SaGa Frontier sprites

[Garamonde]

you can always try ImageShack, but a better alternative would be Imagebanana. you may have to translate the page if you can't find your way as it's in German, but it does not compress and keeps the filenames.

[Ton]

Yeah, I have Photobucket issues. That's why these aren't up yet. If you could host them on Imageshack I could have them up in no time.

[Reichu]

Okay, trying Imagebanana, as per Mighty Jetters' suggestion. Going to repost everything, plus one new one.

CHARACTERS

RIKI (LUMMOX)


ENEMIES

ARMORPILLA


EARTH DRAGON


ELECTROSHEEP


GEKKO


GENBU


HEDGEHOG


HELLHOUND


HQ CORE


KILLERBEE


KITTYKICKER / KITTYCLAWER


MINOTAUR


R-A-B-I


RAZORBACK


SONICBAT


WONDERDOG


XENO


I never want to do that again... T_T (Incidentally, Image Banana does seem to remove dashes from file names, but I guess we'll survive.)

[MO Changed the links to lead to the image instead of a page with the image~]

[Garamonde]

oh, I guess you'll have to improvise with underscores, sorry.
but, at least it beats not being able to see the file names, I guess!

[Ton]

Assuming Riki is playable?

EDIT: All up!

[Davy Jones]

wait, you're assembling tiles? Does PSX-VRAM not show you the whole sprites?

[Garamonde]

I'm gonna be honest, most of these graphics are very blurred but the issue is that they have black edges which can be caused by PSX-VRAM...
are you sure they don't use transparency?

[Reichu]

Assuming Riki is playable?

Indeed he is. Thanks for adding the stuff!

wait, you're assembling tiles? Does PSX-VRAM not show you the whole sprites?

I only recall assembled sprites appearing on very rare occasions. It's a kindness reserved for battle backgrounds, mostly. Everything else has to be unscrambled.

I'm gonna be honest, most of these graphics are very blurred but the issue is that they have black edges which can be caused by PSX-VRAM...
are you sure they don't use transparency?

They easily could be using transparency, but that's something I never properly learned about. In the SaGa Frontier tiles (PSX-VRAM or no; sometimes I've ripped tile sheets from the disc image using TileMolester), transparency is represented with the color black, and that's all I know. Is there any special trick to doing this alpha transparency thing? I guess I'll start with the Photoshop help files and forum/Internet search tools, and hear whatever you have to say, and redo the sheets if necessary.

I never noticed any "blurriness", to be honest, but I guess that's because I'm used to how the sprites appear in-game, which is pretty crappy due to however they were being dynamically rescaled. Could you perhaps explain?

[Davy Jones]

Mh, can you re-rip Xeno with the false-colour-method? It means:
- Use wrong colours without black in it and get these false-coloured sprites. Now you have 100% perfect outlines.
- Lay your right-coloured sprites on them and see if there are differences concerning the outlines (deleted parts, etc.).

[Reichu]

Use wrong colours without black in it and get these false-coloured sprites. Now you have 100% perfect outlines.

What do you mean by "using wrong colors without black"? As in, select a palette that doesn't use a black background, and see if that makes any difference?

Hmm, well, this might answer a few questions. Here's what Xeno looks like in-game.



So the black outline is normal.

[Davy Jones]

Which tool are you using? The false-colour method was intended for PSX-VRAM and I use it by myself to get portraits which use pure black (since the background in PSX-VRAM is also pure black).

Btw, your picture is too blurry to compare it with the sprites on the sheet.

[Deathbringer]

It may be blurry but the outline is visible.

[Davy Jones]

I see, it was a thumbnail.



A few misplaced bits on the outlines irritated me, but as far as I can see from the ingame screen, it's supposed to be like that.

[Reichu]

Which tool are you using?

I ripped the monster tile sheets with TileMolester. The results are identical to those you'd get with VRAM; it was just more convenient, since I knew the palette offsets and could just grab the tiles straight off the disc image. That said, I do use PSX-VRAM frequently for other things, so understanding this false-color thing you've mentioned would be to my benefit. I don't think I fully grasp it.

as far as I can see from the ingame screen, it's supposed to be like that.

I try to be careful, and take lots of in-game screenshots so I know what the assembled sprites are supposed to look like. (And because some tile sheets are much more of a jigsaw than others, sometimes taking screenshots for reference is absolutely necessary.) Yeah, sometimes the game itself makes counterintuitive decisions. For example, in the Kitty Kicker sheet, I didn't recreate the exact "frames" for animations because the game MISALIGNS tiles in order to artificially create extra poses. I'll post pictures if anyone's curious what I mean, but needless to say I don't hate myself enough to bother with that.

[Garamonde]

I don't think I fully grasp it.

I would also appreciate if Davy could be a little more specific if possible as I feel this would be useful if I understood how you exactly achieve this.