Post by: Revned on August 30, 2006, 01:55:12 pm
Anyone can help out with this project, but please follow the rules in this post to make sure everything will go relatively smoothly. Please read through all of this before you start mapping.
Requirements
First of all, you need the US version of the game. Then, to make sure we don't have any palette conflicts later on, you should use the same emulator and graphics plugin as everyone else. The emulator we've chosen is ePSXe (http://www.epsxe.com/), and we're using Pete's OpenGL (http://www.ngemu.com/download.php?action=plugin&id=1) graphics plugin. You need to use these (http://www.edsword.com/SOTN/openglsettings.png) settings.
Getting started mapping
Choose a room to map. Any room is fine, but you should try to stick to the first castle for now. I also advise that you don't choose a room with a scrolling background for your first try. See this map for the unmapped sections:
<div class="quote"><center><img src="http://revned.googlepages.com/NormalCastle.png" width="498" height="386" alt="User posted image" /></center><font color="C00000">Red = TerraEsperZ</font>
<font color="E08000">Orange = Zeric</font>
<font color="008000">Green = Edsword/Wileee</font>
<font color="0000C0">Blue = Revned</font>
<font color="8000C0">Purple = mephea</font></div>
Anything grey is fair game. The colored sections have already been mapped or are in progress by another mapper. Please use the fancy grid I made to refer to the rooms. It took forever to make ;-)
Alright, now that you've chosen a room you can get started. Take screenshots in ePSXe with F8. Then just put them together in your favorite image editor. Save all images as PNGs (I suppose BMP would be fine, too). Since we can't disable layers in ePSXe, you might have trouble getting rid of the status bar in the upper left. If you need it, you can use GLIntercept (http://glintercept.nutty.org/) to get the tiles behind the sprites. Just put the DLL file and the settings file in the ePSXe folder. Then run the emulator, and lots of images will get dumped to the "images" folder. Since it makes hundreds of files very quickly, you should only use it briefly. Get to the place you need without GLIntercept, make a savestate, exit the emulator, put the DLL file in the folder, then run it and unfreeze for a second or two. Then just look through all the images for the tiles you need.
Animated elements
We're going to have all the animated elements synchronized in the end, so it's best if you do this while mapping the first time. There are lots of different kinds of candles and torches, so I'll post the frames we're using for reference. If you come to a room with candles unlike the other rooms mapped so far, just choose a frame you like and stick with that.
<img src="http://revned.googlepages.com/animatedtiles.png" width="136" height="64" alt="User posted image" />
You shouldn't copy and paste these into your image, except the red door.
Parallax backgrounds
These are tricky to deal with. You probably won't want to do many of these. I won't go into details right now, but you need to separate the background from the foreground and keep them in separate files. Please leave them in separate files in case we need to change them later.
Other difficulties
There are several areas that we're going to have to figure out strategies for later, like the chapel with the 3D background. If you come to one of these rooms, either skip it for now or post in this thread for assistance.
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Original message:
If this meets with general approval, I'll have Jon move it to the Maps in Progress board.
This game is inherently difficult to map since there is no layer disabling in ePSXe (or any other PSX emulator). I suggest that we all pitch in and map a room or two each, and slowly progress towards a full map of this game. It would take a long time, but we don't have any deadlines. We would all have to make sure to use the same emulator with the same settings to ensure uniform palettes, as that got to be a problem in the last project. Anybody have any ideas for or against?
I'll write more later, I'm late for class...
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 30, 2006, 02:15:52 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on August 30, 2006, 02:28:06 pm
Yes, I know there will be difficulties with the backgrounds, but as with any game with parallax backgrounds, we'll have to make do. I suggest that we all maintain three separate layers for every room we do. One with the background, one with the foreground, and one with any sprites that we decide to keep. That way we can always go back to the original, unmodified backgrounds if someone has a different idea.
Terra, which plugin did you finally end up using? I'll edit my first post with all the guidelines and tools after more people have their say.
You know, one trick I used a little bit in Castlevania 3 was editing out the sprites blocking my view with Tile Molester. I made them transparent so I could see the stuff behind it, but keep the other sprites I wanted. If someone could find the actual image data in the game files, we might be able to do the same thing....
Post by: JonLeung on August 30, 2006, 02:33:26 pm
A fully-mapped "Castleroid" game has always been at the highest of the maps I would most orgasmically want. And Symphony Of The Night is still probably the ultimate of them (though Dawn Of Sorrow is pretty close). (I believe it's also CJayC (of GameFAQs)'s favourite game, if you care.)
Not sure if I would want to participate, but if there's no deadlines, I suppose the pressure is less. I would certainly not be "leading" this project in any way, or even close to it - someone who knows how to handle parallax backgrounds and 3D elements ought to be.
(I gotta get used to a new image editor, now that I know this old version of Paint Shop Pro is screwing up palettes...)
I certainly approve, now I hope there's enough interest. Don't forget, this is HUGE - and two castles, even!
Post by: Revned on August 30, 2006, 02:39:47 pm
I'd be perfectly happy to organize everything. I can't guarantee I'll be mapping 24/7, but I'll try to do some every once in awhile.
Post by: JonLeung on August 30, 2006, 02:45:51 pm
Though I might still...it's about next April Fool's. It's still a ways away, but two months was barely enough for it this year...and we don't have any ideas for it yet!
Obviously, that would be a separate project from this.
I'm hoping that a full Symphony Of The Night map will put VGMaps.com on the map. I mean, seriously on the map of the "intarweb". It will certainly be a feat. Hope you guys are up to it and can finish it.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 30, 2006, 03:27:01 pm
Now for "Final Stage - Bloodlines":
The purple is where a parallax background would go (in this case though, it was a 3D scene). The blue spot in Dracula's chamber is what's left of the status bar (I haven't yet searched through GLIntercept's captured tiles to fill the hole) while the blue on the left of the staircase is because that area isn't visible and there might be a wall there. I think I'm unlikely to find out until I play the game with Alucard and reach the (now broken) stairway, allowing me to fly under to take a look.
Do consider that the 3D background was/is incredibly hard to remove, which is why there are tons of pixels left all over/under it right now.
The vertical spacing between the rooms was derived from Edsword's Library Map. Each square on the minimap corresponds to a 256 x 256 pixels area. However, a room with no vertical scrolling is only as tall as the screen, which is 207 pixels (technically, it would be 208 since it's a multiple of 16 but the game covers the 208th line with a black area; it's not worth the bother to try and fill that missing line in my opinion). Since 256 (theoritical height) - 207 (actual height) = 49, the vertical spacing between separate rooms is always 49 pixels.
For rooms with vertical scrolling, each 'square' is really 256 pixels high instead of 207 except for the bottom one since it lines up with the other 1 screen high rooms. Let me whip up something to show that using Edsword's Library map.
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6999/templatesmaptemplateexplainationca2.png
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on August 30, 2006, 03:36:29 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 30, 2006, 03:45:28 pm
As for GLIntercept, by default it logs *every* OpenGl call, which means everytime a tile is passed into the buffer it saves the whole buffer to disk. That's it saves so many images where only a little part changes from one to the next. Personally, I'd create a save state where the mapping is happening, run with GLIntercept for a few seconds to get all the tiles, then go back with the soft driver to capture the screen proper (since the status bar takes so much place on-screen, you need 2 captures for every screen of map you want to make).
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: DarkWolf on August 30, 2006, 04:06:07 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 30, 2006, 04:11:41 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 30, 2006, 05:22:50 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on August 30, 2006, 05:41:05 pm
I'll choose a random room somewhere and map it soon. That is, if I don't get too caught up actually playing the game.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 30, 2006, 05:45:06 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Edsword on September 01, 2006, 09:59:35 am
Look at my Open GL settings (altho this was from a while ago - not sure if it matches the current driver). Also "stairs fix" was one of our (me and wileee) attempts to deal with the vertical issue. Finally, there's a file with the map progress there - it's huge dimension-wise but not kb wise.
Not to discourage you or toot my own horn but there's a TON of work in that complete library file that you might not be seeing. Not only the scrolling backgrounds, but I had to fill in a lot of space to make the large areas look better.
All I'm saying is Good Luck (you're right tho that there's lots of rooms with no scrolling at all that will be very easy).
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 01, 2006, 11:02:03 am
And regarding the fix, I'm sure you remember my opinion on that right ;) ?
But seriously, 'Aria Of Sorrow' has the exact same type of gaps where vertical room transitions take place and I also thought about filling them in but I decided not too. Ultimately, a lot of those passages would require me to insert platforms that aren't there since the fixed maps would show passages too high for the player to travel upward through them.
