Gussprint's Sprite Rip Central Redux

[Dolphman]

Wow, that's a lot of awesomeness right there. I like that it features different perspective versions of each item.

[Gussprint]

That's precisely how many of these were made, in fact. Keeping in mind that some of these might be used with backgrounds with a slightly slanted perspective (Like in Metal Slug, for instance), I've made alternately angled versions to accomodate.

And now you know one of the things I'm still trying to update. That friggin' Egg Capsule.

...Anyway, icon's ready and now this can get submitted proper. Once again, I'd like to stress that this will probably be updated later down the road, but until then, enjoy the show.

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EDIT: And done. Not sure if it would fit in the "Backgrounds" section, so I sent it to "Miscellaneous" and called it a day.

[Gussprint]

So, when we last left off in Metal Slug Advance, we stormed a secret base, discovered uncharted waters in the process, and pretty much went all Demoman on some poor foo' and more rouge machinery. Meanwhile HQ went and gained the intel we needed for the last agitation point.

Speaking of which, guess where we're headed today.

Final Mission (Part 1) [Metal Slug Advance]
<-- Calm before the storm, anybody?

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It's the final mission, and like in every Metal Slug game, it's one huge, long assault. The difference here is that, due to how the game is designed, this time we're in for one huge, long, labyrinthine assault. Charting everything out is gonna take a while.

...Anyhow, seeing how the second half of this stage can be basically summed up as "Dungeon Mission: A Preview", I've decided to rip both halves separately. This sheet contains the first half, the outskirts. And as soon as you board the Slug Flyer, you're given a choice: take the aerial route and infiltrate the base from up top, or descend and enter from the docks.

Yup, this mission's got alternate routes up the wazoo, which we'll see plenty more of in the second half.

[Ton]

Great! Always excited when I see new stuff from you!

[RandomPerson78642]

I imagine that must've taken an absolute ton of work. Especially the ocean waves, those are an incredible pain to rip. Very nice job!

[Gussprint]

...So, hey it's been a while, hasn't it? Yeah, life's been a bit messy lately, what with common sense and decency lookin' at how we all closed last year and goin' all "Nope, we're out". I could go on and on about this, but long story short, I needed a break. A vacation away from the madness sprawling around me.

Then it recently occured to me, I've got this update to that one custom sheet sitting on my hard drives for a good month, give or take. I should probably get it outta the way.

Assorted Items and Environmental Objects [SONIC THE HEDGEHOG Series] UPDATED
<-- Now that's goin' out with a bang.

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'Eeeyy, finally got around to updatin' this sonuvapeach. And it only took me three months of pure stress, two of depression, one of rage, half of defiance and three of actually getting off my fat duff and doin' something about it.

Again, last year's been a mess. Anyway, got around makin' some new stuff for this compilation, as well as updating a few of the originals and re-organizing the whole thing. Here's the bullet list:

EGG Capsule: First things first, this thing. Now it's got a slanted variant as well, which took quite a bit to refine.
Also added the Mini-Capsule from Sonic Lost World, which may or may not be up to scale.

Item Capsules: Some new items have been added to the library, and a new model from the upcoming Sonic Mania.

Rings/Portals: A Goal Ring has been added, and may possibly be updated in the future. Also, a Stage Portal from '06, because... reasons? I dunno, but I guess it can stay.

Checkpoints: A few new models for the Lamppost variant have been added, included a new model also entering service on Sonic Mania. Also, the Adventure model has been refurbished a bit.

Cannon: Behold, the thing that put this update on hold for so long. Tried my hand at the cannon from Sonic Heroes, and thought modeling its animation after the Carnival Night cannons would be a good idea. It... took a while, as you can tell, but it's capable of firing in any direction on the 2D plane.

BOOM!verse Environmental Objects: And now, the point where I just wanted to ruin some pretentious, self-entitled cretin's good day.
And also because Fire & Ice was, y'know, actually decent. But mostly 'cause I just wanna piss people off.

But yeah, tried my hand at some stuff from Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, and this is the result. Lotsa blue and yellow in the overall design, I noticed.

Other stuff added include an electric barrier and two variants to the Dash Ring and the Warning Sign, respectively. All from Sonic Generations.

Ten to one I'm gonna have to update this again when Sonic Mania comes out. And again by the time Sonic Forces arrives, which will be a good while. In the meantime, enjoy this long overdue update, and see y'all around.

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EDIT: ...It occurs to me I should probably submit the update, actually. Oops. First time I'm sending a revision to a custom sheet, so if there's anything I've botched up, lemme know.

[Gussprint]

It's time for some new material here, fellas. Let's check it out!

Zombies [Metal Slug 3]
<-- And today's "Dumbest Joke" award* goes to...

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[DESCRIPTION]
Once, they were humans, just like you and me. Now they're nothing more than rotting, semi-sentient carcasses looking to feast on unsuspecting victims.

Investigations seem to suggest these "zombies" might be connected to the strange meteor that struck Karthehirt Valley a while back. Research teams were sent to study it, but none have returned. As HQ tries to unscramble this mystery, reports come in of Rebellion forces being spotted in the area.

