VGMaps

General Boards => Maps In Progress => Topic started by: FlyingArmor on June 07, 2012, 08:31:29 pm

Title: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 07, 2012, 08:31:29 pm
Inspired by Peardian's thread, here is where my current and future mapping projects will be organized from now on. Also, I plan on this thread being a dumping ground of sorts for various maps I've done where I don't plan on mapping the rest of the game.

Current Projects:
Dragon Quest VI (SFC)
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (PC-98)
Exodus: Ultima III (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#ExodusUltimaIII) (PC)
Final Fantasy VII (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/index.htm#FinalFantasyVII) (PSX) -- World Map
Ultima: Quest of the Avatar (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#UltimaQuestOfTheAvatar) (NES)

Completed Projects:
Paladin's Quest (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#PaladinsQuest) (SNES)
Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#LufiaTheFortressOfDoom) (SNES)
Ultima VI: The False Prophet (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#UltimaVIFalseProphet) (SNES)
Final Fantasy VI (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyVI) (SNES)
Lennus II (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#LennusIIFuuinnoShito) (SFC)
Dragon Quest V (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#DragonQuestV) (SFC)
Dragon Quest I & II (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#DragonQuestI&II) (SFC)
Final Fantasy IV (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyIV) (SFC) - Japanese Version
Final Fantasy IV (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyII) (SNES) - North American Version
Final Fantasy V (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyV) (SFC)
Aretha (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#Aretha) (SFC) - Overworld
Mr. Chin's Gourmet Paradise (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#MrChinsGourmetParadise) (GB)
GD Leen/Gadyurin (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#GDLeen) (SFC)
Silva Saga II (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SilvaSagaIILegendOfLightAndDarkness) (SFC)
Brain Lord (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#BrainLord) (SNES) - Collaboration with Tropicon
Final Fantasy III (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#FinalFantasyIII) (FC)
Final Fantasy VII (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/index.htm#FinalFantasyVII) (PSX)
Daedalian Opus (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#DaedalianOpus) (GB)
Bouken! Puzzle Road (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#BoukenPuzzleRoad) (GB)
Light Fantasy (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#LightFantasy) (SFC)
Aighina no Yogen (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#AighinanoYogen) (FC)
Legend of the Ghost Lion (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#LegendOfTheGhostLion) (NES)
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Future's Past (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#StarTrekNextGenerationFuturesPast) (SNES)
Clue (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#Clue) (SNES)
Ganbare Goemon Gaiden: Kieta Ougon Kiseru (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#GanbareGoemonGaidenKietaOugonKiseru) (FC) - Overworld
Snow Bros. (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#SnowBros) (NES)
Golf (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Golf) (NES)
Shinseiki Odysselya (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#ShinseikiOdysselya) (SFC)
Dragon Warrior II (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#DragonWarriorPart2) (NES)
Q*Bert (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Qbert) (NES)
Legacy of the Wizard (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#LegacyOfTheWizard) (NES)
Popeye (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Popeye) (NES)
Phantasy Star II (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/Genesis/index.htm#PhantasyStarII) (GEN)
Ultima VI: The False Prophet (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaVIFalseProphet) (PC)
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaIVQuestOfTheAvatar) (PC)
Nox Archaist (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/AppleII/index.htm#NoxArchaist) (Apple II) - Overworld
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/C64/index.htm#UltimaIVQuestOfTheAvatar) (C64)
The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#AddamsFamilyPugsleysScavengerHunt) (SNES)
Hydlide (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Hydlide) (NES)
Lufia: The Legend Returns (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#LufiaLegendReturns) (GBC)

Future Projects:
Deathlord (C64)
Ihatovo Monogatari (SFC)
Light Fantasy II (SFC)
Otaku no Seiza: An Adventure In The Otaku Galaxy (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#OtakunoSeizaAdventureInTheOtakuGalaxy) (FC)
Questron (C64)
The Screamer (PC-88)
Secret of Mana (SNES)
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaIFirstAgeOfDarkness) (PC)
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (PC)

More detailed information for each project will follow soon.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 07, 2012, 08:38:19 pm
Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

All that's left is the Lete River and Kefka's Tower. Now that Anime North is over with, I've got a lot more time on my hands so I can get back to working on these. Maybe I can get them both finished by the end of June? :)


Ultima VI: The False Prophet (SNES) - Britannia

I have all the mapping done for this. The final size ended up being 16272 x 16416 pixels! I still need to go over it one more time just to make sure I included all the rafts that are scattered everywhere. I'm not sure if I want to include all the reagents that can be found in the wilderness though... it may be more work than it's worth. Plus they tend to appear and disappear from time to time (the Blood Moss near Iolo's Hut does this for instance) so it may be better to leave them off.

One problem I have though is that because the map is so big, I can't run PNGOUT on it to shrink the file size (currently at 14 MB as a PNG). I'd need a whole lot more RAM than I've got at the moment (1 GB). Plus with the Photoshop I use, whenever I save a file as PNG, it applies gamma corrections to the colours, so they end up being much darker than they're supposed to be. If that wasn't a problem, I'd have no problem sending in the map at 14 MB.

So I was wondering if anyone would be generous enough to try and shrink it down on their computer? :)


Dragon Quest V (SFC) - World Map

I'm only planning on mapping the overworld (mainly because I haven't played this game all the way to the end). It's about 80% complete so far.


Star Trek: The Next Generation: Future's Past (SNES)

This isn't an active project, just something I like to work on from time to time. I mainly started it because I was having trouble finding all the trapped miners on Orientis Gamma IIIB. :D I have the Derelict Ship level almost finished, so that'll be part of the updates for this weekend.


Lufia: The Legend Returns (GBC)

This is what I will be working on in earnest after Final Fantasy VI. The randomized dungeons will definitely help cut down on the amount of mapping I will need to do. ;) Plus I really like the look of the graphics, so it will definitely be a lot of fun to work on!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on June 07, 2012, 10:13:47 pm
Ooo, Ultima 6.  Can't wait.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Troy Lundin on June 10, 2012, 09:51:46 am
I'll shrink the world map down for Ultima. I have 16 gigs in my rig.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 10, 2012, 05:17:23 pm
Ah, thanks so much, Troy. :D I'll send it your way once I'm done checking it over.

So yesterday I managed to finish off the Dragon Quest V overworld map. It's a bit bigger than the typical 4096 x 4096 world map, and would probably look better at that size, but I was going by what the Wayfarer's Map in the game indicated for finding the edges of the world, so I decided to go with accuracy rather than siding with aesthetics in this particular case.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Troy Lundin on June 11, 2012, 02:36:00 am
The best way to accurately discern the size of a scene is to find where the actor coordinates are stored in memory. This way you can find out where (0, 0) is and start from there. Since most older RPG scenes loop, you could just move to the left one space and up one space then check your coordinates again. Since you looped around, your current coordinates would indicate the size of the scene (zero-based, of course).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 11, 2012, 07:56:08 am
How does Ultima VI look on the Super NES?  I absolutely love Ultima VI: The False Prophet on the PC - it was one of the biggest games that could run on my first computer, a 286...  Though I played VII and VIII, but not much of the other Ultimas, Ultima VI still has a special place in my heart.  Well, the space of my heart reserved for computer/video games, anyway.  :P

But I am also anxiously awaiting the completion of Final Fantasy VI, my favorite FF game.  You sure know how to pick 'em!

Clearly, RPGs hit some kind of peak at VI, though some would say VII.  Or at least for FF and Ultima.  (I guess for both, VIII is a bit of a black sheep...but I digress...)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 12, 2012, 01:15:39 pm
It doesn't look all too different from the PC version. One stark difference is the colour of the dirt; it's actually brown rather than the really reddish stuff found in the PC version (guess it's really rich in iron there huh?). It's one of the very few console ports of Ultima that was pretty faithful to the original (another one would be Ultima IV for the Master System).

Heheh, what can I say? :) It's only natural to work on these games that I grew up playing. It's definitely an interesting way of revisiting them.

By the way, I'm just about finished with capturing all the areas of Kefka's Tower. I'm so happy that I was able to capture the entire outside area. The walk through walls code was pretty stubborn in that area, but there was just one tiny column where I could walk up and down through obstacles, so that really helped me out a ton. Next will be to organize all the pieces into something that makes at least a little more sense. :)

I think I would agree with that as well. VI and VII for both of those series are my favourites (still have yet to play U7 Part 2 though... something to look forward to!).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Paco on June 12, 2012, 02:50:22 pm
I think I would agree with that as well. VI and VII for both of those series are my favourites (still have yet to play U7 Part 2 though... something to look forward to!).

You should play U7 1+2 on Exult with Mods as they add some stuff to game like new Feature (Statusbar on Screen, etc), more Quests (Keyring in U71, etc) and more bugfixing.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Troy Lundin on June 12, 2012, 02:56:48 pm
I wasn't sure where to put this so I am just going to put it here. I was perusing your Lufia and the Fortress of Doom maps when I saw this map: https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/Lufia&TheFortressOfDoom-OldCave-3thLevel.png

Is it supposed to be "3th" and not "3rd"? It caught my eye immediately, but I thought maybe Jon just made a typo. Then, I noticed it was on the image itself. Never played the game so I am unsure if it is that way in the game itself.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 12, 2012, 05:52:24 pm
@Paco: I actually played The Black Gate to completion last year with Exult. I didn't enable all the extra features, but did like the character status bar at the bottom of the screen; really handy to say the least. For Serpent Isle, it's just a matter of actually finding my Ultima Collection CD and installing it, but I think I went looking for it one time and couldn't find it. It should be around somewhere though...

@Troy: Oh yeah, that's a mistake alright. Thanks for pointing it out! :) I have been meaning to revise that map anyway for another reason: the 14th chest hidden in the swamp/mud stuff should be replaced with a white border to indicate it's there.

When I first started mapping that game, I used half transparent chests for the items in swamps, but later switched to using white borders to keep things consistent across all maps (since in towns there'd be hidden items in plants, bookcases, etc, so a half transparent chest wouldn't make sense there).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 23, 2012, 07:21:35 pm
The Britannia map for Ultima VI is now up on the website! Special thanks to Troy Lundin for helping me shrink it down (managed to squeeze out 1.1 MB). Phew, such a gigantic mapping project finally behind me, heheh. I've thought about mapping all the dungeons as well while I'm at it (now that the mammoth world map is out of the way), but that isn't set in stone just yet.


Over the past year or so, I've toyed around with mapping various areas in Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V, and I thought I'd post some examples of what I've come up with. If I were to map these games in their entirety, I would be mapping it in Japanese.

It's interesting the changes that were made to various towns in FF4, like the Town of Baron for instance, with how the southwestern section was completely rearranged when it was released over here as FF2.

I have labeled all the chests and hidden items individually in the FF4 maps, but I think if I were to release them "officially", I'd use a legend like I have with my FF6 maps, just so they wouldn't be as cluttered.

This isn't a sign that I'll be taking up mapping these games in earnest, it's just that these maps have been on my hard drive for so long that I thought it high time for other people to see them. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: 7HFB on June 24, 2012, 05:43:13 am
yo dude
I found this thread (well an earlier thread) due to looking up maps for Twisted Tales of Spike McFang because I thought more had been done beside the jungle maze. I guess I remembered wrong but I saw an old post where you mentioned you'd like to work on it.

I'm not sure if you're still interested, but recently I saw on the Cutting Room Floor that the game has a debug menu (http://tcrf.net/The_Twisted_Tales_of_Spike_McFang) which can be easily accessed with an emulator. While playing around with that, I discovered that when the cheat to be able to pull up the menu is enabled, it also enables you to hold the X button and dash around really fast. More importantly, this dash also works as a walk-through-walls code, allowing you to run pretty much anywhere on screen and ignore script triggers (as long as you keep moving). As you can imagine, this would make mapping the game a lot easier. I've only tested it through the first area, tho, and there might be restrictions later on (it's disabled during the auto-advancing raft sequence, for example).

Anyway, if you're not still interested, or already knew this, I'm sure someone else will find this useful if they decide to do the game.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on June 24, 2012, 04:29:26 pm
Ooo can I call dibs on this?  Only I have a lot on my plate right now, I may not be able to get to it right away.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 24, 2012, 06:00:23 pm
I did do a little work on Spike McFang a while back, but kinda lost interest in it due to doorways and other things not lining up perfectly from scene to scene, so I couldn't make the continuously flowing maps that I wanted.

The way I was capturing it was with BGMapper, and because every scene is in its entirety in memory (512 x 512 per scene), there was no need to stitch screen shots together, which was really great.

Trop, if you're up to it, be my guest! :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on June 24, 2012, 07:43:51 pm
You can do spike with bgmapper?!  Ugh, I should have tried that ages ago, how embarrassing.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on July 04, 2012, 10:46:41 am
Spike:
http://www.vgmapper.com/SysSNES/T/TwistedTalesofSpikeMcFang.html
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 29, 2012, 01:36:26 pm
I finally got around to adding all the labels to the Kefka's Tower map yesterday, so the final dungeon is at last complete!

https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/FinalFantasyVI-WorldOfRuin-Kefka%27sTower.png

The Lete River's all that needs to be tackled before this map set can be considered truly complete.
I managed to finish it off just now. XD I finally figured an effective way of viewing all the inaccessible areas you wouldn't normally see while traveling on the raft. I will probably revise it to include the caverns with the save points at some point, but for now I'll leave it as it is.

https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/FinalFantasyVI-WorldOfBalance-LeteRiver.png

Yay, this project finally comes to a close! \(^o^)/
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 08, 2013, 04:09:03 pm
Hey all, just thought I'd update this thing with some of the new things I've been up to.

First of all, I decided to revise all my Paladin's Quest maps to reflect the style of mapping I've been doing since FF6. This means that many of the items that can be found in houses and buildings that weren't included before will now be documented. I've revised about twenty maps so far.

Next off, I've been mapping the Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV. I have most of the overworld locations mapped thus far. All the labels and items will be in Japanese, so that shouldn't deter people from doing their own maps for the English version (perhaps Locke_gb7 will resume work where he/she left off?).

Lastly, I have been working on Dragon Quest V for the last few months, pretty much ever since I finished the game. I think I have roughly 80% of the areas mapped so far. I don't think I will bother labeling them in English though, so if there is anyone interested in doing that, please let me know and we can work out an arrangement.

