[v1.03] BOWSIE - Better Overworld Sprite Insertion Engine / Overworld Sprites thread (converted VLDC9 sprites!) - Resource & Tool Releases

First release: Summer C3 2024 thread
I'll use this thread to post updates on BOWSIE. The tool is not really stable so I feel uncomfortable uploading it to the Tools section as is; I'll wait until further testing is conducted. I will also publish overworld sprites I might make/convert, as long as the sprites section doesn't hold official support for them. So if you want to be kept in the loop, make sure to watch this thread and star the GitHub repo.

BOWSIE - Better Overworld Sprite Insertion Engine
Introducing BOWSIE, or Better Overworld Sprite Insertion Engine. The purpose of this tool is supersede Alcaro's and wiiq's old overworld sprite tool by using, by default, the system used in the 9th Vanilla Level Design Contest hack. As with PIXI, it is a command line tool.

DOWNLOAD (latest release: v1.03)
Source code

Overworld sprites for BOWSIE
I'll use this section of the thread to post overworld sprites that I or others have made. Feel free to share any you make!!

Piranha plant disassembly

This is a "disassembly" of the piranha plant overworld sprite found in the vanilla Super Mario World. Did you know it can do one feature apart from just animating? As you can see in the gif, it can be set to disappear once a certain level is defeated.
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Bird

As you can see in the gif above, this is a bird that just picks around. The extra byte controls the color.
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Goomba / Fish

These are two sprites I made for Tob and I's OWDC entry back in 2019.
This Goomba walks around a 2x2 level grid. If interacted with, the player is forced inside a level. If said level is beaten, the sprite disappears. The extra byte controls the event trigger.
The fish is similar to the Goomba, but in a 3x2 grid.
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Yoshi / No Yoshi sign

This Yoshi sprite allows the player to get Yoshi on the overworld. The No Yoshi signpost makes the player lose its current Yoshi. If the sign looks ugly, sorry, I drew it.
the level yoshi looking fucked is something unrelated btw.
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Carol's overworld sprites

Currently this pack includes:

The airship from FFV
The hand from SMB3
The save point (apparently from FFVI) (also, no idea why carol coded it to flash like that, ew)

I'll convert some of carol's other sprites in the future.
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9th Vanilla Level Design Contest - Overworld Sprites

Yes, these are the sprites made for VLDC9 which got released (eg. no hang glider), including some not pictured. They are:

Volcano lotus + pollen
Podoboo
Ninji
Monty Mole
That lantern from the cave submap
The planets from the space submap
The flag of Switzerland, the most powerful country in the world
The chainsaws that orbit a planet in the space world
Eerie
Koopas playing waterpolo or whatever
Dolphin that peeks in the abstract world ghost house
Crow
Spotlight (the black thing in the bottom right of the first gif)
That weird thing in the space world that sometimes appears
Rex
Porcu-puffer fish
Burp generator from the worst world
The smoke a lot of sprites use
A dummy sprite
A static sprite that does nothing

I checked that they don't crash, made display tooltips for LM, and thats pretty much it. I made very minor edits to some (eg. fixed the Eerie to use it on any submap), but what you see is what you get. So any question about weird behavior... the answer is yeah, that's how they were made ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I appreciate all feedback and suggestions, either here or via Discord.

The Overworld Custom Sprites revolution is slowly starting good!

Keep the support, guys, and let's see if we can bring a new era!

...also can't wait for one day to use the airship sprite and put in Funky The Main Monkey to emulate the Funky Flights overworld traveling in my hack

Have a frost day~

The SMB3 hand sprite looks interesting; what are the odds that it'll drag the player into a level? I'm mainly wondering if that ratio/percentage is the same as it is in SMB3.

Also, just a minor nitpick with the hand, are you gonna get rid of the white area below it? It looks rather weird, considering it doesn't have that oddity in SMB3.

I don't really have anything to say about the save point, but about the FFIV airship, I'm guessing it allows you to go to a stage on the overworld that is otherwise inaccessible, but what happens to it after you use it to travel to another level, does it respawn? Also, can it travel from the main map to a submap, and vice versa?

YesYesYes!!!

