Final Fantasy Hacktics

Join me on my quest to learn the coveted art of spriting! I'll post my projects here for critiquing. I would appreciate advice and suggestions for improvement. If you take it upon yourself to edit them please post your changes so I might learn from your work.

EDIT: I'm changing this initial post into a quick access navigation to my complete projects.

Original Post *not important*


Ninja Malek http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11772.msg221245#msg221245

I've actually always found portraits to be much easier than sprites, but everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.

When it comes to white hair, remember that FFT portraits have a warm tone that's matched from the background color, so rather than flat white, it looks better to go with a strongly white tinted tan. It's not a thing most people notice, but it stands out to me, if nothing else.

I'd also go with a less sharp contrast; deepen the mid tones to bring out the texture and not come out quite so harsh on the shades. I know that can be kind of a tall order with a limited palette, but it's not impossible. Twin frequently blows my mind with what he does in 15 colors or less.

Thanks for the reply Angel! That makes sense, a tan color would be more natural with skin than the silver I currently have. Shouldn't be hard to change so I'll get on that soon. And yeah so far i find full body sprites to need less shading detail in general so for "small" edits they're easier to me. Of course getting animations looking nice is a struggle I'll be experiencing eventually haha, and that will be challenging!

So I noticed a couple mistakes in my original edit and decided to redo it. Here's my results. I had to make some compromises because of color limit (one big one *nervous chuckle*) but hopefully they aren't too noticeable.

Hex Mage F
(http://i.imgur.com/nM7KyZq.png)


Also do the color palettes look nice? They're meant to be a bit darker than standard for my other jobs.

Sorry I've been sluggish with any progress, lots on my mind this past week or so. Anyway I've been approaching this from two different angles; pasting over a head and editing finer details, and changing a sprites clothing to resemble another's but keep the original form. The second option is proving quite the hassle so the former held my attention today. Couldn't finish before work, but here's a sample. Thoughts before I finish it?
(http://i.imgur.com/qMQ5LDE.jpg)

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 04, 2017, 06:17:49 pm
Sorry I've been sluggish with any progress, lots on my mind this past week or so. Anyway I've been approaching this from two different angles; pasting over a head and editing finer details, and changing a sprites clothing to resemble another's but keep the original form. The second option is proving quite the hassle so the former held my attention today. Couldn't finish before work, but here's a sample. Thoughts before I finish it?
(http://i.imgur.com/qMQ5LDE.jpg)

We already have a full sheet that looks like that somewhere on the forum

Ah I was mixing two red mages, but I'll take another look if it's been done then. Saves me time so thanks!

EDIT: I spent the last hour rummaging through the wiki and forum spriting sections without a perfect match. Maybe i'm just missing it? Or it could be one of the sheets I'm mixing, I'll post them. It's just a head (most importantly hat <3 ) change so it's not super noticeable.

Red mage or Rad_mage by Rathaelos (Timbo also did an edited version)


Red mage by Lijj


I love the aesthetic of Rathaelos' and adore the hat and hair from Lijj's, so i tried my hand at either giving Lijj's the other's clothes or Rath's the other's head. Head swaps aren't too hard so i started with that option.

EDIT: I went ahead and finished the big edits. Smaller things and the portrait would still need to be finished. While working I realized that I may have placed the heads quite accurately but  I didn't consider the difference in head/hair shape and size. Because of that I had to rework the shoulders/neck of a few poses. Also a darker color on the hat drew from a color used by the portrait rather than the body palette, so that would also require fixing. While not a complete success I believe it was good practice for me. I don't think it necessary to put anymore time into beautifying or correcting it though. In the future I'll pay more mind to sprite compatibility and resizing pieces as needed.

UPDATE: I think another frankeinsprite would be good practice. I can't try to move too fast when I'm still making mistakes. I'll pick something soon, but if someone wants to present me a challenge, a test if you will, I'll accept it gladly  :). Just don't expect anything to use in game from me quite yet; unless It's just a big palette change, I'm feeling pretty comfortable with color limitations by now.

Just a small project for my hack. I was planning to make Beowulf's boring skillset into a unique Death knight. So he's getting zombified! I just wanted opinions on the portrait. Should I go handsome undead or wrinkled zombie? Alternatively i could try a pale vampire look.

EDIT: Added some Red variants (the right column). The bottom is Original Beo for reference and to his right is a paler Vampire skin. Personally I'm digging the Vamp, but he doesn't scream Death Knight quite like a gray, wrinkled corpse. Which will be the face of ZomBeowulf?

