[would possesion-indicating stars be able to negate regular player stars?]

that one. three pixels on the right and four on the left. maybe it's just the image being distorted, but it looks wrong.

Good eye, seems off. Will have a look. It's not my crease, I think it's the one from the 30 bin ROM, don't remember if I've edited though

[My NHL 94 ice (Genesis). For those not wanting the super white ice...]

0,2,4,6,8,A,C,E.

"0000" = black

"0888" = grey

"0EEE" = white

"000E" = red

"00E0" = green

"0E00" = blue

Thank you, made perfect sense. Now that I read your post I remember that when I was editing the ice I actually knew that some was for the highlights and stuff, as explained in the tutorial on the main page.

Will round my value to C (instead of D) just to be proper.

Yeah the ice is pretty bright, even on TV. I usually only have 1 or 2 backlight on my LCD because I'm sensitive to display brightness, can't understand how people can sit in a black room in front of a iMac/Macbook with their brightness set to MAX It's like looking to a flashlight, the iPad 2 on the lowest setting is too bright IMO... so yes, I'm sensitive (and like to use google in the middle of the night when lying in bed)

[My NHL 94 ice (Genesis). For those not wanting the super white ice...]

How is the hex related to color in the image below?

ORIGINAL ICE: 0EE8, 0EEE, 0EEC

#1

First of all, is it only the last two hex numbers that changes the color?

Seems like it.

#2

If the answer to #1 is Yes, then we got:

E8, EE, EC

Let's separate with comma, so we got R,G,B

#3

If I write that in html color code, the closest color I could mix using those hex would be

8E,EE,EC

That would mean that the red slot is backwards, in the ROM it says 0EE8, we only need E8, then we read that backwards making it 8E.

For the green color I haven't ran tests because it was EE, no point trying reverse it

For the blue color, it seems that it wouldn't be reversed, so 0EEC, we use EC, and DON'T reverse it...keeping it EC

Is that how it works?

RED, GREEN, BLUE

Reverse, ??, Non-reverse

so in HTML color language, the color #8EEEEC would be 0EE8 0EEE 0EEC

#4

In Tile Molester, 224 is the brightest color for the palettes I've come across so far..

But the color EE is 238 in decimal (and 238 in Tile Molester doesn't work, it snaps to 224).

So, for the ice, what decimal values can be used to blend your color?

For Tile Molester I've noticed it being:

0

32

64

96

128

160

192

224

But what about the possible decimals for ice color?

[would possesion-indicating stars be able to negate regular player stars?]

it's from the original nhl 94 (!) ROM except the colors modded, so nothing done with the crease..though I recall a thread with a discussion about "crease misalignment", think it was in the net/crease how-to thread

[would possesion-indicating stars be able to negate regular player stars?]

I think I'll use something like this for my ROM, I don't have anything against the star really.. but it's colors are ugly... New ice color in this one too:

Ice color reference:

edit: wrong image... damn I need to start preview my posts

By the way, what is the PALETTE offset for the player indication? Haven't found them. I'm using 30 team ROM by wboy.

[would possesion-indicating stars be able to negate regular player stars?]

the hope is that there would be a transparent copy that, when added by possession, negates all, but I find that likely to be unlikely, if you dig.

I dig. I thought the same thing when writing about how they programmed the layers... seems unlikely that an all transparent image would make the underlying outline star disappear...however, worth a check.

I'll post my results, will have a look, just need to finish 2 more logos for my elitserien mod first.

edit: well, i just realized that it won't work that way because in the original graphics there's transparency (cyan) around the "player have puck" graphics, and it still shows the outline star "below"... haha, too tired for this. Well, you could make your dots the same colors as the ice but it would look funky when you cross the rink lines and such

[would possesion-indicating stars be able to negate regular player stars?]

if you find out a way to have the outlined star dissapear when the player has the puck.. please write a how-to here

I've fiddle a little bit a few weeks ago with the indicator just to see how it is built up...

At least the "player has the puck"-graphics goes on top of the "player does not have the puck outlined star". Have you tried having an empty sprite for when the player has the puck, all cyan colored that is... if yes, did that replace the outlined star "controlled player does not have the puck" icon? Or is the outline star still visible? Don't know how the programmed the transparency, if it is layer by layer...

Interesting thread. Let us know if you find something

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

winnipeg jet flying over my head

Now that I think about it, the values in Tile Molester may be arbitrary. The game is actually storing each colour value from 0-7, and it's Tile Molester that is translating a 7 to 224. so maybe on a TV, 0=16, 7=235, and the rest are evenly distributed in between there.

Nice thought. Could very likely be that way.

