Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 15, 2007, 10:53:42 pm
Anyway, I've already mapped two of the easier stages, Level 1 - "Ragnarok's Canyon" and Level 4 - "Arctic Caverns" so I'm posting WIP versions for now. Additional maps may or may not be posted later on.
As usual, I only add the items, bosses and objects that are already there as you encounter them, which is why the first stage is almost empty (all the pigs come out of the ground or through holes in the mountains). It also means that in the fourth stage, the blocks of ice that appear from behind you as you progress through the stages are not included, but those you meet head-on *are*.
Level 1 - Ragnarok's Canyon
This level was pretty much straightfoward. Aside from the screen scrolling upward and downward and bit at certain spots, it was easy to do. I filled in the empty spots to get a fully rectangular map, then I did what I could to best represent the boss. The thing is, when you initially meet it, you only see part of its leg since it's so big. So using the PPU viewer in FCEUXDSP, I extracted all the tiles for the Tall Walker boss (enabling me to show a bit more of it) but that wasn't enough to reconstruct it completely. So instead, I then mapped the actual area that you see when fighting the boss from his point of view (in red) and adjusted the position of the info on its display and its blasters to suggest that the whole area is seen at once from its POV. And since we get to see more of the stage after beating it, I added that part after the boss view.
Level 4 - Arctic Caverns
This level took a while to map because it actually has a parallax scrolling background, or at least as close to it as the NES could get. This has forced me to take screenshots of the whole level, and then to remove by end all of said background. It took several hours but it wasn't so much hard as it was long, since the background is actually made of identical tiles that are "scrolled" internally, thus the tiles to remove were always exactly 8x8 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: Maxim on August 16, 2007, 03:04:40 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 16, 2007, 06:03:46 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: Maxim on August 16, 2007, 06:55:02 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 16, 2007, 08:25:42 am
In PaintShop Pro which I tried to use once, everything is harder and more complicated to do. In Paint, a simple [Ctrl]+[V] will paste an image and the Background color is removed in the process. In PaintShop Pro, you have to use something like [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[E] to paste a "Transparent Selection" but if you haven't filled the canvas with a color, the removed color will instead be empty/transparent or something like that instead of just plain white. I don't like how pasting and moving a selection, and scrolling the canvas work either compared to Paint. And heck, just selecting a foreground/background color to use is just incredibly complicated because you have plain colors, gradiants, patterns and even "transparent" which I just don't know and don't care to know how to use. I just have no patience for it when Paint is just easier.
As for the tool to replace a color, it's harder to use properly than the program I use exclusively for that, called VicMan's Photo Editor. It doesn't work with very large images but for individual screenshots it's just quick and effective. I select a background color, I select the color tolerance (usually 1 because I only ever want to change a specific one) and just click away on the colors to change and they are replaced by the background one. Trust me, I tried to do that with PaintShop Pro and I kept messing things every third click I made.
More complex and powerful doesn't always mean better and it certainly doesn't mean easier. I only ever resort to programs other than Paint when I need to do special things (color replacement, layers) and next time I need to, I'll probably use Paint.net which is a free yet very powerful graphic editor that I recently downloaded.
Paint masochism? No. Beauty in simplicity? Heck yes :)
---
"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: Maxim on August 16, 2007, 02:26:51 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 16, 2007, 02:35:20 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 August 16, 2007, 03:20:16 pm
A grid would be handy...I'm used to working without it, but I should at least give it a shot...I should see if GIMP has that.
Back on topic, I remember how everyone loved Battletoads because it had some of the best graphics on the NES...Nintendo Power devoted a third of their entire June 1991 issue to it...a full playthrough with maps with a comic interspersed, continuing from the previous issue's prequel-of-sorts comic. The franchise hasn't really been that great since (actually, Battlemaniacs was good too but too much of the same), but the original is definitely awesome.
Except for the sheer difficulty, of course. That tower stage is killer, the races are nuts, and I think there was some kind of bug that made it impossible to finish with 2 players or something? Maps would be cool to see the stages that few people have ever passed or even gotten to. Can't wait to see the pipe maze stage!...assuming you get around to mapping that, of course.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 16, 2007, 04:21:38 pm
Going back to Battletoads, the Pipe Maze will be very easy actually since it's just a straight-foward platforming level. It's Rat Race and Clinger-Wingers that are worrying me, since both are tight races where the slightest mistake will cost you the whole race. Playing perfectly and taking screenshots at the same time will be daunting. We'll see once I'm there, but I'll try to map all the ordinary stages before the races.
