Paraemon's Comprehensive Ripping Project Thread [Expansion Station]

[Paraemon]

Thank you very much, I've taken a look at the blog, a lot of the programming code goes over my head, but it is interesting. 

I have to admit, though, I cannot figure out the Tile Viewers. Looking at Tile Layer Pro gives me the best result, if the best means "so very incorrectly colored tiles" which I've tried to fix, but I come to a grinding halt at that point. This is basically what I encounter:



Obviously, I cannot work with that, and beyond the two (similarly-colored) Knuckles sprites I come across, I just don't understand these programs.

[Paraemon]

So Hidden Palace became a pain in the ass. Not quite sure how to tackle the foreground - I tried disassembling all the pieces, but that meant more work for those who would have wanted to construct a working area. I then took Divine Insect's idea of 256x256 size chunks, but that left some parts irreconcilably removed since they sat between floor and ceiling but adhered to neither in the 256x256 system. Right now, it's on pause until I can figure out a better way to tackle it. This is the same for Launch Base, though that might be easier to deal with. Time will tell.

Current Knuckles progress. I've tried to capture the dust animation when he slides along the floor at the end of a glide, but that seems to change each time with different initial dust cloud shapes. That requires more investigation. The Spin Dash has it's own little section because the original idea was to give all the varieties of the animation the dust trail, but left it to being two examples, the one on the right being the example for the other four frames when placing that particular dust trail; notes to follow.

A placeholder for work on the Hydrocity Act 2 background (you'll see the extent below). I figured I'd show this corner-piece off, as it takes the underwater palette for the red bar and text, but also showing that something else is coming.




And finally, the current extent of work that I can show as an example. Some of it's covered, but those folders contain a few things I still need. Some are tagged "RAW" because they're a couple of weeks old and haven't felt like getting around to them. The Amy folders are there because I got bored and wanted to rip something not actually in the game, and I haven't got around to deleting the Bright folder yet (laziness). Badnik progress in particular is on pause as it takes a lot of time to work out which works where, how, and then trying to avoid them (FLYBOT767  ) long enough to see if there can be a boss hit palette (Mushroom Hill is the worst so far). Those in red bubbles are of particular interest to me, because of the peculiarities they contain:

Hydrocity 2 Background: Truly, what will become a worthwhile endeavour in slicing up the Parallax. Unlike Launch Base and Hidden Palace, the Parallax has overlapping layers, so some n x n sections actually scroll two objects on the same level. Doesn't that fondle your interest?

Hydrocity 2 Program Background: Tried dicking around in the tunnel at the start of Act 2 to get the background, but like the blog NES Boy linked to, I found that text replaced the arcs and the background turned to numbers. Just something I ripped for fun, it wouldn't be overly practical to include it in the final sheet.

Ice Cap False Color (Sonic) Backgrounds: These go across Act 1 and Act 2, though some parts are still incomplete. But there are weird pockets, especially at the start of each act, that contain irregular palettes/palette animations. I need to make revisits with Tails and Knuckles, as they have access to some other pieces from what I saw when going Bright.

Lava Reef Glowing Boss Objects: the Hidden Palace/Sky Sanctuary teleporter appears in the Boss area and has a color-cycling animation. Sadly, no badniks exist in the debug data in this area, the furthest they can be taken to is Knuckles' boulder hijinks.

[Paraemon]

So, I stripped down the background for Hydrocity Act 2, and despite some errors in the uploaded progress, the full height of it is 1024 pixels, before a seemingly endless black space scrolls up. Anything on the right of a parallax section also scrolls on that level at the position it's displayed at. Because of repetition, it was simple to get a full underwater palette version so that the open air and depths can be utilised if the user wants to highlight the standard system or a flooded ruin. The water, from what I can tell, creeps up in the second archway section with the quadruple object scrolling line.

[Ton]

Hey, that's pretty cool! Nice work!