On the subject of sprites to convert, how about carol's DKC2 navigation arrows?

Originally posted by Green

YesYesYes!!!

On the subject of sprites to convert, how about carol's DKC2 navigation arrows?

They already exist as a global patch, so it would be redundant.

Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

Ah, there's that airship I was thinking about!

Very nice to see that!

Will this be submitted into the tools section?

Check out my DKC rips!

Originally posted by Soul

Will this be submitted into the tools section?

From the top of the first post.

Originally posted by Erik

The tool is not really stable so I feel uncomfortable uploading it to the Tools section as is; I'll wait until further testing is conducted.

Apologies for not getting around to your questions earlier. I wanted to push a new update before.

Release v1.02 has just arrived September 20th, 2024. The main feature is experimental support for yoshifanatic's Overworld Revolution! A new system, owrev, has been added.
THIS RELEASE IS EXTREMELY EXPERIMENTAL. My testing consisted in confirming the game didn't crash and displayed some sprites when running the tool.
Extra bytes are now 16-bit. Use the extension field to set them.
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I'd appreciate extra support for testing this release. Once it's deemed stable enough, the version number will be pushed to v1.10.

Originally posted by me this C3

Yeah, I ran out of time to check the integrations with said patch. But I left with the impression they might be plug-and-play, save perhaps for a few edits. (one says this then it turns out you have to remake it all lol)

I was far off! It wasn't that hard, but I did require to add a new system.

Originally posted by Knight of Time

The SMB3 hand sprite looks interesting; what are the odds that it'll drag the player into a level? I'm mainly wondering if that ratio/percentage is the same as it is in SMB3.

Also, just a minor nitpick with the hand, are you gonna get rid of the white area below it? It looks rather weird, considering it doesn't have that oddity in SMB3.

Mostly got to you on Discord regarding this, but still:
- The odds are 50/50, like SMB3.
- That's how carol coded it. However, eventually I decided to modify it to look more similar to SMB3. WARNING: Flashing

There's also a variant that doesn't flash.

Quote

I don't really have anything to say about the save point, but about the FFIV airship, I'm guessing it allows you to go to a stage on the overworld that is otherwise inaccessible, but what happens to it after you use it to travel to another level, does it respawn? Also, can it travel from the main map to a submap, and vice versa?

- Yeah you can travel to an unreachable level. It shouldn't despawn.
- No, you're limited to the map you put it on. Speaking of, the original airship was limited to the main map, I added submap support.

Originally posted by Green

YesYesYes!!!

On the subject of sprites to convert, how about carol's DKC2 navigation arrows?

As Daizo said, those come in patch form (and perhaps UberASM?) and I find it more useful like that.
There are three sprites carol made which I doubt I'll convert:
- The DKC2 arrows, as I said.
- The speed changer, because it's buggy and it's better to use the patch for it as well.
- The winged Yoshi, because by God is the code horrendous lmao

Originally posted by Soul

Will this be submitted into the tools section?

This new release will be pretty buggy, so definitely not. However, once all issues are ironed out, I may upload it. I do want to speak to Maarfy about it beforehand though, to know what his plans are regarding OW sprites.

Please check out BOWSIE!
yo bro talk tuah is on

Then how about the SMB3 warp tornado sprite?

Originally posted by Green

Then how about the SMB3 warp tornado sprite?

Yeah, that and the tank are coming. For the tornado I'm particular, I'm also preparing something else which may be useful...

Release v1.03 has just arrived September 28th, 2024. Features include a new shared subroutine to get the distance between the player and an overworld sprite, as well as comment in the list file. Fixes include corrected sprite Map16 generation and spawn positions when using the VLDC9 system.
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While I didn't get any bug reports from using this with Overworld Revolution, I'm still not pushing this to v1.10 or uploading to the section just yet.

I also bring you some overworld sprites today. I'm still bundling them with the tool for now, but I'm also going to start adding download links for the inevitable time I no longer do so.

Yoshi / No Yoshi sign

This Yoshi sprite allows the player to get Yoshi on the overworld. The No Yoshi signpost makes the player lose its current Yoshi. If the sign looks ugly, sorry, I drew it.
the level yoshi looking fucked is something unrelated btw.
DOWNLOAD

Yeah, pretty cool, right?

