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Mapping Tips/Guides / Is it possible to make a map of 3D game on Nintendo 64?
« Last post by JustUs3r on March 18, 2020, 08:26:23 AM »For example, Duke Nukem 64?
Recent Posts
92
Gaming / Re: It's MAR10 today. So what Mario game are you playing or replaying?
« Last post by JonLeung on March 10, 2020, 08:29:25 AM »Yet another MAR10 Day...
See my previous response from last year, two posts ago. Literally. Word-for-word, it all applies this year. Just shows that it's another year of failing to play new Mario stuff other than my daily dose of Super Mario Run (iOS). I guess I have been playing Mario Kart Tour (Android) consistently, but today I haven't gotten to it yet. I really should just pick up Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS) and Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS), maybe having them physically in front of me will entice me to start them. And, yes, physically, I keep meaning to get to back to some games I got digitally (only because I had to use up points) and I keep forgetting I actually own Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) and Pikmin 3 (Wii U) and whatever else I have that was digital... Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge (Wii U). I'm on board for digital stuff (my Steam library is a huge backlog too) but when it comes to consoles I must still be oldschool, as I keep forgetting that I have these. I at least finished Pikmin 3 (not the best ending though) and DKC:TF might go unfinished because it's pretty hard... am I getting old?
See my previous response from last year, two posts ago. Literally. Word-for-word, it all applies this year. Just shows that it's another year of failing to play new Mario stuff other than my daily dose of Super Mario Run (iOS). I guess I have been playing Mario Kart Tour (Android) consistently, but today I haven't gotten to it yet. I really should just pick up Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS) and Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS), maybe having them physically in front of me will entice me to start them. And, yes, physically, I keep meaning to get to back to some games I got digitally (only because I had to use up points) and I keep forgetting I actually own Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U) and Pikmin 3 (Wii U) and whatever else I have that was digital... Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge (Wii U). I'm on board for digital stuff (my Steam library is a huge backlog too) but when it comes to consoles I must still be oldschool, as I keep forgetting that I have these. I at least finished Pikmin 3 (not the best ending though) and DKC:TF might go unfinished because it's pretty hard... am I getting old?
93
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
« Last post by JonLeung on March 07, 2020, 09:50:27 AM »Hadoken! Thanks to George s, arcade fan, who has mapped the classic Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Arcade). As you can see, I've also updated the background of that page to Suzaku Castle, Ryu's arena.
94
Map Requests / Re: Sega Genesis Mini - full map set
« Last post by Mika22 on March 02, 2020, 05:29:44 AM »Thanks, G.E.R., for submitted full maps of the Genesis versions of Earthworm Jim and its sequel, which I put up last night. Surprised they haven't been mapped until now, and the first one checks another one off this list.
I guess I didn't mention yet: my brother got me a Sega Genesis Mini this past Christmas - though the only game I made time to play fully so far is Mega Man: The Wily Wars. It was fun but I used it in this d-bal review because I thought it will make it easier to understand the benefits of this bulking and bodybuilding supplement. I didn't think the three new Robot Masters were super great - but I guess they still have a legacy, because I more recently bought Sonic & Mega Man: Worlds Collide (as well as Worlds Unite, its sequel), a comic series involving Mega Man and Sonic's worlds, obviously, and (though I'm sure they showed up in the Mega Man comics earlier,) I like that the three new Robot Masters are collectively referred to as the "Genesis Unit".
You didn't think that the tree Robot Masters were great, wow I personally think that they are amazing plus the legacy that they have makes it more fun.
95
Maps Of The Month / 2020/03: Earthworm Jim (Genesis) - G.E.R.
« Last post by JonLeung on February 29, 2020, 09:19:30 PM »
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to G.E.R.'s Earthworm Jim (Genesis) maps.
This month brings spring, and soon the birds and the worms will be out and about again!
Psy-Crow is tasked with delivering Professor Monkey-For-A-Head's Super Suit to Queen Slug-For-A-Butt. The suit accidentally falls to Earth and lands on an earthworm, and this is the origin of the weird and wacky (and wormy) hero, Earthworm Jim!
