⚔ CHESSGODS — composite knight · Mockup 3

Suikoden II army-battle system: the knight is TWO assets — an armored mount (chamfron, crinet plates, chest/rump caps, element caparison) + a heavily armored god rider in the Pesmerga archetype (dark plate, crimson hair, greatsword) — drawn once, composited at runtime, element variants are palette swaps of the same frames. 7 frames per sheet: idle ×2, walk ×4, lunge.

The parts — two aligned 64×64 sheets

Barded mount — idle ×2 · walk ×4 · lunge. Steel chamfron + crinet with plate seams, chest/rump caps, element caparison cloth; far-side legs darker for depth.

God rider (fire) — same 7 frames, same grid. Dark plate, crimson hair and cape sway with the gait, greatsword levels on the lunge.

Why two sheets
One rider rig + one mount rig cover every god and every element: new god = draw the rider only; new mount = draw the horse only. The board ships a pre-flattened sheet per element (below), but authoring never touches the flattened copy.

Runtime composite — same cell, rider pasted over mount

Idle Walk Lunge

explode parts animate (idle bob / walk cycle)

Frame stepping is just translateX(−frame×64) on both layers — the rider never stops aligning with the mount because both sheets were authored on the same grid.

Element swap — palette replacement, zero redraws:

Fire Water Grass Light Dark

Caparison, tabard, cape, gem + sword trim shift to the element palette; armor, hair, horse and steel are shared. (Fire rider sheet shown in the parts panel; board and this panel swap the full element sheets.)

On the board — walk cycle, dust fx, live badge system

One set, five elements — flattened sheets (idle frame)