MegaMan 72

[MC Jimmy]

MC Jimmy does love it!



Also I made another track for the final Mute Stage.

I wanted to convey Mute's arrogance in this song, so it sort of sounds casual. It also pays homage to the Mute Theme, since it'll be the last time you see him (or is it?). It also happens to be full of accidentals like the last song. Making most of the Mute stages like that.

Breaking From The Silence

[Gatuca]

well the boots and others could share colors, since i guess one shouldnt exced from the 5 color limit for this type of sprites, i mean, 3 colors plus black and white.

[HKLurch18]

i talked to nebula black yesterday about the color issue and usually it goes like the Face gets 1 palette and body gets 1 palette.
1 palette equals 3  colors.
oozeman has no facial movement seperated from the body one, though ,so I can use all the 6 colors of 2 palettes for his entire sprite =)

[MC Jimmy]

5 color limit

These have 7 right? Unless I'm mistaking. Even though MM9 isn't a classical Mega Man from the NES era itself, Plantman sure is and had 7.

[Blackhook]

Multiple layers are the keywords here

[Zan]

For those that want to know; the color limit for an entire NES screen is 4 palettes for sprites. In a Rockman game, they're set up as follows:

Player character (Changed by Special Weapons and shared with obtainable items):
Transperancy-Black-Shade1-Shade2

Character faces (Reused for skintone colored enemies)
Transperancy-Black-Skintone-White

Anything else:
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color


A boss thus has the latter three palettes at their disposal.


Most bosses follow:
Transperancy-Black-Skintone-White
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color

Some follow:
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color.
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color

And an extraordinarily rare amount use:
Transperancy-Black-Skintone-White
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color
Transperancy-Black-Color-Color


Because the palettes on screen at once are limited, they are often shared among different objects. The colors of the boss' projectiles are taken from one of these three palettes and in turn, the projectile could determine what the player character would look like when equipping that weapon. That is, if the projectile doesn't use the face palette.

What's more important here is that there is also a technical limit of 8 sprites per scanline and 64 sprites on screen. A sprite is defined as the 8x8 or 8x16 blocks that make up a character. A scanline is a horizontal pixel wide line, not vertical. If either of these limits is breached, flickering is designed to happen. So effectively, sprites can easily be stacked up vertically, but not horizontal or overlapping.

If anybody is still confused, I can perhaps make some visual examples of how it's supposed to work. But you could also use FCEUX's debug features to see the four palettes at work while you play the games.

[HKLurch18]

Oh, so each NES palette HAS to have transparency and black in it?
i thought that , when 1 has black in it already, the other palettes have 3 variable colors.
Well, as it turns out, Ooze man uses 3 palettes afterall, but tbh I don't really mind as Jimmy just presented us similar cases in Rockman-history, so i am fine with ooze man's current look

thanks for clarifying, zan

[MSX]

The colors are correct, as Jimmy stated.

[Zan]

Oh, no not all the palettes have to have black. The only requirement is that all of them have to have the transparency value, creating the NES' max color limit of (3*8)+1=25. (4 palettes for sprites, 4 for environment) In theory you can do anything with these 4 palettes, but the way Rockman is setup demands such things as the player having a palette solely his own, the face palette being around at all times. Similarly, almost all the sprites have a black outline in Rockman games and palettes are heavily interlinked between different objects, which is why practically all palettes have it.

Now, in theory you can also make any and all outlines using just the face palettes, but then you'd have to be overlapping two whole objects at all times. However, there's a practical limit of 8 sprites per scanline, 64 on screen, so you have to have a black for the outline in each palette to reduce the sprites on screen.

In very few cases the black value can be changed to something else. The biggest example being the mugshots, which are a combination of sprites and tiles, and thus often use and altered face palette that instead of black has an extra skintone.

Anyway, here's a visual example of boss palettes and how they relate to the player character:

[Sapphire✧9]

I think we talked this before, Zan. Outline doesnt have to be black.

It can be:

Transparent + Black + Yellow + White
Transparent + Blue + Red + Green

Black is not forced.

[Zan]

Which is... exactly what I said. It's just that black is enforced by the graphical style, instead of the system.

[Sapphire✧9]

It can be used to be in style as well. By using overlay carefully.

[MC Jimmy]

Anyways...

Plasmaman Update - Unstable Plasma
- Shortened the intro
- Changed the bass line and got rid of the toms
- Changed the drum line and made it less annoyingly electric
- Different instruments utilized
- Minor note changes in the beginning
- Ending totally changed

Tell me what you think.

[Zan]

It can be used to be in style as well. By using overlay carefully.

Keeping this in mind, I've redone the SplashWoman example. Also, added PlantMan.

[kuja killer]

http://www.a3share.com/members/1119/plant-pal.PNG -
just wanted to show. From what zan was talking about with plantman, here's the palletes in real-time via FCEUX's tools. so yea it's multi layered with megaman's face pallete, a normal enemy/boss pallete, plus another for extra detail.

http://www.a3share.com/members/1119/spacecannon-duplex.PNG
i wanted to show this too, this is from my game, the space travelling level of duplex man. That space cannon enemy that shoots the pink lazer beams if any of you remember if you played my game ? well since the whole entire level is basically empty on a black screen with only stars, instead of using black outline, i used the darkest shade of blue so that it's outline could be seen at least, and 2 pinks + white for the lazer beams it shoots, and a couple little extra spots on the actual cannon itself as you can see, so it could stand out.

I was able to multi-layer that thing only really because it's not grouped with other enemies in that section with them.

[HKLurch18]

Hey guys, thanks for the entire NES-sprite thing, but please do not overlook the stuff MCJimmy has posted here and lets get back to topic

Jimmy, that song is simply amazing! I love what you did to plasma man's theme, it sounds like a really, really nice collab of Wily stage 1 from megaman 1 , quickman and sparkman to me. Awesome

[MSX]

Hey guys, thanks for the entire NES-sprite thing, but please do not overlook the stuff MCJimmy has posted here and lets get back to topic

Jimmy, that song is simply amazing! I love what you did to plasma man's theme, it sounds like a really, really nice collab of Wily stage 1 from megaman 1 , quickman and sparkman to me. Awesome

I agree with you 100% - Totally gives the feeling of "Unstable Plasma" He he he.

[HKLurch18]

Also I finished a key enemy for Buzz Man's stage. not sure whether you know what he does, but I wont tell you, now.

Splosion Fly:

[MexicanSunflower]

that's adorable!

it looks like a combonation of the dragonflies and magnet enemies from MM3

[Thanatos-Zero]

that's adorable!

it looks like a combonation of the dragonflies and magnet enemies from MM3

It rather reminds me of these insect mechaloids from Neon Tiger's stage. When you trigger your weapon they will throw bombs.

[MC Jimmy]

Shimmering Shards - Mirrorman Reformed!

[Night]

Woooooow.... That sounds so beautiful! 

[HKLurch18]

It totally does, I love that track

Posted on: June 10, 2010, 14:52:35double post, I have a new mock-up screen ready which showcases the new look of buzz man's stage:



Please keep in mind that this here is just provisional. The plant tiles wont just float in mid air in the actual level but will be placed near stretches of land. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it =)

[Zan]

Won't Forte look really really weird when he gets in front of that black background?

[Blackhook]

...Camouflage perhaps?