Paraemon's Comprehensive Ripping Project Thread [Expansion Station]

[Paraemon]

Thanking you as always, man! 

Since I've been able to have access to the Special Stage backgrounds proper, I've not hesitated to get some base content that for some reason isn't up on TSR already. That being said, I've broken down the parallax set up for the third and seventh Special Stages, which show case how complicated it can get. Hopefully the construction notes make sense. I've initiated the same set up for the first and second Stages. I've already covered an aspect like this in Launch Base and Mushroom Hill, and know that it exists in both acts of Carnival Night and Ice Cap.



And there's only been a little more progress on the sixth Stage. Remember way, way back when that I said Sonic & Knuckles' background has 800 frames that cycle through a very succinct motion of diagonal blocks and colors? The sixth Special Stage of Sonic CD has 2932 actual frames before restarting the cycle; the two frames on the sheet are explained as loading the animation proper. Naturally, this sheet shall take quite a while before it gets complete.



And it would be quite apropos that I discuss the issue I face with the first Special Stage's animated background; I'll say it simply, this sheet here doesn't actually properly articulate the motions of the background nor does it really showcase the shifting shapes. Yes, I said I've begun the first sheet's background, but bear with me. As I mentioned just a few seconds ago, Stage 6 has nearly 3000 frames of animation, but with double that amount, I cannot yet find a loop point to the cycle for the first Stage's background. I expect to be able to resolve this issue, but maybe not before September.

The background sheets for Stages 2 and 4 will be similar to the set up as seen above for 3 and 7, and 6 will be rolled out similar to the original release for Glowing Spheres, in perhaps two-four sheets at the minimum to account for the high amount of frames. 5, on the other hand, has a complexity similar to that of 2.5D archs during the Mushroom Hill Act 2 Boss, but won't actually take all that long to put together.

As I mentioned Launch Base earlier, I've started re-exploring the structure for the collection I'm working on for it, and broken down the background sheets to they reflect the acts, much like what I'm doing with Green Hill, Marble and Scrap Brain. Act 1's background sheet is complete and Act 2's is still under development because of the base of the Death Egg still being unfinished; assuming I take a break from Sonic CD content, I can try get the wheels rolling on that.

And I might as well put these out there. I've got the icons for the rest of the stages for Sonic 1 ready, but since I don't know and can't say when the related collections will be actually released, I'll stick them here for now.