"Raiden to Leviathan?" and "New Battlefield?"

As I'm putting together the  project charter for the next phase of my project, there are 2 outstanding questions that I've never heard answered on these forums. [Disclaimer: I have no illusions about my own ability in these matters. With no training in any computer science and little to no experience in ASM, I struggle for hours to make modifications that more experienced members around here could probably code over breakfast. I hope I've been around long enough for you all to know that I don't hold that as an excuse; it's just a recognition of my own limitation.]

Raiden to Leviathan
Of all of the material from FFVI Advance/iOS/Steam that I want to "port back" to the SNES version, the esper Leviathan and the spell Flood are at the top of the list. The easiest way, as I see this, is to combine Odin/Raiden into Odin's esper, only gained after the queen's tear, and overwrite Raiden with Leviathan. I can add Flood through MMMMMagic, which I planned to use anyway to give a 13th spell list. For the Esper, I believe I can do the sprite through FF3SE, and I can edit the spell damage data through FF3usME, but how do I edit the animation? I'd like to keep it simple: Leviathan shows up, casts "Cleansweep/Tsunami" in the background, and disappears. Does anyone have experience with this?

New Battlefield
From ZoneDoctorCE, it appears that there are two blank battlefields between "48 - Airship Deck" and "51 - Final Battle 1st Tier". I'd like to add an "Aquatic Cave" for use in the Cave to the Ancient Castle and possibly Hidon's Cave. The actual background could be a palette swap of the standard cave background, but the key is that it would be possible to learn the dance "Water Rondo" from this battlefield. Like above, has anybody ever tried this?

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

UPDATE: Aquatic Caves Patch Download: 

 aquatic caves.zip (1.52 KB, 5 downloads)

Raiden to Leviathan should be possible. I can help you figure out how to copy the animation from FF6 Advance. I would recommend starting with Flood first and then try the Leviathan summon.

Adding a new battle background should be pretty easy, especially if it's just a palette swap. You would need to change the battle background properties at E7/0000. The format of the data is on the wiki. There is also a table at ED/8E5B that determines the dance index associated with each battle background.

That would be great. B-Run already made the Flood animation and included it with the MMMMMagic patch, so we should be good on that front. Let me work at porting the Leviathan sprite into my rom, and possibly making the battle background. Then I'll contact you to see what we can do about the animation of the summon.

Oh, that's cool. I didn't know Flood was already added. After looking at the animation script for Leviathan (0862/33EA-0862/3562), it looks like they might have used some commands that aren't available in the SNES version. That's not a total road block, but it could make things a little more difficult than I originally thought.

It's also, frankly, a really underwhelming animation. Hence having Leviathan show up and then just calling the animation for Cleansweep... which is in my opinion one of the best-animated spells in the game.

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Thanks for the tips. I have made an excel file of all of the Battle Backgrounds and their offsets, which in the future I'll clean up and submit to the wiki. I have also mapped out the dances for each battlefield, and found some surprises. For example, did you know that Water Rondo is also available on the Raft and the Waterfall backgrounds, even though you never bring Mog to them?

Anyway, I have a mockup tested and working. I made the following changes:

Code:

Set Battle Background 49 ($31) to the Blue Cave
E7/0126  91 FF 09 03 03 02

Learn Water Rondo on this Battle Background
ED/8E8C  05

I'm going to clean up this code a bit and insert it as the Ancient Cave's Battle Background, then play around with the palettes to see if I can make this background not an exact replica of a previous one. Then, I'll submit the hack to Romhacking.net.

I also have the Leviathan sprite from FFV loaded into the rom in place of Raiden. I chose the FFV sprite because it didn't have the washed-out colors of FFVI Advance. When the summon is loaded, the back 1/3 is cut off, but when he zooms across the screen, it becomes visible. I'll be in touch within the next couple of days about that animation.

I personally think that this is a really good idea, I'd like to see it play out

That's some good stuff PowerPanda, thank you for sharing.

Since this is a double topic, I am going to post a double update.

First, I have finished the "Aquatic Caves" patch, and am attaching it to the top post for anyone who is interested in it prior to it hitting Romhacking.net. Here is the finalized code:

Code:

==Creating the "Aquatic Caves" Battlefield==
E7/0126: 91 FF 09    (Set Battlefield $31 Tileset to Cave) 
     03 03 02     (Use Arrangement 3, Palette 2 - WoB Cave)

ED/8E8C: 05        (Set "Water Rondo" as the dance for Battlefield $31 - Aquatic Cave)

==Changing the Ancient Cave===
ED/C2B3: B1        (Change Ancient Cave 1 Battlefield to $31 - Aquatic Cave)
ED/C2CA: 15        (Change Ancient Cave 1 Palette to $15/#21 - WoB Cave)
ED/C2EB: 15        (Change Ancient Cave 2 Palette to $15/#21 - WoB Cave)

For the second part of the update, I've decided how I am going to approach the Leviathan esper. I would love to partner with someone on this to create the summoning animation for Leviathan. I am able to use various utilities to handle the rest.
1. Esper Edits
  * (Me) Import Leviathan Sprite to rom
  * (Me) Edit Esper spell list, level-up bonus, name, and attack name for Odin and Leviathan.
  * (Animator) Create a summoning animation where Leviathan appears, then casts "Cleansweep" in the background.

2. Event Edits
  * (Me) Leviathan will be obtained in Umaro's cave by examining the Bone Carving.
  * (Me) Terrato in turn, will be dropped by the Earth Dragon in the Opera House.
  * (Me) When examining Odin's statue, player receives a key item "Dull Magicite" instead of the Esper.
  * (Me) When you talk to the queen, and she sheds a tear, the "Dull Magicite" will transform into the Odin Magicite.

3. Black Magic Edits
  -We will be switching "W Wind" and "Cleansweep", renaming "Cleansweep" as "Flood". Flood will hit all enemies and allies, like Quake and Merton. W Wind, in turn, will become a Lore.
  * (Me) Edit spell data for both entries.
  * (Me) Comb through enemies that use Cleansweep, giving lower-level enemies "Aqua Rake" or "El Nino" instead.
  * (Me) Switch the spell animations for both entries.

Then we will release this as a standalone patch, as well as incorporating it into my next hack.

I'm curious, would it be possible to create a 28th esper with that blank space in the esper menu?

That blank space is there so the player can remove an equipped esper when all the other slots are occupied.