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kingraph

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Everything posted by kingraph

  1. Currently the lowest number on our records, with the exception of the 00001 Mark Lesser edition.
  2. It's be 33% more data for each player photo. So a 3bpp player photo takes up 864 bytes of data (36 tiles x 24 bytes/tile) whereas a 4bpp would be 36x32 or 1,152. There would still be room for the player cards, but I'm not sure if enough for 700+ or whatever some of the modern roster ROMs did. This is cool though...if I tinker around this more I'll post here to share.
  3. Reference for some more in depth reading: HOW TO "Decompress" Graphics in Sega Genesis The header for most graphics is * First 4 bytes are usually the data length of graphic in Hex, including the header 10 bytes. So in this case "0000 033A" is 826 bytes. * The next 4 bytes usually lead to the end of the palette location, or another 128 bytes more. "0000 03BA" is 954 (128 more). * The last 2 bytes represent the number of tiles in the graphic. In this case, I believe it's 22, which means the number of tiles used in the graphic is 34. Normally each tile uses 32 bytes of data. Tiles are 8x8 pixels and each 2 bytes represents a color. Because the player photos are coded in 3bpp, the size of each tile is only 24 bytes. So the total for this graphic is 34 tiles x 24 bytes = 816, plus 10 for the header and we get to 826 (033A). Then there is 128 bytes for the second section. What I actually THINK is happening is that the first part of the header gives the number of bytes to jump to the next offset where the palette starts. The next set of bytes jumps to the start of the layout (0006 0006) or 6x6. For player cards, the 0000 0000 0000 0000 in the headers would suggest that the game just uses the same palette and/or size. I notice the same with header logos that share a palette, the first and second parts of the header are the same as they share a palette. But the size is still included. My guess is in case there are shared tiles and the actual sizes are different. Having said all of that, to address your original question, if you wanted to increase the number of colors in player portraits you will first have to change the coding from 3bpp to 4bpp. Meaning, the game is coded to know that the player cards are graphics that use 3 bytes per pixel, which saves space. First you'd have to find and understand how that function in the game works, change it to 4bpp if possible, and then recode the player graphics to 4bpp format. I have no idea if it's possible, but this will be a pretty technical exercise.
  4. GDL has been replaced by CDL (Chaos Draft League), and TomKabs (along with most of the chatter) is in Discord these days.
  5. Man, I know @clockwise had done this hack (changing puck color to home team) in his ROM updates years back. I can't find the info though.
  6. This visual was money...made me laugh out loud.
  7. Thank you! Your clarity, organization, and helpfulness is off the charts. This is just beautiful work.
  8. I am revising my estimate today. I think there are 26k for each letter, and 5k of the non-lettered. Why? Well, we haven't gotten a number past 26k (largest is 25910 and multiple 25k+ for each letter). When I make this assumption and look at the distribution of only the letter numbers in buckets of 2600 (10 slices), we have a 50/50 split from the first half and second half of numbers (n=338 as of today). And the distribution between the 10 buckets feels normal. So until I see something otherwise, I'll go with this. I am also dying to have visual proof of two sticker matches. Right now we have two reported matches, but I don't have the visual screenshots! These could be errors.
  9. Sorry, I did a fly by and didn't realize this was not '94 related.
  10. Also fun fact -- the "High Score" splash actually uses multiple palettes (that orange part in the globe) in the original ROM, so it's not possible to do a direct copy of that splash in the 30 team without slightly modifying. Not sure how you did it, but nobody would ever notice that nuance.
  11. For what it's worth, attached is the exact rip of the nhl and nhlpa shield from the game.
  12. The layout of the scoreboard logo is BDD44. I highlighted the tiles here: I also noticed that my original post had the incorrect palette. Or at least I believe the palette on the scoreboard logo is 776934 (2nd palette). The 3 stars and scoreboard have separate palette locations.
