[Mercury]

This isn't major or thrilling, but I figured I'd post these packs of Sonic game metatiles I've been making. Kazade asked for them for Platformation, and I've seen people ask for similar things before.

They're the 128x128 (or, in the case of Sonic 1, 256x256) chunks as PNGs. There are three versions of each: hi plane only, lo plane only, and both together.

Sonic 1

Sonic 2

Sonic 3

I'm still making more rips, so S&K, Chaotix, Ristar, etc will be forthcoming.

(Yes, they're 7zip. Everyone should use 7zip!)

[nineko]

This is some very useful stuff. Nice work.

[synchronizer]

These are very useful indeed, can't wait until a Sonic and Knuckles Zip package.

This post has been edited by synchronizer: 29 November 2010 - 07:18 AM

[Endri]

I'm still making more rips, so S&K, Chaotix, Ristar, etc will be forthcoming.

Knuckles' Chaotix? Heck yeah! Please, do this.

Also, I was wondering; is there any possibility of you doing these in 8-bit indexed BMP or PCX, in order to preserve the original pallete data?

[nineko]

Also, I was wondering; is there any possibility of you doing these in 8-bit indexed BMP or PCX, in order to preserve the original pallete data?

Or, even better, 8-bit PNG. I didn't point this out in my first post because this is a great work nonetheless and I didn't really feel like saying anything bad about it, but using 24-bit PNGs for these is a waste of space to begin with, and it also destroys any palette data as pointed out by Endri.
For example, your GHZ\Both\Both1.png is 4467 bytes, but it can reduced to 3008 (possibly even less) if you used a palettized 8-bit PNG. Note that this can't be done now (like I did) because any image editing software would create a new palette on the spot during the 24 to 8 bit reduction, randomly sorting the colors instead of using the original indexes.

But meh, I still feel these are already good the way they are.

edit: hm, on second thought, it *is* possible to get the correct palettes now. Just convert them all from 24-bit to 8-bit PNGs, with their scrambled palettes and all; then create (by hand) a sample file with the 64 (61) colors from the original palette; image editors such as Paint Shop Pro will let you apply those palette indexes to other pictures via color similarity, so unless the same color appears twice in the original palette, you can match them all in this way.

This post has been edited by nineko: 29 November 2010 - 10:42 AM

[ValleyBell]

It's almost impossible to get the correct palette colors from a 24-bit image because the games like to use the same colors at different indexes (e.g. HPZ uses white 4 times).
Btw: MS Paint works internally with 24 bit. Resaving an 8-bit image causes the same loss of indexes.

Some time ago I used the Community Hacking Guide to write a small tool that shows/saves metatiles from Sonic ROMs. (just both layers, but that was enough for a sonic fangame)
I called it Sonic Level Ripper v2 because copied the look of gpSonic Level Ripper. It saves 8-bit BMPs and you can select some palettes.
There's support for Sonic 1, 2, 3, CD, Crackers and Chaotix.
You can downlad it here (VB sources are included). Maybe someone can find it useful.

This post has been edited by ValleyBell: 30 November 2010 - 04:29 AM

[Ollie]

Would it be possible to rip an entire layout or would piecing together each 128x128 tile together? I'm particularly interested getting the whole layouts to the levels in Crackers but I can't find them ripped anywhere on the net.

[Andlabs]

I'm still making more rips, so S&K, Chaotix, Ristar, etc will be forthcoming.

Knuckles' Chaotix? Heck yeah! Please, do this.

Also, I was wondering; is there any possibility of you doing these in 8-bit indexed BMP or PCX, in order to preserve the original pallete data?

I pretty much have this down from a few months ago so I can make a pack of the individual chunks later today (30 Nov).

As far as palettes go PNG has the same color fidelity as BMP or PCX and both are lossless, so I don't know how BMP/PCX would help other than compatibility with SonEd.

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 30 November 2010 - 02:53 AM

[Azu]

Ristar? =D I've been looking for Ristar backgrounds.

This post has been edited by Azu: 30 November 2010 - 04:24 AM

[Sonica]

Pretty nice Mercury, but it'd be great if you could have provided ones with 0% alpha backgrounds =/


Still good though, my next SM vid will probably include these.

This post has been edited by Sonica: 30 November 2010 - 06:52 AM

[nineko]

As far as palettes go PNG has the same color fidelity as BMP or PCX and both are lossless, so I don't know how BMP/PCX would help other than compatibility with SonEd.

This isn't an issue of color fidelty, we all know all these three formats (and GIF too if you really want) have a colorspace in which you can correctly represent all the Genesis colors. Endri just wished to have 8-bit palettized images (be them PNG, BMP, PCX, GIF, or whatever) so you could have the 64 colors of the Genesis palettes in their original indexes. But since Mercury posted 24-bit PNG files, this isn't (easily) possible anymore (as confirmed by ValleyBell as well). Let me get back to the example I did before. This is how "both1" from GHZ looks like once converted to 8-bit PNG:

However, since Paint Shop Pro had no idea of the palette originally used, it had no choice but invent one on the spot, which is entirely scrambled compared to the one used originally:


Again, I am not sure why one would need the original palettes indexes in the original order, I was just clarifying Endri's point since it seems you missed it.

[Andlabs]

Oh, I understand then. I'll see what I can do.

[MainMemory]

You could use the Sonic 3 tiles with my Sonic & Knuckles Collection level editor (as if anybody will ever use it as it is now).

[ValleyBell]

I am not sure why one would need the original palettes indexes in the original order

Actually I see only one reason: if you want to animate objects (like waterfalls) via palette rotation.

I quickly modified the Level Ripper to write the Sonic Crackers maps. (Warning! I directly packed the BMPs that the Level Ripper wrote, so they're quite huge.)

[Endri]

Endri just wished to have 8-bit palettized images (be them PNG, BMP, PCX, GIF, or whatever) so you could have the 64 colors of the Genesis palettes in their original indexes.

Exactly. I just said BMP and/or PCX for it to be easier for Mercury to identify what I was talking about, since the general assumption is that PNG is just PNG...

I am not sure why one would need the original palettes indexes in the original order

Actually I see only one reason: if you want to animate objects (like waterfalls) via palette rotation.

This. To be more precise, I am interested in the realtime color manipulation; since Knuckles' Chaotix have multiple daytimes for each zone, it would make sense to only have one set of metatiles and editing the palettes accordingly to the desired time of the day, instead of having 4 different colored sets of metatiles, one for morning, other for day, another for dusk and one more for night. Also the fact that they are much less space-consuming; both memory and storage space.