Since I was recently watching Christopho on his live stream on youtube, I told him I would upload my custom Hyrule tileset, so here it is
UPDATE-3-22-2016: Please refer to the last post for the updated tileset. Thank you
UPDATE: This image has been uncompressed to get rid of the noise left behind. As a result it looks much cleaner and of much higher quality. If you have downloaded this image, PLEASE download it again to update your current version!!
(http://wlo-koori.comoj.com/for-the-PZE/light_world2.tiles.png)
The Tileset's .dat file is also included. Keep in mind. Again, it is a WIP
Here is the included data file:
Light World 2.dat (http://wlo-koori.comoj.com/for-the-PZE/light_world2.dat)
This is a great tileset to begin with, are you going to port all of PZE tiles to Solarus ?
I wanted to originally, but after being apart of, and watching Christoho's live stream the other day, I will not be porting all of the tiles as he wishes to only implement the ones that look like they fit with A Link to the Past. Also, as per his request, I will have to recolor all the tiles to match the PAL (or European) version of A Link to the Past, as this is the version he is familiar with, and uses with Solarus.
No, you can port more tiles, I am sure that it will be useful for people.
And it does not really matter between PAL or NTSC, since it is easy to convert between one and the other (the important thing is that a game does not mix them).
Wait, there are difference between PAL and NTSC in term of palette ?
yeah and because of my poor eyesight even I did not know this. Chris pointed out that every color in the palette has a 32 number difference brightness between them.
Also, part of the reason I did not port the entire tileset was because, and it might just be on my side of theings, Solarus takes a long time (up to 30 seconds) to load a map for me. I have three computers, each of them with a different OS on them for compatibility purposes. One has Windows 7 Home premium, one has Windows 10 Free upgrade, and the other has WIndows XP SP3. I have run Solarus on my Windows XP machine as well as the Windows 10 machine. The Windows 10 machine cuts the load timee down by around 10-15 seconds, but the XP machine loads a bit longer, between 15-25.
I am working with the tileset that I uploaded here, but mine is less compressed than this one (which, if you look closely, some of the tiles have noise in them). Without the compression, so far that png file is around 300 KB in size. And in his recent stream he states that Solarus is designed to load maps and even tilesets of virtually any size. However I noticed that when I used one of his tilesets, load times were instant, no longer than 3-5 seconds. Loading one of mine brought the load time up significantly, even on small maps using the much bigger tilesets.
So, I tried to minimize the number of tiles as well as the overall file size to help load times. This resulted in the image forcing it down to a 256 color png with alpha transparencies, which looks kinda terrible.
I will replace the reduced image with a less compressed version so if anyone downloads this image to use in their projects PLEASE be sure to update it. I will edit the post accordingly to let everyone know it has been changed!
-EDIT- The image has been updated!
Can you send me your project so that I check the performance, because 15-20 seconds to load a map or tileset is really not normal, even a big one. Even 0.5s would be too long.
Sure :)
http://www10.zippyshare.com/v/I6BVo6R5/file.html
It's messy though. I hope you don't mind xD
I got something similar (but not these high load time) when making my tileset, did your tile's width / heigh exceed 2000 pixels ?
The thing I see when opening your project is that you use a development version of Solarus 1.5 (which can have some issues), and load times are normal in 1.4.5 (got an error 'bomb_bag' is not saved on startup but map was loaded very fast ... far away from the 30 seconds)
Maybe you should try to test with 1.4.5 and post some feedbacks
Ok, I opened the issue: https://github.com/christopho/solarus/issues/854
Don't hesitate to give more details that can help me reproduce it. Should I just open the tileset to reproduce the performance issue?
the current dimensions of the custom hyrule tileset are 992 x 1600.
Quote from: ffomega on March 15, 2016, 10:21:44 PM
the current dimensions of the custom hyrule tileset are 992 x 1600.
This is strange indeed, are you sure that you don't have a program that is running in the background of your desktop that can take a lot of Hard drive's access time or CPU ?
Because I tested with 1.4, 1.4.5, night build of 1.5 and the opening / loading time are the same (Windows 7 64)
I have tested this on two different machines, one with much better specs than the other. the XP machine had Skype running in the background, and both the XP machine as well as the 10 machine had antivirus and Steam running in the background; all at minimum performance (no more than 3% of the CPU per process on either machine, and no active windows open).
