ThomasSpeedrunner Help Thread

I'm sorry, I think I've hit a crack in the forums that made this post invisible to you.

Why was this post moved when it's concerning the Retro Graphics Toolkit...?

 

Probably because it was mistakenly seen as a universal question due to the context in which it was written, you specified kosinski compressed art files, in your hack, more specifically Winter Hill Zone (EHZ) which is level art, whereas that tool specialises in fixed plane art within square boundaries, so it's pretty easy to see how it could be misinterpreted.

Additionally, the statement he specified in his own thread regarding compression was:

So it would seem that the tool cannot decompress Kosinski code for editing, making your question to that thread, pointless right from the beginning.

 

Oops...missed that. Sorry for the confusion =(

 

You weren't referring to that in the post I quoted earlier today, you didn't make that clear enough.  And don't tempt me to make your posts invisible again.  You could of said "I was referring to this post" instead of that cocky remark.

 

You weren't referring to that in the post I quoted earlier today, you didn't make that clear enough.  And don't tempt me to make your posts invisible again.  You could of said "I was referring to this post" instead of that cocky remark.



Sorry =(

Anyway...



This is what happens when I try to import the new Tails signpost sprite. Any workarounds to this? I don't want Tails' signpost to look incorrect when I'm playing.

If it helps any, a 2P mode fix is not required, since 2P mode, while still fully implemented, is no longer used in my hack.

 

The left and right side of the sign use the same art. Since you edited the right side it will affect the left side too. You will need to add 4 more tiles for the left side and remap it a little. It's very easy.

If you don't understand how to do basic art editing like this already, would be a good/easy place to start learning.

 

Oh, I had the opposite problem when I ported the Nick Arcade ending sign art to Sonic 1, since that one uses mirrored tiles (it's symmetric) while Sonic 1's doesn't, so I had only half of the tiles I needed. Needless to say, I fixed this problem in the worst way possible :U

 

Hi there I am the author or Retro Graphics Toolkit. Sonic compression (Nemesis,Kosinski,Enigma and Saxman) is planned and will appear in the next version.  Remember that Retro Graphics Toolkit is open source and you are free to submit a patch if you feel I am working too slow on it. The reason you get the file cannot be opened error is not because it detects that the file is compressed but simply because the filesize is not a multiple of 32 bytes which is the size on one tile on the sega genesis. I just work on Retro Graphics Toolkit as a hobby and as such more important things may slow development at times.

 

Okay then. I don't really have the time to make a patch right now, but I probably will in the near future.

Somehow, I can't get this working. Tried printscreening and editing each tile in MS Paint, doesn't work. Tried adding 4 blank tiles and importing the sprite afterwards, doesn't work.

Just for the record, this is the sprite that I'm trying to import: 

I think it has something to do with how the S2 sprite is mapped, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

That's what rika said. Your image is fine, it's the mappings. You're using SonMapED, and you took a screenshot of it, thought it was obvious.

 

Somehow, I can't get this working. Tried printscreening and editing each tile in MS Paint, doesn't work. Tried adding 4 blank tiles and importing the sprite afterwards, doesn't work.

Just for the record, this is the sprite that I'm trying to import: 

I think it has something to do with how the S2 sprite is mapped, but I'm not entirely sure.



Honestly I don't ever use the importer in SonMapEd, so I don't know how it works. All I know is that you're missing tiles, you need to add 4 tiles for the extra art and remap it. This is the most basic of art editing so you should learn how to do it. 

This shows what 4 tiles you are missing: (I edited his smile to look less....awkward)



and this shows how they should be arranged:



See the first 4 tiles? Those are what you are missing.  All you need to do is import those 4 tiles, and map them into that frame. (Personally I would use a combination of a hex editor [for combining uncompressed art files], SonED [for art importing], SonMapEd [for saving as uncompressed and mapping], and Graphics Gale [for art editing])

I would offer to do it for you (as it takes <1 minute), but then I don't think you would learn anything.

 

There's always something wrong, isn't there...



Now, I know the tiles you showed me were correct, and they imported ALMOST correctly, but they somehow still got screwed up, as the picture shows. What do I do now?

If it helps any, I'm using MS Paint to save each tile.

 

It looks like you are saving the new tiles 1 pixel unaligned , plus it's not using the right color for transparency. Use Graphics Gale so you can have an 8x8 grid to work with (has a snap-to-grid feature), also can work with palettes so you know what color you're using, and it will be much easier than using MS Paint (which is horrible to use for sprite editing, especially the windows 7 version).

If you still can't do it, shoot me the art/mappings and I will help you, but I would much prefer you learn to do this yourself. You will need to know how to do this kind of thing if you ever want to add custom art for anything.

Edit: Here is a blank TGA file that already has the main S2 palette in it. TGA can be opened/edited with graphics gale and also imported with SonED2.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/8/13/1345233/blank%20s2pal.tga

Also I really think you should change the smile like what I did. 

 

It's because you keep importing the tiles, and SonMapED takes the very first colour in the bottom-left of the tile, and makes that colour transparent.  So the side of them tiles on the Tails post, I guess the first vertical line was black, right?  So the bottom-left colour was black, so SonMapED made all blacks transparent; which makes the art shift to the left, making it look out-of-place.

Why don't you just draw the art yourself instead of porting it?  It's be miles easier.  I'd understand porting art for levels and etc, but for one signpost, it will only take you 5 minutes to draw, and would of saved you a lot more time with this agro you're getting.

 

I got the sprite to import correctly, but it won't display correctly in-game. Is there a reason for this?

EDIT: Well, the better question would be, does the Nemesis-compressed signpost art have to be changed as well?

EDIT 2: Apparently, the Nemesis-compressed signpost art has to be changed as well. But now I have to ask, why is this?

 

The main game uses Nemesis-compressed signpost art because it can, while the 2P mode uses uncompressed art with DPLCs so that it can display the signpost without overwriting the graphics for the other player still playing through the level.

 

Okay. Thanks for explaining, MainMemory.

Now, I have a new issue. I've added a new sprite for the high jump monitor, but when I buiild and head to any level...



The art tile on the rings has gone wrong entirely. Strangely enough, I've looked at all other objects, and there isn't a SINGLE other object that is affected by this. Any ideas for fixing this?

 

Did you make sure that the new monitor art isn't overwriting the art of that object? That may be the issue.

 

Probably is the issue (at least with the rings), and I also can't get the sprite itself to CORRECTLY import. I simply exported the teleport monitor sprite to image, changed it to the new sprite, and re-imported it, but... (I haven't fully placed the actual sprite in this picture)



It requires that I use SIX tiles to display the power-up icon instead of the normal four. How would this be worked around? And concerning the rings, how would I rearrange the art tiles so that the rings display correctly?

 

Sorry for the double post, but I have two major issues in my hack.

[a] Rings don't display correctly. This needs to be fixed, although I am pretty sure it is an issue with art tiles.

The game crashes when the new sprites I added are supposed to turn (when playing as Super Tails). This also needs to be fixed.


 


So, I'll let you look at my disassembly.


 


Many thanks in advance to anyone who can fix these issues.


EDIT: Updated with all Super Tails sprites added.