PSP Style Battle Sprites

[Doug Stormblessed]

IT'S DONE!!!

This project was born from my extreme disappointment with the iOS/PC remake of both FFV and FFVI. I don't come from a strong graphic design background, but I have a good artistic eye in general, so I figured I'd see what I could do by using the FFIV PSP sprites as a template. I think this has been a great success. Given that I want to make this a great experience for other fans I welcome all suggestions. Now that I'm done with the sprites, I'll probably do a video to show off the work in game, but for now I've got an imgur gallery with everything in there.
https://imgur.com/a/tzFQ5

Here's the link for Version 1.0 (replace the [DOT] for it to work): https://mega[DOT]nz/file/0B5AmSxa#mbnVi2zrWEOy9oDwhRu1q0M16MG2oELV8lcTOm3AGHc
This includes: Overworld sprites for the playable characters and all main jobs. There are 50-some NPCs left. Some of those are palette swaps, so theoretically they could get knocked out quickly. I need to take a break from this though. Enjoy the battle sprites. Everything looks fairly cohesive in-game, even with the original NPCs. It's playable and a much more enjoyable experience even without a full NPC replacement, IMHO.

To install you need to extract to the Final Fantasy V\resources folder in your Steam folder. This is typically found in Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY V\resources.

Update 8/21/21
I'm DONE! Done with all the jobs! Finished up the last of the Oracles last week and just added some cut scene animations that were missing. Finally feel comfortable releasing a 1.0 version here: https://mega[DOT]nz/file/0B5AmSxa#mbnVi2zrWEOy9oDwhRu1q0M16MG2oELV8lcTOm3AGHc This was a very long time coming with a lot of hits and misses. Thanks for those who have stuck by this mod. Couldn't have done it without the support of the VG Modding discord. I can't say whether or not I'll do NPCs. I want to take some time away from the game for a bit after being on and off for five years.

In addition to the jobs, I redid the back of Bartz's hair because it was AWFUL. I also did some of the endgame cutscene sprites, moogles, and chocobos which were still using the old iOS sprites. All the main characters have been replaced. Shoot me a note here or on discord if you find something that looks off and I'll look at it.

Update 7/25/21
Finally finished the Necromancers. Oracles are next (THE LAST JOB!). Shoutout to the VG Research & Modding discord, especially Spyros for doing a full test run with the sprites. Because of his help I was able to discover that the mini status needed to be remade. Based on the board's feedback I decided to use the FFRK sprites as "mini" status as a nod to the original graphics. In addition to minis and oracles, there are a few odd overworld PC sprites that I need to do. Reminder that Steam will stop selling this version on the 27th (https://www.siliconera.com/ffv-and-ffvi-pc-versions-will-be-delisted-from-steam-in-july-2021/). I'm hopeful that these sprites will work with the Pixel Remaster too, but if you've been holding off buying it you should go ahead and purchase.

Update 3/21/21
Yikes, I wanted to update this more often. Real-world stuff got busy, so I took a break from spriting for a while. The good news is that I'm done with the Cannoneers now (in the imgur link above). I only have 8 jobs left to sprite (Oracle & Necromancer). I've also been messing around with NPC stuff. Not sure if that'll go anywhere, but I got a start on the scholar npc. Also looked into the issue where statuses don't show up in battle. The game originally stored the sprites in .dat files as three separate images (PNGs) which need to be merged into a single file for editing. Thanks to HawkX and Saftle on the VG Research & Modding discord for their help in trying to crack it. If anyone wants to do more research on it here's a good explanation of what we're dealing with https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-26815.html.

Update 2/8/21
Finished Lenna and Krile's gladiator jobs this weekend. Really happy with their final looks. Also finished Boco's sprite. Those are up in the gallery above. Started working on cannoneer jobs. I feel like I have a decent start on that.