One would think they might have something to do with this, but appearently they too have been affected by this bizzarre epidemic, with some of their infantry being turned into "zombies". Just like anyone else who came too close to that meteor, or was unlucky enough to fall into a zombie ambush.

[COMMENTS]
Hoo-whee, this took a while. A compilation of the zombie enemies from MS3, and boy was it a doozy. (Almost) All tile-ripped, on account of some of those animations just being virtually impossible to fetch the old-fashioned way.

Nothing much to say or add on their behavior. They slowly approach at the player and try to pelt ya with some kind of acid goo. If they score a hit, you enter Zombie Mode, and your bombs are now a jet stream of BLOOD. You're also invulnerable to pretty much everything else, except for another shot of that goo.

The downside? You move just like a zombie. The only way to exit Zombie Mode (Aside from the obvious) is to grab a medkit, which zombie medics fortunately are never short of.

Much like some other concepts from MS3, this mechanic was recycled in MS4, hence the zombies appear there too. Speaking of which...

Horror Park Attendants [Metal Slug 4]
<-- "*Sigh* ...Cheriè, we need to talk."

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Something else I ripped before the zombies. A couple of NPCs you find in Mission 4, an abandoned amusement park. Which one you meet depends on the route you take. Taking the path to the pharaoh's tomb, you'll find this guy all trussed up like a mummy, even mimicking its poison breath... only without the poison. Going to the derelict town, on the other hand, some very jaundiced-looking foo' doing his best impression of the livid dead.

Neither of 'em seems to have gotten the memo that the place is infested with actual mummies and zombies, nevermind all the crap the Amadeus Syndicate's men are causing in the meantime. That said, one shot from your gun (You won't kill them, don't worry) is all they need to drop the act... and start beggin' for mommy.

Probably gettin' below minimum wage for this, and we just went and scarred 'em for life. The poor bastards.

In any case, this one also sports a bit of unused graphics! There's two sarcophagi in the tomb area, but in the game they're merely decorative objects. These sprites of said sarcophagus opening up and with varying damage degrees shows they were once meant as spawn pods for the mummies in that area.

And that's all for today, boys and girls. As always, click on the images to see the sheets, or just go to the first post and click on the respective icons... as soon as I edit them in, anyway. Laters!

*A remnant of my original idea for the pic, with the zombie medic "curing" a zombie middle-aged man. Mimicking the Medigun FX is a lot harder than you'd think.

[Gussprint]

Rottytops Cadaver, everyone. Hipster, zombie, professional firebrand- HEY WAITAMINUTE

...Anyway. Time to drop back into that one half-genie's world, fellas. ...Well, former half-genie. There's still a few sprites from Shantae and the Pirate's Curse [3DS/Steam] that are missing on TSR, so with Daxar's tools in hand, I took it upon myself to fix that.

Dragon Head/Fire-Breathing Statue
<-- So how long 'till the "non-autopilot" model drops by?

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And we begin with something relatively miniscule. Sense of scale, the fudge is that.

But yeah, these things. Virtually (And graphically) unchanged from their incarnations in Risky's Revenge, except for a couple of things which I felt warranted a new rip.

1. It uses different projectile GFX for its fireball, edited (Presumably) from assets present in the Mighty Switch Force! series.

2. You may've noticed in the demo animation that the statue TURNS. Something which it's incapable of doing in the actual game... though research proves it once was meant to be.
Found in the GFX assets is a file called 'Stonehead.anim', which contains sprites of the statue encased in a C-block shape, and a turning animation!

...A very rough, very unfinished turning animation. Just the framework to edit later and that's it. So I told myself "Hey, let's try restorin' those sprites!" and went to work.

Which, given the state of the originals, essentially meant doin' everything FROM SCRATCH.



...Yeah, that took a bit, suffice to say. Anyhoo, included in the sheet are said "restored" turning sprites (Complete with bonus mounting post!). Had the concept made it in the final game, I suspect they would've worked similiarly to the Bone Pillars from Castlevania, only much more durable.

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So yeah, workin' the late-night shift on this one. As of this writing, I've extracted nearly every graphic asset from the game... except for a few .anim files that crash the program if I try to open 'em.

Given that some of those are linked to the level maps (Another thing I've otherwise ripped successfully), that's kind of a problem. Anybody got suggestions for this?

[Gussprint]

And we're back with more Shantae. This is a bit of a momentous occasion here, for two reasons. The first being after a lil' bit of screwin' around I've managed to attain the missing stuff... for the most part. The second is that, for the very first time, I'm using (Where applicable) actual transparency for backgrounds. No solid colors of any kind, ACTUAL TRANSPARENT BACKGROUNDS.

Which was kinda necessary, given that some of those graphics have transparent anti-aliasing up the wazoo. So whadda we got tonight?

General SFX
<-- Here, have some ka-booms.
And yes, that's the best icon I could come up with for this. Insert Micheal Bay joke here.