I just found out too why scanlines are automatically added for old fat TV's (CRT)

Before the sixth generation of videogame consoles, most videogames generated a video signal lacking the half scan line needed to make interlace happen. This subtle simplification caused NTSC sets to scan 240p/60 instead of 480i/60, with similar results for PAL. While this actually improved picture quality for the kind of images that videogames of this era generated, such a signal modification could cause problems in a broadcast environment as the signal behaviour is outside the original television system specifications. Genlocking -- but not timebase correction -- are the recommended broadcast engineering solutions.

So, I guess that means that since 240 lines vertically can't make interlacing happen, the TV shows it as 240 lines, without interlacing, meaning every odd or even line (whichever it is) will be black to fill up the 480 possible vertical lines on the TV

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

Does Photoshop have the Lanczos resizing algorithm? It's better than bilinear and bicubic. If not, you can use Irfanview, it has that algorithm.

Photoshop doesn't.

Yeah, Irfan View is a great piece of software for lots of things. There's also a software which can be good at times called ImageJ. It can do weird things like saving your image to a convolve text document and such

Lanczos often do a great job of keeping sharpness when reducing image size...(to any readers who wonders what Lanczos is)

EDIT: Convolve Kernel that is... like if you want to make your own blur/defocus algorithm and need a base kernel to start off. You could just make a 32x32 image and make a radial gradient then save that out as a 32x32 convole kernel in text format and pump into your dev tool

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

...and I thought I had gone off-topic in this thread

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

About 224: I think so. If you set something to 224/224/224 in Tile Molester, I think it comes out as 255/255/255 in the Gens display. I guess this could be manipulated with the brightness/contrast settings, though.

Thanks, sounds reasonable!

235/16: I'm afraid I don't know anything about tv colours!

Yes 16-235 (0-255 compressed with blacks at 16 and whites at 235) is what is used in the TV industry.

I think that's an old standard that still lives on. You might have seen the term "Super white" in some occassions, I think you can choose that on the PS3. That maps the whites to 255 instead of 235, 16-235 is meant for CRT tube TV's because they show noticeable flickr when you feed them R255 G255 B255.

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

With your resizing method, you might possibly get better results using a scaling of 8 or 16 rather than 10. computers tend to work best on powers of 2... but in all likelihood the difference won't be noticeable.. worth trying once, perhaps!

Another thing to remember is that though the game stores the colours as multiples of 32, the actual results shown on screen (in the Gens emulator, at least!) are in multiples of about 36.4. if you account for this, you'll get slightly more accurate results. so, when creating your image to look how you want it to look, use 36/73/109/145/182/218/255. when you are satisfied, then manipulate the palette, rounding down to multiples of 32.

**the Ron Barr image from the emulator will be using the multples-of-36.4 colour scale, not 32, so you might need to scale it back down to 32 scale for Tile Molester to not screw up the colours...

Thanks. Great info!

Btw, Is 224 always the whitest color in NHL 94, no matter which palette?

In the TV standard world it is usually 235.. and blacks should be 16 for TV mastering.

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

To get the colour image, you'll just need to load up original nhl94 and take a screenshot (turn off graphics filters and stretch).

the original game may have the palette in the same place, too, so you could possibly copy the original colours from there (but i think sometimes the palettes were moved when the graphics were decompressed..).

Ron Barr doesn't show up at the offset in the original GoodGen V3 NHL 94 (!) ROM so that's why I got a few problems. However now when you mentioned screenshots I think It will be good result if I run the NHL 94 (!) in an emulator in 200% or 400% without graphics filters as you said, take a screenshot, optimize image for Tile Molester as well as palette. Thanks.

I've found a workflow for getting really good results when taking an image from photoshop, pasting it into Tile Molester. Tile Molester always tries to optimize the pasted image to fit the palette in the ROM, which is a nice feature but often you get a little bit disappointed and want to run a manual approach for superb results.

So, what I've done for graphics is:

1. Calculating Tile Molester tiles to pixels.

2. Make a new document in Photoshop in the appropriate pixel size. For example 48x48 pixels for team selection logos. However I rather design in 480x480 then resize (with a good resize filter) to 48x48

3. When I have the 48x48 pixel inside photoshop, in 8-bit RGB (or 24bit depending on how you count). I check in Tile Molester how many colors slots I can use in the palette, say that it is 8 or 9 for the team selection logos, don't remember exactly (wboy's screenshot for reference)

4. I take the eyedropper tool in Photoshop and carefully selecting the first "important" color. After I've plotted the color, I click on the color and make sure all values are 0,32,64,96,128,160,192,224 for R G B, rounding them to the closest... for example if the eyedropper said R=40 G=100 B=187 I would change the color to R=32 G=96 B=192. I then draw a tiny box beside my graphics. I repeat this for the other colors, in this example 8 or 9...

