Shining Force graphics hack - WIP thread

[ommadawnyawn]

I'm making a recolor (IF YOU FIND THIS IDEA BORING, MOVE ON)/graphics edit hack for the first Shining Force (MD version). I'll be posting my work here and any constructive feedback is welcome. 

Currently I'm trying to make Lyle's eyes look less weird and more like the artwork, let me know what you think. 


Edit - Original



Here's the rest of it: http://imgur.com/a/vDN8h

The other portraits (Original - Edits):

[Ton]

I dunno, man. They look kinda... washed out.

[ommadawnyawn]

That doesn't make much sense since most use stronger colors. What monitor are you using?

[Joxon]

Y'know, just because he thinks they look washed out and you don't doesn't mean something's wrong with his monitor. He has an opinion. They do look washed out though, as if you threw a bit of blue into the palette and desaturated them a bit. But the real thing is, why bother? Recolours are boring and take little to no effort. It'd be nicer to see more original content instead of changing colours. You could at least edit these sprites to make them better as opposed to a better palette.

[ommadawnyawn]

Which doesn't help at all if he doesn't go into details and is factually wrong (most colors are more saturated, and the concrete greys of the original have had color added).

Obviously I don't think it's pointless or I wouldn't do it, and it's not just a recolor as I've said and as you can see if you paid attention.

So, any constructive comments on any of these Joxon? The eyes edit for example? Constructive means you state and/or show how something can be made better, not that you call an idea for something pointless and defend vague negativity by moderators.

[Joxon]

Any changes you made were minimal and unnoticeable. I want to clarify, your sprites are on the right? But aside from that, there's no need to be so defensive. I said that you should try to make edits to these sprites, which you did, but you hardly fixed anything. I guess that was vague on my part but you should fix some more of the fundamental mistakes on these sprites, like the jagged lines and lacklustre shading.
But creating original content is much more rewarding and useful than just editing sprites. I'm trying to direct you to doing something more fulfilling, not saying something you want to do is pointless (my apologies, I know my wording couldn't have made it seem like that's what I was saying more). Just do a bit more than recolours and minimal editing. I dunno which sprites are which (I can't really find the originals in the first place) so I'll c+c that if you clarify it.

[ommadawnyawn]

Actually there is in this case, but now you at least tried to say something relevant so that's good.

How did the eyes edit not fix anything then? I want to learn how to improve them.

The originals are to the left, yes (except for Lyle obviously). There's a page for this game on this site. The other edits, besides palettes are: anti-aliasing (which fixes jagged lines), moving some colors around for better shading (there are some good examples of that on the imgur page), and Shining Force 2 style gradients in the portrait backgrounds.

Which shading is lacklustre and why?

Yes and I might make a thread about that later, this thread isn't it. Stick to the topic please.

[Ton]

The original eyes look more like the drawing. The shape of the face is another matter. Your eyes make him look like this.

[Joxon]

"Stick to the topic please."
You're kinda mini-modding your own thread despite the fact that I made the connection between creating original content and this thread very clear.
Anyways, the blue haired girl has banded shading and jagged lines in her hair. On the guy below that, his horn shading is mishapen and jagged, not properly following the shape of the horn.
Also, some of your new palette choices kinda killed some of the contrast, the colours aren't bad, but in cases like the green hat guy near the bottom, the greens aren't very contrasted.

Btw, this isn't to sound rude, but the way you act like you have authority over us like a parent (EX: "you at least tried to say something relevant so that's good") makes you seem like a bit of an ass, whether that's your intention or not. We're just trying to help, I know it's your thread but asserting yourself like can easily come across the wrong way.

[ommadawnyawn]

Re: Blue haired girl (Shell), yeah but you know anime shading for hair doesn't make much sense right? I fixed some of those, for Adam for example, but tried to stick to the outlines (where it's also the most noticeable).

Fair point about Torasu (green hat guy), the MD palette is rather limited when it comes to dark colors so you kinda have to do hue shifts towards red or blue instead for it to look good, or have the giant steps like in the original - which do look slightly better on real hardware as the RGB steps aren't linear there, but I'm focusing on emulation now since I think most will play the hack this way.

Edit: Regarding my tone, what should I have done? Given up on the hack like you said? Because now you're actually helping it being made instead.

The original eyes look more like the drawing. The shape of the face is another matter. Your eyes make him look like this.

I disagree that the original looks closer to the artwork. 

Uh, okay. He's not squinting any more in the edit, but I can make the eyes less.. segmented from the face? How about these versions, any of those better? 

[TomGuycott]

Here's a question, what effect does changing these mugshots have on other palettes in the game? Are they independent of them, or is changing these colors going to suddenly alter something, whether it be positive or negative?

[ommadawnyawn]

^Some palettes are shared, but most aren't. Pretty much every battle background has a unique palette, for example. I haven't documented each shared palette yet, but I'm working on it.
There's more of a limitation on overworld graphics, and items have one shared palette of 16 colors.


A third attempt at the eyes.

[ommadawnyawn]

A sound test screen edit I've been working on for a bit, zoom in to see the minor spritework changes to the rooster and the guy on the left. I changed one of the shades for the rooster so that I could make the light around them blue, then moved a couple of brown/yellow shades around to make it not look weird. 




Menu icons:

LTR: Original, GBA style (one with dithering to get closer to the gba shades), happy medium, closer to the original. Might not be able to do the dithering though.





Zylo promoted and Musashi with minor spritework edits.

[ommadawnyawn]

Some of the remade map sprites (edited the palette to be able to add more shades, redid some parts for more consistency between frames and with the portraits):

Note that the originals are brighter due to rgb setting differences, they will be equally bright in the hack.


Custom Pelle sprite WIP:



Edit: I've decided to do a bit of shading and anti-aliasing cleanup work on each battle sprite, besides recoloring and moving weird color shades around, so they're gonna take longer but the results will be nicer. For the cerberus below (and a couple of others) I've added one extra shade for better highlights, since most sprites have several unused palette slots. 



Original:



Edit 2:
Probably final versions of most of the chapter 1 enemies compared to the originals, let me know what you think:

Added the pig nose from the artwork


Fixed the filled armpit in the attack frame and inconsistent metal shading in other frames


Armpit fix and added glow around eyes




Too dark purples perhaps?


Consistent shield shading. I could make the tongue red if wanted, though I believe lizards don't have red tongues. 


Also fixed the brightest shade on high priest (yellow/orange one)


Added shade for smoother highlights. Fixed the empty pixels in some frames. 


More consistent shading in all frames


Added shade for darkest skin tone anti-aliasing






Fixed cap shading and armpit fill on both

And here's max's battle sprite:

Added a shade for more consistent hair (orange like the portrait), made the hair shading more consistent between frames, and used the barely used yellow shade for leather highlights in every frame instead of just the last one.

[ommadawnyawn]

As a test I made a couple of slightly redrawn conversions of the gba version items to MD, should I keep going or just use the originals? Will have to use the common/force palette above.



Edit:
First two spells edited.



Tried out a custom enemy map sprite palette, on the goblin. With some minor tweaks it worked well with the dwarf and rune knight as well.