Finally got the GUI library complete for the new version of my pal editor, which at this point is becoming more of a real time editing suite instead Works just like any OS GUI would work, draggable windows with controls inside.
An alternative to SonMapEd, while a wonderful program, would be lovely. Like suggested, a tile editor, the ability to add/delete tiles, zoom in/out, palette editor (like the mock up), a grid or something so you can see where a sprite is from the center (along with the coordinates like you have in this mock up)....these things would make me switch in a heartbeat.
Tile Editing was already working in my previous version, and now I have a nice little addition to the grid that you can toggle on/off, allowing you to change the color of the grid. Quite handy when you can't see the ol' plain white grid very well. Adding and Removing tiles to the end of the list is already in, just need to put in Inserting and Removing from the middle of the list, which is a little harder than it sounds, believe me... but I'm trying. Palete Editor was already in from the get-go... BUT changing palette colors doesn't change the colors of the tiles in real-time, unfortunately. Changing colors does require a refresh to see the result. I hope to change this in the future, but for now it's going to stay this way... unfortunately. STILL TO BE ADDED: That little box in the corner is a smaller, more compact sprite piece adder, one that I feel is more efficient than the huge ass on SME has in the top left of its interface. Grid for sprites, and zoom/scroll with an origin marker. Clicking above that box can swap it out for an animation window, allowing one to view animations. Clicking on the filenames above will show various info next to it, changing depending on the file you click. This can range from compression format and # of tiles for art, sprite piece info for mappings, etc. The only part I'm really struggling with at the moment is reading from .ASM. I've got it working, but not perfectly yet.
Can I make another suggestion while I'm thinking about it? The Sonic 2 menu font is all retro and Sonicy and whatever, but I'm pretty tired of seeing it by now, and more importantly, it isn't very usable or readable at high resolutions, particularly if you have something like a high-DPI laptop display. Computer typography has improved a lot since 1992, so I'd highly recommend taking advantage of that.
How about the Sonic 3 look instead? 1994 was surely a better year! In all seriousness, I personally love it... but I do understand your point. If enough people want it gone, I'll look into changing it. Maybe I'll have it take on a Sonic Retro-esque appearance...? (I'm not very good at being creative with appearances, and this sort of stuff... BUT I just don't want Triad to look like another run of the mill Windows .exe) Even if I do change it, it'll be quite a while before I do, as I'm going to focus mainly on getting all of the functions working first... so please bear with me. But if anyone has ideas or suggestions, I'm all ears.
I like how the palette changes as he gets closer to Sonic now... though I honestly think it was scarier with having a solid black screen. That, and maybe you could make it so that Sonic's normal death animation doesn't play when he dies in the nether world; Like, either it'd jump to black and then immediately restart, or his sprite would turn invisible. It's up to you how to go about it, but I think you'd get a better scare out of it if you left more of Sonic's fate to the imagination. This is making me want to do a creepypasta easter egg for Freedom Planet. xD Maybe not as extensive as this hack but something that's quick and random to scare the pants off players who try to hack into the game or something.
I'm really diggin' this experiment of yours Cinossu and can't wait to see what other ideas you plan to add to later versions. I have an anecdote that goes back to my early days of playing on my PAL Megadrive. Playing Sonic 1 was one of my most earliest and fondest memories and like most of you it was the driving purpose that brought me to these forums around a decade ago now. There was however one factor of playing Sonic (and other games on my Megadrive) that I found most unnerving and that was the low tempo of the music. I found this mostly spine chilling with the game over and final zone tracks. It would be interesting to hear that implemented in this very ordinary Sonic hack of yours.
Showing off my very early concept of that API thing I keep talking about. I finished object manipulation! Result: gif is slow, not sure why, couldn't fix it Lua: Code (Text): local x = 0x1500 -- center x local y = 0x400 -- center y local r = 20.0 -- radius local a = 0 -- angle local monid = 0x1D566 local mon1 = obj:add(monid, 1, x, y) -- 1up local mon2 = obj:add(monid, 2, x, y) -- robotnik local mon3 = obj:add(monid, 3, x, y) -- ring local mon4 = obj:add(monid, 4, x, y) -- shoes -- loops every frame function test() -- add up the angle a = a + 0.1 -- reposition the 1up monitor mon1.x = x + (r * math.cos(a)) mon1.y = y + (r * math.sin(a)) -- reposition the robotnik monitor mon2.x = x + (r * (math.cos(a + 90.0))) mon2.y = y + (r * (math.sin(a + 90.0))) -- reposition the ring monitor mon3.x = x + (r * (math.cos(a + 180.0))) mon3.y = y + (r * (math.sin(a + 180.0))) -- leave the shoes alone end
Testing color choices to see what works. Not making an S3K hack, just using it to make a palette to use elsewhere.
I meant that you could draw over the sprite directly in the editor itself, like Sonik Sprite does. I don't understand what are you trying to say, sorry You mean that you can highlight a sprite an capture it to edit it elsewhere ( paint, for example) and then insert it back? Also, Cinossu, loving how that Sonic.exe hack is going
What I meant was, due to how I'm drawing the sprites, and due to the fact that you already have FULL mappings and art editing in the same interface, I won't be implementing a direct editor. As a consolation, I will enable clicking on a tile in the sprite, and having the tile appear in the tile editor. (e.g. Clicking on one of the monitor icons on a monitor sprite will have that tile appear in the tile editor. Any changes made will appear on the sprite in real time.)
I'll just leave this here... It's really, really, REALLY old, from back before I fully understood level routines.
This may not look like much, but that red triangle is a sprite rendered by the 32X VDP, which rotates, in real time to be the same angle as Sonic. This means that when (and if) I can optimise my algorithm to be fast enough to render once per frame, and finish my image loader, my 32X port of Sonic 1 will have a real time rotated Sonic sprite, with the ability to make use of more than 16 colours for his palette.
I reckon it'l be a few more weeks, maybe a couple of months, but I don't have that much work to do before this is ready for an initial release. (Vanilla Sonic 1, with some usage of 32X hardware). My current to do list is as follows: 1. Rewrite image rotation algorithm to use fixed point and sin/cos lookup tables (It's currently floating point and C maths routines... Not a particularly good idea on ~23mhz. 2. Finish implementation of 2D sprite rendering engine on the Master SH2. (This is mostly done, I believe, unless I think of additional features to add) 3. Port Sonic 3 driver, to free up some 68k cycles (Should allow enough time to upload a display list to the 32X) 4. Implement 32X PWM support into Sonic 3 Driver (Chaotix music format, most likely), although the lack of available Z80 ram is a concern. But after these four tasks, I'll probably release a first build. Also, this is very different from the Sonic 1 32X port by DRX, for one thing, this one uses the latest SVN disassembly and is much easier to work with. Additionally, thanks to a linker script and 32x.h from Chilly Willy, the 32X code is in C.
Holy fuck I'm watching intently for Vanilla Sonic 1. I'm guessing this will eventually lead to using 32x effects like those in Chaotix? And... real time rotating special stages... SOMEDAY.