And as a little aside, I'm just about finished with playing God Medicine for the Game Boy, and wouldn't mind mapping that game some time in the future too. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 27, 2013, 03:51:55 pm
Here are two examples of how I will be handling the Dragon Quest V maps.

For the map titles, I will be leaving them in English. However, I will be using the original Japanese names and simply translating them into English as best I can. The DeJap translation did a pretty good job of that, though there are a few tiny details that I would change for my maps (eg. "Santa Rose" instead of "Santa Rosa", the original Japanese being サンタローズ).

Just as an aside, the DS version really took great liberties with the names, two striking examples being Salabona ending up as Mostroferrato, and Evil Mountain being changed to Mount Zugzwang. :P

For the contents of treasure chests, I will keep them in Japanese. I want to be able to label the chests directly, and the Japanese names best afford that since they are at most only eight characters long. Take for instance "Lamp of Darkness" v.s. やみのランプ. There will be a few instances where a legend will be in order (when a lot of chests are clustered together), but for the most part, those instances are few and far between.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: snesmaster on February 28, 2013, 08:23:17 pm
I would suggest a table off to the side of any map with Japanese names for the contents of chests that would translate what is in the chest to English.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 28, 2013, 09:43:53 pm
Yeah, that would probably be a good idea, especially if I'm gonna be submitting them to an English website, right? ;D I guess I'll think of a way of incorporating something like that in somehow.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: snesmaster on March 01, 2013, 08:48:25 am
Kewl, I must say I also like your choice in labels.  They are small so they don't cover up much of the map and the color stands out and is easy to see without hurting the eyes.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 01, 2013, 08:43:11 pm
Ah, thank you! Glad you like 'em. I'm sure you'll like the ones I added to these two recently completed Lennus II maps I worked on today (might as well post them since they're done). I've had the actual areas mapped for a LONG time, but just now have I bothered with labels and formatting. Feel free to add these to the site anytime, Jon.

I'd just like to ask about people's thoughts about the stairway labels on Al Rouge. Are they easy to read? I added borders to make them stand out more than if they were simply the letters by themselves.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: snesmaster on March 02, 2013, 12:07:39 am
Yes, I think the labels for the stairs stand out well and are easy to find and read.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 02, 2013, 12:45:33 am
In fact, those stairs don't look much like stairs at all so having labels that stand out is, in my opinion, necessary.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 02, 2013, 12:18:20 pm
Okay, that's good to hear. The only worry I would have later on would be if the labels go on to the letter O, since it looks very similar to the letter D in that font. But I don't think all that many maps would go that far with stairways and doors anyway (I don't think, it's been a while since I last played this game) so perhaps it's just a meaningless worry. :)

@TerraEsperZ: Now that you mention it, they do blend really well into the scenery, don't they?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 03, 2013, 08:28:01 pm
Just finished off mapping the first town for Lennus II. I'm not sure if the four items I labeled are all that there are in the town, but I can always revise it later if I discover more.

I just gotta say if the map for Gwandell ends up being this big (821 KB, 2832 x 1568 pixels), I can't imagine how big the map for the Slums will end up being (I think I counted something like 22 different buildings in that place). O_o;
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 03, 2013, 10:08:43 pm
I just noticed you're using transparencies for the labels and that makes them look even better :).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 04, 2013, 12:12:06 am
Thanks. I'm glad you think so. I think transparent labels look really nice with games that are more sophisticated graphically, in contrast to say, NES or early SNES games.

I think I might try experimenting with my Dragon Quest V maps to see if they'd be aesthetically pleasing in that game as well, though I imagine more opaque labels may be more appropriate for that particular style of artwork. We'll see I guess. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: snesmaster on March 04, 2013, 12:16:22 am
The transparent labels look nice, but depending on the game and number of colors in the image it can make the file size much larger, especially if it brings it up over 256 colors so it can no longer be indexed.  However with faster bandwidth, and unlimited space on web servers it's not as much of a big deal as it used to be.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 22, 2013, 05:56:39 pm
Here's an brief update from me.

I've started mapping Lennus II again, finally finishing off the Andel region maps and beginning the Eltz ones. I just managed to complete the Eltz overworld today, one of the three overworld maps this game has. It was a bit of a pain piecing it all together, what with having to separate all the elements into five layers, but the end result was definitely worth the effort.

The next few towns (the Slums, Gloucester, etc.) are gonna be hellish to map, seeing as how they have so many buildings in each one. I'll just take my time with these. I'm in no rush anyway.

I also finally finished playing the game in English (after not touching it for a couple of years). It sure has quite the ending! Though I wasn't too enthralled with how the script was handled by the translation team. It seemed too goofy and comical for my liking and didn't fit the setting of the game at all. I plan on playing the game again in Japanese just so I can see how the script actually reads. :)

I noticed when I was mapping Dank that Farus launches into a soliloquy all of the sudden after obtaining a key item. However that same dialogue is completely absent from the Japanese version. Farus seems to talk quite a bit throughout the game, which I suspect I won't find when I play through it in Japanese. It looks like the translation team took a bit too much license with their localization.

I find it a bit funny how the first line in the readme to the patch states: "Lennus-II is written for a mature, educated audience." Well, it certainly doesn't read as such, at least to me anyway.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 22, 2013, 08:24:12 pm
Tonight as I was playing Lennus (aka Paladin's Quest), I managed to stumble upon two hidden items I hadn't found before. They can be found in Misuto behind the egg to the weapons and armor store. I've attached a picture so you guys can see where they are exactly. When I took away the foreground layer, all I found was some tree roots; strange. Quite the interesting find to say the least.

In other news, I might as well mention that three new Lennus II maps were put up on the site about two weeks ago: Slums, Gabana Mine, and Resolute. Haven't been working on anything else since then though. Maybe that find in Paladin's Quest will get me to finish off revising the rest of the maps that still need revision.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on September 23, 2013, 06:29:51 pm
You're not that far from done in Lennus II.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 25, 2013, 07:47:15 pm
You're not that far from done in Lennus II.

If you take out the words "not that", then that statement would be far more accurate. :)

I think I was avoiding work on mapping Lennus II due to the sheer amount of work that Gloucester would entail. But I've come up with a nice solution to that problem. I'm going to split the entire town into four maps, one for each district. It's kind of nice that the town can be split up cleanly like that.

For those who would like to see some progress, I've attached the image of the First Precinct. That's all I got so far of Gloucester, but at least I'm one quarter of the way there.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on October 13, 2013, 11:23:42 pm
Since my last update, I've gotten over 25 more Lennus II maps finished, including all those pesky mega towns in the Nigel "belt" area. I'm so glad all those are out of the way. ;D

So the grand total thus far is 51. There's still about 30 more maps left to work on, so I still got a ways to go before I can call this project complete. There's three more maps left in Eltz (Jill Island, Zorban's Belly, and Gravity Tower) and once those're done, I'll be able to finally move on to Lennus.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on October 14, 2013, 11:25:55 am
See, that wasn't as hard as you thought it would be was it?  You're doing great.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on October 15, 2013, 01:00:52 pm
Heheh, true. Once I actually got down to mapping those mega towns (Gloucester especially), it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. I must've imagined them being much bigger and more extensive when I first played through the game years ago.

Splitting Gloucester up was definitely a good call I think. I would've probably been completely overwhelmed if I had to fit all those interiors into one huge map! And even if I did that, it might've not been all that helpful to people viewing it for reference.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on October 15, 2013, 07:01:11 pm
Ha!  I might have tried one huge one.  I remember I thought the same thing when I was doing DKC2.  I was sure I couldn't get through it but then you find yourself standing on top of the mountain wondering how you got there.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on October 24, 2013, 04:13:43 pm
I'm happy to announce that I am finally finished with mapping Lennus II. The remaining maps should be up on the site whenever it pleases Jon to do so.

Now, whether or not this is a complete map set, I am not completely sure since the in-game maps seem to indicate other areas existing on certain islands in Eltz and Lennus (the ring of mountains in the southwest corner of Eltz, for example, seem especially suspicious). Try as I may however, there seems to be nothing there. I surmise that other areas were planned to exist, but were cut out altogether due to impending deadlines, but if anyone knows otherwise, I'd love to know.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on November 15, 2013, 08:29:02 pm
Now that one major RPG mapping project is over and done with, I'm moving on to another! Dragon Quest V (SFC) will be my next project. I have nearly all of the mapping done for it, having done most of it late last year.

I had said that I was going to label them with the Japanese names rather than the English ones, but I changed my mind on that. Having tried labelling the maps in English, I have to say that they don't look all that bad. Even when it comes to the longer item name labels, they're not nearly as obtrusive as I had thought they would be. There will be some maps where I will need to resort to using a treasure legend (due to multiple chests being clustered together), but for the most part that shouldn't be a common occurrence.

If all goes well, I should be able to get most if not all of the maps done before the end of this month.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on December 15, 2013, 03:01:08 pm
So I finished mapping Dragon Quest V a little while ago. So while I'm in the Dragon Quest mood, I thought I'd tackle Dragon Quest I & II on the SNES. I just finished playing the first game yesterday, and I'm somewhere in the middle of the second.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel that the gameplay progresses so much more quickly with the SNES iterations as opposed to the original NES ones. When I had played the first Dragon Quest on the NES for example, the game just felt like it dragged on forever and ever. But with the SNES version, I was done in about 15 hours over a three day period.

Besides that, I've got an "undercover" project I'm working on at the moment. I don't want to disclose it just yet, but once I've got a fair number of maps done for it, I'll make an announcement here. ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 05, 2014, 05:10:39 pm
I finished mapping Dragon Quest I a few days ago, and since I just finished playing Dragon Quest II yesterday, my attention has shifted to that. I've found this game compilation to be surprisingly easy to map; a nice break from the frustrating juggernaut that was Lennus II! If things go well, I should be done with it fairly soon.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 25, 2014, 03:02:33 pm
These past few days I finally got around to finishing off my revisions for the Paladin's Quest maps. Now they're all uniform in style, and include many item labels that weren't present in the original maps. I think I covered all the areas that have items to discover, so it's probably safe to say this map set is now truly complete.

As for Dragon Quest II, I got about two or three areas left to map, so once those are done, that project will be complete as well.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 08, 2014, 08:56:23 pm
Alright, now that mapping Dragon Quest I & II is all done with, onto another project!

Although I had only intended to work with the Japanese version, I talked with Jon yesterday and he insisted I also work on the North American version as well. So it looks like I'll have my hands full with Final Fantasy IV (SNES) and its English counterpart for the next little while. ;)

As far as progress goes, I'm already about three quarters of the way done with the raw mapping, so it won't be long before you start seeing them. I'll go ahead and attach a few examples of the approach I'll be taking (at least as far as the Japanese ones are concerned).

I decided to use a legend for the items in chests and pots, etc. like I did with Final Fantasy VI. It will include the Japanese name, then its translation into English, like so:

01 ポーション Potion
02 きんのはり Golden Needle
03 フェニックスのお Phoenix Down
04 ... etc.

In terms of order of release, I'll be starting with the Japanese versions, then afterwards work upon the North American ones, tweaking them and/or redoing them to reflect the changes that were made when the game crossed the Pacific Ocean.

There are quite a number of changes between both versions such as: rearranging sections of towns, tweaking of colour palettes, restructuring certain features in dungeons, being able to see the hidden passageways, changing the appearances of treasure chests/save points, and so on. I thought it would be interesting for people to compare both versions and see these changes first hand.

Jon brought up the idea of toggling between both versions of each map back and forth and witnessing where the changes occur, and that would work for many of the maps where everything will be in the exact same place, but for those that have buildings added in or taken away, the toggling won't end up being quite as clean as one would like, but it'd still show more or less some of the more drastic changes that were made.

Anyway, that's all for now!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on February 13, 2014, 08:03:06 am
Well, I've now got listings for Final Fantasy II (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyII) and Final Fantasy IV (J) (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyIV) instead of listing them all together as Final Fantasy IV.  I much like the proper numbering (I avoid saying "II" and "III" when I mean "IV" and "VI", unless I'm talking about the actual II and III), but it's probably best to do it this way since there are enough differences.  I suppose I'd have to do the same if anyone maps several Final Fantasy III maps that are different than Final Fantasy VI (J), if there are any.

I'll leave the minor differences between regions...Blaster Master (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#BlasterMaster) and Shatterhand (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Shatterhand) come to mind...

But I'll have to remember, when I get a chance, to split up Maniac Mansion (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#ManiacMansion) and its Japanese counterpart since they're way too different to simply list together.  Or should I keep them together, since it is just one map?  Sure it's just one map, but it's also the whole game...
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 02, 2014, 12:27:24 am
Just finished working on the Lunar Subterranean Valley a little bit ago, so that means I'm done mapping Final Fantasy IV (J). Those last dungeons are always a pain to map... :P

So with the Japanese version out of the way, I'll be able to start on the North American one fairly soon.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 06, 2014, 10:53:36 pm
A li'l update with mapping Final Fantasy II (U). I'm a little over halfway done so far; I'm up to Agart, just before descending into the underworld. It looks like I just may have the rest ready by this weekend.

A funny thing I found when re-mapping the Sylvan Cave was a hidden passageway that I missed in the corresponding Japanese version map. With most of the other caverns in the game, the hidden passageways aren't all that obvious, but in the Sylvan Cave, they just smack you in the face! Come on Squaresoft, you could've made it at least a little challenging, hmm? :P On the bright side, it did highlight an error with my map, so I guess it's a good thing?


Also, one thing in regards to translations for the items in the Japanese maps. I'm not sure how many of you noticed, but there was an item that recurred a lot in many areas named 銅の砂時計 which I at first translated to "Copper Hourglass". When I was working on these maps, I would often consult what the official translations of more recent iterations of the game had named things, and for this item it ended up being "Bronze Hourglass".

I at first thought: "Bronze?! But it clearly says copper! 銅 isn't bronze! If it was bronze, it'd be 青銅!"

