GIANT ENEMY CRAP

[lukulus]

I didn’t know. Fixed.

It's still not working.

You put the ".zip" two times after the link.
Here is the normal one: http://www.newerteam.com/Another_Super_ ... dtrack.zip

[JasonP27]

YOU JUST GOT A NEW GAME. Enjoy it.

An artistic question for Pop: how does the process of making new tilesets go, exactly? I know you use Photoshop, but what else goes into graphic development? Any hand drawing or sketching? How difficult is it to come up with a "theme" for your tile set that coheres seemlessly together, especially since you're working on such a small scale?

I've asked before how you manage to make the tile sets look unique yet so close to the Mario style that it isn't "out of place", but would you say there are other influences that drive you to draw something a certain way other than "it should look like Mario"?

Look I'm not Pop and I don't know his process, but all you really need is a graphics program, such as Photoshop (or Paint.NET/GIMP if you want a good free editor) and Puzzle. I believe Pop or Skawo started using a 3D program to create some things as well to give the objects a bit more of a 3D look. As far as making things look Mario style, well they should be slightly cartoony, but not too much so. Clipart tends to be a bit too simple looking but real photos tend to be too realistic. You can however take real photos and make them look a bit more cartoony using Filters, give them a bit of extra saturation etc. and get really good results.

Also you have a couple options... you can try to make something completely from scratch, which is really hard, or find stuff on the internet and adjust them to work for you. That's mostly what I do but I've made some of my own stuff when I can't find just what I want. For terrain, finding tileable/seamless textures is fairly easy using Google. You can make your own seamless textures if you know Photoshop well enough too.

Sometimes half the work is finding the right settings in Puzzle. If you want to make an odd shaped object in your tileset, and want to make it solid/walkable etc... you have to keep in mind there are only certain ways the collision can work in Puzzle. Meaning if your object has curved sides well that's not gonna really work for a solid object because it will make a full 24x24 tile solid which will make Mario look like he's wall jumping on air lol. It's things like that that will take time to learn but once you do things get easier next time around.

Also learning the limits of the Wii's graphics is good because you'll quickly realize that even though you can read or make out certain things in the picture in Photoshop or in Reggie once you've made the tileset doesn't mean it will be legible on TV. I've hit my first roadblock with that today... will have to make some edits to my tilesets unfortunately because of it but it's an ongoing learning process.

One suggestion when making Pa1 tilesets (main terrain) is to more or less use another tileset as a template to help you get the angles right. You can open the original tilesets in Puzzle and Export Image to PNG, open it in Photoshop and keep it as a layer underneath your new stuff and just hide it when you are not using it to make selections etc. Also, I think it to be good practice to arrange your new tileset in a manner similar to Nintendo's original tilesets. For example make your Object order the same... terrain top, then terrain center, terrain bottom, terrain top left corner, terrain top right corner etc... this makes using the tileset in Reggie easy for those that are used to using Nintendo's tilesets which are all arranged relatively in that manner. Also, if you wish to convert an old level to a new tileset it makes it super quick if all the Objects are the same number. Then all you have to do is fix little bits and add some decoration.

Remember also that you have a bit of room to add stuff to your tileset. Nintendo didn't have too much in their tilesets. So there's lots of room to be creative. Try to keep your objects related though in style, scheme, and color coordination... don't have 4 blue colored objects all each with a different shade of blue. You'll find yourself running out of room before long and having to move things around in the tileset to make room. If you have already created a tileset and started making levels with it, you will have to update your existing Objects to reflect the new position of the tiles. If you do this correctly and save your tileset your updates will show in Reggie without having to readd stuff in most cases.

Positioning of your objects in the 384x384 picture is important. Each tile is 24x24 pixels. If you use Photoshop, you can turn on the Grid and set it to 24 px. This is a great help and PS will even snap the edges of your objects to the grid to make things easy to move around and keep in the right place.

At some point ANDYAFRO and I are going to create a full tutorial to the best of our knowledge as no one else has bothered to up until this point. I will make some videos as well to go with it.

[Pop006]

That was a really excellent reply, +1 from me Mr. Jason!