I'm also really not looking foward to maps with special backgrounds like moving clouds or the 3D Chapel interior. There's just no way we'll manage those easily. It would be cool if I knew enough about Direct3D to write a little program to render those backgrounds in such a way as too cover the entire rooms with an acceptable perspective throughout.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: mephea on September 01, 2006, 12:34:53 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 01, 2006, 01:44:26 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: wileee on September 01, 2006, 02:31:32 pm
I also have a separate file of just the background for the library tho, I don't think it's used anywhere else in the game.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 01, 2006, 02:53:34 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 01, 2006, 02:59:16 pm
Wileee: sounds great. This project seems much less daunting when we hear from more than just ourselves.
I have a long weekend home, so I'm going to try to organize things in the next couple of days. I'll set up some guidelines and put them in the first post, as well as all the emulator settings. Jon, can you please remove the "Proposed" from the title and move this to the "In Progress" board?
Post by: JonLeung on September 01, 2006, 05:59:47 pm
I'd suggest maps for each named area, then a map for each whole castle, and, if not too obscenely large, a map showing both castles. o_0
I expect that as an official VGMaps.com Atlas Project that each map will have the VGMaps.com logo (I have high-res versions of the compass logo somewhere, I'm sure) and some kind of header saying so - and meant to be exclusive to VGMaps.com. If wileee and Edsword get involved as it sounds like they will, we may work around that exclusivity a little if they'd like their hard work on their own site, which is understandable. How's screenshotmaps.com doing, BTW?
Post by: Revned on September 01, 2006, 06:23:39 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 01, 2006, 10:53:19 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 01, 2006, 11:57:28 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 02, 2006, 12:10:41 am
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 02, 2006, 01:14:03 pm
These really aren't very hard to do when you don't have to worry about the backgrounds. I haven't even used GLIntercept yet.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 02, 2006, 02:59:17 pm
I haven't started mapping anything yet unfortunately. Try not to do too much until I can start monday evening :)
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 02, 2006, 03:15:29 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 02, 2006, 08:36:59 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 02, 2006, 08:47:12 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 02, 2006, 10:34:51 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 03, 2006, 11:05:50 am
Post by: JonLeung on September 03, 2006, 11:13:28 am
You guys ought to get some guidelines in place - you wouldn't want to have to resynchronize a bunch of candles and other animations!
Post by: Revned on September 03, 2006, 12:30:22 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 03, 2006, 01:31:28 pm
Yeah, I'm going to do that sometime this weekend. I'm sick, though :(
Weclome to the club buddy. I've been coughing and sneezing non-stop (and I really mean *non-stop*) for the last two days.
There are going to be a lot of things to agree on regarding animated tiles and objects: doors, candles, water surface, moving platforms. Also, we'll have to agree on how to handle moving backgrounds like the clouds in the Royal chapel.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 03, 2006, 01:49:45 pm
Yeah, we're going to have to deal with some of those later. I'm going to show some common animated tiles in the first post later. I added a whole list of basic guidelines, if you didn't notice.
Go ahead, Terra, but you might have trouble with those backgrounds...
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 03, 2006, 03:14:21 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: DarkWolf on September 04, 2006, 11:14:32 am
http://garoux.net/temp/draculax/
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 04, 2006, 03:13:47 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: DarkWolf on September 04, 2006, 07:49:49 pm
Post by: wileee on September 05, 2006, 11:16:18 am
Some challenges I remember with this room is that there are a ton of ornimentals around. These are actually on the foreground so the parallex background is behind them. Loads of nitpickey pixel removal there.
http://www.screenshotmaps.com/Maps/castlevaniasotn-ps1/AlchemyRoom09-05-06.png
Post by: Revned on September 05, 2006, 03:29:50 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 06, 2006, 04:05:55 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 06, 2006, 06:22:40 pm
Terra, is that 49 pixels from the top or bottom of the screen? Is it both? Because if it is, I think we might have alignment problems. I'm trying to make a template for the full map so we can just paste the rooms in as we map them. It looks like each castle will be 15360x12032. A bit taller than my original estimate.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 06, 2006, 06:59:42 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 06, 2006, 08:50:06 pm
It is 256 x 256 pixels in size, because each room is always a multiple of 256 pixels in width, and because there's always a multiple of 256 pixels in distance between the tops of different rooms. The top line is where a room will begin, the middle one is where it will end, provided a room does end in that square, and the bottom line is where you'd put another template right under it for the room below.
Now, for some examples:
Example 1 - Single screen room (256 x 207), no scrolling:
This one is simple. The room is of course aligned horizontally, and vertically it is aligned on top of the square (including covering the top red line) and it ends right on top of the middle red line. The zone left under (including the bottom line) is exactly 49 pixels as I already said.
Example 2 - Single screen room in width, with vertical scrolling:
Now, again the room is aligned horizontally with the borders of the template and again it starts on top of the top red line. However, since the room is actually two 'squares' high, I put another template right under it. Just like in Example 1, the bottom of the room ends just over the middle red line of the second template.
Example 3 - Room with multiple scrolling:
This is actually just like Example 2, except that since the room also has horizontal scrolling, I simply put another series of two templates right next to the first. No real explainations needed here.
As you can see, the bottom of a room will always be 49 pixels short of the bottom of a template. That's why I said that to get the total height of the map, you had to substract that 49 pixels since that's where the map will end.
Also, once you'll start mapping the Inverted Castle, simply flip the template vertically as well as the alignment rules. Align rooms at the bottom of templates and the 49 pixels gap will be on top instead.
Revned and everyone else, feel free to demand more precisions to make sure you understand well.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 06, 2006, 09:04:24 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 06, 2006, 10:39:30 pm
I'm also working on the long spike corridor leading to it and the first Bell Tower (the top half is almost finished). I'm really puzzled as to how to handle the glowing blue doors; the blue aura is transparent and in the spike corridor for example, the aura appears over the parallax background which makes that part of the background hard to remove.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 07, 2006, 08:41:20 am
Post by: wileee on September 07, 2006, 09:42:58 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 07, 2006, 11:03:32 am
As for the background, I've manage to capture it without the moving clouds; it basically looks like a dark blue sky with a static light blue cloud layer on the bottom. There are a number of ways to use that for the various rooms with that background; I'll have to do some tests with it. As for the clouds, I'm sure GLIntercept will allow me to obtain the textures used for the clouds. Since I believe that it wouldn't look good in any way to try to go with a 3D background of our own that would have correct perspective for the entire bell towers/sky corridors area, maybe we could go for something akin to how I handled the moving clouds in Harmony: simply use the cloud textures and assemble them together to fill the space of a room and put that over the static blue sky I mentionned earlier. It won't look anywhere as good as what you see in-game, but it will be consistent across the area. Again, I'll try to put together something tonight.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 07, 2006, 02:01:43 pm
If it's not obvious, the rooms are color coded by mapper. Edsword and Wileee are green, since they worked together, I am blue, and now TerraEsperZ is red.
Post by: wileee on September 07, 2006, 02:21:56 pm
The room I'm doing also has some moving clowds that are proving to be a problem to capture.
Guess, I'll have to try the GLIntercept thing.
Post by: Revned on September 07, 2006, 03:01:37 pm
Post by: wileee on September 07, 2006, 03:30:09 pm
Here's the "completed" room: 1792 X 1231
http://www.screenshotmaps.com/Maps/castlevaniasotn-ps1/bridgeroom09-07-06.png
Post by: Revned on September 07, 2006, 03:55:44 pm
Speaking of alignment, I think we're going to have to make some adjustments to Edsword's library map. It doesn't fit in the grid as it is now. Hopefully we won't have to mess up too much of his work. You wouldn't happen to have any older versions of your maps from before you assembled them, would you Ed (or Wileee)?
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 07, 2006, 03:55:51 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: wileee on September 07, 2006, 04:08:23 pm
I wasn't going to mess with the candles just yet until I figured out how to put the "glow" around them. I liked frame of the "chalace" candles in that area. You can copy the sprite off that map to post in your introduction.
Terra, The mountains and moon are on a separate layer. The moon is behind you no matter where you are and the mountains scroll a little. I wasn't exactly sure where I should put them (in the middle, bottom, top) so I just put them at the bottom. Also the moving clouds are over the top of the moon, but behind the mountains. Why the moon looks a little "off".
My save game was after all the items were collected so I didn't have any of those.
Revned, I'll check for a previous version of the library.
Interestingly enough, the red doors actually do have that extra vertical row of pixels on the left side of the door in the game. Weird.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 07, 2006, 04:13:03 pm
As for the red doors, that might be because the door is actually a 3D object instead of a sprite. I'd personally suggest removing that ugly extraneous row of pixels.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 07, 2006, 04:23:36 pm
Post by: Edsword on September 08, 2006, 08:00:57 am
It's weird tho that the save room and the bottom of the shaft aren't tall enough - still - it just goes to show you to be careful. Obviously you couldn't just line up the bottoms or the platforms wouldn't have matched.
I'm leery of mapping too many individual rooms and plopping them on the map. The much bigger obstacle than backgrounds or mismatched candles is how it will all fit together. I wonder if there's rooms like boss arenas that aren't really going to adhere to the grid? wileee - we should check the alchemy lab in particular . . .wasn't that all messed up at the time?
