[PKstarship]

Hi, I've recently started work on a Mega Man 2 hack, I'm using DOS programs on an android tablet because I have no PC, and I wanted to have a Megaman-styled Samus Aran be be the main character. The story is that Dr. Wily shot Samus with a weapon that makes her incapable of somersaulting, and she goes on a quest to get revenge on him. The problem is that I can't make samus look good within the two-color limit. I also feel like getting rid of the black outlines wouldn't be good, as that is part of the Megaman style. Is there a way for me to fit red, orange AND green into her sprites some way? should I make her cannon a seperate sprite? Help would be appreciated

[Vanya]

Well, Megaman already uses sprite layering so it shouldn't be too difficult to get Samus to work.
So currently you have 2 sprite palettes to work with.
I would recommend using black yellow and orange for the main body palette.
Then use light green, medium green, and red in the secondary palette for the helmet, visor and arm canon.

[PKstarship]

Okay, Thank you  But how do I layer sprites exactly? I've only started hacking around five days ago, so I'm a bit of a noob right now, but I'm willing to learn.

Edit: I just checked out Mega Man's sprite sheet on Tile Layer, and found out that this idea would take more space up on the sprite sheet, because Samus's whole head would take up more than an 8x8 tile, and there would have to be layering for sprites that don't normally have it, like the ladder climbing animation (the ladder shooting animation has layering, though). Granted, Samus doesn't have facial expressions like Mega Man does, so some tiles could be re-used.
September 08, 2015, 06:44:20 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)I was messing around with Mega Man's palettes in NESticle (the sound quality of the emulator almost made my ears bleed) and tried to make him orange, yellow, and green. I was in Flash Man's level though, and I noticed parts of the level turning those same colors. and when I tried to turn the black in Mega Man's eyes to red, all of the black pixels in the background turned red. I suppose this is because of the NES's palette limitations, but how do I make Samus's helmet red without making every level in the game an assault on someone's eyeballs?

[dougeff]

using DOS programs on an android tablet

Dude...Go to eBay, buy the cheapest modern windows computer you can find, install all the good tools that make ROM hacking easy and fun. Your not going to get very far using Nesticle and an android tablet. 

How do you layer sprites?

You have 2 or more sprites at the same x and y coordinates. The lower sprite will show through the transparent bits of the upper one.

September 08, 2015, 10:10:03 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)I just went to eBay, they have over a dozen laptops listed for under $10. All will work better than your setup.

[PKstarship]

My parents don't really think I need a laptop, and it's very hard to negotiate with them, so I'm stuck using level editors, hex editors, and tile layer.

[dougeff]

Well, that sucks.

In reply to "how do I make red not assault your eyes"...The NES sucks at reds, oranges, yellows, grays, and browns. Its really only good at blues and blue-greens. You have like twenty blues and not 1 good yellow. (Sigh). What can you do? Nothing.

[Dr. Floppy]

In reply to "how do I make red not assault your eyes"...The NES sucks at reds, oranges, yellows, grays, and browns. Its really only good at blues and blue-greens. You have like twenty blues and not 1 good yellow. (Sigh). What can you do? Nothing.

This topic has always fascinated me. Someone at some point had to make the final call on the Famicom/NES palette roster. How and why they went with what they did.... there just has to be a story there. Two shades of black (one of which could damage 80's TV screens) with four duplicates apiece, two near-duplicate shades of gray which don't correlate with their Playchoice-10 counterparts, way too much space devoted to the decayed algae part of the spectrum, and last but not least, freakin' Nintello.

That said, I always liked Red #16...

[dougeff]

$16 is just slightly in the orange spectrum, but it's better than $15, which is too pink for my taste. But, some emulators allow you to edit the palette (or overall hue), so you could do that to improve those reds and yellows a bit.

[Vanya]

About changing the black color and not having all black turn red too. It sounds like you changed one of the shared background colors. The NES palettes often use a shared color for the overall background. Also the sprite palettes only have 3 colors to use as the first color is treated as transparent.

