Messages

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Maps Of The Month / RE: 2009/07: Beyond Oasis (Genesis) - xyzbilliu

« on: July 01, 2009, 07:25:33 am »

The bizarre downside to Beyond Oasis was it's director, Yuzo Koshiro, was well known for fantastic video game music. Yet somehow in his own game, his score was nothing short of aweful! I remember it soured me on the game, much as I tried to play through it.

2

Mapping Tips/Guides / RE: The color difference between NES emulators

« on: June 26, 2009, 04:13:13 pm »

I spent many hours making an NTSC color NES Palette based on the composite output jack on the side of the old front-loading NES. I tested the palette against several TV displays, including an HD TV, and compared the output using the actual hardware and dozens of NES games in my collection. It's about as close I could get to what the real thing looks like, though I recall PAL users had completely different color results. This is why this palette files is strictly NTSC-based.



For those interested, you can download it here:



http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fbx2pal.zip

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VGMaps Social Board / RE: Irony - how Revenge Of The Fallen defeated season 2 of Beast Wars (NO SPOILERS)

« on: June 25, 2009, 10:01:35 pm »

I've already got the complete series in DVD-quality avi files. I went that route when I also found how difficult it was to obtain official copies.



I also have the chinese set of the original series, but there's a new box set coming out by Shout! Factory that will have a load of cool extras like interviews with the voice talant and designers. Can't pass that up!

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Mapping Tips/Guides / RE: DO NOT submit maps that you didn't create yourself!

« on: June 18, 2009, 05:09:30 pm »

Yep. This is why I did all my own screenshots for my Willow memory map. Since somebody else had already done guide maps for the game, I made sure to use my own custom palette and take all screenshots myself using FCEUX.



I'd say at the very least if you're going to use someone else's work, you should give the credit. Better though is to simply ask them first.

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Maps In Progress / RE: Willow (NES) Warp Map completed!

« on: June 17, 2009, 03:54:31 pm »

I had thought about doing a version with the warp coordinates. The main thing is I wanted an unmodified BG image map, which was the goal of this project. The full-size version would make a great poster if you take it to a printing shop and have them print it out on a large poster.



At any rate, I will make separate image with the coordinates attached as well as the wapr password itself.



Oh just use FirebrandX for credit like before. Thanks!

6

Maps In Progress / Willow (NES) Warp Map completed!

« on: June 17, 2009, 01:50:19 am »

After many hours of screenchot splicing, I've finally finished the Willow Warp Map! This map illustrates how the entire game is laid out in ROM memory. There's a password that allows you to press the select button to bring up a hexadecimal coordinate system upn which you would choose a coordinate and then press select again to warp to that location.



When this password was first leaked to the public 20 years ago, it generally seemed random and confusing as to where the warp coordinates would take you. I remember solving how the warp system worked and began hand-drawing a map as a guide (which I never finished as it was too much work). Now with the advent of emulators, I was finally able to realize that goal from 20 years ago!



The warp map consists of hex locations 00 - 00 (upper-left corner) to 1C - 1F (lower-right corner). Although you can warp to areas further down below the 1C horizontal row, those areas are reserved for non-traversable graphics like portaits and dialog cut-scenes. I've omitted those last few rows in the map as a result.



On to the stats:



Pallete used: fbx2.pal (NTSC Composite signal)

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fbx2pal.zip



Total traversable screens: 921



Mini-sized preview: http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/willowmemmappreview.jpg



Full-sized PNG image: http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/willowwarpmap.png

7

Maps In Progress / RE: Picking up the torch on Phantasy Star II maps:

« on: June 13, 2009, 01:02:30 pm »

That's great! Thanks a bunch!



BTW, I'm temporarily sidetracked with another mapping project that I will finish shortly. It's a complete "memory" map of Willow for the NES. This map is of the entire game as it resides in memory, which makes use of the special warp code that allows you to jump to any screen in the game using hexadecimal coordinates. I remember trying to draw this map by hand back when the game was new, so it's a long-held idea I had that now will look fantastic with screenshot mapping. I'm also using my custom-made NTSC color palette for the screenshots, which was made by comparing each color to the video-out jack on the front-loader NES hooked up to an RGB converter. I've been told (and I also believe) my palette is the most accurate NTSC NES palette out there.



Anyway, enough babbling. I will shortly be switching back to doing more of these PSII maps. Thanks again!

8

Maps In Progress / RE: SMS Phantasy Star

« on: June 13, 2009, 03:56:13 am »

I remember years ago when I used to hand-draw Phantasy Star maps that indeed the doors counted as a full square. The old graph paper mapping days...

9

Maps In Progress / Picking up the torch on Phantasy Star II maps:

« on: June 11, 2009, 11:37:03 pm »

Greetings all,





First a big thanks to Darkwolf for getting the project started. I've always wanted to have pixel accurate maps of the game, so I decided to pick up where Darkwolf left off. I finished the Biosystems Labs map and I attempted to do it with the exact same format as Darkwolf's maps (for consistency's sake). It ended up being a little more tedious than I expected, but the payoff is worth it.



I've uploaded the map on my site here:



http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/PhantasyStarII-BiosystemsLab.png



If it's okay for me to do so, I'd like to continue mapping the rest of the levels in the game. Thanks for having a look!