Animated Tiles (and creating Boss Statues)

[-DC-]

I'm creating this thread for people to get the info to create their own animated tiles and possibly their own boss statues in the statue room, and for people to post their own tile animation stuff they may come up with if they so feel like it.

Make sure you state the tileset your animations are meant for if you do, though advanced users can change the VRAM destination to work for any tileset if they want.


Anyway, first off, since I already had a class in IRC covering tile animations and explaining step by step how to create them, and don't feel like going over it all again, get the zip below for my mostly complete disassembly of bank 87 (Animation ASM text file of the tile animation bank, only a few unknown subroutines aren't labeled), as well as the log of me explaining how to create animations.

Note to those that already got the animtiles zip, I've added my Animation ASM disassembly inside there.

Also, I talked some about statue animations in my Animation ASM file. I haven't stated step by step how to create a statue just yet, but I'll get to it... I'm worn out from spending all this time on this thing, though, so for now, it's something for slightly more advanced users.

For now, here's a demonstration of making an animation and making a 5th boss statue. Read the description for info. Also hoping for comments at youtube, that's why I'd like you to watch there... C:

Code Select Expand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8pxXA3jFTk

[thelicker]

Very cool, man.
But I can't do it with a Hex Editor?

[-DC-]

Noone's made any new animated graphics to share?

[Crashtour99]

I plan on making some dripping water/liquid, but I've been so busy with modifying items that I haven't really done anything else.  Once I get the rest of these item mods out of the way I'll be sure to post something though.   :wink:

[Crashtour99]

So I took a break from ASMing and made these...

[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8ORgt0qsJo[/spoiler]
As said in the video description the glowing conduits and fire still need some work on the animation, but the dripping liquid is done I think (unless someone wants to assist me in putting in a drip sound effect, cause I have no idea how to do that...).
If someone actually wants to use the dripping liquid, just say so here and I'll see what I can come up with as far as a patch and instructions on how to add it...

Edit:  Uploaded a new vid of the fixed animations.  The recording is still a bit laggy, but you can see everything working smoothly.  (Added another drip speed for the liquid as well, unfortunately some of the footage of the fire animation at the end got cut off for some reason)

Not sure if I'll release the glowing conduits for public consumption just yet (I have special plans for those), but if anyone wants the fire and dripping animations speak up and I'll start working on a public release patch type thingy.   :cool:

[Digital_Mantra]

Wow..

With that green neon lining, one could make quite the convincing Sanctuary Fortress.

The flame looks cool too, I can imagine that animation using Crys' dark world light crystal lighting effect. Some kind of castle shaft stairwell.

The potential hacks are getting these days...

[MetroidMst]

I am very interested in the flames. I also like the water dripping but the flames fit perfect into one of my ideas I am currently working on.

[DSO]

I very much like the green line.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I liked them all, they gave me ideas just looking at them. But I do agree that the green lines seem to have the most interesting uses, especially like DM said about Sanctuary.

[-DC-]

Awesome!  I think I gotta write a real animation guide soon now with better description n stuff.

You seem to have a pause going on in the middle of the animations... if you need some help on that, send me a PM and the animation data you got, I'll help fix that.

[Crashtour99]

Nah,  in the emulator it animates very smoothly (the glowing conduits and dripping liquid are quite mesmerizing in game LOL).  For some reason whenever I try to capture video the actual recording laggs like hell.  I might have to try adjusting the settings on hypercam2 some more and see if that fixes it.

And...  ZOMG  :whoa: I just had a killer idea for the conduits and a morph ball maze...  *goes off to write this down before I forget*

And btw, I found out something that ya gotta be careful of.  When you locate the animated tiles in the tileset, if there's more than one set of animated tiles in a single horrizontal row then it seems like the VRAM gets confused and the tiles glitch horribly.

[-DC-]

That wouldn't be the cause, actually, cause vram is written to during vblank, and all the tile data is transferred for one set before it writes another. What's probably happening is that you're having one set overwrite the other... gotta check your stuff closer.