Everything about this game is just as weird and wacky as its hero. The other characters are also bizarre, from his friend Peter Puppy with Hulk-like anger management issues, the bungee-jumping ball of snot that is Major Mucus, and Bob The Killer Goldfish. The game takes you from New Junk City to Heck to Level 5 (yes, that's its name) to Buttville, each with unconventionally-designed stages, lacking the "blockiness" of many platformers of this time and instead has a more freeform, cartoonish design. Fittingly, Earthworm Jim was adapted into an animated series, though Playmates Toys planned to have a franchise of their own (after the success with their license for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) but beginning with a video game - which was unusual at the time. But again, being unusual fits the overall theme...
Though this game also appears on the Super NES, which we also have maps for (by Tropicon), we recognize the Genesis version's maps (by G.E.R.) here since it is the original and has an exclusive stage, Intestinal Distress! You can also snag Earthworm Jim on the Sega Genesis Mini.
So to recognize the effort put into mapping this groovy game, G.E.R.'s Earthworm Jim (Genesis) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for March 2020.
96
Map Requests / Re: World Map request for Lunar 2 Eternal Blue (Sega CD)
« Last post by Lüt on February 17, 2020, 11:28:31 PM »Well, it's been 5 months. So, time for an update.
The project lingered in limbo for about 2 months after my original post, but has since picked up speed in recent months.
I hammered through some of the most annoying areas when I was feeling up to the tedium, and once that was done, things got rolling again.
Here's where everything stands:
Main Maps
All playable areas have been fully mapped to still images. Variations related to gameplay progression have also been made (i.e. secret passages open, obstacles removed, paths built, etc.) I even did building interiors. Only 3 maps from an unplayable intro sequence remain.
For Rey, here's a preview of the 1st of 6 overworld segments, the Salyan Desert:
https://i.postimg.cc/BsN88qRb/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Salyan-Desert01-Overworld.png
(I'll be url-linking full images in this post due to size. If they appear in a web page instead of as an individual file, just right-click and re-open in a new tab. You may also have to click a shrunken image to make it full-size. (The site went to garbage well after I'd established my account.))
Animations
I've done GIF animations for most areas with some amount of noteworthy animation. I started with key areas that had large amounts of animation, but got carried away and did a number of smaller things as well.
However, I stopped short of animating every torch or light source in the game
See, I'm real picky about having my still maps all be on the same frame of animation. It's a little bothersome when maps are assembled from different frames at different positions (though, as a gameplay guide, I'm still glad people put them together). As a result, I had already captured all the frames of animation in order to assemble whichever one worked best, so since I had everything in sequence anyway, it actually didn't take too long to compile the animated sequences. Only a few maps had a lot of things animating at different speeds, but a few little framechart spreadsheets in Excel got that sorted fairly easily.
All animations I planned to do are done, except one. I've got a really annoying situation where two separate animations from different areas are combined in a third area. One's a light flicker in a transmission room, and the other's a floating planet model at the top of a spire. Each one has an accurate speed in their own map, but when they're both combined in the third area, the difference in framerate will both create an absurd amount of frames and an inaccurate animation speed for at least one of the sequences. Because animation speed is done in decimal rather than fraction, accounting for certain 1FPS frames in the sequence is basically impossible due to rounding, so they'll lose synchronization as well. And I'm like, do I have the same animation be inconsistent across different maps, or do I make the other individual maps use inaccurate animation speeds so that all the maps match? It's a really obnoxious thing to happen on the very last map, that I'll probably deal with absolutely last.
So that's where animation's hanging.
For now, here's a preview of an animated town, Meribia:
https://i.postimg.cc/DFFT9Lj4/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Meribia01x-Meribia-Animated.gif
Marked Indexes
Lunar 2 can be extremely large and very complex at times. The designers were certainly intent on out-doing Lunar 1 in every way, and some areas just go on and on and on.
As such, I found it necessary to do area-based compilation images with marked entrances/exits, treasures, warps, and other significant developments fully noted.
(In fact, the origin of this project is me trying to find my way through some of the game's more convoluted areas.)
