The Glenn Thread

[FaustWolf]

Ahaaa! So cropping to the sprite was actually a limiting factor. Okay, looks good. I'll have to leave Sorin with you '99, but I think I can do this after May 12 and have it finished by May 31. What's the frame count for Glenn?

Also, let's get a concensus as to where to put Human Glenn's frames by the time May 12 rolls around. That'll save us a lot of grief.

JP, will you have to comb through the ROM and off "ribbit" sounds when Glenn speaks?

[Agent 12]

um...i'm pretty sure I used them sparingly incase this scenario did come to fruitation.  But yea.....if you could use frog in your current playthrough and bug any instances, 99 also says he's going to do a playthrough.

Like I said before we need to do this in a fresh rom so I don't think we NEED a consensus on where it's going in the CE ROm. 

hm....ok....i'm going to make a really really really quick program to help us do this.  I was going to wait till after CE but this will save me lots of time.  The main problem with Chickenlumps program is that it doesn't show a picture of what it's going to look like...awhile ago I started figuring out how to load tiles into a C# program but it was a pain in the ass and CE definitely took precedence.  For now I'll just be lame and hardcode glenns graphics into a program and later make it more general.

Chrono'99 would it be possible to get a picture of what glenn's graphics look like in the rom eventually (like what you would see in tile molester).
FW can you send me a writeup of exactly what we need for sprite assemply (memory offsets, and what each byte means).


Tonight i'll try to whip something up and just use tiles with the letters of what they tile they correspond to in the rom.

--JP

[justin3009]

I'll get to work on Glenn later today.

The Bank fix uses space at 24F540, if that's not a problem.

[FaustWolf]

I'll use Frog on my current playthrough and list ribbit sounds in my bug thread.

I originally intended to just hand-code the frames, but that'd be awesome if you could make an advanced version of what Chickenlump created way back when.

We'll need to know the following, and I believe it's sufficiently documented (though it would be much better organized had I gotten around to a full sprite insertion tutorial):

*What this all looks like in Tile Molester. The amount of space used for the frames really depends on how efficient we want/need to be. Less efficient use of space makes for much easier visualization and frame coding, but more efficient use of space allows us to plunk Glenn's sprite frames into a tighter space within the ROM.

*Size 0 Sprite Assembly Format

*Just for kicks, Size 1 Sprite Assembly Format. Hardly necessary at the moment, but just to show you how the program would have to adapt if you wanted to include this feature.

*Palette info. Sprite palettes are wicked, but it's only one palette in question, so it's not absolutely necessary to implement this feature right now. I could work just fine with a non-paletted Glenn, probably. However, I could describe the palette format in whatever depth you need should you want to include it in a fully-featured sprite assembly program. Chickenlump's handled palettes correctly IIRC, but I'm not sure if his source code is hanging around anywhere.

*Sprite Animation Format. Looks like '99's sheet is fully compatible with Frog's current animation data, so this is probably a non-issue for everything except Slurp Cut and Slurp Kiss, because Glenn will not possess the appropriate frames.

[FaustWolf]

justin, do you plan on doing Glenn's sprite assembly and insertion, or just the sprite sheet? If you wanted to do sprite assembly/insertion that's fine by me; I could go back to my original plan of handling Sorin, or we could tag team and I could finish off Glenn after May 12 if you're able to get the assembly work started before then.

[justin3009]

We could tag team it.  I'll be doing the SA/Insertion for the most part.  Probably get the basics down like shaking head, walking/running, battle stance.

[FaustWolf]

Sounds good. If you happen to get most or all of it done, I'll move straight into creating new techs.

Slurp Kiss is going to be a challenge since it'll be the first double tech to ever be edited I think. Since Ayla now has "Earth Song" instead of "Kiss," sounds like they might do some kind of duet.

[Chrono'99]

Chrono'99 would it be possible to get a picture of what glenn's graphics look like in the rom eventually (like what you would see in tile molester).

Yeah, as FaustWolf said it depends on what we do with reusable tiles.


Between Sorin and King Zeal, Sorin will probably the easiest to do since his animation pattern can be that of any NPC. Concerning King Zeal I'm not sure how we will handle his animations? If his animation pattern is perfectly compatible with that of the Lavos 2nd form's Arms there won't be any issue, but I'm not sure it is. If it's not, do we know how to make him do the appropriate animations in idle stance and when he casts a spell?

[justin3009]

Animation data editing is somewhat of a bitch.  I had lots of troubles working with it and just gave up on it, but it is possible to get it all working appropriately. 

[FaustWolf]

Sure '99, King Zeal's boss animations should be a piece of cake since justin and Vehek explored the format and it's documented in the thread I referenced above. It's just a matter of coding up some arbitrary frames, and then the animation is just a series of frame indices we choose. We should have full control over animations.

The question is, which sprite is King Zeal replacing? Oh, would it be the Masked Queen Zeal sprite(s)? Depending on his Sprite Size and the number of animations he has, we may need to move his data around. Again, for that, all pointers are in the Comprehensive Sprite Doc. I'll have enough free time to catch last minute sprite insertions and stuff on May 12, but if anything isn't clear in the Sprite Doc you guys can hit me up with questions anytime.

Haha, justin just ninja'd me on the animation difficulty. I think it shouldn't be too bad, but there will need to be some repointering to adjust for longer animation frame index lengths unless we get really lucky. After tech coding, I can't imagine anything being worse.

[Agent 12]

if I make this program successfully I'll probably be able to do glenn myself.  It's.....kind of ridiculous to do all of his animations by hand and I'm pretty sureyou'll lose motivation before then.  If you want to get your hands dirty with SA I would work on getting King Zeal in since he has like..2 animations opposed to 255

--JP

[FaustWolf]

But I love Sprite Assembly! That said, I've actually done only two frames for in-game insertion (the Ark), plus some experimental Slash frames. justin3009 has completed far more than that for his Time's Illusion project. Either way, I'm sure we won't complain if you can code this uber program up JP.

[justin3009]

I'm fine with either way.  I know for a fact I'd lose inspiration really quickly if I kept doing it by 1 at a time X_x..

[FaustWolf]

Do you guys need Human Glenn overworld sprites?
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,7134.msg155007.html#msg155007

I'm sure Alcyone wouldn't have a problem whipping the remainder up for Glenn and lending them to CE provided she gets a graphics credit.

[Vehek]

He only needs one more (OW frame): the second part of the idle animation.