massive function, and each one more or less has three palette segments. The first one has five options (gold/blue/red/purple, and an odd yellow that is the same colour as the standard tri-bubble Venus casting animation and is the default for when no specific palette is assigned) and is applied right before/as the animation plays (think attack swiping portion). The second I believe is graphic-specific (and is prominent if neither the first or third blend settings are used for it). The third is a blend to a specific finishing palette, and there are a number of options available. The first and third blends are done through pointer lists, which are probably the easiest thing one can change aside from single bytes.
    - With three normally unused exceptions, which are the two Slash variants and a Gas variant; they have their own base functions and can't have this blending applied to
      them.
    - There also seems to be a number of them that are largely unfinished, and so they will just be odd yellow attacks by default. That topic that Sajin made years back should
      say which IDs are the unfinished ones, even if it doesn't call them unfinished.

#08160508; gray? [261]
#08160510; red (moderate yellow) [297]
#08160518; blue gray (light/white blue) [185]
#08160520; yellow/gold (no shine) [277]
#08160528; blue/cyan [304]
#08160530; purple [314]
#08160538; brown/cream (really light yellow) [391]
#08160540; red (white shine) [336]
#08160548; purple/pink [383]
#08160550; blue/cyan [381]
#08160558; yellow (white shine) [388]
#08160560; white (pure white) [359]
#08160568; turquoise [358]
#08160570; orange [376]
#08160578; lime [355]
#08160580; red pixel (not uniform blend) [318]
#08160588; red (high yellow) [328]
#08160590; red (low yellow) [327]
#08160598; violet [361]
#0816059E; [no blend]

So for example, you could make Aqua Sock turn brown part-way through. Garet's plunger lets out a howl! Toilet Flush! I kid, of course.

But, this overhaul won't do a whole lot with these. I might consider changing the two pointer lists for the 101 group into bytes instead and add a more options for variety, but then there's still the issue of deciding which palette options to add.


For the actual editor question, I could theoretically see an addition that adds template assembly options for things like pre-animation jump height and the like. Still seems like more work than it's worth though.

[Rolina]

This... makes me even more excited for this patch of yours, simply because of what it lays the groundwork to do.  Mad props, squirt.  Mad props.

In the assembly, is it in regular locations?  Could, for instance, options be added to the editor so that it just plugs in what it'd need in assembly for what you want it to do?

[Salanewt]

Thanks!

As for that second one, it would be ludicrously difficult to do that because then the base code would have to be rearranged for most animations. Recalculating addresses, pointers, branches, etc. would take far more effort than it's worth. Gets even worse if one wants to do both GS games, since the animation functions differ considerably between the two from the looks of things... which reminds me, I might check out GS1 later to see if I can find any GS1-exclusive animations in the code.

Or did you mean for the 101? Because a lot of those are in fixed locations, so that would be considerably more feasible than for almost anything else.

Otherwise, template stuff would basically involve adding a pointer to the list, and some basic value+branching stuff; still pretty fast and easy to do it manually though. Might make a tiny assembly guide for it when the patch is done.


Edit: Oops, looks like the first 101 blending thing has another palette that I overlooked because it's only used by a handful of them. Turns out one of these unleashes can start out grey as well.

[Today]

Today at 08:59:37 PM

Fox: Same... depending on whether they've used tricks instead or not.

[Today]

Today at 08:02:49 PM

Salanewt: I could see it counting.

[Today]

Today at 11:24:44 AM

Fox: Not sure if Zelda (LttP/Minish Cap) count or not...

[Today]

Today at 11:23:00 AM

Fox: Appararently, I can't think of many GBA games that do the psuedo-3D thing. (That being 2D maps with 3D-like collision...) Golden Sun and Superstar Saga come to mind, though... but I'll need to think about others, since it is quite possible i've simply forgotten....

[Yesterday]

Yesterday at 03:45:19 PM

Fox: Hmm... Thought: What if Isaac and co. weren't on Jupiter Lighthouse when Felix and co. were... I wonder if the story could have had a huge expansion, in this case.

[Fox]

August 18, 2017, 12:18:56 PM

Fox: Welcome back!

[Luna_blade]

August 18, 2017, 09:12:43 AM

Luna_blade: back from vacation

[Fox]

August 17, 2017, 02:29:26 AM

Fox: That moment when you realize that there is a lot of chatting going on on Discord, that there is no point in trying to keep up. :P  Hm....

[Fox]

August 16, 2017, 04:50:22 AM

Fox: (Then again, just because posting is disabled, doesn't necessarily mean the buttons would be removed as well.)

[Fox]

August 16, 2017, 04:48:55 AM

Fox: (I mean, buttons I would expect to be similar to that.... rather than those specifically since I recall posting there to be disabled.)

[Fox]

August 16, 2017, 04:33:02 AM

Fox: Yeah... I like to think of it as a page loaded with ads. And it's not just the forum home page either... check the sub-forums/topics themselves. == New Topic/Reply/etc. buttons were affected.

[Salanewt]

August 15, 2017, 07:04:30 PM

Salanewt: Lol, nice. :P

[Fox]

August 15, 2017, 06:33:02 PM

Fox: http://z9.invisionfree.com/Golden_Sun_Hacking/index.php? == Hahaha! GSHC Classic looks funny now that Photobucket killed the images. :P Anyway, how is everyone doing today?

[Salanewt]

August 14, 2017, 07:12:02 PM

Salanewt: So yeah, I'm typing up a non-academic essay on why GS2 was rushed; expect that sometime soon!

[Fox]

August 07, 2017, 05:53:11 AM

Fox: But anyway, such a hack mod is simply an idea, and I do not have any current plans to work on it at this time, so.....

[Fox]

August 07, 2017, 05:51:46 AM

Fox: Okay, cool. I think my idea works best without an ability to swap PCs (OR to just simply make that use it the PC's turn.) Hmmm... And with that, I question if a turn list is even needed with my approach. (Outside of maybe 1 entry, if that shortens the modifications.)

[Salanewt]

August 07, 2017, 05:13:26 AM

Salanewt: To be honest I've been thinking of expanding the battle turn section and also adding code for PCs to have more than two turns in the AI overhaul, but I probably won't allow anyone to have more than four.

[Fox]

August 06, 2017, 12:22:17 AM

Fox: Oh, and if that approach was taken = Would like to also have it so you select the spell to use when it is actually your turn rather than at round start.

[Fox]

August 06, 2017, 12:12:37 AM

Fox: Would take a lot of balancing, but I can see an adept being very slow, and yet very powerful.

[Fox]

August 06, 2017, 12:06:11 AM

Fox: And bosses can have an Agility that is above half of the maximum possible Agility. Mwahaha.

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