I'm also wondering how the heck I'm going to map Level 12 - The Revolution or as most people call it, the Dark Queen's Tower. Your character always stands in the middle of the screen while the tower itself turns in the background. How can I represent all the platforms around the tower in an easy and straight-foward manner?
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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: Maxim on August 17, 2007, 03:02:34 am
As for mapping hard stages - I tend to make heavy use of multiple savestates. Always have one at the start of the level, and another that's a running "doing as well as I can" state. From each of these running states you can play forwards to take maps, then when you're satisfied with a section, play through it again "properly".
Post by: JonLeung on August 17, 2007, 07:38:21 am
But then...and I'm trying to remember...is the circumference of the tower the same all the way to the top? If not, it's still doable, it just might look a little funny, and it wouldn't be able to match up all the way around, or something...
Post by: Maxim on August 17, 2007, 08:24:26 am
Post by: JonLeung on August 17, 2007, 09:29:25 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 17, 2007, 02:02:16 pm
I think the simplest solution for me might be simply to map it from several points of view. the most basic would be to do the front and back, but depending on how the platforms are arranged, more views such as four maps each being rotated 90 degrees from the previous one might be needed.
Or I might do as Maxim first suggested, and do a cylindrical which would make the relative placements of the platforms easier to understand, but the tower itself wouldn't fit in this format, not without alterations to make it much wider than it appears.
I'm starting to get the same vibe I had while mapping Castlevania: Bloodlines which had all kinds of mapping challenges. I think I'll take a look at how to do The Revolution when I get back home on monday evening (I'll be away all weekends, so I won't even get to try anything until then).
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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 22, 2007, 10:19:57 pm
On the left is the tower by itself without any of the platforms with all the tiles captured/changed to remove any trace of the rotation animation. On the right is what I've managed to map so far of the position of the platforms and springs shown with a flat wrap-around projection. This is mostly for reference at the moment as I'm not sure it would look good as a final map considering I'd have to mangle the tower itself to add it behind the platforms.
The most likely scenario will be to make two maps, showing the "front" and "back" of the tower. All that remains is to map the position of the remaining platforms and springs, then determine exactly where to place them on the tower depending on the angle of their position and put them there. I think I'm still good for a few hours of work ;)
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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: Grizzly on August 23, 2007, 10:54:16 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 23, 2007, 12:47:52 pm
I'll just try making a front and back views for now, and *then* consider the feasibility of such an enterprise ;)
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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 August 23, 2007, 01:12:06 pm
Of course, the problem is that playing the game and trying to get everything at the proper angle is quite the difficulty in itself. The last stage in one of the hardest NES games ever? Yeah, I guess that's pretty much out of the question. >_<
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 23, 2007, 10:51:36 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 August 29, 2007, 05:41:28 pm
Anyway, I stuck with a "Front" and "Back" views, the front one being approximately the place where the stage start. Now, my maps aren't exactly authentic to what you'd see on a treal NES for various reasons:
-When viewed from the same exact point of view on two different occasions, some platforms have their positions off by one pixel;
-Due to the all the cheating done to create a seemingly rotating 3D effect, some platforms on the other side of the tower from you might not appear even though the tower is thinner there and shouldn't hide it. I create a mask of the tower by hand to only hide what the tower "should" hide to compensate;
-Many objects actually move around the tower; for simplicity's sake, I placed them right in the middle on the front side. That includes the spiked balls and several yellow platforms and springs.
---
"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: Grizzly on August 31, 2007, 07:16:26 am
It looks nice and I can think of what the tower would look like quite easily.
Post by: JonLeung on August 31, 2007, 07:40:44 am
But if this is the front/back of the tower, shouldn't the parts of the tower that are off-center (those things that look like shafts but are off to one side) be on the opposite "side" on the other side?
It's been a while since I've played this game, so I forget if those actually rotate with the whole thing as it looks like it should.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on August 31, 2007, 01:42:32 pm
This becomes evident in those off-center sections that seem to turn around their own centers, as well as near the top where there seems to be two tower shafts side by side, each one rotating on itself. When seen in action, those parts look weird and fake, so I suspect Rare did this intentionally to create this bizarre Escheresque tower of evil that could only exist in a videogame.
