Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Rom Hacking - Custom Palettes: Good vs Bad
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Kefka
Posts: 3307/3392 |
Well, if you really need to hack the NES just to make your NES hack playable, maybe it would be cooler to program your own PC game. 
I mean, that wasn't directed at anyone, but that's just my own personal thought. I just figure that making hacks for a system means working with the limitations of the system. You can make your own program and do whatever the hell you want though, and it might work just as well, since you can only play it on the comp anyway and not on other hardware. Well, I guess you could get a PSX NES emu and play it on a console, but that isn't technically playing it on a console.
I pretty much reiterated what has already been said by others a lot, so I guess I didn't help anything.
But, I don't think it is a catastrophe if someone makes a NES hack that breaks a few rules. It is still playable on modern emulators, and still a .nes file, but it just isn't a valid NES game. That is all.
EDIT: as a sidenote, you can make some REALLY cool looking stuff without having to hack palettes or anything when you are hacking SNES games. If looks are important, hacking a SNES game might be a better fit than the dinky NES games.  |
Dude Man
Posts: 65/116 |
my personal opinon on Custom palletes is - no.
I agree with most that hacking an NES game means you should work within the limitations of the system.
However, I also believe that whether or not you use a custom pallete is your choice... and nothing more.
If you want to use them then fine. Go nuts. I'm still gonna play hacks if they use them. I simply won't use them.
What I don't want is people thinking they always need custom palletes to make their stuff look good.
check this out.
custom pallete free. |
jman2050
Posts: 106/123 |
To think so much trouble can be made over something as trivial as a video game... a hacked one at that. The capability for custom palettes is there, thus it doesn't bother me if you use it or not, and I'd be willing to upset a few people along the way if that's what it takes.
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Ice Ranger
Posts: 174/183 |
I'd have to agree with Dragonsbrethren and Disch the most here. After DB's thread at TEK about staying true to the NES capabilities by using BMF's pallet, I found some colors worked better, especially when I tried to play the games on a television. *I'll try the ASQ one*
I try to make sure everything will run fine on the real thing. Besides, if/once rom hacks are able to be played on the Nintendo Revolution, I'd like to think there'd be any hacked game I could play.
Doing anything besides what works on the real system isn't an NES game, it's something else. Some may call it broken, others may call it advanced. Just a matter of perspective. Though, I doubt many emu authors would support more help towards allowing hacks that wouldn't play normally on the real NES.
Maybe once a few standards for custom pallets (such as BMF's or ASQ's), the emu authors could get rid of the custom pallet option and only include the standard. That's quite possibly the reason the custom pallet was included in the first place, to get the look closer to the real deal.
*I just saw this topic, had to throw in my opinion* |
Dragonsbrethren
Posts: 27/31 |
Disch, your who point makes sense to me, it makes more sense to leave the option of playing on real hardware open (As I said it appears that in a short time we'll have affordable NES flash carts, something I never thought would happen, and I'm sure that people will want to play their favorite hacks on the real system) than add a few colors.
Of course, the reason for adding those colors is obvious as well, who needs nine shades of black? And then there's the issue of all the NES palettes available that are too birght/too inaccurate (Which BitBlade pointed out), the best one, matches my TV, is a modification of BMF's palettes made by AspiringSquire:
http://rapidshare.de/files/3030628/ASQREAL.zip.html |
Dish
Posts: 480/596 |
Point taken. Sorry, Bit Blade that I offended you there. I didn't mean to actually -- it's just that this situation (not any one person in paticular) really does disappoint me.
I hold nothing against Bit Blade or Dr. Mario and in fact I do see them as talented artists. But the whole thing with the willingness to break their games just strike me as a little depressing. Especially considering all the support they're getting.
If only there were more emu authors on this board  |
Tamarin Calanis
Posts: 696/1802 |
hey, I'm not bringing up any points. I'm staying out of this argument. My only interference is that of a moderator, nothing more.
