SHINOBI Gfx restoration

[TotO]

I bet this will end up into a +128K mega game wankfest

How much? (I will won for sure)

[sigh]

I took the liberty to produce a mock up at the bottom(crates ripped from C64), though some bits could still do with some (very minimal) detail such as the ceiling, shop sign etc:



The original background has 10 colours while the mock up has 12. With the shinobi sprite in the pic, the mock up bumps up to 13. (Original CPC bumps to 12 with sprite I think, though the pic posted has some incorrect colour values.)

I simplified the colour of the backgrounds by removing any noise apart from the floor. I was trying to get it as close to the arcade as possible as the backgrounds are rather subdued in the arcade version, but the CPC palette is way too bright for this:) I would say that for this game, to keep the backgrounds quite simple without all the noise of the original CPC.

Anyway - just something to get the ball rolling.

[MacDeath]

you could make a bit more use of ditherings to add some texture to the "stone" (the bricks). and don't be afraid to use more black for the jointures between bricks which could then use Dark Yellow + pastel yellow dithering.

Not quite sure about the floor but it could use some dots of black too.

I'm not satified but the back foot of the shinobi sprite. looks like being transparency???

The Title "Shinobi" should change into "Super Shinoby 128K extended version by Easter eggs".


I guess you shouldn't try too hard to look exactly like the arcade, because (especially tyhis level) it uses a lot of greys and browns...




But yeah, that a nice promising mockup.

[fano]

I like the mockups, palette choice is good for me , just missing hilighting on bricks for example but that will come.About ground , i always been surprised by the green choice, does Shinobi takes place in a garden ? 


About working method , take a look to this post's image http://cpcrulez.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5034&p=22311#p22305
This is a great idea if you want to use Grafx2 as in tile mode, every change you make on map will change the tileset.When you want to save tileset, just reduce width to 8 and voilà !
I'll add this feature into tools 


[EDIT]
So after searching a bit, color 0 to 11 are globals (there are a few exceptions) and color from 12 to 15 are variables according to level.

[sigh]

you could make a bit more use of ditherings to add some texture to the "stone" (the bricks). and don't be afraid to use more black for the jointures between bricks which could then use Dark Yellow + pastel yellow dithering.

Not quite sure about the floor but it could use some dots of black too.

I'm not satified but the back foot of the shinobi sprite. looks like being transparency???

The Title "Shinobi" should change into "Super Shinoby 128K extended version by Easter eggs".


I guess you shouldn't try too hard to look exactly like the arcade, because (especially tyhis level) it uses a lot of greys and browns...




But yeah, that a nice promising mockup.

Ditherings on the blocks, I found is a really bad idea as the main sprite was getting lost. I played with the browns and oranges (in which they ended up looking like gold bars) with a simple tone, but the end result just felt to intrusive to my liking. The CPC version has too much dither and the arcade is very clean looking. I also wanted those tones but in the end, found it was better off without them.

I find black dots incredibly distracting and "In your face" especially where it's peppered all over the ground. The character sprite is a grey tone so  black would be better off used on the incoming projectiles. There's no need for blacks on the walls as it already has the brown tone and the highlight.
The suggestion of black is a complete no no to me.

The back foot of shinobi does fall into transparency, but it has the the yellow shin guard to make it stand out and really wont matter at all once he's moving around, so it shouldn't be a problem. There are also many different ground textures so it may look a little lost on this level, but not in others.

I like the mockups, palette choice is good for me , just missing hilighting on bricks for example but that will come.About ground , i always been surprised by the green choice, does Shinobi takes place in a garden ? 

There are white highlights on the bricks but they could be pixel thicker. I tried this and it looks fine,

[fano]

If someone is interested, all the maps of the game (except bosses rooms) are there : http://cpcrulez.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5034&p=22317#p22317

[sigh]

With white highlights on walls and on the pillar. The CPC seems to have two different types of wall patterns that are tiled one row after another. I also managed to remove a colour so the background is now 11 colours just like the original CPC version:

If someone is interested, all the maps of the game (except bosses rooms) are there : http://cpcrulez.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5034&p=22317#p22317

I cant see where to download on that page..?

