Super Mario All-Stars Redrawn ( Lost Levels Demo is now Available in the OP )

[DarkSamus993]

Haven't really had much time to do romhacking the past few days, but I'm currently working on setting up a hijack in the koopalings' loading routines so custom palettes can be injected shortly before the palette block gets uploaded to Color RAM.

Here's the general idea of my plan:

This setup will allow for custom palettes without breaking the colors of any fireballs in the boss rooms.

For reference:

Code Select Expand


4bpp bosses are Iggy/Larry and Lemmy/Wendy.
mode 7 bosses are Morton, Ludwig, and Roy.


[julayla]

Huh, how very interesting. Seems like a good idea.

[pocket]

The Castles in SMB1 now look a lot closer to how they were in the NES version, although not brick-for-brick because I like the "outline" of the main path and the different looking bricks for thin paths.  I'd really like to change the porous looking giant bricks they used for the ceiling into something else but I have no ideas for it.   They Castles in Lost Levels will just use the original all-stars tileset for castles with the diagonal brick patterns.

SMB2 Luigi got a little facelift too, was not quite satisfied with my original sprite of him and noticed my character select screen sprite for him was a bit better than the player sprite, and that won't do.


Lastly, updated Koopa Troopas for SMB1. I really hope these look good because i'm at my wits end trying to make these guys look any better.  I don't know what i'll do for Lost levels.

Haven't really had much time to do romhacking the past few days, but I'm currently working on setting up a hijack in the koopalings' loading routines so custom palettes can be injected shortly before the palette block gets uploaded to Color RAM.

Here's the general idea of my plan:

This setup will allow for custom palettes without breaking the colors of any fireballs in the boss rooms.

For reference:

Code Select Expand


4bpp bosses are Iggy/Larry and Lemmy/Wendy.
mode 7 bosses are Morton, Ludwig, and Roy.


Ooh, sounds promising. Best of luck, if you can do this then a SMAS+W version ( and stand-alone SMW ) will be back on the table.  All that would be left is figuring out how to get Iggy's hair fix patch working with the SMAS+W version of SMW so I can give Larry his blue hair and Iggy his rainbow mohawk.


EDIT:  I think this hack needs a better name, because "Artwork Faithful" doesn't roll off the tongue very well, and while the main goal of this hack is to make the pixel art to match the art better, it's also become about restoring things they took out of the original games, and improving in other areas.

[Shade Aurion]

Nice and yeah the Koopa Troopas look great so rest assured that your hard work paid off.

If Artwork Faithful doesn't roll off the tongue, you could go with Faithful Edition, Enhanced, Redrawn, Reworked, Remastered, etc
I like Faithful edition since the point is to be faithful to the art

[Ar8temis008]

what about something like "Mario All Stars Designers Cut" or something silly like "Turbo Mario All Stars"

[NiO]

Something Art related maybe.

Or just something that sounds familiar but new, Like SMBAS Plus, or SMBAS Cartoon World, I dont know.

Maybe "The Real Super Mario Bros All Stars", adding the real like Ghostbusters did to separate the ome with the Gorilla and the one with Slimmer.

[Razieldemon]

Super Mario Al-Stars: Picturebook Edition!

With the exclamation marks, but I digress, Im a big child.

[ShadowOne333]

I would go for SMAS+SMW Redesigned or Redrawn.
Those sound kinda nice. Or adding Faithful before those words could work too.

[BlazeHeatnix]

I love every change in this hack so far...except for the SMB1 idle stance.

I know you said the sprite will change eventually from this mockup, but still...I think the reason the original stance works is because it looks so flat. It somehow has an air of "heroic determination" to it despite its flatness. Once you make it less flat though, Mario suddenly looks like he walked outside and can't remember why. It doesn't look very dynamic. I don't think the original stance is something you can truly replicate in 16-bit, and I think the SMB3 stance looks better overall.

[Metalwario64]

I love every change in this hack so far...except for the SMB1 idle stance.

I know you said the sprite will change eventually from this mockup, but still...I think the reason the original stance works is because it looks so flat. It somehow has an air of "heroic determination" to it despite its flatness. Once you make it less flat though, Mario suddenly looks like he walked outside and can't remember why. It doesn't look very dynamic. I don't think the original stance is something you can truly replicate in 16-bit, and I think the SMB3 stance looks better overall.

I've already made an improved update of the SMB1 stance:


In addition to the SMB1 walk cycle:


I'm still tweaking the proportions, but I think they work pretty well.

[pocket]

Changed the Lost Levels ground tiles, I originally just copy pasted the NES tiles and added the shading but they looked really rough.  While I do want things to be more faithful to the sources, I still want them to look better, so I figure as long as it's still rocky and earthy looking, it should be fine.



Also, it looks like the health in SMB2 is going to stay heart shaped. So i'm going to start a new poll.

The original snow theme just layered snow on top of the existing ground tiles, how do we feel about them being a cool white-ish grey?



Side note, I really want to get rid of the smiley faces on the clouds in SMB1 since background elements didn't have faces until Lost Levels, but for the life of me I cannot find where the smiley face is located in YYCHR.


As for the title of the hack, I think i'll come up with a list of titles and make that another subject for yet another poll.   Apparently this year is the 35th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. series, maybe I could do something with that?


EDIT:



Phew, I think Wart has reached his finalized form. I reckon there's nothing I could do to make him look closer to his art. Makes my first effort at him on reply #4 look like a joke.  His palette isn't actually changed yet, he still has a super light blue coat in game, which is why this isn't a screenshot from the game, but this is essentially how he'll look in the finished hack. Perhaps I should make him a darker green as well.

