Author Topic: Magus' Portrait  (Read 2624 times)

FaustWolf

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Magus' Portrait
« on: December 23, 2007, 01:15:42 pm »
Neuga Zeina Zieber Zom...now the chosen time has come...exchange this portrait for...!

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9218/ingametestiida8.gif

I've still got some touching up to do -- some colors appear on the wrong pixels. What do you guys think? Is it suitable? I much prefer the "Darth Badass" look done by CuteLucca to Toriyama's zombie-vampire, but I'll let the directors of this project be the judges.

To give you an idea of the quality lost during palette reduction, I've attached a comparison at the end of this post. It's amazing how you can squeeze over a thousand colors out a pic and still end up with something that retains some semblance of the original. The thing that bothers me most right now are the eyes -- he's starting to look like one of those Marvel superheroes without irises. I'll see what I can do.

By the way, has there been a final decision on whether to implement an ending pic? If a pic will be used and palette reduction needs done on that, I'll offer to take care of that while I'm at it; but it probably won't be as big a deal since that will likely have a 256 color palette allotted...I hope. What dimensions did the Japanese version ending pic have?


[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: December 23, 2007, 01:18:35 pm by FaustWolf »

FaustWolf

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2007, 02:53:36 pm »
This is about as good as it's gonna get.


We can now devote an entire color to his iris, so I can make it bright red if you guys prefer a demonic look. Also, the leading edges of his cape might be too shiny; I can probably work on that if it's a problem. Let me know if you'd like to use this and I'll hand over the relevant snippets of code from my test ROM so you can include it in the final patch.

Should I make him face the other way?

Major creds to Zeality for the most user-friendly graphics hacking wiki entry EVAR!! The only thing I could possibly add is a clarification to the hacker that the .bmp file should be 16 colors, with the actual used colors placed in the last 15 positions in the palette; the first palette entry should be some unused color that the game can dummy out as a transparency. Easily taken care of with a color replacer tool (not sure if IrfanView has that, but Paint Shop Pro does luckily). Thanks Zeality!

« Last Edit: December 23, 2007, 03:41:42 pm by FaustWolf »

justin3009

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2007, 08:05:28 pm »
Only thing that bothers me is that his hair looks gray.  Shouldn't it be blue?  Other then that, that's pretty damn good looking.

nightmare975

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2007, 08:10:48 pm »
Only thing that bothers me is that his hair looks gray.  Shouldn't it be blue?  Other then that, that's pretty damn good looking.

Looks blue to me.

FaustWolf

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #4 on: December 23, 2007, 08:26:32 pm »
The hair turned out sort of a teal color from the first phase of palette reduction. Here's a snip of the original CuteLucca art:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,4927.msg85820.html#msg85820

Click to zoom in.

I can see what Justin's saying. The original CuteLucca piece had blue-er hair and a purple-er cloak. I might be able to salvage that color scheme, actually. When's the last possible moment to turn in data for the project? Anyone know?

I'm gonna try to get his hair blue-er and his cloak purple-er. The face and eyes should remain as-is. Should just be a quick color replace. I'll post results tonight.

- - - -

EDIT: Hmm, it may be rough going because some of the shadowing on Magus' face is linked to the teal hues used on his hair. I'll see what I can do.
« Last Edit: December 23, 2007, 09:07:20 pm by FaustWolf »

ZeaLitY

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #5 on: December 23, 2007, 08:52:17 pm »
Hell, that looks great. This hack is now going to have the full treatment if the ending art is feasible. We've got music remixes, a tiny, tiny character graphics hack, a menu art replacement, an ending art.

FaustWolf

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #6 on: December 23, 2007, 09:01:51 pm »
Quick recolor: take your pick between this and the previous version. We've got one day left, right? So there's time for other critiques. Let me know if you need help with the ending art, since I've excused myself from the Cross hacking thread for the time being.

Yeah, I think that's as blue as his hair can get realistically; bumping up the blue value on the very darkest visible hue turns him into a smurf wannabe.

[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: December 23, 2007, 09:10:08 pm by FaustWolf »

ZeaLitY

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #7 on: December 23, 2007, 09:11:28 pm »
I thought I'd pick the other at first, but after a side-by-side comparison, something about that deep blue won me over. Bright red wouldn't be so good, but there's at least some dark ruby in there, right?

justin3009

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #8 on: December 23, 2007, 09:14:08 pm »
2nd one, dear god yes.  That one fits perfectly.

FaustWolf

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #9 on: December 23, 2007, 09:19:14 pm »
Gotcha. Gotta break for now, but later tonight I'll put up a final screenie with some ruby-er eyes and I'll post the necessary data as well. If I give you guys the data, can you fit it into the patch you're using?

ZeaLitY

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2007, 09:24:55 pm »
Assuming you didn't make any other changes with Temporal Flux (that you've only edited the portrait graphics and the palette), you can take Lunar IPS and an unheadered, unmodified ROM and just make a patch.

FaustWolf

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2007, 11:37:32 pm »
Alrighty. So I can give you guys the resulting patch after I've used Lunar IPS?

Silly question time, but the issue is bugging me and I need second opinions. The pic below shows two different final versions for Magus' portrait, and only a single freaking pixel is different between the two. The panel on the left ("1") emphasizes the amber/ruby-ishness in Magus' eyes from far away, but if you zoom in close (not possible in-game of course; only with a screencap) it makes him look like he's got freaking laser eyes. Panel two has the eye color less pronounced from afar, but doesn't suffer the weirdness up close.

I guess I actually prefer #2, but what do you guys think?

[attachment deleted by admin]

nightmare975

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #12 on: December 23, 2007, 11:46:29 pm »
go with #2

ZeaLitY

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #13 on: December 23, 2007, 11:48:54 pm »
2 looks good. Yeah, the attachment system allows IPSes, so you can just upload it here.

FaustWolf

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Re: Magus' Portrait
« Reply #14 on: December 23, 2007, 11:54:59 pm »
Very good, I'll go with 2 and attach a patch in this thread by tomorrow morning probably. Is the project on schedule for a Christmas release? I can't wait!

EDIT: Here's the patch and a finalized screencap. I made the patch using an unheadered ROM 4,194,304 bytes in size -- I hope that works out okay for the project. If not, I'll need to track down whatever size ROM you guys have been using.

Now that this is done, do you guys need any more graphical assistance? I'm free all day tomorrow except Christmas preparation, so let me know. Any word on the ending pic idea that was kicked around earlier?

[attachment deleted by admin]
« Last Edit: December 24, 2007, 01:34:53 am by FaustWolf »