The VG Resource

Okay, so the request was just for portraits, but I figured that while I’m playing the game, I should rip everything I can, ‘cause I really love the graphics in this game! (Actually, I love almost everything about it, except the end game. It woulda been so much better if they hadn’t tried to tie it in to Chrono Trigger…) This is the first time I’ve played it not on New Game+ since it was brand new. I had no idea it was this hard to go through Guile’s path…I hope I can actually survive the Viper Manor sequence. I had Nikki in the party during the dream at the beginning, so I didn’t want to recruit him this go-round, but I hardly like the idea of starting with the narcissist…

But let’s start with the game icons. I’ve made a bunch of them, and I’m not sure which one I like best:






Although I am kind of leaning towards the two with Kid and the ocean, 'cause I like the contrast of her red clothes and the blues of the ocean and the sky. But then again, Serge is the lead, so...yeah, I have no idea...

All right, so here’s what’s currently fully ripped and ready to go. We have the party portraits you see when you’re at the equipment stores (well, equipment forges, really) because they’re all conveniently provided in the VRAM even at the very beginning when you only have Serge in the party. I wasn’t quite sure what to call them on the icon, though…




Anyway, then we have the first four dialog boxes. (I’ve already ripped the fifth one, but I don’t have it ready yet.)









And now I have some questions. The key items in this game get huge, lovely images, and I’ve been ripping those as well. However, I was thinking I should probably wait and submit them in a combined form rather than one at a time. What do other people think on the subject?

Also, what about backgrounds? They’re pretty fragmented, but less so than the ones in FFVII and FFVIII, from what I can tell. As an example, here’s the fragmentation of the background for the house in Termina where Glenn and Dario grew up:

Is that too messy to deal with, or should I be grabbing those as well? (Ignore that third column; it's the overlays for things Serge can walk behind, plus some of a different screen.)

Next, I’m having some trouble with the name select font. It’s a much nicer font than the standard font, so I wanted to include it as well, but…it’s weird. At first, I thought I just couldn’t find the right palette for it, but now I’m pretty sure that’s not the problem. Here’s what it looks like in the game:

And here’s what it looks like as ripped:

As you can see, the darker, shadow-like version is the lower one on the game screen, but as ripped, it’s the higher one. (Errrr....as you'd be able to see if it was about twice that size anyway...I wasn't thinking about that...I should've scaled up a small sample so the problem would be more evident...) If you pick a palette where the higher one is lighter, then it just looks messed up. Any advice?


Finally, some questions about the portraits. Regarding the NPC portraits, should I wait and group them, or just put them out one at a time? I was thinking grouping would make more sense…
And how about the PC portraits? Should I do sheets with each character’s dialog and menu portraits, or sheets with groups of dialog portraits and other sheets with groups of menu portraits? If I do group them, then how many should be included at once? I think trying to include all of them might make the file a bit large and unwieldy, especially for the menu portraits…

Oh, yes, about the menu portraits! This is how they look when they’re ripped:

Should I leave them like that, or should I reconstruct them?


Final question. Some of the higher level spells have some effects that seem to be sprite-based. (Like the one Call Meteor (or something like that; I had it during the opening dream sequence…) for example.) Any interest in me grabbing those as well?

Zomg. Yes. Any flat object is fair game. I'd reconstruct those menu portraits. And save all the key items for one sheet. One other small critique is that I'd center the border on those icons so they look nice and uniform. I'm very excited you're doing this!

For the section icon I'd use one of the first two Kid icons.

Assembling them is no challenge, the stripes going from the left to the right and from above to below, grid is 16x16. In comparison to Legend of Mana, it's Kindergarten.

How about teamin' up? Extract all maps and send me the files in a zip, I'll do the rest. Well... almost, I'll need the names after finishing them

There's actually a tool for assembling the backgrounds.
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/i...328.0.html

There are so many backgrounds. How would you submit them?

(06-28-2012, 05:25 PM)Vehek Wrote: [ -> ]There's actually a tool for assembling the backgrounds.
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/i...328.0.html

There are so many backgrounds. How would you submit them?

Wow! There's a tool for it?! Totally awesome! Thanks for letting us know about it! I'm gonna go download that right away! Now if only it'd work for other PS1 Square games...

Anyway, I'm thinking submitting the backgrounds in sheets by location, so like one sheet for Arni Village, one sheet for Termina, that kind of thing. Some of them might need different sheets for the two worlds, but I think most of them are similar enough that I'd only need one or two alternate backgrounds. (It's been years since I last played the game, so I'm having trouble coming up with the specific details...)

(06-28-2012, 04:18 PM)Davy Jones Wrote: [ -> ]Assembling them is no challenge, the stripes going from the left to the right and from above to below, grid is 16x16. In comparison to Legend of Mana, it's Kindergarten.