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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 06, 2007, 12:14:39 pm
I find that some NES games by Rare use very bright, saturated colours. (I'm thinking games like Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team and the Wizards & Warriors games. They did those, right?) Almost to the point of being too hard to look at. But for whatever reason, Battletoads looks really good despite that. As is usually the case with any TerraEsperZ project, I can't wait to see it finished!
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 10, 2007, 08:29:04 am
So far, I've made a few changes to Level 11 - Clinger Wingers, namely I removed the two biggest areas I had filled by hand (above and under the starting point respectively) because I wasn't happy with them and they are the only two parts of the stage that are really far from the player's path. I haven't done any more stages yet, but that's because I'm doing a double project, namely the first Battletoads game for gameboy. It's a nice break because it's easier to map than its NES counterpart so whenever it's giving me trouble, I switch to its younger brother for a bit. So far, I've done Stage 1 and 5 for the GB version which I'll post tonight once I'm home.
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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 11, 2007, 08:04:28 pm
Level 9 - Terra Tubes
Level 11 - Clinger Wingers (corrected)
Battletoads (GB):
Level 1
Level 5
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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 15, 2007, 01:19:55 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: TerraEsperZ on September 16, 2007, 09:02:53 pm
I have two more levels done, plus I've finalized and optimized all the other completed maps with a header and a few bits of descriptive text.
Level 6 - Karnath's Lair is actually made of four maps that I did as animated GIFs instead of PNGs because none of my attemps to show all the snake paths at the same time ended up looking legible because too many of them overlap. Hopefully they didn't get mangled when they were optimized; the first program I used for that messed up a few colors in one frame, but I didn't notice anything wrong with these which I did with another software.
Level 13 - Armageddon wouldn't normally warrant a map all for itself but it *is* considered as such by the game as if you lose all your lives during the fight with the Dark Queen, the map actually shows your new position as a different stage. Trivia aside, I hate how the header format I chose takes more place than the map itself, but I'll live with it.
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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 18, 2007, 08:44:19 pm
This level took some work to make it look right, just like Level 08 - Intruder Excluder did. I had to go back and use the same frame for the two types of monitors in the background (static and diagonal lines) and do all the see-through holes with the fake parallax background in a way that looked pleasing but isn't totally accurate to the game (because in the real game, it's badly tiled in a few spots that break the illusion of the parallax effect; I've corrected those).
This stage consists of three races where you have to beat Scuzz the racing rat to the bomb at the end before he blows up the place (incidentally, I've included the spots on the map where he materializes so that you know when it's time to start running to gain a few seconds on him). The first two are relatively easy to beat, but the third is hard core where the slightest mistake will most likely condemn you because Scuzz is litterally flying in this segment. Hopefully my map can make beating him to the end a tiny bit easier.
You know, this game's maps are really getting long and/or tall. Until now it's been relatively manageable (this map is over 14 000 pixels high and one from the sequel was over 27 000 pixels long!!!) but there's no way that I plan on putting all five Turbo Tunnel races on the same map without making it unviewable by most people *including* me.
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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 19, 2007, 10:46:37 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: Maxim on September 20, 2007, 02:56:56 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on September 20, 2007, 03:51:45 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: marioman on September 20, 2007, 05:59:51 pm
Post by: JonLeung on October 18, 2007, 09:00:58 am
Kinda excited to see this one when it's finished. :)
Post by: TerraEsperZ on October 20, 2007, 08:06:08 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 October 26, 2007, 11:45:40 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: JonLeung on November 13, 2007, 12:36:18 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on November 13, 2007, 01:28:25 pm
That, plus the fact that my new keyboard has a totally retarded arrangement of the Home/End/Page Up/Page Down/Insert/Delete keys, with which I keep deleting texts when I'm just trying to bring the cursor to the beginning or end of a line.
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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: marioman on November 13, 2007, 06:14:15 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on December 04, 2007, 10:10:25 pm
So say... about 2 weeks.
*Promised*
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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 March 29, 2010, 08:44:37 pm
Anyway, here's the full map which I'll comment right after:
(http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/333/level11clingerwingerful.th.png) (http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/333/level11clingerwingerful.png)
You'll notice two things:
1) The upper-left area is finally complete. By searching the memory for changing values while moving vertically, I quickly found the relevant address for the player's vertical position. However, the address being 8-bit (0 to 255) meant that it could not possibly cover the whole range of positions for the map which is 1536 pixels high. So I searched for another value that combined with the first one would make a 16-bit address, which I did by searching for values that changed by 1 whenever the first value went beyond either 00 or FF. Anyway, I found that value and I started playing with both only to discover that whenever I placed the player outside of the screen, the screen wouldn't scroll vertically to center itself on him.
