HD 8-bit Remakes in HiSMS and HDNes

[Tygerbug]

Alex Kidd in Miracle World HD by MCBRemakes (Marcelo Barbosa)


The Sega Master System emulator HiSMS (by Botrops), and the NES emulator HDNES (by mkwong98), are designed to make it possible to create HD remakes of your favorite 8-bit games.

As you play, the emulators rip the displayed graphics to image files that can be edited in Photoshop, at 2x or 4x the original resolution. The games still play exactly the same, but their graphics can be remade for HD.

Marcelo Barbosa kicked things off with a gorgeous remake of Alex Kidd in Miracle World for SMS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNcGK_V960Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScyB69dwRA0

Mkwong has completed a remake of Super Mario Bros., although his art style leaves something to be desired. He also seems to have remade Kung Fu and Bombsweeper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N57ApspY...e=youtu.be

It would be possible to create a graphics pack for Super Mario Bros resembling New Super Mario Bros, Paper Mario or an animated style. Games like Kung Fu and SMB don't have a ton of graphics, so there's a lot that can be done.

Info and downloads:
http://hisms.orgfree.com/
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9935

Mkwong continues to update HDNes.

I can't get either program to work on my Mac using Wine -- probably because HiSMS uses Direct3D 7 -- but they should work on Windows.

I'd love to see artists tackle the 8-bit classics.

Since there are so many 3D models available here from later-gen games, it would be very possible to rig and pose them to match the sprite sheets for the original games, and then use that art in 4x emulation in the games themselves.

For example, here are the sprite sheets for a few Sega Master System Disney games. These could be recreated with Kingdom Hearts models.



http://www.spriters-resource.com/game_ge...dimecaper/

[Maxpphire]

Ok first of all, moving this to sprite discussion.

Second of all, are you working on this project? Do you think it is a cool project? Are there other things you could show us?

[Vipershark]

This is actually supposed to be in Model Discussion.
I was gonna move it over here to S&PA myself yesterday, but I reread it and the very last three sentences there are actually about using models to recreate the sheets below.
I'll put it back for now unless you think it's better over there.

[Tygerbug]

Yeah, I was curious if the people who are working with ripped models from games for Gamecube, Wii etc. would be interested in recreating sprite sheets for Master System and NES games at 4x. If you've got a model like a Ninja or Mario or Birdo or Donald Duck or Master Higgins or the Bubble Bobble characters rigged and ready it wouldn't be that difficult to render/screencap the poses required.

There's a lot of potential. I can't run these 4x emulators myself on my Mac but I have been discussing this at NESDEV with Marcelo who did the Alex Kidd remake and Mkwong98 who programmed HDNes. I might indeed do something here! I'm an artist and I've already done some NES art including a Birdo/SMB2 comic, so sure ...

I've dug up these pieces of art (by other people) as inspiration.


by Pixeltao


by Jazaaboo.com



AlexDraws.Tumblr.com


Ducktales Remastered by WayForward



by Marobot

http://th00.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/20...san291.jpg
by Billysan291

http://small-games.info/s/f/n/Ninja_Gaiden_Remake_1.jpg

Here's a nice Mario from Yoshi's Cookie on the Gamecube.
http://www.spriters-resource.com/fullview/12228/

And Yoshi, plus some enemies and Toad:
http://www.spriters-resource.com/fullview/12230/

[Tygerbug]

Posing 3D models correctly to match the NES sprite sheets would be interesting. There's plenty of material available - The 3D character models from many video games have been ripped here of course, and other 3D models created by artists. I'm on Mac, so my options are often limited, and I'm not a 3D animator but I do know Poser very well, at least. I did some quick tests last night rigging up Waluigi and Birdo - sort of a mess, but just quick tests anyway.

A lot of videogame models are available for XNALara, aka XNA Posing Studio, and they come fully rigged. I tried out an attempted Mac equivalent called GLLara, but it crashed constantly and was difficult to pose with. Even so, I was able to do a little posing with Ryu Hasabusa (DOA5/Ninja Gaiden), The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, various Mario characters, and so on.

At times like this it's a pain to be on a Mac, since most software doesn't work on it, or work correctly. Oh well.

[Sengir]

Does the emulator allow added frames? I feel that would really be the biggest problem with giving NES games HD graphics; bigger sprites look worse with fewer frames than smaller sprites. I doubt that it'd be an easy feat, but if the developers allowed some kind of custom tweening frames between the hardware-specified frames it might work.

[Tygerbug]

There's been some discussion about that - about getting extra frames into the walk cycles.

tepples: How hard would it be to do either of these?

