Death Mountain Trail development

[bobrocks95]

Seeing as how the AGN Expo is now closed and there's a lot more I'd like to share as development continues, this is a new thread for discussion of my quest Death Mountain Trail

First what was listed previously:


This is a quest that I've been working on in my spare time for a little while now in 2.10.

-----------------
Story
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Ganon has been a relatively small threat for a short time now in Hyrule since Link last defeated him. But recently him and his minions have been on anuprise. The local wildlife notices this recent uprising and begins to stir. Eventually the local creatures, once kind and even sophisticated, began to turn into ravaging beasts. With creatures attacking the town and Ganon's army as well, the villagers of Kakariko need a hero's help. Ganon knows of the power of the Hero's bloodline, and has fled to the summit of Death Mountain to escape danger, sending his army to defend the hillside. Now Link embarks on his longest journey yet, climbing the highest mountain in Hyrule to reach the ultimate evil...


The quest itself is not very far along, though I have some ideas straight and planned. As this is my first quest, I began it in the Classic tileset, though have already started a concurring version using the BS tileset.

I'm looking for people to design the dungeons for this game for me, as I've discovered that I have both problems and am not very skilled at, designing and drawing dungeons. Please post here or PM me if you are interested.


The idea revolves around climbing Death Mountain, with a basic design of a winding path, moving left and right along the length of the entire overworld, much like and elongated S shape.

Of course, things have changed since then. I no longer need any help with dungeon design, as I currently have Amaster42 officially signed on to work on at least 2-3 dungeons, as well as Master Maniac as a fall-back once Amaster42 makes his last dungeon. The development of this quest has long since switched to 2.5 betas, instead of 2.10. And of course, things are looking better since the quest was first started.

Here are some screenshots to show off Amaster42's first dungeon that he's made:

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda003-1.jpg
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda002-1.jpg
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda001-2.jpg

(Sorry, but since the dungeon is not 100% playable at the moment, I had to use ZQ, and Large has been made the default now so I couldn't make this any smaller)

EDIT: COUNT-DOWN TO DEMO:
To-Do:
1)Test dungeon for all bugs, tweak minor errors- some small wall things may be changed- Amaster42 has said that he was un-experienced with BS's perspective walls.
2)Finish with the 'House System', making everything look more professional, as well as adding music to the houses.

The overworld for the demo is completely done and tested, except for the house system, the dungeon is all that's left! Keep in mind 758's item bugs, so there won't be 10 rupee drops in the final version, though for now have been replaced with dark green rupees.

[Russ]

Those shots look good. I see great things coming from this quest. Especially with somebody like Amaster doing the dungeons.

[bobrocks95]

I know. It makes me feel like I need to improve the overworld so much now...

[Pineconn]

Those shots look good. I see great things coming from this quest. Especially with somebody like Amaster doing the dungeons.

Bobrocks95 must be so flattered. :D

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this quest. I can tell this will be a good, solid quest.

[Russ]

I know. It makes me feel like I need to improve the overworld so much now...
I know how you feel. Joe123 an I are working on a project together. Every time he releases an overworld screenshot, I keep thinking my dungeons are going to bring the quest to disaster.

[bobrocks95]

We're almost ready to release a short demo that would encompass a short overworld area and the first dungeon. There's been some problems with the dungeon, though, causing secrets to not be permanent, making the dungeon impossible. I also need to set up the houses on what I call the "House System".

[Freedom]

You guys are putting together a nice quest, I looked it over a bit when I was checking out that perm secrets bug.
Thumbs up!

[bobrocks95]

Added info to first post regarding mini-demo soon to come.

[Revfan9]

For the love of god. Add -small to the shortcut :/

The shots look okay, considering they're BS dungeon shots, and you really can't do anything much more complex with that without changing a bunch of crap (Which, considering it's BS, isn't worth the effort). Speaking of which, if I were you, I would either ditch trying to use freeform dungeons with the BS walls or switch out dungeon walls. I've tried it, it doesn't work, asthetics-wise or from a level-design standpoint.

Also, I don't know whether that's supposed to be dirt or what, but either make it brown or ditch it completely. Right now it looks like someone dumped blue slime all over the floors.

[The_Amaster]

I've tried it, it doesn't work, asthetics-wise or from a level-design standpoint.
Believe me, thats what took me so long. Some screens I spent ten minuets or more just on the walls, making them not totally butt-ugly.

