Samus - Bounty on Rhizon *beta testing asm changes*

[Crashtour99]

So here it is, a little bit of preview stuffs on the project I'm working on.
*images are a bit large so they're hidden in spoiler tags to conserve space*
[spoiler][/spoiler]

So far all I've been working on are graphical changes.  The video shows the changes I made to Ridley and my new door caps.

Samus Bounty on Rhizon boss and door demo
*edit: updated video so you can get a longer view*

I wouldn't mind some feedback as to what you think of the alterations I made to Ridley (who is now a renegade space pirate with a non-Chozo powersuit and has yet to be named).

Also, while I was changing door caps I found this interesting alteration to the background in Brinstar.  Not sure if I'll keep it like that or not once I start level editing...
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Now if only I could figure out how to get rid of those metroid sounds (since they won't even be in this game).

*edit #2*
Story/plot is as follows...  *may get edited down so as to fit in the intro text*
[spoiler]After defeating Mother Brain and destroying all the metroids on SR388 I returned to Ceres to drop off the last infant metroid.  While there I received a transmission from the nearby Ceres 2 research facility orbiting the dying planet Rhizon.  Apparently they discovered ancient ruins with technology on par with that of the Chozo.  Among the artifacts they recovered was a powered exosuit.  This concerns me greatly because I have also heard through the Hunter channels that the renegade space pirate "insert name here" has been spotted in the area and has been gathering what remains of the pirate forces.  The recent discoveries on Rhizon will undoubtedly draw his attention and he will attempt to steal this ancient technology.  I will temporarily be providing my services as a guard at Ceres 2.  I hope I get there in time.  There is no telling when his forces may strike...[/spoiler]

*edit as of 10-01-2009*  Now have all enemy and misc. graphics changed that I'm going to change (with the exception of text).  Some are the same, some are vastly different.  I'm sure you'll notice the different ones when you see them.  Now I'm moving on to scenery and level gfx.  Probably some level design as well.  Should have some interesting things to show off after a little while.

[paradigm0910]

Something about that Ridley modification really bothers me... and I mean that in a good way. Seems like you put a lot of thought and work into it. It's a shame Ridley can't turn around in that fight; I wanted to see if the way it would look facing the other way. As awesome as it is, I can only see a few things that I might change.

The background hand/weapon - Maybe it's just me, but the former tail seems pretty much like the primary weapon. I like that it has a chain look to it, but going off the sprite, it looks like it's kind of attached somewhere around the base of the spine. A weapon like that, I think that area of the body would be ideal to latch the chain onto. I guess the part I would want to change is the part of the weapon in the background, I think it might look better without that there. For the second fight, when the sprite turns around, it would make it appear that it is merely switching the hand that's using the weapon. The way it stands now... it has two weapons, but only uses one at a time. It's your boss though, I have no way of knowing exactly what you want it to be.

Color scheme - That brings me to the colors. It's probably exceedingly difficult to rewrite Ridley's behavior, it is probably much easier to change his colors. Basically, I feel that the colors in the video are a little to similar to Ridley's. As petty as it is, things such as color can give something a completely different mood to it. My understanding of sprites is fairly limited, but wouldn't you have to redo colors for each level of damage he's taken for each attack animation. Yeah, that still sounds like a ton of work. I'm not saying it doesn't look great with with current color scheme, but it just reminds me of Ridley, even as I look at the paused video.

Onto my favorite parts. That cannon on top, amazing. It just seems so unnatural, but it works. The best detail on that (in my opinion)  is what looks like slits on its side, they glow bright orange after the cannon is fired. That leaves me thoroughly impressed. Like I said above, you put A LOT of thought into this. When I first watched it, I look at the cannon as the head, another watch through and I saw what it was, a weapon; the way it fires, it doesn't act like it's alive, and that's what got part of the Ridley idea out of my head. The detailing is also great, especially around the ribs, shoulder and head.

My last complaint: I wish you didn't just pound the tar out of it. I wanted to see it moving around more and attacking (especially shooting), hard to get a feel for it when it's flashing like that.

I honestly cannot wait to see some more of your work. If those changes to Ridley are any indication, you have amazing attention to detail and that's so important. If you'd like to talk about this, just send me a personal message.

[Crashtour99]

Something about that Ridley modification really bothers me... and I mean that in a good way. Seems like you put a lot of thought and work into it. It's a shame Ridley can't turn around in that fight; I wanted to see if the way it would look facing the other way. As awesome as it is, I can only see a few things that I might change.

