FF6 Steam Version

(Don't know if this should start off a new thread, if So, I'll happily copy/paste/delete this message. let me know!)

GUYS. I've been playing.

So, I unwrapped that nice file extractor/recompiler today, and have been testing the waters a bit. It works real good, ya'll.  First thing I learned was if you're doing any sprite/graphics editing, turn OFF the Steam overlay in the options menu in your games library. 

Good news #1: The portraits. are. all. un-indexed. .png files. Make them in paint. make them in gimp. photoshop. take a picture on your cellphone. whateves. the only limitation is size. Of which there are three for each character: a large 170x169 picture for dialogue, a Medium 96x96 for the menu and status screen, and a Small 60x52 for ...i don't know what yet. maybe shop menu? More info later. anyway, for a quick tester, I used an unfinished Tactics!Style Terra port I made for the SNES version. ....and then I blew it up with gimps resizer so you KNOW there's more than 15 colors in there.   



NOTE: I didn't do it for this test run, but see how Biggs and Wedges' portraits fade off around the edges into about 1 pixel of blank space? Yep. It's to make them look like they belong on the "button" part of the menu. All of the portraits (except the large, dialogue ones) have them. 

GOOD NEWS #2: Like we noted before, each character has their own singular spritesheet with all their poses on it (minus the specialty poses, like Celes' chained up sprite, or Terra's windy hair sprite which are seperate sheets, just like the SNES version). Each pose has it's own singular sprite (like rpg maker), so no more tiny sprite assembly pieces. These sheets are .bmp and have their own unique palettes! (Celes' palette is NOT the same as Edgar's, or Sabin's ect...) But, they ARE still indexed. SO, I decided to edit these in Graphics Gale, because Gimp likes to mess up my palettes and do weird things when compressing bitmaps.  Something easy to start; made a blonde Terra by editing the palette (which is just loaded along with the .bmp spritesheet. Not in different locations like the SNES. YAaaaaaay!

 
ALSO, there is no separate 'battle' palette. All from the same .bmp!



NOTE: the half-sprite on the (horrid, horrid) ATB-ish menu on the bottom is pulled from a different archive, along with the battle tutorial screenshots, and I'm assuming any other sprite!type menu graphics that aren't a part of the character's moveset. 'swhy my modded playable Terra is a blonde, but the menu still has the green hair. ....

Now, the next test was figuring out how the palettes ...worked. Because though the .bmp spritesheets are all indexed, each sheet has a different amount of colors. example: Terra's palette has 40 colors, where Edgar's palette has 58 (FIFTY EIGHT!) colors. the Bitmaps are all indexed at 256 colors.  ...So the question would be: are we limited to the default amount of colors for each sheet (ie: Terra is locked at only 40 usable colors, ect...) or can we freely use up to 256 colors as long as they remain indexed at the end? 



AWWWW YEAH Buddy. 40-color Terra has been sucessfully replaced with a 50 - color Setzer in a fancy new gold coat (because I CAN).  Which leads me to believe that each palette can totally have up to 255 colors. LET THE SPRITING OF PRISMATIC RAINBOW OMBER DRAGONS BEGIN!

I'm SO excited you guys. This is like opening up an entire new world! Now I just have to debate wither I should get used to the new style, or assemble a group to start frankenspriting some of the PSP afteryears/ff4 sprites into 6 characters.  ....and then figure out how to make the menu/UI not so terrible and import something other than midi's into the sound files. ....sigh. Baby steps.