19 replies to this topic

[Sheik]

Hey there everybody! Throwing in a first small update for my newly started quest project.

Those of you who have been following this week's SotW will have seen my Gameboy Zelda Lost Woods scene I entered this week:



That particular screen is actually a mock up for the OoT Gameboy Demake I started working on a couple days ago. Here are some first screens from the almost finished Kokiri Forest overwold map (past, daytime):



Here we have Link's tree house with Saria waiting in front of it. Next to Saria's own hut a Kokiri boy is trying to pull out a bush.



The Kokiri Forest shop. At first I was unsure that transparency in the Gameboy tileset works at all, but I am getting more fond of it with each consecutive screen. I really like the way the water turned out. And then there's the entrance to the Lost Woods. I use this little gossip stone sprite in almost every map I make ever. I made it a longer while ago and really took a liking to it.

So, well. That's this for the moment! Let me know what you think. So far I am really enjoying it!

PS: This is something I have been thinking about ever since I started using Zelda Classic about ten years ago. After I joined the forums I took first attempts at remaking Ocarina of Time scenes in the Gameboy tileset and also played around with transparent water. The results were pretty bad back then, here's a little throwback:

Spoiler

Edited by Sheik, 11 July 2017 - 04:59 PM.

[Norzan]

I don't even like OoT all that much, but those screens look great.

[ShadowTiger]

Those are absolutely beautiful screenshots, Sheik. Thank you for them. One thing that's always put me off of the GBA Tileset, however, is the jarring transition between cliff tiles and either water or grass. The bottom corners of cliff tiles (Where the cliff meets the ground, not the more elevated upper surfaces.) seem to always be tan no matter what they're surrounded by.

It never made any sense to me that this is a thing that needs to happen. Why don't people just make a duplicate of the tile, color that little triangle green or blue, add the combos, and keep going? It seems like such a small detail but it also feels like it's extremely obvious when it's put down, like someone playing the same wrong note in a music piece over and over again and never correcting it.

[Sheik]

Ah, the little white triangles, yes... I would like to conter that this simply is the way the GBC tileset is meant to be used according to the standards Nintendo set and hence we can gloss over this detail but given how I am well beyond Nintendo's vision of GBC Zeldas here I am not making a great argument for myself... I will consider your point, thanks.

Also, I've been super cautious to spell it "GBC" with a capital "C" given how you accidently wrote "GBA".

[Eddy]

I have to say, this is the best looking OoT demake I've seen in such a long time. OoT is one of my favourite Zeldas so it's really nice to see a demake attempt like this!

 

I'll definitely be following this, good luck on the project.

[ShadowTiger]

Ah, the little white triangles, yes... I would like to conter that this simply is the way the GBC tileset is meant to be used according to the standards Nintendo set and hence we can gloss over this detail but given how I am well beyond Nintendo's vision of GBC Zeldas here I am not making a great argument for myself... I will consider your point, thanks.

I like to think that if someone isn't making a 1 to 1 direct reproduction of something, they're free to take any liberties they wish. You've already assembled screenshots that would make any GBC tileset user blush, drool, and wake up in such a way that they would need to change their bedsheets. What's a little bit more at this point?

Also, I've been super cautious to spell it "GBC" with a capital "C" given how you accidently wrote "GBA".

I had a nightmare once where the GBC games were on both the GBA, the DS, the N64, the Wii, and the PS3 but not the PS1 or PS2. They weren't ports either; they just kept recreating it over and over again from scratch. And they all that had stupid little triangle on the corner of everything. :tard: I refused to buy it.

[Sheik]

Now with 100% more minimap subscreen mockups! Also, the Great Deku Tree.

-

It's drawn on the BS overwold minimap grid so I will have to make sure that no map is bigger than 8x8 screens but that should be alright I guess.

@ShadowTiger:

 

I had a nightmare once where the GBC games were on both the GBA, the DS, the N64, the Wii, and the PS3 but not the PS1 or PS2. They weren't ports either; they just kept recreating it over and over again from scratch. And they all that had stupid little triangle on the corner of everything. :tard: I refused to buy it.

Ah, look! I am safe - my game is for free anyways.

Edited by Sheik, 12 July 2017 - 05:54 PM.

