Programming

Retro_Stew · Nov 9, 2008

Stealth said:

I got bored and did this:

(You'll likely have to copy the URL and paste it back into the URL bar after you're already on the emulationzone site, since it doesn't allow off-site linking)

It's not a whole lot, but you can see some of the current stuff in motion, and use the fileset as a basis for expansion. The solidity on the slopes is just a bit jerky because I suck at drawing solidity that doesn't correspond directly with the edges of the art

So, basically, what I did was take a few of the images from the tile graphics thread, and build this image. I used a high-color image during placement and a 16x16 grid for alignment, then reduced the color count. There were around 80 unique colors in the original image, but I reduced them to 64 with apparently no significant loss in quality (It was unnecessary if the level doesn't use water, but, well, I felt the extras were wasteful when it makes such little difference). I then saved the image as pic0000.pcx in the E02Win.exe folder, and ran it through the level ripper with the "Alter Palette" setting for Palette 0 with 64 level colors, and the "Image Colors" setting for "0-63" set to "0-63" to import palette entries 0-63 from the image to level indexes 0-63. The level would need further setup, so I used the main launcher window's "Start Editor" option, and clicked the "Rip Level" button

A default level created with the ripper has only three level planes, but the current Sonic scripts use 4, so I added a plane 3 onto the end by holding Ctrl to view the plane ID list, hovering over the X at the end of the list, and pressing A. Because I ripped both the background and foreground from the same image, they both appeared on plane 0, so I copied it to Plane 2 by hovering over Plane 0 ID, pressing C, then hovering over plane 2 ID, and pressing P (while still holding ctrl to view the ID list), and then removed the background image from Plane 2 by left-clicking Plane 2 ID in the list to select it for editing, then selecting a blank area of the level by right-clicking just below the background image and dragging the mouse across the level to create a line of the same width, pressing C to copy the row of tiles, then hovering over the top-left corner of the background image, pressing and holding P for Paste, and dragging the mouse down to blank out each row

The background planes need to be set to one of the "relative" forms of scrolling so they don't display beyond their height/width, so I selected plane 0 for editing, and while still holding ctrl, selected the "relative" setting, and then did the same thing for Plane 1, and then saved the level by opening the main menu with the 0 key, and selecting "save"

After having created the Sonic4 folder with a Zone01 folder to host the level, I copied rip.lev and rip.til as 1.lev and 1.til into the folder and started the game. The level would now display properly, but there were no solidity settings to affect the player, so I entered the Level Editor with the E key and selected Plane 2 for editing. Each unique tile needed solidity drawn onto it, so for each tile along the path, I hovered over the tile, pressed G for "grab", and pressed 3 to edit the tile in the tile editor. Since the editor starts in tile graphic editing mode, for the first tile, I clicked the area between the two selection boxes immediately to the right of the tile grid to switch to solidity editing mode. I used "top-only" solidity for the grass, so I selected it by clicking the green color box below the palette listing, and then drew onto the tile grid, and repeated until all tiles were solid, using the blue color for "all-sides solid" on the walls. I kept track of which tiles were and weren't solid by pressing 5 once in level editor mode to turn on the solidity overlay, and switching back to gameplay mode for testing by opening the main menu (0) and selecting "Return To Game". I saved regularly using the "Save Tiles" option in the main menu

One section in the level displays above the player, which is done using Plane 3. I selected the area from Plane 2, copied, switched to Plane 3 for editing, and while still holding ctrl, right-clicked plane 2 for viewing, then pasted onto Plane 3. I created a tile with a blank image to use on Plane 2 for collision in this area by first pressing 1 to go to the tile selector, pressing A to add a tile to the end of the list, right-clicking on the newly-created tile (it appears right before the boxed X at the bottom of the list) to load it in the tile editor, and then drew blue "all-sides" solidity onto it, then switched back to the level editor and drew it onto Plane 2

I then went back to Plane 0 to set some "fancy" scrolling by first setting the plane type to "HTil". I set the looping position by hovering over the lower-right tile of the background image and pressing Y and U for setting X and Y looping points, set the Y scrolling speed by using R/T, and then setting each tile row's X scroll speed by using W/E, which was made easier by the fact that I could right-click and draw a selection column down the image, allowing me to change the settings for each selected row all at once

I then made a few copy/paste changes to the level structure, and made sure everything was saved by opening the main menu and using both "Save" (for the level) and "Save Tiles", and checked it out in gameplay mode

I didn't include the little flowers that're off to the right of the image when I first ripped the level, so I had to add them in afterward. First, I took the map image in Paint Shop Pro and saved the palette, then loaded the image I got the flowers from, and loaded the palette onto it using the "match nearest color" option to make sure that they would use the same palette as the existing level. I then copied the flowers onto the map image (which isn't necessary, I could have used an image with only the flowers) and re-ripped the level using the "Add To Existing Tileset" and "Add To Existing Level" options. I used the "Browse" buttons to find the existing tile and level files in the Zone01 folder. I set the "Start Til" to the ID number of the last existing tile in the current tileset (the last existing, not the one after), which I got from checking the last tile's ID in the tile editor, and set the "Plane ID" to 4, which would place the ripped image onto a new plane 4 (the last currently-used plane is 3), and then used "Rip Level". Afterward, I ran the game again and entered editor mode. Plane 4 now contained the entire image including the newly-added flowers, but no tiles were duplicated, as the tiles for the rest of the image already existed. I copied the flowers and switched to Plane 3 for editing, enabling Plane 2 for viewing, and placed a few throughout the level

..Well, that's a bit long, but if you followed along, you should be able to create and expand levels without any issue
Also, you'll want to use the new exe's in this download, since I made a couple of corrections
Click to expand...

