VGMaps
General Boards => Map Gab => Topic started by: Botmechtron on October 04, 2006, 04:52:16 pm
-
Hello all and thanks for the fascinating maps!
Has anyone planned making "Dune - The Battle for Arrakis" maps for each mission? Darkwolf? :)
-
I know of the game, but I've never played it. I suppose I can look into it when I get a chance.
-
Darkwolf, I used your hacking guide and found out something:
Size of level 1 in tiles: 32x32
Level data begins at adr. hex: 9520
I hope that helps. :)
-
I have hacked a Gens savestate with all relevant tiles organized in 16x30 area. This is as far as I can get, because I'm having trouble with slicing the tiles to individual files and I can't create scripts of any kind. If someone wants to continue from here, I can send you the savestate. Darkwolf? Anyone? :)
-
If you send me a save state and the image with the tiles I can write a script for you and you can take it from there. Otherwise it may have to wait since I still have Alex Kidd to finish.
-
Apparently the user experience reguired for PM has changed, so I can't answer any messages. :P
-
That's stupid. I'll PM bustin (since obviously you can't) and get that fixed up.
-
Wow, thanks for the script DarkWolf! It took me about 20 minutes to make all 27 maps. :)
Now, there's more to do. I wonder what might be the best way to add the troops to the maps. I could make savestates that show the exact position of all the troops. Then someone with more experience in image editing could take screenshots and paste them to the full maps. Alternatively, if I can have the correct images of all units, I could paste them individually to the maps.
Heh, there's a very minor problem with the large maps. Even though the data for the large levels is stored in 64x64 tiles, the actual playing area that the player can see in the game is 62x62 tiles. I can't understand why they made the levels that way. (The 32x32 levels have no extra data beyond the play area.) It might be a good idea to cut the outer tiles away in the final version to make it look authentic (62x62 tiles).
Oh, I was wrong with the map sizes. There exist only 32x32 and 64x64 maps, none of them is 48x48.
-
Pasting the troops in the maps shouldn't be too hard. But if you want someone else to do it you can send the images and save states to me and I can try to finish them off.
-
I'll bet you could do it much faster and more reliably than I. Also, I think if you do the rest of it, the credits for making the maps are all yours. In any case, I'll send the current map images and all savestates for you to see.
The objects that are missing from the maps are:
- Player troops & enemy troops
- Sand worms (shown as piles of sand)
- The colored lights on the buildings that indicate who owns the building (this is not so necessary for the maps, but it's probaqbly easy to do)
Hmm.
For all levels, the player troops fit in one screen, so that's easy.
In some of the early levels, there are enemy troops that are moving from the very beginning, so it's enough to get their position approximately.
For full view of the levels, you can type LOOKAROUND in the password screen during the game. Disabling the foreground graphics layer in Gens works too, but may not show the building lights.
-
Sounds good, just let me get a link to the files and I'll try to finish them up.
-
I can't PM the link to you, but just add "2" to the previous link you got. Good luck! :)
Me too thinks this sounds good!
-
Jon, move this to Maps in Progress please.
http://garoux.net/vgmaps/dune_atreides_1.png
http://garoux.net/vgmaps/dune_atreides_2.png
http://garoux.net/vgmaps/dune_atreides_3.png
http://garoux.net/vgmaps/dune_atreides_4.png
-
Looks good, very good. I'm glad that my request was answered so quickly. :)
-
Nice, though I can't believe I didn't notice before now that your were mapping the Genesis version. It looks so much worse than the PC one :(
---
"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
-
I didn't even know there was a PC version. Maybe I can do it later.
-
One of the first real-time strategy game to make it really big back in the days. Done by Westwood Studios, it had a very good FM soundtrack for the days.
---
"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
-
They're up today.
The PC Version is called Dune II: The Battle Of Arrakis. Grrr... I don't like it when titles are changed only slightly. I'm guessing there was an earlier Dune game on the PC, but why couldn't they retain the II on the Genesis one?
Dune is one of those things that I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure some of you would insist that I watch the movie or read the book or something. All I presume is it's some sci-fi thing on a desert planet.
-
Well, the first book in the series is a definite read ("Dune") but I never found any of the sequels to even come close to live up to it. The David Lynch movie should be seen if only for the incredible visual (for the time) but the story is really incoherent. I've heard that the SciFi Channel miniseries is much better in the story department, and it's available on DVD.
As for the first game, it's a strange mix of adventure and real-time strategy with a bit of resource management on top. The music for the time was incredible at any rate. What's weird is that the first Dune game was released on the Sega CD, so the second game had every reason in the world to keep the II in the title.
---
"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
-
Congratulations for finishing the project. Good work!
-
A rare instance of someone requesting maps, someone promising to do it a day later, and fulfilling that promise in less than two months. Hooray! And for a game that's not particularly well-known (I think), too.
Of course, I still rarely expect requests to be fulfilled just because of the work involved and that this whole site is still somewhat niche. But it seems like when it comes to Genesis games, that's DarkWolf's specialty. Good job!
-
When I first heard about this project I thought it was the first game, the one TerraEsperz is mentioning, not the second one,
Congratulations for finishing the game, it's one of my favorite.
-
Mapping the first Dune game would quite an accomplishment, considering that there's little to map! Oh sure, you have the Atreides Castle, a few Harkonnen fortresses and close to a hundred different Sietchs, but aside from the castle, they only have 4 or 5 rooms at most.
What was cool about that game is that the planet map was a fully spherical 3D map that rotated, and like planet Earth, that makes it almost impossible to map without distorting it in some way. Shame really.
---
"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