Not being an experienced hacker like Maxim, I had to get around the screen update routine anyway I could. So instead I simply moved the player at the top of the screen but still visible right at the start of the stage, then I let the screen scroll up to it, then moved it again just the right amount until I got to the top of the map. And since the toad kept walking slowly forward without ever reaching the wheel, I finally captured all the missing area that had eluded me until then.
2) Right below the starting point, I previously showed nothing because I simply couldn't reach the area at all. Well, on the finished map I'll still show nothing but for a good reason: as you can see on this image, this is where the map for Level 13 - Armageddon is located, albeit with the colour palettes of Level 11. Cool little find right?
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 30, 2010, 10:53:45 pm
(But seriously, the main reason is that I remember having a hard time finding a free program that could make animated GIFs *and* didn't mangle them in the process)
Me discovering how to make APNGs has re-opened the possibility of making an animated 32 frames map of Level 12 - The Revolution. Of course, I'll have to find a way to optimize the calculations required for the horizontal placement of all the objects at every angle for every frame, so I expect at least a couple of hours of brain torture. But hey, if the end result looks good, it'll be all worth it :)
Post by: Revned on March 31, 2010, 12:59:41 am
I never really looked into the different tools for creating APNGs, but as long as they don't recompress the frames you should be able to optimize the individual frames before combining them. In theory all that happens is the main data chunks from each PNG are directly copied into the APNG along with some extra headers for timing information.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 31, 2010, 06:09:59 am
Post by: Revned on March 31, 2010, 08:36:10 am
Post by: Peardian on March 31, 2010, 09:30:02 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 31, 2010, 11:35:49 am
I would appreciate to know more about making GIFs with Jasc Animation Shop, but I like to keep my options open since APNG has the added bonus of making animated pictures with more than 256 colors (per frame even).
Post by: Peardian on March 31, 2010, 01:23:29 pm
With those settings, you can just click OK, Next, Next, Next, Finish and you're done! The last screen even tells you how much space was saved through optimization. This method will work with anything up to 255 colors, a hard limit to break even on SNES games unless you have multiple rooms with different tilesets together in one image.
Post by: Revned on March 31, 2010, 01:47:06 pm
I'm rather busy this week, but I can write some code this weekend to do the second part if none of the existing tools work.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 31, 2010, 07:16:48 pm
1) I first make a PNG file that includes every frame for the map, so that all possible colours are included.
2) I optimize the PNG in PNGGauntlet which reduces the palette (this is a bit of a waste but I'm not interested in switching to a different graphics editor simply for the option of saving PNGs with an optimized palette).
3) I open up said file in Paint which will retain the optimized palette. I then select the area for each frame and save them in separate files which will thus all have the same palette.
4) I optimize the files for every frame in PNGGauntlet again with the "Retain Palette Order" option checked.
5) I assemble them using JapngEditor, a Java APNG editor which, unlike APNG Anime Maker, will retain the palette and bit depth if they are the same across all frames.
6) I enjoy the fruits of my labor which, in this case, is smaller than an animated GIF *and* a non-animated PNG :)
Post by: Revned on March 31, 2010, 07:30:59 pm
[EDIT] If you want to really optimize it, you can include the plain background as the first frame and then use the blending/dispose options to include only the animated elements in the following frames.
[EDIT2] I tried using a smaller (7x4) frame with an offset instead of a full sized frame. This is only 175 bytes bigger than the original PNG.
Post by: Peardian on March 31, 2010, 09:44:32 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on March 31, 2010, 10:04:27 pm
Yeah Peardian, I realize this which is why I'll also look into making those into GIFs, but I think it's nice to have the option for fully accurate and highly optimized animated maps. If my plans for Level 12 - The Revolution come to fruition, I doubt a GIF file would be able to handle it considering the height of the map (6392 pixels) and my plans for 32 full frames.
*EDIT*
I've found Jasc Animation Shop and I've been following your instructions Peardian. Seems to work well :)
Post by: TerraEsperZ on April 05, 2010, 06:42:21 pm
As a result of the above, don't expect anything else from me for at least a couple of days.
