A Plumber For All Seasons (out now!) - Works in Progress

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

At this rate maybe I can finish world 2 by the end of the year?

Really? You only finished all the levels until 2-3 within' over 3 years?! *gasps* You must be really busy irl and that's pretty much confidence for such slow progress!

2-3's looking great anyways! I'm looking forward to further levels!

I have a Discord server as well!
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

I did have little free time from 2012 until late 2017, but the issue was more related to focus and motivation. Let's see how long I can keep up the pace this time.

I've been making it rain today.

As suggested by people on Discord, this went through a couple of stages:

palette animation
layer 3 movement
palette animation + layer 3 movement
just movement again, but faster so it doesn't look as static, also toned down the contrast

→

Which stage do you guys like best? (I sure hope it's the last one)

Given that SMW animates every eigth frame, it looks very sloppy and wouldn't look good even with e.g. SMW's graphics. Fasten the animation (you know how to do this, don't you?) if possible and it might be a good alternative to 4.
Looks more like shooting stars falling from the sky. That I prefer 4 over it is quite obvious.
Just perfect! It reminds me a bit of the waterfall levels in DKC3 where the waterfall is also moving layer instead of animating tiles and therefore has a smooth movement. The lessened contrast also looks very nice. Well, maybe the animation is a bit too smooth, but most of the graphics are very advanced and clatch with most sprites anyway, not to mention you can customise the amount of frames layer 3 moved too. The weaker contrast also really helps.

Its really neat to see the progression of the final outcome.

4 looks the best and really captures the rainy feel of the level.
1 looks choppy but almost stylised in a sense that it could fit in with a different type of aesthetic.

But yeah 4 is awesome and this is some pretty great work WYE.

This hack looks beautiful. I love how the background doesn't look too far away, but almost a short jump in 3D space from the foreground.

The limited choice in colours have been utilised so well, it almost looks like a GBA exclusive.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

I've been making it rain today.

Which stage do you guys like best? (I sure hope it's the last one)

1) Slow motion choppy rain, no good.
2) Better.
3) Maybe it's the GIF capture, but it's flickering and not smooth at all.
4) That looks perfect. The lower contrast helps it blend into the environment and the animation is smooth.

I'm not going to bother critiquing 1-3 since they seemed to all be just attempts for #4, which is seriously like the best rain effect I've ever seen on SNES.

...okay well 3 does have promise with raindrops going in different speeds, but yeah palettes are not the greatest thing in the universe so it seems really flickery in the end product.

!!! YOUR SAMPLES ARE COMING SOON !!!

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

Are you a sample porter and wanna help with 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Private Message me or Mellonpizza for details. Expect trading "resources" in exchange. 4 more left.

So that's why it was raining over at my place the other day. XD

Jokes aside, that's such an amazing effect, WhiteYoshiEgg! I'm actually quite envious of your work. Kudos to you!

Feeling aimless, going under therapy to recover from trauma.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

Here's what I spent the past way too many days on:

A falling spider that acts more or less like a killable Thwomp. I was probably unintentionally copying the Scuttlebug enemy from the NSMB games (though the behavior's not 100% the same), and when I realized that, I decided I might as well copy their visuals outright.

I'm late to the party on this, but this is really great work. I assume that, when finished, the spider falls into and is covered by the ooze like the koopa, rather than falling off-screen?

If I could suggest one thing: rather than have the log static, it would look better to have it rotate as Mario walks on it, or at least bob up and down. It doesn't quite look right without vertical movement.

Thanks, glad you like the final rain!

@G.n.k.: yeah, I've fixed the water priority since. Vertical movement isn't really feasible unfortunately, because its hitbox involves layer 1 and I can't really move that with it.

stuff™ has been occupying my mind for the past week, so progress has been somewhat more... sluggish.

This is a slug that you can bounce on. (not sure where I got that idea from.) It's a really simple sprite, but hopefully it'll be interesting to use.

I also drew some new Volcano Lotus graphics. (I used SMW as my sole reference so it ended up looking not much different, but I did draw it entirely from scratch.)

It looks like this rainy romp level is coming along nicely.
The slugs actually remind me of similar enemies found in DKTF.

I do like how you can bounce on them repeatedly which should lead to some interesting set-ups you can use them in.

Sad to say there's been no progress on the level design front.

I did, however, draw some tree trunk platforms a few days ago (similar to the ones I made for SMWCP2 in the ancient past), which I may as well show:

No treehouse though

Originally posted by Gregor

No treehouse though

Maybe instead of treehouses there can be holes in the trees that act like doors/passages?

Either way WYE its looking great still.

2-4 is about half done at least (and as you can see, it involves a couple of Lotuses). I also threw together these branches with leaves - they're not terribly impressive, but they ended up looking just fine especially with the rain obscuring the details. They also do a really good job at making the level feel that much more organic and forest-y.

2-5 is in the works, and it took me all the way from last year to this year to get the background done. $#tb{^^}$ I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially since it's all on layer 3.

Now to implement the gimmick and design a level around it, which may or may not take long.

This looks awesome! It truly deserves a 10/10 for the dedication put into this, when it releases.

To reach the question, you must address the answer.

I've never seen custom graphics this excellent. Awesome use of color and depth with smooth animation.

For those who haven't constantly checked the C3 thread I've been slightly misusing, and for completeness's sake, here are the updates I posted in it:

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

I've listened to as many of your suggestions as I could, and most were much easier to implement than I thought.

link to GIF because the rain blew up the file size (21MB)

slugs now have less awkward wall collision (turns out object clipping 0E exists)
slugs now play somewhat of a custom bounce animation (they're always squashed when you jump on them, and always stretched for a couple of frames after a high bounce)
rain now moves relative to layer 1 vertically as well, not just horizontally (turns out $17BC exists)
I reversed the "no need to be on ground for the camera to scroll" hex edit (gotta check if it doesn't break gameplay anywhere else though)

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

Moving on to the currently-in-progress 2-5, here's something that will probably go unused after all:

This is a fireball (on layer 2) that was supposed to shoot up from the lava below. My original plan was to have a whole pillar of lava shoot up and fill the whole screen, and the fireball was my backup plan if that wouldn't work. I did eventually get the pillars working, though, so the fireball will probably end up on the cutting room floor. (at least for this level; maybe there's some later levels or boss battles I can fit it in?)

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

Here's 2-5's gimmick in its pretty much final state:

A lava pillar that shoots up periodically, with a lava bubble animation to warn the player it's coming. The lava is on layer 2, and it's not as tall as it looks - it actually barely fills the screen, but stops there for a while and triggers an ExAnimation instead to make it look like it's still moving.

Toggling the lava animation was a little tricky, but nothing compard to the ordeal that was getting the bubble animation right. (Having it in two ExAnimation slots made things a lot more complicated.) I eventually figured out how to combine two one shot triggers to make the animation play once and start at frame 0. (I'm still not 100% sure why this works but it apparently does, so yay~)

You’re doing a good job because these look great. Now, I do wonder, why would you attempt this with ExAnimation? Obviously it worked out but it just seems much clunkier than animating it manually.

allow shy guy emojis in post footers you cowards!

Glad you like it!

Originally posted by Von Fahrenheit

Now, I do wonder, why would you attempt this with ExAnimation? Obviously it worked out but it just seems much clunkier than animating it manually.

What do you mean? Using animated sprites was something I wanted to avoid, and I can't think of any way to animate tiles that wouldn't involve ExAnimation. (other than DMA-ing by hand I guess?) Am I about to facepalm because there's something obvious I'm missing?