Everything he said was very true, and very helpful, but I am going To touch more so on the actual making of the image. I almost always try to keep to Nohara (or whatever) layout, with the slopes and walls and things in the same location. It's the 'default' tileset in my eyes, so It's always a great starting point. For some styles one of the main things I do is take retail tilesets, and try to recorate them from scratch, I think I've said this before, but learning even that is a HUGE help to keeping things looking nintendo. For example for the graveyard tileset i've made I took nohara, and recreated its shapes on many layers, then turned the curveyness into blocky shapes, much more straight edges. Then I started playing with the colours so that they were darker and more ombre, still sticking with colours Nintendo used, and slightly editing them. Play around with the image some, apply some small filters, and before you know it you have a brand new Nintendo looking tileset. I think I used the topping from the sewer levesl as that was rarely ever used in our game, but then edit the contrast and shape and size to fit better. Little things like that also help to keep the mario look and feel as people will be like "Oh look, this is inspired by the sewer tileset!"
Other times I will browse the hell out of other mario games like MarioKartWii, 75-90% of the stuff just wont work for a 2d game like this, but occasionally you will find something neat or something you can use or even recreate to be useful. Again little items are what add the most detail to your levels and tilesets.
Later along in my tileset making process I started making the tilesets 5x larger than they needed to be. Although this is not necessary, it really helps you get a lot finer detain into the image than regularlly working at the default tiny size. Just keep in mind when scaling down to 20% you will lose a LOT of detail, so don't go crazy and think it will stay 100% true.
There is lots of little tips and tricks like this you pick up once you do enough tilesets, really getting better at photoshop is what made the biggest difference to me. Tempus knew so many tips and tricks which I have never heard of before and they help a crazy amount. Maybe dedicating some time to following some tutorials or watching some youtube videos would really pay off in the end. it sure did for me.
I've been crazy busy this summer so i havnt been around a whole lot but if any of you ever want to send me an image or photoshop file for me to have a look at i would be happy to help with suggestions. Maybe even in a public thread so everyone could benifit, but if you want to keep the image pirvate or whatever I would respect that too, I'm an honorable guy

Anyhow hope this helps you at least some, if you ever hve more questions for me dont hesitate to ask, they are fun to answer!
Talk soon, take care guys

[Tempus]

Apparently I suck at saving links. Fixed now for realz.

[oksmart]

you can try kickstarter

[Reset]

Hey guys. At Jason and Pop, nice Photoshop tips, very enlightening. Quick question to Jason, what resolution do you have these tilesets at in Photoshop? Just wondering.

I've got two questions for the Newer Team.

1. Are you guys capable of making repeatable 3D model backgrounds (not texture replacements)? It would be nice to see those in game. (Not sure if I've asked this already).

2. If you guys could start this project over (Newer), what would you do differently?

[JasonP27]

Hey guys. At Jason and Pop, nice Photoshop tips, very enlightening. Quick question to Jason, what resolution do you have these tilesets at in Photoshop? Just wondering.

I create my tileset at the standard 384x384 px so I know from the start what I'm getting in quality but I use higher resolution images before hand and detail them before resizing them down and placing them into my tileset. So I usually have a few tabs/files open at once in Photoshop.

I welcome any and all advice from Pop/Tempus/antnee/(anyone) regarding Photohop and Puzzle. A guide to Puzzle (or an update) would be fantastic. Some of the harder things like breakable/explodable blocks, quicksand, and if the powerup that comes from setting a custom ? block to spawn by setting the 6 or 8 in Block Type can be changed... the 6 spawns a ? block from Pa0 with a 1up, the 8 spawns a ? block from Pa3 that has a Star powerup. Placing these custom ? blocks into Reggie like normal will make it a 1 Coin ? block. So, the weird shtuff.

[Tempus]

2. If you guys could start this project over (Newer), what would you do differently?

We would probably not do it over.

I welcome any and all advice from Pop/Tempus/antnee/(anyone) regarding Photohop and Puzzle.

Use lots of layers and lots of masks. Lots of folders, lots of layer adjustments, and lots of layer styles. Learn to use paths. Learn to use smart photoshop layers. Switch your colour slider to HSB. Experiment with puppet transform and mesh warp transform. Fool around with things you’ve never used at least once.

A guide to Puzzle (or an update) would be fantastic. Some of the harder things like

breakable/explodable blocks

Requires ASM hacks or overwriting existing breakable tiles to work perfectly

quicksand

Just place a quicksand sprite over a quicksand tile and it becomes quicksand. The original quicksand tile is blank.

and if the powerup

Don’t even bother. The game hardcodes so much stuff for Pa0. Newer highly recommends not bothering with fixing something that isn’t broke - the powerup blocks have been a Mario standard since SMB1.

[Metalkingboo]

Hey Tempus what program did you use to make the music in the specials?

[Tempus]

I use Garageband for most work, and then Logic for touchups and fine tuning if required. The other two Newer musicians (who did not contribute to special) use Cubase.

[Andy Afro]

I learnt the hard way and lost a day testing the exploding blocks only to find out no matter what you do to them (and I did lots) they still explode in the same colour as the original. Same as last week when I wasted 2 days on a mega target id level (225 target id's) only for me to find out (after much stressing as to why it was auto triggering the target id's in front) that there are only 64 targets ids in any level lol so sometimes you lose alot of time messing about but its so worth it, if losing a couple of days means you get something right or learn something new its all worth it and it all adds to the quality of your game or levels.

[oksmart]

Newer when the full version released with special edition also need to be as to prepare a CD?

[littledavidcampbell]

i watch the last world, its epicly awsome how you made the world.
its just a little taste for newer.

[JasonP27]

Use lots of layers and lots of masks. Lots of folders, lots of layer adjustments, and lots of layer styles. Learn to use paths. Learn to use smart photoshop layers. Switch your colour sli... ...

Thanks good tips. Paths are one thing I haven't really learned to use before. I just started using the Pen tool to cut out my own tileable terrain top (makes it so "easy").


