Replacing Cloud with Aerith?

[riryoku]

I would like to create a game where I can play as the three female characters from the beginning, and begin and remain at lvl 1 throughout the entire game.

My first attempt at creating a game like this involved me using Hojo to set all experience values gained from every monster and boss in the game to 0. I have this working fine. I then after reaching the first save point in the game, replaced Cloud and Barret with Yuffie, Tifa and Aerith using Jenova and calulated a set of stats for them at lvl 1 before changing all their stats appropriately.
Two problems arose here. Firstly: The game seems to have a basic exp value for some of the characters including Tifa. It will not allow me to save edit her base exp lower than 8 so she automatically levels up to lvl 2 when I use her. Second problem: Because Cloud is not in my party sometimes the game will not load his field model and I'll be running around the screen invisible. This is not a problem unless it occurs at a scene where the other party members spread out from Cloud at an event (such as when Barret appears out of Cloud when you set the first bomb before Guard Scorpion). at which point the game will freeze.

I continue'd on through the game though when I came to the second boss, even though I have placed Yuffie, Tifa and Aerith in my party at the save point directly before, I still went into the battle with Cloud, Barret and Tifa (woo at least one of my girls lol).

To get around these problems, I figured I could simply replace Cloud with Aerith if possible. Then after doing this, maybe switch Yuffie with Barret and see how I get on from there. I know it would screw up the story but I dont mind. It's the battles I care about just now. (Also it would be funny watching Cloud being killed by Sephiroth and Aerith emo'ing over his death instead, LOL!)

I know you can switch battle and field models by editting certain files in the char.lpg and world_us.lpg files using Ifalna to locate which file belongs to which character, yes? Now I need to know how to replace a characters animations and limit breaks with anothers? I know this is possible as this is done in the Sephiroth Patch, BUT I'm not sure how this will affect the levelling up of Aeriths limits, as Cloud and her gain limits at different speeds. (For example, Seal Evil requires Aerith to use Healing Wind 7 times whereas Cross-Slash requires Cloud to use Braver 8 times). Will switching the limits, also switch how they gain new limits?

It's not enough to have Cloud look and act like Aerith, I need him to be an exact Aerith replica only in his place.

Also as a little side question, anyone know of a way to alter the amount of experience each character starts with? Jenova just will not let me lower Cloud from lvl 7 to lvl 1 and Tifa from lvl 2 to lvl 1. (Which very slightly affects their stats.  )

I searched around the site looking for info on switching characters but I only found examples of people doing so but no hints on how to do it. (One thread that looked promising was dead...)

Thank you very much to anyone who can help me.

[BahamutSIN]

You can change the beginners level and exp with "WallMarket", more info on:

http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=7928.0

As for the rest I don't know how to help, sorry...

[Kudistos Megistos]

I don't know much about swapping models, but to change starting levels you can use WallMarket, as the above poster says.

As for limit breaks, you can swap them, but the number of times they will have to be used in order to get the next ones will still be the same. To change this, you have to edit the growth data in the kernel. At the moment you will need to use a hex editor to do this, but later releases of WallMarket should allow you to edit this part of the kernel as well.

If you want to stop Cloud & co. appearing when you don't want them, you'll have to do some editing of the flevel files. I'm also learning how to do this at the moment as part of my battle square project.

You might be able to get some use out of another save file editor called ff7se10, or you could directly hex edit the save files.

[riryoku]

Ahh, I had version 1.0 of wallmarket which didn't allow you to edit the initial attributes of characters. Got v1.1.0 now thanks.

All I know of the flevel file is that it contains the text displayed when in the field. At least I know there is hope that I can make a replica Aerith. Though I don't know any hex coding so if it is difficult, it seems unlikely I'll be able to until the new WallMarket is released. 

For now I can work on replacing Clouds models with those of Aerith and learning how to replace his animations and limit breaks with hers. I don't even know which files the information for these is held in.

Edit: I'm trying now to replace Clouds battle model with Aeriths. I thought I could switch all the files starting with rt (Clouds models) in the battle.lpg with those starting rv (Aeriths models) but they have a different number of models. Cloud = 38, Aerith = 44. The unique file Cloud has is rtba and the unique files Aerith has are rvaq, rvbk, rvbl, rvbn, rvbo, rvbp and rvbq. I tried switching the names of the files they shared in common to see what would happen but lpg tools won't create me a new battle.lpg. I keep getting a stream read error, but changing the v's and t's in the file names is the only alterating I've done to the extracted battle.lpg files...
I wish I could get my puny brain around all these files.  I know there are some programs with which you can view and slightly alter animations, but they can't be used for anything like this right?

I don't want to just give up. Once I learn how to do one character, I'm sure I'll be able to do much more.

[Kudistos Megistos]

Aeris has a few extra parts, because her hair moves and I think her dress does as well; that makes things tricky

I imagine that there is some way to get around this, but if there is not, you'll have to edit the field files to make Aeris appear instead.

[riryoku]

Yep, I'm working on replacing the field Cloud with field Aerith just now (though its not going perfectly lol). Though just changing the field files won't be enough to achieve what I'm wanting. I don't even think it will prevent my game from freezing when the party members split from the main character because even though it will look like Aerith, the game will still think of her as Cloud and without him in the party it will crash again.

I've spent days searching and searching through these forums and google. Looks like I have many more days of searching to come. 

I read that Borde could possibly include support for battle animations through Kimera though I think that was almost a year ago and it doesn't seem likely by the looks of the thread. Bah, if Cloud can be replaced with Sephiroth then it can be done and I shall find out how! 

Thanks for the input Leighos. 

[burnloungaz]

since tifa allready has a field model swap tifa with cloud and yuffie with barret then have aeris as the third spot, would be much easier. but the cutscenes will still have the original chars.

[riryoku]

From the tutorial I found (Scorpicus's tutorial) it should be possible to switch any of the field characters though I'm having one problem attatching extra parts to the models like tifa or aerith's ponytails. (So I still couldn't switch Cloud with Tifa even if I wanted to, until I figure out what's going wrong. Kimera just won't attatch it somehow.  )

It appears I also can't combine this with the PRP mod which I'm very upset about. I absolutely love that mod.  Looks like I'm going retro on this one lol.

[NameSpoofer]

Hello, I just receive your pm. Sorry for a late reply im just busy these week.

Anyway, to swap aerith with cloud in battle your have two ways. The first way, is to hex edit the ff7.exe. You just need to change the default number player of cloud to aeris and you are done. I think i keep the codes somewhere in my notepads but I cant seem to find it. The second way, is to extract the battle.lgp to a new folder. Copy the cloud battle files from rtaa to rtda to a new folder and copy aerith battle files rvaa to rvda to a new folder. Rename all the rtaa-rtda to rvaa-rvda and vice versa. Then copy these files to the battle folder and create a new battle.lgp.
Note that this will not change the limit break animation, you have to hex edit the kernel.bin ( a friend of mine knows how to do this, I will ask him the codes).

About swapping field model just see anna clover ( a.k.a scorpicus ) field tutorial guide. You shouldn't have problems with field models. If you are getting errors like runtime '6' overflow then you have to zoom in closer by holding the right mouse and drags the model closer.

The prp uses the same battle system so you can still swap them in battle. Its just the field system that is tricky. I think you have to hex edit the ff7prp.exe, havent tried that.

Hope that helps.

[E-Sephie]

Hey! I was just posting to tell you ive made an aerith replacment for cloud, might help you