(MD) Shining Force graphics/color hack (LAST UPDATE: Nov 11th, 2016)

[PresidentLeever]

I might as well make this its own thread instead of clogging up the screenshots one. The backstory is that I was editing SF1 palettes via screenshots to make things closer to the artwork and to the sequel, when I discovered the SF1 editor which allows for easily making a proper hack out of the mockups. I will soon be done with chapter one and release a WIP patch. Play it in Fusion or another emulator with the same RGB values. It still looks good in Regen but the colors will be a bit washed out.

I tweaked the force palette earlier to prioritize skin tones and edited all force members with new shades and tweaking to make the shading more consistent. I also took the portrait colors in consideration. There's a dark brown in the common & force palettes that's used very little, so I turned it into another skin tone. The leftmost color is transparent, so it doesn't show.



But apparently the menus use the force palette during battle, so it looks like they will look like this with the new palette I'm using. Please tell me if it looks good enough, otherwise I'll have to tweak the force palette.




I've decided to do a bit of shading and anti-aliasing cleanup work on each battle sprite, so they're gonna take longer but the results will be nicer. Sometimes I've added an extra shade of color, since most sprites have several unused palette slots. Hopefully I don't run into split palettes (Kokichi) that are shared between sprites (none so far).

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

Added the pig nose like in 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.

You can find pretty much all other edits here: http://imgur.com/a/vDN8h

I'm still looking for feedback on Lyle's eyes and Pelle's clothes btw.
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,13779.msg321960.html#msg321960

[salvadorc17]

Good work, this game deserves any kind of improvements..

[LivingfortheNight]

love it. fantastic!

[PresidentLeever]

Thanks guys, there's plenty of minor things to improve in this game.

For example, ever notice how Gort's closed mouth is basically a patch of white? I find this a little discriminatory, so I gave him a pout instead.





Edit:
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 2:
First two spells edited.





Edit 3:
Tried out a custom enemy map sprite palette just now, on the goblin:


November 09, 2016, 02:00:52 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
A couple of edits for guardiana, first town. Tell me which you like better or if I should change some aspect:



Darker (34, 34, 0) "black" and less green but more blue in the wall/rock gray tones.

Original:



Edit 4:
Guys, some feedback please?

I ran into some problems with the party/force sprites I've edited and have made a couple of compromised version edits because of that. Colors 11-15 are used by the HUD (wasn't the case for enemy sprites) and currently can't be edited since the predefined colors take priority, though it looked like it in the editor.

Would like to know if they're good enough like this (compromise version to the right):

Yes, undecided about the hooves.

Other characters (compromise to the right):

Changed a bit to make it work with palette swaps

^Compromise to the left




November 12, 2016, 05:05:46 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
All chapter 1 items converted. Let me know which healing rain and defense potion style you prefer:


We're getting very close a demo release of the patch, with chapter 1 completed. Stay tuned!