[Anthus]

I think limiting each area to 8x8 screens is a good idea actually. When I dabbled in demaking OoT in Classic, I did the same thing. 3D spaces are obviously different than a 2D sprite based game, so keeping all areas within one finite size makes the world feel more consistent. Plus, areas like Hyrule field can be potentially boring if they were to go for a "screen by screen" translation. Actually, Hyrule field was the one area I didn't do cause I couldn't really think of a good way to make it feel like Hyrule field, without it being screen after screen of grass, or, green pixels in the case of classic. Making a more traditional Classic OW style area didn't feel right either.

 

Either way, great work. I hope this project takes off, but I know it would be quite some time before anything is done. The deku tree looks really nice, but there is something about its nose that isn't quite right, imo. I mean, it is fine the way it is, but there is just something slightly off about it to me.

[Sheik]

Yeah, I will have to figure something out for Hyrule Field. Honestly, though, I will add more and probably different enemies. Four or five Peahats for an entire map is quite a bit too little...

As for the project taking off, I actually mapped all of Kokiri Forest by now (well except for the Lost Woods). I will have to duplicate the map with some slight changes in a night palette (I want to make it so that you can go to bed to warp from daytime to nighttime maps, but no actual "dynamic" day/night cycle) and then set up the interiors. Then I am good to figure out what to do with the Deku Tree dungeon.

Edited by Sheik, 12 July 2017 - 06:21 PM.

[Anthus]

I'm not sure how encyclopedic your knowledge of OoT's world is, but here's some resources that might be useful. There are a few 3D map models on this website. You can view these with blender, which is completely free, and open source, and capable of reading the .obj file format (It's also a game design suite with its own langauge, and support for java, as it turns out). Sadly, they only have Hyrule Field, Kokiri Forest, Castle Town and a few others fully ripped. And Bongo Bongo's room for some odd reason.

 

I find these interesting on their own, cause I love looking at models, but it might also be good to help with planning your Hyrule field. No one has ripped the dungeons yet, and word around the OoT community is, it would be kind of time consuming since you would need to visit every dungeon room, and sometimes, move around larger rooms to get all the faces to load into memory so they can be extracted with an N64 emulator plug-in. The main Water Temple room, and the main Fire Temple room are giving me collision mesh flash backs all over again (this is when you accidentally rip the collisions from models that don't have their textures loaded, and you get a flat shaded gray, or yellow model). I'd be up for the task, if I had the time.

 

EDIT: Random fun facts about OoT's dungeons. When Link enters a dungeon, OoT has an interesting way of handling it, and allowing for quick room transitions. Basically, the dungeon's entire (or almost entire) model is loaded in, but it is invisible. It only mathematically provides boundaries, loading zones, and collision types (lava/ ice/ hookshotable, etc). The actual visual textures are loaded in on a room by room basis. This load is triggered by the door animation. That's why when some people go OOB, the can still walk around the dungeon but everything is invisible. The data is there, but the textures aren't since the game still thinks you are in the room you left, since no door transition was triggered. This allows for some really game breaking stuff in both N64 titles, but MM takes it to a new level by storing all fairy fountains, and grottos in one map respectively. Oh, and don't even get me started on boss rooms. They are their own entry entirely, and most of them are very hard coded. Believe it or not, most bosses use more poly's than their dungeons! Mario in Mario 64 is almost as many polys as most stages. Alright, I'll stop. I had too much coffee at work.

[Sheik]

That is interesting, thanks for sharing. I am actually using the maps from vgmaps for reference, such as this one:

Spoiler

As for the subscreen again: I have to send out a huge thank you to Relic who helped setting it up. It's now functional and such, very lovely stuff. I am actually surprised that for the time being progress is pretty fast and steady. We'll see how that works out come exams in two weeks...

[Matthew]

This is very neat. Good luck on this project (and on your upcoming exams )

[Joelmacool]

I'd like it if these tiles were released onto the database (as a tileset or separate tiles)... I'd love to use them!

(Good luck with your project!)

[Epsalon ZX]

This looks very promising. I look forward to seeing the direction this takes. I hope it goes well.

[Sheik]

I'd like it if these tiles were released onto the database (as a tileset or separate tiles)... I'd love to use them!

(Good luck with your project!)

Which tiles in particular do you want to use? - One way or another, I do not plan to password the quest so starting with the first demo release (whenever that will be) all the tiles currently included will be publically available.