Paraemon's Comprehensive Ripping Project Thread [Expansion Station]

[Paraemon]

Can you mark them in the updated sheet so I can see which sprites belong together?

All belong exactly how and where they should. I've highlighted what you were unsure about; those are the ones that flash alongside the Eggmobile when Knuckles strikes the craft.

[Davy Jones]

So, the sheet is okay then? If yes, then I would update the old sheet on the site with it.

Here is a minor updated version, changed a few things around the Chaos Emeralds (text, alignment).
http://i.imgur.com/6khjRAe.png

[Paraemon]

So, the sheet is okay then? If yes, then I would update the old sheet on the site with it.

Here is a minor updated version, changed a few things around the Chaos Emeralds (text, alignment).
http://i.imgur.com/6khjRAe.png

Not quite ready yet, the alternate flashes (highlighted in my previous post) header is still "Alternate Red". Besides that, it's near enough ready.

[Davy Jones]

Updated:
http://i.imgur.com/KBks0an.png

[Paraemon]

Updated:
http://i.imgur.com/KBks0an.png

Got it, I'll finish it up for resubmission shortly. Thank you very much! 

[Paraemon]

Glowing Spheres Wall Progress: 163/800 (20.375%).

Updates! First up, the updated Emeralds sheet with thanks to Davy.

Animal Friends Sheet - Basically all the animals, including standard underwater palettes, but not all the Flicky Palettes. May go further and include non-standard Flicky (Sonic/Knuckles) palettes from Hydrocity and Ice Cap's (the Flickies don't live there) underwater sections, as well as Knuckles' prototype underwater palettes.



Ice Cap Badniks - Palettes (to be remarked): Standard, Big Icedus, Hit!Big Icedus, Underwater, Freeze Mobile, Hit!Freezer Mobile. Star Pointer does not seem to adhere to these latter two, opting instead to take on a green Robotnik face.



Launch Base Act 1 Stage Content - Full Background sections for Launch Base Act 1, both Sonic and Knuckles' versions, split for parallax purposes and includes a weird section at the top-rightmost corner of Knuckles' map that takes a repeated, lower section of the righter-most areas of the construction towers and overlaps the actual background above the boss area. The parallax still applies, so the greenery is removed.

Where Knuckles' background starts to repeat after a certain point, Sonic's loops after the 1280-pixel mark. Regarding the mountain sections that go behind the construction towers and the Death Egg, there's a pixel gap that 'hugs' the black line left behind.

[Ton]

Looking great! I updated the emeralds!

[Paraemon]

Looking great! I updated the emeralds!

Thank you very much! 

Glowing Spheres wall progress: 182/800.

Finished the Slot Machine sheet. Before I go on and submit it, I need opinions; the Super Sonic icon. The VDP only picks up on three of the icons when the machine is cycling them/has them set, so trying to find it that way is impossible, as, according to Sonic Retro and TCRF, "it's never used in-game". So, this makes me wonder two things:

1. The sprite does not actually exist in data, and is just a mock up of what the icon could actually look like in game.
2. The sprite is actually in the game, but I am unable to get to it by proper means or learning something that simply do not have time to do. I could possibly include it by using the palette of the yellow bouncer orb/gold arrows in the lower half of the sheet, but would end up being possibly incorrect.

Thoughts?

[Ton]

I'm fairly certain they found it in the game's tiles. It's about now that I still with Yawackhary was still around.

[Paraemon]

I'm fairly certain they found it in the game's tiles. It's about now that I still with Yawackhary was still around.

I've tried checking the palette against the VDP palette, but the only similarities are the sclera and irises. If there is a full palette for it, I'm not sure how to find it; I don't want to add in something potentially corrupted years ago.

Glowing Spheres Wall Progress: 242/800.

More findings:

Alternate Badnik Palettes: Carnival Night (Both Acts) & Sky Sanctuary (Act 2)
Top row of Badniks from the Carnival Night are the standard palettes.
Row 2 (Green): Bowling Spin Palette. Sparkle and Batbot only appear that way before the boss is actually triggered, as they become garbled. Clamer gets the Bowling Spin hit palette, Sparkle gets its normal charging flash, as it does for the next two rows.

