Some NPC Sprite Requests

As I'm boiling down in constructing a working demo for my hack there's a few NPC sprites that I think I want made though I'm not a super skilled sprite artist so I'll just make a request thread.

Here are some things I need in order of importance from super important to not as much

• Pirate Crew Member (prob to replace something like 35-HedgeMan)
  
• Oracle's Apprentice (wizard type thing, to replace the fortune teller)
  
• Mayor's Daughter (be creative, but it's to replace the crystal princesses)
  
• Phantom Enemies (recreate any enemy really in a dark palette)
  
• Time Keeper (cooler looking sahasrahla)
  

Has anybody jumped on this yet?

Which ones will require animation? And what type, as in: are the characters moving in place or are they following you around?

Also, will you be expecting a patch or just the sprites?

I'll just list out what the sprites are doing so you get an idea of whats needed

Pirate Crew Member - Probably just a standing sprite, maybe its head turning to the side
Oracle's Apprentice - goes over the fortune teller, so just a standing forward sprite
Mayor's Daughter - just standing forward sprite, she'll never move
The phantom enemies just depend on what enemy you use really.
I'm pretty sure sahasrahla is just a standing sprite, maybe he moves his head.

For the most part they are simple spritings of old characters. If you're willing to do one I can get the sprite from in my gfx bin and send it to you to work on, to know which one is being edited.

And I can just get the sprite itself and put it in with its palette, shouldnt be too hard

Okay, cool. After walking away and thinking about it and then reading your reply I believe I have a better understanding of this request. They will actually be replacing said characters, right?

After I get done with a little pc maintenence I'll start trying out ideas for the pirate crew member, time keeper and oracle's appentice. Those sound pretty straightforward.

But...
Roughly how old is the mayor's daughter and what is her personality like?

I'm still not quite sure what you are asking for with regard to the phantom enemies. I guess I sort of understand, but maybe if I knew how they'd be used I'd have a better idea of where to start.

That's awesome Thank you! Yes they are basically just replacing old characters in looks and personality.

The Mayor's Daughter (spoilers) is going to be dead when you meet her. She's roughly links age from the events of the oracle games, so theyre probably both 13. She's supposed to be really quirky and naive, and she explores the different worlds as a ghost and then tells links different things she's seen. She's girly but it's ultimately her curiosity and taste for adventure is inevitably what got her killed.

As for the phantom enemies the idea behind it was just that the main villain kydrogs dark secrets are beginning to spread which makes some enemies into phantoms, those enemies that are made darker like that would be stronger than most.

why not add ghinis? they were the original ghosts and made an appearance in a link between worlds. also has anyone noticed that the archery owner in the dark world looks like a precursor to a redead?

The Mayor's Daughter (spoilers) is going to be dead when you meet her. She's roughly links age from the events of the oracle games, so theyre probably both 13. She's supposed to be really quirky and naive, and she explores the different worlds as a ghost and then tells links different things she's seen. She's girly but it's ultimately her curiosity and taste for adventure is inevitably what got her killed.

Cool. That should be enough info for her.

Now that I think about it, I believe Sahasrahla only turns to the side in BS Zelda - Ancient Stone Tablets. I remember the first time I saw that because I finally figured out that he was supposed to be a bald old man. When playing the game as a kid, for some reason I always thought he was supposed to be a creature in a cowboy hat with some sort of cattle skull for a head. LOL

As for the phantom enemies the idea behind it was just that the main villain kydrogs dark secrets are beginning to spread which makes some enemies into phantoms, those enemies that are made darker like that would be stronger than most.

Hmm. I like the concept, but I'm not sure that this requires sprite work, per se. I believe it would be a matter of coding new enemies, since from what you have described, they would not only look different (if only in color) but would be stronger than their normal counterparts and would therefore be "new" enemies.

A cheap fix I see for this would be to simply take stronger enemies that appear later in the game and replace their graphics with those of weaker enemies from earlier in the game (assuming their proportions and animations are similar enough). That would mean sacrificing a few unique enemies for the sake of adding variations of other enemies.

Something like that could actually be pretty cool though. Like, say for instance if you replaced the cyclops graphics with one of the scared girls from the village and then just created a few variations of her existing graphics where she's holding up a bomb you could then technically have a "new" enemy: a psycho bomb-throwing girl. LOL That would be really funny in a remix sort of hack. When you meet her in front of her house she throws bombs at you rather than running away. Nobody would see that coming. haha You could even replace one of the enemies with a stack of chickens, like they're all working together or something. LMAO There are so many possibilities there. Man... I can't believe I haven't thought of this before (at least not taking advantage of it in this sort of way).

