Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Tidbit - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Okay I've been wanting to do this for a while now. Every body know how frustrating each one of those 3 things are. This will be the Sonic Hackers guide to life. As shown above, I Tidbit will be discussing three things in this topic. Im making this guide for the newbies and the oldbies to hacking because lets face it, Path Swappers are little vertical and horizontal spawns of satan.

Loops the classic sonic stapple and how to make one.
Path swappers, how to use and read them.
And how to get laid, you'll never fail with my secret.


=Loops=
Okay, every Sonic fan knows what a loop is, they're like rings. Its an essencial part of the Sonic series and they never get old no matter how many times you go through one you never get tired of it.

Okay Loops, when you get down to it are really rather simple. The only annoying part is spriting them, unless you do what I did and import loop chunks, which I wont be going into just because theres an excellent guide somewhere else on retro about importing art. Sadly I forget who wrote it, but I do know its on the wiki.

-Drawing loops and Solidity-
Okay before you dive into the world of spriting loops you have to choose which solidity pieces you'll be using for each block.
In this guide we'll be using solidity 10 - 1E. You can use other types of solids that form a loop, but we'll be using this set because its the one I am currently using for my hack.
Assuming that you have SonED2 up goto the tile editor and select a new tile. Now Before you start drawing, click on the "SOLID SELECT" text which is right next to the tile drawing box. upon clicking on it, the left side of your screen will be filled with all the woderful solids that you can use. Find the one marked 10 and right below your block window there is some more wonderful text that says "Solids", click on both of the numbers and they should go from 00 00 to 10 10.
Theres just one more thing to do before you can draw. I always find this helpful because I don't like having to go over tiles and edit them after drawing them. where it says SOLID SELECT, there sould be an option saying Show Block, click on it. Now you should be seeing the white solid with a clear background. Now when ever you add tiles your block, you will be able to see if you drew the solid correctly.
After you draw all of the right facing blocks, don't make any more that are facing different directions. Why? Because when you make the chunks you can rotate them then instead of wasting alot of precious block space. You'll only need four chunks for your loop. Okay after you make them, the loops still aren't ready for your level just yet.

-In Game Chunk Solidity-
In game chunk solidity isn't exactly the same as the solidity that you applied to your block pieces. Its pretty much what turns on the block solidity, and is applied to each block in the chunk. You change this attribute right here:

There are 4 selections you can choose:

- Not Solid : What is says Sonic will fall right through this block.
- All Solid : No matter what direction Sonic makes contact with the block, he wont be able to go through it.
- Top Solid : You can jump through the bottom of the block and when you land, it will be solid.
- L/R/B Sold : If collide from the left, right, or bottom of the block, you can't pass.


We will only be using two types of in game chunk solidity: Not Solid, and All Solid.
Now you'll notice that there are two little attributes that you can change for each block. These correspond to what layer will have the attribute you selected. The first one is for Path 0 and the second one is for Path 1 (I'll talk about paths later). Sonic starts off on the low layer. Okay now for each block on the chunk that faces the left make the first attribute: ALL SOLID,and the second one NOT SOLID. For all the chunks facing the right just do the opposite. So you don't have to select then change and repeat for each block, there are short cut keys:
G-changes top layer attribute
H-changed low layer attribute
So now all you have to do is move your mouse over the block and hit the short cut key you want to use.
If you want you can push "W" to show all of the solids that you have on. W and E change the layer of solidity that is shown,and Q turns it off. Now when you have this turned on each block becomes color coded depending on what chunk Attribute you have selected.
There are 3 main colors:
Dark gray - All Solid
White - Top Solid
Yellow - L/R/B Solid
The Show Solidity option as I call it, is helpful for showing if you placed an incorrect solidity on a block.
Now, these are only the standard loops you can do, if you play HTZ you'll see some of the other loops you can do with the info I just gave you.



Ugh...Its time for part 2 *pops some pain killers* okay lets go.
=PATH SWAPPERS=
Path swappers are possibly the most import things when making a level. They are what allow you to do your loops, and a lot of other things like being able to go behind walls so you can access a new path, or even do those double helix things in CPZ. Okay heres a file to Download that will change path swappers from ? blocks to 0's and 1's which is a big help when placing them. The only way to truly learn how to use these things is by trial and error.

There are mainly two types of Path Swappers:
Normal Path Swappers: Change Both Above high, Below High, and what path Sonic is on.

Mirrored Path Swappers: These keep sonic on the same path but change whether or not he'll appear above or below something.

= How to read Path Swappers =

When placing a Path Swapper there's a small description of each that you've placed. Actually there's a huge on screen description for what ever obj you have selected.