Update 2/1/21
Gladiator jobs are my favorite so far, but they're taking a long time due to the amount of detail. I've completed Bartz & Faris. Hopefully Lenna & Krile don't take so long. I don't plan to spend as much time on the other advance jobs. I also worked on a re-texture for the chocobo that's in the gallery. Unfortunately I won't be able to use to for Boco (Bartz' chocobo companion) but there are some scenes where regular chocobos exist, so it's not a total loss. One positive is that it can be used in FFVI as well and it should fit in nicely with the Atma Weapon/AWR releases. Check out the gallery above. Going to work on Lenna and Krile's gladiators next.

Update 1/18/2021
After playing through some of the game with the last release, I noticed the jarring transition from battle & overworld sprites during cut scenes, so I made the decision to fully redo the PCs' overworld sprite poses. I'm pretty happy with the turnout. Don't have much else to say. You can see the full sprites in the above gallery.

Next up: Advance jobs, then misc PC things like mini, frog, moogle, chocobo riders, etc. Once those are done I might start on the NPCs.

As always, comments are welcome. Enjoy!

Below is my "blog" if you want to read the updates as they come.

Update 10/3/20
Finished all but the optional "advance" jobs for the four mains. Link is above. I also started work on Bartz & Lenna overworld sprites a few months back, but didn't want to "release" it. There are some events ingame that use some battle posses in the cut scenes, so I wanted to make those a little more cohesive. I'll probably make overworld sprites for Galuf, Faris & Krile for that reason. I don't know how many NPCs I'll get to because it's so time consuming, but I probably at least need to do the PCs. Anyway, hope you enjoy. I'm almost happy with this release. There will be more to come, but this is a pretty decent milestone. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Update 9/27/20
Finished Krile's Dancer and Chemist along with Bartz & Lenna's Mimes. I redid both of their Freelancers a few months back to clean them up. Doing the same with Faris now, so it's taking a bit longer for her Mime, but it's gonna be worth it. She already looks way better http://imgur.com/bCAdUVu. Shouldn't be too much longer until all I have left are the Advance Jobs. Haven't really planned out how to tackle those yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. There's been a frequently asked question about how the Gladiator job will look. I plan to work off the original concept art (https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Gladiator_(Final_Fantasy_V)?file=Gladiator_FFV.png) and not the iOS concept (ie the Roman gladiator look). That concept fits the original sprites and IMHO looks a lot cooler. Once I finish the Mime jobs I'll fine tune the positioning of the sprites and do another beta release. I'll try to update this space again next week.

Update 9/20/20
Been a while since I gave an updated. Pandemic slowed me down a bit in the beginning, but I wanted to assure everyone that the project isn't dead. I'm just bad at posting here. I've got about 20 jobs left to sprite; Krile's Dancer & Chemist, the 16 Advance Jobs, and 4 Mimes (which are just capes on the Freelancers). You can check out the progress in the links above. I've tested most of these in game and they look good. I've thought about posting a video, but I just haven't had the time. I'd rather spend what free time I have doing the sprite art. Anyway, Dancer and Chemist are coming up next, then I'll probably tackle the Mimes, and move on to the advance jobs. I'm terrible with deadlines, but I'll be back "soon" with an update.

Update 3/9/20
Added Krile's Black, White & Blue Mages. Updates are going to be slow for the next few weeks. Took a gig with a local production company that's going to take all of my free time. On the plus side I have a pretty good map on how to speed through the rest of Krile's jobs. 91/126 jobs (72%) done. On the homestretch.

Update 1/13/20
Nothing fancy. Added Krile's Monk & Thief to the image board this past week. Starting on her mages this week. Hoping to keep to the two a week schedule.

Update 1/6/2020
Took a little break from the project for the holidays. I've uploaded a better draft of Krile and Lenna's freelancers along with Kriles Knight. I may or may not use the one for Lenna as I'd need to go back through all her sprites and update them with new faces. Let me know what you think of those. If the general consensus is that they're good, I'll work on new faces & hair for Bartz & Faris. That said, I'm going to focus on Krile for the time being and modify the others when I find the time. I'm going through a new process for making Krile's job sprites, so hopefully it can go somewhat quickly. With this process it'll take longer to get the first four or five done, but I have a decent start with her Knight and Monk, so maybe not. Anyway, just wanted to give this quick update. Happy New Year!