UPDATE: Thanks for the opinions you guys. I'm going with Count Beowulf for now. Finding a good shade of otherworldly pale skin took a surprising amount of time (or I'm still bad  :P ) but besides that this has been very simple. Anyway below are spritesheets of BW: the top has only skin changes, the bottom has hair, clothes, and eyes changes. Not sure if red and black are the best but *shrugs* I could also rework the hair and ascot colors, but that would recquire additional work in other areas. What would you guys want to see or is it good as is?

Handsome undead, just because you don't see it in vanilla... other than the always dreamy Gafgarion.

http://orig11.deviantart.net/1156/f/2009/341/7/a/gafgarion_by_akira_h.jpg

I'll say that is a dead sexy Gaffy lol. Added some edits to my post as well.

I'd definitely go with pale-owulf (bottom right), a classy sort of Dracula-esque look.  He's kind of a pretty boy anyway (he'll be played by Orlando Bloom in FFTactics: The Movie).

Decided on my next franken attempt and finished the concept. I've been thinking of making Malek and Rafa more Ninja like (due to their abilities heavily resembling ninjutsu and me replacing ninja job with Assassin in my patch (but that's a different topic)). Anyway i started with Malek so here's some basic poses.

To my joy I found their head sizes and placement are almost perfect matches, so far anyway. So it's been exceedingly easy. Now it's not all peaches. In the 4th pose Mal's head is actually 1 pixel higher than the Hanzo sprite i'm pasting over. I'm undecided on lowering it and rearranging  ninja's shoulders, carefully editing the head, or leaving it 1 pixel higher than the others. *EDIT: I took a second look and realized that entire pose is just 1 pixel higher anyway. Whether that was intentional idk but i can easily lower it if it causes issues with the end product* Besides that there is 1 (probably 2 or even 3 if i'm crafty) unused/redundant unnecessary colors. Opinions and advice are always welcome!

EDIT: I was crafty and made room for 3 more colors. For some reason this bluish-gray color held my attention. Added it below the original concept, also lowered that pose to align with the others. Now that the colors are set finishing edits shouldn't take more than a day or two!

UPDATE: Finished most of the heads. Roughly halfway done. Too tired to finish it now. Some help spot checking animations after I attach the finished .bmp would be appreciated  :)


UPDATE: Took longer than I had hoped but here is one shadow warrior Malek! Ran through the Shishi animations and he still looked good, so dare I say this project was a success? A second spot check or fine edits (if needed) would be welcome  :) Out of the 12 or so projects i've tried (most not posted here) I'm most happy and proud of this, one step closer to attempting my own custom sprite. Much thanks to Celdia for the Hanzo i used as a base.

UPDATE: Very slight color adjust, removed a random pixel, and added my new signature!

Hello sorry for the minusturben you could take is request please.


http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1072.0;attach=16418;image

If you clarify what you'd like done with that sprite I'll gladly take a shot at it  :) . It's in the old Shishi format but that's easy to fix. I'm pretty busy this weekend but I'll squeeze in what time I can.

it just needs the portrait background color put back in

Thanks for the assist Boss!

My next notable project will be finishing/editing a sprite which was never submitted, lost in the forum. It is also a monster sprite; which I haven't touched yet, so it will be doubly challenging and great practice.

Quote from: Elric on August 17, 2017, 06:14:08 pm
it just needs the portrait background color put back in

Good I have other request can modify this sprite and change the hair color to gray
(marshal sprite)

* Marshal.bmp (123.05 kB, 256x488 - viewed 3

Quote from: Dell on August 23, 2017, 01:48:32 pm
Good I have other request can modify this sprite and change the hair color to gray
(marshal sprite)

* Marshal.bmp (123.05 kB, 256x488 - viewed 3

1) You need to figure out how to copy/paste correctly, as you copy/pasted the name and view count, but didnt link the image.

2) This is not a request thread and most requests are not fulfilled. I'm not going to allow you to keep making requests in the wrong place simply to take advantage of 1 active spriter who is still learning all the ropes. If you have a request, put it in the sprite request thread like everyone else.

3) You need to learn how to do these things yourself. No one is here to hold anyones hand, we are a hacking/modding site centered on gaming, not a gaming site centered on modding/hacking. There are tutorials as well as other tools provided that you can utilize to achieve what you need.

4) Sprite requests are usually made by someone who actually has something to use them in. You don't ask for requests for your own personal work that isn't going to be released on the site, as it defeats the purpose of someone helping you.

