don't click here

I want your maps

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Black Squirrel, Apr 10, 2018.

  1. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(8-bit)/Maps

    Sonic 1 Game Gear is done, which took quite a bit of time to do since Sonic Extractor 8-bit got all the palettes wrong and had to go about correcting them to what the game actually uses (Labyrinth Zone was the worst to deal with). While the default positions were all extracted from internal data, corrections had to be made to show the approximate object positions as seen in-game (i.e. what the player should be expecting to see in normal play). One very interesting thing I learned through this is how the tool showed a Spikes Badnik placed a little underneath the floor in Bridge Zone Act 2:

    [​IMG]

    At first I thought the tool was joshing me as the Badnik never appears in normal play, until I discovered that it DOES exist! Because of its weird placement, the Badnik ends up falling beneath the level boundaries, and the only way it can be seen is by using an emulator to display the areas outside the Game Gear's screen limitations, where the poor thing can be seen milling about in the garbled void:

    [​IMG]

    I've got this documented over on this page: https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(8-bit)/Hidden_content#Misplaced_objects

    I suppose you can show what you've done, and if you want to, you could make better maps for Mania Plus to replace what's there, which also brings me to the next thing I want to share:

    https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Retro:Todo/Maps

    A checklist of what maps are wanted, what maps need improvements, and which games could do with chunk/block rips.
     
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  2. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    Which is the size of the "blank sheet" for the maps in other classic games? It's essentially what I wanted to know when I started my calculations, I wanted to know the standard size of the maps in each game to take them into account when designing my own maps.

    Sorry, as I said on an earlier post, I can't do maps. The data I've gathered doesn't seem to be useful either after reading what MainMemory said (btw, after converting her numbers, we get a maximum map size of 128x16 blocks in S2).
     
  3. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    S1 and S3K have variable map sizes. S1's RAM buffer for the layout ends up being 64x8 chunks, which given the 256x256 chunk size, ends up at the exact same pixel size as S2, 16384x2048. S3K is fully dynamic, being able to trade off between height and width, with a maximum possible height of 32 chunks = 4096 pixels. All this information is available on the wiki.
     
  4. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    If it's on each game page, I must have missed it since I haven't checked those pages out thoroughly (in other words, it's my fault). I read the page about block mappings in sega retro and looked around on the SCHG, but I didn't find this specific info there.

    I sort of guessed the dynamic nature of S3K maps since sizes vary so wildly, but I get it goes to a maximum of 4096 blocks since CNZ2, the largest map in that game, has 3800, plus 4096 is the exact double of the max size of prior games. Well, I'll have to check about this for SCD, Chaotix and Mania: SCD seems to keep the values from S1, and Chaotix maps seem dynamic too but its maps aren't bigger than those of S2; then we have Mania, where maps are so big and I'm not sure I can apply the same logic since it was made for modern tech.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2021
  5. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    Because I don't really have anything better to do besides finish characters I've been working on for SRB2Kart, I thought I'd try my hand at mapping Miles "Tails" Prower in The Floor is Lava a.k.a. Tails' Skypatrol of all games, just so we won't have to worry about that game, plus there's currently no maps for it on sites like VGMaps.com and SMS Power. So far, I have done the entirety of the first level, the Training Area:

    TailsSkypatrol GG Map TrainingArea.png
    I also intend to make "raw" maps which do not feature objects (and has the Bonmetals at their default state), but like with all other 8-bit Sonic games some of the objects are treated as part of the map layout, so it's a bit of an awkward situation. Specifically, these objects would be the Crystals, Poles, Bars, Daruma Blocks, moving spike walls, Kurukuru Panels and technically the Bonmetals (though they're inactive when they are first loaded), so I'm not sure whether they should be part of the "raw" map or not:

    TailsSkypatrol GG Map TrainingArea raw.png

    On a side note, I was messaged by TheDaguar on Twitter with map rips he made for the 821 prototype of Sonic Blast that he made back in 2012. They're all well-done apart from missing object layouts that aren't rings, and I was hoping they would have objects so we can distingush anything that might have changed for the final, but I can still upload what he's given me as it can't hurt to have the raw maps too.
     
  6. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    It's in the Level Editing page for each game, there's a section about the level layout.
     
  7. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    https://info.sonicretro.org/Tails'_Skypatrol/Maps

    For what it's worth, full maps with objects are done for this weird spinoff game, but currently no "raw" or object-only maps. Starting from Ruin Wood, there are some enemies which are treated as part of the background rather than sprites, particularly the Minokichis, Capture Berries and Carronades. Should I treat these, as well as anything moving or destructible that are treated as background, as objects that can be removed from the "raw" maps?
     
  8. JaxTH

    JaxTH

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    Jack shit.
    I feel like it would easier if we could toggle things on maps almost.

    Then again I've always been the "Get crazy" type and think we should have everything of every type we possibly can.

    I mean, keeping the things that are treated as backgrounds would be the most authentic thing to do but we would want the maps without them as well.

    Why do things always have to be complicated?
     
  9. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

    no reverse gear Wiki Sysop
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    https://info.sonicretro.org/File:MMZ5Map.png

    Marina Madness 5 in Chaotix - there's a big gap in the floor in the bottom left, in a game where pits aren't a thing (if you cheat your way down, the characters will just drop off the screen). This is because the boats are on a different background layer, so I suppose at an absolute minimum we're going to need two maps per level of Marina Madness.