Post by: TerraEsperZ on April 08, 2010, 09:53:01 pm
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5976/rotatingtower.gif (http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5976/rotatingtower.gif)
Don't expect the final tower to be animated like that though. With 8 frames to move the distance of a 16 pixels wide background tile, and with 32 such tiles, I'd have to animated a total of 256 frames for a totally smooth rotation. Also, each frame requires the precise placement of 32 separate radial sections that contains the platforms and springs, so multiply 256 frames by 32 sections and you get an insane number of pasting and adjusting (8192 to be precise), not to mention having to manually position the moving platforms and objects.
The plans for the moment are for 32 frames, moving the length of one section each time and since this movement is also the length of a background tile, I should technically *not* animate the tower as above.
...Though I just might if only to give some visual variety. Hmm...
Post by: TerraEsperZ on April 14, 2010, 10:02:02 pm
*EDIT*
[Image Removed - See two posts down for finished version]
Post by: TerraEsperZ on January 24, 2011, 10:12:08 pm
Post by: TerraEsperZ on January 26, 2011, 08:10:01 pm
Sadly, no thumbnail because ImageShack is being a dick as usual. It probably doesn't look like much, but this level took me close to 30 hours in total to capture, plan out and assemble. Heck, if I was any good at hacking and coding, I probably could have ripped the map data and created the map by code in a tenth of that time, but I'm not so there's no point in thinking about what could have been.
Anyway, as usual I've tried to be as visual as possible and the only thing I might add on the final submission is a small compass so you can easily tell the tower orientation without having to rely on the background and several sets of objects all moving at different speeds.
But here's how it's supposed to look:
-The player's sprite (Rash) at the bottom is immobile, so he's the best indicator of orientation;
-Most platforms move at the same speed as Rash, so that means that while playing, they are immobile too;
-A few spike balls and platforms always stay in the middle of the screen because while playing, they are moving right;
-A few other spike balls and platforms are moving to the left faster than everything else because while playing, they are moving left (duh);
-The background doesn't seem to be moving at the same speed as the actual rotation because I'm using artistic license. In short, the tower has 8 frames of animation for every rotation step, and there are 32 steps. Since I've made 32 frames, I would have had to use the same tiles for each frame which means the tower would have looked immobile. So changed the tiles each frame even though it looks like the tower is rotating 8 times slower than it should because, hey, at least it's turning.
Comments would be appreciated, even though suggestions for major changes will most likely be ignored considering how long it took to finish it as is.
Post by: Maxim on January 27, 2011, 11:01:44 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on February 08, 2011, 04:18:14 pm
[LINKS REMOVED]
Note that the water mines are positioned correctly horizontally but not vertically since their exact position is completely random, but you at least know when to expect them. Also, I manage to capture the full vertical resolution of the stage by freezing the camera and identifying the various 256 x 256 pixels sections of the stage and using those to fill the areas I could capture otherwise.
*EDIT 27/04/12*
I needed space in my free ImageShack account, so I've decided to remove the maps from this post. You can find them on VGMaps here. (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Battletoads)
Post by: TerraEsperZ on February 16, 2011, 10:13:40 pm
[LINKS REMOVED]
Only one stage left, but it's another high speed one, Level 3 - Turbo Tunnel. It should also take me a while, but then at last this game will be finished!
*EDIT 27/04/12*
I needed space in my free ImageShack account, so I've decided to remove the maps from this post. You can find them on VGMaps here. (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Battletoads)
Post by: NESAtlas on May 12, 2011, 08:30:41 am
Post by: TerraEsperZ on July 27, 2011, 12:05:00 am
Finishing another project, namely Bucky O'Hare (NES)...
Anyway, I'm not even bothering with the thumbnails at all this time. They never work, and they wouldn't show anything considering how long the maps all are, as you can see below:
[LINKS REMOVED]
I'm sending all the newer/updated maps to JonLeung right now so they should be up soon. I'm soooo sick of this game by now, you all have no idea! It took me over 15 hours just to map this stage, and I had to start from scratch even though I had mapped 3/4 of it three years ago since I had made a ton of errors by not using the Next Frame option in FCEUX.
Now, onward to more interesting games :)
*EDIT 27/04/12*
I needed space in my free ImageShack account, so I've decided to remove the maps from this post. You can find them on VGMaps here. (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Battletoads)
Post by: Maxim on July 27, 2011, 08:22:43 am
Post by: JonLeung on July 30, 2011, 09:41:01 am
Hurrah, they're up! (https://www.vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Battletoads)