DKC Atlas Forum

[Mattrizzle]

I haven't made a video yet because it isn't possible to complete an entire level without D.K. looking and/or sounding like Dixie.

[doomero]

I haven't made a video yet because it isn't possible to complete an entire level without D.K. looking and/or sounding like Dixie.

Oh i see, who will be kidnapped? Dixie?

[Erockbrox]

Mattrizzle let me know if there is anything I can help out on with this project. Just shoot me a pm.

[Erockbrox]

Just checking in here.

Did we ever come to an agreement on what the sprite animation would be for Donkey Kong on Rattly the Snake?

There were a bunch of designs and I can't remember which one would be the best fit for the hack.

[Mattrizzle]

Currently, the one I made is in the hack.

[Erockbrox]

Here is hoping that you have a crazy update for the up and coming C3 at SMWC!!!

[Mattrizzle]

Well, maybe if the C3 came a week later than it did. Even so, the only update would have been that the life counter icon is now animated (how exciting). I still haven't imported the graphics or animation data from DKC1, so for now the icon is just a badly-paletted Banana Coin which changes into a badly-paletted Kremkoin when you lose a life. It also glitches up the numeral graphics.

[Erockbrox]

again let me know if there is something for me to work on. im not an expert asm hacker but since this project is a dream of mine i will do pretty much anything to make it come a reality. if its really top secret then you can just pm me the details. thanks.

[Raccoon Sam]

I don't know if this should deserve its own topic, you know, being really useful for making custom sprites for the DKC series, but bear with me:
This is a direct quote from BullockDS, from The Spriters Resource:

Source

As a forum with many talented spriters, I'm surprised I haven't seen this been discussed here yet (although if it has I certainly missed it). It's what it says on the tin: you can take 3D models and turn 'em into pixel art. Granted, the actual process isn't that simple, but relatively speaking, it seems to be somewhat straightforward. Examples:





Obviously, there's a bit of roughness if left as-is, but I'm honestly surprised with how great looking the results still are as-is. The "rough" shading kind of reminds me of how character graphics appear in Art of Fighting 3, particularly the up-close shots after a fight.

So, what do the fine folks here think? Does this ruin the "true" craft of spriting, or could this become a useful tool for projects? Myself, I think this could potentially become real popular in the MUGEN scene to create fighters (Smash characters, anyone? ).

Also, I'm sorry if this should've gone in a different forum; I figured I wouldn't post this in Custom Sprites/Pixel Art since I'm not actually posting any art of mine, but couldn't think of anywhere else to post it but here.

[Erockbrox]

Well this is great and all, but does this hack need it? But I'm sure many hacks or other fan games could possibly use it.

[Velocity9x7]

Looking at all the screenshots I am very impressed of what I saw. I'm sorry for asking this, but do you guys have any idea when this hack will be completed and released? I look VERY forward to it. I've always dreamed of playing as DK in DKC2!

[doomero]

Looking at all the screenshots I am very impressed of what I saw. I'm sorry for asking this, but do you guys have any idea when this hack will be completed and released? I look VERY forward to it. I've always dreamed of playing as DK in DKC2!

+1 ... when i was a kid, i thought, when you end the game, you can unlock Donkey Kong.

[Velocity9x7]

Looking at all the screenshots I am very impressed of what I saw. I'm sorry for asking this, but do you guys have any idea when this hack will be completed and released? I look VERY forward to it. I've always dreamed of playing as DK in DKC2!

+1 ... when i was a kid, i thought, when you end the game, you can unlock Donkey Kong.

Yeah I thought so too, I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't an unlockable character to be honest. But this hack will make that dream a reality!

[doomero]

I hope can be finished soon.

[Velocity9x7]

Ditto! There's a chance it could be done soon because it started in May 2014. That was almost two years ago.

[Erockbrox]

At this point this game really just depends on Mattrizzle. This was only my idea. Mattrizzle is the coder and the brains behind making this happen for real. He is a top DKC rom hacker. I asked him about the hack recently and he said its harder to do it now that he has a full time job.

[Velocity9x7]

Well that's too bad it will be delayed. Also I'm pretty sure it will still be continued because it's still on Mattrizzle's list of current projects. Futher more, I love your idea! I've thought of making a hack like this years ago actually. But I didn't try to do it because I didn't know how to hack. I've always dreamed of playing as DK in DKC2. Thanks for sharing this idea! By the way I know Matrizze says it's harder now, but did he mention the progress on it so far?

[doomero]

Almost we want to know the news of the progress....