How about teamin' up? Extract all maps and send me the files in a zip, I'll do the rest. Well... almost, I'll need the names after finishing them

If that tool doesn't work out, then teaming up would be great! If it does work, though, I think that'd probably be easier on everyone, right?

(06-28-2012, 03:11 PM)Tonberry2k Wrote: [ -> ]Zomg. Yes. Any flat object is fair game. I'd reconstruct those menu portraits. And save all the key items for one sheet. One other small critique is that I'd center the border on those icons so they look nice and uniform. I'm very excited you're doing this!

For the section icon I'd use one of the first two Kid icons.

Okay, I'll reconstruct the menu portraits. I'm thinking I"ll probably do sheets by character, because if I wait until I have all the dialog and menu portraits, it'll be a *long* time until I can post them, 'cause I'll have to go into at least a third go-round to get all of Pip's variations. (Wouldn't be a problem if it didn't take so long for him to evolve, but as I recall, it takes about half the game for him to go from starting point to ending point...) Though I suppose it's technically possible that all of Pip's variations might be in the VRAM at once, but...it seems unlikely, given what I've seen so far.

I'll fix up the dialog box icons to be uniform. I'll do shrunk down versions of the larger frames and enlarged versions of the smaller frames, and see what looks better. (Or maybe put 'em both up and let others decide...)

I think I'm leaning towards the section icon where Kid is looking off into the distance. Something about it really seems right somehow.

I'm hoping to have the save icons soon, but I'm having the worst trouble finding the right palette for them. (Which is, I suppose, the same problem I'm having with the font, really...) I swear, sometimes it seems like the save state literally fails to catch the palettes for everything on screen.

Overall, I think it'd be easier to have sheets for menu portraits, store portraits, speech portraits, etc.

It's easier as Ton has mentioned. Keeping all of one sort of thing makes more sense with regards to menus.

I would suggest combining the dialog boxes into a single sheet and naming them "Dialog Boxes" though - that'd probably just be easiest.

(06-30-2012, 04:35 AM)Dazz Wrote: [ -> ]It's easier as Ton has mentioned. Keeping all of one sort of thing makes more sense with regards to menus.

I would suggest combining the dialog boxes into a single sheet and naming them "Dialog Boxes" though - that'd probably just be easiest.

Oh. Okay, I can do that. I won't be able to submit it for a while, though; it takes a while to get to them all. I'm still only in Viper Manor. (Didn't actually end up playing any of it yesterday...)

I should be able to get the fonts, save game icons/portraits and backgrounds out sooner, though. That background viewer works really well...although it'll still be a while on the backgrounds just sorting through them all. I hadn't ever stopped to think about just how many locations there are in that game before...

Oh, speaking of backgrounds! About the children's drawings in the orphanage in Kid's flashback/nightmare/thing and Glenn's childhood drawings in the house where he grew up...should I include those with the backgrounds they were imposed over, or should they be their own sheet? It's my instinct to put them by themselves, but...it'd be my instinct to group portraits by character rather than portrait type, so...any thoughts?

Take your time.
And if they're their own images, I don't see why you shouldn't give them their own sheet.

Is everything here okay to upload? Just confirming because there's so much text in this thread I can't really tell what's going on so much.

Wait on it for now, Jetters.

(07-31-2012, 03:19 PM)Mighty Jetters Wrote: [ -> ]Is everything here okay to upload? Just confirming because there's so much text in this thread I can't really tell what's going on so much.

(07-31-2012, 03:50 PM)Tonberry2k Wrote: [ -> ]Wait on it for now, Jetters.

Actually, the store/mini portraits should be okay as they are; it's got the whole cast already, so unless they need to be merged with something else, that one should be good to go.

Anyway, I don't have much, because I got hooked on the game I was playing on my PS3, so I haven't been putting much time into anything else (still only up to the Dragonian Ruins in playing this game) and haven't really been preparing any of the stuff I've ripped so far. (Though that mostly only applies to the textures anyway; the portraits are going to require a lot more time. And trying to sort through the backgrounds is turning out to be a bit of a headache, so I can't do much of it at a time...) In any event, I do at least have the save game icons:




I probably won't have anything more for a long while (the backgrounds may end up waiting until I've finished everything else, or they might not; hard to say with me) so I just wanted to put up a little something as proof that I haven't abandoned the project.

That's actually nowhere near the whole cast. O_O Is that just how many save icons there are?

(08-01-2012, 06:49 PM)Tonberry2k Wrote: [ -> ]That's actually nowhere near the whole cast. O_O Is that just how many save icons there are?

Yeah, that's all the save game icons there are. They didn't bother making more than the PSX save card could hold. (Makes sense, right?)

But the store portraits, way back on the first post, that's all the playable characters. It even has all the variations on Pip.

Got it!