Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

For discussion of Lunar: The Silver Star, the original game for the Sega CD
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Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Enclave »

I was flipping through scans from the LUNAR I&II artbook over in this thread when I noticed that some of the images on the Luna and Alex pages looked exactly like images shown in pre-release screenshots. I took a look at the actual pre-release screens, and yep, they're a match.

Luna

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Image

Alex

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Image

The only difference I can see between pre-release and artbook Luna (besides the hair color :P) is that pre-release Luna has some stich-like things on the left side of her shirt, while artbook Luna doesn't.

Alex, however has quite a few differences with the art in the art book. First off, he has a mullet, while artbook Alex doesn't. His coat is purplish in the pre-release screenshot, while the artbook Alex has a brown coat. Pre-release Alex has a slightly-off-looking smile with his teeth exposed, but artbook Alex has a basic smile. Pre-release Nall's back is purple-blueish, while artbook Nall has the final colors. For some reason, the flaps on pre-release Alex's ushanka are green, but are the same color as the rest of the hat on artbook Alex. Finally, pre-release Alex is tilted slightly right compared to artbook Alex as well.

Basically, my feeling is that the images seen in the artbook are later versions of the art shown in the pre-release screenshots.
Last edited by Enclave on Fri May 30, 2014 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Kizyr »

It's not terribly surprising, since I figure the best character portraits would probably form the best basis for the in-game artwork. However:
Enclave wrote:Alex, however has quite a few differences with the art in the art book. First off, he has a mullet, while artbook Alex doesn't.
In all my years of playing Lunar and seeing the changes in the artwork between concept and the final game, I've never before noticed that Alex used to have a mullet. ...I'm real glad they got rid of that in production. KF
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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Sonic# »

I've never before noticed that Alex used to have a mullet. ...I'm real glad they got rid of that in production.
Really, Kizyr? I thought it was a common rule in media involving dragons that masters of mullets* master dragons.

Master the mullet
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Master the dragon
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Master the mullet
Image
Master the dragon
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St. George doesn't quite have a mullet:
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But he doesn't have short hair and a hat either:
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*as ambiguously defined as it is in the portrait above. Thanks for sharing, by the way. Seriously, I've always liked the pre-production stuff, but am very glad the mullet didn't stay.
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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Alunissage »

I had thought a mullet referred to a much smaller, nearly nonexistent ponytail thingy, not something that would actually be visible from the front. Then again, I'm working off the example pointed out to me in 1989 or something.

Looking at the pics in the original post (nice catches, by the way), I'm rather inclined to think that the line art was drawn (presumably by Kubooka) and then someone else colored them for the stills. The one of Alex looks almost to me like someone did a quick sketch or trace of the line art and then colored it in, perhaps carelessly -- look at the shape of his finger. The line are may then have been recolored for the version shown in the artbook. Or, both may have been colored and cleaned up from the same initial rough sketch; Nall's paws are also more reasonably positioned in the artbook pic and his folded wing is visible, while it's just a shadow in the still. If that's the case, then the extraneous hair might have been a misinterpretation of a line, as seems to have have happened with Nall's wing.

I actually own some of the original character line art and early colored versions (in crayon and colored pencil!) for the other party members, but not Luna and Alex. Pity we don't have similar preproduction stills of them.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by AkagisWhiteComet »

With an early AV production game for a console like LUNAR, such a thing as having items that were lifted directly from conceptual art and used in-game is not strange. The ultimate thing this did was save production costs.

One of the most glaring examples is in two of the promotional images created for LUNAR. In them, Alex is in the near exact same pose with near exact same gear and artistic impression. There are only minor differences in gear.

Image

Image

Also, some of the full bodied character portraits of the characters were used for their introductions and portrait shots. You'll notice in the Silver Star when you meet Ramus, Jessica, and Kyle, they all three use the same character stance and design from their full body shots. Mia uses a portrait shot that was originally put in the instruction manual as line art, but it's flipped horizontal with her eyes cast slightly different.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Sonic# »

I always thought that mullets were "business in the front, party in the back" - relatively restrained hair from the front (bound or preferably shortened) with hair from the back of the head distinctly grown out, fanning out or down in the back. It can be small, but need not be a pony tail. In my examples, I'm stretching the idea of a mullet a bit.

As for the latest image, there's a really cool wrist design/brooch that moves to the hat in the latter image. Is my memory fooling me, or are there inscriptions/patterns that have a similar quality that make their way into the game?
Image
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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Alunissage »

Yikes, window-stretching images. My 13" screen is a little taken aback.

I actually have THE original line drawings for the second of the two pieces Akagis linked. On the one hand I'm inclined to think that the first one he showed is earlier because of details like the wrist guard and cape which are different from the final design, but I know that the second was done early enough in development that Luna's name is different in notes scribbled on it. ^_^ I know Kizyr posted the scans I sent with notes translated at some point, but I don't know if it's on the main site.

Re the other characters, since I do have original drawings of Ramus, Jessica, Kyle, Nash, and Mia, I will have to compare them to the in-game images -- thanks for pointing this out! I don't know when I'll get to it, but I'll scan the drawings and we can have fun comparing them to the in-game pics.

I hope Shiva Indis sees this thread; she probably has a better idea of the process.