Thanks for laying down the law Boss. I absolutely agree with everything Elric said. I did decide to help you out though Dell. I'm pretty sure this is the sprite you meant and I picked out a decent gray for you and left a few examples for you, should be easy to finish.

I'll also give a few tips i learned in tutorials and from my own practice. In Tactics we are limited to 16 colors per palette, and 1 of those has to be the background color so really it's only 15 colors. Another color is usually a very dark shading so more accurately 14 colors are freely usable (although the shading color can double with black as I did in my Ninja Malek, hardly noticeable). In Tactics you'll notice most characters have blond hair and light skin. That is because their hair and skin share some colors to compensate for the color limit. In this sprite you'll notice that to change the hair color I had it share colors with the armor. In a few poses the shoulder pauldrons touch the hair, so i made small edits to keep them more distinct from each other. I also didn't touch the portrait, but let me warn you that portrait and sprite body colors should never be the same. If you want help finding colors for the portrait pm me, keep it out of this thread please. I'll also say that to add extra color you can probably cut the darkest red and recolor those parts with the shading color, you can likely also cut one of the less-used skin/old hair colors.

Lastly I'll say that I use an awesome app called Graphicsgale for most of my edits so far. Just Google it. And again to emphasize Elric's point to try learning yourself like I am. Check in the tutorials and best of luck! :)

Quote from: Lionheart537 on August 24, 2017, 02:29:35 am
Thanks for laying down the law Boss. I absolutely agree with everything Elric said. I did decide to help you out though Dell. I'm pretty sure this is the sprite you meant and I picked out a decent gray for you and left a few examples for you, should be easy to finish.

I'll also give a few tips i learned in tutorials and from my own practice. In Tactics we are limited to 16 colors per palette, and 1 of those has to be the background color so really it's only 15 colors. Another color is usually a very dark shading so more accurately 14 colors are freely usable (although the shading color can double with black as I did in my Ninja Malek, hardly noticeable). In Tactics you'll notice most characters have blond hair and light skin. That is because their hair and skin share some colors to compensate for the color limit. In this sprite you'll notice that to change the hair color I had it share colors with the armor. In a few poses the shoulder pauldrons touch the hair, so i made small edits to keep them more distinct from each other. I also didn't touch the portrait, but let me warn you that portrait and sprite body colors should never be the same. If you want help finding colors for the portrait pm me, keep it out of this thread please. I'll also say that to add extra color you can probably cut the darkest red and recolor those parts with the shading color, you can likely also cut one of the less-used skin/old hair colors.

Lastly I'll say that I use an awesome app called Graphicsgale for most of my edits so far. Just Google it. And again to emphasize Elric's point to try learning yourself like I am. Check in the tutorials and best of luck! :)

You can also use Xif's 'Palette Editor' program to change colors from the palettes very easily.

Okay so update on that unfinished sprite i was talking about. Started working on it yesterday and i don't have too much but I'll share it anyway. The sprite i'm fixing/finishing was started by Rfh and the last update I'm using as a base is in this post. A hearty thanks to everyone involved in doing the hard work for this sprite!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8230.msg169953#msg169953

At first glance It isn't too far from completion and looking in Shishi the animations look really spot on! (to me anyway) So I'm a bit sad I won't have serious body proportion or positioning work to do. What it does sorely need is a severe palette reorganization, fixing many wierd design choices like eye/highlight color mixed in skin, skin color mixed with wings and clothes, the chest region being...well just bizarrely colored, a lack of any dark shading color, unfinished portrait, the list goes on. So I'm cracking my fingers to fix all these.

I'm liking these 2 new palettes (1 and 3. palette 2 is a touch up of the original but I'll change it). I finished the top row and then some. Here are the results vs the original.


Not much i know, but how's it looking so far?

Quote from: Lionheart537 on September 01, 2017, 03:43:45 am
Okay so update on that unfinished sprite i was talking about. Started working on it yesterday and i don't have too much but I'll share it anyway. The sprite i'm fixing/finishing was started by Rfh and the last update I'm using as a base is in this post. A hearty thanks to everyone involved in doing the hard work for this sprite!
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8230.msg169953#msg169953

At first glance It isn't too far from completion and looking in Shishi the animations look really spot on! (to me anyway) So I'm a bit sad I won't have serious body proportion or positioning work to do. What it does sorely need is a severe palette reorganization, fixing many wierd design choices like eye/highlight color mixed in skin, skin color mixed with wings and clothes, the chest region being...well just bizarrely colored, a lack of any dark shading color, unfinished portrait, the list goes on. So I'm cracking my fingers to fix all these.

