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[Sprite] Agrias, The Holy Knight

Started by R999, July 07, 2010, 08:27:56 pm

R999

R7, R8




Agrias R5



Tip: ^ Don't lolcopycolorfromanothersprite.



Agrias Proto R4, R2, R1



^ had to sacrifice one skin color for this.


Old

Attempted to do a new Agrias, this time with a slightly taller appearance (with boots). She is by far my favorite FFT character so I am willing to go a little extra effort to do new arms for her. Her sprite also has my favorite hair of the game. This is her updated hair color as seen in WoTL's cutscenes (Square made her just as blonde as Ovelia).




These are incomplete concepts, as you can see the coloring is clearly wrong.

Archael

I see what you were trying to do based on that concept you posted, but this needs work IMO

something about it isn't right.. perhaps it's all the light coloring together... ZERO contrast

R999

Posted some new updates / variations (R3, R4, R5).

Will be trying another style later. I've got some work to do for today and tomorrow.  These concepts could be used for Alicia and Lavian if they end up not being used.


Edit: another update R7 and R8 (see main post).

This was a nice surprise; I was actually able to make good use of those Zalbag arms with minimal editing.


Zozma

  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
Wiegraf: Draw your sword Ramza!
Ramza: But im a monk!!

Lijj

  • Modding version: PSX

R999

OOPs sorry Smash I edited over your reply by accident. You said something about coming up with a new, inexperienced knight design....


@Smash: I am glad you said that because that is exactly the kind of design i was going after. She is afterall, the strongest knight of Lionsguard and was appointed the personal bodyguard of the Royal Family; she is no rookie and definitely isn't just starting out.

I like the "fur" design on her because it gives her that same mystic aura as seen through Gaffgarion's design (that of a great warrior) and in addition to giving her that "royal guard" look to it (in a small way but nevertheless).

The final but important reason for going for a new Agrias design was to make her show clear expertise in her knight skills, distinctively different than from that of Alicia and Lavian, who will (very likely) be using the original Agrias as a base.


Zozma: please talk to me in Chat about these pixels.


Lijj: Yes indeed those arms are large. That was why I went with the tweaks that you may or may not be able to see above(?).  We'll talk more about it in chat.

From Chat,
1) The big white fur collar on Agrias's face is sticking outwards and high up, making it so her body seemed relatively larger (thus, making the arms look relatively smaller)
2) She has extended legs and boots, her sprite is 1 px taller than usual sprites, taller makes the arms look relatively smaller.
3) I changed the colors in the arms to reduce the weight on the gloves (he used to have big red orange gloves).  By making the shoulder pads white and the gloves black, it gives the illusion that the arms are not as big as they seemed as the weight is shifted towards the shoulders.
4) I did about 4-5 pixel edits on the arms, they are hardly necessary but we'll see if we need more.

Smash

Ah. Well, I thought it had to be something lowlier Agrias's original FFT design..


...Which frankly, sucks. R7 it is, but the shading needs to be fixed, right now it looks like some kind of scarf.

Im making a small fix to it btw.

Smash

R7 v.2 / R9

It needed visible separation between fur and shoulderpads, a fur texture, and a smoother golden line in the vest, all now applied.

R999

R7v2 -- or S1.

Anyway, I am still not decided on her tunic just yet (still kind of waiting for the walking animations to be done first before that's truly finalized. You gave her a full round skirt, but my intended design was more akin to what you see from Frimelda's design:



A more straightforward tunic than the regular round shape (it's also looking a little too bright at least on my calibrated screen) you might expect to see otherwise...

The middle shading you have came up with was a design that I have tried before; making her chest seemed like it is much lower than normal. That fur area is very tricky to get right but I can see your point.  Thanks for providing the tweak I'll play with it a little more when I get back on her.

Smash


Smash


R999

Hmm, it's still still retaining that round shape (but this time, it is also slightly too small*). This will have to wait till her walking frames are done (which should be relatively soon).