Most of the descriptions there are self explanatory, but I'll still go over a few of them.

Object Type ID: Tells the Objects Game ID and type of it ( Object Types are basically what tells how the object to act, or to change an attribute. )
Param field 2-4 : These fields tells what path he will be placed on.
Param field 4-5 : Whether you will be placed Above high or Below high.
Now to get the change the second set of digits in the Object Type ID, you use the keys X and S.
X - changes number by 1's.
S - changes number by 1's.
Hold crtl to change the values by 10's.

== Above high, Below High and paths ==
Now you'll notice near the bottom of the descriptions you see some other field param's. FP's 5 and 6 state if sonic will be placed above or below blocks, but this only matters if you've changed the High Low option on your block in the tile editor.

Now your probably wondering what paths are. Paths are basically what they say they are. They are what makes sonic collide with different chunks. Remember when you were making your loop? And there were the options to change to type of solid for each block, well like I said in the beginning, those correspond to the paths that sonic can be on and blocks he can collide with.

== Setting up Path Swappers ==
Okay now that I've hopefully cleared that up enough, we're going to learn how to set up Path Swappers for your loops.

Okay now you'll notice in the picture above, that each path swapper has two digits. and each digit can either be a 0 or a 1 or both. These numbers describe what plane sonic will be moving to.
For example Path Swapper 10 basically says: Path1 -> Path0.
This is why I went over paths, because this is where you need to know what path sonic is one when he touches a Path Swapper.
Okay now reference back to my picture again. I am using two Path Swappers. One at the Middle, and the End. Since sonic start off on path 0 you want the Path swappers to be something like this:
01, 10
Now you might be thinking why would the first Path Swapper be Path1 to Path0? this is in case your on path 1 and try to enter, you'll still be able to, if you don't have a Path Swapper like 10 you may not be able to enter all the time.
To be honest, Path swappers are extremely easy. You just need to keep in mind a few things:
-What Path Sonic is on and starts on (Sonic Starts the level on path0)
-Is your loop moving Sonic to the correct path?
-Am I reading the Path Swapper Description with Sonic's current path in mind?
You remember those things and you should be fine, but if your loop doesn't always work, take your time and go over the Path Swappers again, you'll fix it.

=Getting Laid=
Oh ho ho ho yes. This is probably what most of you read this little guide for and for good reason too!
My secret has never failed and will allow all you guys and gals to click heels on a dime. There is only one step and it is not showering with old spice or some how managing to make diamonds spring forth from your palm.

The only step is..........To......Give.....a.....








.....Tidbit.





=Final Notes=
It took me only about 1 or 2 hours to make this guide, and its my first one that I've ever written. I hope that it was descriptive enough for you to get the idea without having to ask alot in the future or without having alot of headaches like I've got in the past. If theres any thing missing or spelled wrong please tell me so I can fix it.

I want to thank also all the people who have helped me edit this guide and make it better!

I've been wondering if it would be possible to port special stages from any of the sonic games to another. I know that SCD stages wouldn't be to be ported for obvious reasons. But wouldn't the other genesis games be compatible? And since all of them are built off each other, I think it would be possible, but im not sure how to go about it. Discuss your ideas.

Sonic TH : The Seven Chaos

For news and updates please check the latest pages of my topic.

== old ==

hey people, its time to show you guys some more stuff I've been doing. Currently I've been working on some of sonic's sprites (as you'll see in a screen) but I still might change Sonic into shadow, and Tails into sonic. Because I really don't feel like changing all of sonics little sprite boundries so my new sprite will fit. But any ways.....

Woo new sonic! But eh, tell me what you think of the new sprite, which is obviously not finished.

Uh-oh! You have your Zoom in my Tube!
= Old Post =

Well that's the name for my hack, originally used for my custom Sonic game that was being made in GM. The original project made it very far but sadly my code became cramped and made it so that I could no longer add anything into the game easily. I was always interested in hacks, dabbling in the art here and there but never went in head first. But one day, I hoped on Sonic Retro IRC, and asked for some help in Soned2. I met Varion who has been extremely helpful ( and has been the main backbone of helpful info) and I also met Aayla, who helped me also with things such as backgrounds and giving me encouragement. But any way, I use Soned2 and SonMapED which I love to use.

*whew* well now that long winded bit is over, I would like to show what I've done so far.

==New==

finished New BG
==Old==

I think I really hit home with the background :D


I'm proud of what I've done so far mainly because all those tiles were hand drawn in SonED2.
I plan on having 8 zones including my own enemies, bosses, music ect.
If any one is interested in helping me with this, drop me a pm.