Edit: I forgot to say, Sonic, your mullet/dragon thing cracked me up. :lol:

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Enclave »

After looking though all of the images from the article, I'm thinking that every image is a mockup. What alerted me to this was that one of the images shows the party on the world map, but the camera isn't focused on them.

Image

Things like off-camera angles are usually a sure-sign of a mockup; see this for an example of how mockups can look subtly different from actual in-game footage.

The battle images are also a tell-tale sign of a mockup; you don't see any character stats at the bottom.

Image

This doesn't make sense. Even in an early prototype, there'd be some sort of stats readout for testing purposes. However, if you were making an image to show what you think the battles should look like, you'd wouldn't add a stats readout so that UI prototypes can be overlaid on the bottom.



The Luna and Alex close-ups are suspicious enough that I think they're mockups as well. The character images take up the full screen size in the pre-release shots, but in the final game, nearly every image in the game do not reach the ends of the screen. Only a handful of scenes, usually landscape shots, take up the full size of the screen.

Image
Image


My guess is that the Luna and Alex close-ups are mockups made on a computer to simulate how Kubooka's art would look on Sega CD hardware by doing things like trying to limit the image's colors to the Genesis' pallet limitations. Then, during testing, they found out that they would have to shrink most of the close-up images and animated cutscenes for technical reasons.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Alunissage »

That seems reasonable. It would also fit with my theory that the images were colored by someone else from quick and maybe rough line art - possibly accounting for the extra line of stitches on Luna's clothes and the extra hair on Alex. And heck, maybe even Luna's brown hair. Isn't that image pretty much the only one showing Luna as having brown hair? Her eye color varies from brown to blue (brown in most artwork, but blue in-game), and a note about color could even have been misinterpreted.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Enclave »

My understanding of the development process is that the developers often use a base image to test things like coloring and accessories the character should have. Here's an example from Bioshock Infinite:

Image

The Luna sketch isn't colored in, so I could see it being used to test Luna's coloring.

The Alex image was likely a test image as well to demonstrate the relationship between Alex and Nall. The image likely had the ponytail at one point, but the artbook version of the image was from a later stage, where the removed the ponytail.

However, I still think they might've been a mistake or two, like Nall's wings being the same color as his back. That seems like something someone would do while rushed.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by brit »

I don't think I've laughed over a topic this much in quite awhile, so thank you guys. The whole Alex with a mullet thing really surprised me, since I've never really paid much attention to The Silver Star artwork. The top picture of Alex did make me go back through my artbook specifically to his section just to look. Low and behold there is two images with it. >.>

The first one isn't as noticeable since it's only a sketch, and a profile shot at that. However if you look at the lines you can see his hair hanging out from under his Dragon Master hat.

 Image

The second one is a back view of Alex in his Dragon Master attire in full color.

 Image

* I apologize for the quality of these; I took them with my phone instead of scanning them.

Thinking about it now, the sketch of older Alex and Luna in the artbook is beginning to make sense. I never understood why in that drawing Alex had such long hair. @_@ Could it be they actually thought about making him look like that in Lunar 2? O_o I’m just really glad they didn't keep it. I mean Alex didn't really seem like the type to sport that kind of style...

Older Alex is here http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=15dazgy&s=5

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS sho

Post by Kizyr »

Yet another hair-related change I'm really glad they made before the final cut... I mean, I'm not one to normally judge hairstyles (of real people, anyway) but the long-hair look just is really unsuitable... Wouldn't it get caught up in the Dragon Helmet? (Or does that, like, adjust to fit the appropriate Dragonmaster's hairstyle? Maybe if Ghaleon had been Dragonmaster it would've turned into that double-conical hat.) KF
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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Alunissage »

I just got a magazine that has art relevant to this conversation. Stay tuned.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Kizyr »

Alunissage wrote:I just got a magazine that has art relevant to this conversation. Stay tuned.
:D
Come on, you gotta give a preview at least.

Was Luna's hair also originally pink at one point? KF
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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Alunissage »

I need to remember to work with this on a computer that has more than just Adobe Reader... keep forgetting that my personal laptop doesn't have all that stuff.

I almost PMed you asking if you were up for more translation. Can you handle a 16MB scan? =)

Oh, and no, her hair is still brown. But I wonder if originally they were thinking of having the characters' hair colors all be naturally-occurring colors. Both Alex and Ramus appear to have black hair in these sketches.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Kizyr »

Alunissage wrote:I need to remember to work with this on a computer that has more than just Adobe Reader... keep forgetting that my personal laptop doesn't have all that stuff.

I almost PMed you asking if you were up for more translation. Can you handle a 16MB scan? =)
...maybe. I can take a look? KF
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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Alunissage »

I'll send you stuff, then; I broke the scan into smaller files, so it should be easier to handle.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by brit »

You guys have me really interested in these scans. Just saying. ^w^

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Alunissage »

Ack, yes, I need to actually post them. This new incarnation of the board has a size limit on attachments so I have to reduce a bunch of things.

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Re: Small thing I noticed with the pre-release Lunar TSS shots

Post by Shinto-Cetra »

Alunissage wrote:Ack, yes, I need to actually post them. This new incarnation of the board has a size limit on attachments so I have to reduce a bunch of things.
Any progress on this?

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