The Sonic Project Aspect Official Thread and Help

Discussion in 'Discussion & Q&A' started by Bluestreak, Dec 18, 2016.

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  1. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Just working on more levels. Already decided to make Zone 2 of Lapis Lakes based on the old prototype version of Aqua Lake on the back of the Game Gear box, but with its own unique flair that will feel fresh and new as well, Sacred Shrine (formerly Hidden Palace) is pretty much done other than layout, soooooooo I am gonna see what you guys think of this little mockup. Better one, or two? Diamond Desert is gonna be one of the first Rounds to use a an individual tileset for ALL THREE ZONES (if I can get that to work), but really goes nuts with the time travel idea. Zone 1 is in a desert based heavily on good 'ol Desert Dazzle, but blends in the best of the Southwest with Egypt!! Not shown is some upside down pyramids with eyes, which the pyramids are made to be flat and textureless, a reference to the old low-poly 3D games like Hard Drivin', Virtua Racing, many 32X games, and Starfox. The one eye on each pyramid is gonna look normal though. Due to tilespace, the only inclines are to the right, for things like ramps and other things. I also plan some weird palmtrees based on some old art in highschool, and some springs that look like some drums I had as a child.

    Zone 2 takes place in an ice age. Totally different ground and sky and everything. Zone 3 is a reference to a strange global warming phenomenon called "desert greening" and takes place in a jungle.

    Also don't worry about Knuckles there. Just testing a sprite I made. Will it blend?

    Knuckles is only planned for the far future of this hack if I ever learned how to add a second character, a la Sonic Chaos, but if that did happen, I will likely assign most of his sprites to someone else. Knuckles is way too hard for me to draw, and time consuming.

    Diamond Desert.png
     
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  2. Niko

    Niko All's well that ends well, right? Member

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    I feel that with a few touches on Knuckles's palette, it should make his left-most sprite blend in very well.
    As to having someone who can sprite his other frames, please, PM me for contact information.
    I'm over-the-roof interested in helping the success, just from this comparative screenshot alone, with the concept of the hack just being a bit more of a gimme to motivate myself.

    Re-reading the Original Post, I reassure myself that I had also wanted to make an SMS/GG hack, though of STT, it was still around a similar idea that I would still be accomplishing through helping with the completion of Knuckles for something very similar to my prior dreams.
     
  3. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Odd you mention Triple Trouble... I have a whole lot on Deviantart pertaining to cleaning up the SMS version's palettes and graphics. I hope Glitch notices me and lets me work on his port of STT to the SMS (graphics, thought trying to kinda think of ways getting around many issues as well, trying to learn how to work with the camera). I have a mockup Great Turquoise, Special Zone, and even a revised Knuckles sheet (with some extra poses for fun).

    But PM in a second...
     
  4. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Diamond Desert is the next Round to be worked on. Lapis Lake is gonna be the third. I accidentally made a rather curious pattern from tiles meant to be used for entrances to small caves, so I turned some black-and-sky coloured tiles into a full-on ground. I like the way the new ground looks, but not liking it as much as the original ground immediately inspired by Desert Dazzle. Might use the second ground for something else. I mean, would it even work for an ice stage whatsoever? Act/Zone 2 WILL be in an ice age, in an ICE desert (because the arctic and antarctic are TECHNICALLY deserts). Maybe use them for Act/Zone 3's ground, which is a jungle?

    By the way, y'all mind if I rename this thread "The Sonic: Project Aspect Official Thread (& Knuckles)"?

    R2 Diamond Desert.png
     
  5. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Sometime back, I had the idea of recreating a Time Dominator level in the game, but also recreating the Ruins level from Kyle Bujega's Amiga game, "Blaze" for one level of Project Aspect, being a bit of a "callback level".Because of this, Zone 2 of Lapis Lake will share much in common with Antiquity from Time Dominator, though I plan to redo the main bricks pretty soon to be something original and more visually appealing. Because of this stage, Crystal Castles may just be getting cut from the game. The old Vapourwave idea for Lapis Lake Present may not be a thing either now. The Zone may end up looking like the lovechild of The Ruins from "Blaze" and R2 if I am not careful.

    The present will likely be something similar to Azure Lake from Sonic 3, with Act 3 not being known what it will be like.

    Lapis Lake Past.png
     
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  6. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    How do I get rid of cycling palettes in stages? Also am needing help on changing level order as well. MrCat told me how to have the demo end after a certain amount of levels as well (2 Zones and something extra that's a surprise exclusive to the demo).

    For that surprise getting rid of cycling palettes will be imperative.

    Plus, remembering how S2LD had an exclusive HUD for the Mario level, and different graphics for the same enemies in said stage, how do I do that? I want to make the life icon change to a "P" for Act 2's of levels, and an "F" for Act 3, plus different enemies for Act 2's if possible.
     