But later on in the game, I came across other hourglasses, these times in the Silver and Gold varieties, so I ended up recognizing the pattern being presented. "Okay I guess Bronze would make sense here..." I thought. To verify this, I ended up going to a Japanese Wikipedia page (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BF%91%E4%BB%A3%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%94%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%81%A7%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%BD%E3%83%BB%E5%9C%B0%E5%9F%9F%E5%88%A5%E3%83%A1%E3%83%80%E3%83%AB%E7%B7%8F%E7%8D%B2%E5%BE%97%E6%95%B0%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7) that had a list of all the countries that won medals in the Olympics, broken down in various ways, and lo and behold! they use the character 銅 for the Bronze categories. So I conceded defeat and ended up changing my translations in this case.

But one thing that's no secret is that the Japanese love abbreviating and shortening down words. So this may just be one of those instances. It certainly looks more elegant to have one character represent each medal rather than have one stand out with two characters. Heck, even the word hentai (変態), a very well known word among Japanese aficionados, is an abbreviation of the term hentai seiyoku (変態性欲) meaning "abnormal sexuality; sexual perversion". 変態 otherwise normally means "transformation; metamorphosis", but you certainly wouldn't get that impression from listening to anime with girls screaming this word left and right. :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on March 07, 2014, 03:05:35 pm
This is why good translations are always rewrites.  Translating the words is one thing but meaning might be something different.  Just look at the way some people switch around nouns, verbs, and adjectives in English.  A situation being described as "cool" could come out pretty strange in a direct translation.  Culture is a huge part of language.  Heck I only really understood Illusion of Gaia after playing it five times.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: YelseyKing on March 08, 2014, 06:31:32 pm
You know, I never gave it much thought... are there any actual area design differences between FF4 and "FF2" other than the Beginners' Hall in Baron, the removal of the Programmers' Room in the American release, and the contents of chests changing? (And the chests themselves in high tech areas, as well as save points, being changed.) Any extra rooms, rearranged dungeons, added/removed secret passages, etc?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 08, 2014, 10:27:26 pm
From what I've seen, there aren't any major changes like extra rooms or things like that, mainly cosmetic changes such as the things you mentioned and others. The most drastic change seems to be with the Town of Baron where the one corner is completely rearranged to accommodate the Beginner's Hall at the entrance to the town. There was also a "Beginner's Hall" or sorts in the Japanese version, but it was far smaller in scale and out of the way in the basement of the Serpent's Road (or rather, Devil's Road).

As far as the dungeons are concerned, none have been rearranged, but there are some that exhibit structural changes to make them easier to navigate around. I'm mainly referring to the tower areas that had overhead beams (for lack of a better term) that arched across pathways. These were removed from the North American version to make where you can go less ambiguous. I don't have all of them done right now, but you can check the Tower of Zot maps side by side to see what I'm talking about.

From what I can tell, all the secret passages in FF2(U) were in FF4. It's actually thanks to FF2's visible secret passageways that I was able to locate the few I missed in the Japanese maps. There are no visible cues for the one in the Antlion's Nest for example, so finding that one would've been a stroke of luck.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 12, 2014, 03:12:35 pm
Yesterday I managed to finish off the rest of the maps for Final Fantasy II (U), so now this double project is finally done! And with that, I think I'll take a break from mapping for a while. While mapping is fun and all, I've got a lot work to do with regards to paintings and comics, so I want to devote as much time as I can to those things.

When I do get back into mapping, I'd like to take on GD Leen/Gadyurin for the Super NES. I'm in the middle of playing it right now and it's been a blast thus far. It looks like it will be pretty straightforward to map out, though without a walk-through-walls code, some of the overworld areas will be tough to map completely, but I'll worry over that when that time comes.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: YelseyKing on March 12, 2014, 03:39:59 pm
You planning to do FF5 at some point? It looks like you did a couple early game maps from it, at least. And you've done FF6 and both versions of FF4, so it'd make sense. At any rate, your FF4 and FF6 maps are pretty high quality stuff. I particularly love maps that have treasures marked.

Incidentally, unrelated, but... how in the world did you manage to map out the Lete River on FF6? The layout of that place has had me completely baffled for years. Even looking at the map, I can't make sense of the place. :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 12, 2014, 08:03:37 pm
If no one else decides to work on it, I'll probably eventually find myself working on it some day. ;) Ah, thanks so much! Your kind words are definitely appreciated. :D

Oh God, the Lete River was a pain in the ass to map. It was incidentally the last map I finished when I was wrapping up Final Fantasy VI, simply because it was so frustrating to work on. It basically took a ton of cheat codes to capture all the square footage that you see there. Tropicon helped me with freezing most of the water animations, and I managed to find some codes that allowed me to shift the scene the player would see when entering an area, so I could get the out-of-reach bits that you would never see when traveling down that river.

Nevertheless, the annoying thing was that I couldn't stop the raft from continuing on its course, so I was pretty much abusing the hell out of the Increase Frame function in ZSNES just so I could make sure the rapids animations matched up between screen shots. And even with all that, I still had inconsistencies in certain areas with colours changing for unknown reasons, but at that time I couldn't have cared less, I just wanted the blasted thing over and done with!

I did think about making a complimentary map that would split the river up into several parts (which would include the caverns) that would be reflective of the flow the river takes, but I never got around to doing that. :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 12, 2014, 10:09:40 pm
I did think about making a complimentary map that would split the river up into several parts (which would include the caverns) that would be reflective of the flow the river takes, but I never got around to doing that. :P

Hopefully you *do* get around to doing that someday. I would love to see the river not how it exists internally in memory (which can loop around in all direction), but how it exists narratively as a place you navigate through.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 03, 2014, 01:34:08 pm
Heeey~ I'm back.

As Jon has mentioned in another thread (https://www.vgmaps.com/forums/index.php?topic=1922.0), I've mapped out the first area (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/index.htm#FinalFantasyVII) in Final Fantasy VII (PSX).

It was mainly an experiment to see if I could pull off mapping the No. 1 Reactor fully, and luckily I was able to. Don't expect to see any more FF7 maps any time soon though. I want to play through the game at least once before doing that.

Looking back on it now, there are some things I'll need to revise, such as including icons in item and materia labels. I'm not sure if I should add another instance of the elevator and have a arrow connecting them to make it clearer that the elevator travels between two places. Any and all feedback is welcome!

Having played the game for a couple of hours last night, I noticed some areas will be tricky to capture accurately, such as areas with parallax backgrounds. It's a shame you can't simply disable/enable layers with a single keystroke with PlayStation games. :P I'll probably need to call upon those with more experience dealing with PSX games for help whenever I run into new roadblocks, so I hope you guys can help me out when that time comes. :)

BumFengShui pointed me to a program (7mimic) that will make things a thousand times easier. Thanks so much! Areas with parallax backgrounds will still be a problem though, especially since the backgrounds aren't repeatable patterns. I might either forget about adding the backgrounds altogether, or resize them so they take up more space across a scene.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 10, 2014, 12:04:33 am
While FF7 maps may be a long way off, I've been keeping myself busy with mapping Final Fantasy V (SFC) in the meantime. This was actually the "undercover" project I made mention of back in December. I didn't want to announce it then since there were a number of obstacles to mapping this game properly, but over this past week I managed to overcome some of the really troublesome ones.

The key one was all those pesky water animations getting in the way of mapping areas properly and accurately. I managed to find codes (through much trial and error) that freeze many of the animations, making the mapping of towns and some dungeons much more feasible. It was quite the victory for me!

I also found a way of warping to normally unreachable places by activating X and Y coordinate codes when transitioning between scenes. If I warped into trees or cliffs however, I would be instantly warped back to the overworld, so finding open spots to stand on so I could capture the far corners of some scenes was quite the grueling task.

Another thing that bothered me to no end was colours being inconsistent across scenes in certain areas. It was quite stark in the mountain areas where I would check to see if a certain colour was present in all scenes, but disappointed to find palettes slightly shifting whenever transparent water or clouds were also present. This forced me to use BGMapper exclusively for capturing everything rather than rely only on screen shots. Colour counts that were 200+ before ended up around 100 or so. Quite the difference, eh?

I had this problem with Lennus II as well, but it was much more noticable in that game than it was in FF5. Has anyone else come across this problem when mapping SNES games?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on July 10, 2014, 09:14:57 am
Yes and I usually ignore it.  Either the programmers made an obvious shift, like a daylight shift, in which case I code stop it or use bgmapper.  Or there was some bad bg color change in which case I just keep mapping anyway and hope on one notices.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 14, 2014, 07:09:33 pm
With me, if I know there is a problem with colours shifting or whatnot, I can't allow myself to simply leave it be. It'll keep bugging me until I remedy the problem.

With my paintings though, I tend not to be as uptight if there is a botch some place (paint that seeped underneath the masking tape if we're talking about my hardedge paintings for example). If I don't tell anyone it's there they tend not to notice. ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on July 14, 2014, 07:18:30 pm
Things like that, especially if they're unnoticeable tend to annoy me to no end. I can spend weeks on trying to correct something really minor, after which I'll either drop the whole project or manage to convince myself that nobody will ever notice.

And in the case of the latter, a few years down the road, someone will fire an email my way about how inaccurate my map was and how it's sloppy and inexcusable, after which I'll just do a face palm and weep for humanity.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 17, 2014, 02:44:50 pm
Has anyone actually sent you e-mails of that sort? If it were me, I'd probably respond with something like: "Thanks for bringing this to my attention. However, if you're that bothered by it, perhaps you could bring yourself to fix this issue yourself? There's nothing stopping you from doing so, of course." ;)

I think my FF6 maps will have that colour shifting problem since I didn't really know about this phenomenon at the time I was working on them, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to fix them now. They're done, and that's that.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on July 17, 2014, 03:06:08 pm
I'll admit I was being a tad melodramatic and exaggerated a bit, but I recently had someone email me about the fact that all the colours on my The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons were wrong and if I was planning to fix the problem. I simply replied that at the time, I preferred the palette used when playing on a Game Boy Advance instead of on a Game Boy Color, and that fixing it would take too much time and effort.

Although rarer, I prefer emails where someone points out an outright mistake or omission like for example, a missing room on a Prince of Persia 2 map that I had never managed to open back in the days and had forgotten about. Accuracy of that sorts is something I always have time for.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 17, 2014, 03:17:38 pm
Yeah, if it's something small which won't take much time to fix, that makes sense, but asking for the entire map set to be redone is a bit much.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 19, 2014, 02:27:16 pm
A quick update on Final Fantasy V.

I'm making steady progress with the game; I think I'm about 75% done so far. For the time being I'm just concentrating on piecing the maps together without worrying about adding the legends for treasure chests. That's something that can be easily done afterwards within a couple days.

For reference, here's all the codes I've found that freeze the water animations (except for palette animations):

7E0B3F00
7E141800
7E142000
7E142800
7E143000
7E143800
7E144000
7E144800
7E145000
7E145800
7E146000
7E146800

Certain groups of codes correspond to certain areas (castle, village, town, cave). It'd be too much work to figure out which code goes with which area; I simply keep them all on whenever I'm mapping. I've found that these codes also freeze the animations for fireplaces, the pendulums in clocks, torches, save points, and probably a few other things.

Also may as well mention the codes for the X and Y coordinates:

7E0AD8** - Determines the X coordinate (horizontal placement on a map)
7E0AD9** - Determines the Y coordinate (vertical placement on a map)

These work best when one is transitioning between scenes (activate them when the screen in black).

All the codes mentioned here work with both the Japanese ROM and the RPGe English translation.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 10, 2014, 04:52:03 pm
With this weekend's updates, around half of the maps for Final Fantasy V (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#FinalFantasyV) are done. As you will see, I took the same approach with the item legend as I did with my FF4 maps: display the Japanese name first then include the English translation beside it.

As I was going through the game gathering the treasure chest data and such, I noticed I didn't think to map the valley you travel through at the very beginning of the game where you ride Boco and jump over pitfalls to save Lenna and Galuf. I'm not sure if I should bother mapping that area. Since it's only used for a cut scene, I don't really see the point of adding it to the rest of the maps. Anyone else think otherwise?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 10, 2014, 04:56:07 pm
I like to map everything that can be mapped, including cutscenes if possible. Going above and beyond what'S expected is what makes a project a true "work of art" in my opinion.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: vorpal86 on August 11, 2014, 05:20:23 pm
Good work on all the maps. And to Dermot. I like the Superimposed world map.. Nice.

The cut-sceens for the Boco run would be a nice addition. Although seeming pointless, it tends to make things a bit more complete. It prolly wouldn't take too much longer. But of course, it's a timeless effort.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 18, 2014, 01:43:10 am
I ended up mapping the Valley area. It's not all that interesting looking, but it's done at least. But for any other cut scene that's no more than one screen in size, I'm putting my foot down and not doing them. If anyone wants to see them so badly, they certainly can when they play the game. ;)

@vorpal86: Thanks very much! By the way, what are you refering to when you say "The cut-scenes for the Boco run"?

Also I'll mention that for the last dungeon, I decided to split it up into seven maps, one for each distinct area (desert, ruins, forest, cave, tower, castle, last floor). The Town of Mirage won't be included in those maps since it already has a map of its own. I found that it was a bit too cumbersome having everything in one huge map, and I don't think it'd be all that useful to people who actually want to use it as a reference for where items are located and whatnot.

Now that I think about it though, I may as well make one huge map as well, for those who want to see everything in one single image.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on August 20, 2014, 07:59:45 pm
Hey FA, if you're ever bored I've got a weird project for you.  I've been helping the good people at SNESMusic lately and they need song IDs for a bunch of JRPGs they can't play through because they can't read Japanese.  You'd have to play through the game and identify which song is what and where it's played.  Don't be fooled thought, It's actually a really tough job picking out each little tune from all the rest.  I've only gone through a few and they can really be hell raisers.  But if you're ever thinking about trying something completely different consider this.

Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 21, 2014, 01:29:20 pm
Hey Trop! That sounds really interesting, especially if there's JRPGs involved! heheh

I don't think I'll jump on this just yet, but I'll definitely keep it in mind for as you say if I ever get bored. By the way, which RPGs are they wanting help for?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on August 21, 2014, 04:24:10 pm
They've got a list:
http://snesmusic.jukor.net/viewforum.php?f=28&sid=c8bacb6b6e8fd3f56dc2364fee12464c

It's not huge, they've done a lot of work.  And they have all the tracks in SPC format right there at the top of each thread, just unnamed.  Like I said, if you ever want to try something completely different.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 23, 2014, 12:40:24 am
Thanks for linking me up! Looking through the list, the one game that sticks out for me is Majo Tachi no Nemuri. I love that game! If I ever find some time to play through it some more, I'll definitely think about putting some names to the tracks and submitting them.

