Messages

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/09: SOS (Super NES) - Tropicon

« on: September 02, 2025, 06:48:32 am »

I've only played this one a little bit, looks like a stairs labyrinth! I was surprised to see recently it also got a PS1 sequel. I don't think it was officially translated but it got a fan translation not long ago. Moves from 2D to 3D so I'm not sure how similar.

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Gaming / Re: Silksong's Launch is Nigh! Excited?

« on: September 02, 2025, 06:45:30 am »

Pretty excited to see what TC has cooked up. Even if it's more of the same, HK was one of my favorite metroidvanias. Only thing I'm dreading is how difficult the optional lategame stuff will be, based on some of HK's insane challenges...

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Map Requests / Re: Brave Fencer Musashi

« on: August 13, 2025, 06:50:04 am »

I plan to give this one a try at some point, I did a test with Duckstation 3D screenshots and it seemed to come out pretty well. I think doing isometric 3d maps should be doable.

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Maps In Progress / Re: VGCartography - getting to work on PS1 maps!

« on: August 10, 2025, 09:15:17 am »

Just submitted the last few FF9 maps, after being dormant on them since 2022! Now most of FF8 and FF9 are up,  at long last.

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Maps In Progress / Re: New maps from a new member

« on: May 14, 2025, 04:32:27 pm »

Welcome! Happy to see new faces picking up the hobby.

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Mapping Tips/Guides / Re: Guide to mapping PlayStation (PSX) 2D games with PSVrammed

« on: May 14, 2025, 01:57:42 pm »

Thanks very much for sharing this! I've played around with VRAM tools for games before and it always gets tricky, I've stuck to emulator screenshots for the most part and trying to use codes to hide layers etc. I will definitely give this a try and check out your Lua scripts. The idea of trying to find the palette was always the part I dreaded, as it felt imprecise, but this seems like a fairly nice workflow.

Maybe I should write a PSX 3D mapping guide inspired by yours...

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Map Gab / Re: Jurassic Park (Sega Megadrive/Genesis)

« on: March 07, 2025, 07:31:25 am »

cool, love the big brachiosaur head. the two-version approach is nice also!

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Gaming / Re: Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider

« on: February 19, 2025, 03:00:16 pm »

Looks like a cool Metroid-ish game I hadn't heard of, will check this one out.

e: The same dev did Odallus, that game was solid.

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Maps In Progress / Re: VGCartography - getting to work on PS1 maps!

« on: February 13, 2025, 03:33:34 pm »

I am still alive.

There's a bunch of PS1 games waiting to be mapped, but I can't pick one to focus on. The epsxe emulator fork that can take 3D screenshots has been revolutionary - no more extracting and converting data to OBJs, instead can just rip them straight from gameplay. It isn't always easy or pretty (Syphon Filter for example comes out with stretched axis due to perspective that requires correction), and you will be collecting portions of the level mesh from multiple screenshots and must rotate and move them to recreate the whole thing, but for most games it isn't as bad as it sounds. I've done at least the first level in this fashion for:
- Ape Escape
- Syphon Filter
- Toy Story 2
- Armored Core
- Gex 2
- Legend of Legaia
- Tail Concerto
- Wild Arms 2
...however, Spyro 2 and some Crash levels are the only thing I've progressed much further on. With infinite time, it would be fun to grab them all.

I still haven't done disc 4 of FF9 or a bunch of Legend of Dragoon, need to get back in the mood for screenshot maps like that.

There's also a PCSX2 fork now that can do similar things with PS2 levels! https://github.com/scurest/pcsx2/releases/tag/latest-3d-screenshot
PS2 games have much higher poly counts obviously, more transparency and other lighting effects to remove and usually require culling polygons and scaling axes again to remove distortion, but I got workable level models from Devil May Cry 1, Tomb Raider 6 and Shadow of the Colossus without too much fuss. There's a lot of potentially cool maps for the PS2 library as well.