As nice as finished rooms look, I would almost propose roughing things out more. It's a heck of a lot quicker to assemble a few rooms with all the sprites and ugliness then it is to polish it up. (We're talking minutes vs hours from my experience). Then we'd be able to look at possible size variations and connectivity a lot earlier before we spend time polishing. I would also suggest working on adjacent rooms and connecting them rather than jumping around all over the place. (I'm just brainstorming here . . .not trying to run things) Oh last suggestion which is probably obvious to everyone but I'll just say it .. let's concentrate on the first castle first. Hopefully that will make the 2nd go very quickly (I'm picturing just being able to take screenshots and overlay them on the inverted original, with a lot less thought/concern about room alignment etc.)
One thing I do know . .. I'm getting excited about this again . . the truth is I never really wanted to do it by myself and get all the honor and glory . . I really just want to see the map.
Post by: Edsword on September 08, 2006, 08:19:04 am
http://www.edsword.com/SOTN/left library example.png
It looks like I actually cut off quite a bit from the top left, and you can see where I took the screen that sort of decided how tall I made the one section. You can also see that there were some gaps at the bottom corners of this section.
Post by: Revned on September 08, 2006, 08:37:32 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 08, 2006, 01:21:59 pm
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on September 08, 2006, 02:20:45 pm
At this rate, it may not take a year, even for both castles!
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 08, 2006, 02:27:14 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 08, 2006, 03:11:07 pm
Post by: JonLeung on September 08, 2006, 05:50:39 pm
Post by: Revned on September 08, 2006, 07:38:46 pm
Post by: Revned on September 09, 2006, 01:10:52 pm
So, I was doing this yesterday and realized that it was showing a full 240 pixels of graphics vertically. The black bars I had to deal with in Windows weren't there. See the following comparison:
Isn't that odd? I couldn't reproduce it in Windows even after messing with all sorts of settings. I used the same plugin and everything. This might help us, but it won't be as easy as pasting in the extra pixels since the palettes are different.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 10, 2006, 11:02:27 pm
Please note that Dracula's throne room and the banquet hall just before are essentially the same as those in the present Castle. The only difference is that it's not centered the same way vertically; there are a few pixels less at the bottom and a few pixels more at the top. I was just too tired from simply removing that godamn Clock Tower from the stairs part (that took several hours) to go back and remap just for that. Maybe later.
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: mephea on September 11, 2006, 05:27:30 am
i don't know if i have the proper skills to map this game but ill give it a try..
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 11, 2006, 06:22:44 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Edsword on September 11, 2006, 07:20:03 am
Post by: Revned on September 11, 2006, 08:14:26 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 11, 2006, 10:17:02 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: mephea on September 11, 2006, 04:02:27 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 13, 2006, 10:29:55 pm
On the left is my attempt to reproduce it using the Add function in Paint Shop Pro and on the right is a capture form the game. I think the difference is small enough that this should be acceptable for cases such as this (where the glow must affect the prallax background).
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 14, 2006, 08:39:45 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 14, 2006, 02:02:49 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 14, 2006, 02:12:51 pm
I included the background at the top. It also has 3D buildings in the background at the bottom that we'll have to figure out.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 14, 2006, 04:13:00 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 16, 2006, 11:43:35 pm
And finally, the background for the Bell Towers minus of course the moving 3D clouds:
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 16, 2006, 11:48:24 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 16, 2006, 11:51:47 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 16, 2006, 11:52:19 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 17, 2006, 12:41:34 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 17, 2006, 01:18:12 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 17, 2006, 02:13:34 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 17, 2006, 07:25:56 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 17, 2006, 10:23:50 pm
Also, I'm going to try to do all the save rooms, loading rooms, and teleport rooms soon. That will be a quick way to fill up the map some more.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 17, 2006, 10:32:09 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 17, 2006, 10:34:24 pm
Post by: mephea on September 18, 2006, 07:18:13 am
http://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?image=35m35rmepheabt2.png
i like purple, its my favorite color if you wanna mark my participation.
weird, how do i do thumbails? heh..anyhow, yeah, ill be lookin for less complex maps because i lack the appropriate skills you guys have.
also, tell me how it looks and stuff. i didnt separate the background because the windows pretty much shared individual screens, you cant really stick them together in any confusing manner. pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease say thats good enough!
Post by: Revned on September 18, 2006, 08:12:34 am
Thumbnails are tricky on this board. You post them like this: < link >imageshack/blahblah/image.png(< pic >imageshack/blahblah/image.th.png< /pic>) < /link>
... but I don't think you can post images since you're a new user.
Post by: mephea on September 18, 2006, 10:15:55 am
i didnt separate the backgrounds because it actually looks very nice without. I understand separating when the entire background is visibly moving in 35 different directions. O-0
hurry up terra! class time.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 18, 2006, 10:20:41 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 18, 2006, 01:12:50 pm
Haven't you noticed that mephea keeps mentioning being in college, Terra?
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 18, 2006, 02:19:56 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 18, 2006, 02:20:39 pm
Post by: Dan on September 18, 2006, 02:31:04 pm
Post by: Revned on September 18, 2006, 02:33:58 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 18, 2006, 03:04:28 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on September 18, 2006, 03:19:55 pm
Err, Jon, I can't edit my first post anymore without screwing it up since I don't have permission to use colored text or raw html. I was trying to add mephea's name in....
I should probably stop screwing with other people's posts without their permission, but I can certainly edit in mephea's name (and in colour). What's the RGB value for mephea's purple? (I'm at work and don't have anything that can check.)
Post by: Revned on September 18, 2006, 03:49:47 pm
I just claimed a rather large chunk of the map. The area at the top is mostly one big room, even though it looks like several on the map. Then I'm also doing the connecting rooms while I'm there. I marked all of the save rooms, all of the warp rooms, and a few of the loading rooms. The loading rooms aren't shown on the map, so I have to actually go around and find them.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 18, 2006, 04:01:26 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 18, 2006, 07:08:18 pm
Post by: JonLeung on September 18, 2006, 08:03:32 pm
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 06:36:03 am
and yeah, me telling you to hurry was a subtle joke and revned was right, i would have liked to have heard before class, but its no big deal. ;)
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 06:57:49 am
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 07:43:30 am
OK, here is my second contribution, not 100% and it will be a while before i can finish it i think.
http://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=31q33rmepheaincompletefr4.png
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 09:02:30 am
http://img167.imageshack.us/my.php?image=31q33rmepheach3.png
Post by: Revned on September 19, 2006, 09:11:51 am
So, for items just sitting there, capture them as they look and without any kind of highlighted border. I don't think there are any other items floating like the one in your map, but I could be mistaken. It looks fine as it is now.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 19, 2006, 10:00:32 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 12:48:16 pm
This really makes me wanna map parasite freakin' eve now that a psx emu is working on my machine.
Post by: Revned on September 19, 2006, 01:48:17 pm
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 04:15:45 pm
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 06:14:27 pm
The coordinates are - 21,n-21,q
http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=21n21qmepheamu9.png
I even made teh whip of the torch flames point left. I think terra will be proud o-0
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 19, 2006, 07:38:27 pm
There seems to be two candle spots near both edges of the screen without actual flames on them. Are those like that in the game or did you capture them with after the flames got hit by you?
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on September 19, 2006, 07:57:45 pm
I'm almost done removing the backgrounds to the big room at the top of the map. It was really time consuming, but it looks great.
Post by: JonLeung on September 19, 2006, 08:40:53 pm
He also says it's neat that a VGMaps.com Atlas Project is going on again.
I think it's really great that wileee, Zeric, mephea, and Edsword are involved. Next thing you know, J.J. Maxx will be back. >_>
Post by: mephea on September 19, 2006, 09:23:14 pm
I will be playing the game and fishing out the easy spots. Maybe i will get most of them so you guys can focus on that hard shit.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 19, 2006, 10:03:15 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: mephea on September 20, 2006, 04:19:12 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 20, 2006, 06:33:42 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on September 20, 2006, 12:51:13 pm
I mean, if you really wanted to prove me wrong on your inability to finish projects, you'd have finished Treasure Master ages ago. >_>
Anyway, good luck with Harmony Of Dissonance if you're working on that instead. I'll certainly accept as many of Dracula's Castles as possible. :)
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 20, 2006, 02:22:01 pm
And yeah, I'd like to finish Harmony Of Dissonance as soon as possible. After all, there's still Aria Of Sorrow left to do which is a single castle where the map isn't screwed up and there are parts of it which remind me a lot of Harmony (like a water-filled series of caves as well as an underground cemetary). Oh yeah, and after those, there are still my Circle Of The Moon maps, stalled at about 45% of the whole game. They need to be finished too :)
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Dan on September 20, 2006, 06:42:20 pm
Post by: mephea on September 21, 2006, 08:02:01 am
i know it isnt finished, but its mostly finished! the coordinates are 23,x - 27,y
Post by: wileee on September 25, 2006, 11:35:53 am
What do you think?
http://www.screenshotmaps.com/Maps/castlevaniasotn-ps1/bridgeroom09-22-06.png
Post by: Revned on September 25, 2006, 01:11:31 pm
Post by: wileee on September 25, 2006, 01:46:03 pm
The clouds are actually 4 128x36 tiles that can be assembled into a 128x128 tile. The problem is that those tiles repeat HORIZONTALLY ONLY. When playing the game the same clouds are visible all the time. So there literally aren't any graphics that vertically exceed the screen.
