Topic: VGMaps.com Atlas Project: Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (PSX)

[Revned]

That extra row doesn't show up with the more accurate software plugin.

[Edsword]

Rev - you scared me man when I thought the library was messed up.  But I knew it just couldn't be because I had lined up the rooms based on how they ACTAULLY connect (whether it fit to a grid or not).  I think you guys have also figured out by now where I filled in a lot of space in the middle.  



It's weird tho that the save room and the bottom of the shaft aren't tall enough - still - it just goes to show you to be careful. Obviously you couldn't just line up the bottoms or the platforms wouldn't have matched.



I'm leery of mapping too many individual rooms and plopping them on the map.  The much bigger obstacle than backgrounds or mismatched candles is how it will all fit together.  I wonder if there's rooms like boss arenas that aren't really going to adhere to the grid?  wileee - we should check the alchemy lab in particular . . .wasn't that all messed up at the time?



As nice as finished rooms look, I would almost propose roughing things out more.  It's a heck of a lot quicker to assemble a few rooms with all the sprites and ugliness then it is to polish it up.  (We're talking minutes vs hours from my experience).  Then we'd be able to look at possible size variations and connectivity a lot earlier before we spend time polishing.  I would also suggest working on adjacent rooms and connecting them rather than jumping around all over the place.  (I'm just brainstorming here . . .not trying to run things)  Oh last suggestion which is probably obvious to everyone but I'll just say it .. let's concentrate on the first castle first.  Hopefully that will make the 2nd go very quickly (I'm picturing just being able to take screenshots and overlay them on the inverted original, with a lot less thought/concern about room alignment etc.)



One thing I do know . .. I'm getting excited about this again . . the truth is I never really wanted to do it by myself and get all the honor and glory . . I really just want to see the map.

[Edsword]

Guys I also just found this which might explain some things



http://www.edsword.com/SOTN/left library example.png



It looks like I actually cut off quite a bit from the top left, and you can see where I took the screen that sort of decided how tall I made the one section.  You can also see that there were some gaps at the bottom corners of this section.  

[Revned]

Actually, things are fitting into the grid quite nicely. I have a full size template of the entire castle and I just paste each new room in. So far, I haven't had any major problems. Wileee's Alchemy Lab even fit in correctly. The only obstacle after pasting in all the rooms will be the gaps between them. We'll have to decide whether or not to fill them in, but that can wait until everything else is done.

[TerraEsperZ]

Zeric just sent me links to two rooms he's done to help. We're picking up speed













---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[JonLeung]

Sweet!  How is that Zeric doing?  That bum ought to be here more often.  (I only call him a bum because he's not here.)  



At this rate, it may not take a year, even for both castles!

[TerraEsperZ]

He says he's quite busy, but he'll map some bits here and there when he's got time to spare. I of course invited him to comein for a visit.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[Revned]

I feel like mapping this game is more rewarding than my other projects, so I've been spending more time here. The maps just look so great. Tell Zeric thanks!

[JonLeung]

Now one of these days maybe I'll find time to do some mapping so I won't seem like such a nosy bum in here.

[Revned]

Ugh, the room I'm working on now (the tall room at k23) is really annoying me. The background has many common colors with the foreground, and the wall tiles have uneven edges. This is making for a lot of work to get rid of them

[Revned]

Hmm, I just found something very curious. I was messing around with a new Mac program called Crossover Office that lets you run Windows applications on Mac OS X, very much like Wine in Linux. I was trying out ePSXe, and there were a few graphical glitches, but it seemed to work fine. There was a bit of graphical "tearing", and the status bar sometimes disappeared. This actually helped me a couple of times. The problem, though, is that the screenshots have slightly different palettes. But nonetheless, I have been using it occasionally to get things I missed so I don't have to reboot to Windows.



So, I was doing this yesterday and realized that it was showing a full 240 pixels of graphics vertically. The black bars I had to deal with in Windows weren't there. See the following comparison:





Isn't that odd? I couldn't reproduce it in Windows even after messing with all sorts of settings. I used the same plugin and everything. This might help us, but it won't be as easy as pasting in the extra pixels since the palettes are different.

[TerraEsperZ]

Well, I spent entirely too much time on an area that is not even part of the main map, but still, the intro stage (Final Stage: Bloodlines) is finally finished.







Please note that Dracula's throne room and the banquet hall just before are essentially the same as those in the present Castle. The only difference is that it's not centered the same way vertically; there are a few pixels less at the bottom and a few pixels more at the top. I was just too tired from simply removing that godamn Clock Tower from the stairs part (that took several hours) to go back and remap just for that. Maybe later.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[mephea]

wow guys..you're all doing great... can you tell me if i have to download the iso of the game or something then burn it to a cd?  i cant find my original copy! =(



i don't know if i have the proper skills to map this game but ill give it a try..

[TerraEsperZ]

You can do either, though running from the ISO is, in my opinion, faster and lass of a hassle. I suggest that you look on eMule for it, as it's almost always available. Once you have it, we'll set you up with ePSXe



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[Edsword]

The extra pixels on Revned's pic have me quite spooked . . . maybe we need to go check what it looks like in the actual game?