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[From hack to indie] Path of the Midnight Sun


Alfred Kamon
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And I don't think there is a darker black than his..?

indulge

For the shading, yeah, it's a disaster for now. Maybe I'll just stick up with part of Eirika's hair which seem to fit Fa's portrait quite well. Let me try.

And sorry if I may piss you off but I never seriously drawed anything in my life, though I may have some inner skill. Talent and skills are two different things IMO, so I may be a not talented spriter (everyone has his own talents) and i won't make awesome sprites, but with exercise I hope to bring out some skills I may possibly have to do at least decent ones.

So why aren't you splicing the entire thing? Jumping straight into doing custom spriting will get you nowhere fast. Unless you have a background in art (which you just said you don't), it's almost impossible to make something look good with custom shading without years of practice.

Just splice. It's easier, and it'll be easier on the players' eyes.

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Good point.

That's because Fa hates being a Princess. =)

that, and also because I don't have idea how to slightly improve her dress, which anyway looks too simple even for a commoner.

That is a terrible reason, because even if she doesn't want to be a princess, she will have to end up dressing like one under the circumstances you put her in. (Walking past the soldiers in the prologue, then instantly fighting, after the fight, fleeing)

What you can do with the dress is add something on top of it that adds a collar, then maybe add a circlet to her forehead. She does look really plain, right now. Most of it has to do with the fact that she only uses 2 colours, red and black. You should look at what other FE females have for dresses.

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indulge

So why aren't you splicing the entire thing? Jumping straight into doing custom spriting will get you nowhere fast. Unless you have a background in art (which you just said you don't), it's almost impossible to make something look good with custom shading without years of practice.

Just splice. It's easier, and it'll be easier on the players' eyes.

It's what I intended to do for most characters, but at least I wanted to make the MC a little more customed... well, okay, I think I'm going to splice more on her and to splice on everything for other characters.

That is a terrible reason, because even if she doesn't want to be a princess, she will have to end up dressing like one under the circumstances you put her in. (Walking past the soldiers in the prologue, then instantly fighting, after the fight, fleeing)

What you can do with the dress is add something on top of it that adds a collar, then maybe add a circlet to her forehead. She does look really plain, right now. Most of it has to do with the fact that she only uses 2 colours, red and black. You should look at what other FE females have for dresses.

oh right, why the hell didn't I think about that

I don't think she is the kind to wear a circlet, but the collar is an interesting suggestion. I'll try, thanks.

maybe a necklace could help too

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It's what I intended to do for most characters, but at least I wanted to make the MC a little more customed... well, okay, I think I'm going to splice more on her and to splice on everything for other characters.

Thank you <3

also, if you want more feedback on your sprites, then you might consider making a spriting topic in the spriting section. Most good spriters don't end up checking the hacking section.

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Should be less thick, uh?

Well, glad that's the only major problem then. Gonna fix that now.

Well, no, her neck shading is also very padded (meaning thick and overshaded), you're still missing one of the FE8 skin shades, her front bangs end abruptly and the shading on them is jarring and jagged.

It's still not that good. Good luck with the problems.

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Don't pat yourself on the back because you think it's the only "major" thing that's wrong. If you're willing to look at all of your mistakes objectively and fix them, you'll improve. Otherwise, you'll stagnate, and that would be a disappointment. There's no need to fear mistakes, but there's also no need for the early stages of cockiness.

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You know, if a person doesn't pat herself on the back every often, she will stagnate as well. You just can't pass from level 1 to 100, growth is made of many little steps and you should stop sometimes and praise yourself for the progress you've done, but also don't stop if you think you can still improve.

I never thought my works didn't have mistakes, but I do know that I made some progress in these days, and I'm just fine with that.

That's all.

Edited by AlfredKamon
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oh god why did i try making sense of this

wtfamidoin.PNG

Bottom left: an idea for a collar thing to make her seem more like royalty, if you don't like that, think Linde, her design for dress was nice.

Top left: Her eyes had black in them, no idea why, also, you were using the fe7 darkest skin tone, it now has FE8 skin tone. Also, usually on the far side of the face there's an outline with the outline colour.

Top right: Proportion things since that was bothering me a lot, the way her dress was going made no sense. Also hair shape, with that type of hair, from the side, you need them to have a flowy shape, not a straight one, straight anything in sprites usually results in disaster. (I can't even sprite straight hair properly)

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Not sure if there's a need to be overly critical towards the sprites, either; I'd prefer more content than lots of time used on sprites, but eh, I'm not the only person around

I think this as well.

But at least I used this time improving my main character and my spriting skills as well.

I just can't add content without characters sprites, sadly. So I won't consider this time wasted. Also because I respect the time others are using to help me.

But don't worry, I have also thought about the third chapter today, which will enhance plot and gameplay.

I just have to go through conditional events.

Astra, thank you for your post.

I don't think a collar would suit her, and I'm going to give Linde's design to my second lord, but I find all the suggestions really useful. I'll get through them tomorrow.

Goodnight.

P.S. By the way, the skin palette was Eirika's...

Edited by AlfredKamon
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@battlegnomes:

It's ok, I still have to draw an angry Fa portrait so I couldn't change it in situations like those. And I can't turn her without moving her, which would be inappropriate. I'll try to talk less and show more in the game, anyway.