Update 12/22/19
I've finished up all 21 jobs for the four main characters, gotten them placed and cleaned up so that there's no big glitches. I've uploaded the .dat files to MEGA. All you need to do is extract the .zip file to your /Final Fantasy V/resources folder. Make sure to back up the folder before replacing the files just in case something glitches or you want to go back to the original sprites. I want to be clear that I'm still not done with Krile's or the Advance jobs, so PLEASE treat this as an alpha or pre-alpha version of the mod. I'm going to start on Krile after the first of the year and hopefully finish everything up by the end of March, but that'll be a tall order.

I did a rework of Faris' freelancer since it's never read well to me. I did some work on the other freelancers, but Faris was the most different. Now, without further ado, here's the MEGA link (Steam can be weird about links, so just replace the [DOT] with a period):

https://mega[DOT]nz/#!sIJXyIza!GHPRL-ZChMf39_eDurXT8MJB12M9Nk2MLNX0dY3g_eY

As always, comments are welcome. Enjoy!

EDIT: Updated Link

Update 12/7/19
Made great progress this week. I completed the Chemist & Samurai jobs and Bartz Dancer. That leaves three more dancers until I do an alpha release. I'm hoping to have that done next weekend. This puts me at 82/126 (65%) for the whole shebang. Not quite there yet, but I've been averaging 3-4 sheets a week. I'm hopeful that I can match that pace with Krile since it's just one character with multiple costumes and I'm much more experienced than I was when I started this project. As always, any comments are appreciated. I also changed Galuf's Mystic Knight & Ninja faces to a side view at Child0fTheMind's suggestion. Not sure if I uploaded the new versions to imgur, but it looks more consistent in-game, so I appreciate the note.

Update 12/1/19
Been working hard for the past few weeks. Finished up the Beastmaster job, Bartz Chemist & Galuf's Samurai. This update took a bit longer because I was troubleshooting the placement of all 78 sheets I've completed thus far. This is in anticipation of a release. I'm still fine tuning all the placements and want to finish up the Samurai, Chemist & Dancer jobs before doing an alpha release, playable until you get Krile. With some luck I can get a release out in mid-December. From there I'll start on Krile's jobs.

Update 11/15/19
Took a George RR Martin long break, but I feel really good about where I'm at with the project after some solid work. I've completed Bartz, Lenna, Galuf & Faris' Ranger, Bard & Geomancer jobs and finished up Lenna & Galuf's Dragoon jobs. I've got a decent start on Bartz's Beastmaster, so that's taking shape (hoping to finish this week). I really want to thank everyone for the words of encouragement here and reddit. I tried to respond when I could. My life got super busy and I haven't had the free time to devote to this project. I wanted to let folks know that it's still on my radar. I'm hoping to power through these last EIGHT jobs (Beastmaster, Dancer, Chemist, Mime [really freelancer w/cape], Gladiator, Cannoneer, Oracle & Necromancer) and then knock out Krile's jobs. I know it's a weird order to work in, but my thought was that I could release something to get people 70% through the game and then work on Krile. Progress pics are in the links above. This puts the project a little over half-way (56%).

Update 4/3/18
Getting back into the swing of things. Mystic Knight and Ninja classes are done for the four mains. Those are in the links above. I'm on a roll right now, so hopefully the momentum continues. I've read a lot of comments asking for some kind of release, so I'll put something together soon. I don't want to relase something half-baked, so please be patient. There's still a lot of work to go.

Update 11/6/17
Made decent progress this past month. Finished up Lenna's Summoner, Bartz Mystic Knight & Galuf Mystic Knight. Worked on Lenna's hair to make her a little more feminine. The only sprite in the gallery that shows this change is her summoner (and the dropbox link in the comments below). Will update the rest later. Once I get Lenna & Faris' Mystic Knights done I plan to work on the sprite positioning and release the .dat files of my progress so far. I really haven't tested the dropbox links below, so they could be really jumps or cut off the sprites' heads/feet. Hopefully I can get to that in the next few weeks.