Here is a link to some samples.
http://www.screenshotmaps.com/Maps/castlevaniasotn-ps1/bkgsamples.htm
Sample 1) Custom 256x256 clouds repeated.
Sample 2) Actual 128x128 clouds repeated.
Sample 3) One row of custom clouds with a solid color background above that.
Well, for starters, those are some options we can discuss.
Sorry, I can't post any links yet. I just can't afford to "buy" that ability right now.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 25, 2006, 02:40:42 pm
For the final background, if it's possible to do so, you might try and actually use a transparency layer for the clouds, which would look just like in the game, especially in the area of the moon. It's just a suggestion though, so don't waste too much time on it.
As for Revned's custom work in one of my room, it annoyed me only because I knew it was a 'hack' and nowhere near a true repetition but I've accepted that such a repetition is impossible to achieve without cheating.
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on October 07, 2006, 10:26:08 pm
Post by: Revned on October 07, 2006, 10:46:26 pm
Post by: mephea on October 08, 2006, 05:48:40 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on October 08, 2006, 09:53:52 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: mephea on October 08, 2006, 04:35:02 pm
Post by: JonLeung on October 21, 2006, 10:23:08 am
For those of you keeping track, this week I received Vampire Killer from ReyVGM (acyually, I'm not sure if it's from him yet) and Rondo Of Blood from Zeric. The Castlevania series is really being done.
'Cept for this project. Haven't heard much in here for almost another couple weeks again...
Post by: Revned on October 21, 2006, 10:24:51 am
Post by: mephea on October 21, 2006, 10:26:56 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on October 21, 2006, 12:06:34 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on October 31, 2006, 11:12:13 pm
I still have some work left to do, but it's nearly finished. I just got sick of laboring over minute details in the castle keep area. I'll post a preview for that sometime soon, too.
I separated and completed the background for the vertical shaft in the middle. I still need to fill in a few little details elsewhere, too. Those lava rooms are going to be very tricky. Tomorrow I'll post a nice little save state that has the health bar edited out. It makes mapping a lot quicker :)
Post by: JonLeung on November 01, 2006, 07:40:06 am
I had to mention it somewhere as a promise to people otherwise I'd never get around to doing it.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on November 01, 2006, 09:20:45 am
I confess that I haven't touched the Chapel Tower at all. What little free time I've had the last few weeks have all gone into Harmony Of Dissonance.
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on November 01, 2006, 02:29:06 pm
Speaking of Harmony, I finally played it. You were certainly right about the backtracking. I liked the graphics and some of the bosses, but a lot of the game felt like it was just an attempt to recreate Symphony. I can't decide if I liked it as a whole more than I disliked it. I still haven't finished Circle, though. It feels really repetitive. I liked it at first, but it got to be too much work and not enough fun.
Post by: Revned on November 08, 2006, 03:01:09 pm
Here's what it looks like in-game:
Not having that health bar makes mapping much easier. I kept getting corrupted graphics when I tried to get rid of the special weapon, so that was the only thing I had to leave in. I've played around quite a bit, and the graphics never seem to come back. I guess they only load once, which is good for us.
Now this is all fine and dandy, but I must tell you how I did it. First I used Tile Molester on individual files in the ISO. I found some very interesting stuff, including one file with single frames of the animations of all the enemies, and better yet, it was in 32 bit color. Everything else I found had its own special palette that showed up weirdly. After much searching, I found the health bar. I edited it and several other sprites out, but upon inserting it into the ISO with a hex editor, I got really, really glitched graphics. I spent an hour or two (or three) tinkering with it until I managed to get rid of everything but the blue bar and the weapon. Then, I realized that I couldn't easily give anyone this edit since IPS patches don't work on files this huge. I made a savestate, and it looked like that would work. Then it struck me that editing the savestate from the beginning would have been much easier. I was able to get rid of the blue bar, but again, I experienced corruption when messing with the weapons. Oh well, I had fun doing it and it will be very helpful.
Post by: mephea on November 09, 2006, 05:35:18 am
Post by: mephea on November 09, 2006, 05:47:11 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on November 09, 2006, 06:41:36 am
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on November 09, 2006, 11:02:11 am
Post by: mephea on November 10, 2006, 11:21:21 am
Post by: Zeric on November 10, 2006, 01:02:07 pm
Post by: Revned on November 10, 2006, 02:21:27 pm
Post by: JonLeung on November 10, 2006, 05:00:41 pm
Post by: Revned on November 16, 2006, 08:50:16 pm
Tonight I did a few rooms that go right on top of the map I posted on Halloween. I've already posted a couple of these, but I just had to show of my fancy torch work. I got found the torch, the flame, and the glow in GLIntercept's log files. After a bit of tinkering, I found that I could perfectly reproduce the transparency effect of the flame and the glow by using the "linear dodge" layer style in Photoshop. When I say perfect, I mean perfect. All of the colors are exactly like a real screenshot. I bet other transparency effects in the game work the same way.
Post by: JonLeung on November 16, 2006, 09:38:55 pm
That's awesome, Revned. Isn't that the point in the castle where you transport to the Upside-Down Castle? To think, there are TWO of these. o_0
Post by: Revned on November 16, 2006, 09:43:21 pm
Post by: JonLeung on November 16, 2006, 09:47:07 pm
Is it flipped or rotated? I can't remember, but I thought it was rotated...
Post by: Revned on November 16, 2006, 09:53:03 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on November 16, 2006, 10:23:55 pm
As for the grid, I wouldn't say it doesn't fit it; rather, I think it's caused more by the way that rooms are shown in-game. By that, I mean that a room might appear to be quite irregularily-shaped on the minimap, but when you're actually inside, the game seems to adjust the actual boundaries of said room (the point at which it stops scrolling) at least at the farthest limits in every direction, essentially becoming the smallest rectangle inside which the room can fit. That's why I *think* there seems to be more room beyond a wall or roof even though the minimap says it shouldn't be.
Personally, for Harmony Of Dissonance I just extended the borders by an integer number of screens to make them look good. For example, the Chapel Of Dissonance shows a lot of open sky with moving clouds outside its walls, but if I followed the grid of the minimap to the letter, then the room borders would stop right next to the walls and roofs of the Chapel and the sky is mostly left "off-screen".
And again, amazing work! Sorry I haven't had any time to spend on this; I hope you're not feeling too let down since the project has lost the steam it had when it was first started.
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: Revned on November 16, 2006, 10:41:12 pm
Don't worry about helping, I wasn't expecting people to map it constantly.
Post by: Revned on November 17, 2006, 07:49:46 pm
I've separated all three of the parallax backgrounds, but I'm not quite satisfied with the vertical water streams. The transparency is a bit off, but it might just have to do. I also need to synchronize the surfaces of the rightmost three pools.
Post by: Revned on November 27, 2006, 07:10:42 pm
Post by: JonLeung on November 28, 2006, 09:01:24 am
A quick glance of the map you have shows that over a half of what has been done has been done by you, Revned. Not to dismiss what everyone else has contributed but you deserve the most pats on the back for the progress so far.
I don't even know why I'm in this topic, really. >_> I'm interested, I guess, but I've done zilch to help other than the occasional word of encouragement or praise. Hopefully enough of those words will spur people that have helped to continue helping.
Post by: JonLeung on December 11, 2006, 12:50:46 pm
Post by: Revned on December 11, 2006, 12:58:24 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on December 11, 2006, 03:23:10 pm
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on January 29, 2007, 08:40:37 pm
At this point, I'm also curious as to how Symphony Of The Night and Harmony Of Dissonance are coming along, though I'm guessing that if there was anything to show, it would have been shown.
It's great that there's a Castlevania bug going around. Too bad there's a "too busy" bug around too. :/
Post by: TerraEsperZ on January 29, 2007, 09:14:24 pm
Anyway, anyone who gets lost in a linear game like Super Castlevania IV deserves to be mocked, tarred, feathered and kicked in the ass. Repeatedly.
And yeah, Harmony Of Dissonance is sort of on the back-burner for now, as I don't have much free time these days. Hopefully, things should clear out in the coming weeks, allowing me to resume regular work on it.
