Messages

616

Maps In Progress / RE: Paper Mario maps: .PNG to .JPG?

« on: December 26, 2008, 11:56:05 pm »

After finishing my latest Paper Mario map, Raccoon Sam put to me the suggestion of using .JPG for my Paper Mario maps (and at the same time, maps of all 3D games). Obviously, small rips like PM's 320x320 map screen would remain .PNG, since they're tiny enough.



PNG

+Lossless compression, and thus perfect quality of map and text.

+Format used for very many maps already.

-File size increases significantly with complexity and size. Most of the Paper Mario maps are several megabytes in size.



JPG

+Compresses to a much smaller size than PNG. Estimated to reduce the size of the mapset by 90%.

-Lossy compression would dull the text and finer details of the map, taking away all crispness.



I'm sure you all already knew the pros and cons of the filetypes already, but I just wanted to list them as a reminder. What do you guys think? Should I keep my maps of 3D games in .PNG, or switch over to .JPG? Right now I'm leaning towards staying .PNG, but I want to get your opinions first.



---

YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (34%)

617

VGMaps Social Board / RE: How did you find VGMaps.com?

« on: December 26, 2008, 10:33:30 am »

I can't remember either since it was so long ago, but it could have been looking for maps as well. Seeing that many games I liked lacked maps at the time (like Yoshi's Island and Super Mario RPG) inspired me to contribute.



I'm afraid I've never actually been very connected to the community here until this very month, actually.

---

YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (32%)

618

Map Gab / RE: Super NES Game Atlas (a "continuation" of the original NES Game Atlas)

« on: December 21, 2008, 10:48:23 am »

The more I look at my old YI maps, the more I want to go back and redo them, but I have so much on my plate already. I'm impressed by the quality of Piranhaplant's latest maps. In fact, his updated 2-2 map looks almost exactly like how I would have done it, with a few stylistic differences of course. I'm feeling rather bleh right now, but I might put my other maps on the backburner right now and focus on fixing my old YI maps. Maybe. Oh and map all the other fortress/castle levels that Piranhaplant hasn't gotten to yet. I do love castles~

---

YTT (34%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (32%)

619

Mapping Tips/Guides / Animated maps

« on: December 13, 2008, 06:29:25 pm »

Well, the max number of colors that can be in an animated gif is 256, which is well above the color limit for NES and around the same for a single room in SNES. It's probably too low for some of the more advanced consoles.



I myself use Jasc Animation Shop 3.0, which gives me a lot of control over settings. However, it's not free.



---

YTT (32%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (29%)

620

Maps In Progress / RE: Peardian's map projects in progress and planned

« on: December 12, 2008, 10:16:44 pm »

A bit of an update on Space Station Silicon Valley for the N64...

It seems the map data is kept rather consistant and thus can be mapped easily. However, it does not capture things like the power cells or energy balls or even flowers. Additionally, many of the textures are screwed up, even in the emulator. It will be possible to map, but it'll require an extra bit of effort. I'll probably not worry about the details of the map and focus on just getting the layout correct.

621

Map Gab / RE: Zelda link to the past: Lost Woods Transparency

« on: December 11, 2008, 05:25:44 pm »

The Spriter's Resource seems to be up and running again. Good luck finding what you need.

---

YTT (32%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (25%)

622

VGMaps Social Board / RE: How do you capture images in Windows Media Player?

« on: December 11, 2008, 05:24:18 pm »

I had to go out and find a DVD player that supported screen capturing features. It worked great, but was a demo and you could only really use it for one sitting before having to go and completely uninstall it and stuff. I don't remember the name either, sorry.



If I find a way, I'll let you know.