... oh, right, these too.

9th Vanilla Level Design Contest - Overworld Sprites

Yes, these are the sprites made for VLDC9 which got released (eg. no hang glider), including some not pictured. They are:

Volcano lotus + pollen
Podoboo
Ninji
Monty Mole
That lantern from the cave submap
The planets from the space submap
The flag of Switzerland, the most powerful country in the world
The chainsaws that orbit a planet in the space world
Eerie
Koopas playing waterpolo or whatever
Dolphin that peeks in the abstract world ghost house
Crow
Spotlight (the black thing in the bottom right of the first gif)
That weird thing in the space world that sometimes appears
Rex
Porcu-puffer fish
Burp generator from the worst world
The smoke a lot of sprites use
A dummy sprite
A static sprite that does nothing

I checked that they don't crash, made display tooltips for LM, and thats pretty much it. I made very minor edits to some (eg. fixed the Eerie to use it on any submap), but what you see is what you get. So any question about weird behavior... the answer is yeah, that's how they were made ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
DOWNLOAD

So yeah, as I make more overworld sprites I will post them here. By the way, though I didn't mention it, I welcome anyone who's making their own overworld sprites to post them here so people can use it. The way to garner adoption of the tool is with the help of the community, making resources for others!!

Please check out BOWSIE!
yo bro talk tuah is on

I noticed you added some support for Overworld Revolution to your tool. Since I'm planning on updating OR to V1.1.1 soon, is there anything I could do to make it more compatible with BOWSIE? For example, I could do things like add a define that removes much of OR's sprite implementation, potentially convert OR's sprites into BOWSIE sprites, or add pointers to relevant routines in case I have to move things around. Stuff like that.

My Hacks:
Mario's Strange Quest V1.6
Yoshi's Strange Quest V1.3 / V1.3.1 Beta 4.6
Mario & Yoshi's Strange Quests (2/10/2023 Build)

Other stuff:
My SMW/SMAS/SMAS+W disassembly
Yoshifanatic's Discord Server: A place for fans of my stuff and/or Yoshi to chat with others.

Originally posted by Erik

9th Vanilla Level Design Contest - Overworld Sprites

Yes, these are the sprites made for VLDC9 which got released (eg. no hang glider), including some not pictured. They are:

Volcano lotus + pollen
Podoboo
Ninji
Monty Mole
That lantern from the cave submap
The planets from the space submap
The flag of Switzerland, the most powerful country in the world
The chainsaws that orbit a planet in the space world
Eerie
Koopas playing waterpolo or whatever
Dolphin that peeks in the abstract world ghost house
Crow
Spotlight (the black thing in the bottom right of the first gif)
That weird thing in the space world that sometimes appears
Rex
Porcu-puffer fish
Burp generator from the worst world
The smoke a lot of sprites use
A dummy sprite
A static sprite that does nothing

You know, this reminds me of Lui37's Overworld Sprite Patch from VLDC9 except not all of the custom OW sprites in the hack has that. Do you think that this patch is compatible for this Engine? Anyway, this looks fantastic. keep up the good work.

Love all the new additions here!

Originally posted by Erik

The flag of Switzerland, the most powerful country in the world

Hey I live there :^)

Originally posted by CalHal

You know, this reminds me of Lui37's Overworld Sprite Patch from VLDC9 except not all of the custom OW sprites in the hack has that. Do you think that this patch is compatible for this Engine? Anyway, this looks fantastic. keep up the good work.

These sprites WERE from Lui's VLDC9 spritetool, now ported to Bowsie. There's no need to use that patch anymore since we now got Bowsie, especially since the vldc9 tool is SA-1 only.

Originally posted by Stivi

Love all the new additions here!

Thank you :>

Originally posted by CalHal

You know, this reminds me of Lui37's Overworld Sprite Patch from VLDC9 except not all of the custom OW sprites in the hack has that. Do you think that this patch is compatible for this Engine?

