Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
1
Chrono Trigger Modification / Modified ChronoCharView
« on: December 14, 2024, 04:41:08 pm »
I was playing around with ChronoCharView and it was driving me nuts that the main display in the center is scaled to 150%, meaning the pixels get all mangled like this.
So I hacked it to display at 200% instead like this. Now the pixels are nice and square!
While I was at it, I also fixed a bug that prevented you from selecting tiles from the second page. Previously, if you switched to the second page and clicked a tile it would select the tile from the first page that was in that same spot. Now it works properly.
I figure I'm probably not the only person who would appreciate these changes, so I've attached a zip file with the modified program for anyone who wants it.
So I hacked it to display at 200% instead like this. Now the pixels are nice and square!
While I was at it, I also fixed a bug that prevented you from selecting tiles from the second page. Previously, if you switched to the second page and clicked a tile it would select the tile from the first page that was in that same spot. Now it works properly.
I figure I'm probably not the only person who would appreciate these changes, so I've attached a zip file with the modified program for anyone who wants it.
2
Fan Art / I drawled a reptite
« on: October 17, 2024, 10:51:24 am »
I've always hated the PSX FMV reptites for not looking anything like the in-game reptites. This is my take on the in-game version.
3
News Submissions / Re: Chrono Orchestral Arrangement Box Set
« on: September 21, 2024, 12:55:31 pm »
I think that first image just solved a mystery for me.
In the unpointed Prerelease text there's a part that takes place in prehistory in block 5 that briefly mentions a character called "Migo" (ミゴー). He seems to surprise the party somehow, and Lucca reacts by saying something like "What the, It's only Migo..."
Then there's the unused triceratops graphics from the Prerelease. This guy:
I think that's Migo. The big triceratops in the background of the first sketch you posted is labeled "ミゴー", just like the character mentioned in the unpointed text. Rather than an unused enemy, I think he was a friendly NPC. Like Ayla's pet or something. Explains the happy-faced tail wagging animation (the animation data seems to be gone, but the sprite assembly data is still there, and I used it to make this image. The palette is Nizbel's. Only this palette and the Frog King palette really seemed to have the color ramps in the right place, and the Frog King palette makes him look borderline radioactive.)
Edit: Just for funsies, here's a gif of Migo puttering around the house.
In the unpointed Prerelease text there's a part that takes place in prehistory in block 5 that briefly mentions a character called "Migo" (ミゴー). He seems to surprise the party somehow, and Lucca reacts by saying something like "What the, It's only Migo..."
Then there's the unused triceratops graphics from the Prerelease. This guy:
I think that's Migo. The big triceratops in the background of the first sketch you posted is labeled "ミゴー", just like the character mentioned in the unpointed text. Rather than an unused enemy, I think he was a friendly NPC. Like Ayla's pet or something. Explains the happy-faced tail wagging animation (the animation data seems to be gone, but the sprite assembly data is still there, and I used it to make this image. The palette is Nizbel's. Only this palette and the Frog King palette really seemed to have the color ramps in the right place, and the Frog King palette makes him look borderline radioactive.)
Edit: Just for funsies, here's a gif of Migo puttering around the house.
4
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Attempted Recreation of "Alpha" Screenshots
« on: September 18, 2024, 10:35:59 pm »
Thanks! I pretty much just do it when I get the urge. I have a few others that I've started but have been left sitting unfinished for various reasons. I should really finish a few of those up and post them.
5
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Photos used in Chrono Trigger (and Radical Dreamers)
« on: September 12, 2024, 11:48:00 pm »
I found another one from Chrono Trigger while doing my latest "alpha" mockup. This is the background graphics behind the Queen Zeal boss fight atop the black omen. The photo is NILERIV2, from the MediaClips - World View CD again.
6
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Attempted Recreation of "Alpha" Screenshots
« on: September 12, 2024, 11:43:26 pm »
EDIT: I've replaced the mockup image I originally posted with a new one. If you still want to see the old one, here's a link. I had originally done the sprite using Queen Zeal's NPC palette from the final game. I knew the Prerelease version had different graphics, but I had mistakenly thought the palette was the same. It's not. So I redid the boss sprite with the Prerelease palette, and due to some of the value changes ended up making a bunch of little tweaks. I had also noticed a white pixel missing from Frog's eye, so this gave me a chance to fix that too. Everything else is the same as the first one I posted.