[Paraemon]

Thanks man! 

One of the things that's been around since I started this project two months ago, the Marble Garden transition to Carnival Night, but with raw palette compared to the original iteration. I have some dissatisfaction about the fact that Marble Garden and Launch Base lack the sunset (MGZ) and stratosphere (Sonic 3 LBZ) sky backgrounds in the archives, so I want to include these on the eventually released sheets for those zones/acts.

I've taken all of the 15 transition palettes prior to the "break frame" that ends the micro-cutscene transition, which includes the main sky palette from Act 2. A noteworthy observation, as each new palette set cropped up, the palette for the temple in the pre-Boss background remained unchanged, so at worst, all one would need to do is change the colors of the sky, mountains greenery around it.

I won't include these frames in the 320x224 size as shown below, I'll cut them down when I get around to the Parallax of Act 2.

[Paraemon]

Been hells of busy, and will be for a few more days. In the meantime, if you haven't seen it already, check out the Vinesauce playthrough of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, kept me laughing through a few difficult moments. 

The progress since last post: the palettes for the Hidden Palace/Sky Sanctuary teleporter as seen in the Lava Reef boss area.

[Paraemon]

UPDATE

I've not forgotten about this project, but, truth be told, I've been caught up in other time-consuming crap that's been affecting me for a few months, namely a foreign exchange programme I want to take up through my university. It's been postponed until after Christmas, but actual classes start up again next week at uni, so I'll be substantially busier from then. Despite this, I can try and get something new up by the end of the first week of October, but updates will be not frequent as daily.

[Ton]

Good luck! Update when you can. Real life comes first!

[Paraemon]

Merry Christmas!

So yeah, university got the better of me. I had an awful start to the academic year (personal reasons), which is why nothing came in October, and the workload turned out to be more than I anticipated, not helped by my pursuit of a study abroad program and my attending Greek lessons for said program. I've had to leave the project folder alone until such a point where I had enough free time to actually look in it. Heck, due to changing rooms at my accommodation, the notes I had for ripping were missing until last week, so even if I wanted to, I had no guide to work from.

After looking through the ripped content waiting to be further investigated, and the in-progress sheets, I've come to one conclusion: all of those sheets are on indefinite hold, and the folders awaiting investigating are being purged and ripped again further down the line. That being said, I have an idea in mind to share for the project, and come hell or high water, it will be up by the end of this year. That's all the teasing I'll give. 

In other news, I finally got a chance at playing Sonic Mania the other day and I love it. Is it me, or are the Blue Spheres stages, like, easier?

[Ton]

Hey! Glad to see you're back! Can't wait to see what you've got planned!

I also recently played Mania. The Blue Spheres stages seem about the same to me...

[Paraemon]

Hey! Glad to see you're back! Can't wait to see what you've got planned!

I also recently played Mania. The Blue Spheres stages seem about the same to me...

Thanks man! And I don't know, I just felt they were easier, especially the 16 stages from S3K.

Onto the project, I've began an full art disassembly of Flying Battery. I felt pretty pleased with current progression to display stuff.

- 1- Sky divided into three cloud palletes with two sky base colors; the standard, what I think is the night palette from S3C, but seen when screwing with debug and layer options when moving between indoor and outdoor areas, and blood-lining for the clouds when screwing with the backgrounds and defeating Gapsule against a sky backdrop. NOTE: There is some sort of parallax system in play here, but because the tiny clouds move with basically a (programmed) mind of their own, I left them broken apart with no concensus as to altitude placement in relation to the large cloud, but must go no lower than skipping the bottom-of-the-screen large ones.

I don't know why there's green on the clouds, either, it just is.

- 2 - Similar to my breakdown of Hydrocity and Hidden Palace's parallax set-ups, the full interior background from both acts, with additional netting for no reason other than to show that there are 12 complete (broken in image to show what parts are hidden by other objects) rows of the largest squares.