[Mattrizzle]

This info has been in my profile for awhile, but unfortunately, due to the many challenges that have presented themselves in the development of Donkey's Kong Quest, I have shelved it for now.

Here's a screenshot of the last two things I worked on before putting things on pause years ago:

The life counter icon and Extra Life Balloons have been changed to their DKC1 equivalents, complete with their animations!

The good news in all of this is that work is underway on another project related to a game in the DKC trilogy. If you're on the Discord (or you've looked at my profile), you already know what this is...

(EDIT: I also fixed all of my screenshots in this topic after years of them being broken links.)

[rainbowsprinklez]

This info has been in my profile for awhile, but unfortunately, due to the many challenges that have presented themselves in the development of Donkey's Kong Quest, I have shelved it for now.

What was your biggest challenge in this? Was it space? Sound? The custom animations/images?

[Mattrizzle]

Space is somewhat of a concern (I wasn't sure how to compress background images until Kingizor made tools), but the latter three are the bigger issues.

Phyreburnz's sprites exist, but converting them, creating hitboxes and animation scripts for them isn't trivial. Sprites for certain actions still haven't been created. There's also the design decisions that have to be made (e.g. level changes to compensate for the lack of Dixie's helicopter twirl and adding some sort of incentive for D.K.'s hand slap which would include creating custom objects; how Dixie's appearance in K. Rool Duel should be handled), and multiple issues with collision (he clips through the ground and enemies sometimes when jumping, and can reenter some barrel cannons after hitting the end-of-level-targets) and audio (can't get his idle sound to fit into the ARAM with everything else, even though I'm replacing Dixie's crying sound; having to create his victory theme and tweak it for the numerous level archetypes).

Erockbrox and Phyreburnz had some good ideas for a few of the images at the beginning of this topic, and I did some work on converting the one Erockbrox made for the "Destroy them All!" screen. No idea of what I'd do for the title screen. For the Game Over screen, I could probably adapt the one from DKC1 (I would have to erase the text from it and possibly add some missing details to Diddy).

You can tell that I still don't want to give this project up by the fact that it isn't being referred to in past tense...

[WesternTanager794]

Whatever you decide, Mattrizzle, I still think you did a great job!

[rainbowsprinklez]

You can tell that I still don't want to give this project up by the fact that it isn't being referred to in past tense...

Let me know how I could help. I LOVE making tools It would also be an honor to work on such a monumental project!

EDIT
My idea, which has been on the back burner, is to make a DKC 1.5 hack. All of DKC2's maps, but all with Donkey. to be honest, it might be a better idea to start in DKC1. Sure, we'd have to change lots, but in my opinion less than DK in DKC2. Solves the ARAM + sprite space issue.

EDIT 2
PLUS (I think these are your words) DKC1 has ample space!
FOUND IT!

Spoiler!

Fortunately, an ample amount of bytes in the US version 1.0 of DKC are never touched by the game's code. Here's a list of offsets that I've gathered over the past several years:

Code: Select all

007A21-007FFF (0x5DF bytes)
00FE81-00FFAF (0x12F bytes)
0174BA-017FFF (0xB46 bytes)
01F3E8-01FFFF (0xC18 bytes)    Very weird data; pattern doesn't exist in version 1.2
02F7ED-02FFFF (0x813 bytes)
04FDB2-04FFFF (0x24E bytes)
08D9C1-08FFFF (0x263F bytes)   Duplicate sound sample data from 7C030
0A6561-0A7FFF (0x1A9F bytes)   End of bank containing graphics and tilemap of Vine Valley (1st Map); contains fragment of early graphics!
10E87C-10FFFF (0x1784 bytes)
13E1A9-13FFFF (0x1E57 bytes)
17FA3C-17FFFF (0x5C4 bytes)
18EED0-18FFFF (0x1130 bytes)
1CE9E0-1CFFFF (0x1620 bytes)
1DEC90-1DFFFF (0x1370 bytes)   Early uncompressed Mine Cart Level Graphics
1FE186-1FFFFF (0x1E7A bytes)
21E8A7-21FFFF (0x1759 bytes)
22E58F-22FFFF (0x1A71 bytes)   Padded with unused Puftup/etc. (Graphics)
24EC4F-24FFFF (0x13B1 bytes)
25F23B-25FFFF (0xDC5 bytes)
280000-28047F (0x480 bytes)    Language Select Screen (Tilemap)--unused in U v1.0
280480-280EBF (0xA40 bytes)    Language Select Screen (Graphics)--unused in U v1.0
280EE6-282465 (0x1580 bytes)   Unused jungle foreground trees (Graphics)
282466-282665 (0x200 bytes)    Unused jungle foreground trees (Tilemap)
282666-287A49 (0x53E4 bytes)   30 unused D.K. sprites
28E5B8-28FFFF (0x1A48 bytes)   Padded with Mode 5/Mode 6 Graphics: EOPRS, Nintendo Logo
29E2CC-29FFFF (0x1D34 bytes)
2AD145-2AFE9E (0x2D5A bytes)   16 unused Cranky walking sprites
2AFE9F-2AFFFF (0x161 bytes)
2BE1B4-2BFFFF (0x1E4C bytes)
2DE076-2DFFFF (0x1F8A bytes)   Padded with unused text
2FE8EA-2FFD47 (0x145E bytes)   4 unused Queen B hurt frames
2FFD48-2FFFFF (0x2B8 bytes)    Contains a fragment of early 8BPP title screen graphics!
31EAE5-31FFFF (0x151B bytes)
32F152-32FFFF (0xEAE bytes)
33F908-33FFFF (0x6F8 bytes)
357D92-357FFF (0x26E bytes)   
35FE0B-35FFFF (0x1F5 bytes)    End of object code bank
38A17E-38A1E1 (0x64 bytes)     German level name pointers--unused in U v1.0
38A246-38A507 (0x2C2 bytes)    German level names--unused in U v1.0
3979DE-397FFF (0x622 bytes)
39E145-39E344 (0x2C2 bytes)    Early Jungle Palette
39FF65-39FFFF (0x9A bytes)
3AE09F-3AFFFF (0x1F61 bytes)
3BB154-3BC7FF (0x16AC bytes)
3BF790-3BFFFF (0x870 bytes)    End of sprite pointer bank--could be used for additional sprite pointers (five hundred and forty more, but only 323 can be used due to hitbox pointers)
3C35CA-3C5839 (0x2270 bytes)   German dialogue text--unused in U v1.0
3C5C4D-3C7FFF (0x23B3 bytes)   Could be used for custom sprite graphics
3CFB4B-3CFFFF (0x4B5 bytes)    End of object palette data bank (40 custom palettes could fit here)
3D72D0-3D7FFF (0xD30 bytes)    Padded with unused text
3DFFDC-3DFFFF (0x24 bytes)
3EEF51-3EFFFF (0x10AF bytes)   End of animation script bank
3F6261-3F7FFF (0x1739 bytes)   End of bank containing graphics and tilemap of Kremkroc Industries, Inc. (2nd Map)

[WesternTanager794]

Is that animating Donkey Kong moving along on the map trails, Rainbow Sprinklez?

[rainbowsprinklez]

Is that animating Donkey Kong moving along on the map trails, Rainbow Sprinklez?

?

[WesternTanager794]

DKC 1.5 is what I was referring to. Sorry for the confusion!

:EDIT: Does that mean migrating DKC2 components into DKC1?

[rainbowsprinklez]

DKC 1.5 is what I was referring to. Sorry for the confusion!

I'm still confused!

:EDIT: Does that mean migrating DKC2 components into DKC1?

That was my theoretical idea, but I have taken no steps towards it.

[doomero]

this is cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPSPqPLwI8w&t=6s

[WesternTanager794]

Yes. If I remember correctly, Matt said it was the successor to the Donkey Kong edition project.

[doomero]

This new successor should replace the character to recue...i think Candy Kong could be a good change.

[WesternTanager794]

Or donkey kong’s “cousin” baby Kong?

[Mattrizzle]

Candy would be the most obvious choice due to being DK's love interest, but there aren't a whole lot of sprites of her.*

As for Baby Kong, I don't think it would be good to depict Kaptain K. Rool binding up an infant and shooting them repeatedly at close range. Sure, there's already Kiddy, but at least he's able to fight.

* Then again, the same could be said for these other possibilities:

• Chunky Kong
• Lanky Kong
• Tiny Kong
• Bluster Kong
• Eddie the Mean Old Yeti
• Redneck Kong
• Uncle Kong (who essentially looks like Bluster with more clothes)
• Fedora Kong

Inclusion in this list doesn't mean they're in the running.

Bluster, Eddie, and Uncle Kong would probably be the most feasible of this list, as they essentially already have DK's build with different clothing or colors. Bluster is the most recognizable of these three, though both he and Eddie are neutral characters.

[WesternTanager794]

You’re irght about baby Kong. I think Bluster would be the most comedic being captured. I can just imagine him. That would be funny.