---

YTT (32%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (25%)

623

Mapping Tips/Guides / RE: Background Styles

« on: December 08, 2008, 08:40:16 am »

Though it does somewhat distort how the background is interpreted (like Will said, causing exaggerated sense of height), I myself would choose the normal size like in style 1. It's what I do for my Wario Land 4 and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy maps (with few exceptions), whose backgrounds sometimes would have to be stretched 2-3 times their size to fit the room they're in. From what I've experienced, it generally looks better when compared with the foreground and, though it distorts how the room may be seen, it can, depending on the shape of the level, look more "accurate". In the room you posted, for the most part the background is pretty close to how you would see it in-game for the first half of the room. I've tried resized backgrounds and can be a bit disorienting.



But that's just me.



---

YTT (32%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (25%)

624

Maps In Progress / RE: Peardian's map projects in progress and planned

« on: December 04, 2008, 09:39:07 pm »

Well, I use the 1964 emulator with some kind of graphics plugin, which allows you to export the current 3D models (and textures on those models) into a VRML file. Of course, after I do that, I have to do some editing to get it to look like in the game. This means scaling up the image 1000-fold so that I can actually work with it (the models are ripped at microscopic size for some reason), applying colors, applying alpha channel, and other things. I'll get the name of the plugin when I get home and actually have access to it.


Oh, and keep in mind that some games might not be easily mapped with this method. The way Star Fox 64 works, the world actually moves around the player and is at a ~4 degree incline (and not to mention frequently involves flying through empty space) so it's pretty much impossible to map. You can still rip models from it, though, which I have done.

625

Maps In Progress / RE: Peardian's map projects in progress and planned

« on: December 03, 2008, 11:19:34 pm »

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. The advantage this has over taking screenshots is not only lack of perspective distortion, but also the ability to make it as high-resolution as I want. When I make my Paper Mario maps, I actually render them to around 2000-8000 pixels in either dimension, then resize them as needbe to the same scale using reference circles (spheres with same diameter in each image) and then resize even more so that the height Mario would be at is around 32 pixels. And still the maps turn out to be pretty large.


And yes I do have too many mapping projects going on. The sad part is, I probably have just as many other projects going on as well, some related to previous mapping projects. They include: ripping the tileset from every area in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, making vectored versions of all the backgrounds in Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, making a 3D model of Space Station Silicon Valley (almost done), rigging up the robots from Tetrisphere and Star Fox 64 to skeletons for me to play with, making a cutesy vectored wallpaper of every character and enemy in Super Paper Mario, and my never ending comic, just to name a few.

[Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 - Secret Levels]

626

Maps In Progress / Peardian's map projects in progress and planned

« on: December 03, 2008, 07:48:33 pm »

Looks like I forgot to register here after it switched over to this new board.



Anyway, for future reference, I'm going to list here the mapping projects I have in progress (and a few that I have planned). Feel free to comment or whatever.


Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 - Secret Levels
Currently at: Secret 3
This game would take a lot longer to map if I couldn't turn into a helicopter at will. Currently being neglected.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Currently at: Southern Swamp
Finally, the first real quarter of the game! I don't quite know what to expect, since the layout of the swamp has always confused me.

Densetsu no Stafy
Currently at: World 1
It's the first game to feature Starfy! Since it's in Japanese, I'll just refer to the worlds as World 1, 2, 3, etc. Currently being neglected.




Next mapping projects:
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (do they even have DSiWare emulators?)


Misc. games that I have considered maybe mapping if I feel like it:
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (unless someone else gets to it)
- Kirby's Dream Land 3 (leaning towards no right now)
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (would be original maps)
- Super Mario Sunshine (might have to be original maps)
- Quest 64

627

Maps Of The Month / RE: 2008/12: Mario Vs. Donkey Kong 2: March Of The Minis (DS) - Peardian

« on: December 03, 2008, 06:34:37 pm »

Thanks for the honor.



And believe it or not, I just used print screen and mspaint for half the work. After I got the level foreground copied into paint, I used Macromedia Fireworks to handle the antialiasing while adding in the background. I wish I had a map viewer program or something like VBA has so that I could map M&LPT, but unfortunately I don't.