Update 10/6/17
Holy crap, it's been a year since I started this project! I had to take a break for several months and I've had my attention get pulled in several directions, but I think I've hit another small stride. Over the past few weeks I finished up Berserkers, Red Mages, Time Mages & three Summoners. I've got 48 out of 126 sprites done now (38%). I've been able to improve some of my process and generally have a better feel for what I'm doing. It's still very slow work though since I'm doing everything by hand. I'll try to be better about posting here, but I'm uploading to imgur as the sprites get done.

Update 11/6
Took a week away from the computer and spent the other week working on some various tweaks. Tried a bunch of stuff for the Berserkers. A lot didn't pan out, but I finished up Bartz, Galuf & Faris' berserkers today. These have been the most time-consuming, learning how to texture the fur and working on different poses. I'm going to work on Lenna's berserker next. The other water crystal jobs shouldn't be too hard since I can reuse a lot of assets between the mages. Hopefully I can finish those up by the end of the month. Sprites are in the gallery.

Update 10/23
I finished the wind crystal jobs this week, so that means that Bartz, Lenna, Galuf & Faris have sprites for their knight, thief, white, black & blue mages, and monk jobs in addition to freelancers and a few other misc jobs that I felt like doing at the time for a total of 33/126 sheets completed. Per my update below, I also solved my ghosting problem and that solution also makes the sprite files more compact, so that means less bandwidth. Still making great progress, so hooray! I may take the week off from spriting and work on the positioning guides. There's also a little bit of cleanup I need to do on the thieves and Bartz' white mage. All that means is that I may not update next week because there really won't be any apparent visual changes.

Update 10/12
This past week was a little rough, but I got my requisite three sprite sheets done. The set of knights and monks are finished and I'm currently finishing up Galuf's thief which will be the last of the thieves. That means that I've only got the 2 white and the 4 blue mages to complete for the wind crystal jobs to be done. I'm hoping to get Galuf & Bartz's white mages done this weekend. As of last night I was at 26 characters, so I'm over the 20% mark! I also reorganized my sprite albums so that they're a little easier to browse.

Update 10/4
Four weeks into the project and I have 21 sheets done, just shy of 20%. Goal is still 3-4 per week, but I killed it this past weekend. The black mage poses are identical, which doesn't make me satisfied from an artistic standpoint, but it's a huge leap toward completing the project. I may revisit (or invite others to revisit) the poses once everything is done - cause the goal is to get something playable before I burn out. I've potentially got a huge project lined up for late December which would keep me busy through February, so the sooner I complete this, the better.

[Saftle]

That looks amazing. Keep it up! Will definitely be following closely.

[Michael the Meek]

Dude, those sprites are kick butt!

[Runics Kaiser]

They looks so sweet! Keep up the good work!

[Doug Stormblessed]

Thanks! I just finished all five freelancers (gallery updated). Debating on how detailed to go into the jobs. I could half-ass it and be more likely to complete everything (ie give each job a distinct hat and leave it at that) or go all-out and risk burning myself out before I get done. I don't like being lazy about it, but I feel like it's the smarter move. Once it's complete and playable I could go back and rework and tweak. I'm currently working on the thief and the clothes are taking a really long time.

[Weretiger Rei]

Bartz Dragoon needs his mask

[Doug Stormblessed]

I've updated the gallery. Got about 15 jobs done. And yes, I added a mask to Bartz Dragoon. Dont remember if I reuploaded the image though. I'm trying to dash through these, so any help in pointing these things out helps. There's a lot to keep track of.

[Andar]

This is incredible. It's everything I wanted out of this game, but was originally denied. Thanks for all your work on this so far, and looking forward to what follows.