In other news, I finished up mapping Final Fantasy V just a little bit ago. Yay~  :D

At some date in the future (who knows when), I'm going to go through all the maps and add in anything I didn't think necessary at the time, with which I later changed my mind on. It'll mainly be really minor cosmetic things, like adding in the books scattered about that you have to reshelf in Castle Surgate and other stuff like that.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on August 24, 2014, 11:57:25 pm
Fantastic on getting another FF.  Makes me think I should do the rest of FF4 Advanced.  You've got to celebrate very time you take down a huge project like that.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on August 25, 2014, 07:36:01 am
Does this mean you're getting back to mapping Final Fantasy VII?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 25, 2014, 10:47:56 am
Once I play through the game, I will be. ;) If Final Fantasy V was my mapping project for the summer, Final Fantasy VII will be my project for the fall. I left off at the prison underneath Gold Saucer, so I still got a long way to go before I begin to map the game in earnest.

While I'm at it, I might as well attach the map for the Chocobo Farm since it's all ready to go anyway. Enjoy!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 12, 2014, 12:35:23 pm
An update on Final Fantasy VII. I'm about 30 hours in so far, and have made it to the Temple of the Ancients (is that how it's said in the English version? I'm just translating from 古代種の神殿).

I have been piecing together maps of areas I've already visited, although I haven't been doing it consistently. The latest one I did that with was the Shinra Mansion. There are some areas that, without actually taking screen shots of them for reference, I wouldn't know how bright the light sources/mist should be (since it's possible to adjust that in 7mimic), so I'm just gonna hold off on putting maps together for the time being.

So I'll just continue to enjoy playing through FF7! わぁ~ なつかしいな~
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 17, 2015, 09:48:53 pm
Long time no post!

I'm just about finished playing through Final Fantasy VII. Although I said I would map this in the fall, that certainly didn't pan out, did it? But I'm certainly at the stage where I can begin blazing through the English version to get all the item labels and whatnot if I wish. Now, whether to use the in-game graphics for treasure chests/materia/potions/etc. or use stylized icons for them instead, I'm still mulling over.

I've also made a bit more progress with mapping GD Leen. Although there isn't that many areas in the game, the dungeons can end up being quite large, spanning four or more floors each (each floor being 768x768 or 1024x1024 in size). Most of the maps won't be done until I'm near the end of the game since to defeat the final boss, I need to search for a number of special weapons and equipment that are hidden behind locked doors which are scattered throughout all the previous areas I've been to. Some are remarkably easy to find, while others are prohibitively difficult to.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: vorpal86 on January 17, 2015, 11:21:24 pm
Welcome back!

I'd suggest using custom stylized icons for the treasure. That puts a personal spin on the maps. Just try and keep the color scheme and such near the same. But hey... you are THE RPG mapper around here so keep um' comin'!

Good Day/Night!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 24, 2015, 04:07:56 pm
I have the first three areas mapped out and fully labelled for Final Fantasy VII (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/index.htm#FinalFantasyVII) (up to the "Last Train from Midgar"). These few maps will give some indication into how I'll be treating the rest of the maps.

I have attached an image showcasing the various icons and how they'd work on a map. A few of the icons (the materia and save point) I took from the fourth disc of the International version. Because of the screen disortion when viewing that disc, I had to edit or completely redraw those icons, since I don't think squished egg-shaped materia spheres would look all that great for labelling maps with. Might as well include a screen shot from disc 4 to illustrate this point. The other icons I came up with myself.

For some things, such as picking up/receiving an item from someone, or revisiting an earlier area that has new items, I will include a small description above the item label to indicate who it is from or when that item becomes available to get. One good example is the Chocobo Lure materia that becomes available at the Chocobo Farm after Sephiroth casts Meteo during Disc 2.

There's probably a few more icons I'll have to make as I progress through the game, but this should be enough for the time being.

@vorpal86: Thanks for the kind words! :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: vorpal86 on January 24, 2015, 06:21:59 pm
That looks nice enough. It's a bit more difficult to map this FF game than the normal 2d ones. The icons looks good and descriptive.

As you mention as you go through the game I'm sure things will change a bit about the way you're mapping. So far the current maps you have on the main site are fair enough. There is a lot of stuff in this game!

Carry on and fly high!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 24, 2015, 08:05:48 pm
Glad you approve!

I'm not sure if I'd say it's harder to map than the previous 2D ones. If I didn't have 7mimic to help with ripping the backgrounds, then I'd agree it'd be more difficult.

The only difficult part I'd say is adding in all the sprites that aren't part of the backgrounds. Since the video plug-in (P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver 1.15) in ePSXe which allows me to attain pixel perfect screen shots uses a slightly shifted colour palette than what 7mimic gives me, cutting away the excess pixels is going to be a chore (unless there's a plug-in out there where that problem doesn't occur).

おう、頑張ります!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 04, 2015, 11:24:01 pm
I finally have something to show for GD Leen (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#GDLeen). The first six maps are up at the moment, which will be followed by more in due time.

Since there doesn't seem to be a fan translation of this game (that is completed anyway), I did my best with translating the names of locations and items myself. There were some instances where I took a liberty or two with the translation to keep the names from getting too long. ディガンのませき would normally be "Digan Magic Gem", but I went with "Digan Gem" to keep it simple.

This game has some fairly strange sounding items when translated into English though... "Yummy Food", "Growling Head", "Signpost Midget" to name a few.

One thing I'm happy about is not having to make things up for the out-of-reach areas of maps. Good job game designers for actually filling in those out-of-reach areas with scenery! :D

Jon, the copyright information for this game should read "© 1991 Seta / Yuto Ramon". I didn't realize the title screen doesn't have that info on it. You only see it when you decide to stop playing the game for the day (it is displayed on a screen which also tells you to hold the reset button when turning the power off... as if that was necessary to do anyway). Sorry about that!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: vorpal86 on February 08, 2015, 07:12:00 am
Good to see those maps. I never heard of this game GD Leen. AGTP has about 5% of the game translated and needs some more text decpompression.

I actually like the color style and design of the game. Some sources say since this was the very first SNES/SFC game it wasn't very good. BUT... to each his own or HER own. Nice work though on the maps. Hopefully we'll have a working full translation of it in the future.

BTW I just ordered and received the RPG Trifecta pack released by Super Fighter Team. Since those were originally Genesis games I might map those. Beggar Prince is really the only one I need to use the working Trifecta pack release of to map, since emulating it doesn't work right. It actually crashes a short time into the game when getting the healing spell in the first town.

Only problem is playing it as a PC boxed emulated release it's scaled 2x and I can't for the life of me figure out how to disable my ATI filtering. I could resize the game window after capturing the screen with PSP but it doesn't look as it should due to the filtering.. GRRR..

At any rate, nice stuff. We'll see ya around.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 21, 2015, 01:23:24 pm
I'd say it was a fairly good game. Yes, it has its flaws, but I found it to be pretty fun to play through regardless. And NPCs seem to talk a whole lot more than in most other RPGs. They can often speak three or four windows of text before they decide to shut up. :D

Good luck with mapping those games! I did a little searching and found out that two of those three RPGs are Chinese in origin, which I found interesting. Doesn't help with someone learning Japanese though, haha.


On an unrelated note, I began playing through Final Fantasy II (the original NES version) a few days ago. It's great to finally play through this game and find out how the story progresses. I did play it many years ago, but somehow got stuck someplace without knowing what to do next (and I was playing the Neo Demiforce version at that time, so there wouldn't have been any language barrier to account for that).

I decided not to "cheat" by attacking my own party members to boost their HP, nor by casting spells unnecessarily to boost their MP. I wanted to see how well the characters would improve just by playing through the game naturally, and it seems to be working quite well:

Frionel - HP: 367 MP: 36
Maria - HP: 454 MP: 49
Guy - HP: 696 MP: 16

So far so good!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on May 30, 2015, 06:56:41 pm
I had been working tirelessly for the past few months on new artwork and merchandise (http://zanazac.tumblr.com/post/119883139511/although-its-a-little-late-posting-this-since) for Anime North. But now that that convention has come and gone, I can get back to mapping!

I only have two new maps for Final Fantasy VII to speak of right now: Sector 5 Slum and Aeris's House. But of course there will be more on the way some time soon.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 04, 2015, 07:23:32 pm
Yesterday, I put out a much more substantial update for Final Fantasy VII (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/index.htm#FinalFantasyVII), which takes things up to Sector 6. I only have about eight maps left of areas in Midgar. The Shinra Building will be the one map I will have to leave until later since there are a number of items that can be accessed at the end of Disc 2, and I would prefer to have only one map of that area.

I made a small change in how I point to items that people have or other things in the maps. I now simply use a glowing circle instead of the person icon I had used before. This also works great with the Turtles Paradise News flyers that are scattered about the world.

Another thing I finally figured out is how to expand the backgrounds of some areas where the given background doesn't cover the entire space the area takes up. You can see the results in the "Lower Sector 4 Plate" map. The only down side is that the illuminated bits that seep into the black that would normally be filled in with the background aren't as bright as the bits that illuminate the foreground only. But the effect is close enough to what is seen in-game that I'm not worried about it.

Hard at work on the rest of the maps in Disc 1!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 16, 2015, 12:05:38 pm
With the reveal at E3 yesterday of a Final Fantasy VII remake, do you think you'll have the original Final Fantasy VII done before then?  Though at the rate you're going, and considering the remake probably won't be out soon, I'm guessing it should be easy...
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 16, 2015, 01:17:57 pm
Oh! Have they finally decided to go ahead with that? Wow, that's quite the surprise! I'll have to look into that.

I actually have my sights on getting everything mapped and labelled (except for the overworld) by the end of June. I have most of the rest of Disc 1 already laid out (which I think is somewhere around 25 maps), all ready for me to go through the game and label 'em up. So I'm confident I'll be able to complete this project long before the remake comes out.

As far as the overworld is concerned, I am planning on drawing and painting that myself, which would be far easier for me to do than try and figure out how to rip the data from the disc itself. I have no idea how long that would take though, but that is the plan. ;)

Just in case you were wondering why no maps have been coming in the last few days, I've been taking a little break away from it, mainly playing Wild Arms in its stead.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 17, 2015, 11:44:20 am
I read somewhere that the Final Fantasy VII remake is indeed a remake, i.e., more than just an HD remaster.  When you consider that Final Fantasy VII is one of the most loved FF games of all time, and that almost everyone has played it, I suppose it's a good thing if they are going to change a few things so it's not just the same experience, only prettier.  But then again, it's eighteen years old already, probably will be nineteen or twenty by the time the remake comes out, so perhaps it's too broad an assumption to think that everyone has played it, since there's probably a generation of gamers now who were too young with the initial release.  At the same time though, Square-Enix could probably get away with it even if they went the HD remaster route and nothing more because it has been so long...  In any case, the first six games have been remade, really not surprising that they eventually got to VII.  The reveal trailer didn't blow me away, presentation-wise, but I suppose it's really just a teaser.

It'll be exciting to see the original when it is all mapped!  Between FlyingArmor's Final Fantasy VII maps, Peardian's The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time maps, and Revned's Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night maps, I don't know which fifth-generation video game maps are my favourite!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 21, 2015, 12:18:42 pm
I thought that teaser trailer was pretty impressive. It really makes Midgar look like this insanely gigantic city, which is not the impression I get when looking at the city in the original game, and especially not so when I was working on those maps. The sectors seem so small and dinky.

By the way, I noticed that the link for the Nibelheim map links to the Cave of the Gi map. All the other links look okay however.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on June 21, 2015, 01:30:26 pm
I've never actually played Final Fantasy VII (or any FF beyond VI for that matter) nor seen a Let's Play of it, and my knowledge of the game pretty much boils down to the murky plot of Advent Children and the awesomeness of its version of "One-Winged Angel".

That being said, browsing through the maps you've made (are there still a lot missing?) certainly gives a very different feel to the game's world compared to previous games (even VI which veered into steampunk). One thing that seems to come off of them though is how the camera angle seems to change all the time, reminding me a bit of how annoying navigation used to be in the old Alone in the Dark game trilogy. Is it as distracting while playing as I imagine it to be? Or is everything still laid out coherently enough that it's pretty much a non-issue?

I'm basically asking on the off-chance that I ever decide to play it.

Great maps by the way :).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 21, 2015, 02:03:56 pm
Well, I guess TerraEsperZ is an exception to my "everyone and their dog has played this game" assumption.  Ah well.  :P

The thing that confused me the first time playing through Final Fantasy VII was not the camera angles (the solid-color polygonal models of the characters sometimes stands out against the more detailed prerendered backgrounds, if I recall correctly, and I don't remember ever being lost), but rather the fact that you don't get to the overworld for quite a while until you do a lot of stuff in the first area, the huge city of Midgar.  I remember asking if an overworld area even existed.  When you finally get out of Midgar, you'll find the overworld, with typical RPG terrain, is polygonal with a freely-controlled rotating camera.

FlyingArmor, you mentioned you'd have to come up with some other representation of the overworld, I'm curious as to how it will look?  Will we have to wait long for that?  :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 21, 2015, 02:56:01 pm
I think about half of the total number of maps are up on the site right now, so there's still a lot left to go through.

Oh yeah, it's definitely a very different style compared to its predecessors; having modern feel to it, although still situated in a fantasy world. I think Tetsuya Nomura wanted to have Final Fantasy VII set in the modern day world actually, but that idea was scrapped early on I think. Final Fantasy XV seems to be going in that direction however.

I would say the areas are fairly well designed so that there isn't really any ambiguity as to where to go or where you're situated. But in the off chance you are a little confused, there is a feature which will point out where you are, where the exits are, and what things you can climb. As Jon said, the characters are very easy to pick out in the environments.

I took a look at the first Alone in the Dark game, and I can understand what you mean by the navigation. Final Fantasy VII's navigation is nowhere near that clumsy; there is no abrupt switching between views while walking in a single room for instance.

