[Mugi]

Hi ho romhaxor people,

EDIT: most recent build (24.11.2018) here: https://dev9.blacklabel-translations.com/patch/nes/shatter_man_24112018.zip

as I already threw a screenshot or 2 of my little shatterhand HD project into the screenshots thread, I figured it's about time for a not so serious thread about the thing itself.

I will begin by stating that only the Intro stage is done (stage A) and this project will go for a pause now, as I have some previously engaged business with Zill O'll infinite plus' english translation to attend to before I continue this one.

that said, here's what's done:

- first picture of the opening cutscene
- title screen
- 100% of stage A graphics
- 100% of main char textures for both colors of his jacket (the stupid flickering effect of the red jacket has been removed)
- all stage objects except the coin texture
- HUD (very minor recolors /edits)
- pause screen

in addition little things have been done that are not present on the vanilla game despite technically being present there,
such as animating the used power and health platforms. (the non-used platforms have a 4-frame animation, which stays looping the same sprite 4 times once the platform is used, i just gave it 4 different ones.)

the title screen also says "SHATTER MAN" isntead of SHATTERHAND. this is an optional IPS patch i made because i just had to, following a conversation with a friend who called Hermann the "shatter man"



what is not done:
- rest of the opening cutscene
- scroreboard screen
- stage select screen
- stages B, C, D, E, F and the final stage (G?)
- robot helpers
- robot suit mode
- explosion / hit effects
- various screen transition effects
- enemies that do not appear in stage A

What is planned:
- finish up all not done graphics
- bugfix issues present on vanilla game (2 monsters on the intro stage have glitched sprites, im expecting to find more.)
- maybe alternative things like making Hermann's jacket black/brown instead of looking like he's marty McFly from BTTF movies lol
- dunno, suggest things !

here's a pile of screenshots enjoy!











here's a little collage of the sprite work on enemies so far.



I will polish ot up a tiny bit more and then release the pack with the aforementioned done for testing.

also, here's a (crappy quality) video of me attempting to fail my way through the stage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCrouUzZdck


for those wishing to restore the title screen to "SHATTERHAND" instead of "SHATTER MAN"

open the hires.txt and comment out the following 5 lines by adding a # to the beginning of the lines:

<patch>shatterman.ips,611131DDB450C9B46AD6BC53E0C6E26C7140E83E
<tile>0,448,0F043830,16,56,1,N
<tile>0,449,0F043830,24,56,1,N
<tile>0,464,0F043830,32,56,1,N
<tile>0,480,0F043830,120,56,1,N

[PolishedTurd]

It looks fantastic! Like SNES quality graphics with NES quality gameplay, the best of both worlds.

I have been tempted to design a new set of levels for this game, and this whets my appetite. The way HD packs work, would it still be compatible with a different tile layout for a level, assuming I use identical tiles? Or is it effectively hard-coded to the existing level layout?

[AxlRocks]

Oh nice! I seen that screenshot the other day, didn't realize it was going to be an HD Pack. Looks cool!

It looks fantastic! Like SNES quality graphics with NES quality gameplay, the best of both worlds.

I have been tempted to design a new set of levels for this game, and this whets my appetite. The way HD packs work, would it still be compatible with a different tile layout for a level, assuming I use identical tiles? Or is it effectively hard-coded to the existing level layout?

As long as you use the same palettes and tiles, it will be ok. Or should be. The only issue you might find is if you use tiles in an area where they weren't before and then a palette shift occurs (like, say a screen flash or something. Does Shatterhand have any? I can't remember.), then those will be considered new tiles as that tile with that palette was never used in the vanilla game.

[Mugi]

It looks fantastic! Like SNES quality graphics with NES quality gameplay, the best of both worlds.

thank you. The goal of mine was just to do a "less" limited recolor of the game, the resolution of everything is intact, and I am indeed still
using things like dithering as i have artifially limited myself in color count on some occasions. I am also dead set on not using alpha transparency anywhere.

As long as you use the same palettes and tiles, it will be ok. Or should be. The only issue you might find is if you use tiles in an area where they weren't before and then a palette shift occurs (like, say a screen flash or something. Does Shatterhand have any? I can't remember.), then those will be considered new tiles as that tile with that palette was never used in the vanilla game.

shatterhand has fade-in / fade-out's for levels (start of level, character death, boss room warp) and stage flashing (boss death) which are accomplished through repeated palette shifts.

i must warn you though if you adventure into shatterhand's HDpack creation.....  this game's methodology of doing some things is programmed by satan himself.

i will release this pack very shortly (need to fix a couple more item graphics) and you can see what i mean from my hires.txt file.
some things like the game's HUD or the item object graphics require an insane amount of repeated scripting to replace one simple graphic on all the possible variations the game offers for it.
For example, the HUD has a graphic tile for each of it's elements for each variation of the main character sprites ANIMATION status, thus the HP bar for example,
has 3 tiles that has to be traced down and replaced in 13 different instances, othervise it will just flicker between the original and the new one while you run or punch or whatever.


edit: the wip release is up now, should be fully functional for stage A aside the aforementioned hit/explosion effects & robot helpers and robot suit mode (and effects associated with those.)

