Understanding how rAthena and the client handles graphical assets (Got many questions)

[annicellin]

Hello all, new person here.

I'm an avid artist and I work almost exclusively with graphical assets and client side stuff. However, I have questions about how the game handles assets since I'm starting to dwelve into scripting. My final goal is to create cinematic scenes and make the world of RO more believable.

For that I need to understand what are the limits of the engine.

I have a couple questions, please be as detailed as possible because any piece of information matters.

Sprites, acts and scripts

1. I understand .act files have very specific actions for certain "types" of sprites, like for example, char class sprites have the most actions. How does the client and rAthena understand actions and frames? Can you, through an NPC script, force a NPC sprite to play out a certain action or frames? If so, how?
2.  If yes, similar to the later, can you force a mob to play a certain frame through a script? Coronary to this: can you hijack a class sprite and give it to a mob to give it more actions to play out?

Special effects

1. Can you make custom mob skills? Can you GIVE them a custom special effect (.str file)? If so, how? -- this one is based on the fact that Tokei made a .str editor tool, so I want to use it. This question is important to me because I also want to fix existing mob skills (like NPC FIREBREATH) and give them an animation.

 

I already made some advancements with my design by giving mobs an "introductory/spawning animation", but its awkward because it only works during instances, I need an NPC to play the intro animation and then have to quickly replace it with the true MVP by spawning them right after the NPC dissapears, so it doesn't cycle thru the frames.

 

So far these are my questions, thanks for reading.