It's funny you mention the Alone in the Dark games, because I read in an interview with Yoshinori Kitase (http://thelifestream.net/weekly-famitsu-issue-no-1224-yoshinori-kitase-interview/) that those games were a major inspiration for Final Fantasy VII. I think he talked about how they could have gone the route of having 3D environments and pixel-drawn characters, like what Xenogears and Dragon Quest VII did, rather than what they did end up doing.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to try it out! Thanks for the kind words, Terra! :D

Jon: At this moment, it's still just a thought in my head. I'm thinking of perhaps making it appear like it's drawn on parchment, and have any colours appear more subdued than what you'd see in-game. The way J.R.R. Tolkien presented his maps of Middle-earth in his novels can help give an indication of what sort of direction I may end up going for Final Fantasy VII's world.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 25, 2015, 01:03:58 pm
About half already?  I guess the thing with RPGs is that they can feel longer than the maps imply due to random encounters, having to revisit areas, or to grind for experience.  And, probably what Final Fantasy is known for starting with VII, long full-motion video sequences.  Considering how epic this game is remembered by (true or not), it does seem funny (even if it's a good thing) that you're going through this quickly and making it look easy - not to disavow any challenges you may have faced, of course.  As each map has multiple screens I guess the short-ish file listing contributes to my surprise at your statement that you're halfway there.  Might be interesting to compare the number of areas with other Final Fantasy games...

I've heard that the game data (minus the FMV CG cutscenes) essentially fit on one disc, and that it's redundantly on all four discs.  If I remember correctly, by swapping discs when not prompted to, the wrong scenes would play but the game otherwise progresses as normal.

Me and my brother used to record playthroughs of video games on VHS tapes, especially when we often rented games and were good enough to finish them on a rental...the biggest multi-tape recording was of our playthrough of Final Fantasy VII (minus random battles and unimportant stuff) when we rented a PlayStation specifically to play it, and I even lent a friend these tapes so he could experience Final Fantasy VII without having to get the game and a PlayStation (this was before the PC release).  I suppose these days there's always YouTube...
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 25, 2015, 03:48:27 pm
If you count the number of maps already up on the site, you'll find there's 61, so it's already surpassed FF4 (which has 41), and is closing in on FF5 and 6 (which have 71 and 69 respectively). From what I can tell, it may look like Final Fantasy VII will get pretty close to 100 maps. Part of that however is me splitting up huge areas into multiple maps, Junon being one such example.

If BumFengShui hadn't pointed me to 7mimic, I'd probably still be having a hell of a time trying to capture a lot of the areas manually. It only looks like I'm zipping through them because much of the organizing and layout work was done before June.

Mapping this game has had its challenges, but I'd say a lot of them had to do with presentation. Since there is no 16 x 16 grid that everything fits into anymore, I had to come up with different ways of denoting things, like using icons for treasure chests and save points, and arrows for indicating scenery changes in the case you cannot return to the previous scene. The rest is still pretty much my usual way of mapping things though.

You would be correct about the game data without the movies fitting onto a single disc. It sure does make mapping FF7 that much more convenient! No having to worry about disc swapping. I've never heard about that other thing though, haha.

That's pretty cool. It's like a Let's Play without the commentary to go along with it. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on July 03, 2015, 01:36:15 pm
You would think that being the one who updates the tables and uploads the maps I, of all people, should clearly know exactly how many maps you have submitted.  :P  I think because of all of the Midgar maps, I didn't think we were that far away from it, so it still felt like we were early on, so your "halfway done" remark made me think there weren't many maps overall, because I was too lazy to count to check.  Indeed, you're right, it will be a very large map set when complete, even by FF standards.

On a similar note, should all the Midgar maps be relabelled using "Midgar" as the main category?  I think it would be neat to see more clearly how much Midgar takes up of the game, plus when you're travelling all over the world later on, it's easy to find what you're looking for, knowing that all of Midgar is listed as such.  Thoughts?

EDIT: And perhaps Junon is well.  And isn't the Chocobo Race Waiting Room part of the Gold Saucer?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 08, 2015, 04:13:23 pm
Sure, I don't find anything wrong with grouping all the Midgar areas under that category. And the same applies to Junon as well. I will however be putting the emergency stairs in the Shinra Building as a separate map, which I placed under the "Shinra Building" category. Not sure if that will cause any problems with organizing them.

The Chocobo Race Waiting Room is technically a part of Gold Saucer, but I didn't group it in with the rest of that map because it's an area you only ever visit once and can never return to afterwards. But if you're looking to place it under the "Gold Saucer" category, I won't object. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 17, 2015, 02:15:54 pm
It's been a few months since I had last submitted maps for Final Fantasy VII, and that is mainly because I was stuck on how to present the "Great Glacier" map in a aesthetically pleasing way.

I was wondering whether or not to include all the transition scenes between landmarks. If I did so, I think the map would've been next to useless since it would've been so vastly huge, making it a chore to find the areas with items present. In the end, I decided to not bother with the transition scenes (except for one because there was an "Added Cut" materia to be found there) and simply used arrows to indicate which areas connect to where.

Hopefully the map isn't a complete mess with all the arrows everywhere.

Besides that, I've been working away on a new RPG, Silva Saga II for the SNES. I had played this a couple of years ago and found it quite nice, so why not map it as well. I got quite a number of maps laid out already, so once I get most if not all of the game mapped out, I'll start labeling them up. There are tons of hidden items that can be found in towns, so it'll be quite the task to find them all!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on February 16, 2016, 08:36:02 am
Because I'm an impatient jerk (well, hopefully not, but I've been called similar), I'm curious as to what the status of the Final Fantasy VII maps are...

And Ultima VI: The False Prophet was my favourite game that I could run on the first PC that our family owned, a 286 way back in the day (now I feel old).  To be a further jerk, and I don't recall if I ever asked, but are there plans to map the dungeon/cave areas as well?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 16, 2016, 04:31:38 pm
Since my last post, I haven't worked on them at all. But I suppose now is a good time to get back to them. I simply haven't bothered to progress the game to get to the next area for map labeling. So I can have about six or seven new maps ready by Friday or so.

As for Ultima VI, I have started doing maps of the dungeons and caves, but I've only worked on the small ones (like the Spider Cave for instance). I'm still deciding upon how to label the item legends, so once that's sorted out, you can be sure to see them in your inbox before too long.

I recall other people asking my about mapping the dungeons in the past, so you're not the only one. ;) Just thinking about mapping some of those dungeons is a great deterrent to working on them, since many of them are so incredibly massive, not to mention dragon-infested!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: KeyBlade999 on February 16, 2016, 07:15:20 pm
Random thought.

Since you love doing Final Fantasy maps - or at least seem to - would you be able to complete the Final Fantasy III set: the Famicom version, not the one from the SNES that you've already done. 
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 16, 2016, 10:48:18 pm
Oh I do enjoy mapping Final Fantasy games, even if they can be a pain sometimes. :)

I have thought of mapping Final Fantasy III before. I did in fact map the first cave just for the fun of it, but never bothered to post it anywhere. I do remember Will submitting maps for it however (checking the update log, back in September 2014), so I'm not sure if he's still keen on continuing on or not. But if no one steps up to the plate, I would indeed be interested in mapping that game as well.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Will on February 17, 2016, 08:43:44 am
You can continue mapping Final Fantasy III if you really want to. I only did these few maps as samples.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on February 18, 2016, 09:06:59 am
Good to see these aren't forgotten or abandoned.

I don't know what it is about Ultima VI that I love so much...I had trouble getting into the earlier ones, I guess I liked VII but definitely not as much as VI...okay, I guess I liked VIII but it was definitely very different, and I guess I never played IX.  Though I suppose any long-running series that can get to nine entries or more are bound to have some good ones and some not-so-good ones, I'm sure I have varying opinions on the various Final Fantasys and Mega Mans.  (Final Fantasies?  Mega Men?)  Come to think of it, "liking VI more than VII and VIII being different" pretty much applies to Final Fantasy as well.  Does that mean if I get around to playing Ultima IX I might like it as much as I enjoyed Final Fantasy IX (which was underrated, in my opinion)?  And Mega Man is kind of like Final Fantasy where the seventh is on a new platform, the eighth feels different (though in MM's case it's probably just the evolution of the graphics) and the ninth is a return to an older feel (though in MM, again, it's more technical).

Um, anyway, my point is I really really love Ultima VI, whatever the reason is.  :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 19, 2016, 01:08:15 pm
@Will: Okay, thanks for letting me know. If I ever get to it, it'll certainly be a while, since I gotta play through the game first of course.

@Jon: Ultima VI is my favourite as well. It was also my introduction to the Ultima series in general. One thing I like about it is the strange perspective it utilizes for presenting the world. It certainly takes a bit to get used to, but works very well.

I really liked Ultima VII: The Black Gate's story and presentation very much, and I feel the same about Serpent Isle as well, although I haven't played that game all the way through (mainly because a bug with either the game itself or Exult stopped me from progressing). But the combat system is quite a chaotic mess, especially when compared with Ultima VI, which is much more structured and orderly.

Yeah, it's interesting comparing these long-running series with each other and finding these bizarre parallels. I wonder how Dragon Quest would compare?

Final Fantasy IX is probably my favourite Playstation Final Fantasy game, even though I like Final Fantasy VII quite a lot. So if there was a program like 7mimic for Final Fantasy IX, I would jump at the chance to map it! *hint hint* ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on May 05, 2016, 08:31:57 pm
Update Time!

I have updated a number of maps (FF4, FF5, Dragon Quest 1+2) which had some mistakes or missing things. I also added the Chocobo Forest maps for both versions of FF4, which I had completely forgot about. I only realized that map was missing when I was playing through that game again and ended up stumbling upon an item in the grass!

Besides that, I've given some attention to Ultima VI: The False Prophet (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#UltimaVIFalseProphet) again. I've done a couple of the smaller dungeons and a few other things. Besides the dungeons, I'm also gonna make individual maps for all the towns, buildings and shrines, detailing all the items that can be gotten within them (though most of the stuff if taken will lead you to losing karma, heheh).

Still no progress with Final Fantasy VII.

But I have laid out most of the areas in Final Fantasy III though! I got around to playing it from start to finish last month, so now I'm very familiar with that Final Fantasy at long last. :D You'll probably see maps for this come out some time in June.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on May 21, 2016, 08:16:17 am
I meant to say Flying Armor, I love the new Ultima maps.  You may be the only person to make in depth maps of a later Ultima game like this.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on May 21, 2016, 02:04:07 pm
Thanks very much, Trop. :)

Well, it's something I've been meaning to do for a long while now. There's tons of really cool stuff to get in the game, and I've yet to see anyone lay it all out like I'm doing. For instance, as far as I can recall, you don't really need to buy any magic equipment at all; you can just find it all in the dungeons.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on May 22, 2016, 06:54:39 pm
The biggest thing I remember about grabbing all the random stuff was discovering I was losing Karma since the game considered it stealing.  Can't wait to see you do one of the big un-virtue dungeons like Pride.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on May 22, 2016, 10:54:58 pm
Great work as usual FlyingArmor! I just don't tend to comment on your maps since they're almost always about game I don't play, but I appreciate the efforts all the same.

Tell me, since you're usually mapping pretty complex RPGs, are you afraid that you might miss stuff? I've found over the years that even games that are considered classics still might have secrets to them that aren't know to most and thus, would not be mentioned in FAQs or walkthroughs. I tend to be stressed that there might be some secret areas or items that I didn't find, that aren't really listed anywhere online yet might be known to some gamers and then I'd come off as being kind of an amateur...
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on May 23, 2016, 12:18:28 pm
Thanks very much, Terra! I'm pretty much the same way with not commenting on other mappers’ work I'm not familiar with. It can certainly explain my low post count when compared to other regulars here. Maybe I should remedy that... ;)

I tend not to worry all that much over missing things. There have been the few occasions where that's happened to me with previous map sets, but I don't stress over it. If it happens, oh well. I just revise the map and get it updated on the site.

When I'm in the labeling phase of mapping, I usually have a few walkthrough sites handy to make sure I don't miss anything. There have been times where I find something that wasn't listed on those sites, but it doesn't happen often.

Although I haven't formally announced it yet, I've been working on Light Fantasy on and off for several months, and if it weren't for this one walkthrough site I've been referring to, there would have been a ton of hidden items I'd have never known existed. I've attached one such map to this post. All the hidden items are found in the trees. If you weren't told about them, you'd never think to look there, right? I wonder if it's ever brought up in the game manual.

But even so, if I had sent in the maps without those hidden items pointed out, I doubt anyone would complain over their absence. I don't think this game is well-known enough to warrant that kind of response anyway. So in conclusion, I'd just say don't sweat it. :)


Trop, even if you manage to get your karma down to zero, it's still very possible to get it back up to 100. Every time you meditate at a shrine for leveling up you get 10 karma points, so stealing the odd thing here and there isn't going to make the game unwinnable. ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 10, 2016, 03:56:58 pm
Wait, I don't remember receiving that Gilts Village map.  Is that a submission?

The Final Fantasy VII remake still doesn't have a solid release date, at least not according to Wikipedia at the moment.  Could be a multi-part release.  I'm sure I've asked if you'll have this done in time for the remake, don't know if whatever your answer is might have changed since whenever I last asked.  Seeing how slow Square-Enix is (XV debuted at the E3 I went to, back in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which was ten years ago!), maybe it won't be that difficult, really.

Seeing your VII maps is making me crave an FF game.  I mean, yeah, I'm working on Final Fantasy XIII right now but had to take a break for a couple weeks to take care of other stuff, and even though I'm on like Chapter Seven or Eight it's been ridiculously linear and still doesn't feel as much of an FF game as it could.  Not that XIII has anything to do with VII as far as I know (other than Lightning having a Cloud outfit in the second XIII game, I think...  hmmm, Lightning/Cloud?)  Yeah, I'm also obsessed with Final Fantasy: Record Keeper on mobile, but all it is is just battles.  Maybe I would just like to roam around a bit more and find treasures and talk to NPCs or something.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 10, 2016, 06:21:42 pm
Don't worry about that Gilts Village map. I just uploaded that map here to make a point about how you'd have no idea to search around the trees for hidden items if you didn't already know they were there in the first place. Besides, that map is out-of-date anyway; I've made a lot of changes to it since that post.