SunGodPortal wrote:
A cheap fix I see for this would be to simply take stronger enemies that appear later in the game and replace their graphics with those of weaker enemies from earlier in the game (assuming their proportions and animations are similar enough). That would mean sacrificing a few unique enemies for the sake of adding variations of other enemies.

Well there's also Hyrule Add-Ons which is a program running around here somewhere that can change the power of enemies in Zelda3.

As for that bomb throwing girl, that'd be really funny. I should look into the sprite for that

Well there's also Hyrule Add-Ons which is a program running around here somewhere that can change the power of enemies in Zelda3.

OHHHHH. So did you mean the phantom enemies would also be replacing their original counter-parts? Maybe it was just the way something was worded, but for some reason I kept thinking they were supposed to be variants you would feature later in the game. But even if that's the case, it still sounds like a palette edit plus some stat boosts. Unless you wanted them to look warped or dead or something.

the problem with the damage editing program is that if you run windows 7, then it is going to be difficult to have it run properly, and furthermore it is limiting as I cannot disable damage from hazards such as falling rocks and bottomless pits. I want to make certain enemies such as beamos and winders killable as they are both very obnoxious foes. as for the phantoms, wouldn't they look like dark nuts?

Where can I even get that program anyway? Google searches provide nothing useful, it isn't on RHDN and Puzzledude's link for it in the tool section didn't work when I tried it.

SunGodPortal wrote:Where can I even get that program anyway? Google searches provide nothing useful, it isn't on RHDN and Puzzledude's link for it in the tool section didn't work when I tried it.

I will reupload Add ons shortly (including the dll-s), since it seems that the old link is not working. If you run Windows-7, you will have to register the dll-s, and the info is in the pacage.

wizrobemaster wrote:the problem with the damage editing program is that if you run windows 7, then it is going to be difficult to have it run properly, and furthermore it is limiting as I cannot disable damage from hazards such as falling rocks and bottomless pits.  I want to make certain enemies such as beamos and winders killable as they are both very obnoxious foes.  as for the phantoms, wouldn't they look like dark nuts?

Add ons works on Windows 7 as well, you just need to register its dll-s. But note, this is a sprite damage (health) editor. Falling down the pit is not a sprite. This code was, however, found by Conn. When you fall down it subtracts 1 heart. Knowing the ASM, you can change this value to anything (for instance in the Conker game, it was edited to subtract 0 hearts).

Making the beamos killable... not in this game... unless you are an ASM wizard and would completely rewrite the sprite ASM code for beamos (not really recomended).

what about knockback from beamos's laser or allow the mirror shield to block it? 1 heart from bottomless pits is annoying so I would halve the damge instead.

I don't know about the knockback but here's the notes I have on hole damage.

***Hole Damage***
address: 03950d
input: change E9 08 to E9 04 for a 1/2 heart, E9 00 for no damage, A9 00 for "instant death"

I'm not 100% sure but I think Conn may have been the one who provided me with this info (correct me if I'm wrong, don't feel like searching through the forums for the answer).

Anyway... Back to what this thread is really about.



Here's my first attempt at the pirate crew member. I used the existing palette because I don't know which palettes you'll be modifying or which ones may be in use when you meet this character(s). If he doesn't have the style you were looking for or whatever, make some suggestions and I'll see what I can do. I'm not quite satisfied with the details on his bandana yet, but otherwise I like him.

While looking through the GFX bin I noticed the head used for the hedgeman has positions for left and up but I think those are actually used for the thief/sign guy in the desert. I'm pretty sure hedgeman's body's is also used for the running boy in the village (at least the boy's forward stance). You may want to keep that in mind.

Would you care to expand on your description of "wizard-type thing" for the apprentice? The reason I ask is the fortune teller already has a wizard sort of look (in my opinion). Also, were you wanting this character to appear male/female or sort of ambiguous like the fortune teller?

I like the sprite a lot so far, I honestly would use it as is but if you think you can make some improvements to it, go ahead! But I do like it as long as it looks nice and is identifiable as what its supposed to be.

As for the fortune teller, I'd want him to be unhooded and be another boy kid slightly older than Link. Since he's one of Farore's apprentice he's a bit of a book nerd and knows a lot of small facts about magic and the island.

Cool. I started getting ideas as soon as you I read your description. This should be fun.

Here's what I've got so far for the apprentice. It was pretty difficult to come up with a design for his bottom half because the left and right tiles for that area are mirrored (rather limiting). Towards the end I was going to give him some glasses to dial up the nerdiness (even though it's a bit cliche) but I then discovered that to make that fit within so few pixels I would pretty much have to redraw most of his body to accommodate for the needed width. If you want that sort of thing I could try again, but I figured I would see what you thought of this design first.