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...Hold on, wasn't a sheet like this already on the site? Well, yeah there is. It just so happens to also contain stuff that is unique to specific areas in the game, and as such I feel would be best suited to include them in the respective area sheets (Which I'm now working on, by the way) they belong to.

That, and I figured it'd be a good excuse to fetch that missing explosion FX. Which I eventually wound up grabbin' the old-fashioned way*, along with a few other things.

Also, THIS.


What you see here is a huge smoke poof. It doesn't appear in any way, shape or form in the game proper. Found in the file "BigPoof.anim", which upon extraction produced the sprites you see... only with a big red cross on top.

So I took the output images, took the cross away and restored the sprites to the best of my abilities. The end result being what you see here.

Environmental Objects
<-- When ancient temple traps start showing their age.

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And now the actually new stuff. A compilation of every interactable item in Pirate's Curse, barring once again the area-specific ones. Gems, jugs, Heart Squids, switch locks, you name it.

This technically also contains unused material, in the form of those violet stone blocks. They're assembled according to specific tiling increments, and don't appear anywhere in-game from what I remember. Leftovers from Risky's Revenge, perhaps?

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'Course, these aren't the only things I've got abrewin' here. I've taken the time to update some of the sheets already on TSR with their respective missing SFX, and fixed a couple of things on two of those. Expect a few oncoming revisions, folks.

*Good thing the Steam version of the game supports windowed mode, or else I'd be royally hosed.

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MIDNIGHT EDIT: AAAND already I need to update something on that items one. Now includes that little item bag enemies sometimes drop, and a certain something you'll find in a certain room in Spittle Maze.



Kinda like this, only it has an outline and it's not animated.

[Gussprint]

*Activates the computerized stereo. "Rave in the Grave"* starts playing in the background.*
Yeah, I think we can skip the "why I've been quiet for so long" part by now. I've got some background rips I've been sittin' on for a bit here, so let's check 'em out.

Spiderweb Island/The Nightmare Woods [Shantae and the Pirate's Curse]
<-- From dangerous to nonsensical in a few minutes.

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Hey, new image hosting! Yeah, these rips are pretty dang hefty on size, so we'll switch to Imgbb for them.

And hoo-boy, this took a while. Putting aside how long it took to assemble the sheet in this orderly a fashion, I discovered a little something about the background GFX. Closer inspection with GIMP revealed that the extracted BG graphics seem to have a very faint tinge of transparency on them, and not in the anti-aliasing sense.

Maybe it's just an isolated case I'm lookin' at here, but eventually I found a workaround for that. Which involved a bit of faffin' around with the alpha channelings and stuff for each piece. Not quite something done in just a couple hours, as you can imagine.

As for why it's split in two, the "nightmare woods" segment is technically a one-off segment of the whole area, and can't be accessed again upon completion.

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Fortunately I've got the next BG rip already primed and just needing to be put in a sheet, so this shouldn't take as long... hopefully.

That being said, I've prepared a couple more rips in the meantime, so let's jump out of the half-genie's world for now...

Di-Cokka Ver. P.M. [Metal Slug 5]
<-- Can we get a 'ception joke here?**

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...And land back into the battlefields of 203X.

Not much to say here, this is the Ptolemaic's version of the classic Di-Cokka from the other Metal Slug installments. Pretty much acts in the same vein as a MKII model, only potentially unmanned.

Mutated Soldier [Metal Slug 2/Metal Slug X]
<-- ...Yeah, "sewer gator" this ain't.

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And then, this. From MS2/MSX, and another case more or less proving the enormity of the Rebellion Army's crimes. More on that below.

DESCRIPTION

Deep below the sewer system of Neo Godokin, the remains of a dangerous experiment run rampant. The Rebellion Army's science division conducted an experiment known only as the "Super-Soldier Project", which aimed to enhance human infantry and turn them into superhumans.

Said experiment ended in disaster. All test subjects turned into mindless, feral monsters who killed anyone and anything they saw in brutal fashion. Their first casualties: the science team involved in the project, too late to run away from the then-impending danger.

Following this, the Rebellion Army quickly had everything sealed up and, figuratively speaking, swept everything under the rug. There the beasts remained, until the stench emanating from the sewers (Courtesy of the toxic waste left in there with the mutants) was too much for the city residents, and a certain "investigation" team was sent in. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Plenty of "fun" times diggin' into the lore. And knowing our luck, it probably doesn't end here.

Anyway, these runts. They appear in the last part of Mission 5 (The aforementioned sewers of Neo Godokin), swarmin' the place and killing anybody in sight. They approach the player and once close enough, they slowly turn red. That's your cue to either bolt it or put 'em down ASAP, 'cause they're going to blow up right in your face.

Best course of action I can advise here is bring a crap-ton of fire bombs. They really don't seem to like fire.

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So yeah, been busyin' myself quite a bit. As usual, click on the images for the respective sheets, or check the first post. And with that, I'm out.

*Suffice to say, from the "Shantae and the Pirate's Curse" OST.
**Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Di-Cokka based on tank designs stolen from the Regular Army?