  13. My original favorite player for Sega was Russ Courtnall. And probably still is, but it's evolved over these years more into a love/hate relationship lol. My original feeling (almost 30 years ago???) was that he wasn't an all-star or top player in the game. He was this hidden gem on a team that was also not recognized as a top team (Dallas Stars). I prefer righty shots on the LW, and SPEED is the most valued attribute, so he was the perfect player. I always loved dominating with Russ and the Stars because it provided more legitimacy than winning with the Blackhawks, Red Wings, etc. When I stumbled into this community back in Spring'11, I used the Stars in Classic. Probably not a coincidence. Thanks to this community, I've amassed more knowledge about players and attributes than any normal person should know. And one thing that troubles me with Russ now is his poor stick handling skills (3 rated out of 6). Stick handling affects the ability of a player to handle a pass. So with Russ, you'll notice that many passes bounce off his skates. It's frustrating, and requires some patience and adjustments when you play with him. But since we go way back, I think I still have a soft spot for him and would be my favorite player for that reason. PLUS, @chaos got Russ to do a Cameo appearance for me to start CDL 05! As far as SNES, I stink and have no idea.
  14. What about making the skate blade white at home? Then you have the white color to use and the blade color is the least noticable color imo. Either way I like the white on the home logo.
  15. From the Empty Clip website and my e-mail exchanges conversations with their CEO, it looks like they use something called Arsenal. Haven't found any information on that software, or even if it's proprietary, but it does seem like something that allows you to run old ROMs on modern platforms with enhancements.
  16. Thank you!!! I appreciate this in so many ways. Thanks for taking the time to make the detailed post. Also major kudos to your art skills! Hacking and coding is one thing, but the art of making a small image using 16 colors look good in the game is no easy feat. (anyone who has done Sega graphic edits are nodding their heads).
  17. Thanks for the reminder! Will do this week
  18. This issue I was referring to was more the latter -- available graphic RAM at one time. I ran into this when I was doing my '95 update: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/18130-nhl95-expanded-rom-project/&do=findComment&comment=170815 What happened was when I expanded the banner image (banners are actually one giant image), when the playoff screen went up the the available graphic memory ran out and started creeping over the background. My solution was to make the image of the Stanley Cup smaller by reducing the tiles. The original '95 game has a spinning cup. I made it static to reduce the tiles. Sort of....technically it's still spinning, but it's the same image over and over again
  19. At the very least you can change the background the same way @Drezzmentioned, however increasing tiles is TBD. It could be possible, but once you increase an image size then you may run into space limitations on the graphics.
  20. I'm not sure if it's the same in FIFA/Super Monaco, but I do explain how the tile pattern layout works in '94: From my OP, here's how the layout logic works (which is located after each image): "Each 2 bytes represents which tile to use, and you'll find 36 tile layouts for the 6x6 logo graphic. The first digit is the palette being used: 0 - Palette 1 2 - Palette 2 4 - Palette 3 6 - Palette 4 If the tile is flipped vertically, the number is 1 higher (1,3,5,7). The next byte will show the horizontal flip. 0 is normal and 8 will flip horizontal. You're likely not going to be flipping tiles vertically or horizontally for your new image, so don't worry too much about that. The next byte is the tile number used. In our example, you'll see the tile layout starts with 2000, 2001, 2002...until all 36 are listed. This means the logo is using palette 2, tile 00, tile 01, etc."
  21. Love it -- would love if you can share your notes or details on "how to" if you find some time. This is definitely something I think people would greatly enjoy. So very cool.
  22. Assuming the background image is the same number of tiles as the original, I doubt it would be a VDP memory issue. If you increased the background image size (increase number of tiles) then perhaps that's it. If it's the same size, but you stuck it in another part of the ROM, then I'd agree maybe some player cards were overwritten or something like that.
  23. This looks sweet man! I'm not sure what the differences of the the two images? They look the same. Does the issue arise when the player cards are scrolling through, or is the actual image messed up (so it's there the entire time)?
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