    Actually the numbers aren't pleasant for Chaotix when you take into account times of day:

    4x World Entrance
    5x4 Amazing Arena (x2 for lights off?)
    5x4 Botanic Base
    (5x4)x2 Marina Madness
    5x4 Speed Slider
    5x4 Techno Tower
    4 Introduction levels
    4 Training levels
    (at least) 1 how to play demo map

    so that's (as a minimum)
    4 + 20 + 20 + 40 + 20 + 20 + 4 + 4 + 1
    = 133

    And we have 12 prototypes. So 1596 in total. Although not all levels exist in some of the earlier builds (assuming they're not hiding of course). That number will increase if we have raw tile/object maps too, and I don't even know if it's possible to map the bonus and special stages.

    Given this number is bigger than the rest of the maps on Sonic Retro combined, I'd be surprised if this happened in my lifetime.
     
  10. Mercury

    Mercury

    His Name Is Sonic Tech Member
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    I'd like to make a revision to the tool that fixes this issue. Can you let me know what the correction process was?
     
  11. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    What I did to correct all the palettes for Sonic Retro use was to recolour everything by hand with Paint.NET and Aseprite to match exactly how they appeared in emulators like MEKA, Fusion and BizHawk, even using the palette data from BizHawk's VDP viewer:

    upload_2021-2-1_20-28-30.png
     
  12. Mercury

    Mercury

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    Thanks!

    The whole Sonic Extractor line needs a refresh, now that I've moved well beyond Game Maker. Ideally they would also have the ability to load from a ROM, not just states, and let the user edit the palette.
     
  13. nineko

    nineko

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    By the way, I noticed that we have no maps of Sonic Advance 1 (they exist somewhere else, though), and that our maps of Sonic 4 are... bad.
     
  14. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    Yup, I'm aware that there are map rips of Sonic Advance 1 that can be found at The Sonic Center and VGMaps.com. Those ones were made by TerraEsperZ, and I've been wondering if we can host those on the wiki as well.

    As for the Sonic 4 maps, those ones were made by G.E.R., and...yeah, I'm not a fan of his map rips if I'm going to be honest. I commend the effort he went to fill the blanks, but he primarily uses Screenshot Autostitcher to assemble the maps, which has led to numerous quality problems (examples would be his Route 99 and Toy Kingdom maps for Advance 3). I can flag the Sonic 4 maps as maps needing cleanup on the to-do list.
     
  15. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    Has anyone ever ripped Sonic4's world maps and stage markers?
     
  16. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    Taking inspiration from Black Squirrel and Robjoe's adventures in Chaotix and Sonic Crackers, I had an attempt at ripping maps from Sonic Crackers:

    SonicCrackers MD Map World2Attraction4.png
    I am very limited with what can read Sonic Crackers data however, with the only thing I can find being the very outdated Esrael Sonic Editor II, and even then it can't read everything from a Sonic Crackers savestate. Apparently there's a version of MarkeyJester's Crackers disassembly that works with SonED2 (which was what Divine Insect apparently used for their rips at TSR), but the version of the disassembly on the wiki isn't that version, and while I found a download link to the SonED2-compatible disassembly by rooting through old threads, the link no longer works, leaving me stuck with an outdated program that can't get everything, meaning the most I can do is rip the "World 2" map layouts.

    Had the SonED2-compatible disassembly not have been lost (or SonLVL had Crackers/Chaotix support), I would also rip the tiles and chunks myself as I don't feel right to just take the TSR rips.
     
  17. BSonirachi

    BSonirachi

    Wiki Sysop
    Sonic Crackers/Maps

    With thanks to Supermanrio202 on TCRF, I've been able to get into the rest of Sonic Crackers to get things like the "World 1" map through SonED2. The disassembly was a bit weird in that it only had the morning and day palettes for "World 2" for some reason? Nevertheless, there were loads of unused chunks for both "Attraction" levels, possibly more unused than used, with at least 21 of the unused chunks for "World 2" being blank.

    Side note: I've also made use of these decade-old Sonic Advance series tileset rips to document unused metatiles in Sonic Advance 3 with the same method used for the 16-bit games. The definition of resourcefulness.
     
  18. _Sidle

    _Sidle

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    Since the release of SonLVL-RSDK earlier this week, I'd wanted to get the Sonic 2 halfpipe special stages mapped out, as no maps of them exist for any version on the wiki to my knowledge. ('92) ('94,KiS2) ('13)
    Unlike the original prerendered MD/Genesis ones, the layout of the 2013 versions are viewable internally (using tiles and objects which eventually gets stretched into a 3D polygonal tube in-game).

    Here's what the raw output of SS1 from the program looks like. [very tall img warning] (note: only managed to replace the ring ObjDefs via loading the regular gameplay ones, everything else is untouched)

    S2_SS1_obj+tile_RAW.png

    Most of the side-control things are pretty straight forward... (X is for vertical slopes, Y is for horizontal turns, Z is for wacky corkscrews)

    upload_2022-2-12_15-13-7.png

    ... but the real pain-spots are the red "End Marker" things.

    upload_2022-2-12_15-32-59.png upload_2022-2-12_16-1-35.png

    Just removing the empty space fixes the object placement, but messed up the tiles sometimes. (note: some thinner lines and cut triangles)

    The solution I've gone with was to keep the main pipe tile pattern uninterrupted, and have the objects and side-controls crushed together according to the End Markers. Seems to resemble in-game layouts better.
    Here's what that slightly cleaned-up SS1 looks like now: [slightly less tall but still very tall img warning]

    S2_SS1_obj+tile_EMfixed.png

    I'd still need to add the bomb and emerald sprites, and maybe fix the palette, but otherwise I'm pretty pleased with how this attempt looks.
    Any feedback before I commit to finishing it off and making the other six seven would be good to hear~
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2022
  19. nineko

    nineko

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    How does it compare to this?
     
  20. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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