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Maps In Progress / Re: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future
« on: January 10, 2021, 11:34:51 PM »This is the kind of challenge I miss the most about mapping.
Sometimes, you'll just run into a game where some elements just seem impossible to represent properly on a static map. You get frustrated and might spend days, weeks or even months trying to come up with a solution. And one day, it finally just pops into you mind and after a bit on tinkering, you implement your workaround and produce something amazing!
I had those moments of figuring out how to present things more accurately when I was working on Final Fantasy VII, where there'd be multiple layers of lighting for some areas that I couldn't simply layer on top of each other and have the resulting image be what I'd see when actually playing the game. But once I had figured out how to layer those things properly in the late areas, I went back to previously finished maps and added the extra layers that I didn't bother with. The map that comes to mind where that happened is the Whirlwind Maze, with the greenish-blue wavy mist. I think I had to manually mask out the foreground elements not affected by those layers by inspecting multiple in-game screenshots with slightly different animation frames to see which pixels the mist didn't affect. It was lots of tedious work, but ended up looking fabulous when it all came together.

If all the rooms for the stage seen in the crystal ball can be rearranged (hopefully without twisting "door lines" too much) into a compact, roughly circle-like cluster, then you could have a giant-sized crystal ball and a giant Granny overlooking the entire stage.
That'd be a really interesting way of doing it! I'd have to first put together all the rooms and then see what I can do with them, and if it works out that they can be arranged to fit into a circular pattern, then great! If not, I suppose the most background I'd add to the rooms would be the colour gradient behind Granny. Or maybe I try my hand at smoothing out the pixelated edges of a scaled-up Granny so it wouldn't be as obvious that she's been scaled up. It would not be as true to the in-game graphics as I would have then tampered with them, but it'd better reflect the spirit of that level. I'll give it more thought once I get to that point though!