In fact, show me what your data is when you do this... can PM me it.

[Quietus]

I might have to try adjusting the settings on hypercam2 some more and see if that fixes it.

Can you not just record directly from snes9x?  Most of the movies I create are failry short, and (roughly speaking) a movie about a minute long only takes about five minutes to record as an .smv, record the replay as an .avi, and then process with Movie Maker.  I'm sure it must be easier than fiddling with Hypercam.

Awesome!  I think I gotta write a real animation guide soon now with better description n stuff.

Do this, and I'll hump your leg like a horny dog.  Whether that encourages you or puts you off, I'm not sure. :heheh:

[-DC-]

Crash, I PM'd... that should fix the problem.

Also, you can have up to 6 animations going at the same time, counting the vertical and horizontal spikes if you happen to be using those in the room.

[Crashtour99]

Yep, that indeed fixed it.  Thanks again DC.   :yay:

On a related note, how many animated tiles can you have in a single animation?  The most I've done is 5 or 6, but can you have 8 or 12 tiles in a single frame of animation with 7 or 8 animated frames?

Right now the conduits, dripping, and lava take up 2 FX-1 slots each, and it would be great if I could consolidate them so they only take up one slot each.   Makes for more possibilities on adding multiple different animations to areas.

[-DC-]

Probably as much as you want, but a whole tileset would probably slow things... not sure.

I know that the animated water surface on crateria is a whole line of 16 tiles, and if you use my map patch, I increased the size of the animated layer 3 FX to 32 tiles with the additional FX expansion patch... 32 gameboy mode tiles being loaded is only the equivilent of 16 SNES, but I am pretty sure that even if you had it changing 4 or 5 lines of the tileset, it'd probably work.

If you try it out, put it in crateria's set and have it run on the landing site, then go to the landing site and start running around, jumping and shooting in front of the ship while it's animating and while you have it off and see if you can see any noticeable difference. The game normally has some slowdown right there there weather animating or not... and seems to run smooth just fie whenever the ship isn't on screen.

Anyway, what really matters is that it completes the transfer and finishes it's vblank stuff before vblank ends, and the animation and stuff starts pretty early into vblank... I've seen plenty of time for a large transfer.

If you test it out, let me know how it runs!

[Crashtour99]

A whole tileset?  Heh, that gives me ideas, like an entire area being inside some sort of giant living monstrosity that you're wandering around in and the walls/floor/ceiling are like a fleshy pulsating substance.    :O_o:

I'll definitely have to tinker around with it though and see just what the limits are.  So very much potential now.

[Crashtour99]

[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAjbVrAwkoM[/spoiler]

Aight, I think this video is the final sample I'm gonna make for animated tiles (also shows a nice little preview of the improved lava I've been working on).  They all work perfectly now and everything runs smoothly.  Again, big thanks to DC for making this possible.

If someone would like to use the fire, drips, or conduits just say so here and I'll work up a patch (shouldn't be too hard now that they're all done).

Edit:  Damn, it looks like youtube is cause of the video lagging cause in my source video it doesn't lag at all.  And of course it's too big to add as an attachment.   :eyeroll:

[Quietus]

If someone would like to use the fire, drips, or conduits just say so here and I'll work up a patch (shouldn't be too hard now that they're all done).

Or maybe a race between you and DC to create a n00b guide on how to create them. :heheh:

[DSO]

If someone would like to use the fire, drips, or conduits just say so here and I'll work up a patch (shouldn't be too hard now that they're all done).

Or maybe a race between you and DC to create a n00b guide on how to create them. :heheh:

Step 1: obtain fire, drips and conduits
Step 2: look in the patch, or if it's an ips, look at what it changes
Step 3: profit

[-DC-]

I'll make a quick guide soon here... I've just got some far more important things I'm doing, so sorry guys.