[niuus]

As for the title of the hack, I think i'll come up with a list of titles and make that another subject for yet another poll.   Apparently this year is the 35th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. series, maybe I could do something with that?

That could be cool. 

[Shade Aurion]

35th Anniversary Edition does have a pretty great ring to it 
Redesign, Reworked, ReDrawn all imply art change. Faithful implies you're being faithful to something, in this case, the original art.

I love the dirt and snow ground tiles, you did really well ^_^

[pleasejust]

I liked the Mario 1 sprites you initially made for Mario at the beginning better.

[Razieldemon]

I liked the Mario 1 sprites you initially made for Mario at the beginning better.

My only criticism on the new sprite is the height of the hat in the back. zit makes Mario look like hes missing a partof his head.

However, the art for Mario 1 is pretty distorted.

But if there is an improvement to be made 1 or 2 pixels up should fix that.

Marios pose might be way off...but so was his SMB1 sprite.Since this is about faithfulness its pretty good!

[pocket]

I liked the Mario 1 sprites you initially made for Mario at the beginning better.

You'll have to be more specific, I don't know if you're talking to me or Metal Wario or if you're referring to the sprites in the OP vs the ones I was designing for SMB1 before I had Metal Wario take over.  In either case i'm sorry to disappoint you, but I won't be using the OP sprites as I'm no longer leaving any of the original sprites in the game unless I truly feel like they can't be improved, and I very much prefer Metal Wario's sprites over what I made, but the silver lining of you meant the latter, I'm revamping what I made to be used in Lost Levels.

My only criticism on the new sprite is the height of the hat in the back. zit makes Mario look like hes missing a partof his head.

However, the art for Mario 1 is pretty distorted.

But if there is an improvement to be made 1 or 2 pixels up should fix that.

Marios pose might be way off...but so was his SMB1 sprite.Since this is about faithfulness its pretty good!

It's like you said, the project is about faithfulness. And that's just how Mario's hat was during the early years. Puffy in the front, smaller in the back.






Anyways, this has nothing to do with Super Mario All-Stars unless I can magically insert a new game into the collection as a part of this hack ( not likely ), but I'm messing around with the homebrew SNES Donkey Kong remake. DK himself is almost done. All I'd need to change after that is Mario, Pauline, and changing the green girders back to pink. Only thing I'd want to do after that is changing the title screen to say "Donkey Kong" instead of the legally safe "Classic Kong" but that's a bit out of my league.

[Zimgief]

If I may suggest, as you work on other revamps for fun, Actraiser direly need one, because:
1) it's one of the first released third party games, and as such, not very advanced, yet iconic
2) the japanese art direction is downright awful.

In the japanese cover, the hero looks like this: https://www.argusjeux.fr/medias/actraiser-jap-e115814.jpg
But in the occidental manual, he looks like this: https://playingwithsuperpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Actraiser-pic-5.png and http://playingwithsuperpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Actraiser-picture-1.png
Which is far more interesting, taking cue from greek/roman statuary.

EDIT: also in Nintendo Power 31, an artwork in a more medieval style: https://comiconlinefree.com/nintendo-power/issue-31/25

[NiO]

I used to sprite for that project for Piko (changing the Kong for a Thor like character) and iirc the game was done by Shiru, contacting him would be helpful because maybe it would make things easier for you, but the legal issues could be a problem there.

[pocket]

Another batch of SMB3 enemies. Koopas weren't as hard to work with this time because I actually had more shades of color to work with. ( In SMB1, half of the colors in their palette change depending on their location and if they have a red or green shell ) 

There wasn't really any new art made for Goombas in SMB3, but they did give art to Paragoombas, and they were a lot lighter in color and had an overbite as opposed to their usual underbite. As a side-effect, the red ones lightened up too, making them look a little more pinkish. I wouldn't call that a major issue but it would be nice to be able to darken the red ones back to normal.

Spike was really hard to improve at first, sometimes the trick is to make the sprite a little smaller, but Spike always has the spike ball loaded behind him at all times. I kept trying to find ways around that without thinking to shrink the ball itself.

And lastly, the Hammer/Boomerang/Fire/Sledge bros. Obviously, Boomerang and Fire Bros. are not the same color as their art ( And Hammer Bro didn't even get SMB3 art but I think we can all guess how they'd look ), but I think having different colors for each one was a change for the better. Gotta be able to tell them apart before they make a move afterall. I'd really like to give the Sledge Bros their own overworld sprites instead of just using the hammer bros colored green, but idk if that would be possible. Side note, I wish these designs stuck. I like the black helmets and shells and i'm not a fan of their pronounced beaks in other games. At least these designs stuck around for Mario RPG, eh?

With this i'm nearly done with SMB3 enemies. Just a few underwater enemies, airship enemies, and I need to find a satisfying way to do Piranha plants and Fire plants. They're suprisingly troublesome.

[Shade Aurion]

Dude, you're fast becoming one of my favorite hackers here. YOur passion translates straight into highly polished sprite work.

I'm just gonna say now, amongst the HD graphic hacks of NES games, you'd be a hero. If you got into stuff like this https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.0 at some point down the line, it might really get your name out there after an amazing project like this one ^_^

Still, i'd love to see you redo the 16 or so sprite sheet replacements needed for Mother 2: Faithful Edition that ShadowOne333 was working on. I'm pretty sure that was mainly what was holding the project up from a full release but that also has a large cult following so might get you some more notoriety. Still, focus on the projects that make you passionate because you're smashing it outta the park.

Loving the look of Classic Kong. I actually just played that again the other day XD