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A Plumber For All Seasons (out now!)

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Thanks for the encouragement, you two! #tb{:)} I think that worked.

Originally posted by Deeke
In other news, may I ask how you accomplished the "beam of light" graphic in your forest tileset? It's a very smooth transition from transparent to totally invisible.

Sure! The beams are single-color stripes on layer 3, with HDMA to replace that specific color with a white-to-black gradient, and color addition to turn it into a white-to-transparent gradient.




I gave the background another shot today, and it's actually something good now. #tb{:DD} Not to go overboard on the pathos, but you could say today is the day I've been anticipating since at least 2014. It's still a far cry from what I imagined when I went to the riverbank and took all those photos, but it's much less far off than it was yesterday.


(animated, ~14MB)

Though after looking at it all day my judgment is clouded as hell, so... what do you guys think?

 


 
Watching the GIF was visually stunning. I never thought I'd see that much parallax scrolling used within SMW! In my eyes, the background itself fits right in with the realistic visuals you're going for. The lengths you went to for creating it definitely paid off, and I can't wait to see more!
What is a Lunar Magic, and can I eat it?
I found the first one looked incredible as it is, but holy shit the current version. #tb{'_'} -> #tb{O_O} It's funny to me that you took 4 years to begin drawing it, and then a day later it's like completely improved in every way.

Also this is no doubt the most beautiful swamp I've seen in a hack, plus the parallax just makes it absolutely unique.


e: wait a fucking second is the dithered reflection in the water actually moving at another rate than the water itself???
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to hear birds and see none.
Originally posted by MaxodeX
e: wait a fucking second is the dithered reflection in the water actually moving at another rate than the water itself???

I think what it is is there is one scanline that is following the trees, and another scanline that is parallax scrolling water, making the illusion that there is transparency in the water. Either that, or the water has pixels that show layer 3 with the trees.

That being said, damn this just looks great. Sometimes you just have to produce something you don't want to learn how to improve it, and not sit on an idea for years because you're afraid of the task at hand. As they say, you just have to get through the hard stuff before getting to the easy stuff.
Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

Dang... White Yoshi Egg never fails to impress me with his hacking skills! The graphics in this hack are phenomenal!

I am absolutely mesmerized by that parallax water scrolling in that forest level.

The only constructive criticism I can give is that I feel like the vanilla Mario graphics clash with the rest of the graphics, so I would recommend giving Mario different graphics.
Yes I'm a furry. Is that a problem?
Thanks for the feedback! #tb{:)} Glad you like it.

Originally posted by MaxodeX
e: wait a fucking second is the dithered reflection in the water actually moving at another rate than the water itself???

Yeah, it's on layer 3 (as are the forest backdrop and the foreground plants, thanks to priority and mainscreen/subscreen trickery), with every other pixel being transparent.

Originally posted by MaxtheFox
The only constructive criticism I can give is that I feel like the vanilla Mario graphics clash with the rest of the graphics, so I would recommend giving Mario different graphics.

I've thought about it, but I think it'd be best to keep the original ones. I believe player graphics have an impact on what the physics feel like, and unfamiliar graphics would make for less intuitive gameplay. (Also player graphics are really tricky to draw.) In any case, thanks for the suggestion!


 
That is some awesome trickery you've got going there. I got a Donkey Kong Country 2 vibe from how that water moved for some reason. Great that you're still working on it. Can't wait for more!
Click here to enter the world of mediocre!
If you're willing by to break the illusion, you could show us each layer independently of each other. I'd at least like to see it.


Other Submissions of mine!
Sure thing:

(animated, ~7MB)


Despite what it looks like, the HDMA was actually the easiest part about the whole thing, and more like an afterthought.

It's not magic at all - anyone can do it - it's just about knowing what's possible and feasible. Sure, the knowledge that you can make any layer change its scroll rate anywhere is in the back of many hackers' minds, but only with the right tool does that knowledge come to the front (i.e. become useful).


 
Oh my goodness, that swamp set that you made looks amazing! That looks about on my level of aesthetics...maybe even higher!

You've been doing an amazing job, WYE! Keep it up!
Just so you know, I'm very active on the site anymore like I was before; I'm mainly on Discord now.
Here's what I spent the past way too many days on:



A falling spider that acts more or less like a killable Thwomp. I was probably unintentionally copying the Scuttlebug enemy from the NSMB games (though the behavior's not 100% the same), and when I realized that, I decided I might as well copy their visuals outright.


 
ayy that looks fantastic. I love how the web retracts after the spider is killed, it's a super neat detail.
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to hear birds and see none.
Thanks! #tb{:)} Took me long enough to get right.


This level's other main enemy is a Blargg (or Nep-Enut, or whatever). I'm not 100% satisfied with the graphics (it's hard to get the lunging pose to look dynamic enough, and to get the proportions just right when you're basically drawing a huge blob), but it's serviceable. I may still tweak the palette though.

Now I should finally be able to get to... actually designing the level!


 
I think it looks fine the more you look at the Blargg, probably because it usually doesn't jump out like that. The palette looks fine as well, but perhaps a tad bit darker.
Click here to enter the world of mediocre!
And the swamp level's done at last! #tb{:D} Missing some decorations and palette tweaks, but the design is all there.

No videos or GIFs this time around (there's quite a bit of slowdown and I'll only port to SA-1 at the very end), but have a handful of screenshots:



I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out.


 

WYE you never fail to impress me with your graphics, and the level design is actually looking pretty good as well! I can hardly see this is Super Mario World anymore, but I'd suggest changing the Mario sprite to the SMWR one, or atleast a hybrid SMWR one.
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Colour scheme based on the awesome ViM theme, Gruvbox.
Glad you like it!

Thanks for the Mario graphics suggestion too. I'm pretty adamant about keeping them, though - my reasoning is that Mario's graphics affect the way he feels to control, and redrawing them would make for an every-so-slightly "something's off about the physics" feeling. It can be done well, but it's tricky, and in my personal case I don't think it's a good call. (I also want this hack to be firmly rooted in SMW and not look like it's trying to be its own game.)


(I'm considering adding in season-specific player graphics - see the title screen in the first post - but only as minor changes, and only as an easter egg.)




Let's keep up the pace while I can! The next level's going to be a coral reef. (This here is only a beta setup to test the palette and such.)



I'm lucky the corals turned out as good as they did, because I really don't know how to draw them and the reference pictures I looked up looked so much better. Ah well.


 
That all looks awesome! Really diggin' the coral reef! I like the fractal patterns in the background. Like everything else, it looks great, can't wait to see more!
Mario's Journey for the Seven Mystic Gems - Demo 3

Seahorse time! I spent quite some time tweaking the proportions (Super Mario Land was a great reference here) before I realized seahorses will always look a little awkward. All things considered, the graphics turned out nicely.

These seahorse sprites act like flashing shells or Boss Basses - they follow the player either horizontally or vertically, but with enough leeway for them to sneak past. (They also stop at walls.) I *think* that'll make for some interesting setups?


 
aaaand world 2-3 is done! Just over two weeks from drawing the background to finishing the level design - this may be the fastest I've completed a level in a while. #tb{:)}



At this rate maybe I can finish world 2 by the end of the year?


 

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