Currently, all "levels" and towns have been fully assembled and marked. However, while the levels were generally easy to organize (most fit into a neat vertical stack), the towns are proving a pain to come up with any clear and consistent manner of organized layout due to the often odd variety of interior spaces, and so this is the area where I'm most behind.
I also need to come up with a title header for the images that explains the markings.
For a title-less preview, here's the marked index for Mystic Ruins:
https://i.postimg.cc/1PLjxQ5C/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Mystic-Ruins-M01-Mystic-Ruins-Marked-Preview.png
It's not the most exciting level in the game, but its variety of features and functionalities shows off the marking process fairly well.
At the bottom of the image, you'll notice I've added a thing called "The Direct Route" - this lists the shortest path through a level while accomplishing all necessary goals. Thanks to rooms like the 3F mirror maze, even looking at a marked guide can be confusing without being told which markings to follow. These are done for about half the levels.
Battle Backgrounds
The game launches into side-view mode for enemy encounters.
These scenes are somewhat like the backgrounds to other 1-on-1 fighting games I've seen mapped here, so I've included these as well.
All are complete.
Submission Organization
The naming of some areas is very counter-intuitive.
Looking at the file names, would you ever guess that the order to progress through the Larpa Secret Passage is part 1, part 4, part 2, and part 3? That the Illusion Woods zigzags through 1F, B1, 2F, B2, 3F, etc. rather than going in a continuous ascent? Or that the Clearing goes between 6F and B6? Perhaps you wouldn't guess that Taben's Peak Top was just past the half-way point of Taben's Peak? Maybe you'd think it was my own spelling mistake that Blue Labyrinth is spelled "Labyrinth" in B3, but "Labrynth" in B2 and B1? Maybe you'd think Ghost Manor had any sensible name organization at all!
There was no way I could dump an image collection into site submissions and hope they'd end up in the correct order on the site, so I opened the vgmaps index html source and filled out a table with the maps as they generally progress in-game. Then once I started that, I figured I might as well also fill out the resolution/size/type/contact info boxes. Since it's done with the site's existing code, hopefully all the host will have to do is paste it into the appropriate page and it'll be ready to go.
Overworld Megamap
I messed around a little more with assembling all 6 overworld segments into a full map.
Annoyingly, while I originally said that you should be able to fill the uneven edges with water since the world was essentially a giant island, it turns out some land masses are cut off between segments, meaning that would require manually building a significant amount of mountains and cliffs from existing map structures rather than simply filling void spaces with water tiles. That's beyond the amount of time and effort I can spend on a thing like this.
Regarding the color differences in the water, this overlapping area in the two sides of the Katarina Zone should illustrate the point:
https://i.postimg.cc/Rh0Yy9wr/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Katarina-Zone-Overlap01-East.png
https://i.postimg.cc/vTSKdjv4/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Katarina-Zone-Overlap02-West.png
In fact, there's a bit of land difference as well. But this is the most extreme example, the water turning from summer fresh to icy cold. And of course there's a waterfall connecting the upper land of KZ east to the lower ocean of KZ west, so I couldn't separate them by height. A gradient fade could be a thing, but it would undermine that 16-bit color efficiency and boost what's probably under 100 colors total into tens of thousands of colors.
Yeah, what I figure I'll do is post a raw assembly, then a partial tweak, as an addendum in the forum thread, and people can take it from there if they want. But it'll probably remain a curiosity with no way to get it to submission-level quality.
So anyway, that's the progress report. Would be great to be done by spring, but we'll see. For now, just know that it's still being worked on, and completion is in sight.
The project lingered in limbo for about 2 months after my original post, but has since picked up speed in recent months.
I hammered through some of the most annoying areas when I was feeling up to the tedium, and once that was done, things got rolling again.
Here's where everything stands:
Main Maps
All playable areas have been fully mapped to still images. Variations related to gameplay progression have also been made (i.e. secret passages open, obstacles removed, paths built, etc.) I even did building interiors. Only 3 maps from an unplayable intro sequence remain.