The huge break from Final Fantasy VII maps is mainly due to not wanting to slog through battle after battle leveling up my party. I was fairly under leveled by the time I got to Mideel, and I didn't find the correct codes for modifying the amount of EXP and AP gained after battle at that time, so I simply put mapping Final Fantasy VII aside. Now that most of my characters are close to level 99, I can simply breeze through the game without worrying about being too weak to proceed on. The only thing that's gonna take some time to do is the Chocobo breeding.

So with all that said, I should have all the maps done long before the remake comes out if I continue to work on them regularly.

Even now I've yet to play Final Fantasy XIII (not having a PS3 is certainly a major factor in that), and it being so linear is the one thing I always hear about it. That aspect alone won't deter me from playing it though. I'll just know what to expect in that respect. ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on June 10, 2016, 07:10:29 pm
Oh, but Final Fantasy XIII is on Steam, so you can play it on PC.  That's how I'm playing it.  Actually, it's funny...  I was waiting for all three parts of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy to be available on Steam because I wanted to be sure I would be able to play the whole thing (at the time I didn't have a PS3).  Then the third part finally got released I think late last year, so I bought it, but I was behind in my games and didn't get to them right away.  Then we needed a PS3 for a "Street Fighter Night" event (some characters are exclusive to the PS3 version of Street Fighter X Tekken) and I saw a really good deal on a PS3 (with the Uncharted games) on a local Facebook Group about game trading/buying/selling, so I couldn't resist.  So I ended up getting a PS3 and Final Fantasy XIII at nearly the same time, but it was not the PS3 version of FF XIII, which I originally thought would be what would move me to get a PS3 if anything would.

But clearly Final Fantasy should not be considered a PlayStation-exclusive series.  For the longest time it seemed like the only PC ones were VII and VIII, then also the MMOs XI and XIV.  But that's changed in a hurry.  Final Fantasy IX was recently released on Steam, and so have ports of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD.  Just the other day they announced a PS4 remake of Final Fantasy XII, but since Square-Enix seems keen on Steam now it almost feels guaranteed to eventually come out on the PC.  If that is true that XII will make its way over, you can now play every main-numbered FF game without requiring a PlayStation.  The "Nintendo + PC" fanboy in me is happy about that.  (Though to be fair I haven't regretted the PS2 and PS3 I own, either.)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on June 11, 2016, 02:50:28 pm
Well, since my PC is over 10 years old (I got it from the electronic dump around here) I don't think I'd be able to play Final Fantasy XIII on it. I've never ever had the latest and greatest with PC hardware, so that's probably a huge reason why I play consoles and am not all that interested in PC games.

However, I did end up buying Final Fantasy XIII (Japanese) on eBay for a little over $25 CAD after a little searching, so now I just gotta find some place where I can get a PS3 for cheap (under $150 would be nice). My birthday is coming up soon anyway, so might as well treat myself, eh? :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 16, 2016, 10:23:14 pm
I just finished labeling the Brain Lord maps (mapping done by Tropicon) which I had started a few years ago, so now anyone who's curious about where all the items are as well as how to enter the various hidden rooms, you won't be disappointed.

Now that Brain Lord's done, I'm back working on Ultima VI. Been mainly focusing on towns and standalone buildings, but I'll get to the dungeons eventually.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on July 17, 2016, 09:14:38 am
The Brain Lord stuff looks great, and Hrrrrr can't wait to see the Ultima maps.  Especially the super difficult stuff like the dungeons he he he.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 19, 2016, 08:38:38 pm
Glad you approve of the Brain Lord maps! I'm just happy to have finally completed that collaboration project with you.

I got about 20 new maps done for Ultima VI so far, and two of those are dungeons, so I'm whittling those away one by one. :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on July 20, 2016, 09:27:44 am
Heh, no problem.  The Ultima is so good.  More please.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 06, 2016, 04:51:58 pm
I'm about ready to wrap up work on Final Fantasy III; I just got two more maps to label and it'll be done!

Working on these maps also made me do a ton of corrections with my FF4 maps mainly, but also a number of FF5 ones as well. A lot of it is just correcting the spacing of certain letters in the item legends, since I noticed a problem with my font file for typing the translations of item names. This also prompted me to fix some other errors I stumbled across in the process, as well as making sure the naming conventions I chose for recurring items remain consistent across the three games.

I won't dump all of that along with the remaining FF3 maps onto Jon all at once, but here's a heads up that it'll come in due time. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on August 07, 2016, 02:54:04 pm
You're knocking FF out FA.  Any planes to do FF8?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 08, 2016, 02:23:30 am
FF3 was the easiest FF to map by far; not having to jump through technical hoops to map things properly was really nice.

As for FF8, I have no plans to map it. If there's anyone out there who wants to give it a shot, by all means! Just because I've done most of the mapping for Final Fantasy on this site doesn't mean I have a monopoly on it. ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: ReyVGM on August 14, 2016, 12:43:30 am
I have a few requests if you're looking for something to do. I don't really need the maps or anything, but it would be nice to have them mapped by pros.

Jurassic Park 1 & 2 (SNES)

And... there's this obscure game called No Escape for the SNES. There aren't any FAQs for it, and pretty there's much zero information about what you need to do in the game. I've never been able to even pass the first area. It's a sidescroller, but you need to gather materials and combine them to build other materials (such as combine bottle, gas, and rag to make a molotov). The game has different endings depending on what you do to complete or escape the final mission.

Anyway, it would be cool to have maps for such an obscure game.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: YelseyKing on August 20, 2016, 01:46:27 am
Daaaaaaang, those Ultima 6 maps are *excellent*. I daresay some of your finest work to date. That level of detail is extremely impressive. Makes me want to replay the game, even. :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 20, 2016, 05:10:47 pm
ReyVGM: I'm actually trying to reduce the number of projects I'm working on at the moment, so adding even more would be counterproductive in that regard. Once I get the majority of my current projects out of the way (Light Fantasy and Ultima VI mainly), I'm probably going to take a break from mapping for a while to concentrate on other things. However, I do appreciate you suggesting me such projects! :D

YelseyKing: Thank you very much! Although I don't mind adding the amount of detail to my maps that I have (by detail I take it you mean where all possible obtainable items can be found, and the mini maps with the latitudinal and longitudinal co-ordinates), it's really the game itself that requires me to do it. And these are just the maps for the SNES version of the game! If I were to apply to same standard to the PC original, the item legends would no doubt be at least two or three times as long, given how many more items there are to obtain (which more often than not, end up being useless items like honey jars, rakes, oven spatulas, plates, chairs, etc).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Trop on August 20, 2016, 09:54:19 pm
Great.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on August 26, 2016, 08:17:50 am
So with all that said, I should have all the maps done long before the remake comes out if I continue to work on them regularly.

The Final Fantasy VII remake is now expected to be released in March 2017; is this still a true statement?  :P

Of course, there's always the possibility of a delay, like with Final Fantasy XV now coming out in November instead of September or whenever...I'm near the end of Final Fantasy XIII so I should probably just finish that off, so that for a brief while I can say I've played all the main numbered, non-MMO Final Fantasy games!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 29, 2016, 10:47:35 pm
I would say it's still a true statement. I think I have about 3 or 4 more game maps to finish off, and there's the overworld map as well. We're about six months away from March, so it's definitely within the realm of possibility!

By the way, I did end up buying a used PS3 back near the end of June and have been playing Final Fantasy XIII on and off since then. It's quite an amazing spectacle to behold! I still find the battle system a bit strange, although I've gotten used to it somewhat. I do however like not needing to heal after battles and not having to worry about MP!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 26, 2016, 04:17:32 pm
Inching closer to completing the Final Fantasy VII map set! I've now got the Northern Cave and Inside the Planet areas mapped and labeled.

Assembling the Inside the Planet map was a nerve-wracking experience. Because there are FMV sequences playing in the background when you're in this area, they obviously won't be visible when viewing the maps in 7mimic. The major problem I was running into was trying to find any program that could open the BIN files that the videos are encoded as. Most of the major FMV sequences in the game are stored as MOV files, and most programs I came across don't have any problem playing those, but none of those programs could play files ending in *.BIN. Long story short, I just bypassed the whole BIN file thing by downloading the AVI files from the PC Version of Final Fantasy VII instead. Ah, much nicer!

It still took a bit of effort to get the lighting correct on everything (or rather as correct as I can possibly get it) which involved separating the foreground and background and other such stuff, but at least it looks more or less how it's seen in-game. And because of this learning experience, I decided to go back to my Whirlwind Maze map and add in all the wavy background effects found in that area, which I didn't bother to do at the time I was working on it.

There's only a few more in-game maps to worry about, as well as the overworld map (which I haven't bothered working on yet), so I'm just about done with this game. :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: YelseyKing on September 28, 2016, 06:00:35 pm
... there is a Magic Counter materia in the Northern Cave. I... have played FF7 many times, and I never knew that was there. Wow. Would've saved me a lot of trouble trying to get that from the Chocobo Races. :P  (Of course, there are still a couple *other* materia exclusive to that minigame, so I'd need to play it *anyhow* for 100% completion, but still.)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 29, 2016, 01:43:26 pm
I wouldn't have known it was there either if it wasn't for this site (http://www.geocities.jp/kouryakubo/ff7/) showing me where it was, with it's well done hand-drawn maps. I walked right past it the first time I was documenting the treasures in that area and only realized I missed it when referring back to that website.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: YelseyKing on October 05, 2016, 11:05:58 pm
Just out of curiosity, outside of the world map (and possibly the Great Glacier snow field, though I have absolutely no idea *how* you'd map *that* featureless mess), are there any FF7 maps you have left to do? I don't see any *obvious* omissions, but there could be a couple I'm forgetting offhand. Awesome work on them, though, as always! I've always loved the detail that went into FF7's backgrounds.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on October 06, 2016, 02:42:56 pm
Thanks very much!

I'm fairly sure that all the maps that use pre-rendered graphics are complete. I didn't bother to include areas that were used solely for flashbacks or cutscenes, an example being the backstory with Zack and Cloud breaking out of the basement of Shinra Mansion.

Besides the world map, I'm also thinking of doing maps for the chocobo race courses. They'd have to be drawn by hand of course, but I'm sure I can figure out a way to represent them two-dimensionally.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on February 28, 2017, 09:14:04 am
The Final Fantasy VII remake is now expected to be released in March 2017; is this still a true statement?  :P

Well, to answer my own question, March 2017 begins tomorrow, and we haven't heard much about it that is encouraging, so I'm pretty sure it's not...

And now that you mentioned areas for flashbacks/cutscenes, I wonder if, for completion's sake, if there would be any problem doing those too, either as separate maps or integrated with areas they would be connected to.  If you did consider them, keeping them separate would probably help to avoid confusion.  Unless they are very much connected to some area (I still find the Chocobo Race Waiting Room being separate from the Golden Saucer a choice different from what I would have done, IMO)...

Any progress on the overworld maps and race courses?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 28, 2017, 01:31:01 pm
Yeah, I had checked a little while ago if the FF7 Remake had a tentative release date yet, but it still looks like that's up in the air.

I haven't made any progress on those maps for FF7, but I have gotten back into mapping Ultima VI after about a five month hiatus. I've finished up 10 more maps, and have about half a dozen left to work on. I'll probably send what I've got done to you some time tonight.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 30, 2017, 09:08:47 pm
I submitted the last batch of maps for Ultima VI back in April, so that game has been complete for a few months now.

Also, last week I submitted maps for Daedalian Opus (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#DaedalianOpus) and it's Japanese counterpart, Bouken! Puzzle Road (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#BoukenPuzzleRoad) for the Game Boy. The reason for mapping the Japanese version as well was that I discovered that it had more levels than the North American version, a total of six more. But when comparing the two games more closely, you'll see that the puzzle orders don't line up one to one. Some puzzles that appear later in Daedalian Opus end up appearing far earlier in Bouken! Puzzle Road (the puzzle in the shape of a gun is one such). There's a few puzzles exclusive to the North American version as well, which I found rather interesting.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on July 31, 2017, 08:07:13 am
Some localization efforts are weird.  It's like the American branch/division of these game companies just want to do something more than just translate them or change cultural references.  Unless there really is some kind of spike in difficulty, it seems nearly pointless to shuffle puzzles around.  And adding puzzles is one thing, but removing some?  Why?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: Shortie12 on January 01, 2018, 12:29:50 pm
Your maps are the best. I can't wait for Lufia the Legend Returns to be finished. It is obvious you put a lot of time into your maps. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 13, 2018, 04:42:48 pm
Things have been fairly quiet here for quite some time now, so here's some status updates on what I'm currently working on. A lot of the following games I've had some work done for for a long time now, so I thought it high time to see those projects through to completion.

Final Fantasy VI (SNES). Although I had completed this game years ago, I completely forgot about adding the Chocobo Stables from the overworld so I submitted the one from the World of Balance a number of months ago. I still have yet to submit the one for the World of Ruin though (didn't think they existed at the time).

Light Fantasy (SFC). This game is finally fully mapped!

Ganbare Goemon Gaiden: Kieta Ougon Kiseru (FC). Originally requested in the forum. Currently only working on the overworld map, but will probably map everything else at some point.

Shinseiki Odysselya (SFC). I had a few maps for this game done a number of years ago, but since I hadn't committed myself completely to mapping the game in its entirety then, I didn't bother to get them up onto VGMaps.

Lufia: The Legend Returns (GBC). I still need to finish playing this before I can work on it fully, but I do have a number of the early areas mapped out, they just lack the treasure labels.

Legend of the Ghost Lion (NES). Haven't played this game to the end just yet, but I have at least 50% of the game mapped out thus far.

Final Fantasy VII (PSX). I'll get to the overworld map some time this year. ;)


Thanks for the very kind words Shortie12! :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: YelseyKing on August 19, 2018, 11:13:39 pm
Oh hey, it's my... one post a year or whatever. :P

I'm digging those Shinseiki Odysselya maps, but I have a question. Is there a translation patch for that game somewhere, or are the treasures and such your own translations? I know that game was slated for an English release (as "Lost Mission", shown in an issue of Nintendo Power), but... I have no idea if a ROM of it was ever leaked and dumped.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on August 20, 2018, 09:38:46 am
Thanks YelseyKing! I should devote a bit more time to it since it's such a massive game (the overworld map itself is probably gonna be somewhere around 8000 x 6000 pixels big once I'm done with it).