ORIGINAL POST:
Back with another mockup. This time it's the boss version of Queen Zeal that didn't make it into the final game. I'm really happy with this one.
What's different: Obviously I had to draw the sprite for Queen Zeal, since that isn't in the game at all. I had to bring the moon down a bit and change the arc of the horizon just a tad. The player sprites all needed to be tweaked a little. Ayla's outfit is slightly different, especially the tail/scarf part. Crono's hair is a bit fluffier on top and he's missing the white bandana tail on the back of his head. Frog has some mild edits to his arm, and for some reason the whole blade of his sword is missing. You can still see two white pixels from it coming out of the hilt.
The scrolling earth background was interesting. The version in the final game looks a bit scrambled in my opinion. I couldn't get it to match up with what's in this screenshot, so I took a look at how the tile graphics themselves are stored. Turns out they're in two big chunks that when placed side by side look like this:
From there I was able to figure out what the scrolling background would have looked like when this shot was made.
The blue circle around Queen Zeal is showing the earth graphics with an additive blending mode overlaid on top of the sky and black omen graphics. That's why the earth itself doesn't get brightened by the circle, and why you can see clouds around Queen Zeal's head.
Finally, here's the sprite by itself in case anyone wants it, followed by the Prerelease NPC sprite and the final NPC sprite for comparison:
You can see that the boss sprite outfit kind of matches the Prerelease NPC outfit.
ORIGINAL POST:
Back with another mockup. This time it's the boss version of Queen Zeal that didn't make it into the final game. I'm really happy with this one.
What's different: Obviously I had to draw the sprite for Queen Zeal, since that isn't in the game at all. I had to bring the moon down a bit and change the arc of the horizon just a tad. The player sprites all needed to be tweaked a little. Ayla's outfit is slightly different, especially the tail/scarf part. Crono's hair is a bit fluffier on top and he's missing the white bandana tail on the back of his head. Frog has some mild edits to his arm, and for some reason the whole blade of his sword is missing. You can still see two white pixels from it coming out of the hilt.
The scrolling earth background was interesting. The version in the final game looks a bit scrambled in my opinion. I couldn't get it to match up with what's in this screenshot, so I took a look at how the tile graphics themselves are stored. Turns out they're in two big chunks that when placed side by side look like this:
From there I was able to figure out what the scrolling background would have looked like when this shot was made.
The blue circle around Queen Zeal is showing the earth graphics with an additive blending mode overlaid on top of the sky and black omen graphics. That's why the earth itself doesn't get brightened by the circle, and why you can see clouds around Queen Zeal's head.
Finally, here's the sprite by itself in case anyone wants it, followed by the Prerelease NPC sprite and the final NPC sprite for comparison:
You can see that the boss sprite outfit kind of matches the Prerelease NPC outfit.
7
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Photos used in Chrono Trigger (and Radical Dreamers)
« on: August 09, 2024, 10:48:58 pm »
I haven't found any other matches from Chrono Trigger yet, though I'm still looking, but I did find a couple of interesting things from Final Fantasy VI. I debated about whether I should post them in this thread since they're only very loosely related, but I figured I might as well.
This photo of Earth is on the "MediaClips - World View" CD:
The file name is "WORLDVW". It was used in this cutscene.
Here's an illustration of how it was modified:
It's probably worth noting that it looks a little bit different in the cutscene because there's an additional translucent landmass graphic overlaid to show the split continents drifting apart. You can see it here on the Spriter's Resource page.
Next up is the FFVI Opera House. This one is a little like the Magus Moon, in that I don't know the specific image source, but I still have a pretty good idea how it was made.
The huge curtains seem to be cobbled together from images from two real life opera houses. Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris, and Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. I don't know anything about opera houses, so I didn't know this was a thing, but apparently it's normal for them to have a huge flat curtain with a painting on it of a much more intricate set of curtains, and that's what you're seeing in the photos.