Just to be absolutely clear on this, his character does function the same as the fortune teller, right? I assume the answer is yes, but I wanted to make sure. If so, I'll need to do his animations as well.

I really like that design!! Okay maybe that was too excited but I actually do really like the design, for some humorous reasons as well. It looks fine as it is, you don't need to do the glasses. I just wanted him to look a bit more like he knows what he's doing and not as much just like blech villager.

And yes he'll work like the fortune teller with his animations. I'm going to have him tell you the secrets and what not regardless of if you pay, but you can donate to the oracle

Good. I'm glad you like it.

I'll work on his animations either tonight or tomorrow and then I'll get started on the mayor's daughter.

Slightly off topic

***Hole Damage***
address: 03950d
input: change E9 08 to E9 04 for a 1/2 heart, E9 00 for no damage, A9 00 for "instant death"

Actual instant death is E9 A0, but I tested this out. Bigger numbers cause bugs if you are resurrected by a fairy! and fall into the pit the second time. For instance the A0 value makes this: fall into the pit -- instant death -- resurrected by fairy to 7 hearts -- fall into the pit -- your health is busted up to 19 hearts (but you should be dead again).

Complete table:
E9 00, 00 hearts
E9 04, 1/2 hearts
E9 08, 01 heart
E9 10, 02 hearts
E9 18, 03 hearts
E9 20, 04 hearts
E9 28, 05 hearts
E9 30, 06 hearts
E9 38, 07 hearts
E9 40, 08 hearts
E9 48, 09 hearts
E9 50, 10 hearts
E9 58, 11 hearts
E9 60, 12 hearts
E9 68, 13 hearts
E9 70, 14 hearts
E9 78, 15 hearts
E9 80, 16 hearts
E9 88, 17 hearts
E9 90, 18 hearts
E9 98, 19 hearts
E9 A0, 20 hearts
--------
On topic

Also SGP nice new sprites. You might not want to publish those in original 16bit, so someone doesn't snatch them into their game.

you may read this wrong.
E9 is sbc (substract) opcode. If you have e.g., hex 10 (2 hearts) and then make sbc a0 or whatever the result is negative and most likely will bug. (10-a0=70, negative, but the code may Interpret this as positive giving you 14 hearts back - and you may get those hearts added from the fairy)

Change
03/950d: E9 08 -> A9 00 instead as you see in that Quote. This will load (a9=lda) 00 hearts, leading to instant death without bug.

Thank you Conn. This works now.

For some reason I made a mistake, and I've seen the quote as A0 00. When I changed it, it was no effect, and thought it is wrong. But now I've rechecked it, and it is actually A9 00. Makes sense now.

Also SGP nice new sprites. You might not want to publish those in original 16bit, so someone doesn't snatch them into their game.

Thanks for the compliment.

As for people snatching... I hate the thought of it, but I'm not going to worry about it for the time being. For now I guess I'm leaving my work out in the open so people can see that some of my skills might be useful in the future. If I keep at it and get really good I'll probably be more protective of my work. This is just my clumsly beginnings.

Here's what I did today for the mayor's daughter:



Like the other characters, there are a few minor details I'd like to polish up but I think I'm pretty satisfied with this so far. As always, let me know if you were going for something else.

When the time comes, just pick a format and I'll send you the finished products.

I like that a lot, the outfit itself is easily the best part of it. I'd like to see what it would look like if her hair rested more on her shoulders rather than behind her like that. It just looks too wide out for it to be sitting behind her. Maybe I'm wrong and I have no idea what I'm talking about but just an idea. I do like it though, this is really cool of you to respond to my request like this

No problem. In the back of my mind I've been waiting for someone to make such a request so I could test my skills. EDIT: Well, someone who looked like their project was going somewhere and might actually get finished. hehe



Here's an update for all three. I fixed what I didn't like about the bottom half of the apprentice. Made the pirate's eyes look a little more "Hyrule" and a little less "Mushroom Kingdom". Then I made some improvements to the daughter's dress and went back to the original hair design I had which was more of a pig-tails look. I actually changed the hair in the first design from this, to what it was because my OCD wouldn't let me stop obsessing over one tiny, unimportant detail. I did this before I saw your previous comment so I hope you like this better. I think I have the first two characters where I want them now. I'm still debating the daughter but I think she's closer to what I was going for than the previous version.

EDIT: I changed a few pixels on the pirate (very minor change, but for the better) and I finished the apprentice's animation. That was actually easier than I thought it was going to be because I mistook another nearby, similar sprite as part of his animation. Turns out I had to do a third of the work that I thought I did. I updated the above image to reflect the pirate change and to remove one stray pixel that didn't belong.

I guess I'm gonna start experimenting with the time keeper next because I'm still a little confused about what exactly is needed for the phantom enemies (sorry).