Link in the first post.

for those wishing to mess with it, i'd like to think that i did a decent job commenting what is what in the hires.txt

this text file is also entirely written by hand, along with clean(er) sprite sheets to go with it, instead of simply using what mesen's hdpack builder spits out. Happy derping.

[-pepodmc]

Can you make this HD pack work with Solbrain too?

[Mugi]

i could but im not particularly interested about solbrain per-se.
I'll have to see once it's ready if i can bother to make the extra changes required for it.

[Mugi]

well well...

new features implemented;

1) shatterfix.ips which fixed 3 things.
 - properly centers "push start" by moving it one tile to the left
 - fixes incorrect tile coordinates from the "wallcrawler" enemy, making the sprite appear as it is supposed to.
 - fixes incorrect tile coordinates from stage A boss' animation when he stands on the wall and reaches out to throw the... whatever it is he's throwing.

2) unique robot suits per-robot.

This is achieved through insane amount of conditional scripting (almost 4000 lines and im nowhere near done yet) in mesens hdpack hires.txt

below you can see a video of me demonstrating 4 suits i've been messing with so far. each robot has it's own color theme, complete with a jetpack sprite which is no longer shared between all robots, and will appear in the robots own color theme along with the ultimate power suit.

https://youtu.be/ZSyNqlD42OI


i intentionally left memory editor visible in the video to show off how im cheating to test this stuff. I also display to you where the score is stored if you feel like cheating with it

i will publish the notes of what i know of the rom map once im done with this nonsense.

all romhacking including finding the values needed is done by a fella named torridgristle, all hail to him for bugfixes. <3



second sprite of the opening animation (not shown on video) is also done, and the beginnings of stage selection screen are done.


edit: here's how the bugged boss sprite looks as opposed to how it's supposed to.



and here's a couple spritesheets just for teh lulz to show what i have to do 8 times in order to finish hte robot suit mod

[PolishedTurd]

The way the suit illuminates as the projectile comes out is a beautiful touch.

[Mugi]

The way the suit illuminates as the projectile comes out is a beautiful touch.

thanks!, though i do have to admit i didnt come up with it, the default sprite has this, where the hand is colored with the lighter color of the robot sprite during the shooting frames, it's just much less visible due to the color limitations imposed. I do like how mine turned out though, they give some additional life to the sprite.

at any rate, the link in the first post has been updated to the current version (build date today.)

this version now has the aforementioned robot suit test stuff in it (only laser, fire and sword bot are ready, rest have recolored placeholders for the suit, and floater is highly wip, so it looks like an ass.)


stage selection screen is also now completed and fully functional.

I had to grit my teeth and discard the original images shown for the stages on the selection screen "tv's" as they were simply using too many repeat tiles to generate the quality i wanted to use.... hence i simply nullified them and used some background drawing trickery to generate some new ones.


few things to note about the stage selection.
first of all, since the game supposingly takes place in the 21st century, i saw fit to discard the CRT screens from the wall and give steve some nice shiny LCD's to select stages from.. Secondly, as i discarted the original stage images, the new ones are slightly "off" compared to the -still mildly dithered graphical look of the game.. i do hope you enjoy the new look, but if you dont, please be gentle, It took me literal hell to generate this

if you wish to see how it works, the stage selection code starts from line 6268 in hires.txt
and for those too lazy to take a look, here's a quick breakdown;

# 20_stage_select.png, covers a single static screen with nothing but a 2 frame character animation, and fadein/fadeout effects
128x128 pixels, roughly 70% used.

1595 lines generated in hires.txt
535 lines of custom conditions to recreate the used effects on-screen
43 custom backgrounds drawn to generate all the possible combinations of cleared/not cleared stages.

time spent: roughly 40 hours

here be screenshots.

vanilla stage select vs. "hd" stage select


Stage G



Edit: i did notice that the pack i uploaded still doesnt have the render of hermann done on the stage selection (it's missing fade effect frames)
so i set on to work on that, and i also added another nice little detail missing from the vanilla.

since the red power jacket does carry on between stages, I saw fit to make it so, and have the red jacket shown on stage selection too if active.



this will be added to the next upload.

[Mugi]

it's been a moment since i updated this thing... so here goes...

i did originally mention that the project was halted after it's initial workings but i did work a bit of it that was stood as unreleased before i halted it.

here's the link to the latest file: http://dev9.blacklabel-translations.com/patch/nes/shatter_man_24112018.zip

this one has the stage selection completely done, and most of stage C is done (second part has a glitch with steve's jacket, and enemies / objects are undone) boss and boss room are also undone.

- the stage selection now correctly shows green or red jacket depending on which one you wear while entering stage selection.
- robot suits stuff got  some upgrades and robot suit damage frames are now implemented.
- robot suits now have an uniquely colored HP bar for each robot.

- power jacket now has a HP display which displays 3 red bars of HP on the elft side of the actual HP bar. once they run out, you will lose the jacket and get the greeen one back

various other little fixes were made but most i actually forgot already since it's really been a while.