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Ron Barr in color, 30 team ROM


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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.

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..).

post-253-021666600 1312038309_thumb.png

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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:

colorplot.png

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?

Edited by perkabrod
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Good tips, thanks. As usual, my own methods are totally screwed up and use like 5 different programs to accomplish the same thing :D

The Ron Barr graphic won't be in the original ROM because the graphics are compressed in the original. A guy called wboy hacked the game and graphics to remove the compression, leaving the graphics in the clear in the extra 1mb he added to the ROM.

To get the Ron Barr pic from the original game, you should use 'normal' (100%) scaling with no filter, take a screen shot then save it.. it'll be the correct size and colours. no need to resize or optimize the palette. just grab the colours from the image**.

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...

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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.

Edited by perkabrod
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you guys are smart. I want to encourage y'all to encourage each other. this community benefits from engaged brains.

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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.

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.

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

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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.

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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

Edited by perkabrod
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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

:mellow:

winnipeg jet flying over my head :D

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.

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:mellow:

winnipeg jet flying over my head :D

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

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  • 2 weeks later...

Anyone know where I can store the colors if I want to have the Ron Barr picture in color?

I tried changing the palette written in wboy's reference, you can't have Ron Barr in color using that palette as you can see in the screenshot below.

ronbarr-palette.png

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Anyone know where I can store the colors if I want to have the Ron Barr picture in color?

I tried changing the palette written in wboy's reference, you can't have Ron Barr in color using that palette as you can see in the screenshot below.

You are changing the wrong colours ;)

He's grey, so change the grey colours in the palette, not the blue ones (which are of course the blue background..)

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You are changing the wrong colours ;)

He's grey, so change the grey colours in the palette, not the blue ones (which are of course the blue background..)

Thanks, how could I not think of that. I was thinking the original picture used more than 8 colors :)

So I optimized my photo, not Ron Barr, a Swedish announcer, his picture used 8 greys and 8 colors :(

Will try to see how he looks with only 8 colors.

One thing is for sure, they made a great job making Ron Barr looks so damn good with such limited palette!

lasse_granqvist4_resized.gif

EDIT:

I did some research on the original Ron Barr logo and it actually uses 15 colors (counting his blue background), but some of them is also used for the background, for example the blue background behind Ron Barr is also used as the EA Sports background. As well as the frame around Ron Barr is also used for other things. But there's a lot more colors that doesn't seem possible using the palette on my screenshot I posted before...

ronbarr_research.gif

Edited by perkabrod
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I added some stuff to my last post above.

Is it possible wboy modded something when uncompressing the graphics?

Would be awesome to have all those colors used for original game Ron Barr.

# 2

Using the hacking tools in your guide, is it possible to track what palette is loaded on the Ron Barr screen in the original ROM?

EDIT:

I'm confused, wasnn't the genesis/megadrive limited to a total of 16 colors displaying at the same time?

If Ron Barr has 14 colors used for his face and clothes, then there's only 2 more possible colors left, and the text on that screen is yellow for some and cyan for some, then there's no more room in the palette for the blue EA SPORTS background, which is shared with Ron Barr's blue background...hmmmm?!

Edited by perkabrod
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I guess I'm wrong, maybe it's 16 colours per sprite, but something like 256 on the screen. sorry about that.

I'm afraid I don't really know much about palettes in the game or what wboy might have done with them.

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Well, this wboy, is he still around here? :)

I've been fooling around in Tile Molester and trying to find how it works on that particular Ron Barr screen.

Seems reasonable to think that the HOT/COLD logos includes color used for Ron Barr's face.

What I'm trying to find out is if wboy did something to this specific location in the ROM, making it impossible to put Ron Barr in color back in/put someone else in using Ron Barr's colors...

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wboy's been gone for ages, unfortunately. but his legacy lives on.. the 30 team rom, the NOSE editor, all his hacking info..

you may be right, maybe he combined the palettes from that screen into into one palette for some reason when he was decompressing the graphics.. no idea why he'd do it, though..

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I did a compromise, changing the darkest blue color to 32 32 32 in order to get me a color that I could use in my Ron Barr (actually it's Lasse Granqvist I will be putting there...)

I also didn't care about the grey colors used for the frame, I remade the frame with the greys I had, everything was made with priority to the Ron Barr image quality, the frame I made look decent though.

For anyone doing the same thing. Not a perfect solution but at least it something.

30teamROMpalette.png

0,0,64 = Used for the borders around the player cards and Ron Barr's comment

32,32,224 = Used for the Ron Barr text

0,0,0 = Used for the text shadows

224,224,0 = Used for player's position and rating

Blue colors = Used for the background, I replaced the darkest blue (0,0,96) with 32,32,32 to benefit to the "Ron Barr photo" graphics

Please note that the 0,0,64 color at the top left of the palette acts as a transparent color if you use it in the Ron Barr photo.

This leaves you with a palette of:

0,0,0 = keep this color, it's for the text shadows

32,32,32 = keep this color, it's for the ea sports background

0,0,128 = I used this color for the backdrop, feel free to use any of the blue colors in the palette

...and then there's 7 slots you can change to your liking. Doing this will have you end up with a total of 10 colors, where the black, dark grey and blue are fixed and shouldn't be customized because it affects the EA Sports background & text shadow

The blue EA background looks pretty much the same even though the darkest blue was changed to dark grey.

Edited by perkabrod
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lasse.png

NOTE:

For some reason it looks decent using black instead of R0 G0 B96 for the EA background, but when I played my ROM on the megadrive hooked up to the TV it looked like s**t, so I replaced the black with R0 G0 B96. The color photo looked pretty good still though...

Edited by perkabrod
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Looks good, thanks for posting the posting the details for the next person who wants to update the ron barr pic

No problem. It feels almost as good to post it on the forum as it feels to find a solution for yourself :)

Added a few notes to clearify too.

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  • 3 years later...

in a hex editor goto 0011CE1C and change the next 0x90 bytes, first number from 0 to 6 (6000 6001 6002 etc.)

then open in tile molester and use offset color 1166840 to put original Ron back.

post-292-0-14323800-1437710041_thumb.jpg

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