Even on the XP machine, with my browser open, using up more than 75% of the CPU (single processor), and at only 2 GB of ram, Solarus ran at moderately good performance. I feel the issue is in 1.4.5 because 1.5 reduced the load time by a couple seconds, but overall still a low load time. In the very beginning, keep in mind 90% of the work done has been done from the XP machine, Solarus loaded instantly when I used the PZE tileset, and the dimensions of that tileset were 256 x 11000+
Just to be sure, is it slow when you open the tileset in the quest editor, or when you run a game with a map that uses the tileset?
Love to see you all pushing this project forward! AWESOME!:)
Just saw your project ffomega, I think you are the right person to create a pack with all the title sets for Solarus, to bring everything related to LTTP (as much as you can).
Sometimes the quest editor takes a couple seconds to load the quest, but nothing I am overly concerned about. The long load times are more pronounced when loading the game. The Solarus logo loads instantly, but once it begins to transition to the game is when it takes a long time to load.
I identified the cause of the problem. It is not the tileset, but the algorithm that detects which tiles can be optimized away for better performance once the map is loaded. This detection step takes more time than it should, I think I know how to fix it without losing the optimization it does.
Thanks a lot for all the support. I am humbled and grateful there are people out there who are appreciative of what I am doing for Solarus. I am no coder, and my knowledge of LUA is noob status. In fact, the only programming language I ever learned was COBOL but that was years ago.
So, as stated on Chris' last marathon stream, "Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't code, sprite!"
That being said, I will try and bring as much of LttP to Solarus as I can if I am able. If possible, my original goal was to bring the PZE graphics (items, HUDs, buttons, etc) to Solarus, but for the time-being I will focus on updating and optimizing what I have added so far. Keep in mind that what I have provided to far is not all my doing. Some of my work is credited to a man who once made sprites in LttP style and pretty much abandoned all of his Zelda and other game-related projects. Upon his 'retirement', he game me, as well as many of the zelda fan game community, a plethera of assets. His name is Antony A. Brown, also known as "aab". The jabu jabu tileset in the absolute dungeon tileset is his work. I once asked him to create a tileset for me using the layout for the Graal online engine, because I was once using it to make maps and then import them into another game engine. He also created a unique monster for me because I asked him for it. it is a monster that takes a nod from the trees in the dark World of LttP that spit bombs at you when you touch them.
They are the Treant.
Since I now have confirmation that the tileset is not the cause of the long load time, I am thinking about rearranging the Hyrule tileset to better organize the tyle types as I did in the absolute dungeon tileset.
The performance bug of loading maps is now fixed.
Maps should now load 60 times faster than in yesterday's snapshot. So, here is a new one! http://www.solarus-games.org/downloads/solarus/win32/solarus-1.5.0-snapshot-20160316-win32.zip
Can you confirm the fix? Thanks!
Okay, the quests load MUCH faster, almost instantly. However, when you start a game from the quest editor or the quest launcher, the "Play" changes to a stop icon like it should, and the play button from the quest launcher grays out like it should. But when you close the game, the play button in quest editor is still a stop button, and the play button in quest launcher is still grayed out. The only way to play the game again is to completely exit out of Solarus to reset the play button.
Yes this is a windows-only bug. Expect a new snapshot tomorrow :)
ffomega - You are awesome!
Can't say my big thank you for what you are doing for this project. I am not a developer and I have few clues about the sprites, but I feel that having you working for Solarus, it will double the speed of the next version.
A lot of people asked for HUD and more sprites from LTTP.
8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
Well, I am hoping that in a future version of Solarus, Chris will create a HUD editor to simplify making HUDs. That way you could create a single HUD entity sprite sheet and matching HUD entity dat file, and the LUA script would just read from the data file.
You could also have it read multiple HUDs during gameplay, such as switching between the main HUD and the Ocarina HUD, or allow ease of enabling or disabling of item buttons. I believe he said he had considered this at one point but do not remember.
As far as LttP HUD assets, most of these are included in Chris' pack for Mystery of Solarus. There exist most of the item icons, windows, the dialogue font, and HUD icons such as Rupee icon (the real LttP one and not the larger ones he used in MoS), arrow, bomb, and key icons, and the life bar that appears above the heart containers.
The menu for LttP consisted of about 5 individual windows that were 'pulled' into the frame when the game was paused that contained the icons.
Currently, Amine M is working on a complete remake of A Link to the Past using the Solarus engine. You can find his videos on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/aminemax1987
New snapshot: http://www.solarus-games.org/downloads/solarus/win32/solarus-1.5.0-snapshot-20160317-win32.zip
Fixes the play button remaning disabled on windows. It was due to the quest process not being able to finish itself due to reading stding.