For Rey, here's a preview of the 1st of 6 overworld segments, the Salyan Desert:
https://i.postimg.cc/BsN88qRb/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Salyan-Desert01-Overworld.png
(I'll be url-linking full images in this post due to size. If they appear in a web page instead of as an individual file, just right-click and re-open in a new tab. You may also have to click a shrunken image to make it full-size. (The site went to garbage well after I'd established my account.))
Animations
I've done GIF animations for most areas with some amount of noteworthy animation. I started with key areas that had large amounts of animation, but got carried away and did a number of smaller things as well.
However, I stopped short of animating every torch or light source in the game
See, I'm real picky about having my still maps all be on the same frame of animation. It's a little bothersome when maps are assembled from different frames at different positions (though, as a gameplay guide, I'm still glad people put them together). As a result, I had already captured all the frames of animation in order to assemble whichever one worked best, so since I had everything in sequence anyway, it actually didn't take too long to compile the animated sequences. Only a few maps had a lot of things animating at different speeds, but a few little framechart spreadsheets in Excel got that sorted fairly easily.
All animations I planned to do are done, except one. I've got a really annoying situation where two separate animations from different areas are combined in a third area. One's a light flicker in a transmission room, and the other's a floating planet model at the top of a spire. Each one has an accurate speed in their own map, but when they're both combined in the third area, the difference in framerate will both create an absurd amount of frames and an inaccurate animation speed for at least one of the sequences. Because animation speed is done in decimal rather than fraction, accounting for certain 1FPS frames in the sequence is basically impossible due to rounding, so they'll lose synchronization as well. And I'm like, do I have the same animation be inconsistent across different maps, or do I make the other individual maps use inaccurate animation speeds so that all the maps match? It's a really obnoxious thing to happen on the very last map, that I'll probably deal with absolutely last.
So that's where animation's hanging.
For now, here's a preview of an animated town, Meribia:
https://i.postimg.cc/DFFT9Lj4/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Meribia01x-Meribia-Animated.gif
Marked Indexes
Lunar 2 can be extremely large and very complex at times. The designers were certainly intent on out-doing Lunar 1 in every way, and some areas just go on and on and on.
As such, I found it necessary to do area-based compilation images with marked entrances/exits, treasures, warps, and other significant developments fully noted.
(In fact, the origin of this project is me trying to find my way through some of the game's more convoluted areas.)
Currently, all "levels" and towns have been fully assembled and marked. However, while the levels were generally easy to organize (most fit into a neat vertical stack), the towns are proving a pain to come up with any clear and consistent manner of organized layout due to the often odd variety of interior spaces, and so this is the area where I'm most behind.
I also need to come up with a title header for the images that explains the markings.
For a title-less preview, here's the marked index for Mystic Ruins:
https://i.postimg.cc/1PLjxQ5C/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Mystic-Ruins-M01-Mystic-Ruins-Marked-Preview.png
It's not the most exciting level in the game, but its variety of features and functionalities shows off the marking process fairly well.
At the bottom of the image, you'll notice I've added a thing called "The Direct Route" - this lists the shortest path through a level while accomplishing all necessary goals. Thanks to rooms like the 3F mirror maze, even looking at a marked guide can be confusing without being told which markings to follow. These are done for about half the levels.
Battle Backgrounds
The game launches into side-view mode for enemy encounters.
These scenes are somewhat like the backgrounds to other 1-on-1 fighting games I've seen mapped here, so I've included these as well.
All are complete.
Submission Organization
The naming of some areas is very counter-intuitive.
Looking at the file names, would you ever guess that the order to progress through the Larpa Secret Passage is part 1, part 4, part 2, and part 3? That the Illusion Woods zigzags through 1F, B1, 2F, B2, 3F, etc. rather than going in a continuous ascent? Or that the Clearing goes between 6F and B6? Perhaps you wouldn't guess that Taben's Peak Top was just past the half-way point of Taben's Peak? Maybe you'd think it was my own spelling mistake that Blue Labyrinth is spelled "Labyrinth" in B3, but "Labrynth" in B2 and B1? Maybe you'd think Ghost Manor had any sensible name organization at all!
