ЭIИO2: Rebirth

The shape of the original power base converter (or MSC1 as you call it) would be incompatible with both the MDII and 32X, regardless of pin connections. You'll have to do as I do and have one MD set up with the converter and one set up with the 32X, or buy a Master System, or unplug the 32X.

 

Well it's been two weeks since I updated. Lets see what progress I've made.



Yep, that is all. It's showing potential. I just wish EVERYONE WOULD LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE SO I COULD GET ON WITH IT.

I don't mean that anyone here is harassing me, just people/customers in real life.

Doesn't it depend on what region hardware you use rather than the rom I edit? Isn't there only one rom? In anycase, I don't know whether this will work with a flash cart. I could be performing illegal operations that emulators just gloss over.

 

It's still a work in progress, but any criticisms/suggestions for improvement while it's still fresh in my mind?

 

Is it the art itself, or just the way it appears in the grid like fashion? I plan to edit the mappings and try to get something similar to the art in pocket adventure.

Yeah, I haven't touched the springs yet. I might do that next.

 

In the future, I would like to release a rom with all of the compressed art uncompressed and therefore editable in a tile editor. At the moment, I can't seem to expand the rom beyond 512kB. I don't know whether it's a simple checksum thing or whether it requires some sort of complicated bank switching trickery.

To get to the point where I am I've really butchered the roms insides to get the first level editable. Of course, when I'm done I could compress it and see if I can fit it in without disturbing much. I could release a rom where only UGZ is editable if you're interested.

 

UPDATE:

Fixed. Thanks again Chimpo. Should some of the leaves be pointing the other way, or is it better to have them all pointing the same way?


I'm still working on the rail tracks. I was aiming for rusty and overgrown with grass, but I'm not sure that I'm achieving that very convincingly


Now THIS was interesting. I've restored the UGZ loop art that was unused in the original game, but since the level layout is fiddly to edit, I just put a quarter circle down in a save state just to test it out. I thought the colision would be wonky, since the game normally goes into auto pilot when you go through loops, but it's not. It works perfectly. It's not as sophisticated as a quarter circle in the Mega drive engine, Sonic remains bolt upright (the sloped sprites are not called). However 'gravity' is in effect - you slow down going up and you gain speed on the return trip. It makes me wonder why none of the level layouts used these curved tiles for quarter cirlce ramps, not even in the levels where loop art is already present.

 

<!--quoteo(post=218219:date=Aug 21 2008, 06:11 PM:name=Chimpo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chimpo @ Aug 21 2008, 06:11 PM)

Same two tiles, just flipped horizontally and vertically here and there.[/quote]
That is definitely possible, but it would require editing the whole level layout data, which is one very long string running from top left to bottom right. I do intend to edit the level layout eventually, but at this stage, I can edit the 32 x 32 mappings and have some facing left and others facing right in the positions that they're in, but I think they probably look alright all in the same direction for now. I aiming to get something somewhat complete for the hacking comp.

 

I'm sure it would be exceedingly simple, but I have no experience creating a program. I like to get my hands dirty and hack directly in hex. It really isn't that hard, just time consuming.

Hmmm, I'm still in the experimental stage, so I don't have definitive answers to all your questions. Someone else might be more qualified to answer.

The palette is limited to 64 colours. All the tiles are 8 x 8 - just like the MD, and these are mapped together in 4 x 4 tile blocks (32 x 32 pixels). These blocks are then pieced together to form the level layout. There is no foreground and background, so that makes life easier. The collision data is standard for all levels, so if you keep the art consistent, you don't need to worry about collision. I'm not sure about the limit to the number of tiles you can have, but there seems to be plenty of space so far.

It is possible to create something totally from scratch, which I intend to do, but at this stage it's easier to fuck around with what's already there.

I'm not sure about importing images into a tile editor, I usually do things the hard way but I'm sure that there is probably something that exists that could make life easier.