Some image conversions I made

A place for your artistic side. Discuss techniques and tools for pixel art on the NES, GBC, or similar platforms.

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Dwedit
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Post by Dwedit »

Go play some Cosmic Epsilon, it's the closest you'll get.
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Zelex
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Post by Zelex »

Dwedit wrote:Go play some Cosmic Epsilon, it's the closest you'll get.
Well, I'll be damned. Thats pretty awesome and it even works in my emulator too.
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tokumaru
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Post by tokumaru »

Zelex wrote:Thats pretty awesome and it even works in my emulator too.
It's a clever CHR bankswitching trick. The game has CHR data for a number of horizontal patterns with perspective, and different patterns can be displayed in a single frame through bankswitching. Animation is achieved by moving the bankswitching spots every frame. Unfortunately, this trick can't be used for rotations.
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Bregalad
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Post by Bregalad »

I've always found that Cosmic Epsilon looks less impressive than Rad Racer games. Just that recatnagular patterns looks less impressive than a road I guess....
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thefox
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Post by thefox »

jpx72 wrote:Very nice application, thanks for the long description!
I was able to do a nice famicom picture but I wasn't able to use the palette provided, I'm using PaintshopPro and every palette editor is showing "wrong file" when trying to open your *.act palette :(
I needed the palette in another format for GraphicsGale recently, it seems to use the same PaintShop Pro file format so here it is: http://thefox.aspekt.fi/nestopia-yuv-palette.pal
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jpx72
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Post by jpx72 »

Thanks! I've been waiting for that!
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Macbee
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Post by Macbee »

I've registered on this message board just to say thanks to thefox for this wonderful program.
I'm having a lot of fun converting images to .NES files.

Some of my image convertions:
The Revenge of Shinobi Title Screen: http://www.4shared.com/file/ZkoqBvFi/th ... tle_s.html
Altered Beast 1st transformation: http://www.4shared.com/file/AzrlxtwN/Al ... n_by_.html
Ghostbusters updated title screen: http://www.4shared.com/file/zJBmhmEZ/Gh ... _by_M.html

Thanks again thefox! =)
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Dwedit
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Post by Dwedit »

Use mediafire instead, no wait time on downloads.
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Macbee
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Post by Macbee »

Dwedit wrote:Use mediafire instead, no wait time on downloads.
Thanks for the tip ;)
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Bregalad
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Post by Bregalad »

Question : is there a way to get a converted image that isn't "shaky" ?
I just hate how shaky the resluting NES ROMs are, I understand you want this effect to add more colors but it really looks terrible on my computer.

PS : Also, is there a way to prepare the images for conversions without using a pay-ware (fotshop) ? Because the results looks horrible if I don't prepare them for conversion.
Last edited by Bregalad on Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tepples
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Post by tepples »

As I said before, there's one way to avoid shakiness in this temporal dithering, and that's to make sure the luma of each tile is roughly the same between frames. To estimate luma:
  • Add 0 for each black pixel.
  • Add 1 for each pixel using $01-$0C.
  • Add 2 for each pixel using $00 or $11-$1C.
  • Add 4 for each pixel using $10 or $21-$2C.
  • Add 5 for each pixel using $31-$3C.
  • Add 6 for each white pixel.
Or are you trying to say you don't want to use two frames at all?
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tokumaru
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Post by tokumaru »

Bregalad wrote:Also, is there a way to prepare the images for conversions without using a pay-ware (fotshop) ?
Who the hell pays for Photoshop? I imagine that only companies do, since most common users can't spend that much on a single software. If you really don't want to do anything illegal, I'm sure that GIMP can be used for this preparation process.
HJRodrigo
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Post by HJRodrigo »

College students with student discounts.
tepples
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Post by tepples »

Not everybody who has already graduated can afford to go back to college.

That said, I was under the impression that GIMP's color quantization isn't quite the same as that of Photoshop. I'll look through the directions to see what of them I can translate to GIMP's menu structure.

[tepples looks at the previous page]
I guess I'll have to be the first one to try using Mono as "some version of the .NET runtime".

[tepples tries running one of the .cmd files one line at a time, translating Windows-isms into Unix-isms by hand]

Code: Select all

pino@pino-laptop:~/Desktop/testing/bin$ ./nesconv.exe even.png
Missing method EnableVisualStyles in assembly /home/pino/Desktop/convert/bin/nesconv.exe, type System.Windows.Forms.Application

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' or one of its dependencies.
File name: 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'
[ERROR] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' or one of its dependencies.
File name: 'System.Windows.Forms, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'
pino@pino-laptop:~/Desktop/testing/bin$ sudo apt-get install libmono-winforms4.0-cil
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package libmono-winforms4.0-cil
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libmono-winforms4.0-cil'
It appears to depend on a version of that's not part of the version of Mono that comes with my operating system. Any idea where I can get the right version of System.Windows.Forms for Mono, other than by buying a copy of Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 to run in VirtualBox?
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Macbee
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Post by Macbee »

I'm still having a lot of fun with this program.
I even started a blog with title screen remakes of classic games (all created with NES Image Converter): http://mcbremakes.blogspot.com/

Thanks again for this wonderful software!
Macbee
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