5. When I'm done I have a picture like this:

6. I choose Save for Web in the File menu. Choose GIF as output. Clear the GIF palette and use the eyedropper tool to insert only the "swatches" into the GIF Palette. Then saving the GIF (with transparency clicked off).

7. I switch to tile molester and before pasting, I change all the colors in the palette to match the colors I had in the Photoshop GIF palette. It's possible to choose save for web again in photoshop because the settings are saved within the .PSD document, don't forget to LOCK your palette! So it's easy to hover and see what colors I need to add in Tile Molester. Just switching between Tile Molester and Photoshop.

8. After the palette is done in Tile Molester I go Edit->Paste from... Choose my GIF image and then it will look EXACTLY as it looked in Photoshop, with all the nice dithering/noise effect and stuff in case I had used them.

Hmmm, I thought this would just be a brief explanation of something I have plans on making a tutorial off... maybe it is clear enough to actually qualify as a tutorial.

However, is there a better way of doing this?

[Handed/Fighting NOSE, editing NHL 94]

Thanks. Good thing I don't have to go over the rosters and change anything then...

Just completed the Elitserien 2011 (2010-2011) rosters. Our home team lost in the finals and we had lots of local talented players which will be gone to NHL upcoming season.

That's what inspired me to make a mod.

I'm amazed at the level of knowledge on this board. It has been days since I started the hex editor, thanks to the tools provided here.

[Handed/Fighting NOSE, editing NHL 94]

Sorry for not making myself clear.. In NOSE, there's one place where you can change if a skater is left or right handed. It is called "Handed/Fighting".

So, for a left handed skater, does it matter if I choose Lefty/0 or Lefty/100 when modding NHL 94?

Since there is no fighting in the NHL 94 game I got confused if it would matter...

Also, this is for Genesis, didn't write that because I thought NOSE only worked for Genesis?

[Handed/Fighting NOSE, editing NHL 94]

Lefty/0 vs Lefty/100 in NHL 94, does it matter when editing NHL 94 ROM?

["Pass becomes shot" bug 30 team ROM]

nope, it was Jochen that came up with it

www.arcadeforge.de

But it isn't housed in an enclosure so you buy the 3 boards you need (scart sync, scaler/line doubler and scanline generator) hook them up to each other... and make a little case for it if you don't want the soldered boards just lying on the floor

EDIT: The scanline generator is a passive unit, no power needed for it to work. So for everything that uses VGA, you can just put the scanline generator on the VGA cord and when you turn it on every other line will be black (if you have opacity at 100%, there's a knob to adjust opacity). However if you run resolutions higher than 640x480 the lines will be extremely thin so no point really.. but for people building arcade machines and stuff it's great. or to couple together with the other 2 boards to convert rgb scart to vga 640x480 then add scanlines then hook up to a new TV

["Pass becomes shot" bug 30 team ROM]

vintage wrong. looks much better without them.

still vintage correct, it did look like that back in 94 on CRT TV's, if it looks better or not with scanlines has nothing to do with the fact that there was scanlines back in '94

this option is just a click away in most emulators, some like it some don't. I like it. This guy likes it too:

watch from 9:22

complete explanation by the same dude:

if the house you used to live in had power surges and occasionally fried your electronics, forcing you to buy new stuff every few months, would you go retro for that and build a surge box just to ruin your gear?

nope, but I go retro for the things that I think beats the new technology...

using the same argument you used, you could ask yourself why you play nhl 94 when there's nhl 11?

["Pass becomes shot" bug 30 team ROM]

why are you adding lines?

old fat TV's (CRT) had scanlines which you could see pretty clearly when playing nes, snes, genesis, megadrive, gamecube, n64, ps1 etc..

that's how I remember it to look. So when I connected the megadrive to the LCD TV for the first time I thought it looked like s**t, I'm happy now that I got the lines back... vintage correct

["Pass becomes shot" bug 30 team ROM]

as for the organ sounds, no idea. you're playing on an actual genesis with some writable ROM device? try putting original 94 on it and seeing if the sound is the same.

Will try. Obviously the hardware on the megadrive is a whole different story than playing in emulators.

The referee whistle sometimes changes pitch and stuff depending on sounds intercepting each other right when the whistle blows... but as for the music I can't recall it being actually out of tune on any of the songs, in the original game.

