K-2L Gfx: Version 1.0 Release 6/18/15

[Rimrook]

Ok so:

• Make landing platform look circular appearing, which is a good idea.
• Work on the tree.
• Add medium sized plants like shrubs/bushes.

Things I noticed:

• Stairs are tiny, the ones in Ceres are a lot bigger.

The color palette is meh and I can change it anytime, and so can anyone in SMILE. I made an effort to neatly organize the palette so that's easier. There are a lot of really cool colors that could be used for this but I settled on the default blue since that's what I started with.

I need people to give the tileset a serious attempt in SMILE as I do the same. Consider it like beta testing.

[RealRed]

You might want to import the set into a .gfx file using tilemolester. I can count on one finger the people who can and will bother to do that, so it's gonna be tough to find testers with what you've given us.

I can help with that later. It's pretty simple stuff, just a process.

After that, you're gonna need to make a tiletable to put in the rom. 2x2 combinations of 8x8 tiles, but you probably know this. can be exported with SMILE, might wanna share that too.

Just an extra note, don't make your ground tiles and slopes perfectly flat/perfect angles.

[Black Falcon]

Your tiles are looking great, good luck squeezing it all into a single tileset, though. But I see you already thought ahead and made it so the tree uses hardly any filler tiles.

Another idea would be having tiles you can use for both bushes/trees and maybe grass or something, so you can have lots of variation without taking up much space. :^_^:

[Rimrook]

I'm beginning to realize why I stopped doing this :D
The process so far goes like this:

1: Make stuff as it should look in photoshop

2: Open a blank document in Idraw3 (free pixel program, see below) and make a blank document with the palette as it should be.

3: In photoshop, open the document created in Idraw3 and paste the gfx into the Idraw3 create document. Photoshop keeps graphics intact converting to the palette.

4: Save the 8bit bmp with palette.

5: Reopen bmp in Idraw3 and correct any palette issues if needed.

6: Copy graphics from Idraw3 and paste them into YY-CHR with an export of the previous gfx loaded as guide. Messing with the palette is optional really.

7: Save and import GFX into SMILE.

8: Attempt to recreate the palette as nothing I have exports a palette file compatible with SMILE, or one that can edit a palette file from SMILE... I used 16 colors not knowing that the last color in the palette in smile is not used. That kinda sucks.

9: Painstakingly clear all of the existing 16-tiles from the grid.

10: Even more painstakingly assemble 16's and this is where I stopped for today. Ugh.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nuuo3l596bkljhk/K2L%20Docks%20Pack%20WIP.zip?dl=0
This is what I have so far. You can easily enough import the GFX file into SMILE and if you choose, run the palette file though it gives a warning that freaks me out. I know I can sacrifice one color to get it working. But for another day I suppose.

I Highly recommend using idraw3 if you don't already since it can bridge a lot of things from the modern graphics software packages and YY-CHR which goes right into SMILE and SM. Hopefully this can open up more creative freedom among the community members. idraw3 is also a decent editor in of itself and its easy to animate in.

Link to idraw3 download
http://wombatrpgs.net/downloads.php?view=detail&df_id=33&sid=f8bb26af5204fd20be426718ae2ec4ad

Moving forward I think. I'll have to revisit the GFX thing another day.

EDIT: To squeeze the file into 15 colors, it would need an edit in idraw and a reimport. The 16th color in the palette is white, or the color of the lights. for now it shouldn't be touched or messed with unless you know how to get 16 colors or something. Not the worst. Also I may look into Tilemolestor... good name. You can test and work with the existing set to a degree. I will update it and when I do, just import the new .gfx file and everything will update. For now those, stay away from that tree! Also if I add any new feature, I'll work it into the open space already existing and try not to blaff up the existing tiles. Have fun I guess. Post screenshots too!

Noticed Samus is set 1 pixel down into a tile so that realistically gives me 1 pixel of variation for the ground tiles. Good to know when I work on those. :)

[Rimrook]

Good call with the round platform. I could round it off more but the tiles have a bit of some potential to be used with other things like shafts and whatever.

[altoiddealer]

Damn that looks nice.  What a nice landing spot!  :whoa:

Something about the placement/perspective looks off IMO, in relation to the shape of the platform.

If the platform is supposed to be a wide oval shape, with 6 tether things running along one edge, and 4 running along the other, then it makes sense.

If the platform is supposed to be a big circle, then it doesn't seem to add up right.  :pwuh:


I'm an amateur pixel artist so I might be wrong about this.

[Rimrook]

Glad you like it.
Though the foreground lights could be moved up so it fits on the platform, or use less tiles to bring in the sides of the platform. All that can be done in smile. The platform lights are also equidistant which also breaks the illusion. I also want to revisit the pillars the platform stands on. They seem flat and too rough now.

Speaking of which, I cannot find the Ceres tiles. Anyone know where they are or how to access them?

I've also begin thinking about the next tileset which will be the exterior slightly more inland than the landing zone and docks. More like alleys and streets with lots of building structures and supports. Dense sci fo urban stuff so the player can still feel inside but not. There will also be an interior with more laboratory and domestic stuff, air vents, pipes, things to explore etc. I could keep subdividing out the theme so if you have any ideas let me know.

I also want to change the planet zebes to say k2l. I can do that much and change the planet graphic but not its palette. Help on that would be great. That way if anyone ever wanted to make a hack that literally takes place on k2l, they could with little work.