Otherwise, I drew some world maps for Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne and Sekiro that I'm pretty proud of. Here's the Sekiro one: https://www.deviantart.com/vgcartography/art/Sekiro-Illustrated-World-Map-1128031286
I'm working on improving my coloring skills, once again I have a long list of games I'd love to draw like this but precious little time to do it. I've been making videos for youtube with these maps basically drawing little arrows on them that show the basic route through the games, it would be fun to see other people try similar videos like this with VGMaps collection. I make them with powerpoint. @NESAtlas on youtube has some neat ones in a similar vein with a let's play of the game inlaid to a larger map of the level/world. It also functions to get more eyes on some of the maps.

Anyway, hopefully I can submit Spyro 2 in the next month or so.

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: Are there any graphics apps that can remove backgrounds or compare pixels?

« on: February 03, 2025, 08:38:29 am »

Here's a python function that will do it, given two input images and an output path (black for matching areas, red for different):

Code: [Select]

from PIL import Image
import numpy as np

def compare_images(image_path1, image_path2, output_path):
    img1 = Image.open(image_path1)
    img2 = Image.open(image_path2)
    if img1.size != img2.size:
        raise ValueError("Images must be the same size.")
   
    # Convert images to numpy arrays
    arr1 = np.array(img1)
    arr2 = np.array(img2)
    if arr1.shape != arr2.shape:
        raise ValueError("Images must have the same number of channels.")
   
    # Find where pixels are the same (set to black) and different (set to red)
    diff = np.zeros_like(arr1)
    mask = np.any(arr1 != arr2, axis=-1)  # True where pixels differ
    diff[..., 0] = mask * 255  # Red channel
    diff[..., 1] = 0           # Green channel
    diff[..., 2] = 0           # Blue channel
   
    # Convert back to image
    output_img = Image.fromarray(diff)
    output_img.save(output_path)


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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/01: Vagrant Story (PlayStation) - VGCartography

« on: January 02, 2025, 05:46:07 am »

Awesome, thanks!

I used a suite called vstools to make these maps: https://github.com/morris/vstools
With this I could export things to OBJ format and render them orthographically for the maps. There were a couple challenging dungeons when it came to mapping - the Snowfly Forest and the Iron Maiden B2 lategame level are both labyrinths that don't fit together coherently (the traditional warp-maze style areas) so those have a ton of lines all over them connecting exits. Otherwise, the whole game world fits together pretty coherently at a time when that wasn't always the case. The game is open world in the sense that you can teleport to previous save points (eventually) and everything is continuous so you can always backtrack, rather than being discrete linear levels. As a result it feels like a consistent place.

If this game had a less obtuse combat system, it could've had a legacy up there with MGS1. The presentation, graphics, writing, cutscenes are fantastic for the PS1. But alas, the game is notoriously complex and difficult to wrap your head around the nuances of the combat system so a lot of people bounced off it. It is more of a cult classic now. For those who aren't familar, the director of this created the Ivalice world setting that is used here, in Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy 12. There is some vague DNA shared across them.

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Maps In Progress / Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future

« on: August 21, 2024, 05:45:13 pm »

Unrelated, but I just had a look at your DeviantArt page. I had no idea you were such an excellent artist beyond your stuff on VGMaps! Your work is really impressive, your portraits in particular remind me of official Phoenix Wright artwork. Cool to see all that variety!

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Maps In Progress / Re: My mapping projects

« on: August 14, 2024, 04:24:42 pm »

I referenced your maps when I played through Sweet Home this summer! Neat little NES game, wish that had made it over to the US back then.

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: Dual-Screen Gaming Handhelds Need a Great Resurgence

« on: July 03, 2024, 07:58:00 am »

I set up DS/3DS emulators on Retroarch recently, I still have both but I haven't jailbroken them and I like seeing what the big screen has to offer. But, the downside is that games like Hotel Dusk lose some of the magic when they use special features like closing and reopening the system. On the other hand, there are so many fantastic RPGs and other games that work really well with one large screen and the other screen off in the corner - especially with the right analog mapped to cursor/clicking, it works really well. I've been enjoying revisiting some of the older DS titles especially that haven't been ported. Will always be a bit awkward to play outside their original hardware for sure.

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Maps In Progress / Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future

« on: June 29, 2024, 04:25:28 pm »

Fantastic work so far as always. I love the world maps for this game, and the SNES version color palette in general