[JJ-Fox]

Hey guys. Sometime back, I decided I'd port Sonic & Tails into chaotix, but it would be impossible without an accurate documentation on how to edit character art. Drx's documentation was faulty and too hard to understand, and so I've written a guide that is accurate:

Quote

Chaotix art format
========================

NOTES:
The way this art works is that the coordinates are just like a coordinate plane
positive and negative values.

So if the x pos = -4, and y pos = 5, its just like saying on a regular plane that
the x pos = 0, and the y pos = 9


INTRO
======
There is a big list of pointers that point to another list of pointers which point
to art datas in chaotix. Each art data is one frame. For example, mighty's starting
frame is at 0x0a0674. Look at the datas there, and you'll notice it follows this
format:


HEADER
======
The header tells you how big the piece of art is, and the origin is always 0,0.


x1 = 0x00 (word)
x2 = 0x02 (word)
y1 = 0x04 (byte) (Followed by it is 00, don't ask me why they did this =P)
y2 = 0x06 (byte) (Again, it is followed by another 00)

ART
===
After the header, there is a header for a line of pixels. After this header there
is bytes of pixels. I will explain that in a second:

x1 = 0x00 (byte)
x2 = 0x01 (byte)
y = 0x02 (byte) (Also followed by 00)

For however long that line is, pixel data will follow it. To find out how many
pixels will follow, just use x2 - x1 (distance formula). Each pixel following it
correspond to a color in the palette. Followed are More line headers followed by
more Pixels, for each line (y2 - y1). You know it is finished when you see straight
word of 0x000.

POINTERS
=========
Here is a list of pointers that point to more pointers that point to each frame of
art per character. Note: Each pointer is added 0x2000000 to it:

Mighty                            - 0x0A0504
Knuckles                        - 0x0B18BC
Charmy                          - 0x0CB3B4
Vector                            - 0x0D4E44
Bomb                              - 0x0F1130
Heavy                            - 0x0F6A18
Espio                              - 0x101304
Mighty Combi Ring&Hand - 0x11B088

I then found out that it would be nearly impossible to actually port them without a program that edited the art for you. So I open up visual basic, and write a program that edits character art and palettes. After realizing this would benifit the communtiy, I decided to release it.

Version 2.50 is now out, and there quite a bit of new features in this release.

New Features of 2.50
- Importing uncompressed art
- Importing art from roms using the .SC files provided
with Sonik Sprite
- Exports the RIGHT color bitmaps
- Everything 16 bit changed to 4 bit (I thought it
was called 16 bit, because 16 colors)
- When changing palette colors, there are seperate
inputboxes for R, G, and B
- Changed fonts, made form smaller, various minor changes



Version 2.50 downloads
================
Mirror 1: http://www.hacking-c.../1158100450.rar
Rapidshare:http://rapidshare.de...HAOXED.rar.html

Version 2.50 (beta) downloads
====================
Rapidshare: http://rapidshare.de...HAOXED.rar.html

Version 2.00 downloads
===============
Mirror 1: http://www.something.gdarcade.taloncrossin...unk/CHAOXED.rar
Get it at the utils section of hacking cult: http://www.hacking-cult.org/?utils
Or rapidshare: http://rapidshare.de...HAOXED.rar.html

Version 1.00 downloads
===============
Mirror 1: http://www.newfolio....haos/jjfart.zip , courtesy of lostgame
Mirror 2: http://kernel.ws/~puto/jjfart.zip
Mirror 3: http://puto.eth0.ws/jjfart.zip

As for the hack, Lostgame and I are kind of busy right now, but we will get back to it eventually.

This post has been edited by JJFTails: 12 September 2006 - 05:35 PM

[Tweaker]

Looks like Sonik Sprite on crack. Nice stuff, and good work.

[Shade]

Very, very nice man Finally, some focus on Chaotix hacking. Haven't seen much of that since back in the day with the Bango Mango.

Anyway, thanks for this. Great stuff.

[Dark Sonic]

Excellent. Do put Sonic and Tails in, but don't take out some of the better characters like Mighty or something. Take out Charmy (replace Whechidna with Tails and Charmy with Sonic)

yays

[Lostgame]

You released it, eh?

So that's what Sarah was saying. Great work!

[drx]

I hate when this happens

[JJ-Fox]

drx, on Jul 18 2006, 04:04 PM, said:

I hate when this happens

We did agree that whoever got theirs done first could post theirs.

I must give drx most of the credit though. He was the one who figured out the format, he had the idea of making the program before me. I just did the programming.

This post has been edited by JJFTails: 18 July 2006 - 04:16 PM

[Hivebrain]

Someone mirror the file please.

[drx]

nah, don't worry. I just mean, I hate when I'm lazy and someone is first. my bad etc :P

better luck next time I guess.

[Caitlin]

Dark Sonic, on Jul 18 2006, 03:47 PM, said:

replace Whechidna with Tails and Charmy with Sonic

It would make more sense to switch those two around, since Tails is the one who's supposed to fly. =P

Looks nice. If there were more frames for Vector, I'd stick him in Sonic 1. =P

[Sonic 65]

This is a very good program. Now add a BMP importing feature =P

[Lostgame]

I may look at making a cross-platform, C++ version of this, if I have the time, which I will likely not.

I wonder where I put all my chaotix/crackers utilities...

[Dark Sonic]

ThunderSpeed, on Jul 18 2006, 01:40 PM, said:

Dark Sonic, on Jul 18 2006, 03:47 PM, said:

replace Whechidna with Tails and Charmy with Sonic

It would make more sense to switch those two around, since Tails is the one who's supposed to fly. =P

Looks nice. If there were more frames for Vector, I'd stick him in Sonic 1. =P

Well, I said that since I think Whechidna's slot was going to be Tails' anyways, so I figure just put him in. But what you said does make more sence.

As for Vector, simply Make more frames for him :P

[Mystical Ninja]

Oh, finally. I was waiting YEARS for a program like this.

[BadCopNoDonut]

JJFTails FTW. Seriously, that's some nice stuff, and hopefully it will sort of change up the hacking scene since really, only 2 games are hacked heavily(Sonic 1 and 2).