I would of liked to have helped you on this but I've got projects that still need finishing so I wouldn't want to promise anything. I still wouldn't mind checking out those maps to see how the levels are laid out.

[fano]

I understand 


Sorry , i forgot you need to register on cpcrulez to get attachments.There are the files.There are globals maps with tileset and section maps with correct palettes.

[sigh]

I had a quick look and the levels have between 10 and 12 colours and they don't seem that complex either. Do you have any info on the main sprite and enemies?

Also - how hard would it be to turn the hud/score screen into mode 1 in order to save some kb? That kb could be used for an extra pair of legs or a sound effect for 64k machines?

[sigh]

Another screen which connects to the first one I did:



The arcade shinobi uses a very limited palette when it comes to the backgrounds which is very challenging to the CPC. The palette of the C64 is definitely better suited to this game with it's variety of flesh tones and grays.

I've noticed that the CPC version lacks the fence in the background which the main character can jump behind.

[MacDeath]

tried a bit of palette swap, unfinished but hey.


Of course to re-draw a few pixels is necessary, but a clever palette choice can really do good to those existing graphics.


also : good old interview from the man himself.
I guess it would be nice if we could get in touch with him, the way the R-Type original team came here...


It is implied in the interview that they hacked to Arcade boards to ripp the graphics...
As he used some crossdev stuffs (on a "PC" I guess) it was then converted on a PC.


Do someone have his mail address? Fano should send him a little mail.


Richard Aplin - Astro Gaming, Inc., Verizon...

Ridiculous in Bug hunting - The Worst Bug I Ever Had

I wrote the game "Shinobi" on the Amstrad CPC (z80-based UK home computer, circa 1986). Symptom: random crash on end-of-level boss, very hard to repro.Cause: In-game music was provided by a 3rd party music driver (supplied as a binary blob of code+data) as was common in those days. It turned out the music data for the end-of-level boss tune contained a bad command code, this command code caused the music player to read a semi-random address; in practice this ended up being in the display framebuffer. The bug was such that if the pixel byte it read was greater than 240 then the music player would trash another part of main memory (my game code), which would crash a little while after.To trigger this bug you had to be playing the boss, and when this (inaudible) error- note in the music soundtrack played, a specific screen pixel had to be a certain colour, in which case it would corrupt ram and the game would crash in otherwise innocent code a frame later. Hardest bug ever.

another thing :
Richard Aplin's Startup-Sequences on the Amiga!


this guy seems amasing, a moderner interview could be cool too.

[TFM]

Well, what Shinobi on CPC really would need would be proper hardware scrolling.

[sigh]

Well, what Shinobi on CPC really would need would be proper hardware scrolling.

It would have to be re-written. The game is still fantastic to play even if the scrolling is choppy:)
Personally I would take sound effects over scrolling on a stock 64kb, as this what hurts the game most for me.

Now I'm going to finish off that first mission stage.....

[MacDeath]

I agree, Shinobi wasn't the most smooth thing, but it managed a decent framerate, was quite responsive concerning the controls, and had awesome chiptunes, transitional screens in sampled voice+"overscan".
Gameplay is really good.


Good graphics is the only missing detail that would turn it into an incredible game experience.
Despite being messy, they are still "faithfull" to the arcade anyway, or at least supposed to be..

[kawickboy]

On CPC there is only one magic and sword is missing too.

[sigh]

Despite being messy, they are still "faithfull" to the arcade anyway, or at least supposed to be..

Graphically I feel they differ from the arcade tremondously. It doesn't resemble a shinobi game frome the drawn sprites all the way through to the colours and doesn't seem to try to be faithful to the arcade. It really is a difficult one for the CPC and I think that's why I've been enjoying this challenge .

On CPC there is only one magic and sword is missing too.

@Fano: Any detail on animation frames for the sprites?

Yes. I think some of the melee moves are missing too like the punch and flykick. You get a bonus at the end of the level if you complete it by only using melee moves and not throwing the shuriken stars.

