Topic: Donkey Kong Country: Jungle Hijinxs

[Raccoon Sam]

I know it's very awkward me coming here and as my first post coming right here and demanding a Map, so I apologize for that in advance.

The map I'm in need of is the first level of Donkey Kong Country, under the name "Jungle Hijinxs". Below are some notes I gathered.



-The Foreground (And just about the only thing I really need to be ripped) is in Layer 0.

-The Background palmtrees are in Layer 1. I don't really need these at all, and it'd be frustrating and time-consuming to rip it aswell.

-The HDMA Mask is in Layer 2. It's useless and varies on your X and Y position, and ripping them would take much time and you can turn off HDMA Emulation anyhow (If you're on SNES9X, it's the key 0)

-There is nothing on Layer 3.

-Sprites are on Layer 4. I don't require these either.



I'd really appreciate any effort put in this, seriously. I'm not doing this because I just enjoy looking at the maps, but it's because I'm working on a ROM Hack of Donkey Kong Country, and modifying levels without a proper reference is utter, utter pain.

If it helps, Donkey Kong Country games rely heavily on a 32 x 32 Tile Grid, instead of the usual 16 x 16 Grid which is used in most SNES games.



Thanks you so much for anyone who is putting any effort or even consideration to this.

Thank you.

[The Ultimate Koopa]

Wow... finally someone else who wants a DKC map....... yay! I did request maps for DKC... but they weren't fulfilled, probably because I was the only one who wanted it... so... please.... can some one do the map Raccoon Sam requested... and hey.... if you have time.... possibly do some other levels? If not then... Jungle Hijinx'll be fine...

[Fearnavigatr]

I went into Jungle Hijinx to check out what it's like. The background, even with all layers removed, is multicolored and doesn't follow vertical scrolls. >_>



I'd love to try out a DKC-series map some day, but right now I'm too fed up with this movie project to even have time to just compile the foreground as requested.

[Raccoon Sam]

Fearnavigatr Said:

I went into Jungle Hijinx to check out what it's like. The background, even with all layers removed, is multicolored and doesn't follow vertical scrolls. >_>



I'd love to try out a DKC-series map some day, but right now I'm too fed up with this movie project to even have time to just compile the foreground as requested.

It's called an HDMA. I can provide you a method to manipulate the ROM image to kill the HDMA routine so the background becomes completely white, if you're interested.

[Captain Drake]

This proves Rare was waaaaaay ahead of their time when they made the DKC games. They're incredibly difficult to map. Why do you think VGMaps only has very small maps (Mostly boss rooms and submaps)?

[Raccoon Sam]

Well, actually I'm sure someone could quickly write a C program as a DKC map viewer. Allow me to elaborate!

A ROM image is made from tiny little things called Bytes. An example of  a byte would be 00, or EA. Maybe 32 or 55. It can be anything from the range of 00 to FF (I assume you know how to count in hexadecimal)



Donkey Kong Country level format is made out from bytes, too. There are byte arrays in the ROM that create the level itself. To save valuable ROM space, the developers at Rare thought it'd be easy to create a level format that's made from Columns. One column is 16 Tiles. One Tile is 32 x 32 pixels.

One Tile is stored in to bytes in the ROM array. For example, 5C 00. That means that the current tile is tile #5C, and its setting is 00. Setting 00 means pass-through, and if you set it to, say, C0, it means that you've created a tile that used to be a walk-through tile, but is now a standable block!

One Column contains 16 Tiles, as I mentioned above. That would make 32 bytes, if each tile has 2 bytes (16 times 2 is 32, duh).

What someone would start developing would be an utility the Goes to an offset, and Reads ONE COLUMN, for example:

81 40 67 00 78 00 80 00 68 00 49 00 EA 00 EB 00 EC 00 ED 00 EE 00 EF 00 F0 00 F1 00 F2 00 00 00

The Application would delete every second byte, since we don't need to know which tile is pass-throughable and which is solid, leaving us with:

81 67 78 80 68 49 EA EB EC ED EE EF F0 F1 F2 00

That is 16 bytes. One column! So far we would have the very beginning of Jungle Hijinx.

The application would continue reading data from ROM, and slowly constructing a series of Columns, and eventually, a level!



In a nutshell:

-Read array from ROM

-Kill every second byte

-Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have each array

-Convert Bytes to tiles



What bytes are what tiles is another story, though

[Fearnavigatr]

Raccoon Sam Said:

Fearnavigatr Said:

I went into Jungle Hijinx to check out what it's like. The background, even with all layers removed, is multicolored and doesn't follow vertical scrolls. >_>



I'd love to try out a DKC-series map some day, but right now I'm too fed up with this movie project to even have time to just compile the foreground as requested.

It's called an HDMA. I can provide you a method to manipulate the ROM image to kill the HDMA routine so the background becomes completely white, if you're interested.

Can this be used to make backgrounds of all levels completely white, even from an otherwise completely black background?

[Revned]

I tried it once, and trust me, it's nigh impossible to do without ROM hacking of some sort. Many of the distant backgrounds share colors, and they aren't separable. The SNES has 5 layers, but DKC uses at least 7 or 8. If anyone is motivated enough to try Raccoon Sam's approach, then good luck to them. Otherwise, don't hold your breath for a complete map of even the first level.

[Raccoon Sam]

The HDMA is a Gradient made up of 160 lines of different colors. I can chance the colors of the gradient to any color at all.



And SNES has 5 Layers, and Donkey Kong Country uses only 4 of them, as I mentioned above;

-Foreground

-Background

-HDMA Mask

-Sprites



Once you disable the HDMA Mask (Layer 2) and the Background (Layer 1), and apply the modification I mentioned, you will have a Jungle Hijinxs that will look exactly like this:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/Raccoon_Sam/Layer1_and_2_Disabled.png



And if you'll disable only the Layer 2, you will have this:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/Raccoon_Sam/Layer2_Disabled.png



I assume that makes things a lot easier.

[Revned]

Well, yes, it only uses 4 of the usual layers, but if you look at the trees in the background, there are several more layers done through software. While disabling them altogether will certainly make it easier to map, you also can't capture the entire level. You seem to have a specific focus here, so why don't you just map it yourself? Most mappers, me included, wouldn't map something without being able to use all the graphics.

[Fearnavigatr]

I'll say this guy just paved the way for full maps of all three DKCs.



I am very interested. Of course, there's the things I'm busy with right now (not to mention the DKL2 project).



But help me change that color thingy and I'll make time to rip the foreground as asked.

[Raccoon Sam]

I would love to take a try on mapping also, but the current release of SNES9X for Mac OS X is incapable of producing lossless PNG screenshots.



Every time I take a snapshot, the image will become blurry, which will make mapping impossible for me.



I've noted the SNES9X Development team about this issue, and they said that version 1.52 will have this fixed.

[Fearnavigatr]

Yes, some freeware I found with Google, I hope it suffices.

[Raccoon Sam]

Well, erh. It's kind of difficult to explain since there's a few questions before the editing itself, too..



Do you have an instant-messaging application? It would be quicker and easier for me to explain the thing to you..

[Fearnavigatr]

I just added you on AIM.