As per Tsetra's request, I've just made a listing of all the used attack animations (byte 0x0D of attack data) and put it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yoynjegujn1(Yes, I know Silence is listed twice after number 13, ignore that. There's also more than one of "Escape", "Sewer Tsunami", etc. as well; That's why there are multiple listings)
It occurs to me now, about six-and-a-half months after writing this that it needs re-writing. It was enough explanation for the people that were helping me develop WM (and thereby understanding parts of the inner workings of the FFVII), but it's not enough for people who are coming in to the scene. So, because I've gotten 50 requests or more (actually, it's been more like 5, but I don't want it to GET to 50) I've decided to revisit this and re-explain how the animation index works.
If you're starting out using WallMarket/Proud Clod and want to change animations of attacks you'll quickly realize that some of the values don't make sense. Different attacks can have the same animation index and still look very different. The reason is simple. There are more than 256 animations for attacks even though the animation value itself is only one byte. Therefore, it is offset based on the attack index. Specific ranges of attack indexes will add a fixed amount to the animation index supplied in the attack information. This value can then exceed 256 will then select that specific animation (all animations are found in magic.lgp in the PC version and I think there are just about 300 or so). This value I will call "absolute animation index" and the value supplied by the attack information will be called "relative animation index".
So then the question becomes: "What do I need to change the relative animation index to to get a specific absolute animation index?"
Since WM and PrC display this information in Hexadecimal, I'll do the math in that mode. Most calculators can do calculations in hexadecimal including the calc.exe that comes with all Windows versions. Switch it to Scientific mode and you can switch between Decimal and Hexadecimal at any time.
First, I need to explain what ranges of attack index add what value to the relative animation index. Here's the list:
Bosola has provided information to indicate that these values might not be correct for certain PSX versionsIndex range increase (PC) increase (PSX) description
000-037 0 0 Player-accessible Magics
038-047, 060-061 [not sure] 4E Summons
048-05F 36 36 E.Skills
062-0FF EC [not sure] Limit Breaks
100~FFF 4E 60 Enemy-exclusive Attacks(replace 'FFF' with whatever the upper limit for attack indexes is)
In short, to get the absolute animation index from an attack's supplied relative animation index:
- For Player-accessible magics, do not increase
- For Summon attacks, increase by [currently unknown amount]
- For E.Skill attacks, increase by 36h
- For Limit Breaks, increase by ECh
- For Enemy-exclusive attacks, increase by 4Eh
Since this value is stored as a byte, there are limits to what certain attacks can look like. For instance, Player-accessible magics can't look like any of Yuffie's Limit Breaks because those absolute indexes cannot be achieved without increasing the relative indexes.
Let's look at an example:
The easiest thing would be to look at relative animation index 00h. The attacks Light Shell, Frog Song, Pyramid, Reanimagic, Cure, Capsule, and Right Arm Revive use this. They don't all look alike, but some of them do. Their attack indexes are:
Cure: 000
Frog Song: 048
Light Shell: 26A
Pyramid: 15D, 15E, 15F (these are three separate attacks for reasons I won't go into, but they all look the same)
Reanimagic: 18E
Capsule: 38B, 38C (same as Pyramid)
Right Arm Revive: 38F
Now we have to add the fixed values to find what animation index to use. Since the relative index of all these is 0, we add the fixed increase to 0 (remember, these values are in Hexadecimal).
Cure: 0 + 0 = 0
Frog Song: 0 + 36 = 36
Light Shell: 0 + 4E = 4E
etc.
If we want Cure to look like Light Shell we need to change it's relative animation index to produce the absolute index 4E. Since this is a Player-accessible magic, that means making the relative animation index 4E.
For Frog Song, we'll need to do a little algebra:
rel + inc = abs
x + 36 = 4E
x = 4E - 36
x = 18
so changing Frog Song's relative animation index to 18h will make it look like Light Shell.
IMPORTANT NOTE: animation indexes can not go "backwards". ie, Light Shell cannot look like Cure because Cure's absolute animation index is less than the increase Light Shell's index gives. Light Shell's absolute animation index limits are 04E-14D inclusive.
I also don't believe it's possible to get an enemy attack to look like a summon. Better just give them the summon attack instead.
Interesting note: Increasing an enemy attack's relative animation index past ED (beyond the Limit Breaks' animations) makes them look like they're throwing Cloud's weapons.
Warning: Changing the Limit's animation indexes is dangerous. Most of them contain animations the "caster" is supposed to perform. I'm not sure which one's would be safe to change so I can't say.
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Actually, I don't know why they did this. I had assumed, when I started Heidegger, that the attack indexes were just 0-31 since I knew there are no more than 32 attacks in each scene. This is quite perplexing. I still want to be able to edit every instance of an attack, but I guess I should allow for individual scenes as well...
Oh well. I like a challenge.
I'll get there eventually. Just continue to have patience.