However, a few other comments were insulting to the posters as well. Indirectly so, but when it's so frequent, those indirect shots at people start to add up. The most blatant example, the quote from you I cannot find, has been replied to by Bit-Blade already. Being unable to find the quote from you (but remembering you did say something to that effect), I'll just quote BB: "You're taking this way too seriously. As much as my ideas and ambitions may personally dismay you, I would very much apreciate it from this point forward that you don't say things like you'll shake your head in shame of me." |
Dish
Posts: 478/596 |
Your point about it being for fun was the only one I didn't address directly -- though it still applies. If your hobby causes frustration and confusion for others, you should find a different hobby.
What other points have I ignored? If you can bring some up I'll gladly touch on them, but I'm pretty sure I covered it all.
The only two insults I recall are "irresponsible" and "stupid" -- though please tell me of others.
"irresponsible":
- An NES game which does not run on an NES is broken
- A hack which turns a working game into a nonworking game is a hack which breaks the game
- To make and release a broken hack (while either knowing the problems it causes, or choosing not to acknowledge them) is irresponsible
I stand by that
"stupid"
Referred to the tile-replacement idea for an NES emulator. And I'm sorry... but that is a very stupid idea. |
Tamarin Calanis
Posts: 695/1802 |
And you continue ignoring - even insulting - the opinions of others. |
Dish
Posts: 477/596 |
My points go ignored
It's futile for me to continue. You all say the same thing while disregarding my reasons on why that thing is a problem. Matrixz even proposes to compound that problem by doing custom emu builds.
If ROM hackers have sunken so low that they need to target non-existent systems in order to make a playable hack -- then it's no wonder we see such a lack of quality hacks. |
Matrixz
Posts: 10/20 |
This is crazy. When did it go from custom palettes
to MP3 players and PNG displayers?
Emulation: You look at a computer monitor. (in this case)
The real thing: You look at a television
Let me ask you how any emulator designed for the PC can possibly
have perfect color emulation. I mean sure, it might use an
palette generation algorithm approved by Nintendo themselves, but youre
still looking at a PC monitor.
No matter what, that simple difference isnt unitable through emulation.
I belive what NES palette look "right" is a matter of personal taste,
that's why there's palettes like FX3's and BMF's out there for you.
There's never been a global opinion on this,
so might as well give people the freedom to choose a palette file.
Im not saying it as an excuse for using palettes that will make it
look horrible on the real thing, but that
as long as emulation's purpose is to simulate NES gaming experience
in all ways, it can never be perfect, becouse there's things
that just arent unitable, like TV / Monitor difference.
As for custom palettes,
who is to decide a global opinion on what the true purpose of
romhacking is? I understand well those who want to proove the best
under the NES' limits. But there's those who want to facelift
an old classic in whatever ways they can, and take advantage of
custom palettes.
You could take the source code of an emulator, enhance it specially
for your NES romhack so it uses the right palette, distributed
with the hack. (That's our solution right there, if we happen to
see the end of day for emulators with custom palette options)
Or you could re-program the classic game as a computer game.
But today we still have this nice thing called custom-palette
options. Now those who doesnt want to play a hack that's using
NES features it doesnt have, they dont need to play it.
But for those who want to see how the romhacker has managed
to touch up a great classic, with new levels, graphics, and colors,
all they need to do is load up the custom palette file.
So its funny its such a problem, and we should just let
be people who are actually trying to be creative in this
rather god-forsaken community  |
Reshaper256
Posts: 126/143 |
Originally posted by Disch
This whole argument kind of parallels another topic you guys might have a different opinion on.
This is really about standards. I'm saying... "The NES is the standard and people that want to work with the NES must adhere to its abilities". While you're all saying "Shortcommings of emulators offer an exploitable way to bypass the system's abilities, so why not take advantage?"
This reminded me of ANOTHER standards vs. do-whatever-the-hell-you-feel-like mentality once I saw the Firefox button in your layout, Reshaper. Do you condone web pages doing IE-specific tweaks and relying on IE's improper/nonstandard rendering behavior for their layout? I mean yes it will work fine for IE -- but now, since that webmaster (or 'webbastard' as I like to call them) ignored the standards, EVERY OTHER browser will either have to mimic improper behavior and ignore the standards -- or they'll have to lack support for that page. It can easily be said that such webpages are problematic and should be avoided.
