They do, for example, in the save select screen and in the special stage in sonoc 3. You'd show s/h variants because they are part of the picture, like the permanent shadow in the special stage. i.e. this: If we're putting objects into levels, like badniks and rings, we should also put this object in the special stage, since it loads for every character. And unlike other visual components of objects (i.e. the buzz bomber sprite), the "sprite" in this case only manifests as a shadow color change. Which is all to say that the shadow in Sonic 3's special stage is actually an object that always loads in that spot, with a sprite that is just a circle, that is drawn with color 15 of palette line 3, which in this case doesn't draw actual color pixels but instead shades the pixels it appears over. assuming BGR order, then yup, 00E would be solid red of the highest value. You should preceed this with $ or 0x to make certain it's HEX, though. So 0x00E or $00E.
He said they don't generally use S/H. Shadow/Highlight mode is used in a grand total of two places in the whole series, both of them in Sonic 3, and you managed to get one of them wrong. It's the competition character select that uses it, not the Data Select. The point is, the mode is so underused, there's no point in recording or displaying S/H info for everything. You'd at most document the special stage shadow colors, but then again, you're probably better off documenting the special stage palettes differently than the main game, considering that each stage really has only two different colors, which are duplicated over eight palette indices in order to fuel the cycling palette-based animation.
...we're talking, what 8 new shades total? Is bandwidth at that much of a premium, that we can't spare 8 lines of text to note additional color values? Since palette rotation is such a huge part of the way the Special Stage works, shoudn't we document every color that appears in them? Isn't that the point of such a technical wiki? and you missed the point of the conversation, in the first place. I wasn't saying "let's include shadow and highlight values for every palette." I was commenting on MM's post that said those were the only palette steps the Genesis could do, which was for the benefit of BS's conversion from hex values for the wiki. Since it makes sense to include those Shadow values in the special stages, I was adding to MM's post that there are additional values to consider. If BS is going to, through CSS, programattically generate colors to display on the wiki from 9-bit hex values as accurately to the genesis as possible, he should know every color the genesis can generate. Not just the normal steps. That's just smart thinking.
I have a few more maps now. I have Wood Zone and all of Metropolis Zone now. EDIT: Accidentally missed an object definition. Fixed. Also added to the wiki. EDIT 2: Added missing platform and cogs at the end of MTZ3
The Metropolis Act 3 map needs to be extended a tad. That is where the chunks end, but there's one of those movement-activated moving platforms on the bottom-right where the path ends.
Ahh, yes. Sorry about that. Fixed my post and on the wiki. EDIT: Also quickly got the CNZ maps since they don't have objects that need to be defined in SonLVL. Also now on the wiki.
Just so you're aware, I plan on writing a program to export palettes, tiles, blocks, chunks, and full maps for all the levels in Sonic 1 (both revisions), Sonic 2 Final (REV00+REV01), Knuckles in Sonic 2, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It could also be used for Sonic CD, but I don't have access to the data for that. I don't know how much of that would be needed on the wiki, or how I'd get it all on there, so I'll probably just upload ZIP files to my website and link them here.
This thread is also good timing for me, because I was looking for full-size level maps for an upcoming video for my Youtube channel. I figured I'd just have to fudge some numbers, though, because what I'm really looking for are full-size maps of Sonic 3 & Knuckles stages. There's plenty of full-size Sonic 2 maps out there. but everyone always scales down S3&K maps.
Since everyone else is throwing their hat into the ring, I'm the someone MainMemory mentioned was working on the SonLVL object definitions for S3K. I've been badgering him to add features so I can do stuff like properly render objects which load their own palette, as well as the paths of moving objects, and that's coming along nicely but slowly. I have some time off next week, so I'm hoping I can get basic definitions for the all the levels, which would allow us to export proper, full-size maps for the entire game.
Well, if we're all calling out what we're working on, my level editing application can handle Knuckles Chaotix and possibly Crackers, which MM said SonLVL cannot. Also, yesterday I began working on a differencing function. You can load two different tilesheets, block definitions, chunk definitions, and level maps, and it'll render whichever you choose while highlighting the differences. Example, if map 1 is a protype of map 2, and say map 2 changes the very first chunk of the level, then when rendering the level, that first chunk in the level map is highlighted in red. Going further, I'll highlight individual block and tile changes within chunks as different colors, too. THat way, at a visual glance, you'll be able to spot the differences between level layouts as prototypes progressed. I figure, with the Knuckles Chaotix prototypes, this would be a neat way to plot the evolution of level layouts.
I have been working on object definitions for the Simon Wai prototype for SonLVL. Problem is that due to the way the disassembly is set up, I had to make quite a number of changes to the disassembly. For example, there's a separate set of block data for animated art tiles for each level that haven't been split off. A lot of object mappings have not been split into their own files either.
Wood Zone has some guff on the far right too. And I think Hidden Palace Zone does too IIRC. While it means half the map is taken up by a giant void, it's good to be as accurate as possible. I also gives a bearing on just how big the void is (which might give clues about how big the level was planned to be). EDIT: I've been informed there's a technical reason behind this, i.e. it's not part of the map proper - ignore me if I'm wrong.
My issue on that is that it's not truly an extra section of level data at the end, but rather it's a loopback due to a bad max horizontal camera boundary. EDIT: Nevermind, just saw the talk page on the wiki. Though, I disagree on the "which might give clues about how big the level was planned to be" part, seeing as the value used looked to be just a placeholder (seeing as it's also used in quite a number of other levels), and thus shouldn't be used to judge the planned size of the level.
Sonic 2 final has this same problem. I've been thinking of having SonLVL's project files include binary files for those blocks, to be patched over the normal blocks in display only. Similarly for the animated art, though that would just use the regular art files.
Placeholder or not, it's good to document what's actually there as opposed to what we think should be there. There's massive gaps in Metropolis Zone, which is already a long stage. I don't doubt that these levels probably weren't going to be as big as what we see in the Simon Wai proto, but the fact the dimensions haven't been set to a more sensible value suggests that maybe, at some point, they envisioned it being longer. That might not be true, but I don't want to make the call. "This is what the level looks like, errors et al."
Alrighty, if that's what you want, I gotcha covered. Just give me a few. EDIT: Done! (Warning, large images) Spoiler Direct links: CNZ1 CNZ2 MTZ1 MTZ2 MTZ3 WZ These good? Also note that I didn't do HPZ because I didn't make that map. I will most likely make my own sometime that includes objects and the loopback.
Excellent. The other reason for this is if we're to find other prototypes that start to address this issue, we can see if anyone ever gave a damn about Wood Zone or Hidden Palace past the Wai beta.
RE: Palettes http://info.sonicretro.org/Template:MDPalette Between myself and Hivebrain, we've developed a way of displaying Mega Drive palettes on the Sonic Retro wiki. You feed it a bunch of 0BGR values. It might change, but if you're wanting to store Mega Drive palettes on the wiki somewhere, this is a way to do it.
The weirdest thing for me is someone who makes a whole map of somethign... and then it's cut in half the size. There are maps for the levels in 3D Blast out there, but it's like they didn't the whole thing, then shrunk in to 1/3 the size