I'm liking these 2 new palettes (1 and 3. palette 2 is a touch up of the original but I'll change it). I finished the top row and then some. Here are the results vs the original.

spoiler: Left is Original Right is V2 Concept

(http://i.imgur.com/JulrVZA.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/JdMB63s.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/X0WLJbE.jpg)(http://i.imgur.com/LkoGrYE.jpg)

Not much i know, but how's it looking so far?

Looks good to me so far, though I'm wondering wtf happened to the palette on the original version (on the left) that palette color order looks like it went thru a meat grinder, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't that jacked up last time i looked at it

Thanks Elric  :) Yes the palette looks horrid in the version i downloaded as a base. My only guess is someone must have changed the color depth or some tomfoolery made Gg condense the colors in that bizzare order. Either way when I'm finished it'll all be nice and neat, easy to customize. I had an idea to possibly add another shade to the dress so my palette may change a little if that ends up looking better. The goal for this project is to be my first submission to the site (with signatures of the others who did the initial work of course).

Quote from: Lionheart537 on September 01, 2017, 08:22:27 pm
Thanks Elric  :) Yes the palette looks horrid in the version i downloaded as a base. My only guess is someone must have changed the color depth or some tomfoolery made Gg condense the colors in that bizzare order. Either way when I'm finished it'll all be nice and neat, easy to customize. I had an idea to possibly add another shade to the dress so my palette may change a little if that ends up looking better. The goal for this project is to be my first submission to the site (with signatures of the others who did the initial work of course).

The submissions haven't been updated in years, can't remember the reason, but there was a reason. But I'm sure someone will find use for it one way or another, I'll probably use it in a EVTCHR, cuz Link

Quote from: Elric on September 01, 2017, 10:00:35 pm
The submissions haven't been updated in years, can't remember the reason, but there was a reason. But I'm sure someone will find use for it one way or another, I'll probably use it in a EVTCHR, cuz Link

Oh that explains why there's no new works in there. I had wondered bout that but assumed most spriters had left and lost interest. About Link I'll keep that in mind and see what I can do about an extra Navi or even Tael palette lel.
EDIT: Wait...isn't Tael a guy? Hmm no Tael for this sprite then.

Well I've made some progress. Honestly reworking the spritesheet has been quite easy but deciding on palettes has been almost absurdly rough for the second row. With how the sprite is currently set up finding colors that look nice and fit what I want hasn't been easy, and I'm still not satisfied with what I have currently. Anyway here is another update. Suggestions to edits or color schemes are  appreciated.





UPDATE: Forget all that jazz. I've made 3 improvements to the palette/design. Also i'm going to keep goin into depth over my palettes so interested persons can make easy changes, unless it's more annoying than helpful.

UPDATE: Glad to announce that I've mostly finished the spritesheet now. I noticed that the lower frames were essentially more poorly colored copies of previous frames (i improved them with the others of course). This is my first time working a monster sprite so I'm not 100% if it'll look good enough in-game. Some testing and critiques would be appreciated  :D Besides that I'm not completely done, there are several changes left to make.
1. Redo the dead frames because they are garbage. Really just sloppy all around.
2. Possibly lengthen the hair in the back. Edit: possibly touch up the hair overall like i did with the dress.
3. Finish the portrait/improve it.
4. Finalize my personal palettes and matching portrait palettes.
But most of the tedious work is done! Again I always value another's helpful input!

The hair looks a bit pillowy. My suggestion would be to expand the lightest orange-tan color out a bit to fill more area, and to be less afraid of having a dark color touch a light one without a medium color between. The shiny highlight spot is probably fine how it is.
The gown colors don't seem quite as pillowy/gradient shaded, and I think it may be due to higher contrast between the lights and darks, so you might try just brightening up the brights and darkening the darks in the hair.

To clarify, its not really a bad looking sprite by any means, but it doesn't quite fit the same shading style as FFT classic sprites, which tend to favor wide areas of flat color that transition somewhat sharply into shaded regions, rather than transitioning smoothly.

But that's really the only thing that jumps out at me.

Quote from: Satoh on September 10, 2017, 09:09:52 pm
The hair looks a bit pillowy. My suggestion would be to expand the lightest orange-tan color out a bit to fill more area, and to be less afraid of having a dark color touch a light one without a medium color between. The shiny highlight spot is probably fine how it is.
The gown colors don't seem quite as pillowy/gradient shaded, and I think it may be due to higher contrast between the lights and darks, so you might try just brightening up the brights and darkening the darks in the hair.