It's like the organist had a few beers

Finished an enclosure for a scanline generator today, so now I have scanlines on my LCD TV when playing all game consoles that supports RGB Scart

http://images.instagram.com/media/2011/07/27/fb584bcf81be4f61b999f5394c38a5e0_7.jpg

and the enclosure:

http://distillery.s3.amazonaws.com/media/2011/07/07/d4c161e058174117afc44a1dffa0f58a_7.jpg

it goes, scart sync board (scart input and vga output), scaler board (the big in the middle, vga carrying scart-signal IN and normal/analog VGA 640x480 out) and then the scanline generator which has on/off and a potentiometer for adjusting opacity of the lines... it has vga in and vga out.. then just hook vga to the tv and voilà

though this photo might be more appropriate in this forum

http://images.instagram.com/media/2011/07/27/9bfbdbd14f8e446aa802c5e7bb883de3_7.jpg

["Pass becomes shot" bug 30 team ROM]

I've been playing a few mods that I guess all are based on the 30 team rom by wboy and we've noticed that sometimes when you pass, the puck goes hard as hell, as if it is a shot.

Haven't noticed that in the original nhl 94 game, is it in the original game too?

Does it happen more often in the 30 team ROM? Why does it happen?

ROMs I've played is the NHL2010.bin and NHL2011.bin, both with the huge NHL 94 logo for the second splash screen. Also, both those ROMs shared the same title screen that says NHL 2010 and a website link to this site.. hope you know which ROM I'm talking about...

:::::::::::::::

Next, I wanna mention the organ.

I don't know what tune it is, but in one of the tunes there's some low notes that sounds out of key, don't remember that happening in the original nhl 94...

Any thoughts?

[Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM]

Does anyone know how to swap the Ron Barr photo back to the colored one used in the original genesis game?

Don't like him in black & white.

[REFERENCE: Tile Molester reference screenshots]

# 1

Screenshot 15. Team Selection Logos

When you say don't use colors 2 thru 7, which colors do you mean? How do I know which 2-7 color swatches you mean?

EDIT: Seems to be first row since those are the only ones that keep being the same colors throughout all teams

# 2

Screenshot 14. Home & Visitor Team Selection Banner Palette

Is there only one Navigation Offset for all Team selection Banners?

Meaning I will only change the palettes when I mod?

I'm pretty confused about this one even though I guess it's explained pretty good in the text.

[REFERENCES: Aspect Ratio when modding ROMs for Megadrive]

Wrote some stuff today:

http://djoman.dyndns.org/rom-edit/aspect_ratio/index.html

At the bottom of that page you'll find a link to pixel sizes and stuff, to make your images look good on your TV when you play the ROM on a Megadrive console

Use 30 team rom by wboy and have a look in the Tile Molester reference thread here at the forum for info about the offsets.

I have a xml with bookmarks coming for Tile Molester, just confused about the Team rink logos which says to have their palettes affected when you alter the rosters.. don't know if I should bookmark them or not.

[REFERENCE: Tile Molester reference screenshots]

We all use NOSE in order to edit player sprites, rink colors, rosters and ratings. You can get it at http://www.romhacking.net/utils/290/. Another great program is EARE by smozoma, which you can get at http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/10443-introducing-eare/.

Weehoo! Got Windows to work again using a chkdsk command when booting with the XP cd.. tried out Nose and smozoma's software. Amazing stuff, really!

And tonight I got even happier because I found out of a free cross-platform thing for OSX called Virtualbox (like vmware and parallels desktop except free)... and it exceeded all expectations with shared folders between OSX and virtual XP and so on... Activated spaces too so I can quickly switch between OSX where I run tile molester since it's java based...

Update on the bookmarks I've done so far:

Just noticed some bugs when importing palettes for the team rink logos. Everything was pretty messed up.. started to debug why it was messed up, it had to do with the bookmarks I've made.

I discovered that the palette number (palette 2, 3 etc) is actually stored when you bookmark the NAVIGATION bookmark, and not when you save a PALETTE bookmark, kind of weird but I'm gonna edit the xml now to correct all errors. Just thought I'd share that information for people who have the same problem.

What particular changes would cause the palette decimals to change when you alter the rosters?

On screenshot number 17 it is a note: "Always use the decimal offset of the Home Strip shown in NOSE when importing the palette as it can change when you alter the roster!"

I guess I can't bookmark those palettes because they might change for anyone doing their own different roster

Question # 2

There's a guide on how the change the puck color, home team puck.. But it does not mention the offset for the puck. Would like to make it more authentic in size, smaller... where do I go to?

Answer: Approx 7C30C 1x9 tiles, not sure how to know if that's exactly correct but at least all puck sprites and shadow are visible at that location