The background hand/weapon - Maybe it's just me, but the former tail seems pretty much like the primary weapon. I like that it has a chain look to it, but going off the sprite, it looks like it's kind of attached somewhere around the base of the spine. A weapon like that, I think that area of the body would be ideal to latch the chain onto. I guess the part I would want to change is the part of the weapon in the background, I think it might look better without that there. For the second fight, when the sprite turns around, it would make it appear that it is merely switching the hand that's using the weapon. The way it stands now... it has two weapons, but only uses one at a time. It's your boss though, I have no way of knowing exactly what you want it to be.

Well, he actually has 2 main weapons.  The shoulder/back mounted "thrust cannon", and the "energy chain" with spear tip like ends attached to each wrist.  I may have to do a little bit of reworking to make his left arm a bit more noticable, since it goes almost straight back from his shoulder and comes straight down (his left hand is drawn into the end of the leg sprite tiles).  So basically when he turns around he switches hands and the cannon switches shoulders.  I still have to rework the turning animation sprite, but luckily it's a single piece and won't be nearly as difficult as the main action sprites.  I'd say it took me a good 10 hours of playing around with it in TLP and the emulator figuring out what each tile did, especially since there are several that are reused in various parts of him.

Color scheme - That brings me to the colors. It's probably exceedingly difficult to rewrite Ridley's behavior, it is probably much easier to change his colors. Basically, I feel that the colors in the video are a little to similar to Ridley's. As petty as it is, things such as color can give something a completely different mood to it. My understanding of sprites is fairly limited, but wouldn't you have to redo colors for each level of damage he's taken for each attack animation. Yeah, that still sounds like a ton of work. I'm not saying it doesn't look great with with current color scheme, but it just reminds me of Ridley, even as I look at the paused video.

I actually hadn't thought about changing his color scheme, but now that you mention it, that probably wouldn't be a bad idea.  I'll have to play around with it a bit in SABS and see what I can come up with.

My last complaint: I wish you didn't just pound the tar out of it. I wanted to see it moving around more and attacking (especially shooting), hard to get a feel for it when it's flashing like that.
I honestly cannot wait to see some more of your work. If those changes to Ridley are any indication, you have amazing attention to detail and that's so important. If you'd like to talk about this, just send me a personal message.

Thanks muchly for the kinds words (and criticisms as well).  It's always nice to see someone else notice the little details that you put into something like this.   :grin:  And I'll take another video and try to evade him for a bit so folks can get a better feel for the new sprite.

[Jathys]

Have to admit I like the Ridley redraw.  Seems appropriate to have a somewhat smaller villain with plenty of fire power, rather than a large dragon (I still can't figure out how Ridley could handle the controls of his ship).  Only things I would change:
1) I think the palette is fine, but it might be worth it to play around and see if anything seems more appropriate.  Possibly closer to flesh tone for the creature and (if color space allows) something different for the gun.
2) The tip of the tail looks good, but the links in the tail seem strange somehow.  I'm guessing it's due to them being small.  Maybe because they look like rinka?
3) The shots actually come out slightly higher than the gun's barrel (which I'm sure you noticed).  If you don't adjust this graphically, the shot's should be able to easily be lowered a tad via asm.  If you get far enough along where it becomes crucial to fix it, stop by #jzd sometime and I'm sure an asm'er would be willing to do 5 minutes of research for you (wouldn't normally say this, although it really should be a quick find).

[Crashtour99]

1) I think the palette is fine, but it might be worth it to play around and see if anything seems more appropriate.  Possibly closer to flesh tone for the creature and (if color space allows) something different for the gun.

For the life of me I can't seem to get any palatte changes to stick to Ceres Ridley.  In either the enemy editor or SABS, no matter what I do I can't seem to change his colors.  Haven't tried with Norfair Ridley though, and I noticed you can change the death animation stuffs so I thought about trying giving Norfair Ridley the Ceres Ridley's death animation and see if that could work for later parts in the game.  (the plan is that you'll fight him more than once)

2) The tip of the tail looks good, but the links in the tail seem strange somehow.  I'm guessing it's due to them being small.  Maybe because they look like rinka?

Yeh, I agree.  Thought about doing some more tinkering with that as well.  Perhaps a bit rounder and kinda spikey.

