Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 03, 2008, 10:53:12 am
However, this time I'm into a more technical thing. I'm talking about a method contrary to screenshot-mapping; writing a program that does the maps for us. Allow me to elaborate.
Donkey Kong Country's level format is ridiculously simple. A level is always* 64 tiles wide and 16 tiles high, is sequenced in columns of tiles, one tile being 32 x 32 pixels. Take a look at the very first column of 'Jungle Hijinxs', thats level array begins at 0x190000.
81 40 67 00 78 00 80 00 68 00 49 00 EA 00 EB 00 EC 00 ED 00 EE 00 EF 00 F0 00 F1 00 F2 00 00 00
And since it's 2 bytes per tile, let's isolate to words:
81 40 | 67 00 | 78 00 | 80 00 | 68 00 | 49 00 | EA 00 | EB 00 | EC 00 | ED 00 | EE 00 | EF 00 | F0 00 | F1 00 | F2 00 | 00 00
The very first tile, '81 40' means literally 'Tile 81, flipped horizontally'. Why? Because the first byte, 81, or whatever it might be is always just the tile. You can change it to any value, and the desired tile will change. The second byte, 40, will be read nibble-by-nibble;
The first nibble, 4, must be read in binary.
Binary table is the following:
Flip Vertically || Flip Horizontally || Ghost || Ghost
If a bit is set, the action is true. 4 is 0100 in Binary, so...
DON'T Flip Vertically, DO Flip Horizontally, DON'T make a ghost, DON'T make a ghost.
(Ghost means that the tile looks normal, but you have no interaction with it. You just walk/fall through it. No idea why it must be defined twice, and who gives a damn anyway since it doesn't serve a purpose in mapping.)
The second nibble, 0 in this case means what bank to use. 0 means use bank 0, 1 means use bank 1, etc...
Now we know how the levels work, but where are the tiles read from? That's when I kick in. I've ripped tilesets of most DKC level types. Below are the links to the Jungle tileset banks 0 to 2.
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/Raccoon_Sam/Jungle_0.png
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/Raccoon_Sam/Jungle_1.png
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/Raccoon_Sam/Jungle_2.png
In short, the program works like this:
1. Read two bytes from desired location
2. Check bank and load corresponding PNG
3. Check the tile byte and print the corresponding tile to the array
4. Check for Vertical or Horizontal flip and apply if true
5. Read next 2 bytes and repeat process
Once 16 tiles are printed below each other, the first column is done, and another column will be started.
Repeat until 1024 tiles are printed.
I've attached a demo movie if you don't get it (requires Flash Player 8).
So yeah, if you're a software developer, be sure to look into this. I'm more than glad to help and will provide all the necessary tilesets if this project gets anywhere.
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 03, 2008, 02:43:45 pm
Post by: Revned on May 03, 2008, 03:11:04 pm
Post by: JonLeung on May 03, 2008, 04:32:40 pm
Sweet if a program to do this automatically can be made. Would it work for the whole DKC trilogy, do you think?
(...Hey, I'm sure it's not the same as with the Donkey Kong Land games, but if it did...that'd certainly make The Ultimate Koopa happy. :P)
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 03, 2008, 05:07:57 pm
JonLeung: Sadly, no. DKC2 and 3's level formats remain undiscovered. I've looked into the games (2 and 3 that is) and noticed that there are no similar structures. I've found some tilemaps and pointers, but nothing level-data related (except some arrays that upon editing make the levels look like vomit, but those probably have nothing to do with level data.)
Post by: RT 55J on May 03, 2008, 05:56:57 pm
---
"its a good day to do what has to be done by me and help my brother to defeat the enemys" - John Freeman
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 04, 2008, 05:41:45 am
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 04, 2008, 11:15:53 am
And on the tile flipping, I made a more sensible system;
-If the byte is 4x, flip horizontally.
-If the byte is 8x, flip vertically.
-If the byte is Cx, flip horizontally and vertically.
Post by: Maxim on May 05, 2008, 06:03:02 am
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 06, 2008, 01:36:56 pm
Post by: Maxim on May 06, 2008, 11:09:34 pm
(I'll try and look at it tonight. I'm thinking I can make a fairly generic tool for this that might be reusable.)
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 07, 2008, 04:49:53 am
Hurry up. why is this ignored? bump bump bump lol <_<
OK, seriously I won't do that again.
Post by: Rew on May 07, 2008, 08:01:50 am
---
"So this is what it's like..."
- Spark Mandrill
Post by: Maxim on May 07, 2008, 02:47:29 pm
You can dump entire level sets as single images (eg. all jungle-themed levels) but a 41920x512 image is hard to deal with...
Post by: Maxim on May 07, 2008, 03:02:51 pm
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 07, 2008, 09:35:02 pm
Post by: Maxim on May 08, 2008, 12:18:03 am
java -cp . TileMapReconstructor
Java knows that means "run the TileMapReconstructor.class file".