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on January 29, 2007, 09:35:37 pm
I recall Super Castlevania IV being a visually impressive game. If we have Dracula X, Bloodlines and Rondo Of Blood all fully mapped, then I too am wondering why we don't have SCV IV. But something in my memory is bugging me about rotating backgrounds or something. Technical difficulties? Ah, well, it can wait, and has to, since the CV fans are too busy, and understandably so.
You guys know I went to the Video Games Live concert last week. I was disappointed that they only play selected pieces for each venue that they play at, and for us, they decided not to play anything from Castlevania. Phooey, that's my only major gripe about the concert. Maybe there's a clip of it when they played it elsewhere on YouTube.
Working on "the project" (you know which I mean) by doing a little bit each day, I'm reawakening my desire to map. Maybe it's also a desire to create, but it's seeing a complete map that makes me happy. Perhaps when I'm done I'll help out in Symphony Of The Night instead of just lurking here.
Post by: RT 55J on January 30, 2007, 12:08:55 pm
And no, there is no way I'd map SoTN. I haven't even played it and I doubt my computer would even be able to run it. :P
---
Dot? Dot. Dot!
Post by: TerraEsperZ on January 30, 2007, 02:35:29 pm
If you want to go ahead with Stage 2 and further, go ahead RT 55J. For once, I'm glad to let someone else continue something I started.
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: TerraEsperZ on June 19, 2007, 08:57:15 pm
Unfortunately, I can't test the thing right now, since I lost the ISO when my HD crashed, so perhaps someone else will be able to tell us if it lives up to its promises. Should Revned or anyone else start working on this game again, this could really help!
Get SymphoTile here
---
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Post by: JonLeung on August 02, 2007, 07:39:19 am
Post by: Revned on November 29, 2007, 07:14:53 am
The only disadvantage is that it is a DOS application and you may have some trouble running it in windows, but it's still fine if you use "cmd" in full screen.
Post by: Revned on November 29, 2007, 06:29:09 pm
Post by: Zeric on November 30, 2007, 07:59:51 pm
---
Current Projects: Akumajo Dracula (X6800)
Post by: Revned on November 30, 2007, 10:32:04 pm
If anyone out there is waiting for the upside-down castle, don't hold your breath. It ain't gonna happen. If we ever finish the first castle, I doubt many of us would want to spend so much time on an almost identical version.
Post by: Revned on February 02, 2008, 03:13:23 pm
Post by: marioman on March 11, 2008, 04:29:29 am
Post by: Revned on December 31, 2008, 01:32:36 am
Post by: JonLeung on January 06, 2009, 08:03:18 am
Does this mean you think it will eventually be completed? Glancing at your progress in the first post, you have a lot more than I thought you did, and it doesn't look like there's much left if you made it that far already.
(And thanks for posting also because I saw marioman's old post just before that which pointed me to The Spriter's Resource which came in handy...)
A shame if you're still sure an upside-down castle wouldn't be possible. I would think that if it was "almost identical" then you would have the techniques down that it shouldn't take as long to map as the first, main, right-side-up (or rather, "up-side-up") castle.
I can't remember if I asked before, but what would the estimated size of the image be if both castles were included? o_0
Post by: Revned on January 06, 2009, 02:40:09 pm
I don't think it's worth the effort. I wouldn't be able to just flip my original image and adjust palettes, either, because there's those pesky tiles on the top and bottom that are incomplete an an asymmetric way.
The main castle will weigh in at about 16,000 x 12,000.
Post by: Revned on January 09, 2009, 03:16:12 pm
I had to pull out all the stops on this one to get the graphics behind the glow and the waterfall. I can give more details if anyone wants.
The transparency I used on the waterfall itself is very close to the game's, but not quite perfect. The glow's transparency and shape are off by a bit too, but it looks close enough.
Post by: Revned on January 18, 2009, 06:58:00 pm
Post by: alucard on July 19, 2009, 11:08:14 am
Post by: Revned on July 19, 2009, 11:17:51 am
Post by: Revned on September 07, 2009, 01:23:14 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 08, 2009, 08:03:34 pm
The problem is that I never really found out if it was even feasible, let alone offer any actual help.
Post by: Revned on September 08, 2009, 09:06:05 pm
Yes, past tense. It's done. All that's left is some "proofreading" of the whole map and adding the header.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 08, 2009, 09:30:49 pm
Such an incredible project should earn you more than a simple "Map Of The Month" award.
"Map Of The Year"?
Or "Map Of The Decade" perhaps?
Post by: JonLeung on September 08, 2009, 09:40:55 pm
Sure would be nice if the upside-down castle will be mapped too...I know we discussed that already, though... :-\
Regardless, even if it isn't this year's October MotM, consider that there's another Hallowe'en-based game that I really felt should be honoured that would be a certain first for something and long overdue...
Post by: Revned on September 08, 2009, 09:54:40 pm
And speaking of headers, I'm kind of torn over how to credit everyone who helped out. On the one hand, this started as an Atlas project with several contributors, but on the other hand, I did all but 9 rooms by myself (I redid all of Edsword's maps, as well as a few others for consistency). I think I will say something on the lines of "Mapped by Revned, thanks to TerraEsperZ, Mephea, Zeric, Wileee and Edsword". Does this sound okay?
And Jon, I know you want it, but it's really not just a matter of flipping the map. The game renders the top and bottom unevenly, such that I would be missing a row of pixels if I did that. And since this game uses so many colors, palette-swapping isn't even trivial. If I end up doing it (no time soon), it will be mostly from scratch.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 08, 2009, 11:17:59 pm
Post by: JonLeung on September 09, 2009, 07:02:38 am
And I know making the first castle wasn't easy. And it certainly took a while as it is. So it is going to be incredible, I'm sure.
Maybe I'll sound like the guy who calls a half-full cup "half-empty", but though I will be heaping tons of praise on the "original" castle, I'll always feel the game to be incompletely mapped. Sorry if that makes me sound like a "Negative Nelson" or whatever.
Like I said, I've honoured incomplete games as MotM before, but that was relatively early on and something I don't really want to return to doing. But if you really don't think the second castle is feasible anytime soon, it might seem unfair. Not quite a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation, but it'd be a no-brainer if it was 100% done.
I did say I already had another game in mind for this year's October MotM since it was long overdue, but keep in mind Castlevania games don't have to be limited to October to be honoured (I did Circle Of The Moon one June, after all).
And on the other hand, the MotM concept I find to be a little lacking. I wasn't going to bring this up now, but it had crossed my mind about retiring the concept...there could be other ways to promote maps. But that's a discussion for another day, in another thread...
Post by: Revned on September 09, 2009, 07:12:07 am
Post by: JonLeung on September 11, 2009, 09:52:54 pm
http://orz.4chan.org/hr/res/733005.html (http://orz.4chan.org/hr/res/733005.html)
While searching for "VGMaps" on Google (hey, I'm allowed to do that sometimes), one of the recent results is that topic. There's more than one mention of Symphony Of The Night in that 4chan thread where people are talking about video game maps. :)
And Revned, considering that you spent 3 years on this castle, I'll give it some recognition of some sort when you're done. If not the Maps Of The Month, or not THAT month, it will at least get a mention on the news or maybe I'll make a front-page feature image since I think it will be a big deal. Hope no one else gets jealous that I don't spend the effort on many games like that...actually, the last time was probably when we worked as a team on Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. That was fun. I guess this one started as a project too, but it's mostly Revned's baby now.
Post by: JonLeung on September 12, 2009, 08:44:22 am
EDIT: It's up!
AWESOME JOB, REVNED! :D
Post by: marioman on September 12, 2009, 09:12:09 am
Post by: Will on September 12, 2009, 09:16:19 am
Post by: alucard on September 12, 2009, 10:38:12 am
Post by: snesmaster on September 12, 2009, 10:43:04 am
The image "https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/Castlevania-SymphonyOfTheNight-Dracula%27sCastle.png" cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
I'm using Firefox version 3.5.3 with windows XP. Does anyone else get this message or does it appear just fine in the browser?
I did download it and was able to view it in my image viewer and it is an awesome map. Definitely my favorite Castlevania game ever. My screen size is set to 1920 x 1200. Even with that you need a bigger screen to have a good view of this map. Great job, it was well worth the time spent on it.
When will the upside down castle be done? :)
Post by: snesmaster on September 12, 2009, 10:49:12 am
Post by: JonLeung on September 12, 2009, 10:51:56 am
And with that I believe this map has set an absolutely untouchable record for the largest map dimensions and file size. (Unless, of course, someone rips the upside-down version of the castle.)I certainly don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it's not the largest.
Image area-wise, it's 15648 x 12000 pixels. But EarthBound Zero/Mother's World map is 16000 x 15000 pixels, which beats it on both height and width. Also, if either of The 7th Saga's Ticondera maps were fully assembled instead of being in quadrants, they would be 17408 x 13376 pixels.
