ROM Hack FFIV - Swapping character sprites

[astr4y]

After figuring out how to do the undub, i thought about this, maybe there's a way I can switch the character sprites as well?

An example would be changing the animation of adult Rydia back to loli Rydia.

It shouldn't be too hard I figure, I found out where the battle animations are stored:
NDS_UNPACK\data\OBJ\PC

The only problem I have is knowing which files correspond to which PC's, afterwards simply renaming them should have the desired effect.

How would we go about viewing the files? Is there any way to extract them?

 

[astr4y]

Ok, I just tried it and it works. What I did was I swapped the filenames of these files:

p00_00.nmdp.lz
p00_00.ntxp.lz
p00_00_stone.ntxp.lz

And swapped the file names with these files:

p01_00.nmdp.lz
p01_00.ntxp.lz
p01_00_stone.ntxp.lz

And then repacked the rom, loaded it up and it switched the Dark Knight Cecil animations with the Paladin Cecil animations. Everything seems to work perfectly.

The only hard part now is finding out which sets of files correspond to each character

EDIT: So far these only seem to work with the battle animations, I'm still poking around now to see if it's possible to change them for overworld characters and possibly cutscenes.

Here's some screenshots to prove my findings, also note that the glitches are only there because of the emulator I was using, they are not present when playing on the actual NDS.

 

[astr4y]

So far these are the ones I've found out:

Dark Knight Cecil
p00_00.nmdp.lz
p00_00.ntxp.lz
p00_00_stone.ntxp.lz

Paladin Cecil
p01_00.nmdp.lz
p01_00.ntxp.lz
p01_00_stone.ntxp.lz

Rosa
p03_00.nmdp.lz
p03_00.ntxp.lz
p03_00_stone.ntxp.lz

Loli Rydia
p04_00.nmdp.lz
p04_00.ntxp.lz
p04_00_stone.ntxp.lz

Adult Rydia
p05_00.nmdp.lz
p05_00.ntxp.lz
p05_00_stone.ntxp.lz

 

[Celice]

You should note that 3D actors are not sprites, for one D:

I was thinking of trying to see if FFIII DS used the same "format" back in the spring when FFIV DS first came out, but never got around to it. I was gonna see about inserting some models into III :/

 

[astr4y]

You should note that 3D actors are not sprites, for one D:

I was thinking of trying to see if FFIII DS used the same "format" back in the spring when FFIV DS first came out, but never got around to it. I was gonna see about inserting some models into III :/

It might be possible, I've found where they store the monster animations as well, so it might be even possible to switch Cecil with Bahamut's animation, though I'm sure that would bring up some bugs if it works.

EDIT: I know they're not technically sprites, but that's the easiest way to distinguish them from other things, so that's what i'll use.

 

[astr4y]

Ok, I just found a bug. If you swap Adult Rydia with loli Rydia and then cast a summon, the animation will be all distorted, and after the battle you will get a black screen and be force to restart.

But it works so long as you don't summon. I'm working on a way to get around this now.

 

[Leamonde.Halcyon]

This idea is actually really interesting.

Would it be possible to replace only the animations and not the 3D model itself?
Such as making Paladin Cecil still look like Paladin Cecil, but hold his weapon and shield in the manner of Dark Knight Cecil.

 

[astr4y]

This idea is actually really interesting.

Would it be possible to replace only the animations and not the 3D model itself?
Such as making Paladin Cecil still look like Paladin Cecil, but hold his weapon and shield in the manner of Dark Knight Cecil.

I think it could be possible, but it would require editing of some of the files. I'm not too sure myself on how to edit them though, and which files to edit either.