Super Metroid: Volta

[FPzero]

1 1/2 years of work and this thing is still ages away from completion.








So yeah, I'm at like 25% still.  Needing graphic set for most of my areas.  If anyone's interested in helping me get graphics so I can continue past building 80% of Forensrem (the jungle), let me know.  Here's a list of tilesets I'm hoping for:

-Thermal mining zone for Norfair's replacement.
-Lake w/ beach, ruins, underwater elements
-Snowy mountaintop (this area is being done by someone already)
-Deep ocean set (reefs, sand, stuff like that)
-Damaged underwater submarine (think purple maridia but more submarine like)
-Some sort of underwater-but-not-deep-ocean area
-Additions to my jungle set (foliage and detail mostly)
-Maybe a revamp of my Sanctuary Fortress tileset (it's sort of lacking in detail)
-Something for Lower Norfair's replacement, probably including lots of lava and hot caverns.

[personitis]

It's still looking good FP, don't give up. I'm sure there are a few around here that will help (Sylux, Grime).

[Sylux]

That jungle tileset is really beautiful, especially the background! Who made it?

Anyway, I have a bit of free time now, so I can try to help. Are you still using the reef tileset I sent you? If not, I'll try and make a better one.

[FPzero]

derp



It's a bit hard to see, but I drew up some tiles so that the pipes actually transition into the dirt without leaving pixel-wide gaps of air.

[Lunaria]

It looks nice, but the way you designed it does not match the level design! :p
You would have to flip the pipe in the roof for it to look perfect there! :3

Btw, nice morphball tunnel design!

[FPzero]

What, like, vert-flip the pipe?  That's such a small thing to be picky about. :P

[Lunaria]

What, like, vert-flip the pipe?  That's such a small thing to be picky about. :P

BUT IT WOULD LOOK BETTER!!!!!! :O

I would totally do it if it was my hack!

[Bioniclegenius]

I couldn't even tell the difference at first... what kind of insane person are you, to notice details that are only off by a pixel or so?!?!?

Wow, in looking for a certain smiley in the 'more' section, I just noticed there are soo many new ones, mostly violent...
:cgun:
:rocket:
:palsma:
:railgun:
:lazer:
:bfg:
:csaw:
And then, off course, Sadiztic Fish's avatar:  :metroid:

Never mind. Back on topic now!

[Lunaria]

I couldn't even tell the difference at first... what kind of insane person are you, to notice details that are only off by a pixel or so?!?!?

Actually, it's 1x14 in size that looks off, IIRC.

[RealRed]

Calm down with the smileys, Bioniclegenius.

[Scyzer]

This is looking better all the time FP :grin:.
The forest background is pure win, and it makes the other backgrounds look shit, so you have to redraw them too. Especially the Crateria background.

Though, I bet this will be out before mine will. I have WAY too much stuff to do still.

[Zhs2]

What, like, vert-flip the pipe?  That's such a small thing to be picky about. :P

Picky or not, it's still a good suggestion, and I totally agree with it. The pipe doesn't look as good coming out of the ceiling as it does going into the ground... :nowai:

Wow, in looking for a certain smiley in the 'more' section, I just noticed there are soo many new ones, mostly violent...

Those aren't new. They were "new" to our smiley section back on the phpBB board (March, anyone?)

[FPzero]

This is looking better all the time FP :grin:.
The forest background is pure win, and it makes the other backgrounds look shit, so you have to redraw them too. Especially the Crateria background.

Though, I bet this will be out before mine will. I have WAY too much stuff to do still.

Is someone offering?  There's no way I could draw a background like that (the jungle's actually from...Inspector Gadget I think).  Furthermore, I'm like, out of room in the crateria set, though I guess if someone's making new BGs they're overwrite those tiles.  But man, I love Crateria too much... I'd want to keep the outside graphics but the inside ones could go.  GFX space would be an issue however.

[Hacker347]

This is looking alot better Fire Phoenix keep it up.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

Oh wow, only 25%? I thought for sure you'd had more done by now. Well, I guess that shows how outta the loop I am. <_> But regardless I still like what you have done, and what I saw when I tested it ages ago. I'm sorry I suck so much as sprites and stuff or I'd have been eager to help. Now if LadyIcy were around and you were working with 8-bit sprites, pfft, she coulda designed the whole damn thing. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. But I surely hope that Volta gets finished eventually, because I'm still looking forwards to playing it.