[Quietus]

If the platform is supposed to be a big circle, then it doesn't seem to add up right.  :pwuh:

I think it's because if it were a circle, then you wouldn't see the rear pillars, as they'd be obscured by the ones in front.

[Rimrook]

Starting to come together nicely. Took me a while to get the BTS (buffered tile slope?) thing down. Just gotta keep putting parts together until all of the major stuff is left over. Of course, there is a lot of room to mix up new tile16's but you'll start with quite a lot.

Also foreground tiles do not overlap the ship... so the landing site might need to be a little more spread out to get the ship adequate space so it doesn't look weird.

It'll still be a while to assemble all of this. No ETA on it yet.

[Cloud20]

These graphics have really something unseen before. I can't wait to see more from this project. Keep up the good work Rimrook  :^_^:

[personitis]

Lookin' great so far. BTS would stand for "behind the scenes." As for the ship appearing over tiles, if you go into the enemy editor (right click enemy, species) you'll see a box on the right containing something called "layer" iirc. You'll probably want to change that to have the priority of behind Samus, whatever that value may be (the ? box should tell you).

On a side note, I think that (if anyone were to use these) glows would work quite well on those lights.

[Rimrook]

Glows? Do tell.

[personitis]

This is what I had in mind.

[Rimrook]

Aw it would look so alive if the white slightly flickered or something similar. You'll have to play around with that.

Also ETA is probably tomorrow but no promises. My dirt looks kinda NES and I may look for a way to expand on that with what I have. Basically make dirt tiles seem more filling that a thin border. Keeping the thin ones as well, of course.

[RealRed]

Shit, dude. Sorry I didn't get back about this sooner, but you can import images into .gfx files using Tile Molester as long as you have a palette.
Just go to View -> Codec -> 4bpp planar in order to see the graphics properly, load a palette file (.tpl or .pal), then import your gifficks from Edit -> Paste From.

Should make putting your art into the hack much easier if you're not drawing in tlp.

[personitis]

Making mention of importing reminds me that I had the SnesGFX tool laying around in my Dropbox. Specifically v2.62 cause the one on RHDN (or was it SMWC? Maybe both?) was and older version and didn't have proper links for the most searched results so I had to do some digging.

With this, you can take an image, put it into the tool, and it will pull out all possible tiles (minus vertical/horizontal flips/rotates if you choose) and create a palette as well. It's been a while since I've used it, so I can't offer much in the ways of help with it, but I do remember it being fairly simple to use after the small bit of playing around I did to figure it out.

[Rimrook]

I'll have to check those out. What I'm having trouble with is getting the palette correct in smile so maybe it can help? My colors are a little off from guessing it out. Plus the format is weird as its 31 or 1F rather than 255 or FF. converting the colors is cumbersome and if I must do it, it's happening last unless there an export-import way of doing it.

Also does the bts stick to the exported tile16's or am I just wasting time with those?

[FPzero]

BTS only sticks to the tiletable if you double-click the tiles in the table and set their default "Acts Like" setting.  But otherwise, yes, exporting a tiletable will also export the BTS for each tile in the table.

And yeah, while I like the rgb sliders in smile, I wish they were decimal numbered.

[Rimrook]

Version 0.1 beta is available. See the first post for download link.

Please note it's applicable but not done. It still needs a lot of work and I'm finding I kinda suck at trees with tiling leaves. If probable, I may remove the tree or at least the trunk. The leaves make for good shrubbery. I need to rework a lot of things because I didn't know how may colors were actually available, or palettes for that matter. I hear I can use 4, 5, 6, and 7 effectively. If that's true, correct me if I'm wrong, then I will push for some extra levels of shading on things like the dirt and background elements.

Also, feedback and such is always helpful. I kinda wonder how the set will look in the hands of a more experienced rom hacker. Please post screen shots :)

[DSO]

Coming up in a few days I get a whole week off work, I intend to use one of my vacation days to see what I can do with this tileset, probably going to try building rooms around a lot of different FX options. Just wanted to let you know the set looks great and I think I can do some cool things with transparencies here.

[personitis]

Palette lines 0 and 1 (the first two) should be avoided when making tilesets unless you know what you're doing. For lines 2 and 3, only the first 3 colors are used for their respective door caps. The rest in those two rows are free for whatever. 4-7 are completely free to use. The first color in each row is transparency and the last is usually a black/near-black color for filler.

[Rimrook]

Wish I knew that before I started. I'll definitely need to fix up the palette work on this and make it nice as well as optimized.

Also the "K-2L TILESETS BY RIMROOK" at the top of the table is actually on the bottom of the CRE so that needs to be fixed.

[Quietus]

I'm disappointed that there's been discussion of BTS, and no mention of the thread in my signature. :cry:

[Rimrook]

You're disappointed? I'm disappointed that I didn't know about how many colors I had before I started. I did some testing and this set could have looked a lot better but is almost too done to add the extra detail in colors. It would take nearly an entire redraw.

:sad: blaff

[Rimrook]

Oh yeah... I'm working on a redraw with better use of colors and various optimizations. Just needs a bit of time but I know what I'm doing now :)

I'm also going to try to make the set work with the actual landing site with the clouds and lightning. With good planning I should have the space on the set so wish me some luck. I won't be adding any new features from what already exists, but I'll likely cut the tree out.