Filesize-wise, it's 21,444,891 bytes (20.4 MB) as a .PNG. Four PC maps are larger (hint: they're from RTS games), and Paper Mario's Dry Dry Desert is also larger, but that is expected considering N64 maps probably can't compress too well.
Post by: marioman on September 12, 2009, 10:59:27 am
I just tried Internet Explorer, and that just shows a box with a red "X" instead of the image. It looks like bowers are just not made to display an image so large and awesome.
You will need to actually download the map and use a rather robust image viewer to view it. I tested the map in Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com/) and it worked fine.
I certainly don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it's not the largest.
Image area-wise, it's 15648 x 12000 pixels. But EarthBound Zero/Mother's World map is 16000 x 15000 pixels, which beats it on both height and width. Also, if either of The 7th Saga's Ticondera maps were fully assembled instead of being in quadrants, they would be 17408 x 13376 pixels.
Filesize-wise, it's 21,444,891 bytes (20.4 MB) as a .PNG. Four PC maps are larger (hint: they're from RTS games), and Paper Mario's Dry Dry Desert is also larger, but that is expected considering N64 maps probably can't compress too well.
Yeah, I guess I should've done a little more fact checking on that. I was thinking that the largest map would probably be a GBA or SNES game, but after thinking about it for a while I remembered about the RTS maps.
Impressive achievement nonetheless.
Post by: snesmaster on September 12, 2009, 11:09:01 am
Post by: Revned on September 12, 2009, 01:46:41 pm
It would have been considerably wider if I included the opening portion where Alucard runs through the forest, but I decided it wasn't worth it.
Snesmaster, the PNG format allows dimensions up to about 2,000,000,000.
If anyone finds any mistakes, big or small, please let me know. I found 3 minor ones after uploading it last night :-\
Post by: FlyingArmor on September 12, 2009, 02:52:37 pm
Absolutely awesome work, Revned et al! \(^o^)/
And speaking of mapping the inverted castle, I think I would be interested in taking on that particular challenge. I'll have to see about it. :)
Post by: MagnetiC on September 12, 2009, 03:02:34 pm
In fact, I think I have a copy of Castlevania the dracula x chronicles for the psp lying around here somewhere. Hope I can find it ;D
Post by: snesmaster on September 15, 2009, 02:23:07 pm
Snesmaster, the PNG format allows dimensions up to about 2,000,000,000.
What program can be used to save a PNG that large?
Post by: Revned on September 15, 2009, 02:39:06 pm
Post by: Revned on October 14, 2009, 09:41:28 pm
Post by: JonLeung on October 15, 2009, 11:29:45 am
Did you get my email requesting a clean, properly proportioned title shot? I'm hoping to promote it in the latter half of October (which is already upon us) with some front page feature images...plus I should replace the stretched one I have on the PSX page.
Post by: Revned on October 15, 2009, 01:52:45 pm
Post by: JonLeung on October 18, 2009, 06:54:38 pm
Have you seen all seven of the images?
*expects people to hit Refresh on the main page a whole bunch of times :P*
Post by: marioman on October 18, 2009, 08:48:59 pm
Post by: JonLeung on October 18, 2009, 09:01:53 pm
Post by: Maxim on October 19, 2009, 04:05:05 am
Have you seen all seven of the images?I find View Source easier.
*expects people to hit Refresh on the main page a whole bunch of times :P*
- Clock
- CreepyRoom
- Fountain
- Keyhole
- Lab
- SaveRoom
- ThroneRoom
...which reminds me, I have to complain that the site structure is rubbish again :)
Post by: alucard on October 23, 2010, 12:30:18 am
https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/Castlevania-SymphonyOfTheNight-Dracula%27sCastle-Entrance.png
See the area right at the beginning of the castle, the far lower left of the map, there is a cavern you drop down into and a save room to the left of it. I never knew that existed till I saw this map. Can someone tell me how to get in there? I tried hitting the floor right above it, I had each of the 5 familiars active and none of them did anything with getting me in there. I also tried transforming into the Mist.
I also checked walkthroughs on sites like gamefaq and no one seemed to mention that area.
thanks.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on October 23, 2010, 02:11:40 am
Post by: Revned on October 23, 2010, 11:23:10 am
Post by: alucard on October 23, 2010, 12:04:38 pm
Post by: Revned on August 14, 2011, 03:23:16 pm
Post by: Revned on February 20, 2012, 11:10:38 pm
I'm going to go back and tweak a few things in the PSX maps. I'm also considering starting on the inverted castle...
Post by: TerraEsperZ on February 20, 2012, 11:31:27 pm
It's not really obvious on these maps but while playing, did you observe a difference in terms of graphic resolution? I've seen screenshots of the game and it's painfully obvious that the standard resolution of the PSX was simply stretched to fit the Saturn's, with every other line and column being doubled and it's especially visible with diagonal graphics like stairs.
I've heard that the new area though don't have stretched graphics and use the Saturn's native resolution, so I was wondering if that led to some conflict with these new areas in that, these new rooms might not fit the existing room template precisely. Is that the case? It might explain why some of these new rooms are slightly taller that all the others. As for the doors, I haven't seen anything wrong with them just from these maps but being 3D objects, they might be rendered at the same resolution they were before while all the other graphics were slightly stretched. In fact, I'm not even sure if all the PSX areas are simply stretched during rendering or if the tile graphics themselves are stretched so the result would be slightly larger graphics. Or something like that, I'm not sure anymore at this hour (1:30am)...
Post by: Revned on February 21, 2012, 12:11:42 am
The new areas do have stretched graphics. I didn't even bother trying to reconcile the template, I just pieced everything together in-place. I have considered "fixing" the horizontal stretching to get a clean version to look at, but I'm not sure how well it would turn out given that the sprites would not change size. If I did, I could drop these into the full castle map just for fun.
The red border around the doors is slightly out of place. I'm not completely sure that it's not an emulator glitch, so I'll have to do some investigation.
Post by: JonLeung on February 21, 2012, 04:12:49 pm
Continuing my trend of mostly-insignificant-but-multiple coincidences lately, I had not seen the post from Revned added here yesterday, and yet earlier today I was randomly thinking "I wonder if Revned will continue mapping Symphony Of The Night?" No word of a lie.
I am very excited to hear that a completed Symphony Of The Night is a possibility! :D
Post by: Revned on February 21, 2012, 10:31:44 pm
In the Saturn version some rooms have another row of tiles at the bottom and we see 4 pixel rows from them. The majority, however, have nothing there and we see the background through it.
Post by: Revned on March 01, 2012, 12:39:13 am
Post by: Revned on March 22, 2014, 07:19:57 pm
There are tons of little things I changed that no one will probably notice, so I’ll attempt to make a changelog here for those who might be interested.
Overall
- New headers like I used for the Saturn maps. I’m quite pleased with how the minimap looks:
(https://i.imgur.com/YDMs1JT.png) - Changed my outlines to be less visually harsh
- Thanks to a level viewer called SNEER (http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=11315.0) which showed up a few years ago, I was able to fairly easily fill in the partial tiles that are cropped in-game. Some rooms actually have the full 256x256 pixels defined, but most are only 256x224. For consistency, I decided to only include the tiles that are at least partially visible in-game.
(https://i.imgur.com/zvigcNb.png) - It seems that every emulator, even in software rendering mode, has problems with sprite distortion in a few instances. The backgrounds are fine, but some of the backgrounds are built with sprites. Each emulator distorts things slightly differently, too. I assume this has to do with the fact that the graphics are rendered on 3D surfaces, and the projection to 2D is not always perfect. I spent a lot of time correcting the instances I found.
(https://i.imgur.com/M1gsiAu.png)
Abandoned Mine
- Realigned the background
Alchemy Laboratory
- Realigned the backgrounds. I had originally aligned the entire first area’s background such that I wouldn’t have to figure out how to replicate the transparency on the colored tanks with items. It actually wasn’t hard to do right.
(https://i.imgur.com/2SkZTV6.png) - Fixed distortion in the sparkly white globes
- Fixed a save room that I had backwards
- Fixed a one-screen room that was the completely wrong room (thanks, SNEER!)
Colosseum
- Fixed distortion in several parts of the background
Entrance
- Fixed inconsistent water
- Fixed inconsistent glow on the rocks in the Merman room
- Fixed distortion in the hanging wall blocking the entrance to the Marble Gallery
- Realigned the trees in the backgrounds, fixed bushes which were incomplete
- Controversy time! I really wasn’t happy with how I handled the clouds in the first version. I did it just by mirroring the background, but that caused this displeasing Rorschachian effect that looked nothing like what you’d see in-game:
(https://i.imgur.com/YJNyLpo.png)
It also required me to put the clouds at a very specific height so that the incomplete top section was obscured by the foreground. The areas look so much better with the clouds down lower, though:
(https://i.imgur.com/voIwxoa.png)
I agonized over this for quite awhile, and I eventually caved and customized the graphics to make them repeat cleanly. I made sure to restrict myself to two tile widths, and using the original graphics with all sorts of blending layers in Photoshop I got something convincing:
(https://i.imgur.com/Y31P73M.png) (https://i.imgur.com/Y31P73M.png)
I think I did a fine job, even though the purist in me is very uncomfortable with it. At some point I’ll revisit the Underground Garden Saturn maps and do the same thing, since it uses the same background with a different palette.