[bobrocks95]

For the love of god. Add -small to the shortcut :/

And yet I have tried that. It doesn't work. I add -small after the full target in parenthesis, and the program doesn't open. I write it like this:


"C:\Documents and Settings\Dylan\Desktop\758-windows\zquest-w.exe" -small

[Freedom]

try removing the space in front of -small

And you can do freeforms with bs dungeons, but you will need to make some more tiles to fill in here and there to get the walls uniform and alligned.
I did some in one of my quests a while back, if you want them I can try and dig them up, I did these for the tiles Radien did (the smooth walls, which I believe you are using).

[bobrocks95]

Without the space, windows just pops up with an error message.

And You'll have to talk to Amaster about those tiles, he would be the one wanting them.

[The_Amaster]

Yeah, that would be awesome if it's not too much trouble. There are some of spots where I had to hope that the player wouldn't try to really look at and understand the walls.

[Freedom]

I didn't say remove the dash, just backspace it over so there is no space between them.
You have space between exe and -small

[bobrocks95]

Ya, I just caught that and edited. Without the space there's an error message.

[Freedom]

Amaster.
You can download my Link to Tortuga quest on my site in my sig.
The BS dungeon was level 4 on map 14 and the password is 1cocopuff.

[The_Amaster]

Thank you kindly. I'll go check it out, see what I need to rip. You may want to edit out your password now that I've got it.

[Freedom]

I don't care if people have it, it helps people new to the program learn to use it. ;)

[Pineconn]

Been there, done that. I've already checked it out with 2.5 b737, which allows you to open any quest, even if it's passworded, with ZQuest. :D


The overworld for the demo is completely done and tested, this is all that's left! Keep in mind 758's item bugs, so there WILL be some glitched 10 rupee drops, as those are NOT intended to be in the quest.

If you didn't, you should create yellow Rupee sprites anyway so that we won't have to pick up lovely garbage tiles for money. ;)

[Russ]

Been there, done that. I've already checked it out with 2.5 b737, which allows you to open any quest, even if it's passworded, with ZQuest. :D

For the love of all that is good, send me that build! I just want to open HoD and see how many screens those boss battles used up. :tongue:

[Revfan9]

I'm 90% sure that Pineconn was being sarcastic with that statement. Even still, if you really want them, quest passwords aren't that hard to get ahold of...

Actually, I personally don't even see any real point in Quest Passwords. Are people THAT afraid of getting their graphix stolenz?

[Pineconn]

Nope. I'm not redistributing b737. It's evil.

And seriously, b737 overrides the password prompt. I can open virtually any quest for 2.5 b737 and lower (including 2.10, etc.). DD realized the error quickly and replaced it with b738, so only a handful got to grab it. I was one of the lucky ones. :)

Need proof?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/PokeMaster/hod737.png http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/PokeMaster/li737.png

[Revfan9]

Even still, so what? Just about every quest in existance can already be broken into with THAT program, so having 737 isn't that special really. Unless you REALLY wanted to break into Lost Isle for some inhuman reason :/

[Russ]

Actually, I personally don't even see any real point in Quest Passwords. Are people THAT afraid of getting their graphix stolenz?
I agree. Although, it seems anybody could go in and edit your quest to ghet around puzzles they are stuck on. I say, password a quest, and then give away the password during the credits.

Need proof?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/PokeMaster/hod737.png http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/PokeMaster/li737.png
You are an incredibly lucky person Pineconn. I'm about to cry about not getting that build.

[bobrocks95]

Amaster had a suitable quiver sprite, plus we fixed the permanent secrets bug. Now just the house system and final testing.
By the way, I'm interested in future testers for later versions. I was hoping some regulars like Russ and Pineconn could help out if possible. Anyone who wants to can send me a PM.

[Russ]

I was hoping some regulars like Russ and Pineconn could help out if possible. Anyone who wants to can send me a PM.
I'll beta test. But, I won't be able to get to it until after my vacation, which I will return home from on the seventeenth.

[bobrocks95]

Well, it's mainly for future purposes, so I'm sure that won't be a problem.

Completely off-topic, but does anyone know of a good guide for ripping tiles from a picture? Or at least some technique so that using the grab function doesn't make the color all garbagey?

EDIT: Or how to do a palette rip?

[The_Amaster]

I think when your grabbing if you hit R, ZC will take the closest aproximation to the picture your trying to rip for your quests pallete. It stands for recolor.