- 3 - An foreground object breakdown so people can build whole new sections. This will be the crux of the sheet and take the longest amount of time. Expect quite a while for this to be completed while I have more important things to deal with.

- 4 - Interactive object breakdown, as demonstrated with a fully accurate vertical netting animation cycle. I don't know why the netting moves between frames, but it does.

As a side note, there is a very brief palette shift (which also makes the graphics slightly garbled) when entering the interior through debug and layer playing. However, this only effects the lowest parts of the background, and with my real life schedule being what it is in the coming weeks to months, I cannot run a palette test on higher parts of the background to create an alternative, so for the time being, I won't include it in the final sheet.

[Ton]

Whoa, that sounds like a lot of work. Hope you're up to it!

[Paraemon]

Whoa, that sounds like a lot of work. Hope you're up to it!

I'm up to it!   It's much more simple than stages like Angel Island, Carnival Night and Sandopolis. However:

Current Situation News:
I've loitered around the forums the past day or two re-acquainting myself with what's been covered in the project thus far. Figured I should post and update, even if I have nothing new to display.

After the last update, I got given a chance to try out a Switch; I subsequently immediately bought one for myself out of fascination and enjoyment, and between playing Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, writing essays and preparation for the next part below, I put the project on the back-burner. Sorry not sorry 

I've temporarily relocated from England to Cyprus as part of my studies, and return home around the end of May. I was busy before Christmas, but now I'm busier than that. That said, there are free points in which I can at least attempt to get on with the project, but they're basically at random. At least, there are minimal to zero essays, and I've left the Switch with a trusted relation back in England, so I have no excuse beyond where my time currently goes.

I have none of the master files of the project yet, since they're on a computer I had to leave behind in England. That being said, I desire to do some reorganisation to a few existing sheets and work out, from that, what to do with future sheets. I also want to overhaul the intro post to the thread, that could take a couple of hours (a full pocket of free time on some days), and make preparations for the more insane targets of the project.

I'll keep you all updated as time goes on, but for now I'll continue to work on Flying Battery's disassembly. Might take another crack at the animations of Ice Cap 2's background as well.

Questions
How do I make the spoiler tags work so that I can title each drop-section and shorten the size of a post unless people want to read more of that section? Never mind, got it coach

Returning to the Slot Machine issue, I am quite loathe to make use of an object ripped by another person on account of the fact I simply am unable to find it myself with or without tool assistance. If someone could provide to me or instruct me on getting an untainted, 24-color BMP of that blasted Super Sonic icon, that hasn't come from sheet already up on TSR or elsewhere on the web, that would be greatly appreciated.

[Paraemon]

Today's been something of a lazy day. So I figured, why not get on with some ripping work?

Please refer to the attachment, as my current internet connection seems to like to prevent me from accessing random sites with no warning, so I can't get onto imgbb at this time of writing. Fixed.



I have basically torn apart all the pieces that make up the Hidden Palace Zone, so that users can build their own version much more to how they wish. It is functionally similar to Skylight's sheet currently up on TSR, but just more minuscule. I've also incorporated the 0408 alternate purple palette on the lime green objects due to the change that happens when you access the special stage within HPZ.

All I have left to do, essentially, is decuple check everything, and then organise the sheet and add the annotations. I've also captured some missing objects, including the 12-frame animation cycles of the teleporter pedestals. The 'elephant' like room pieces will remain as is due to their one-off nature and there not being a current need to edit up something new when you can't see it in-game.

The sheet can (and likely will) be finished by next weekend. But I ask:
1. Should I incorporate a version of the Emerald Altar that has the powerless Super Emeralds?
2. Should I do what SupaChao once did and rip the 100+ animation frames of the Chaos Emeralds preparing to unlock the Supers? It'd create a large sheet, but as it is HPZ-specific, would fit.

[Ton]

I would include the emerald stands, but 100+ animation frames seems like a LOT of work.