  7. Ravenfreak

    Ravenfreak Still hacking the 8-bit titles Member

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    I finally got around to writing that guide I mentioned to you in the past, now you can switch the levels around! (And that goes for anyone else hacking the game, and needing to switch the level order.) You can find my guide here: http://sonicresearch.org/community/...o-change-the-level-order-in-sonic-2-sms.5046/
    As for your other issues, I'll have to get back to you on that as I spent a good hour or so writing that guide I linked above. :V
     
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  8. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Some weird things in my Sonic 2 Disasm...
    There are no values for each palette in the palettes in the in src\includes\palettes.asm.
    In the S2.asm, my palette values in LevelPaletteValues are as follows:

    $31 = ghz2.bin
    $32 = ghz3.bin
    $33 = shz3.bin

    WTF2.png

    After the "Palette_XXZX:", a value of $XX should be displayed, which for some reason is not here. When I built the ROM, I got this message:

    WTF1.png

    This is rather annoying since I am VERY close to having the demo done in time for SHC2017, just have to switch level order, and make new layouts for GHZ1 and 3 (Peridot Palms Act 1 and 3), and SHZ1 and 2 (Diamond Desert Act 1 and 2). Also learned you can easily copy chunk graphics between "blocks", so I don't have to redraw the same chunks multiple times for the slopes, ground, among other things, speeding up the process vastly.

    In future versions, I do plan some unique tilesets for almost very level, and you will notice a vast difference in Peridot Palms Act 2 and 3, when it comes to trees, background, maybe even foreground!! Problem is, how do you get those rings to animate in new, unique tilesets?
     
  9. vladikcomper

    vladikcomper Well-Known Member Member

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    I don't know if this fixes your problem, but you obviously forgot an ending quote in one line; it's actually seen on your screenshot, hence that line has no proper highlighting:

    rto0fo0n.png

    EDIT: I'm not too familiar with SMS hacking, but I think that "out of memory" message you're getting means there is no more space in bank to fit all the data you want. Try to temporarily remove some .incbin's (without deleting the labels of course) to see if this is the case.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2017
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  10. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Strange how a single lack of quotation mark broke the game...
    I got it to compile, and I was incredibly happy, but something strange happened...

    All title cards, the title screen, and all of GHZ are out of whack.
    Note: The totem poles look normal because they use Sonic's palette.


    PALETTE_CRASH.png
     
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  11. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Working on the title screen, and have a whole tile free now thanks to the ability to reflect them on the X/Y axis. However, cannot seem to find the proper mappings for the title screen. I went through the intro, intro_title, mappings32_title, mappings32_intro, but it seems the offset cannot be found to get the graphics for it to generate correctly. What am I doing wrong here?
     
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  12. pixelcat

    pixelcat The Holy Cat Jr. Member

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    Actually, I'd like to know the answer as well. My only guess at the time was that they could be compressed somehow, but I never figured that out. :v
     
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  13. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Yeah. The adjusted title screen isn't TOO different, mind you. It is like this mockup I made, but the "1992" now says "2017". Also I have not changed the title screen wings yet.

    I am likely gonna changed the background of the title screen to a pastel green.

    Also the "PRESS START BUTTON" text will be lowered and will say "PRESS RUN BUTTON" as a reference to the PC Engine/Turbografx.

    Basically until the palette issues are worked out, I am going to work on other things for the game. Right now I am adding 3 extra banks for anything I may need. How did you add the extra palettes, Mr. Cat? It is giving me issues right now.

    sonic__project_aspect__title_screen_logo_mockup_by_truebluemichael-da5843v.png
     
  14. pixelcat

    pixelcat The Holy Cat Jr. Member

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    Well, I actually just followed the guide. However, I got trouble doing alternate art with the aforementioned guide implemented. Maybe they're incompatible? Who knows :/
     
  15. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    I followed the guide as well, so I don't understand what happened tbh. I may just put the new palettes in bank 33 and see what happens.
     
  16. โบวี่

    โบวี่ Tsingtao Enjoyer Member

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    Why would you reference the PC Engine if the game is running on the Master System? The Master System doesn't have a "run" button...
     
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  17. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    I know lol. But it doesn't actually have a dedicated start button either, though Button 1 kinda doubles as such according to the controller. You're right. That is a bad design choice to have it say "Press Run Button".
     
  18. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    May be releasing this game without the dynamic palette system implemented or the new title screen. I want this to be seen by the world and played by fans. People have waited long enough. The contest needs its 8-bit game. I need to focus on the level layout and all that right now.
     
  19. Bluestreak

    Bluestreak Lady in red, living in dread. Member

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    Sonic Project Aspect isn't dead! <3

    So, this won't be in the demo, but I plan to redo Sonic: Project Aspect's sprites completely. Basically if Sonic 2 sprites are just taller Sonic 1 sprites, Sonic: Project Aspect's sprites will be just shorter and smaller Sonic Chaos sprites. This sheet will take FOREVER. The shading is very difficult. This is only using 12 of the 15 colours for the sprite palette, and actual SMS colours. I have a load of them to go sadly. How is it right now?

    Also Peridot Palms is going through a whole redesign, since I don't want it to basically be Botanic Base with redrawn stuff from Palmtree Panic and Collision Chaos good future. Demo 1 will have Peridot Palms and Sapphire Snow. These sprites hopefully will appear in Demo 2 (Lapis Lake and Rainbow Resort) if y'all like them.

    I have a friend working on the boss theme, which I hope to add to the game if I can figure out how to replace the music in the game.
    Sonic_Project_Aspect_new_sprites.PNG
     
  20. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

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    Replacing music shouldn't be particularly hard, as pointed out in the very first posts on page 1. This game uses an 8-bit version of SMPS which is well understood. It should be easy enough to implement this kind of feature into one of the various whatever2smps converters, or write a simple dedicated tool (maybe even at the ASM level). I don't plan to ever work on xm3smps again because I'm disgusted by its horrible code (some of which is actually multiple decades old since my laziness made me recycle some routines I wrote in the 90s), but if all else fails I might look into something. I still think that ValleyBell would be a much better candidate for such a thing these days, though.
     
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