[bobrocks95]

Thanks, though before you posted I found out how to do a palette rip, which works well because BS has so little palettes- plenty of room.

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda001-3.jpg

I imported this, then had to combo the whole thing. I'm planning on making this the title screen, but I need to find a good Legend of Zelda title overlay, yet generic so that I can just insert some text underneath it to make my full title.
I think I'm done with ZC for the night.

[Revfan9]

Well, it's mainly for future purposes, so I'm sure that won't be a problem.

Completely off-topic, but does anyone know of a good guide for ripping tiles from a picture? Or at least some technique so that using the grab function doesn't make the color all garbagey?

EDIT: Or how to do a palette rip?

...Must... Resist... Getting... Egotistical...

Ah hell with it. I'm Revfan, your resident ripping expert.

If you want to rip into Zelda Classic, the first program that you're going to need is GraphicsGale (http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/). It's shareware though, so you'll have to either pay for it, or use the totally naughty method of cracking the shareware to get the full version, which I, Revfan9, totally do not support in any way. <.<

Now, there are programs that you can use other than GraphicsGale, but I like it the best, and it's also the program I'm going to use to write this little mini-tutorial.

For this little mini-tutorial, we're going to go ahead and rip the big tree from ALttP into the BS palette. Whee! This method will work for just about any graphic that you want to rip into ZC, and it will work for almost any palette setup. This won't really work for super-complex jobs, but almost every rip I do uses this method, so it's a very nice skill to learn.

Now, let's start off with an image of the big trees from LttP:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/Revfan9/RipTut/zelda140.gif

Wow! That's a lot there. The first thing to remember is to never be overwhelmed. This method is exactly the same whether you're trying to rip in 2 tiles or 20,000. To actually rip the tiles, the first thing you have to look at is the palette.

Looking at that palette from that very shot up there, there's quite a lot to try to manage. Click that arrow right there, and click "Remove Unused Colors". Ta-da! That's quite a lot less colors to deal with, isn't it? Hold down Shift and click on a color, then drag it to have those 2 colors switch places on the palette. It also switches the indexing on all of those colors switched in the image. What does this mean? If you don't hold down shift, it just switches the colors on the palette. If you switch a red and a green, then all the green in the image changes to red, and all the red changes to green. Sometimes you may actually want this however, so remember that. After reducing the colors and re-organizing everything, you get this:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/Revfan9/RipTut/RipTut1.png

Well that's a lot easier to work with, isn't it? Now, to convert it so it becomes compatible with the BS palette. Click the arrow again, and click "Load Palette", and open up an image with the OW palette from BS Zelda in it (If you don't know what this means, take a screenshot of an OW screen in your quest and open that). It should look something like this:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/Revfan9/RipTut/RipTut2.png

Now, highlight the colors you want to copy, and put them over the colors in the image. Make sure that "Match Pixels with Colors" is unchecked for this step, or you'll get messed-up results. Remember that every row of colors is 1 Cset in ZC.

But for this particular job, we have a bit of a conundrum. In the BS-Overworld palette, there is no Cset that has both 3 greens and 4 browns. We have 2 options here, we can either make the tile 8-bit, or we can compromise by making the 3rd-brightest shade of brown a dark grey instead. I personally prefer to keep the graphic quality at it's optimum, so let's make the tiles 8-bit instead, as it'll also be good excercise. Copy the colors in and such...

Now here's the part that's a bit more complex. Use the Shift-Drag way to move the palette colors around to fit the Csets from the palette you ripped from. This is easy enough once you get enough experience, but it can be difficult if you're new to the process. Just remember that the first row of colors is Cset0, the second row is Cset1, etc. After you're all done, the palette will look like this:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/Revfan9/RipTut/RipTut3.png

Now, note that I changed the black outline color to a bright grey, for the sole reason that the outline color in the BS palette is black, as is the transparency color. This is more of a change to make it easier on you than it is to actually enhance the quality of your rip. The next step will fix whatever distortion it gave to your image, so don't worry about that. Finally, click "Load Palette" again and open up your BS palette image again, unchecking "Match Pixels with Colors" one more time, copying all the colors this time. You should get this as the end result:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/Revfan9/RipTut/zelda140-1.gif

And... done! Try it. It'll rip into the BS-Zelda tileset in 8-bit. Go ahead, I dare you.

