Topic: Castlevania: Symphony of the night HACKED! I bet you thought I had quit? ;)

[Esco]

Any chance you'll share some of those sprite rips of objects with the public?

Yes, all of them. Hopefully I can begin releasing them sometime very soon.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Hey Esco, I'm free from my freelancing assignment again.  We should talk.  You have my AIM.

[Esco]

Hey Esco, I'm free from my freelancing assignment again.  We should talk.  You have my AIM.

Hey man, thanks for the heads up. Yeah definitely, I'll try to message you in the next few days. I work all week and have finals so I need to find some free time.

[Esco]

UPDATE 12/25/12: Merry Christmas peoples! Below you will find a downloadable file for GM 8.1. This file has all of the animations for over 15 monsters in SOTN, but unlike on many other sites, all of the sprites, effects, etc are included, with no special effects or transparency applied, with the correct colors, and fully assembled. Also the order of each animation that uses these sprites is included.

Since I know a lot of people might be able to make use of a good amount of stuff in this file on these forums, I have included a copy of my blog post below. All of the details are listed there. Enjoy.

<COPIED AND PASTED FROM THE BLOG: http://sotnhacked.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/merry-christmas-monster-graphics-release/>

Feliz Navidad everyone! This is a GM 8.1 file that contains not just all of the graphics that were included in the demo & it's source, but also includes all of the candle sprites up until the end of the marble gallery, as well as more than 16 monsters from SOTN. Each monster also includes all of the effects that it uses in SOTN (ex. the unique "blood" effect used by the bloody zombie) with all transparency, rotation, and scaling off.
 
If anyone wants to take the time to make sprite sheets for these monsters go right ahead, but I did not do so because this file has HUNDREDS of sprites in it! And this is AFTER I deleted all of the duplicate ones that were used in more than one animation. But this is something that I know a good # of people in the Castlevania community, as well as hopefully some in the GM community will really be able to put to good use.
 
The monster sprites are all assembled, with each UNIQUE frame separated into a separate sprite in most cases so that each sprite has it's own hitbox/mask setup (the exception to this is things that won't be hittable by the player or can't run into him like some death animations or fragments of a killed enemy) and also saves space since I don't have the same sprite repeated in multiple sprite sheet animations. Each sprite is cropped and has it's x and y offsets centered, and I also included a script that details the order that each of the sprites go in for each monsters set of animations. This way if anyone who wants to use these in their own game, doesn't have to spend HOURS figuring out which sprites go in what order and in which animation.
 
THINGS TO BE DONE: I need to align the sprites for each animation (x and y offset) wise in game, rather than just centering them all. But this in many cases will need to be done via draw statements since some sprites can be used in more than one animation so I didn't do it here yet.
 
A QUICK SIDE NOTE: there is a red hitbox sprite in most of the monsters folders; this is to be used later by me for collision with solid objects and that particular monster only. You will also notice that for some enemies like the bloody zombie, and warg rider that a separate sprite for their attack is included; this sprite is for hitbox purposes only when they use their attack (like biting, stabbing, etc) with a close range weapon.
 
This release includes the following monsters:

    Skeleton & Golden Bones
    Blood Skeleton (only the red one; the other colors will not be used by me. Also has new death animation which is to be completed with particle effects in game)
    Bat
    Zombie (all 3 palettes from the entrance, and 3 more new ones to be used later)
    Warg (all 3 types; the armored one now has some new animations)
    Warg rider (has a new animation too)
    Bone Scimitar (2 palettes that will be used)
    Spittle Bone
    Axe Armor (both palettes; charging animation is new and improved)
    Bloody Zombie
    Merman
    Fishman (only one of the two palettes, since they both look almost exactly the same)
    Bone Slinger
    Ouija Table
    Marionette (there is actually one final useless frame omitted here)

The file can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?e2d4nypl99mav8r
 
If anyone uses this file or a good amount of sprites in it I only ask that you give me a tiny amount of credit for it at least. I intend to release another one of these files every so often as I add some new enemies to it as well. Hopefully a good # of people out there will find use for this. Enjoy.

[Inccubus]

Sweet! This will definitely be useful for lots of people. Plus it's a nice little preview of some of the things you're planning

[MathUser]

So I wonder if he found unused sprites. I remember I hacked a enemy move modifier and I saw Fire Demon do a move where he jumps out of the ground. Looks like he was originally gonna be found with only his head sticking out of the ground. Either a reference to Pungachi or to make it appear that he is much smaller.

[Esco]

Ok, I have a question that I would like to get feedback from the rest of the community on: I have been considering changing Alucard's Hellfire & Summon Spirit moves to being sub weapons instead of magic spells. This of course has benefits and downsides.

At the moment, here are the other sub weapons I have planned for Alucard: Shuriken, Boomerang (acts similar to cross), Bwaka Knife, Dynamite, stopwatch, Agnea, Pentagram (inflicts stone/curse on all enemies if possible). With Summon spirit, and Hellfire that would bring his heart using sub weapons to 9 (Richter has 10 planned as of now & a crash for each, Maria has 9 planned also with a crash for each).

Also as a wolf his sub weapon is the howling moved I showed everyone in the video before, and as a bat his sub weapon is bat fire (bat echo is his normal attack)

Keep in mind too that once a subweapon is collected now, you always have it, that they can be leveled up, and that you can also swap between each one with a button press on the pad, OR a hotkey on the keyboard.

