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Messages - VGCartography

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31
Maps In Progress / Re: Castlevania: Dawn Of Sorrow (DS)
« on: January 16, 2022, 05:44:25 am »
Reviving this ancient thread to share a link I found:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-37086-post-660862.html#pid660862
Rufaswan has some download links there for all 3 DS games that have probably 80% of the background stuff represented. Things aren't tiled or stretched or whatever and some bits are missing, but overall it would represent a nice starting point for those - I referenced it for some Castlevania maps I worked on recently that I'll submit soon. I know this is probably long since past, but for anyone feeling like mapping some beautiful 2D pixel art, OoE doesn't have much out there already.

32
Can you share with us a couple statistics that would be fun to feature if possible?
- number of maps
- number of contributors
- first map(s) you hosted (which one and when?)

Thanks!

33
I'm at 1.5 years working from home after what we thought would be a couple weeks quarantine turned into this. I actually quite like it, my wife works at home as well and it has given us a lot more opportunities with our toddler and less time commuting/preparing/running around. Many house projects completed. I work for a university and they are reluctant to force people back anytime soon.

It has also given me time to explore many hobbies, starting a journal, cataloging books and games and digital data and all of that. Near the end of 2020, after years of dabbling with little game-related infographic projects, I started a more focused effort to make some maps for Grand Theft Auto III because I just went for the PS4's platinum trophy and felt the materials out there didn't do a great job communicating visually, given we could now fly around the map in noclip.website and the like. I made some little images in powerpoint (didn't want to learn photoshop), updated the guide, ended up recording a short youtube video about it and had a good time. Started poking around what other similar resources might be available for games from my childhood. Eventually went so far as to rename my twitter account and sort of separate "me" personally and "VGCartography map account" that had become my standard relaxation activity once the rest of the family went to bed.

https://www.deviantart.com/vgcartography/gallery
I haven't done a good job keeping VGMaps updated with my output over 2021 (Jon, I will email you about some of these - just finished Mega Man Legends and Tomba maps were all remade) but I've spent more time on these graphic projects than I have playing video games this year probably. There isn't a ton of engagement though - twitter is only good for fleeting impersonal interactions, reddit is a little better but similar - not much conversation, can't ask for advice, etc. I've wished this forum was still more active as it seems like it once was, and to Terra's point about dying out I've wondered if Jon/I/someone started a discord server for game map people it might bring more engagement?

I don't love discord/slack because it's difficult to look back in time, but it would be fun to have a more active place for people to put heads together. I've had the most luck for old PS1 games trawling their discord communities for efforts to extract assets (how I mapped Mega Man Legends, Tomba, others) and I do think there is an audience for it - not long ago someone made a viral tweet about StarFighters76's GameFAQs maps and shortly afterwards they joined twitter and several hundred people followed them. Is that a blasphemous idea?

34
Maps Of The Month / Re: 2021/09: Tomba! (PlayStation) - VGCartography
« on: September 01, 2021, 12:54:48 pm »
Thanks! Tomba is one of my favorites. In general most of my favorite games from the NES/SNES area are well-covered here but the PS1 era not as much, understandably because the areas are 3D and not easily extracted so your options are either drawing maps from scratch or trying to pull out the assets in some form like I've done here. Anyone interested in PS1 work, happy to answer questions here/twitter/etc. Every game is different but some are easier than others.

Tomba 2 will be along in the coming months, here is a preview map for the sequel: https://twitter.com/vgcartography/status/1429861130709708802

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Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: August 04, 2021, 01:34:21 pm »
I shortened it on the Escape Route map so it wasn't needlessly big, just a sample of each part, but the full game map I think is what the intention was. In reality it can last for a while if you have bad aim, but the cliff you end on is meant to be the same coast you originally swim up to I think.

36
Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: August 04, 2021, 12:34:40 pm »
Metal Gear Solid is up.
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/PSX/index.htm#MetalGearSolid

I made a short YouTube video explaining how I made it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PihXtAKtb2A

Among other things, a cleanup of Tomba and Vagrant Story along with maps for Mega Man Legends and MGS2 are in the plans. Want to revisit Tomb Raider as well.

37
Map Requests / Re: find the game of the map in the big band theory
« on: July 08, 2021, 01:39:00 pm »
Nice one Jon.

38
Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: June 28, 2021, 02:58:55 pm »
Resident Evil (2002) maps from going for platinum recently:
https://twitter.com/hatersgonnahate/status/1409615780250066945

Want to do a bit more error checking/cleanup before I submit though.