This method is actually EXTREMELY powerful and useful for so many things, I really wish I had the space, the time, or the willingness to do a really big job with this method right now and show you what it can REALLY do, but you'll just have to take my word for it. Maybe some other time ;p

Hope whoever reads this finds it helpful. Ciao!

EDIT: Never use ZC's "R". Ever. It makes everything just lose so much quality and look so bad.


Thanks, though before you posted I found out how to do a palette rip, which works well because BS has so little palettes- plenty of room.

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda001-3.jpg

I imported this, then had to combo the whole thing. I'm planning on making this the title screen, but I need to find a good Legend of Zelda title overlay, yet generic so that I can just insert some text underneath it to make my full title.
I think I'm done with ZC for the night.

Meh... I'd suggest using something different than that image. It's not even that impressive, and everyone and their mother uses it. I would suggest using something that matches your quest, as well as something that will make it stand out. Take my project's title screen for instance:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b283/Revfan9/SOTTitleScreen.gif

[bobrocks95]

Well... It has a mountain on it... I guess I'll browse around for another image, but for now, that will be the temporary title screen.
BTW, you should probably post that in its own thread or something. Very extensive.

[Revfan9]

That tut is actually very basic. I could sit here all day explaining how to do all kinds of stuff...

Here's an idea. Find a well-drawn image that fits your quest on DeviantArt or something (Make sure it's copyright free <.<), resize/crop it, then open it in GraphicsGale. Go to Image->Color Depth, 8-bit (256 colors), and change the 256 in the text box to 48, then use the Shift-Drag to Move all 48 colors up 2 Csets, load the level palette, and rip it in 8-Bit into your quest.

[Russ]

Revfan, you make things to complicated. Whenever I rip something into my quest, I just press R, and then make whatever minor color changes are left to be made. :)

[Revfan9]

Eww ;-;

You make my sense of taste cry. How dare you.

[Russ]

Sorry, but if I have to spend more that ten minutes importing tiles, I deem it not worth my time. I know, I'm lazy.

[bobrocks95]

Gah, can't get any work done. Nearly every site I visit is doing an April Fools joke. VGMusic has a fake homepage, and all its music is jumbled up.

[Revfan9]

April Fool's day = Massive Failure

Every site on the internet is pretending to be down. It sucks.

[Pineconn]

Yeah. If the government would like to do something useful, they would pass legislation that would ban April Fool's Day and make any April Fool's Day prank illegal.


Gah, can't get any work done. Nearly every site I visit is doing an April Fools joke. VGMusic has a fake homepage, and all its music is jumbled up.

Ah, that's why. I was wondering what was going on. I should've figured.

[Russ]

April Fool's day = Massive Failure

Every site on the internet is pretending to be down. It sucks.
I think it's funny.

[Revfan9]

It's not funny when you literally can't do anything because "The Government Shut down the Internet".

[bobrocks95]

An ultra-mini demo is now ready! Features include:
Scripts- A generic item pick-up one to explain what you're getting and a simple press start script for the title screen- both by Joe123.
A custom map and title screen.
One small section of overworld and one large dungeon.
A simple system of rooms in every house.
and some other things I don't remember...

You can get the quest here (http://www.freewebs.com/emusaves/othergamerelated.htm), just download the Death Mountain Trail BS file.
Here are a few more dungeon screenshots, the last showing off the item pick-up script:

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda003-2.jpg
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda002-2.jpg
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj257/bobrocks95/zelda001-4.jpg

[Revfan9]

I still think that you should either ditch the BS-Zelda dungeon walls, or ditch using Freeform as a whole. I recommend the former. The BS-Zelda walls don't look right unless you use square rooms.

[bobrocks95]

You mean import and set an entirely new set of walls? I suppose we may do that in the future...

EDIT: Seeing as how I just transferred over to 777, I just want to note that the quest was made and tested in 758. I just found a major error playing it under 777 and will have to fix that. For now use 758

[Pineconn]

Excellent! Level 1 was very enjoyable, and I'm glad that the overworld had a graphical overhaul. The base of the mountain (the field) is still a little empty, though. A few more trees in empty screens would be nice.

Otherwise, this quest is on the right track. :)

[bobrocks95]

That was something I was expecting people to catch. The mountain just doesn't feel very natural.

[Anikom15]

This looks like it's gonna be OVER 9000 times better than mine, but I'm doing mine by myself.

[bobrocks95]

The cave problem should be fixed in 780, though keep in mind I didn't fully test it, just a quick run to see if the major error was fixed.