That would mean his spells would be: teleport, dark inferno, tetra spirit, sword brothers, soul steal, and dark metamorphosis. These all require a controller combination to use, and most have cool down afterwards so that you cannot spam them, since most have been made as strong as a crash (though healing effects have been MAJORLY cut down).

And before anyone groans about him NOT having some of the other sub weapons/limited use weapons, don't worry... all of them will appear in game. If not used by Alucard then another character will use them (the exception is the magic missile; which will now be similar to one of the bow and arrow weapons maria can get instead)

So what do you guys & gals think? Should summon spirit and hellfire be sub weapons or spells? And more importantly, why or why not?

[Chernabogue]

I think they should be spells, as sub-weapons are "items" (a Cross, a Axe, etc.) while spells are "pure magic" (Fireballs, etc.) Just my 2 cents.

[VladCT]

I think they should be spells, as sub-weapons are "items" (a Cross, a Axe, etc.) while spells are "pure magic" (Fireballs, etc.) Just my 2 cents.

Seconded, though that would mean summoned beasts would have to count as "items" as well when we take Maria into account in regards to that reasoning. (Okay, I think I bit off more than I can chew with that sentence. Was there anything wrong with the grammar?)

[BullockDS]

I also think that they should remain as spells, because as Chernabogue mentioned, they're pure magic moreso than physical weapons (which are a contrast to Alucard's other subweapons).

[Dengo vlad tepes]

Ok, I have a question that I would like to get feedback from the rest of the community on: I have been considering changing Alucard's Hellfire & Summon Spirit moves to being sub weapons instead of magic spells. This of course has benefits and downsides.

At the moment, here are the other sub weapons I have planned for Alucard: Shuriken, Boomerang (acts similar to cross), Bwaka Knife, Dynamite, stopwatch, Agnea, Pentagram (inflicts stone/curse on all enemies if possible). With Summon spirit, and Hellfire that would bring his heart using sub weapons to 9 (Richter has 10 planned as of now & a crash for each, Maria has 9 planned also with a crash for each).

Also as a wolf his sub weapon is the howling moved I showed everyone in the video before, and as a bat his sub weapon is bat fire (bat echo is his normal attack)

Keep in mind too that once a subweapon is collected now, you always have it, that they can be leveled up, and that you can also swap between each one with a button press on the pad, OR a hotkey on the keyboard.

That would mean his spells would be: teleport, dark inferno, tetra spirit, sword brothers, soul steal, and dark metamorphosis. These all require a controller combination to use, and most have cool down afterwards so that you cannot spam them, since most have been made as strong as a crash (though healing effects have been MAJORLY cut down).

And before anyone groans about him NOT having some of the other sub weapons/limited use weapons, don't worry... all of them will appear in game. If not used by Alucard then another character will use them (the exception is the magic missile; which will now be similar to one of the bow and arrow weapons maria can get instead)

So what do you guys & gals think? Should summon spirit and hellfire be sub weapons or spells? And more importantly, why or why not?

keep them as spell moves , magic is magic and sub weapons are sub weapons bro

i'm so excited for this to get done !

[MathUser]

Speals are probably hard to do on the keyboard, but having too many buttons to press might not be a good idea either. Alot of people are gonna play this with a controller. I think SOTN already uses almost all the buttons on a modern 360 and PS3 controller. That would mean someone would have to use the keyboard AND a controller to play the game. You could have it as a toggalable option to help keyboard users probably.

So how will Maria play? Saturn Maria with PSP attacks and subweapons as an extra? Or you could make her two incarnations toggleable too.

[Lelygax]

 Spells, since they are meant to be a secret after all (without blindly trying, you could only discover it very late with the Old Librarian).

 Also its simple to do, they used motion even in PoR for some moves and if I can manage to play The King of Fighters or any other fighting game in a keyboard, I believe that another players can do these simple moves in a keyboard too, if not, simply use a controller.

Speals are probably hard to do on the keyboard, but having too many buttons to press might not be a good idea either.

I didn't read anything about using extra buttons in Esco post, he said about turning them in sub-weapons, so to use them you press "Up+Attack".

Alot of people are gonna play this with a controller. I think SOTN already uses almost all the buttons on a modern 360 and PS3 controller. That would mean someone would have to use the keyboard AND a controller to play the game. You could have it as a toggalable option to help keyboard users probably.

Why someone will need to use a keyboard AND a controller? You can use one of the two options and play the game perfectly. As I said, no extra buttons if I understood it correctly, so you can be relieved.

[Esco]

UPDATE: 4/17/13: this is a HUGE one about puppet animating, but long story short, I have managed to duplicate the technology from SOTN used to make enemies like Galamoth, Hammer, Blade, etc. This was a HUGE task in GM that I was told many times, would be almost impossible... but I DID IT!!! 

Here is the blog post: http://sotnhacked.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/update-41713-puppetskeletalmodularetc-animating-what-galamoth-is-animated-with/

[FireSeraphim]

This information might be useful in regards to the task of coding the Bone Dragon (AKA "White Dragon") in my fangame. I would be grateful if you could send me or Bigworm a PM with a generictized version of your puppet animation code.