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 08, 2008, 12:34:08 am
:<
Post by: Revned on May 08, 2008, 02:01:10 am
cd /Users/Bradbury/Desktop/DKCTilemapReconstructor/
Post by: Maxim on May 08, 2008, 03:46:31 am
Here's what it looks like to create the above image for me:
C:\Documents and Settings\GreadyM\Desktop\maps\DKC>java -cp . TileMapReconstructor "Jungle_" 3 32 32 "Donkey Kong Country (U) (V1.0) [!].smc" 0x190000 168 16 "Jungle Hijinks.png"
Loading Jungle_0.png...
Loaded: 512x512
Got 256 tiles.
Loading Jungle_1.png...
Loaded: 512x512
Got 256 tiles.
Loading Jungle_2.png...
Loaded: 512x160
Got 80 tiles.
Loading Donkey Kong Country (U) (V1.0) [!].smc...
Creating map...
Saving...
Done!
It seems you didn't rip all the tilesets yet, but most things I've tried seem to work fine. For the level ranges you've documented, the map width can be calculated from (end offset - start offset + 1) / 32, so for example "190000 - 1914FF Jungle Hijinx" becomes 0x15000 / 32 = 168 (hence the 168 parameter in the commandline above).
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 08, 2008, 05:45:22 am
And don't thank me for those offsets, they're all Giangurgolo's wondrous works. He has also ripped the banana sets and explained how they work in his site, too. You might want to take that into a consideration too.
http://giangurgolo.home.att.net/dkc/
Post by: Maxim on May 08, 2008, 06:30:01 am
java -jar TileMapReconstructor.jar "Jungle_" 3 32 32 "Donkey Kong Country (U) (V1.0) [!].smc" 0x190000 168 16 "Jungle Hijinx.png"
Post by: TerraEsperZ on May 08, 2008, 07:08:58 am
(Although I'm glad in a way that you're not trying to dump/extract maps from games I'm mapping, otherwise I'd be out of work ;))
---
"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
Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 08, 2008, 07:30:19 am
I'm not sure a jar helps, since it still needs to be in the right directory and to have loads of commandline options passed in.
java -jar TileMapReconstructor.jar "Jungle_" 3 32 32 "Donkey Kong Country (U) (V1.0) [!].smc" 0x190000 168 16 "Jungle Hijinx.png"
Reading Giangurgolo's documents, it seems the water levels are encoded differently and will need a modified program to be dumped.
java -jar TileMapReconstructor.jar "Jungle_" 3 32 32 "Donkey Kong Country (U) (V1.0) [!].smc" 0x190000 168 16 "Jungle Hijinx.png"
Reading Giangurgolo's documents, it seems the water levels are encoded differently and will need a modified program to be dumped.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that. That's why I had the * in my first post but never explained why.. Sorry about that.
And Slipslide ride is sequenced in rows, too.
Post by: Maxim on May 08, 2008, 08:51:06 am
I think making it totally generic will be very hard, unfortunately, but the code is hopefully simple enough that it can be adapted for other games. Many games work in a similar way.
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 08, 2008, 09:10:05 am
And yeah, a similar format is really common, but what amazed me the most was that a SNES-game used it.
Post by: Maxim on May 08, 2008, 11:52:07 am
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 08, 2008, 12:34:47 pm
Well, I've got my entrance exam for an art university tomorrow morning, and it's 21:32 now. It starts 9 o' clock and ends at 4 PM, so I'll get to ripping the tiles in... 19 hours or so.
Post by: Maxim on May 08, 2008, 12:38:35 pm
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 11, 2008, 05:47:14 am
*coughmakemoremapsnaoorillgomadlolcough* <_< just kidding <_< Nah... I don't want this to go down like the DKL2 topic >_> <_<
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 15, 2008, 12:11:45 pm
http://www.dkc-atlas.com/dkc/maps/1-1.php
Post by: TerraEsperZ on May 15, 2008, 01:03:47 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
Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Post by: Maxim on May 15, 2008, 02:27:47 pm
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 15, 2008, 02:31:05 pm
Post by: JonLeung on May 15, 2008, 04:56:13 pm
I'm guessing Raccoon Sam was disappointed that someone beat him to the punch.
And yet, as Maxim said, their maps are incomplete...
Post by: Maxim on May 15, 2008, 07:25:07 pm
Obviously there's still work to be done before submitting them. I won't be the one who does it...
Post by: Revned on May 15, 2008, 11:13:11 pm
Post by: Raccoon Sam on May 16, 2008, 05:29:40 am
But hey, we still could do a VGMaps exclusive I guess. I don't think they'd want us to go and take the maps from their site.
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on May 28, 2008, 03:39:16 pm
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on June 17, 2008, 02:42:31 pm
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on June 18, 2008, 06:00:33 pm
Post by: Rew on June 18, 2008, 07:45:43 pm
---
"So this is what it's like..."
- Spark Mandrill
Post by: The Ultimate Koopa on June 19, 2008, 05:59:20 am