Adding to what Stivi said, this tool is the VLDC9 engine (well, I'm being reductive, obviously BOWSIE has more methods if you so desire). The sprites are conversions to non SA-1 version of the ones released for the patch version, with minor fixes.
As I said, some sprites are missing, but either they were never released or I lost them. And besides, I recall leod saying back in the day they were hardcoded to VLDC9's map only; making them work with any map would be a pretty extenuating task, one that, even if they were released, I don't want to do.

Originally posted by yoshifanatic

I noticed you added some support for Overworld Revolution to your tool. Since I'm planning on updating OR to V1.1.1 soon, is there anything I could do to make it more compatible with BOWSIE? For example, I could do things like add a define that removes much of OR's sprite implementation, potentially convert OR's sprites into BOWSIE sprites, or add pointers to relevant routines in case I have to move things around. Stuff like that.

The former would be so useful! I do see the sprites run at the very beginning of OWRev, and that's where I'm hijacking. Also the sprite load routine, but I don't think or I don't know how convenient it would be both for you and BOWSIE to move around that area lol
I haven't seen how OWRev's sprites work, so if that's something you want to volunteer to do, you're more than welcome. 😃
A pointer would be useful as well. Right now I have only needed to restore one, a routine called SMW_ProcessOWPlayers_DrawOverworldPlayerAndBorderSprites.
At the end of the day, I'm more than open to collaborate to get this working as smoothly as possible! If you want, you can contact me either via a PM here, on Discord (preferrably), or even via e-mail, so we can coordinate better on what would be needed 👌

Please check out BOWSIE!
yo bro talk tuah is on

Erik, just wondering if you've thought of making Tsutarja's SMB3 boat sprite compatible with BOWSIE? He released it during the winter 2017 C3, and if you want to check it out, I have a link to the topic he posted it in. It would be pretty cool to see this made for BOWSIE someday, as a nice little alternative to using the airship.

Originally posted by Erik

The former would be so useful! I do see the sprites run at the very beginning of OWRev, and that's where I'm hijacking. Also the sprite load routine, but I don't think or I don't know how convenient it would be both for you and BOWSIE to move around that area lol
I haven't seen how OWRev's sprites work, so if that's something you want to volunteer to do, you're more than welcome. 😃
A pointer would be useful as well. Right now I have only needed to restore one, a routine called SMW_ProcessOWPlayers_DrawOverworldPlayerAndBorderSprites.
At the end of the day, I'm more than open to collaborate to get this working as smoothly as possible! If you want, you can contact me either via a PM here, on Discord (preferrably), or even via e-mail, so we can coordinate better on what would be needed 👌

Alright. My Discord username is "Yoshifanatic1", so message me on Discord and we can discuss how to go about getting BOWSIE and OR working together.

My Hacks:
Mario's Strange Quest V1.6
Yoshi's Strange Quest V1.3 / V1.3.1 Beta 4.6
Mario & Yoshi's Strange Quests (2/10/2023 Build)

Other stuff:
My SMW/SMAS/SMAS+W disassembly
Yoshifanatic's Discord Server: A place for fans of my stuff and/or Yoshi to chat with others.

Do you remember that Ersanio has done a SMB3 "HELP" talk bubble? There is also Overworld Snowfall like this and Ash Particle Effects like in Mario The Mystical Gem. And what about the winged Yoshis? Which like the airship from FFV, you can fly around the map with them. I hope you will work on them soon.

Originally posted by Knight of Time

Erik, just wondering if you've thought of making Tsutarja's SMB3 boat sprite compatible with BOWSIE? He released it during the winter 2017 C3, and if you want to check it out, I have a link to the topic he posted it in. It would be pretty cool to see this made for BOWSIE someday, as a nice little alternative to using the airship.

The original boat had some issues since it didn't account for low/high bytes on the main overworld.
I have uploaded an updated version here including the needed routines and graphics. It doesn't work with Luigi yet but I hope it helps, in case it gets added to BOWIE somehow.

EDIT:
Forgot to add the defines for some things:

Code

!layer_2_tile = $7F4000
!get_l2_tile = $14C1 ;(or any other free RAM)

Thanks for this work, the possibilities with this tool will be incredible