6 replies to this topic

[Mitchfork]

Alright... I've recently been attempting a LOT of enemy tile editing... and I've noticed one thing about the new tiles: they are always in, invariably, csets 7, 8, and 9. If I so choose to use a different cset than these, will it have an effect on other things? I know that the colors of cset 6 change with the rings, does anything similar happen with other csets? I haven't noticed anything testing it, but I though I might as well ask...

[link3505]

CSet 9 is dependant on the current Level CSet of the screen/DMap. However, all the enemies that use 7, 8, and 9 use those palettes regardless of what you edit them for. For example, changing them to work with CSet 1 will only make them look strange in CSet 8, depending on the setup of the palettes. The only way to change that would be to use 265-color editing mode

[Mitchfork]

I've heard a lot about 256 color mode... but how do I enable it, and what is it exactly?

[Radien]

I've heard a lot about 256 color mode... but how do I enable it, and what is it exactly?

In version 2.11 or above, go into the tile editor and select one or more tiles. Then press 'B'. It will ask you if you want to enable "8-bit mode" for those tiles (normal coloring is called "4-bit mode").

Once enabled, the tile now has every color in the palette to choose from. You can go into the tile editor and select them manually and draw with them.

Once in 8-bit mode, you cannot change CSets, even if the tiles were designed for it. That means that you'll have to have two copies of the same tile if you want to show two different color schemes. 8-bit mode is still dependent on the master palette, though. If you paint on a tile using colors from a Level Palette cset, then those colors will change when you move to a different level palette.

(By the way...to convert a tile back into 4-bit mode, hold CTRL and press 'B' again. It will convert the colors back into a single CSet according to the slots they took up in their original CSet. It's hard to explain, but just trust me when I say that it works well, but be ready to hit "Undo" if you're not sure what to expect.)


Now, about enemies...

There is one big drawback to using 8-bit mode on enemy tiles. Sure, you can use any color that you want... however, you know when you hurt an enemy and it flashes for a moment? Well, that flashing is accomplished by cycling through several CSets very quickly. If you enable 8-bit mode, it can no longer cycle CSets. This means that when damaged, the enemy won't flash. This usually looks bad.

Some enemies never flash, however, and are thus perfect candidates for 8-bit mode. Here are some examples:

- Zols and Vires (no matter what you hit them with, they split rather than flash)
- Gels and Keeses (one hit from anything kills them, so no flashing)
- The main body of either type of Manhandla (only the heads flash when damaged)
- Bubbles (well, they do flash when hit with the Fire Boomerang...but otherwise they don't flash at all)
- Dodongos (weapons don't hurt them, and they flicker when they die rather than flash)
- Any invincible enemy
- Any enemy that can't withstand one hit from the wooden sword

...You get the picture. Also, might I point out that in a future version of ZQuest, we can expect to be able to assign specific tiles and CSets to enemies, rather than resort to 8-bit mode. I also HOPE they'll add in a "Enemies Flicker When Hurt" quest rule, but who knows whether they'll do that or not.


So, does that pretty much answer everything?

[Mitchfork]

It answered A LOT, and also gave me several "new ideas"

But what I was really asking was whether, say, if I assigned an enemy to CSet 11 in the enemy editor, would that be bad? Would it affect anything else?

[Radien]

It answered A LOT, and also gave me several "new ideas"

But what I was really asking was whether, say, if I assigned an enemy to CSet 11 in the enemy editor, would that be bad? Would it affect anything else?

Oh, I'm sorry. I got pretty far off track, didn't I?

But to answer THAT question, no, it wouldn't directly affect anything else.

I'm afraid I've lost track of what's already implemented in the enemy editor... beta 16 was too buggy, so I went back to beta 15 for the time being, and that's right before the enemy editor was implemented. (I don't design quests in builds)

[Mitchfork]

No no, your off-trackness opened new windows into dozens of alternate dimensions that have millions of doors that lead to infinite possibilities.

Yeah, thanks.