Long Library
- Fixed some of the wall graphics which I didn’t get right since they’re off-screen. SNEER to the rescue!
- Realigned the backgrounds. The lighting effect still isn’t perfect, but I improved it slightly.
Marble Gallery
- Fixed distortion in several of the statues, the clock face and the pink blocks
- Added the Ouija table enemies. I consider them part of the castle, so I thought it made sense to include them unlike the other enemies.
(https://i.imgur.com/7ebke1c.png) - Realigned the background in the long room, and fixed the middle which actually has a non-repeating segment
Olrox's Quarters
- Realigned the backgrounds. Big improvement in the aesthetics of the large room:
(https://i.imgur.com/LhCJoqm.png)
Outer Wall
- Made separate maps for each weather effect
- Fixed distortion in the raindrops, and used the clouds ripped using GLIntercept rather than my previous best attempt at capturing them.
- Fixed distortion in the elevator engine
- Enlarged the room at the very bottom since it extends beyond where I had it previously
Underground Caverns
- Improved distortion in the gears in the bottom left room. I say “improvedâ€Â, because the graphics are actually smaller than they appear, and are thus stretched even on the original hardware.
- Realigned the backgrounds, fixed slight distortion in the purple columns
- Synchronized the waterfalls that are so subtle I forgot about them the first time around
(https://i.imgur.com/byjtZB7.png)
Still todo
- Catacombs - I’m done except for the 3D effects in the lava rooms. I tried really hard to replicate the effects properly, but I couldn’t get it right. Still not sure what to do. Notable distortion that I didn’t realize wasn’t intended:
(https://i.imgur.com/AWBR15b.png) - Royal Chapel - Need to finish filling in some partial tiles that don’t show up in SNEER, also figure out what to do with the backgrounds
- Clock Tower - Almost done, just some work to do on the backgrounds
- Castle Keep - Need to fill in the partial tiles, redo backgrounds
- New full castle map
Maps coming maybe someday
- “Final Stage: Bloodlinesâ€Â
- The intro running segment outside the castle
- Nightmare
- The reverse castle. Note that filling in the partial tiles in the main maps might have made this considerably easier since I can now “just†rotate the maps and then palette shift them. Remains to be seen.
- A super map that includes both castles, the Saturn areas and the intro running segment. This would require manually fixing the stretching in the Saturn maps, which is hard since the sprites are not stretched. It would be so cool though.
Whew!
Post by: Trop on March 22, 2014, 11:15:46 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 23, 2014, 08:18:01 pm
I'm actually surprised to see how much distortion the game's 3D engine produced because it's not really apparent even when looking closely at the map. The DS Castlevania games also feature that kind of distortion thanks to using a similar 3D engine but it doesn't occur nearly that much with the actual foreground and background layers. Instead, it occurs mostly with sprites and large objects but since I had to rebuild the majority of each room using the game's tiles, whatever distortion that was present was quickly corrected.
Good luck with the reverse castle and if you find an easy way to palette shift whole areas at once, feel free to share your secrets. Simply switching to a different emulator that calculates color values differently gives me nightmares and usually results in me recapturing whole areas that were already done.
Post by: Revned on March 24, 2014, 12:43:53 am
As for palette shifting, I hacked together a quick command line tool so that I could shift the palettes as rendered in SNEER to the palette of my maps. It's really hard to set up, though, because it requires two identical images in each palette, and a target image that has only colors which appear in the source images. It sometimes takes me half an hour or so just to get things set up right so that I can shift the palettes. Things like alpha transparency are complete non-starters, so I'd still have to supplement with additional captures.
Post by: JonLeung on March 26, 2014, 09:57:32 am
(In the meantime, I wonder if anyone will map the DS games, so we get our Castlevania fixes until then?)
I rarely have time to play games more than once these days, but I have considered replaying Symphony Of The Night with your maps as a guide. Though I can at least play the first half.
Post by: vorpal86 on April 02, 2014, 06:15:48 pm
Konami put a lot of work into this game. And just think, the unsung Simon's Quest is this games father. Perhaps? I thought this was done. Guess there is more maps than i thought.
Good day
Post by: Revned on September 14, 2014, 01:54:30 pm
General: As mentioned before, I've completed all the partially visible tiles, fixed some distortions and redid the headers/borders
Castle Keep
- Moved the moon and clouds down and extended the clouds to the far left:
(https://i.imgur.com/UrL4h0F.png) - Fixed a clipped pillar at the bottom
- Changed the button for the hidden staircase to be un-pressed for consistency with other buttons
Catacombs
- Fixed distorted candles and lanterns (previewed in my last changelog)
- Fixed distorted background in the spike room
- Fixed distorted coffins (with the red skeletons)
- Redid the lava. I never figured out how to replicate the transparency in the lava under the bridge, so I had to stick with screenshots spliced together. Not really an improvement over my original version, but I had to do it to fix the flickering glow under the lava which was not properly synced
- Redid the backgrounds in the lava rooms. I had previously not even attempted to replicate the depth effect on the backgrounds, but now I've used non-linear scaling which approximates it pretty well. Much closer to the in-game appearance, even though it's not perfect.
(https://i.imgur.com/ozpiYyi.png)
Clock Tower
- Realigned all the backgrounds
- Fixed a couple of instances of clipped graphics
Royal Chapel
- Fixed inaccuracies in the trees behind the staircase room, thanks again to SNEER
- Fixed distortion in the bell ropes, and improved distortion in the bells themselves (they're intentionally stretched a bit)
- Replaced my best attempt at replicating the background clouds with captured+spliced versions. I had originally approximated this by skewing the cloud graphics manually. The benefit of that approach was that I could handle the perspective appropriately in the multi-screen rooms, but I was never able to get the fade-out to look like it does in-game. I changed my strategy and instead just took screenshots and spliced them together, which looks better, but isn't perfectly consistent regarding perspective. An acceptable trade-off, I suppose.
(https://i.imgur.com/fpaWvm3.png)
Underground Garden and Hell Garden (Saturn-specific areas)
- Redid the background clouds as I did with the Entrance backgrounds
and now, time for a surprise! Brand-new bonus maps:
Final Stage: "Bloodlines"
(https://i.imgur.com/wccni5m.png) (https://i.imgur.com/wccni5m.png)
Nightmare
(https://i.imgur.com/U6N7dXr.png) (https://i.imgur.com/U6N7dXr.png)
Forest
(https://i.imgur.com/8zfVyz1.png) (https://i.imgur.com/8zfVyz1.png)
The forest was interesting and challenging because it has more distinct layers than anywhere else in the game. Here's a peek at the composition:
(https://i.imgur.com/KV9IusP.gif)
Enjoy!
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 14, 2014, 03:08:33 pm
Post by: Revned on September 14, 2014, 03:13:21 pm
Post by: JonLeung on September 15, 2014, 11:19:48 am
Post by: Revned on September 15, 2014, 12:41:43 pm
Post by: Revned on October 30, 2014, 09:04:59 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/uC92b1t.jpg)
I'll post some more details later, but until then, enjoy!
Post by: TerraEsperZ on October 30, 2014, 09:43:29 pm
Did you really recapture everything, or did you reuse as much of the Normal Castle maps as possible, only changing the palettes as needed? I'm asking because unlike Harmony of Dissonance, both castles are almost fully identical aside from items and some areas getting a slightly coloured filter.
Post by: JonLeung on October 31, 2014, 09:07:00 am
Since you've already posted it, Revned, I've made a tease of it on the Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #DraculaBackwardsAndUpsideDown (https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23DraculaBackwardsAndUpsideDown). The maps will be up as soon as I get home.
I'll try to grab the full castle again here since email seems to have failed us.
I feel bad for asking for more, but will you be putting both castle maps into a single image to make one super-humongous complete map?
Post by: Revned on October 31, 2014, 10:10:02 pm
After my last round of revisions to the old maps I managed to keep some momentum. I mapped "Cave" just to see how hard palette shifting would be. Turned out that it was pretty easy! I finished that in a few days and then tried my hand at a couple more. On about October 1st I realized that it would be awesome to finish in time for Halloween. It required me to do one map every three days, though, which was not a whole lot of time. I managed to keep up, and it was definitely worth it! The self-imposed deadline actually helped quite a bit.
These went pretty smoothly because as mentioned, they're almost identical except for the altered palettes. I could use the original maps for most of them and then just take enough sample screenshots to get an adequate palette sample. When that didn't work, it was still easy to remap things manually thanks to there being essentially zero unknowns. I knew exactly what needed to be done, and I even had fully masked references on hand. I'm glad I went ahead and filled in the partial tiles on the original maps, because that allowed me to reuse the graphics directly.