All the labels are my own translations. I don't know of any translation patch, whether already in existence or in the works. Thankfully the item names are pretty straightforward in this game. Granhistoria on the other hand... I remember the recovery items were named rather strangely.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on December 13, 2018, 10:38:37 pm
Just a quick update: I discovered two new hidden items in Paladin's Quest (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#PaladinsQuest) the other day, so I updated the maps that contain them. The first one can be found in the elder's house in Ratsurk (Home dor). The other is found is front of an egg in Rekuon (Light cd).

Finding these items years after completing this map set makes me wonder if there aren't other hidden items tucked away in other inconspicuous spots around the world of Lennus. It would certainly be worth scouring around to see!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 15, 2019, 10:46:44 pm
I just recently completed a set of maps for the PC version of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaIVQuestOfTheAvatar). So far I have only mapped out the townes, villages, and castles, but I do plan on doing Britannia (fully labelled with areas to enter and items to find) as well as the dungeons.

This is the first time I've included shop information on my maps, which is something I tend not to do, but I thought was appropriate in this case.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on January 18, 2019, 10:26:06 pm
I think this was also the first time you sent in maps of a PC game, which kind of surprised me.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 19, 2019, 05:05:30 pm
Since I tend to work on SNES games, maps for a PC game are quite the oddity, aren't they? :D But I just love the aesthetic look of this version of the game, so I couldn't pass it up. Plus, it's Ultima!

Another update! I finally finished mapping Star Trek The Next Generation: Future's Past (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#StarTrekNextGenerationFuturesPast) for the SNES. I finally figured out a way of moving through walls and other obstacles so I could capture the normally inaccessible areas of Verenitor Epsilon and Verenitor Alpha I.

There is one part of Verenitor Alpha I where pressing a certain button will cause a bridge to appear, allowing the rest of your crew members to cross, thereby allowing you to proceed further. But since I have a bugged version of the game, this doesn't happen, so if you're unfortunate enough to have this copy of the game, this level is more or less impossible to complete, let alone map. This is what held back this project for years (seven to be exact) and thus I had put this game on indefinite hiatus. But now that's no longer the case, thank goodness!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on March 26, 2019, 11:10:13 am
So Final Fantasy VII is now available for the Switch!  And Xbox One.  Who knows what's going on with the perpetually-in-limbo remake, but I guess if you've somehow been a Nintendo-only or Xbox-only person here's a chance to see what's up, I guess?  (But maybe don't be so monogamous and beholden to one company's line of machines?)

I am curious if the full world map is still in progress, if it ever was?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on April 05, 2019, 01:41:40 pm
I did make a tiny bit of progress some time ago, but haven't done anything with it since then. Basically, I just took the in-game map and traced around the coastlines of the continents and islands in a paint program. My next step is to print it out big on multiple sheets of paper, then painstakingly go through the game and draw what I see on that map.

Since Anime North is coming up at the end of next month, perhaps I can get it done before then to sell as a print to con-goers? I'd need to consult the organizers of the Comic Market (a.k.a. the artist alley) to see if that would be allowed, since they've become very strict when it comes to trademarks. They're so strict in fact that even the triforce symbol is not allowed in fanart (I found that out last year when I was asked to take down my two Legend of Zelda prints that depict shield designs, this being one such (https://www.deviantart.com/zanazac/art/Shield-of-Hylia-v-2-308354497)). So I wouldn't be surprised if they decide that the names of towns and places on the map would be considered trademark infringement, as ridiculous as that sounds.

But first I'd need to get the map finished before proceeding to that stage!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on April 08, 2019, 04:07:18 pm
The Triforce symbol?  Copyright reasons?  What?

Is Nintendo going to sue The American Academy of Actuaries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Actuaries)?  There are other uses of the three-triangle logo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triforce#Usage_outside_of_video_games) as well.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on April 11, 2019, 09:35:39 pm
Not copyright, but trademark (though it's understandable that you confused them since they're confused all the time). And from what I could glean from the United States Patent and Trademark Office's website, all the uses Nintendo applied for trademark protection were simply for the word "TRIFORCE", and not the symbol itself.

Now as for The American Academy of Actuaries you had mentioned? Their trademark (http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:ok9vqh.6.1) does indeed also apply to those three triangles as well, but they could only go after anyone using that symbol in conjunction with actuarial matters, not any other possible use (though I could be incorrect).

The closest match I could find to the three triangles in the "triforce configuration" in relation to video games was for YOGATRON (http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:ok9vqh.8.42), but the triangles are inverted, and the trademark has been dead since 2012.

So yeah, it doesn't look like my use of the triforce symbol is my fanart is actually infringing any trademark related to video games. The funny thing about the coordinators telling me to take down the "infringing" prints was that they did so about one hour before the convention ended, so I had those prints up for 95% or so of the rest of the convention anyway, so looking back, it wasn't a great loss. But still it's pretty ridiculous whichever way you look at it.

And as for the Final Fantasy VII world map, I did some searches for a few of the more unique place names (Midgar, Junon, Gongaga, etc.), and did not get any relevant matches. So I should be in the clear with that, though I wouldn't be surprised if the coordinators raise an objection to it.

I know they're trying to protect artists from possible lawsuits and legal action, but making artists take down pieces of work for hypothetical infringement is I think going a little overboard.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 26, 2019, 01:51:15 pm
Alright, I think a quick update is in order.

I'm still whittling away the remaining maps for Shinseiki Odysselya (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#ShinseikiOdysselya). I think I got about seven more maps to do and that should be it for that game. I've been submitting maps for it since January 2018, so it'll be nice to have this mapping project finally behind me.

I also submitted maps for Golf (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Golf) and Snow Bros. (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#SnowBros) a few weeks ago.  They were pretty simple to capture and compile, so it's the least I could do to fill in some gaps in the NES Atlas. And speaking of filling in the gaps some more, I'm steadily working on Legacy of the Wizard, so that should be awesome to see once it's complete.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on September 12, 2019, 08:09:47 am

So, any chance of completion of the Final Fantasy VII overworld before March 2020?  :P
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 14, 2019, 04:55:40 pm
After my trip to Japan in October I'll definitely have the time to finally devote to working on the world map. Plus now that there's a concrete release date for FF7 Remake, that's help spur me on. :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on September 14, 2019, 07:53:01 pm
I'm considering going to Japan next year!  My co-worker's been twice recently and he says it's easy to get around in Tokyo without needing to know English.  (EDIT: I meant "...needing to know Japanese, as most people in Tokyo know enough English.")  Let me know how your trip goes!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 14, 2019, 08:22:06 pm
My co-worker's been twice recently and he says it's easy to get around in Tokyo without needing to know English.

I think you mean " without needing to know Japanese"? ;)

My friends and I have been planning this trip since the beginning of this year, so I'm certainly looking forward to visiting and exploring that beautiful country. It's always been a dream of mine to go there ever since I became fixated on the Japanese language (through video games and manga), so I'm really excited to finally see that dream come true!

I've got a notebook of all the books and other stuff I'd like to get while I'm there, the bulk of it being books related to video games that are out-of-print for the most part. Although I have some things I'm set on finding, I'll probably find a lot of things I never knew existed and just can't resist, haha! :D But we'll see how it goes.

And of course, I'll be sure to write up a trip report or something to that effect afterwards.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on September 16, 2019, 01:28:38 pm
I found this YouTube channel called "Abroad In Japan", which I've watched a few episodes of to learn some things about the sights and culture.  Here's a good video about what NOT to do there:


Today on reddit (which in the past few months I've used lots, whereas I rarely ever did before) I found this interesting thread: My Completely-Excessive Japan Travel Megamap (https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/b6r4oe/my_completelyexcessive_japan_travel_megamap/), or more directly, here (https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?hl=en&mid=1fmfaySQHmojbRGKWCwRecq6Ln1Bb2Xdh&ll=37.22919067919654%2C133.93716060922202&z=6), a behemoth Japan map that redditor CorbeauNoir01483 made when planning a Japan trip and decided to share, because it now has way more information than one traveler probably needs.

On the gaming side of things, I heard Nintendo Tokyo (the Tokyo equivalent of Nintendo New York, formerly Nintendo World Store) is opening (or opened?) in Q3 2019, and Super Nintendo World is supposed to open at Universal Studios Tokyo next spring or at least before the Olympics.

I guess we're straying off topic, but I look forward to anything you share about your trip!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on October 01, 2019, 03:43:16 pm
Mapping for Shinseiki Odysselya is finally done (or rather it was two weeks ago)! Some maps had dragged on this project for more time than I would have liked, but at least it's now complete.

As for what to do next, I'll focus on finishing up a few of the mapping projects that I started but haven't completely finished up yet, such as Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and Final Fantasy VII, before starting anything new.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 10, 2020, 12:27:04 pm
One game I didn't think I'd be finishing up is Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#LufiaTheFortressOfDoom). I was going through the game capturing the enemy sprites for a sprite sheet I'm making and I noticed there were several areas I didn't bother mapping when I was working on this game ten years ago.

They were mostly shrine type areas like the four shrines that warp you to Doom Island and other areas where no chests or hidden items exist. From a gameplay perspective, I didn't think mapping those areas out would've been all that helpful to players looking for hidden items and such, so I suppose I skipped them for that reason. Well, many years later, and I'm much more likely to map out any area that's seen in-game, even if it's just for short cutscene. :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on March 25, 2020, 10:36:30 pm

FlyingArmor, you might want to take a look.  Actually, everyone should, this is seriously cool.  I like many of Andy Dick's Atlas Vids, where he takes playthroughs (often speedruns from people such as Lord Tom), but I LOVE this one in particular.  Maybe it's the small sprites against a large and detailed, yet very full map (no blank areas), that when watching on a big TV, it's just so impressive.

Great job for making this map, FlyingArmor!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 27, 2020, 11:21:53 am
Wow, very cool! Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Jon. I never thought anything like this would be done with my maps, so it's really nice to see this! One thing I didn't know before watching the video was that the boss fights take place in separate areas from the main dungeon, so I suppose I'll have to amend my map with those. :)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on March 27, 2020, 04:12:44 pm
If you're going to add the boss rooms onto the same image, might I suggest putting them to the left of the main dungeon?  Because if you're going to extend the image leftward anyway, then you could line up the entry ladder.

It does seem kind of funny that this family lives so close to the entry of a massive dungeon teeming with monsters...
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on May 12, 2020, 08:25:36 pm
Not too long ago, I finished up Phantasy Star II. It is no wonder this game needs maps for anyone to make any sense out of its labyrinthine dungeons, as was provided in the instruction manual when it first came out back in 1989. I hope my maps can help those struggling with navigating this game to get through it without ripping their hair out. ;D

And speaking of games from the 1980's, I have recently sent in the map of Dungeon of Despise from Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar for the PC. I had submitted my maps for the townes, villages, and castles back in January 2019, but had struggled with laying out the dungeons in an aesthetically pleasing way since then. After much trial and error, I finally came across a style that I liked for the dungeon levels as well as a way of depicting where the pressure plates in the various rooms are and what happens when you stand on them. So all in all, I'm happy with what I came up with and will now apply this to the rest of the dungeons in the game. Mapping the Abyss is gonna be quite the ordeal though, but I'm up for the challenge!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on May 12, 2020, 09:31:01 pm
I like the way you depicted the pressure plate effects, as it's immediately obvious what they do.

As for the dungeon levels, I'm a bit torn between depicting the layout logically (8 x 8 tiles with wrap-around) and physically (as they would appear if mapped traditionally). This way is more consistent with every level being the same size and uses space better, but the layouts are bit harder to grasp just by looking at them. It's a matter of preference I guess and faced with a similar choice, I'd probably be partially unhappy with both depictions and just give up on the project wholesale.

Kudos for sticking with it, which I imagine must not be easy considering how old and outdated that game is nowadays!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on May 13, 2020, 12:32:36 am
Thanks Terra! I'm glad that you find the pressure plate portion easy to understand. I just noticed a mistake with room 12 where the step markers are in the wrong instances of the room, so I'll be sure that's fixed for my next update.

I totally understand your frustration with how to depict the dungeon levels, as I had had them as well. I was at first wanting to show them in the more traditional way rather than in the squares I eventually put them into, but after examining some of the levels from this dungeon as well as others, I opted for the square layout partly for saving space as you mentioned, but also so it would be easier to see where the ladders connect between levels without the need for alphabetic markers. Another consideration was for the Up and Down spells, as it would be easier to see where you will end up between levels. Also, there are levels that wrap around from all sides anyway, and if mapped out traditionally would end up with maps that go on forever in all directions, so confining those ones to squares is a necessity (the fifth level of Dungeon Wrong being one such).

But I do understand they're a bit more difficult to read. When I was going through this dungeon to verify where things were as well as the pressure plate stuff, I was looking at my map and having to double and triple check that I was going in the right direction a few times. Luckily with Ultima III, the dungeons don't wrap around on themselves, so they'd be easier to make maps for as well as read, though each level is four times as big (16 x 16 tile grid as opposed to 8 x 8 in Ultima IV).

It's not too hard to stick with something you love, so while the user interface is rather clunky and would be considered very unintuitive nowadays (reading the manual is certainly mandatory for a game like this!), I do love it for its world-building and the art style the PC version exhibits. And I suppose a hindsight reason would be because it is not nearly as brutal as a lot of CRPGs were in the 1980's, such as Wizardry or Pool of Radiance, to name only two examples. After seeing a number of videos highlighting retro RPGs from that era through Matt Barton's channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/blacklily8) on Youtube, it gives me an extraordinarily great appreciation for not having to pool and split gold constantly, memorize then rememorize spells after they've been used via camping, or roll then reroll your stats over and over again to make sure your character has a relatively decent balance for their character class, then rinse and repeat five more times. So comparing it with those games, Ultima IV isn't that bad. Plus having a save editor really helps! :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 23, 2020, 07:47:22 pm
I just submitted two maps for The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt for the SNES. I had actually mapped them five years ago, but didn't think to submit them until I had a few more of the levels done. Since then, I hadn't made any more progress, but since seeing this game on Jon's Requests list, I thought I may be as well submit what I've got.