[Michael the Meek]

I really hope you do Final Fantasy 6 as well.

[Andar]

Originally posted by Michael the Meek:

I really hope you do Final Fantasy 6 as well.

I dunno, given the amount of work still left in FF5 alone, I feel like the best outcome would be for Fuji's work to inspire someone else to handle FF6. I say this because on top of the time it would take for both to reach completion, I feel like anyone would get burnt out before finishing two games' sprite mods back to back, especially when the first one has job classes with unique sprites.

[Doug Stormblessed]

Originally posted by Michael the Meek:

I really hope you do Final Fantasy 6 as well.

Yeah, FF6 is up there with Chrono Trigger as my favorite game ever. I feel like I can cut corners in FF5 (within reason) and still feel like I'm doing it justice. I'm also just working on battle (profile) sprites for FF5 for this mod. I'd need to look closer at the sheets for FF6, but I think the battle sprites are the same as the overworld sprites, meaning I'd need to do front-facing and back-facing sprites in addition to profile (essentially 2.5 times the work) for all the mains and NPCs in order for it to look consistent. And there are a lot of unique NPCs in FF6.

After I finish with the battle sprites and put out a solid release, I plan to work on an overworld patch for FF5. By that point I'm hoping someone else will have started working on FF6. There seemed like some good activity on the FF6 board, so I'm hoping that continues.

[Saftle]

Originally posted by MtfujiInMyPants:

I'd need to look closer at the sheets for FF6, but I think the battle sprites are the same as the overworld sprites, meaning I'd need to do front-facing and back-facing sprites in addition to profile (essentially 2.5 times the work) for all the mains and NPCs in order for it to look consistent. And there are a lot of unique NPCs in FF6.

After I finish with the battle sprites and put out a solid release, I plan to work on an overworld patch for FF5. By that point I'm hoping someone else will have started working on FF6. There seemed like some good activity on the FF6 board, so I'm hoping that continues.

Well, when the time comes, if you ever need help with FF6, let me or Kafziel know. Sadly it's a lot more complex than FF5, since it doesn't use PNGs, but instead BMPs in Indexed Mode. Eitherway, it's easy once you have a gameplan. I listed the steps on the FF6 Original Sprites thread, if anyone is interested.

[Doug Stormblessed]

I knew I had read your name somewhere. Really like what you're doing with the retro sprite conversion. I may check out your methods once I get a little further on the ffv sprites.

[Krisan Thyme]

As I said before on reddit, if ever you need anything you should feel free to drop me a line. I'd be more than happy to help. In the meantime, keep up the good work!

[Doug Stormblessed]

Appreciate it. I made a lot of progress this weekend and I'm almost done with the wind crystal jobs. I'm still having a ghosting issue, but I think that's more of a photoshop issue with the way it treats PNG transparency. I still need to test the bilinear filter removal tool. I've just been super focused on spriting. It might be something really simple, like substituting a dark brown outline for the hard black I'm using right now. The issue doesn't seem to affect the Bartz monk, which has a brown outline. I don't know enough about the file format, so maybe photoshop saves some additional data in the alpha channel or something. I'm going to play around with the filter and photoshop this week to see if I can figure it out. I may drop you a PM if something comes up that I can't figure out.

EDIT: Just tried the filter removal and it solved my ghosting issue. It was bizarre because sometimes a white border appeared in different places depending on which colors I used or if I had deleted the background and recolored the borders black. I was convinced it was something to do with the Photoshop, but nothing was making sense. As is typical, the simplest answer was the right one. Go figure.

EDIT2: I actually found the root of the problem. Photoshop defaults the alpha background color for PNGs as white and the bilinear filter was picking up that color and blending it with the border, which caused the white ghosting. What a horrible design, but whatever. I fixed the issue on my end by saving the PNGs for web with a black background color, which is what I'm using for my sprite borders. Just wanted to document the process here in case anybody comes across the same issue with their own mods.

[Taliesin]

This looks amazing! I can't offer any support, but I think you're doing a great job!