Map Palettes

The map palettes are displayed correctly now! Worked faster than I expected :)

I played around a little with the map editor and added a second floor to the house:

I also renovated the dark part of Freejia a little:

Map Editor

It's now possible to edit the maps in the editor just as I did in the following screenshot:

I still need to finish the compression routine to make it possible to write the edited map data back to the ROM.
I'm also working on the map palettes currently. A map consists of several palettes (up to 8). The palette which a single map tile uses is assigned by a 3 bit index that is part of the tileset data.
With this index I willtry to display the map with all the right palettes.

Display Map Layers

I improved the map loading algorithm to support the display of the different map layers. You can now select the layers you want to display in the editor. The following screens show the different map layers for Edward's Prison.

Map layer 1:

 Map layer 2:

 Map layer 1 & 2:

Display Maps 2

I found the tile mirror bit so the maps look better now:

I also extracted the tilemaps that I need for the implementation of the map editor that will follow soon.
Then I will upload a new version of the editor!

Display Maps

I decoded successfully the map tileset data sets and as a result, the maps look much better now:

There are some tiles that need to be mirrored so I have to search for that mirror bit next.
There is also a second tile layer for several maps that I need to add.
And one very important thing to do: Find the right color palettes..

Will on the Wing

All the sprites that are used in the original game are now displayed in the editor!
And by now roughly 98% of them already look as they should.
The last sprite set that I readout were the sprite graphics for the world map movements.
I found an interesting sprite that (proof me wrong) was never used in the original game. It shows Will how he is transported by sea gulls. But look for yourselves:

Display all Sprites in the Editor

Currently I'm making it possible to display all the sprites in the editor.
When I'm done with this I will upload a new version of the editor.
The next step will be the display of the sprites on the maps...

For example, the sprite set for Edward's Castle. I don't think the walking animation for the king is used in the game..

Map Sprite Data

I improved the decompression of the map data so that I discovered the purpose of the "mystery data [0x10]" -> It's the sprite data!
So now it's possible to display those sprites in the editor. I started with the South Cape sprites:

The maps also look much better now but I will show them in one of the next blog entries.

More Sprites

I found some more sprite data sets, including the sprites of all main characters (Will, Freedan, Shadow) as well as the character transformation sprites. Another data set contains all item and character move sprites.
You can view all those sprites in the new "Sprite" tab page in the editor. This will be the central point to edit all the sprites used in the game.
I still need to find the palette and tileset information of the sprite data..

Sprite editing

I further investigated Will's sprite data and discovered the data that stores the position of the individual tiles the sprite graphic consists of. With this data it's now possible to display the sprite graphic in the editor as seen in the following screenshots:

I also discovered the data that holds the time a specific grahic of a sprite animation is shown (example: Will's face down animation has 114 time units with open eyes and 4 time units with closed eyes).

I will continue searching the sprite data to make it possible to display all graphics correctly and make it editable.

UPDATE:
I found some more data and most of the sprite graphics are looking good now!

UPDATE 2:

Found some more data and every sprite animation looks good now :)

GaiaTheCreator v.0.2.00 + New event command

Here is the latest version of the editor. I hope this version will work for you. Please give me feedback if there are any problems running the editor ;)
I recently switched to Windows 10 and since then I have some display problems with the editor (fonts look blurish and some graphics are misplaced)... Let me know if these problems also occur on your systems..
The main improvements of verison 0.2.0.0:

Version 0.2.00

- View character animations for Will (still in an early development state)

- The decompression of the map arrangement data is implemented. The tile arrangement is shown for the maps but the tiles don’t fit yet because tileset decompression is still in development..

- Added several event commands that are displayed in the event editor

- Added a tab for world map events. Events can be displayed in the event editor. Also the map display names are shown in the editor. Still in a very early development state.

The download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttzgvy02y0bzwqw/GaiaTheCreator%20%280.2.0.0%29.zip?dl=0

NOTE: You need to run the editor with administration rights when you create a new project!

I also found a new event command that plays a significant role for the behaviour of the enemies. With the command 0x21 you can check if the hero is within a specified distance to the enemy and trigger actions if the player is within the distance limit.

Work in progress...

Sorry for the long absence of new informations but I've been very busy the last few weeks...
But nevertheless I found some time to work on the editor anyway ;)
The main task for me at the moment is the completion of the compression routine for the map arrangement and tileset data.
I already made a decent progress with it since the algorithm does in roughly 95% of the compression workflow what is it supposed to do. So now I need to find out what goes wrong in the remaining 5%.
When I finish the algorithm there will be many many new things to show here ;)

World Map Names

I found a data set that contains the names that are displayed on the world map when the player moves to or from a place. I edited the name of Edward's Castle by hand. The next goal is to make it editable in the editor.

Enemy move commands

I discovered the move commands for the bat enemies in Edward's Underground. You can directly change the direction, speed and move pattern of the enemy. I will try to further investigate these enemy events..

I also discovered some other event commands:

• Text Choice (0xBE): Adjust the number of choices and at which line of the message the choice occurs. You can also set what action will be performed if a specific choice is made.
• Set Event Position Offset (0xBC): Set the position offset (X, Y) of an event
• Clear Switch (0xCE): Clear a specific switch
• Item Possession Condition (0xD6): Check if a specific item is in the inventory and set the action that happens in either case
• Set Event Layer: Below Hero (0x0C): The hero can move over the event.

Move Event Command

I found a new command for the event editor! Actually there are two commands that let an event move in left/right or up/down direction. There are several move patterns that are selected by their identifier.

Map Editor

Here you can see two screenshots of the current map editor. It is planned that the user can pick a tile from the tileset and place it on the map.

In the past few weeks I improved the map display algorithm so that it is much more faster now. The maps are now loading so fast that there is actually no noticeable delay.

The maps still look messy since the tilesets aren't correct. But that is something I'm working on.

I might upload a new version in the next few weeks. There I will insert some error outputs so that I might be able to find the reason the editor isn't running correctly for some of you..

Map Arrangement Data

Thanks to Alchemic and Lytron I finally implemented the decompression of the map arrangement data! Both of you definitely deserve a mention in the editor's credits :D

So here you can see the Map of the City of Euro. The tile arrangement seems to fit but the tileset graphics aren't correct yet...
I also decompressed the tileset data but it doesn't make sense to me at the moment.. Maybe they used another compression algorithm for these data sets :(
The decompression of the map metadata[10] data sets sees more promising. I think I found a data table there that I will further investigate.
I will need to implement the compression algorithm for these data sets so I can check back the changes I made to find out the meaning of this data.