I just updated the overworld tileset. It has been massively increased and a plethera of tiles have been added, reorganized, and colors corrected better.
There is no data file for it yet, but I will upload the tileset anyway. Please keep in mind that the tileset itself is not complete either. Some colors may not be corrects yet, and there might be a repeat of some tiles but it will be corrected in future releases. Thanks for understanding :)
Enjoy!
(http://wlo-koori.comoj.com/for-the-PZE/Full%20Hyrule.png)
This is cool I might use it soon
Keep up the good work ;)
BTW can you include these in your tileset (http://forum.solarus-games.org/index.php/topic,230.0.html)
The beach tiles have been included, they were simplified to allow you to place them over any tile you like. The Waterfall tiles can be included as well as the urchins. As far as the translucent water tiles I should be able to add them but only a singular 16 x 16 animated tile you can resize. The cloud tiles can be created in similar manner by using the existing cloud tiles. All you need to do is change their properties to irreversible ground.
Edit - waterfall tiles, tiny tree stumps, and recolored mine entrances have been updated. I couldn't simplify the translucent water wave effect, as it was a unique 64 x 64 tile, so I had to include it as-is.
[Update 4-17-2016] I am about 90% finished with the Full Hyrule tileset, minus the data file. I still need to add snow-capped tiles for the dungeon entrances and make sure there are no stray pixels (I have a bad habit of missing stray pixels I add to a tileset for reference points and because of my low vision I wind up overlooking them quite often
That being said. Who wants to see the tileset so far? I will dub this tileset ver 3.0 final once I have finalized a few things within it and completely finished the .dat file that goes with it. Currently, I'd say the data file is somewhere within the neighborhood of 45% to 55% complete, with some tiles needing to be moved, tile patterns removed or updated, and all the dungeon tiles added in.
This tileset comes complete with winter "overlays" for all the tiles in the tileset. This means that you can place the tiles down that you want, and for almost every pattern, there will be a matching "snow cap" for it that can be placed on top of it for the powdered look you get during heavy snow flurries.
We love you ffomega! 8)
Quote from: brlmnd on April 18, 2016, 01:02:31 AM
We love you ffomega! 8)
AWWW <3 Thanks a lot! That's very sweet :) Then, as thanks for all the support, here!! xD I'll go ahead and showcase my tileset. Get ready xD There.....are.....A LOT...of tiles xDD
Again, keep in mind the following:
The data file is still in the works and will not be ready for some time. As you can see in the tileset, a LOT of work still needs to be done. The weird blue tiles in semi-transparency are there on purpose. When I started creating the "snow-capped" tiles for the winter look, I ran into a problem mainly due to my poor vision, and realized that many users with perfect (or even better than mine) vision might also be confused by the simple two-color snow overlay, and I had the idea that, if I simply placed the tiles in the same general area within the tileset, horizontally parallel to the rest, users would understand which ones went where, but then looking at the tileset editor I ran into a big problem, which I actually should bring to Chris' attention:
There is an option within the sprite and item editor to change the color of the MCI background, but there is not an option to change it in the tileset editor, therefore it remains white. This presents a big problem for the snow tiles since they are mostly an off-white and blend in with the MCI background. That is the official reason for the blue half transparent tiles, so that *I* can see the snow tiles much easier. I was going to remove them upon the official release of the tileset but I figured I might as well leave them in as a guide so that there is absolutely no confusion as to where they go.WITH THAT....PLEASE ENJOY THIS PREVIEW!!
(http://solarus_resource.site88.net/tilesets/Full%20Hyrule.tiles.png)
Wonderful !
Have you planned to add the PZE MC styled castle tileset to this huge tileset ?
I actually considered it. I had originally planned to add not only the MC castle tiles, but the FSA tiles as well. The tileset is massive already, and adding them in might require a little bit of relocating of some tiles and resizing the canvas for the tileset. I was also planning to add in all the custom parallel worlds tiles, but I figured that it was best if just a few of those made it in. After all, there is a TON of variety already just in the current tileset. I will give it a lot of thought though (But my mind is already leaning towards yes xD)
[UPDATE] I created a new thread for the updated version of the tileset so that not only can others download a previous version (if they wanted to), but it will be less taxing on others' PCs in case they have older models (like I do). I actually have three PCs and use two regularly xD I do all my Solarus work on a Windows XP laptop and most of my media related stuff on my Windows 10 desktop, so I understand the need for performance prioritizing. Please check the new thread for continued updates to this massive tileset.
Thanks again for the support!!!