[PKstarship]

So, I made this:



Does it look good? I'm leaving Mega Man's face alone at the moment and focusing on the body.

[dougeff]

's ok.

I thought you were going to put Samus in there. ?

[PKstarship]

I'm just keeping Mega Man's face intact for the moment, at least until I can get the palettes and stuff right. I think someone on acmlmboard 2 is willing to help me if I can find a decent Mega Man style Samus sprite sheet, but I can't find one, so I guess I'll make one myself. That way, other people will get to use it too 

[PKstarship]

Okay, I've decided that I want my hack, titled "Mega Man: Return of Samus Aran" to be a Mega Man 6 hack. I want this to have eight levels and sixteen different Robot Masters, All of the Robot Masters will be from Mega Man 1-5. Mega Man, Samus Aran, and Zero Suit Samus will be playable. Levels will be more based on adventuring, with rewards for it.

E-Tanks will behave like in Mega Man X, you keep it permanantly, but you have to fill it up yourself. There will be a Map upgrade, energy and ammo splitters, and possibly a item that slightly increases defense.

The Robot Masters will give different abilities to each character.
-Mega Man will gain the abilities of the sixteen different Robot Masters, none of which are clones of each other. I will remake some moves, like turning Star Man's star shield into a power that lets you make stars rain from the sky.

-Samus will gain her iconic armor upgrades, like Morph Ball Bombs, Missiles, High Jump Boots, The Spring Ball, and three different beams which don't use ammo. Her power-ups will be nessecary to find some upgrades and hidden bosses.

-Zero Suit Samus will gain upgrades to her Emergency Pistol, like the auto-charge function, as well as extra modes where it turns into an energy whip or laser sword.
She will gain more upgrades to her too, I haven't figured out all of Zero Suit Samus's power-ups yet.

Do these ideas sound good?

[dougeff]

You said earlier..."I'm hoping to learn ASM".

Your ideas are good, but reality is about to bitch-slap you up side the head. Unless you plan to spend about 5 years disassembling all 6 games, you're not going to be able to mix enemies from other megaman games. Focus on putting Samus in, and maybe changing some graphics, maybe editing the level design.
September 17, 2015, 07:11:52 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
I mean, maybe if you spend about a year or two learning all the ins and outs of NES ASM code first, and then study the hell out of the Metroid disassembly, maybe you could have a mega man that looks and feels like Metroid. Or maybe, if you could assemble a team of like 5-6 highly skilled programmers working for over a year, you could get it done, but "know your limitations" or else you are just going to get frustrated and quit after a few months.

[PKstarship]

I might try to get a team assembled, but not yet. I think for now I want to work on adding Samus and Zero Suit Samus, but even before that, I need to make a tileset for Zero Suit Samus. I do really know that I am very under-equipped to do some of this, I'll learn some ASM and maybe get help and advice from some more skilled hackers.

My ideas tend to be very extravagant on average, but I think this idea could have the possiblilty to compete with Rockman 4: Minus Infinity if it is made well enough. I will try to not push myself too hard, I don't like giving up on stuff. Thank you for helping me

[M-Tee]

Start small. I guarantee you that no one joins teams started by a "cannot" hoping to rally up a handful of "cans".

Do your graphics changes. Want a challenge? Alter the tile layout of the secondary tiles to accomodate that green arm cannon of yours. That in itself should be your ultimate goal and glory at the moment.

[PKstarship]

I decided I want to start a bit easier than sprite layering. I want to edit Mario 3's graphics and palettes to resemble the ones from Mario 1, and possibly change the Tanooki Suit and Frog Suit into a Blue Shell Suit and Mini Mushroom using simple graphics edits and ASM. I want to start very simple, a Mega Man 6 overhaul is a bit to complicated for me at the moment. I tend to bite off more than I can chew sometimes...