To clarify, its not really a bad looking sprite by any means, but it doesn't quite fit the same shading style as FFT classic sprites, which tend to favor wide areas of flat color that transition somewhat sharply into shaded regions, rather than transitioning smoothly.

But that's really the only thing that jumps out at me.

I totally agree that the hair is somehow...off. I'll fiddle with it and try your suggestion thanks! As for the dead pose would you guys think a revamped corpse (like now but better) or a mystical light orb would look better for a Fairy?

I think an orb might not look so good since it wouldn't be animatable, so it would likely look more like a circle than a 'glow'

And realizing my description probably wasn't very clear, I was thinking something like so.. with the light shade having a significant presence on the head.
(https://i.imgur.com/UZlPZdf.png)
Working in such a small scale is always a challenge for getting detail or implication of detail across.

EDIT: maybe a scaled down fairy would look good for the dead pose? Like it was using magic to appear bigger or something?
Its a curious question. Chocobos turn to feathers, bobcats turn to skulls.. what does a fairy turn into when it dies...?

Maybe a leaf? or some kind of bellflower blossom?

EDIT2:
Something like this as a general idea
(https://i.imgur.com/zejlQet.png)

Quote from: Satoh on September 10, 2017, 10:15:35 pm
I think an orb might not look so good since it wouldn't be animatable, so it would likely look more like a circle than a 'glow'

EDIT: maybe a scaled down fairy would look good for the dead pose? Like it was using magic to appear bigger or something?
Its a curious question. Chocobos turn to feathers, bobcats turn to skulls.. what does a fairy turn into when it dies...?

Maybe a leaf? or some kind of bellflower blossom?

EDIT2:
Something like this as a general idea
(https://i.imgur.com/zejlQet.png)

Oooh i really like the flower/leaf idea. I think that's very appropriate. A tiny fairy would be hard to add any noticable details to, but it could also work. I'll try these later today, thanks!

Took a look at the spritesheet in-game and I can see it has several more problems. Some frames aren't in the correct place, movement animations are flat and unchanging in some views. I looked for a breakdown of what each frame in a MON sprite is but couldn't find anything. Guess it'll be trial and error with referencing vanilla sprites to place them correctly and improve frames for animation quality. If someone does have a guide/tutorial to monster frames please share, otherwise I may make one after I figure them out, I've already picked up a few.

EDIT: I guess one cool thing about needing extra work is i will get to do proportion, positioning, animation, frame work; which i really wanted more practice with. The flower looks great in-game btw Satoh. I'm not sure how to improve its design but I'll tweak it as necessary.

EDIT2: I did find this image that labels several frames (most I figured out but it was still helpful). Unlabeled frames are front walking and #2 back walking view. Fairly certain everything below these frames are attack animations

EDIT 3: I took the liberty of finishing a diagram of the basic monster sprite frames for anyone else who might need help with this. Additional frames on a larger spritesheet would be for additional attack animations.


If all that frame info is correct I'll have to make several frame changes including 7 new attack animations (like I said earlier the original just copy pasted movement frames there)

After a much longer than intended break (extended further by discovering neir automata) i got back into doing some work for this sprite again. I looked at some vanillas and you're right Satoh, they flow more than the blocky hair I had before. After reworking it myself several times I ended up using your example with tiny edits (hope you don't mind). I also decided to rework all the dresses. Here are my current concepts.

I like the third one, but I wonder how it will look with other palettes.
The skirt looks greatly improved.
I like the stripe because it adds some visual interest, but I'm not sure about the stripe under breast area. It looks like it might be conflicting with the shading some. But I like the revision.

Quote from: Lionheart537 on October 02, 2017, 12:07:10 am
After a much longer than intended break (extended further by discovering neir automata) i got back into doing some work for this sprite again. I looked at some vanillas and you're right Satoh, they flow more than the blocky hair I had before. After reworking it myself several times I ended up using your example with tiny edits (hope you don't mind). I also decided to rework all the dresses. Here are my current concepts.

spoiler

From top to bottom are
1. The original
2. reworked dress and hair with new highlight (can't find a suitable shade for this hair color though  :cry: )
3.  reworked dress and hair with added decor in place of a dedicated hair highlight.
(http://i.imgur.com/ACirFy8.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/ixS8o6p.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/u7i1uAk.jpg)
Which do you guys think looks best and how would you improve them? I mostly like the dress and hair design changes but i see a few wrinkles I'll iron out tomorrow. *note for this frame the dress is slightly wider, opened-out than how most should appear, this is intended*

You made a definitely a huge improvement of the port that I made some years ago. I would love to see the sprite finished with these concept!  :)