Topics

1

Maps In Progress / Alien 3 and parallax backgrounds

« on: July 06, 2010, 09:47:00 am »

I started working on Alien 3 for the SNES. There's a cheat code making all gameplay trivial, which I'm thankful for. Also the screen scrolls nicely, revealing all corners without having to walk back and forth 100 times to reach that last row of pixels. All conditions are great except for one thing. The parallax background.

I tried making a search here to find out how to best deal with it but couldn't find any real sollution. So I will create this post and try to be as specific as possible.

I'm using the 'snes9x 1.51 win32' emulator, so I can easily just remove that layer, it will be replaced with plain black. Sadly there's alot of back in the foreground layer preventing me to just use the magic wand tool in Paint.NET to remove all black and slide the background in beneath.

I realize this is a common problem but what is the best sollution?

My ideas are these:

• Just leave the background black. (Worst sollution. Think I rather don't map the game then)
  
• If there was a way to tweak the emulator (or if there's another emulator that can already do it) to either freeze a layer (doesn't even sound likely to me) or
  
• make the emulator display an obscure color, like pink (or even better, transparent for the output image), as its background rather than black.
  

To me the last one seems like the best pick and it also sounds realistic to me 

2

VGMaps Social Board / Problems submitting or This is where I convince ppl to use gmail

« on: March 25, 2010, 12:52:36 pm »

Maybe I should just PM Jonathan ahout this but I'm making a thread anyway. I tried to submit some maps yesterday but my mail couldn't get through. "Diagnostic-Code: smtp;552 5.2.2 This message is larger than the current system limit or the recipient's mailbox is full. Create a shorter message body or remove attachments and try sending it again."

The map is saved as png and I've run it through PNGGAUNTLET. One (1) map is still around 13MB. So before I start bitching about email providers limitations I'd like to know if maps this size will be accepted anyway. And if so, how can I submit them?

3

Map Gab / Young Merlin - SNES

« on: December 30, 2009, 05:06:40 pm »

After some half-finished projects I'm finally back in my right elements, Snes and isometric view. Working with NES simply isn't my thing. There's something artistic about compiling maps like this and NES compared to Snes is like comparing some crayons with brush and palet. At least for me. (If someone ever get the idea to do Addam's Family for NES I'll gladly send what I've done if it can be of any help =)

My progress on Young Merlin
Starting area: 100%, including editing
Pinewood: 97%, unedited
Mine: 100%, incl edit
Underwater: 10%, just started.

I'm planning on submitting what I've done as soon as the underwater map is ready.

4

Maps In Progress / Moving objects

« on: July 01, 2009, 02:09:53 pm »

Lately I've been (slowly) working on a map for The Addams Family on the NES. Since NES games are no graphical explosion I thought I'd include all enemies to make the maps more interesting and aesthetical.



How do you guys usually do when you include moving objects?



I'm having trouble making up my mind about in which position I should cap the enemies. So far I've just picked moments when it "looks good".



It's hard to combine appeal and consistency.

5

Map Gab / Using the maps

« on: June 12, 2009, 06:11:09 am »

I'd like to include a link to a map in a guide I'm currently working on. I want to link straight to the map for "7 Days A Skeptic" for PC.



In general, how much is OK before you should contact the creator? Links, putting the entire map where you want, chopping a map in pieces and upload selected parts of it.



Shouldn't anything be OK since they are available for everyone?



Of coarse I won't credit myself for the map. In fact I won't credit anyone for it. I'm not even creditig myself for the entire guide, it's wiki format.

6

Maps In Progress / Newcomer request advice

« on: April 24, 2009, 08:26:33 am »

Hi



I just registered and I'm new the whole mapmaking concept.

Anyway, I started making a map which I originally intended to host at http://wikicheats.gametrailers.com/ together with a guide I planned to write for this game. The thing is, it seems as if my map clearly exceeds the limits for size in terms of both memory and resolution. Also I probably need to make notes and marks and such on it, so I think I decided to post it there chopped up and edited. But I still want to share this map in its entirety, unspoiled by arrows and numbers etc. And is there a better place to do this than at vgmaps?



Are there any special requirements to get your map hosted? The "CONTRIBUTE"-button on the homepage is just an email link.



Also about editing.

I tried browsing some topics and I understand you guys use alot more software than I do. I use Paint.NET. That's it.

Basically I run around taking screencaps then paste them together using Paint.NET.

Just turn off sprites and the background with the HUD before screencapping.

Is there another way? Or if it's not, can I do this more effectivly.

Maybe someone could write a short recap of how this person makes a map. I'm especially interested in how exactly that entire world map for "A Link to the Past" (or any like that) was done since I work on something similar.