GHFan · Nov 9, 2008

Has saxman given you a better version of ProSonic? Because the current one sucks.

Tweaker · Nov 9, 2008

E02 is going to be used for the engine, not ProSonic.

nineko · Nov 9, 2008

No ProSonic? The little interest I still had in this project died completely.

GameNerd Advance · Nov 9, 2008

nineko said:

No ProSonic? The little interest I still had in this project died completely.
Click to expand...

Because E02 is just as accurate as ProSonic, except, you know, it's actually fully functional.

GHFan · Nov 9, 2008

Really? I thought you said in the tutorial that you were using ProSonic, but I guess EO2 is fine, too...

MoI · Nov 9, 2008

Something I've thought about - S1/2/3 and subtle evolution of physics. Will this project seem to recreate Sonic 3's or evolve them just a little bit more?

Rika Chou · Nov 9, 2008

nineko said:

No ProSonic? The little interest I still had in this project died completely.
Click to expand...

E02 is much more evolved than the current state of ProSonic. It's very accurate and only makes sense to choose it over ProSonic. Is there a certain reason that you were wanting ProSonic to be used?

nineko · Nov 9, 2008

Rika Chou said:

nineko said:

No ProSonic? The little interest I still had in this project died completely.
Click to expand...

E02 is much more evolved than the current state of ProSonic. It's very accurate and only makes sense to choose it over ProSonic. Is there a certain reason that you were wanting ProSonic to be used?
Click to expand...

ProSonic has potential to be more accurate than E02, and it's likely to get many features once it's completed. But I admit I'm speaking in future terms, so on an immediate scenario I understand why E02 can be preferred.

Sik · Nov 9, 2008

OK, I'm very outdated, can somebody tell me what's the lastest version of E02? The only version of E02 I ever messed up with was for DOS =P

EDIT: I'm asking because I don't think E02 would have been choosen if it was still DOS =b

GHFan · Nov 9, 2008

The tile tutorial said:

As we're using ProSonic engine, we need our levels to be structured like that.
Click to expand...

?

Tweaker · Nov 9, 2008

The tutorial is outdated. What's so hard to understand?

And E02 is already 100% accurate to the Genesis games. I don't understand what more you could possibly need, but whatever.

Rika Chou · Nov 9, 2008

Sik said:

OK, I'm very outdated, can somebody tell me what's the lastest version of E02? The only version of E02 I ever messed up with was for DOS =P

EDIT: I'm asking because I don't think E02 would have been choosen if it was still DOS =b
Click to expand...

http://www.homestead.com/specialvegetadays...trix-SAGE08.rar

I uploaded it because I think the website is down.

synchronizer · Nov 10, 2008

sigh I wish E02 ran on ppc macs. Nonetheless, it sounds like a really good Sonic engine.

DimensionWarped · Nov 10, 2008

nineko said:

Rika Chou said:

nineko said:

No ProSonic? The little interest I still had in this project died completely.
Click to expand...

E02 is much more evolved than the current state of ProSonic. It's very accurate and only makes sense to choose it over ProSonic. Is there a certain reason that you were wanting ProSonic to be used?
Click to expand...

ProSonic has potential to be more accurate than E02, and it's likely to get many features once it's completed. But I admit I'm speaking in future terms, so on an immediate scenario I understand why E02 can be preferred.
Click to expand...

Show your features in one hand, show your potential in the other. Which hand gets full first? Neither of them of course, both are abstract concepts and don't occupy volume. But I definitely wouldn't be losing interest in the hand that works for what I want to do in the here and now.

Ultima · Nov 10, 2008

DimensionWarped said:

nineko said:

Rika Chou said:

nineko said:

No ProSonic? The little interest I still had in this project died completely.
Click to expand...

E02 is much more evolved than the current state of ProSonic. It's very accurate and only makes sense to choose it over ProSonic. Is there a certain reason that you were wanting ProSonic to be used?
Click to expand...

ProSonic has potential to be more accurate than E02, and it's likely to get many features once it's completed. But I admit I'm speaking in future terms, so on an immediate scenario I understand why E02 can be preferred.
Click to expand...

Show your features in one hand, show your potential in the other. Which hand gets full first? Neither of them of course, both are abstract concepts and don't occupy volume. But I definitely wouldn't be losing interest in the hand that works for what I want to do in the here and now.
Click to expand...

I love how you're getting all philosophical about which engine to choose to make a sonic fangame. Awesome :P

Adam2k7 · Nov 12, 2008

wow a full project using E02... I thaught I was the only person to ever tinker with E02 - I would love to help with scripts. Where do I sign up? (that is of course if you want me )

Rika Chou · Nov 12, 2008

Adam2k7 said:

wow a full project using E02... I thaught I was the only person to ever tinker with E02 - I would love to help with scripts. Where do I sign up? (that is of course if you want me )
Click to expand...

We need anyone who knows how to use the thing at this point. :P

All I know how to do it import pcx files and edit level layout and collision.

Adam2k7 · Nov 12, 2008

count me in then... I am the opersite lol I can alter the games scripts but could never get any graphics to import !!!

Yuzu · Nov 30, 2008

Bump. Small newbie question, any tutorials on E02? I might be interested in helping.

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