Row 3 (Bluer): Underwater palettes for the Badniks.
Row 4 (Pink): Knuckles affected-palette.
Row 5 (Vermilion): Clamer only, during the fight against Graviton Mobile. Oddly, triggering the glitched Knuckles palette in Act 2 does not change the palettes of the Badniks.

Egg-Robo, left to right per row from top:
Mecha Sonic, Mecha Sonic Hit flash;
Mecha Sonic sparking 1, sparking 2 (or charging)
Super Mecha Sonic palettes.






Knuckles in the Mushroom Hill (Act 2 Start, the Switch)

In the 0408 prototype, the switch that Knuckles uses to thrust Sonic into the Autumnal area of the Valley is blue. Also, it appears to be a sensor, since it remains in place while Knuckles moves his body. In the final, as we all know, it's red, and behaves as a switch normally would, as it moves down with Knuckles' body shift. The fourth frame of both rows have been blown up to 500% view for comparison.

[Paraemon]

Glowing Spheres Wall Progress: 403/800. Construction Notes Added.

[Ton]

It looks like an aurora in the thumbnail.

[Paraemon]

It looks like an aurora in the thumbnail.

This gives me an idea for the thumbnail icon.

Also, the insane background animation for the Glowing Spheres makes me want to take a crack at that super-flowing colored-sky in that one Sonic CD Special Stage.

Glowing Spheres Wall Progress: 450/800.

[Paraemon]

It's been a busy weekend, not been able to do much ripping; what I have been able to do is grab some Ice Cap background assets to investigate (three types of parallax, animated color cycles), and the Hidden Palace background parallax.

The parallax for HPZ had irregular sized sections, and then the bottom two blocks are the initial part on entry (top), before it starts looping (bottom); I split these into two blocks to save on unnecessary empty space that I would not fill with information or construction notes. The Knuckles' open crater part at the top removed of the surrounding dark grey background for a simpler time placing it over the Death Egg plug version.

That black block in the top left of the crater, for some reason it's just there and the top-leftmost of the map. The crater block also ends where it does on its rightmost part as any further forces the background to shift to the lowest block. As for the dark grey blocks that lack the rocky pieces between the crater and the "pillars", they seem to appear when using debug to fly around the stage.

Edit: So I realised that the third from bottom block is incomplete there. It'll be in the next sheet update for Hidden Palace.

[NES Boy]

Hey! I don't usually post here in the VG Resource, but I must say it's an interesting project you have going here. I have some tips:

• Fred Bronze, a contributor to Sonic 3 Complete, has a blog that's been running for months now, called Sonic 3 Unlocked (the first post can be found here). With 85 posts so far, it looks into the programming of the game, and occasionally glimpses into oversights. For example, in the beginning of Carnival Night Zone Act 2 in the standard version of Sonic 3, a combination of Tails' airlift and Sonic's electric barrier double jump will show that the top of the shaft you fought the Act 1 Boss in ends with this cut-off:
  
  This isn't noticeable since you need a second player to pull this off. However, with the addition of Knuckles and his much more convenient wall-climbing ability in the locked-on version, the programmers had to reprogram this part of the game to maintain the illusion:
  
  Two particular posts that might interest you are "Boss flash bloopers" and "The naked boss flash", which note that some of the boss flash palettes look "wrong" due to what turns out to be bad programming.
  
• Try viewing the ROM through Tile Layer Pro or similar tile viewers. It can help you locate and rip graphical effects that rely on Direct Memory Access (such as animated tiles and background scrolling depth tricks). It's how I ripped the Super Sonic slot machine graphic you see on TCRF (complete with accurate, raw palette — the rip I replaced, and seen on Sonic Retro's wiki, had a very inaccurate palette that took liberties with how the graphic was actually stored in the ROM).
  

Keep up the good work!