This photo of Earth is on the "MediaClips - World View" CD:
The file name is "WORLDVW". It was used in this cutscene.
Here's an illustration of how it was modified:
It's probably worth noting that it looks a little bit different in the cutscene because there's an additional translucent landmass graphic overlaid to show the split continents drifting apart. You can see it here on the Spriter's Resource page.
Next up is the FFVI Opera House. This one is a little like the Magus Moon, in that I don't know the specific image source, but I still have a pretty good idea how it was made.
The huge curtains seem to be cobbled together from images from two real life opera houses. Palais Garnier Opera House in Paris, and Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. I don't know anything about opera houses, so I didn't know this was a thing, but apparently it's normal for them to have a huge flat curtain with a painting on it of a much more intricate set of curtains, and that's what you're seeing in the photos.
8
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Photos used in Chrono Trigger (and Radical Dreamers)
« on: August 04, 2024, 11:27:55 am »
There have been efforts to identify textures used in old 3D games like Mario 64 for a while now. Fairly recently I watched this video about where a bunch of the graphics in Doom came from. It specifically mentions a series of photo CDs called "MediaClips" that were the source of some of the game's textures. Chrono Trigger was developed at a time where Square was just starting to dip their toes into the world of 3D rendered graphics (they even used some in Chrono Trigger itself) so I figured they'd probably have some of these types of CDs lying around for sourcing textures from. I've long thought that some of the backgrounds in CT looked like they may have originated as photographs, so I downloaded a few of these MediaClips CDs from archive.org and started poking around. I almost immediately got a hit.
This is photo "002" on the "MediaClips - Majestic Places" CD:
And this is the sky over Zenan Bridge:
They obviously touched it up by hand, but there's no doubt in my mind that this photo was used.
Encouraged, I kept poking around. There's this photo of the moon on the "Media Clips - World View" CD:
I checked it against the moon behind Magus's castle, but it wasn't a match. Later, for completely unrelated reasons, I was looking at the Radical Dreamers page on Spriters Resource and found this moon, which definitely is a match:
Then I remembered that there's a moon in the Chrono Trigger endings where the characters float away holding balloons. It's hard to say for certain, but I think this might also be a match:
The moon photo on the CD is titled "APOLLO11A", so out of curiosity I googled "apollo 11 moon photos" to see if this exact image is common enough that it would pop right up in an image search. It did not, but while I was scrolling I found this other one from Wikimedia:
The red circle is supposed to be pointing out the location of "Oceanus Procellarum" and is irrelevant here. The original photo without the circle was apparently taken by Wikimedia user Silvercat with a camera that came out in 2007, so this exact photo obviously wasn't used for Chrono Trigger, but there's definitely an extremely similar one out there somewhere that was used for the moon behind Magus's castle:
Kind of a bummer that it's not quite the right one, but I think it's pretty strong evidence that a photo was in fact used.
That's all I've found so far, but I believe there are more. Maybe not from MediaClips CDs specifically. There were lots of other stock photo CDs being sold back then. I think I just got really lucky with that Zenan Bridge sky. I'll keep looking though.
This is photo "002" on the "MediaClips - Majestic Places" CD:
And this is the sky over Zenan Bridge:
They obviously touched it up by hand, but there's no doubt in my mind that this photo was used.
Encouraged, I kept poking around. There's this photo of the moon on the "Media Clips - World View" CD:
I checked it against the moon behind Magus's castle, but it wasn't a match. Later, for completely unrelated reasons, I was looking at the Radical Dreamers page on Spriters Resource and found this moon, which definitely is a match:
Then I remembered that there's a moon in the Chrono Trigger endings where the characters float away holding balloons. It's hard to say for certain, but I think this might also be a match:
The moon photo on the CD is titled "APOLLO11A", so out of curiosity I googled "apollo 11 moon photos" to see if this exact image is common enough that it would pop right up in an image search. It did not, but while I was scrolling I found this other one from Wikimedia:
The red circle is supposed to be pointing out the location of "Oceanus Procellarum" and is irrelevant here. The original photo without the circle was apparently taken by Wikimedia user Silvercat with a camera that came out in 2007, so this exact photo obviously wasn't used for Chrono Trigger, but there's definitely an extremely similar one out there somewhere that was used for the moon behind Magus's castle:
Kind of a bummer that it's not quite the right one, but I think it's pretty strong evidence that a photo was in fact used.