A Watch bytes in RAM to determine a character's state, so that Mario uses different frames in a walk or run.
B Watch bytes in RAM and allow expansion of looping sequences, so that a fundamentally nonsensical 3-frame walk cycle repeating the same side over and over can be expanded further to a 6-frame walk: 3 frames for the left foot and 3 frames for the right.

mkwong98:
It won't be too difficult to do "a" and I think I may do that after I improve the speed of the emulator. Currently it slows down if there are many different tiles on the screen. "b" will be much harder to do because a tile in one frame isn't directly linked to the one in the next frame. Besides that, defining animation frames is not a simple task and so the GUI will need a lot of work too.

tepples:
Watch bytes that control animation cycling, and whenever a certain byte (representing frame number) decreases, switch a certain tile range to a different bank of high definition tiles. Thus you'd end up with one bank for "taking a step with the left foot" and another for "taking a step with the right foot".

From here:

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f...90#p128334



Meanwhile, here's some art I did today:





Redrawn sprite animations of Mr. Gimmick (Yumetarō), at four times his original size from the 1992 NES/Famicom game by Sunsoft. (Gimmick! ギミック! Gimikku!)





Wart (Mamu), redrawn at four times his NES size from Super Mario Bros. 2/USA (and Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic).




Birdo (Catherine), redrawn at four times her NES size.

It'll require some tweaking to put different heads on different bodies, but this covers her actions in Super Mario Bros. 2/USA. I've also included some walking and jumping frames to make her semi-playable, replacing the player character in either the original game or Super Mario Bros X.

I've previously drawn a seven-page comic about Birdo, which you can read here:
http://tygerbug.deviantart.com/art/Birdo...-403940810

Full size versions:
http://tygerbug.deviantart.com/art/Birdo...-451915478
http://tygerbug.deviantart.com/art/Wart-...-451915453
http://tygerbug.deviantart.com/art/Mr-Gi...-451915438

Giant size without shading:
http://orangecow.org/art/birdo-sprites.gif
http://orangecow.org/art/wartsprites-1.gif
http://orangecow.org/art/mrgimmick-1.gif

[Tygerbug]

Sednaiur has done some large-scale (2X, 4X) characters from Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3 and World, in All Stars style, with lots of expanded graphics and variations - intended for Super Mario Bros X.

http://knuckles96.prophpbb.com/topic13446.html
http://www.supermariobrosx.org/forums/vi...1&start=70

[Tygerbug]

Shonumi's emulator project can replace graphics in Game Boy games.

Kirby's Dream Land demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbd7lGXfRxI

http://6bit.net/shonumi/2013/07/18/emula...d-sprites/

[Pik]

This has potential for sure. If anything, I'd want the larger sprites to still be pixel art, that way it keeps its charm. It'd be an interesting project for someone to do.

[Tygerbug]

For those who want to make their own graphics to work in HDNES with the original Super Mario Bros:

SMB graphics exported from HDNes:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vgjy6ja9vs6xgj9/SMB.7z

And mkwong98's work:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvfsseqfsspvx6f/SMBedit.7z

He'll keep these files in his dropbox for the next few days. You can edit the exported png file directly or you can create your own png files and edit the txt file to refer to them. He used the second method in his work but it will be difficult to do without using HDNes. HDNes keeps screenshots of where the tiles first appear so the user can easily see how the tiles are used in the game.

[Peardian]

This is pretty neat! Any decent modeling program will have the option to display an image over the viewing area for references. Being able to put the pose you're aiming for will greatly help you in recreating it, even without lots of animating experience or advanced techniques. The main things you'll have to worry about are character proportions and depth positioning.

For example, the modern model for Mario certainly has different proportions from the original SMB and SMB3 sprites. You'll likely have to enlarge/shrink/extend body parts in order to fit the art. You can do this just by messing with bones, though, so you don't have to worry about changing the actual polygons.

Recreating a 2D pose has advantages and disadvantages when it comes to depth. Poses can get away with things like body parts clipping through each other (like if Mario has his arms right by his side) as long as the 2D view hides this fact. However, sometimes it can work against you, requiring you to fudge it a little and move body parts towards or away from the camera to prevent obvious clipping. Just keep in mind that this kind of workaround does not work well if you try to introduct more realistic lighting/shadows, which will reveal anything that is too far out of place.

[Tygerbug]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n0mn8748w00kyf2/kungfu.7z

Kung Fu (NES) sprite rips and HD sprite work by mkwong98 for his HDNES emulator.

I've done some work on Mario but nothing finished yet.

[Kosheh]

Oh my god, these remind me SO MUCH of the Birdo from Valiant Comics' Mario Bros comic books from my childhood. These are awesome.

[Tygerbug]

Thanks! It's kind of hard to split the difference with the Birdo of today and how she appeared in the game. Her mouth is always open now!

I think the ideal art style for a Mario remake is the "instruction manual" style - as seen up through Super Mario World. Lot of good stuff there.