Also, I've begun making a bit more progress with mapping Ultima VI: The False Prophet for the PC. Because there are so many more items you can actually pick up in this version, I thought the legends would get a bit unwieldy with the sheer number of items that can be acquired (like chairs, wall mounts, silverware, inkwells, and other such furnishings), but after mapping Cove and Skara Brae, it doesn't look to be too bad so far, though I wonder how bad it'll get with the bigger towns like Britain, haha. :D I haven't submitted anything yet, but will likely do so in the next few days once I have a few more maps put together.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on July 24, 2020, 07:58:36 am
For The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt, it will be interesting to see how you do Stage 4: Dragons Fire, especially the background/foreground.  This is the one that takes place in the attic but is seen through Granny's crystal ball...

Ultima VI: The False Prophet does have a bazillion objects, doesn't it?  As a game I just happened to find on our first PC (my dad got it used), it was one of the aspects of the game that just blew me away.  With so many objects that can be picked up, used, and interacted with, it really opened my eyes as to how big games could be.  Now open-world games are kind of a bit TOO commonplace, but back in 1990 or whatever, this was a revelation to me.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 03, 2021, 10:03:16 pm
Yesterday, my maps for Exodus: Ultima III (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#ExodusUltimaIII) (PC) were posted, so more old-school Ultima goodness is available for viewing here! Although most people don't have much fondness for CGA graphics these days, I kinda like how the colours were used for this port.

And just a little bit ago, I got the bathroom level done for The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#AddamsFamilyPugsleysScavengerHunt) (SNES) and it should be up fairly soon. It was quite an ordeal getting all the elements of each room together the way they're presented in-game. I had to come up with a solution for the backgrounds in the taller rooms, since the art for the background doesn't scroll vertically, so I just took the gradient part and stretched it to the height of the room, and kept the sink, mirror, and door elements at the bottom along with the horizontally parallax scrolling bubbles.

For the underwater portions, I managed to get the colour math correct for most of the layers except for the wavy water layer, but just as I am typing this out, I may have stumbled upon a solution, so I'll need to resubmit this map once that's figured out.

And as for Jon's comment on the stage in the crystal ball, that'll be an interesting challenge to tackle, especially since I don't like to leave platform game stages without their respective backgrounds present.

I got a little further with Ultima VI: The False Prophet (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaVIFalseProphet) (PC) since I last submitted maps in October. I've been a little slow with this project since I have two desktop computers that I switch between: my old Windows XP machine that I've had since 2011, and my newer Linux Mint machine. Since I'm so used to using Photoshop and all its handy keyboard shortcuts, trying to use GIMP has been a rather painful experience. Maybe if I can figure out how to get Photoshop to run under Wine without it throwing error messages at me, I wouldn't have to constantly switch between both computers.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on January 04, 2021, 10:49:19 pm
And just a little bit ago, I got the bathroom level done for The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#AddamsFamilyPugsleysScavengerHunt) (SNES) and it should be up fairly soon. It was quite an ordeal getting all the elements of each room together the way they're presented in-game. I had to come up with a solution for the backgrounds in the taller rooms, since the art for the background doesn't scroll vertically, so I just took the gradient part and stretched it to the height of the room, and kept the sink, mirror, and door elements at the bottom along with the horizontally parallax scrolling bubbles.

For the underwater portions, I managed to get the colour math correct for most of the layers except for the wavy water layer, but just as I am typing this out, I may have stumbled upon a solution, so I'll need to resubmit this map once that's figured out.

This is the kind of challenge I miss the most about mapping.
Sometimes, you'll just run into a game where some elements just seem impossible to represent properly on a static map. You get frustrated and might spend days, weeks or even months trying to come up with a solution. And one day, it finally just pops into you mind and after a bit on tinkering, you implement your workaround and produce something amazing!

I too am curious as to how you'll handle the crystal ball stage ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: JonLeung on January 05, 2021, 08:24:34 am
If all the rooms for the stage seen in the crystal ball can be rearranged (hopefully without twisting "door lines" too much) into a compact, roughly circle-like cluster, then you could have a giant-sized crystal ball and a giant Granny overlooking the entire stage.  Assuming this looks okay, that is.  With the cartoon style (since it is based on the 1992-1993 cartoon), she has large areas with one solid colour each (hair, face, shawl), so that probably won't be an issue (other than perhaps looking flat or plain in the immediate area).  But if the pixels are oversized into these big squares, I wonder if the edges and details, like the outline of the nose and mouth, might look odd, especially when looking right at screen level.  That will probably be dependent on how much larger the individual pixels have to be.  As a look at the entire area, that seems to be the most logical idea that I imagine, but it's probably just one of those things that needs to at least be tried out to see.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 10, 2021, 11:34:51 pm
This is the kind of challenge I miss the most about mapping.
Sometimes, you'll just run into a game where some elements just seem impossible to represent properly on a static map. You get frustrated and might spend days, weeks or even months trying to come up with a solution. And one day, it finally just pops into you mind and after a bit on tinkering, you implement your workaround and produce something amazing!

I had those moments of figuring out how to present things more accurately when I was working on Final Fantasy VII, where there'd be multiple layers of lighting for some areas that I couldn't simply layer on top of each other and have the resulting image be what I'd see when actually playing the game. But once I had figured out how to layer those things properly in the late areas, I went back to previously finished maps and added the extra layers that I didn't bother with. The map that comes to mind where that happened is the Whirlwind Maze, with the greenish-blue wavy mist. I think I had to manually mask out the foreground elements not affected by those layers by inspecting multiple in-game screenshots with slightly different animation frames to see which pixels the mist didn't affect. It was lots of tedious work, but ended up looking fabulous when it all came together. :D

If all the rooms for the stage seen in the crystal ball can be rearranged (hopefully without twisting "door lines" too much) into a compact, roughly circle-like cluster, then you could have a giant-sized crystal ball and a giant Granny overlooking the entire stage.

That'd be a really interesting way of doing it! I'd have to first put together all the rooms and then see what I can do with them, and if it works out that they can be arranged to fit into a circular pattern, then great! If not, I suppose the most background I'd add to the rooms would be the colour gradient behind Granny. Or maybe I try my hand at smoothing out the pixelated edges of a scaled-up Granny so it wouldn't be as obvious that she's been scaled up. It would not be as true to the in-game graphics as I would have then tampered with them, but it'd better reflect the spirit of that level. I'll give it more thought once I get to that point though!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 14, 2021, 06:41:38 pm
Li'l update from me! I've got about 16 more maps for Ultima VI: The False Prophet (PC) done. All that's left is 6 more, most of which are huge, expansive dungeons like Destard and Hythloth. I'll take care of 'em one by one, and before I know it, they'll be ready for prime time!  ;D

I also decided to submit a couple of maps from Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (PC). I put them together a while ago and was going to release them with the other mappable areas of the game all at once, but I haven't gotten to that yet, so Sosaria will have to do for now.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: VGCartography on March 18, 2021, 07:20:25 am
Enjoy reading about the layering challenges upthread! I didn't notice until reading your comments what was "faked" for the map like that, which is always the goal  :)

Tomba on PS1 mixed sprite billboards with 3D level geometry and parallax scrolling, so I had to do some goofy tricks to try and stretch/tile/recreate gradients over larger areas to simulate the effects as best as possible.

https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/Tomba!-VillageOfAllBeginnings.png
They swap out BGs as you move across the level, so here the clouds are used in the first part but when you climb up they secretly swap it out for a "forest canopy in distance" BG. No great way to blend them nicely so I just left a big artificial crop on it where it appears.

https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/Tomba!-LavaCaves.png
This one had a cool graphical effect on PS1 I couldn't duplicate in Blender to make the caves recede into the darkness, so I just cropped the main red outer wall shell I had and duplicated it, shrinking and making it darker each time. It actually is fairly different to in-game (which also has pulsing lights) but at a glance I got it close enough to be happy.

Your FF7 maps are one of the biggest influences that made me decide to try my hand at some of my own, btw.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on March 21, 2021, 03:18:50 pm
Yeah, some games don't allow for clean, aesthetically pleasing representations as two-dimensional maps, so one has to tweak things and get creative to get them looking as close to the authentic article as one can. It can be really tough at times, can't it?

It's wonderful to hear you were inspired to take up mapping from seeing my humble maps! When I can find some time, I'll be sure to peruse your maps for Tomba and Vagrant Story. The cursory glance I've taken of both map sets thus far leaves me very impressed!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 27, 2021, 07:59:35 pm
Hey all! Long time no speak.

I haven't been doing much lately as far as mapping goes, though I've done a little here and there. There's one map I've been working on and off for the better part of this year: a map of the Isles of Wynmar from the recently released RPG, Nox Archaist. It's been rather interesting working with Apple II Hi-Res graphics to say the least, haha. I've still got a long way to go before finishing the game, but I've got more than half of the overworld captured thus far.

The only other major mapping I've done is mapping out the Commodore 64 version of Ultima IV. I used Tiled along with the C64 tileset to construct the maps while looking at the PC maps I've already compiled. Mapping out the Britannian overworld tile by tile took quite a number of hours, though it beats having to do so with just screenshots. I should have all the townes and castles and villages submitted some time tomorrow.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: alucard on December 02, 2021, 04:14:04 pm
I love your Dragon Quest and Dragon Warrior Maps. I used them on latest replaying of the games. Any thoughts on ever mapping Dragon Quest 6 for the SNES?
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on December 30, 2021, 12:33:22 pm
I love your Dragon Quest and Dragon Warrior Maps. I used them on latest replaying of the games. Any thoughts on ever mapping Dragon Quest 6 for the SNES?

Thanks very much! I'm glad they were helpful. :D

I think I gave mapping Dragon Quest VI some thought after completing V, though around that time someone else had submitted maps for it. I've taken some time to glance through them, and I'm of the opinion that it's not a complete set, so I wouldn't mind doing a proper job of mapping it fully, haha. It's been quite a while since I mapped an RPG for the SNES/SFC. Perhaps it'll be a project for 2022!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 15, 2022, 10:32:32 pm
Quick update: I got the Isles of Wynmar (a.k.a. the overworld) map in Nox Archaist (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/AppleII/index.htm#NoxArchaist) finished! ;D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: VGCartography on January 16, 2022, 06:04:31 am
Fun doing a new map of an old-style game!

I just submitted the first few maps for Xenogears to the site: https://www.deviantart.com/vgcartography/gallery/81393244/xenogears Trying to follow your footsteps on the FF7 masterwork with another RPG from the era.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on April 09, 2022, 01:54:17 pm
Another quick update! I got the last map for Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaIVQuestOfTheAvatar) finished yesterday (The Great Stygian Abyss!), so this map set is now complete. The Commodore 64 versions of the dungeons will eventually follow.

I just submitted the first few maps for Xenogears to the site: https://www.deviantart.com/vgcartography/gallery/81393244/xenogears Trying to follow your footsteps on the FF7 masterwork with another RPG from the era.

Apologies for not responding to your message earlier!
Those Xenogears maps of yours look amazing! The way you've presented the graphics here is almost as if they were originally meant to be pixel art rather than polygonal.
I have yet to play Xenogears from beginning to end, although I do have a copy of it. I suppose I'll eventually get around to it one of these days. ;D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 14, 2022, 07:38:42 pm
Update: the Spider Venom level from The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt is now finished. It's only been a year and a half since the Octopus Ink level, hasn't it? Jon joked to me via e-mail that he was looking forward to seeing the next level some time in 2023, but I don't think it'll be that long, haha.

As far as new stuff goes, I've begun working on mapping Dragon Quest VI for the Super Nintendo! About half a year ago, alucard had suggested I take it on, and since I've mapped DQ1+2 and DQ5 already, I thought why not?

Stahlbaum had submitted a number of maps for DQ6 many years ago, and when that happened, it put me off from doing so myself. But after a cursory glance at what was submitted, it's woefully incomplete. Thus far, I've completed the "dream" and "real" overworld maps, and a dozen or so town and dungeon maps. Just from viewing what's on the overworld maps, it looks like this game will have well over 100 maps by the time all is said and done.

I'll send an e-mail to Stahlbaum asking whether he has any intention of finishing his DQ6 map set, but it's probably safe to assume that he doesn't at this point.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: TerraEsperZ on July 15, 2022, 09:15:29 pm
Big complex maps do take a lot of time to make or at least, to make *properly* ;).
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on July 26, 2022, 06:44:46 pm
Heheh, indeed they do.  :D
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 14, 2023, 05:07:06 pm
Hey everyone!

I managed to get two more levels done of The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt for the SNES, with the last one in the works, so this project will come to a close very soon. :D

I also had submitted the Great Stygian Abyss map for the Commodore 64 version of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar last month, so that finished off that game.

Besides these, I'd like to whittle down the games in my current projects before taking on new ones. I started working on the dungeons in the NES Version of Ultima IV, and it looks like it'll be a lot easier to map them since so much stuff has been stripped out when compared with the various microcomputer versions.

Nothing much else to add, so that's all for now. ;)
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on January 24, 2024, 11:05:36 am
Gosh, it's nearly been a year since I updated this thread... O_O

Anyhow, the map set for Lufia: The Legend Returns (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#LufiaLegendReturns) is now complete.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 05, 2024, 01:06:38 pm
Now that I'm finally done with Lufia: The Legend Returns, I've gone back to slowly working on Dragon Quest VI. I've been concentrating on mapping all the locations in the Dream World and I've got around 50 maps so far.

One thing I'm probably gonna add to these maps is a mini-map which indicates what world you're in as well where in that world the location resides. Since there are many locations which look identical in both the Dream World and the Real World, this'll be a good way of easily differentiating them.

The one frustrating thing about mapping this game though is having to capture all the graphics via vSNES through save states since the usual approach of taking tons of screen shots has the problem of discolouring portions of those screen shots, and that doesn't manifest in the save state data. What's worse is that this only happens in some locations and not others, so I've simply resigned myself to using vSNES for everything. While these discrepancies are not readily visible at a glance, they sure do bug me, haha! ;D This sort of problem only seems to exist in games that were made in the latter part of the SNES era (I remember having to deal with this when mapping Lennus II).

This explains why it's been a year and a half since I first announced that I would take on this game and I have nothing to show for it. But it won't stay that way for much longer.
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: VGCartography on February 20, 2024, 07:16:12 am
Excited to see DQ6, appreciate all the effort!
Title: Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
Post by: FlyingArmor on February 20, 2024, 08:19:01 pm
Excited to see DQ6, appreciate all the effort!

Thanks! I'm excited to share them. Just got something like 25 more areas left to map before I begin labelling them up.