Btw, you should join us in chat for these things. I don't usually check the forum this often.

Zozma

smash that looks great, round shape? anyway that version looks the best so far. lol makes me like agrias all over again
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
Wiegraf: Draw your sword Ramza!
Ramza: But im a monk!!

Smash

Hmm. I think I'll add this observation along either way, as it's related. Got carried away.


Remember this, when pixeling, you are constantly manipulating the smallest of pixel clusters. The objective? To have them work together and create effects only visible to the normal view -That is, not zoomed in. This is an unique aspect of pixeling very rarely seen in actual drawing, and one that can make a big difference between a good sprite and a bad one.
(Which is why I think having a x1 sized sprite along with the zoomed in ones a good idea)

I've seen in all of you here, judging by your work, that you've been skipping this technique practically everywhere. And I think it's because of the zoom tool; where one draws till it looks good while zoomed in, and ignores how it will look to everyone else, ignoring in turn important pixeling techniques like Anti-aliasing and blending, and giving free roam to banding (Which is somewhat hard to notice when zoomed in).

I'll use this as an example while im at it



The gold line samples are up, and how the eye percieves it below. This is what I mean.

Blending and AAing on mine makes the line look softer and give a firm shape to the eye, while the sharpness of the pixels on the other gives it an irregular shape; yet while zoomed in, has a different overall appearance. Though it may not be much of a problem on some styles, like FF RW, I think the lack of blending and AAing against the FFT style, which sports very soft sprites no matter where you look, especially monster sprites.

The key here is to blend without exceeding it, and having the preview window your best friend. (Not to mention practicing AAing and blending fundamentals, for best results)


EDIT: This should be the one of the last steps when doing a sprite. Refining the shading, AAing and blending. (Great for a spriting tut)
Im saving this post.

R999

The way I work, I am constantly zooming in and out about 5 times per minute. I often have multiple windows of the same sprite in different sizes for this purpose (500%, 400%, 200%, 100%, you can have multiple windows of the same file in Photoshop). I have also had pixel experience (I worked on small pixel density displays like the iPhone's 320x480 screen) so I know what you are talking about. I can argue for hours over a single pixel in my work (and sometimes for AA reasons).

My workspace looks like this currently,


You do have to keep in mind though, nobody plays FFT in such a small resolution. On Mac OSX, the system wide Ctrl+Mouse Wheel Zoom supports both AA On and AA Off GPU assisted zooms which let me test for that instantly (which I always use). There is not a windows equivalent that I know of though, but this is important when testing for AA zoom.


I am actually surprised that you had this kind of experience before. In the end it is all about what the eye perceives.

As for 100% sized samples, do you also not have a resize function in your editors?  There is a better way to share files... me and Lijj shares original BMP files via Dropbox (an online repository of sorts for us). Any changes we make are instantly reflected in the others computers. Our share currently has something upwards 180MB of files. If you are interested, you are welcome to join in.

Smash

July 09, 2010, 01:31:17 am #16 Last Edit: July 09, 2010, 01:36:05 am by Smash
Why waste time browsing through windows? :P
Good thing GG has this, like Paint before.

[attachment=0:3dtilrrx]Upload.png[/attachment:3dtilrrx]


EDIT: After watching your workplace- Holy shit

Nobody might play FFT in smaller resolutions, but playing with these effects manually greatly boosts the blending mode's capabilities.

R999

^ It's the exact same thing really, but in Photoshop it is a lot faster (GPU assisted zooms) and you can have as many of these preview windows as you like, in any kind of zoom too! Getting off topic here... you should save this for a tutorial.

Zozma

i still agree with the way smash's edited version looks... the sprite will be beautiful if its done that way... come on! lol...
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
Wiegraf: Draw your sword Ramza!
Ramza: But im a monk!!

Kagebunji

  • Modding version: Other/Unknown