That's all I've found so far, but I believe there are more. Maybe not from MediaClips CDs specifically. There were lots of other stock photo CDs being sold back then. I think I just got really lucky with that Zenan Bridge sky. I'll keep looking though.
9
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Windmills and Sheep in the Prerelease ROM
« on: April 07, 2024, 11:41:59 am »
I don't know if this is a "known" thing or not, but I haven't seen it mentioned either here or on The Cutting Room Floor page, so here it is.
I was poking around in the English ROM, specifically looking at the "Overworld Data" at $06FD10. Each overworld has a 23 byte entry, the first 8 bytes of which determine which background tile graphics to load. In the final release, the 8th slot is always unused. It's set to $80 for all overworlds, which causes the game to just skip that loading routine. If you set it to a valid number instead it will decompress the tiles to RAM at $7EB800, where they will just sit and do nothing. This reminded me of how animated background tiles are handled for locations, so I figured this might be part of a scrapped background animation feature for overworlds.
I decided to check the Prerelease ROM to see if it was any different. Instead of all being set to $80/unused, in the Prerelease slot 8 is mostly set to either $24 or $25. So I fired up the game and checked what was decompressed to $7EB800 and saw this:
It might not be totally clear what that is, so here it is with the tiles rearranged and a couple of special palettes made:
These are leftover animated background tiles from the old V-Fes 94 "flat" overworld.
Unfortunately, graphics packs $24 and $25 in the Prerelease appear to be identical, so there weren't any other new old tiles to find. The compressed packets are at $059DD4 and $05A183.
I was poking around in the English ROM, specifically looking at the "Overworld Data" at $06FD10. Each overworld has a 23 byte entry, the first 8 bytes of which determine which background tile graphics to load. In the final release, the 8th slot is always unused. It's set to $80 for all overworlds, which causes the game to just skip that loading routine. If you set it to a valid number instead it will decompress the tiles to RAM at $7EB800, where they will just sit and do nothing. This reminded me of how animated background tiles are handled for locations, so I figured this might be part of a scrapped background animation feature for overworlds.
I decided to check the Prerelease ROM to see if it was any different. Instead of all being set to $80/unused, in the Prerelease slot 8 is mostly set to either $24 or $25. So I fired up the game and checked what was decompressed to $7EB800 and saw this:
It might not be totally clear what that is, so here it is with the tiles rearranged and a couple of special palettes made:
These are leftover animated background tiles from the old V-Fes 94 "flat" overworld.
Unfortunately, graphics packs $24 and $25 in the Prerelease appear to be identical, so there weren't any other new old tiles to find. The compressed packets are at $059DD4 and $05A183.
10
Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Enabling Tile Animations (wip)
« on: December 18, 2022, 11:45:42 pm »
Triple post. These are my old notes on the L1 & L2 tile animation data. I made these notes for myself, so I'm not sure if they'll make sense to anyone else or not.
11
Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Enabling Tile Animations (wip)
« on: December 18, 2022, 11:02:57 pm »
These are my notes on the actual data itself. Not the most readable thing in the world, but could be useful.
12
Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Enabling Tile Animations (wip)
« on: December 18, 2022, 10:05:26 pm »
The data Mauron has labeled as layer 3 tile animation data is actually palette animation data like Zakyrus was originally saying. Mauron's right about the number of packets (6), although it's probably worth noting that there's overlap between some of the packet groups. If a packet is unused it just gets a single $00 byte.
It's been a little while since I looked at it, but here are my notes on the format of the data.:
I've also attached a GIF I made that kind of illustrates how Mode 80 works.
