Author Topic: RE: Super Castlevania IV (Read 104167 times)

alucard · « **on:** December 25, 2008, 06:24:43 pm »

How about all the maps from Super Castlevania IV? That would be awesome

TerraEsperZ · « **Reply #1 on:** December 25, 2008, 07:58:37 pm »

I mapped Stage 0 and 1 a few years back (see this thread) just to see how hard it would be and I quickly gave up any hope of going further. I really hate SNES mapping because when you disable a graphic layer like the background, it is usually replaced by the color black which is this game, is shared with other layers. So it becomes incredibly difficult to separate the foreground from the rest to make a good-looking map.

Maybe if one of the usual SNES emulator gave you the option to choose the color that will replace the background when removed, it would be doable. Otherwise, you're stuck using approximation when removing pixels, or resorting to third-party programs to explore the video memory contained in emulator savestates.

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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

Tropicon · « **Reply #2 on:** December 25, 2008, 08:30:18 pm »

I'll give it a shot. SNES is supposed to be my thing after all.

JonLeung · « **Reply #3 on:** December 25, 2008, 08:56:20 pm »

Good luck!

As you can see in the Super NES Game Atlas topic, other than Disney games and the incomplete Yoshi's Island, the biggest lack is Super Castlevania IV. If you manage to map it, I would love to have them here on VGMaps.com!

TerraEsperZ · « **Reply #4 on:** December 25, 2008, 08:58:11 pm »

I honestly wish you good luck! Hopefully you can achieve more than I did and most importantly, have fun doing it

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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

Will · « **Reply #5 on:** December 26, 2008, 01:38:41 am »

I see you enjoy SNES more than anything else. In fact the Super Nintendo section has the biggest number of maps than any other system. Break a leg Tropicon.

Tropicon · « **Reply #6 on:** December 26, 2008, 10:53:49 am »

Well that wasn't to hard. In situations like these you just have to let the black go and repaint it where ever it belongs. I do the rest of the level before I post and move on.

http://www.vgmapper.com/SysSNES/C/Castlevania4Example.png

TerraEsperZ · « **Reply #7 on:** December 26, 2008, 12:19:51 pm »

That's my problem; I hate not knowing exactly where black belongs and where it doesn't. Sometimes it's easy to tell, and sometimes it isn't, and my perfectionist streak tortures me when I have to "fudge it".

But anyway, you did this quickly! Will you bother completing the missing bottom line of the maps? I'm asking because apparently the real SNES doesn't render one line out of every screen (usually the bottom one I've been told by the ZSNES coders). But even if you don't, I hope you manage to fully map this. This game has always been one of the most interesting Castlevania visually, even if sometimes it feels like it was done just to sell people on the idea of buying a SNES (lots of transparencies, a rotating room and corridor, etc) which was brand new at the time.

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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

Will · « **Reply #8 on:** December 26, 2008, 01:24:21 pm »

Nobody ever told me one horizantal axis line of every screenshot goes missing in Zsnes. I hope I haven't come a problem like this. As for the black problem, I coped with it best in Mario & Wario. Perhaps Terra you can refrain the problem of where original black bits belong by taking a screenshot with the background and another without (unless you've already tried that).

JonLeung · « **Reply #9 on:** December 26, 2008, 03:56:23 pm »

The resolution of the Super NES is 256 x 224. That equates to exactly 16 x 14 tiles (of 16 x 16 pixels each). It's the same as the NES.

(When the title of a game isn't too long, 256 x 224 is also the resolution of the Maps Of The Month front page image.)

Some versions of ZSNES seemed to omit a line, whether deliberate or not. Maybe there's a setting that can be toggled for that; I can't remember the last time I looked.

alucard · « **Reply #10 on:** December 26, 2008, 04:26:45 pm »

Tropicon Said:

Well that wasn't to hard. In situations like these you just have to let the black go and repaint it where ever it belongs. I'll do the rest of the level before I post and move on.

http://www.vgmapper.com/SysSNES/C/Castlevania4Example.png

that's awesome, thanks. Will you be doing every single stage? I wish I knew how to do these, but it looks like Super Castlevania IV would not be a good game for beginners to map

Tropicon · « **Reply #11 on:** December 26, 2008, 06:29:27 pm »

I redid the first few rooms so the pallets would match. All of stage 1 will be completed and posted later tonight. What a pain in the ass. I had on idea the Konami guys were trying to be so cute with their muitl layered backgrounds. Had to use quite a few of my fancier tricks.

OK Terra, to find out where the black belongs try one of these two tricks. Flip the background on and off quickly and the flashing pixels will reveal the right locations. Find an area with a bright background, or a flash, and use a code to lock it in place then go back to the area you want to map. You must be younger then me because I remember agonizing over this years ago. A little more EXP and it won't be an issue.

As for the bottom line, yeah I got it. But I may throw it out, I think it's just a black line. I have noticed some blocks and pillars are shored up with a black line below or to their right. I'll do another scan to find out if it's totally useless

I'll do as many stages as I can but I have other things to do. And no this is not for beginners. It's got a whole deck of cards up it's sleeves. I sprited this game long ago and it was murder then. If you want to make a formal requests then go to my site and use the request system: www.vgmapper.com Then I have to do them.

Tropicon · « **Reply #12 on:** December 26, 2008, 07:38:30 pm »

Ok #1 is up:

http://www.vgmapper.com/SysSNES/C/Castlevania4.html

TerraEsperZ · « **Reply #13 on:** December 26, 2008, 09:41:19 pm »

Will, after taking a good look through old posts on the subject on the ZSNES message board, I'm not so sure anymore. I'm fairly certain from what I've read that the real SNES (and the more accurate emulators) does not render one scanline out of all 224, probably the bottom one. ZSNES presently doesn't render it and makes it all black (something the coders are aware of and are trying to fix) but even if it was displayed, it would most likely be garbage, have wrong colors, etc.

The important thing is that if you want complete tiles on your map, you have to remember that missing line at the bottom and thus must use other utilities like VSNES or BGMapper to capture the entire graphic memory from a savestate. I've had to do this for one of the game I'm working on (Clock Tower) which had the bottom line from every room missing. It was painstakingly long and boring to do, so only bother if complete accuracy is important to you.

Tropicon, I don't know if I'm younger than you or not (probably not, I'm slowly becoming an old geezer!) but the rapid switch method doesn't always work well for me. Especially with games with suck dark colors in the backgrounds like SCIV. Using codes to lock a layer in place is an intriguing idea, though I have no idea how to accomplish that, especially if it requires playing around with the game's memory. Please educate me

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Current projects: Bucky O'Hare (NES), Metal Storm (NES), Clock Tower (SNES), Ristar-The Shooting Star (Gen), Sonic The Hedgehog (Gen), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

Tropicon · « **Reply #14 on:** December 27, 2008, 10:21:05 am »

Here's the a chunk of the map you did and a similar chunk from the one I did. I removed 1 bottom line because it was all black so since you're missing two your machine is cutting off the two final lines. The blocks are an example how the full tiles should look and how they get cut off.

http://www.vgmapper.com/SysSNES/C/Castlevania4Example2.png

BGMapper catches it but I don't have time to make so many conversions. In any case this changes things. I already have a giant project to work on; the nightmare on elm street map. I'll do more analysis to check if background has to be manipulated into the final two lines and to see if I can't find a light code.