I made walking animations for all of the NPC object events that don't have any in the original game, including gym leaders and the elite four. These are my own custom sprites, but I tried to keep them as close to the original Emerald style as possible. Feel free to modify them as you see fit.
The repo can be found here: https://github.com/Bivurnum/pokeemerald/tree/all-npcs-walk
In the console just enter:
git remote add Bivurnum https://github.com/Bivurnum/pokeemerald
git pull Bivurnum all-npcs-walk
Then you can use the object events like normal.
Or, if you want to apply the changes manually, you can find the comparison with all of my changes here: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/compare/master...Bivurnum:pokeemerald:all-npcs-walk
Some notes:
- This works with the pokeemerald-expansion too!
- All of the sprites of them just standing in place have not been altered, with the exception of one: I rounded out Sidney's head shape because I noticed that the original sprite was a bit misshapen. I think it looks much better now, but I do admit that it is a personal preference.
- I did not make a walking animation for the Gameboy Kid because I thought he didn't need one due to his unique sprites.
Just for reference, my post on pokecommunity.com can be found here.