It's not immediately obvious, but every area does actually have a different palette. The Keep is the most similar, but it has slightly higher contrast in the Inverted Castle.
While working on these, I did run into a bunch of minor issues in my original maps. I mean, really, really minor. Like single stray pixels. I made a big list and plan to go through and address them, then I can finally, truly call the maps done. At that point I'll put together a full map with both castles and the forest segment.
One other thing I would like to do is "fix" the graphics in the Saturn maps where they're stretched. As mentioned sometime before, the sprites are not distorted, so I'm going to have to use my best judgement to reconstruct things as best I can. I actually worked on the Cursed Prison map today and it's looking good. Once I do all four of those, I'll make a super special edition map with both castles and all Saturn areas.
I'm so close to finishing this up for good that I'm going to try really hard to keep my momentum, so stay tuned!
Post by: vorpal86 on November 02, 2014, 09:15:39 pm
I could be wrong but SOTN is probably the hardest game to map out. It's been quite a while since it started being mapped. I'mma go out on a limb here and assume there has been many headaches on the creation of this one.
It would have been much better if all you had to do was just flip the original map upside down.. BUT no can do. :)
Good work. It's really large and over 51000 colors.
Perhaps someone could maybe explain what the purpose behind the inverted playthrough of the castle represents?
Maybe some twisted plot scheme, or maybe they just put it in there to add to the gameplay time.
Post by: Trop on November 02, 2014, 09:45:09 pm
Post by: JonLeung on November 03, 2014, 06:56:29 pm
Two castles are also seen in the later-released Castlevania: Harmony Of Dissonance for the GBA, but they are both right-side-up, and is more like a two-world thing, like seen in Final Fantasy V, Chrono Trigger (600 AD and 1000 AD in particular), The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past/Ocarina Of Time/Oracle Of Ages/A Link Between Worlds, most Silent Hill games, and probably other games I can't recall at this particular moment. It's not an uncommon theme.
But in Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, instead of being just a parallel world, the other "world" is upside-down, which provides interesting architecture, an obvious yet ominous otherworldliness, and also means the overall map is much larger. There is a dungeon in The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask that flips, and is neat in its own way, but Symphony Of The Night's upside-down castle came first, and it is more than just a 180-degree rotation or a "twisted reflection"....it's a "twisted rotation"? (Isn't that redundant?) Whatever it is, it's awesome!
As you can tell, I love it, and can't wait for Revned to do his final tweaks and complete a full map showing both castles together in a single image! It's going to be huge!
Post by: Revned on November 14, 2014, 09:49:52 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/lVml3LX.png) (https://i.imgur.com/lVml3LX.png)
I gave up on the full PSX+Saturn map I'd mentioned before. I did manage to "fix" the Prison areas, but the Garden areas had too much of a mix of distorted and non-distorted graphics for me to feasibly fix. Would have taken forever to tease them apart, and then I'd have to do a lot of custom work to get them squish things back down. Ah well, not like the Saturn areas are worth the trouble. They don't fit the visual style at all.
Anyway, here are the "fixed" Prison areas if anyone is interested:
(https://i.imgur.com/bH9t0uB.png) (https://i.imgur.com/bH9t0uB.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/YDXFoUj.png) (https://i.imgur.com/YDXFoUj.png)
Not going to lie, I'm quite glad to put this behind me after so long.
Enjoy!
Post by: JonLeung on November 18, 2014, 10:26:03 am
It's obvious there are certain genres of games that make for more impressive maps, and the more complex a game is, the more practical value there is, like something you'd see in a strategy guide. (That's not to say I don't love arcade game maps, as I do, but for different reasons.) While I love most console RPG map sets, they are often too big and disjointed to put into a single image or even a few...you'll have an overworld map, and then you'll have towns and castles and dungeons, but with some noticeable exceptions like the Ultima games (Zerker's Ultima VI: The False Prophet (PC) (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaVIFalseProphet) map of Britannia is another map I cherish, though I would still like to see the Gargoyle World...though, FlyingArmor did both for the Super NES version (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#UltimaVIFalseProphet)) they are usually not continuous...that is, you step onto a sprite/icon that represents a location and you're taken into its map, which is a separate one at a different scale. These map sets are better suited to one image per map. But the entirety of most "Metroidvania" games (is there a better name for this genre?) can each fit into a single image because they are continuous. This makes them more impressive than other platformers, and the variety of areas and "height" make them more interesting than even the largest top-down/bird's-eye-view RPG or RTS maps.
Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night is the biggest of these "Metroidvania" games, even larger than Super Metroid (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SuperMetroid) (though even that is a huge deal, thanks again, Rick Bruns), and the visual spectacle of two castles together, well, that's really something! Since it was "soft-completed" on Hallowe'en, it seems almost criminal to hold on to an inevitable "Maps Of The Month" honour until next October just to theme it alongside next Hallowe'en...maybe I'll find a good opportunity to recognize it earlier. But really, though it will surely get it, until then, I think it really goes without saying that the complete map is incredible. Thank you again, Revned! And thanks also to Edsword, mephea, TerraEsperZ, Wileee, and Zeric for your contributions to the first phase of mapping Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night.
(Now, if anyone wants to tackle more 2D Castlevania, there are still other opportunities. While the three GBA games are done, thanks to all different mappers: sprays (Circle Of The Moon (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon)), Zeric (Harmony Of Dissonance (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance)), and TerraEsperZ (Aria Of Sorrow (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow)) - there are still the three Castlevania DS games yet to be mapped (Portrait Of Ruin might not be as continuous, but I bet it could still be arranged nicely in a single image). uladraz did well on mapping the Xbox 360 game, Harmony Of Despair (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/X360/index.htm#CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair), but I recall there are still extra DLC chapters to be done. While the Metroid games are fully mapped (thanks to Rick Bruns and realSim (Metroid (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Metroid)), Zeric (Metroid II: Return Of Samus (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#MetroidIIReturnOfSamus)), Rick Bruns again (Super Metroid (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SuperMetroid)), zerofighter and rocktyt (Metroid Fusion (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#MetroidFusion)) and (Metroid: Zero Mission (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#MetroidZeroMission))), there are some other non-Metroid, non-Castlevania games in the "Metroidvania" genre, such as Shantae (GBC) (TerraEsperZ kind of started that, but hasn't officially submitted for it), Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DSi), and Monster Tale (DS), to name a few.)
Post by: TerraEsperZ on November 18, 2014, 11:01:00 am
(Now, if anyone wants to tackle more 2D Castlevania, there are still other opportunities. While the three GBA games are done, thanks to all different mappers: sprays (Circle Of The Moon (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon)), Zeric (Harmony Of Dissonance (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance)), and TerraEsperZ (Aria Of Sorrow (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow)) - there are still the three Castlevania DS games yet to be mapped (Portrait Of Ruin might not be as continuous, but I bet it could still be arranged nicely in a single image). uladraz did well on mapping the Xbox 360 game, Harmony Of Despair (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/X360/index.htm#CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair), but I recall there are still extra DLC chapters to be done. While the Metroid games are fully mapped (thanks to Rick Bruns and realSim (Metroid (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Metroid)), Zeric (Metroid II: Return Of Samus (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GB-GBC/index.htm#MetroidIIReturnOfSamus)), Rick Bruns again (Super Metroid (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/index.htm#SuperMetroid)), zerofighter and rocktyt (Metroid Fusion (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#MetroidFusion)) and (Metroid: Zero Mission (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/GBA/index.htm#MetroidZeroMission))), there are some other non-Metroid, non-Castlevania games in the "Metroidvania" genre, such as Shantae (GBC) (TerraEsperZ kind of started that, but hasn't officially submitted for it), Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DSi), and Monster Tale (DS), to name a few.)
A few months ago, qwert_vs_qwerty mentioned that he was almost finished with Shantae which is why I haven't pursued it any further, though I'd certainly love to come back to it, provided I had more free time. I'd love to do Shantae: Risky's Revenge but I'd have to go with the Steam version (which is itself based on the IOS port) since apparently the original DSiWare game cannot be dumped, much less emulated as of now. It would entail a lot of work though to capture the screenshots at the right resolution, separating the layers and removing the status overlay. Sometimes I wish I could clone myself Naruto style so I could have more time to do stuff I enjoy...
Post by: Revned on November 19, 2014, 09:15:04 pm
I'd really like to see the DS games mapped, but I'm not holding my breath. I tried mapping the intro to Portrait just as an experiment, and I ran into trouble right away in the first room. Lots of overlapping parallax layers with shared colors. And, of course, there are a lot more 3d backgrounds to deal with. I gave up pretty quickly; no way am I going to start on another multi-year project anytime soon.
Post by: Trop on November 19, 2014, 11:19:37 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on November 19, 2014, 11:50:07 pm