Prophet Expansion WIP

[Zephira]

A while ago, V_Translanka, BROJ, Thought, Justin, and a few other people started work on an expansion of the Prophet's sprite sheet. Work on that project has since died, but I'm starting it again. Attached here are all the sprites collected from the last project, with my own additions and edits.
The palette being used is the same 15 colours used for Magus (12 colours for the sprite, 1 transparency, and 2 for the weapon).

Just a general reminder to all spriters out there; remember your palette! 12 is the number you are aiming for! When this sheet was compiled, it had 52 different colours. There were different palettes between each person that worked on this (and even multiple palettes for one person). So if anyone is working together on a sprite sheet, on any project, PLEASE remember to check your palettes!

[FaustWolf]

Once again, Zephira makes Chrono fandom's dreams come true. Looks like an updated "Prophet's Guile" is in order.

[justin3009]

Is size 1 sprite assembly usable so far on the PC's?  I think we're forced to use Size 1 for the prophet because his hood thing is ginorumous.

[V_Translanka]

Lookin good. I always felt bad that I didn't stick with it, but I'm glad it seems as though someone with far more talent for it has taken up the cause! Gotta get PG complete~!! Good luck! And God speed! Or something!

[FaustWolf]

Oooh, what a fine application for the Size 1 patch. Mauron and Vehek have it covered I think.

[mav]

Once again, Zephira makes Chrono fandom's dreams come true. Looks like an updated "Prophet's Guile" is in order.

Word.

Good luck with this, Zephira. Hopefully it won't be daunting at all, and if implementation is easy, then who knows what's in store for us...

[Uboa]

Cool!

[Zephira]

Got three spellcasting frames, one of the HOLY-CRAP-LAVOS-IS-COMING frames, and a test for the back running animation.
The back run was a bit odd. The first try, he looked like he was drunk. On the second it kind of looks like he's flying really fast in midair, because his hood is flopping around a lot. It makes sense for flight, but it might look odd on ground.

Should I straighten the hood, or leave it as is?

[V_Translanka]

I think it looks good...some bits on the right side like right under & where the hood ends kind of bugs me...idk what it is...and sort of the same on the left side on the very edge of the hood, if you watch it animated it's like a pixel or two just sort of drop off...I could just be looking too closely at some of this though...sprites are hard...I'm glad I never had to really deal with doing the animatedness...

Anyways, the new stuff looks great. I love the spellcasting & getting damage sprites.

[Chrono'99]

That looks great. Good luck!

I think you should straighten the hood. The original Magus' head doesn't move in that sprite apart from the point of his hair, but here it looks like the whole head is sliding laterally, Indian-style. Also, in the game this back run animation makes Magus tilt up and down a bit (it's not noticeable on this GIF), so it would look chaotic if parts of his body tilt up and down and left and right like that. The hood probably shouldn't move at all. Or it could maybe tilt down a bit, but due to the perspective it shouldn't be too noticeable.

For the portrait in Prophet's Guile, do you plan to modify CuteLucca's picture or will you use something different? To be honest, I'm not a fan of Toriyama's art...

[V_Translanka]

Is this even going to include the portrait art? Seems like that wouldn't be necessary...Anyone who wanted could change it to w/e they wanted, really...Though it sort of makes sense just to use Toriyama's art of the Prophet so that it would match the other characters & style...

[Chrono'99]

Yeah, that's valid for a general CT patch. The Toriyama art should definitely be used in it.

However FaustWolf mentioned an updated Prophet's Guile, so I'm wondering what's in store for that updated version in particular. It's not as straightforward as simply applying the general patch; there's more work needed, like moving the original Magus spriteset somewhere else in the ROM for the introduction, Mystic flashback and ending sequences (where he has no hood), and some coding tweaks to take that into account. A portrait change seems natural among these various tweaks to do, but the Toriyama art doesn't clearly fit in PG. Despite being (relatively) close to canon, the hack has a distinct atmosphere: the dialogues have a literary style, the current portrait and the ending art are not manga, and even the deep purple-ish window frame doesn't feel Toriyama to me.

[ZeaLitY]

If we really, really wanted to do Prophet's Guile properly, we'd blank all the unused maps in a new ROM and then move everything over in order to achieve a 4 MB ROM without needing to expand. I'm extremely curious if doing that might eliminate the black screen bug for the Ocean Palace (similar to the Retranslation's Blackbird, or CE's chapter 16).

[Vehek]

Sadly, I don't think so. I dug up the last unexpanded Prophet's Guile patch and it still froze in the Ocean Palace.
(And there's also the type of freeze seen when played on the real SNES, BSNES, and I think also SNES 1.51.)

[Zephira]

I didn't plan on doing anything to the portrait. Justin (I think) already did a couple iterations of a Toriyama Prophet portrait, but those really don't seem to fit the PG style. It'll be included in the final sheet anyway as an extra option. As for CuteLucca's portrait, I can't modify it without her permission (and I like it too much). If there is going to be a PG patch in the future, it's up to you guys what picture to use for the portrait. Just remember to ask the artist before using it!

I'll fix the hood on the back run today, and start on the other running sprites. Thanks for all the advice guys!