[fano]

Sorry for my late reply sigh.i am often at work actually.sprites infos are on my first message and you can find them in the zip i attached to.i'll reply more when i'll quit work and have more time than sleeping

[sigh]

Sorry for my late reply sigh.i am often at work actually.sprites infos are on my first message and you can find them in the zip i attached to.i'll reply more when i'll quit work and have more time than sleeping

I just downloaded (didn't see it before.)

There's a lot of free room for extra limbs/torso/legs on the sprite sheet. I'm wondering if it's possible to compact the sprites in the sheet more and update their postions and co-ordinates in the code, as I was thinking of changing the animation of when he jumps to look like the one's in the arcade? Also, it would be nice to use the sprite of the level 1 boss From the C64.

[sigh]

Mission 1 1st Level:



This is as close to the arcade I was able to get it to. The actual level arrangement of the original CPC version is different to the arcade especially when it comes to the buildings in the background. I'm hoping that I have accidently added an extra tile as I changed the look of some of them to match the arcade, but also removed tiles like the 2 tile wall crack and used those for the bottom of the door instead. Again - hoping that the tiles can be rearranged to make this small adjustment possible, but it's not going to be a problem if it cant.

I'm now going to layout the tiles over a very long strip (8x1024) as I'm guessing this is what needs to be done in order to see the results?

[TotO]

Nice done, because you understand the rules:

- "dark" colors for the background
- "middle" colors for the foreground
- "bright" colors for sprites and objects

With that, no more gameplay visibility problem!
And you have used the arcade tiles and palette as reference ; A second good point.
I hope that you will impress me for the next stages too!

[sigh]

Nice done, because you understand the rules:

- "dark" colors for the background
- "middle" colors for the foreground
- "bright" colors for sprites and objects

With that, no more gameplay visibility problem!
And you have used the arcade tiles and palette as reference ; A second good point.
I hope that you will impress me for the next stages too!

Well, there maybe some visibility issues here and there, but hopefully nothing that will be too gameplay breaking.

       

I had to redraw Monroe from scratch . I wanted to use the C64 version but it was a different size and the current CPC version is zoomed in.



As there was space on the tile sheet, I was able to add another brick tile that had a dark brown block like in the arcade version. 

[TotO]

Lovely Marilyn ! 
Redraw is always the choice to do better.
No more needed to put the name to recognize her.  

Good to have used extra tiles for the wall... But, I'm not sure that you see the sky on the broken parts?
No enough tiles to put building instead of the purple only color?

(on the first map, you forget a case shadow, but I'm sure you know that)

[sigh]

Lovely Marilyn ! 
Redraw is always the choice to do better.
No more needed to put the name to recognize her.  

Good to have used extra tiles for the wall... But, I'm not sure that you see the sky on the broken parts?
No enough tiles to put building instead of the purple only color?

(on the first map, you forget a case shadow, but I'm sure you know that)

I forgot to put the shadow on the first crate . Also in the last pic I posted on the previous page, the brownish red horizontal stripey tile (under the small windows) has been replaced with the vertical stripes (under the bit window) as there wasn't enough space on the sheet. I had a feeling about this so I had already planned and drew that tile just in case. This particular tile is also used to create a larger crate like structure  what was in the arcade. It's not quite the same, but it's there in some form.

The arcade version - you can see the sky through the broken wall, but it also the buildings which has parallax scrolling on that level. There's no more space on the tiles sheet to create a new building to fit onto that scene.

[TotO]

Hehe. OK, so it's nice like that.

[Joseman]

Hi

Shinobi it's one of my favs game on cpc, I'm watching this thread every 5 minutes 

I don't know if this are the final colors, but the sky in the broken parts is more bluish than purple on the arcade I think...

Another thing that is missing on the cpc port, well not only on the cpc i suppose, is the pic at the beginning of every level,  that shows the map and the final boss on the current level you are, I don't think that adding it will be a hard work, cause it's only a static pic...

About the colors, one thing that intrigue me is, why the programmer of the game choose so diferent colors regarding the arcade?, even the boxs tiles are different, perhaps he was reusing tiles from another game?

Anyway for me a top game on cpc, and i'm very excited about this gfx rework

Keep on going guys