3) The shots actually come out slightly higher than the gun's barrel (which I'm sure you noticed).  If you don't adjust this graphically, the shot's should be able to easily be lowered a tad via asm.  If you get far enough along where it becomes crucial to fix it, stop by #jzd sometime and I'm sure an asm'er would be willing to do 5 minutes of research for you (wouldn't normally say this, although it really should be a quick find).

That would be incredibly awesome!   :grin:  I've pretty much squeezed as much as I could out of the sprite tiles, and getting it to look right by changing the graphics would require a complete redesign of the cannon.  Honestly I don't have the will to try and figure that out again.  Hahahahaha  I'll have to swing by some time and see what solutions can be hammered out.

There's actually 3 things that I may need some coding help on, as I'm a total n00b when it comes to ASM.  One should be really easy, one may be a bit more difficult, and the 3rd I have no clue how hard it would be.  LOL

#1 [spoiler]Editing text boxes for items, cause they're all gonna get new names.  That and see if someone has a code for integrating spring ball with the high-jump boots.  There really won't be any morph ball tech, hence why you start out with it (which I actually snagged that little bit of code when Kejardon posted it on the SMILE thread at M2K2, but I didn't really think he'd mind since it was a post on a public forum).[/spoiler]
#2 [spoiler]Removing the baby metroid "scree" sound effect from the title music and Ridley fight.  Perhaps just overwrite the sound bit with silence?[/spoiler]
and #3 [spoiler]I'd like to have it so that missiles, super missiles, and powerbombs do damage to Samus.  The idea behind this is that it's not Chozo tech. so it doesn't interface correctly and takes a lot more energy to fire off those things.  The energy for that would of course come from the power suit.   :^_^:  This would be an interesting way to close off certain areas early in the game as you may have the firepower to get there, but not the energy reserves.  It would also make boss battles much more challenging.  I also thought about having only certain enemies drop refills for that stuff, so you'd have to be much more strategic with the usage of said firepower.[/spoiler]

And those are the 3 main things I'd like to get ironed out before I actually start doing levels.  And believe me, any assistance with these 3 things would be greatly appreciated (and no worries, I always give credit where it is due).
Come to think of it, I should probably edit my first post and write down the story line/plot for this thing before I get too far ahead of myself.  I also hope I'm not getting ahead of myself seeking coding assistance.  It just seems more important than level design right now.

[interdpth]

Holy shit, you got some mad graphical hacking skills!

[Crashtour99]

Made another video of some of the various other edits to enemies, weapons, suits etc...

Samus - Bounty on Rhizon : Demo 2

[RealRed]

Posting for the win. Because this hack looks like it has a high chance of being epic.  :icon_cool:

[Bioniclegenius]

So far, all I see is enemy and PLM graphical changes. You also removed completely the Ridley tiles where he flies out, and you haven't gotten yet to the Norfair sidehoppers. I'd like to see some actual level design, hopefully with some graphical changes, before I'd consider playing this hack. But your graphical work... I have to say I'm stunned at how well you deal with it. So, in summary, enemy graphics good, level design terrible.

[Crashtour99]

Considering I've barely tinkered with level design at all...    :icon_razz:   LOL
But I will get to it eventually.  I'm just doing enemies and such first.

I'll post a general layout map of the new areas pretty soon.  Each one will be getting a mostly new graphics set (there may be some scenery graphics that I'll keep).

The areas I'm thinking will be:
Rhizon surface = Crateria
old city = Wrecked Ship
aqueducts = Maridia
catacombs = Norfair
shadow caverns = Brinstar
reactor core = Tourin

[Crashtour99]

It's rather funny that as I sit here and type this, I see "Metroid Construction - What have you cooked up for YOUR Metroid hack today?" right above...    :lol:

Anywho, I was reading what Flamestar said in the SMILE thread, and was reading through Grime's hex notes, and came up with a rather interesting idea, but the difficulty or feasibility I don't know about.  Basically swapping some abilities back and forth between Gravity and Varia suits, and adding a few new abilities found in the hex notes.

The new suits would be thus:

[spoiler]Hover suit: 1st suit upgrade you would get.  Protection % value of varia, free movement in water/liquids of gravity, no protection from heat or lava, as well as some of the jump/fall hex change abilities in the hex notes.  (with this name I think you could probably find the ones I would want to use, though if someone is really curious I could list them here)

Hazard suit: 2nd suit upgrade.  Protection % value of gravity, protects from heat and lava.

Suits would be made so you couldn't turn them off.  Also, I was thinking of combining space jump with the screw attack as a near end game item (perhaps also adding a hex change ability listed in the notes) so you'd have to learn how to use the hover suit effectively to get to certain areas.[/spoiler]

Any ideas on how difficult this would be?  And more importantly whether it would take just hex changes or ASM as well?