It's been a little while since I looked at it, but here are my notes on the format of the data.:
Code: [Select]
***************************************************************************************************************************
MODE 10: PALETTE SEQUENCE, LINEAR ORDER
***************************************************************************************************************************
1T UU VV WW ZZYYXX
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T = number of "sets" - 1
UU = CGRAM offset (start position in screen palette)
VV = number of colors per "set"
WW = delay
XXYYZZ = pointer to start of palette data in ROM (note: pointers are little-endian)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loads a series of color "sets" in a linear sequence with VV colors each starting at XXYYZZ
loops back to first "set" at end
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example:
13 11 03 09 6875F6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************************************************************************************************************************
MODE 80: PALETTE SEQUENCE, ARBITRARY ORDER
***************************************************************************************************************************
8T UU VV WW ZZYYXX [Palette Offsets (count varies)]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T = number of steps - 1
UU = CGRAM offset (start position in screen palette)
VV = number of colors per "set"
WW = delay (number of frames - 1)
XXYYZZ = pointer to start of palette data in ROM (note: pointers are little-endian)
Palette Offsets = multiply by number of colors and add to pointer
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loads a series of color "sets" with VV colors each starting at XXYYZZ in the order specified by the Palette Offsets
loops back to first Palette Offset at end
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example:
8F 27 04 10 8075F6 00 00 00 01 02 03 04 05 05 05 05 05 04 03 02 01
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************************************************************************************************************************
MODE 20: FORWARD CYCLE EXISTING PALETTE
***************************************************************************************************************************
20 UU VV WW
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UU = CGRAM offset (start position in screen palette)
VV = number of colors
WW = delay
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cycles VV colors in currently loaded palette in a forward direction
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example:
20 7D 02 0C
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************************************************************************************************************************
MODE 30: BACKWARD CYCLE EXISTING PALETTE
***************************************************************************************************************************
30 UU VV WW
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UU = CGRAM offset (start position in screen palette)
VV = number of colors
WW = delay
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cycles VV colors in currently loaded palette in a backward direction
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example:
30 2D 02 0A
I've also attached a GIF I made that kind of illustrates how Mode 80 works.
13
Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Temporal Flux Version 3.04 R1 Released
« on: December 16, 2022, 07:30:04 am »
It should. I haven't tested it with plugins that extensively, but they seem to work like they should. I don't think I changed anything that should effect them. Unless you have a secret music plugin in the works. That's the only area I can think of where there could possibly be a conflict.
14
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Robo Racing an Empty Jetbike? (V.Net Dash Paper ROM Magazine Scans)
« on: November 22, 2022, 07:51:48 pm »
The two big kanji are 覇王 which apparently means overlord(?) and is pronounced the same as the smaller "HAOH" in the middle. I've never heard of it before though, sorry.
15
Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: Robo Racing an Empty Jetbike? (V.Net Dash Paper ROM Magazine Scans)
« on: November 21, 2022, 05:36:39 pm »For Game On! November 1994 -- I had this for some reason under that category:
https://www.chronocompendium.com/images/wiki/6/69/I-img1200x900-1548056574cajfow199895.jpg (November)
https://www.chronocompendium.com/wiki/index.php/File:Game_On_October_1994.jpg (october)
Do you think I may have had these out of place? I'll go ahead and put your scan under November for now.
That was my mistake. The Game On! scan I posted is from the December issue, not November. I just corrected my post. I scanned that one separately a while before the others and at the time I was putting together a timeline in my head and I was focused on when I thought the issues were actually published, and I think I labeled the image "Nov 1994" for that reason.
Quote
The attached Mystical Knights concept art is totally new, right? Do we think it was done by Toriyama? I'll get it on Official Art. I have to add that Crono timeline explanation art, too, even if the magazine did it...
I could be wrong, but I think that artwork was created by the staff at Dengeki Super Famicom. It shows up in one other issue that I have but haven't scanned yet, plus I believe that Flea artwork showed up in a Twitter post around the same time that the character concept art for the PSX cutscenes did, and I think It was from another Dengeki Super Famicom issue that I don't have (the poster never said which issue).