There was no way I could dump an image collection into site submissions and hope they'd end up in the correct order on the site, so I opened the vgmaps index html source and filled out a table with the maps as they generally progress in-game. Then once I started that, I figured I might as well also fill out the resolution/size/type/contact info boxes. Since it's done with the site's existing code, hopefully all the host will have to do is paste it into the appropriate page and it'll be ready to go.
Overworld Megamap
I messed around a little more with assembling all 6 overworld segments into a full map.
Annoyingly, while I originally said that you should be able to fill the uneven edges with water since the world was essentially a giant island, it turns out some land masses are cut off between segments, meaning that would require manually building a significant amount of mountains and cliffs from existing map structures rather than simply filling void spaces with water tiles. That's beyond the amount of time and effort I can spend on a thing like this.
Regarding the color differences in the water, this overlapping area in the two sides of the Katarina Zone should illustrate the point:
https://i.postimg.cc/Rh0Yy9wr/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Katarina-Zone-Overlap01-East.png
https://i.postimg.cc/vTSKdjv4/Lunar2-Sega-CD-Katarina-Zone-Overlap02-West.png
In fact, there's a bit of land difference as well. But this is the most extreme example, the water turning from summer fresh to icy cold. And of course there's a waterfall connecting the upper land of KZ east to the lower ocean of KZ west, so I couldn't separate them by height. A gradient fade could be a thing, but it would undermine that 16-bit color efficiency and boost what's probably under 100 colors total into tens of thousands of colors.
Yeah, what I figure I'll do is post a raw assembly, then a partial tweak, as an addendum in the forum thread, and people can take it from there if they want. But it'll probably remain a curiosity with no way to get it to submission-level quality.
So anyway, that's the progress report. Would be great to be done by spring, but we'll see. For now, just know that it's still being worked on, and completion is in sight.
97
Map Requests / Re: No Shadowgate?
« Last post by Lüt on February 17, 2020, 11:03:50 PM »Wait, there's really no Shadowgate map?
I've had a linked-screenshot diagram, like the Deja Vu one featured in the magazine, sitting around for years. I was using it to outline a Heretic adaptation. I could have sworn I got it from here, but now that I look at the NES index, I don't see it after all.
Anyway, this is it:
(Open in new tab for full-size.)
No credits on it though.
There's also the Spriter's Resource Shadowgate page, which has the individual screens assembled somewhat cohesively across 2 maps, plus additional graphical and animated variations on a 3rd map:
https://www.spriters-resource.com/nes/shadowgate/
Those ones are credited to "SmithyGCN."
I'm not sure if any of these are publishable to VGMaps, but if they're just for your personal collection, then there you go.
I've had a linked-screenshot diagram, like the Deja Vu one featured in the magazine, sitting around for years. I was using it to outline a Heretic adaptation. I could have sworn I got it from here, but now that I look at the NES index, I don't see it after all.
Anyway, this is it:
(Open in new tab for full-size.)
No credits on it though.
There's also the Spriter's Resource Shadowgate page, which has the individual screens assembled somewhat cohesively across 2 maps, plus additional graphical and animated variations on a 3rd map:
https://www.spriters-resource.com/nes/shadowgate/
Those ones are credited to "SmithyGCN."
I'm not sure if any of these are publishable to VGMaps, but if they're just for your personal collection, then there you go.
98
Gaming / Re: Your favorite anime games for PC
« Last post by Montey on February 17, 2020, 08:12:20 AM »It's gotta be FFVII or FFXIV for me.
99
Map Requests / Re: Metroidvania games
« Last post by JonLeung on February 13, 2020, 08:15:37 AM »Last night we got maps for Blasphemous (PC) which wasn't mentioned earlier. It's also on the current consoles: the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One, so I made links for the latter two on the directory page since we didn't have them yet. Thanks, Eishiya!
100
Maps Of The Month / Re: 2020/02: Sonic Advance (GBA) - TerraEsperZ
« Last post by eishiya on February 12, 2020, 10:08:20 PM »Thanks for sharing a bit about the process! I don't think I'd even tackle a map like this precisely because of the difficulty of capturing everything in its proper state, it's awesome that you found a way to make it doable, even if it's still not easy.
One is definitely better than nothing!
One is definitely better than nothing!