[Scyzer]

Hex changes and ASM are basically the same thing. Super Metroid is coded entirely in ASM, and changing bytes in the rom changes the ASM for the rom. It's not so much as just changing random bytes and hoping for the best, as dissasembling the part you want (meaning to turn the hex bytes into code so you can understand what they do), then changing the ones that you want. people usually write new ASM for the game and use a compiler (like Xkas) when they want to put something completely new into the game, or if the change is significantly large.

For those suits, I'd expect it's just a few JSR/JSL changes, and some NOPs. (JSR/JSL's link to other code, NOPs make the game do nothing for that byte)

[Crashtour99]

That is...   really good to know.  Thanks Sadiztyk.  I remember reading somewhere about the hex/ASM relationship, and also how when you view the ROM in a tile viewer the "garbage tiles" are actually hex/ASM code as well (just different methods of viewing the same information).

I have a feeling the toughest part of making this is going to be finding someone to do the ASM coding for me, because sadly, I know absolutely nothing about programming.  I've read enough FAQ's and tutorials to do the hex changes and such in SMILE and a hex editor that I'd need for doing rooms and such, but changing the coding for actual game play characteristics is simply beyond me.  I could try and learn, but I have a feeling that would take far longer than acceptable.  LOL  (I am starting to pick up a bit here and there though, so I guess you never know)

[Crashtour99]

I thought I was done with enemy editing, but apparently not just yet.   So many ideas to put in.  LOL

Anywho, here's the latest that I've been spending time on.

S BOR Dance with the dead

Next up, Torizos get a makeover.  XD

[GF_Kennon]

Oh my god what an epic reincarnation of your Silver Stitched Skull, you done some pretty sweet enemy GFX edits and I cant wait to see the Torizo edit

[Zhs2]

:cheers:
I personally thought it would have made Zoomers more epic to look at, but that works too! I love it!

Only sad thing is that it'd probably take a bit of work and advanced knowledge to be able to place two creepy red eyes in that thing. :cry:

[begrimed]

Holy fucking shit. That Phantoon skull boss is one of the coolest things I've seen in pretty much ever. It begs for nightmarish environment.

[Zhs2]

Hey, it was my idea! >:U

[Lunaria]

It might be hard to see when you can or when you can't hit him.

[Crashtour99]

It begs for nightmarish environment.

The plan is to have it in the very first section of the Catacombs area.  If all goes well with making a new tileset, it should be like Samus walking into an alien version of the nightmarish parts of  Silent Hill or something.  :twisted:

[Crashtour99]

S-BOR: MOAR graphics XD

What's that? Samus didn't have enough fun fighting the big ghostly skull? Well how about an alien zombie then... lol (Torizo has a new face)

Oh yeah, and Botwoon gets a new fin to make him a bit more eel-like.

I'll probably be messing with their palettes later. :P

[Parabox]

the newer, more eelis look of Botwoon I love. The new Golden Torizo look seems incomplete as of now, I really hope it gets to look way more like it's face. By style, I mean. Sprite on, dude, sprite on.

[personitis]

Sprite on, dude, sprite on.

QFT. This is looking to be a really good upcomming hack. :D Btw, what's the music? I love it!

[Xaggoth]

I like the changes to botwoon and GT, I hope you do a little more with them.  It would be sweet to see a change to botwoons face, something less crocodile shaped perhaps?

[Crashtour99]

Btw, what's the music? I love it!

The music was from the soundtrack to the anime Moribito.

And now for a few more modifications to Torizo.  Still not sure if it's completely done yet but I may tinker around with it a little more.  Also, in the first part of the video I came across an interesting "sitting glitch" with it's AI.  LOL  No idea how common that may be, but it was the first time I've ever come across it.

playing with torizo

And also, just for fun I put him in place of bomb Torizo.  LOL  You can still damage him with missiles, but holy crap it takes forever to kill him.  I may just have to use several of these as guardians in the "Beam Shrine".  (if I do I'll make sure you at least get charge beam before having to face one of them   :razz:)

10 minutes of torizo

Oh yeah, and if anyone has some tips for altering his colors that would be very helpful.  For some reason even when I edited his palette in "I'm A Genius" it still doesn't seem to work.   :O_o:  
Edit:  Nevermind on this last part, I'm a dumbass.  Hahahahaha