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Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: May 20, 2021, 04:29:57 pm »
I love seeing 3d maps rendered in an isometric perspective like this, even though they're not always easily "readable" because rooms will overlap with one another and ceiling geometry is sometimes visible.
Also, because of the primitive graphics of the game, it's not always easy to tell where edges are located. When older 3D games are rendered like this, I've always wondered how much better/worse it would look with a visible outline around edges.

Thank you for such an amazing video, and I'm glad that you'll be making maps for the next two games as well.
Can't wait to check out the maps by myself!

Thanks! Yeah, I often get confused by perspective when trying to find the best angle overall for each level, reminds me of that bit in Indiana Jones 3 when the perspective shifts and he realizes he's on a bridge. Peardian's Ocarina of Time iso maps are my favorite, but TR's levels fit together a bit differently and it's difficult to separate a single room so I wasn't able to achieve that level of clarity (partially why only the overhead map parts are labeled). For TR2 and 3 with a lot more verticality, I might try separating floors a bit more and trying more severe angles maybe.

40
Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: May 19, 2021, 09:36:23 pm »
Finished and submitted TR maps to the site! I also used the base maps to make this Youtube video breaking down the parts of various levels + some infographics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiToc0SYkds

41
Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: March 31, 2021, 08:07:52 am »
I've been sharing classic Tomb Raider maps as I assemble them. Most are on my Twitter feed, a couple examples:
https://twitter.com/hatersgonnahate/status/1377198997740347393 - TR2 - 40 Fathoms
https://twitter.com/hatersgonnahate/status/1376192309650411523 - TR - Palace Midas
The isometric maps for TR1 are done but need cleanup pass and labels etc. Haven't finished topdown map for 2/3 yet but maybe ready in a week or two.

42
Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: March 19, 2021, 08:00:39 pm »
noclip has a discord where the main author Jasper is pretty active/helpful. You basically need to write the translation piece between raw data and something you can feed to his basic rendering components. Since it has everything from PS2 to N64, there isn't a ton of shared code across games. But I don't know how much easier learning all that is vs. standing up a simple ThreeJS viewer yourself or something - I've found it difficult and Tomb Raider is a well-documented game in terms of data formats. I have the geom rendering in the app but haven't figured out proper way to load textures and haven't had a good chance to dive into it again.

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Maps In Progress / Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
« on: March 18, 2021, 07:20:25 am »
Enjoy reading about the layering challenges upthread! I didn't notice until reading your comments what was "faked" for the map like that, which is always the goal  :)

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

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

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

Your FF7 maps are one of the biggest influences that made me decide to try my hand at some of my own, btw.

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Maps In Progress / Re: Jackster's Map Projects
« on: March 18, 2021, 07:08:32 am »
Just dropping in to say I appreciate a lot of these - the Zelda CD-I ones were amazing to see since I've never played or watched the game, it looks gorgeous if you only knew the backgrounds lol. Also the 16-bit Toy Story was a fun trip down memory lane.

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Maps In Progress / Re: Electromax - getting to work on PS1 maps!
« on: March 18, 2021, 07:01:31 am »
In my case, I am using custom javascript tools to look at the level data outside of the game itself. For example, for VS someone has open-source tool to look at individual rooms if you have a copy of the game: https://github.com/morris/vstools

I loaded up each room one by one, got a good image of it, then composited the levels together in photoshop. It's imperfect but better than using screenshots or something in an emulator because it can render the assets and high resolution. Silent Hill was a similar process (https://www.moddb.com/downloads/silent-hill-level-viewer-202). A lot of these games have small projects like this devoted to unpacking them, and I have helped with some and leveraged others.

For Tomba, same thing - level geometry extraction, extracted objects, arranged objects (platforms, swing poles, etc) in Blender and exported that base layer, then added the sprite elements like items etc. in photoshop. I actualy tried using emulator screenshots for this before putting more work in, and it looked pretty awful.

For Tomb Raider, I've been working on a code submission to noclip.website that can extract the data from BIN files and render them there. Plan on TR2 and 3 also.

In terms of games that I don't currently have a good path forward, Metal Gear Solid and Mega Man Legends are high on my list but I haven't found good projects or documentation about their file formats yet, so TBD.

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