That was a good point.

Just have her close her eyes. You can. She's facing towards Helios. A character facing away from another character happens fairly regularly in FE games. Oftentimes, they don't actually move. Though, moving wouldn't be inappropriate. It would indicate a step away from him, like she's turning her back and stepping away, which would show her annoyance.

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  • 2 months later...

Merry Christmas! ^^

I just wanted to share the work I've been doing in the last two months.

Feedback will be very appreciated!

Prologue:

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Chapter 1:

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28l56cy.png2ue1xmw.png

Chapter 2:

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Chapter 3:

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Cameo appearence!

Louise is the main character of a certain anime.

She is a Void Mage and she came to this world with the Void spell "World Door", which allows her to

travel between Dimensions. She will be quite relevant in the plot.

She is the only Void Mage in the game; this class is the ultimate glass cannon.

Void Spells have infinite uses, can't be purchased or sold, and are very, very heavy,

since it takes a long time for Void users to cast magic. For the same reason,

Louise can't cast magic in close combat, and she ends up being an archer with

incredibly high magic power but terribly frail as well.

Ah, Royal Archers can use Magic Arrows, which aren't as powerful as Void Magic, but lighter.

And normal Archers can use Longbows, which are the only 2-3 weapons in the game.

Chapter 4:

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This chapter is quite particular.

Before someone says there is tilespam around Fa, there is an important plot-related reason for those trees to be like that. And also they are

very relevant gameplay-wise.

And uh, yes, Fa is the one summoning the monsters. The goal of this chapter is reaching Fa.

Also, please note the screenshot where << The person which whom Helios talks >> is foretelling something for Louise.

This is a simple case of "Destiny Event"alias a fancy way to define Conditional Events : the plot, the dialogues and events in

general will slightly change depending on which units are still alive, dead, recruited and whatever. Well, there already was

something similar in normal FEs, but it will be more relevant in this hack. Like, Louise will die if she doesn't meet the

requirements for her 'destiny' in this map.

Probably it's the chapter I like the most among the ones I've done till now.

Chapter 5:

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Stealth chapter! Wait is this Fire Emblem or Metal Gear

Yeah, basically istant gameover as soon as you fight an enemy.

The Kingdom of Lazulis has very strict laws which don't allow any clash in its territory, and you need a permission to access every town in the region.

Since Fa and the others don't have time to ask for a permission and they must absolutely reach that house quickly, they'll have to sneak inside the city,

avoiding all the soldiers.

Basically you'll have to trigger specific events and to solve some... puzzles... to progress in this chapter!

I had fun programming it.

So, this is what I have got at the moment.

Feedback will be very appreciated!

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Don't you think adding in characters that aren't your own and making them significant to the plot will look bad for your project?

Mmh, no, why should it?

And tbh I tend to give some importance to all the characters, and not making them appear only in the chapter where they're recruited, disappearing from the following one like if they weren't in the group at all. Basically 'plot relevance' means that for me. Everyone has his own way to contribute to the plot, or to say something which may be really important for the MCs to realize something, etc.

In this case especially, since Louise comes from another world, it'd be interesting to see how she reacts to things which in her world may not even exist, and how people would react to her way of viewing things. Having a character like that is kinda ispiring to me. Also as a character she isn't as random as a Cloud, a Link, or even another FE lord may be. In the material where she comes from, she has the ability to travel between worlds. And in my hack Different Dimensions have great relevance in the plot.

Edited by Alfred Kamon
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I'm.. not the biggest fan of Louise here...

I just hope she won't take over your story. There's risks of "fanboyism" here.

Though apparently, you tried to adress this issue and tried to balance her, so it's a good point here.

That says, it seems like an interresting and ambitious hack. I'll, look forward to it.

And it's a FE8 hack, which doesn't happen really often, so bonus point here ;):

Did you plan to keeps branching promotion ? It may be a little early to ask...

...Anyway, good luck on your project.

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I'm.. not the biggest fan of Louise here...

I just hope she won't take over your story. There's risks of "fanboyism" here.

Though apparently, you tried to adress this issue and tried to balance her, so it's a good point here.

I obviously won't make her an annoying sadist like in the anime. Just keeping her tsundere-ism, her loyalty to a Princess (mine, in this case) and her point of view from another world.

And maybe giving her a little jap speech like seen in the screenshots, but uh, I may discard the idea if it gets ridicolous to write and to read. I just have to test her speech a little more.

And I won't fall into fanboysm. Hell no, please.

Not something like a marriage between a character of mine and her also because she is already married, or a role as main protagonist, or anything else which may elevate her above all the other secondary characters.

As you said, I like the character (mainly her novels counterpart tbh) and I wanted her to be in my hack, without fucking up the whole project for her.

That's all. =)

That says, it seems like an interresting and ambitious hack. I'll, look forward to it.

And it's a FE8 hack, which doesn't happen really often, so bonus point here ;):

Thank you very much! ^^

Did you plan to keeps branching promotion ? It may be a little early to ask...

I will keep branching promotions with new classes as well, and new branched promotions for other ones (for example, Brigand or Soldier. Also the trainee will be more unique).

Special classes won't probably promote / have branched promotions, however. And with 'special' I mean ones which are actually not used by more than one or two characters.

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