@Tempus, Skawo, Antnee, Treeki, megazig etc... anyone on Newer team that can help with the following.

I've asked this question before, but always either never get a straight answer, or no answer at all. I don't know if I'm just being ignored or if the Newer team is beating around the bush to prevent anyone else from learning too much... but it can't be that hard to explain to me. You gotta give me more credit than more than half the forum that seems to not speak english or be able to read the many helpful posts and tutorials that are on the site. So I will once again ask, and hopefully I will get the answer I'm looking for.

I want to create duplicates of some of the original sprites. For example, I'd like to create a second block_jump.arc (Checkered Spring Block) and give it a different sprite number so as to be able to use the original and one or more retextured options. I have spent hours trying to figure out how to do this and cannot progress any further without help. I cannot figure out how to find the sprite number in the .arc file to change it.

I assume if I change the filename inside the .arc to match the new filename, and I edit the sprite number, then I can add that sprite number to my levels in Reggie and the duplicate sprite will show.

1. Is that correct?
2. If that isn't correct, can I do this (create duplicate sprites without overwriting originals and give them a different number).
3. If I can do it, will it require ASM if I am not changing the functionality of the sprite?
4. Will you please tell me how to do it if it's possible without ASM?

Thank you. I understand you guys are busy.

[Skawo]

It's not possible without ASM.

[JasonP27]

It's not possible without ASM.

Thank you for clearing that up for me

Well, here's to waiting for the Newer Hack Pack to see what goodies we can work with!

[Andy Afro]

It's not possible without ASM.

Thank you for clearing that up for me

Well, here's to waiting for the Newer Hack Pack to see what goodies we can work with!

That's such a shame, too be able to modify so much in the game and not be able to add your own objects and sprites, robs you off something I think lol

It cant be much a asm hack can it?

[Tempus]

I did answer this before, when you asked it before:

Without an assembly hack, all "custom" sprites MUST override the original sprite. There’s no way around it. You can change the sprite slot a particular actor is in, but you’ll find that it’s quite useless for you since all it will do is change the number you pick in Reggie.

The sprite number is NOT in the arc file. It’s inside the binary data. Also, simply changing a sprite number in an external file is useless. Arcs contain what we refer to as 'assets'. Assets are static resources used in a program. The code for a sprite is inside the binary, and wouldn’t be duplicated regardless.

So, how would you go about making multiple rextextured sprites? Well, Newer has actually had this for a long time - this was the first thing I did when I started learning assembly. What you’ll need to do is... find the rel entry points for your region’s game. This is easiest with a mem dump. Manually add on the all four rels to the binary file (a main.dol stripped to an elf) using the code points you found in memory. Load it into IDA using the gecko PPC patches, found somewhere on the internet. Load it into the codepoint for the elf specified on Wiibrew. Great! Now you have a disassembly to work with. Ignoring all the useful things you could do by importing symbols are cross-refing strings etc.... do a string search for the name of your target thing. In Japanese romaji. For example, Thwomp is Dossun. Parakoopa is patapata. Once that’s done, find the strings that say 'daMySprite::StateID_Whatever'. Then scroll up a bunch until you see a lot of function calls arranged in a big table. That’s the sprite vtable. So far so good. Pick the first one - a function known as onCreate, though you won’t have that name there. In onCreate, there will be a bl to a function. There may be several, you’ll have to look around. Find the one that has a bunch of bls in it, and passes things like offset 0x420, 0x500, etc... numbers around those ranges... to a bunch of other bl functions. Several of them. The first of those will be a call to load arc resource, again not labelled. Patch the r5 call with a custom bit of assembly code that substitutes the string based on the value of offset 4 into whatever register the r3 at the top of the function was moved into. That’s the settings block you set in reggie. You can put your code at 0x80001800 - that’s an empty code space used by Ocarina, it should be enough for your needs. When all that is done correctly, you’ll have a sprite that can change which brres it loads from its arc depending on what you put in the settings field! Fantastic.

Some sprites are nearly impossible to do it with, as well - such as platforms.


Anyway, quite a difficult little piece of work for something like that.

[Andy Afro]

HOLY SHIT LOL

I will have to read that a couple of times just to get my head around it but I now know that I defiantly deserve a slap for my last comment lol and I apologise Swako.

And I will read it till it starts to make some sense to me as my brain made that funny noise it does when it wants to play lol

[JasonP27]

I did answer this before, when you asked it before:

.... LOTS OF STUFF WAY PAST MY UNDERSTANDING...

Anyway, quite a difficult little piece of work for something like that.

Wow I'm sorry I truly missed your previous answer on that somehow, or I completely forgot.

Thank you for that explanation on the amount of work involved. Just makes us all appreciate the work the Newer team has done and is doing, even more than we did before.

HOLY SHIT LOL

I will have to read that a couple of times just to get my head around it but I now know that I defiantly deserve a slap for my last comment lol and I apologise Swako.

And I will read it till it starts to make some sense to me as my brain made that funny noise it does when it wants to play lol

ANDY, this one's beyond us lol. Oh, and who is Swako?