[FPzero]

I've actually got Obsy from M2K2 working with me on graphics so production may soon pick up once more.  As long as college and PangYa don't get in the way too much.

[Sperry]

Looking great! This must be one of the best-looking ones I've seen yet.

[Lunaria]

LOL BUMP ^^^^^



Anyhow, did it work out for you with a graphic designer FP? It would be nice if progress kicked off with this hack again!

[squishy_ichigo]

Oh, didn't you here? FP has some connection with some person working on a nsmbwii tool or something...  He's gonna do that for awhile, Voltas on hold.

Or so I've heard...

[Silver Skree]

Wait, Fifo's stopped doing Volta altogether?


...


*Siver_Skree tracks down FirePhoenix
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Lunaria]

Oh, didn't you here? FP has some connection with some person working on a nsmbwii tool or something...  He's gonna do that for awhile, Voltas on hold.

Or so I've heard...

Yeah, I know he have been beta testing Reggi! but still... :<

[FPzero]

So.  Well since I'm actually logged in for once I guess I'll fill you all in on what's happening with Volta these days.  The short answer is "not much".  Luckily I've got a longer one that can better explain the situation.

As you should know by now I'm a relatively lazy hacker who also is in college (though that part doesn't have any bearing on hack dev.).  I spend more time actually playing games than hacking because I'm still as a relative crossroads concerning graphics.  Of course if I weren't so lazy about it and didn't see the lack of graphics as an excuse to not have to work on the hack, I'm sure I'd be much further along in development.  But this isn't the case so Volta has been sitting stagnant for a few good months now.

However, things are possibly going to change soon.  A few weeks ago I was thinking seriously about the project and I came up with a plan of sorts as to how I'm going to get myself out of this non-hacking rut I'm in and actually make some progress.  I first decided to talk to GF_Kennon about graphics because I knew he had offered assistance, plus he was usually on when I'd make mini-rants on IRC about lack of graphics and whatnot.  So I'm going to work with him to get some graphics finally and update some of the old tilesets with more detail and just make them better-looking overall.  The second thing i decided that I'm going to do was transfer everything in the rom to a clean rom.  Everything.  THe main reason for doing this is that when I applied DSO's graphics relocation patch months ago, I had to haphazardly throw all of my moved level data to new banks since his patch overwrote the banks I was using.  Because of this I just threw data all over the place.  This has led to great annoyances in regards to roomspace.  I'm not running out of anything, it's just very inefficient.  And if I want to update old rooms with added graphical detail from what GF_Kennon and I work up, I'll need the freespace, something a lot of my moved data rooms are lacking.  So the plan is to move things to a new rom one room at a time and update the rooms graphically as I do so.  Once I'm satisfied with the room's added detail, I make note of where it ends in the rom and do the next room.  This way I'll be more organized and efficient in the movement of room data.

Of course this process is not going to be fun, as there's a couple asm hacks I'll need to add in again, along with a new one, all sorts of scrolls and PLMs to change, PLM values, tiletables, palettes, graphics, and more.  This will likely take a fair amount of time to do, in which I won't be making any new progress on the game (like there's been any recently) but this will hopefully lead to me being even more organized in how I tackle world-building and will also likely get me back in the hacking groove that I've fallen so far out of.  And seeing how M2K2 isn't really hacking focused anymore, I guess I'll be showing my face around here more often.  I've been out of the loop for too long, it's time for me to attempt to get my way back in because I know that for some reason you guys are still looking forward to Volta even after nearly a two and a half year development time.  Dunno what you guys see in my damn hack but if someone wants to still play it that's nearly enough motivation to get me to finish.  The other part of the motivation comes from me wanting to finish the damn thing.  I've invested way too much time over the years to give up on it now.  So one day, no matter how long it takes, Volta will see the light of day.

And I hope it will be great.

Jesus I sound like some sort of college graduation speaker.

[Parabox]

Sounds like a devoted dev to me. Hope it all works out for you, FP.

[Quietus]

Dunno what you guys see in my damn hack but if someone wants to still play it that's nearly enough motivation to get me to finish.

For me it's the vibrant colour scheme.  Everything looked fresh and bright.

Good luck with it.  I think we all get these down times in hacking.  Mine are frequent and short, so my progress is slow, but continuous. :^_^:

[MetroidMst]

I'm just glad to see you back! I've been hoping you would show up and it sounds like you'll be around here more. I'm also hoping we get some more awesome SM LPs from you too.