Why is it any different with ROM hacks? Why are the standards so much harder to see? If anything they should be 10000x clearer... since there's 1 failsafe, consistent test you can run on any game to make sure it's up to the standard: running it on the real thing
Sorry, didn't see your edit. I'll answer now.
I think it's annoying yes. I wish that people would be more careful to not ignore the standard. But when I do encounter such a webpage, I simply click the little IE button at the bottom of my screen and copy and paste the url over. I think things would be better if every page could be view perfectly on every browser, however.
Similarly, when I encounter a ROM hack that only works with a certain emulator, I think it's annoying yes. I wish that people would be more careful to not ignore the standard. But when I do encounter such a ROM hack, I simply download the right emulator and if the hack works, I'm happy and play it, but if the emulator has been updated and the hack still doesn't work I don't get to play it. I get a little frustrated and I'm over it. And yes, I do think things would be better if every ROM hack could be played perfectly on every emulator, and the old NES.
But great ROM hacks are rare and great ROM hackers are rarer. Webpages and webmasters are a dime a dozen. I don't want to run any ROM hacker off, especially if they know enough about the code to work outside the limitations and change it to where it falls into that .01 percent, doing something special that only works on certain emulators. I don't think we should angrily suggest for them to 'go hack another system'. We should instead offer suggestions and see if the hacker would be willing to do the extra work required to make the hack compatible with all emulators, if that is possible. If they don't want to, that's their choice - we're lucky we're getting a hack at all. (Besides, not many of us have the means to test ROM hacks on the original system - we're going to usually use an emulator to start with.) As I stated before, it's not worth insulting or aggrivating a fellow hacker who is doing his or her best.
Tamarin Calanis
Posts: 691/1802 |
Not only are you all making a mountain out of a molehill, to use the same cliche you all have been repeating, you're blowing the entire matter out of proportion.
Romhacking is a hobby. Nothing more. It is supposed to be fun. When people start bitching at other people about it, it is no longer fun. And when a hobby is not fun, it is not a hobby you should pursue.
No one is going to change their mind no matter what opinions are presented here, and I'm about ready to just close the damn thread since it's just spiralling into more assholery. |
Bit-Blade
Posts: 320/445 |
You see, Disch, I'm not TRYING to create a new system of new emulators. I'm not saying that every game needs to forcefully be translated into my palette. The only intentions I have are both playing and distrubing my hack while playing it in fce ultra myself. I wish you'd stop denouncing my hack as 'broken'. In terms of my choice of emulator and my own custom palette is completely functional. Everything (almost) just like the NES, sans any and all hardware. Included with my hack would be an faq on installing the palette and some warnings saying no one who intends on playing this game on the original NES should EVER burn these games to a cart. Yes, that would be alienating those who would play my hack if the palette were normal, but tough luck. If you are able to use a computer and post at this board then chances are you are just as capable of running FCE ulrta as I am. Unfair as it may be to force people to use an emulator they may not have or be able to run right, I don't have much sympathy. The chances that someone will be unable to play this hack are but a small minority by those who can. Even better if you just release two versions of a hack.
As for replacing game music, do you REALLY think I'm naive enough to beleive that I could litterly put mp3's into an NES rom? I think I deserve a bit more credit than that. The whole idea of the mp3 music feature would be to INTERUPT it rather than hack an mp3 quality song into the rom. The mp3s would be stored in either the same directory as the rom itself or some sub directory. The emulator would replace the music like this: it would execute the music commands while at the same time reading a config/command file telling the emulator where in the rom meant to switch to what mp3 track while disabling the NES music. Every time a track switches it would know exactly what mp3 to load (specified in the music config) no matter the event. Even sound effects. It would be like mapping out the functions and cues of the music data in the rom and then assgining the mp3s to them instead.
You're taking this way too seriously. As much as my ideas and ambitions may personally dismay you, I would very much apreciate it from this point forward that you don't say things like you'll shake your head in shame of me. Like I've said several times already, I consider this argument a very idiotic thing to take so vehemently and seriously. There's absolutely NO reason exagerrate such an inconsequential disagreement into something like this. I can only 'shake my head in shame' at the fact that you really ARE making a mountain of a molehill in such a way. And this is a dumb argument to get angry or worse at eachother. Oh yes, do keep condemning comments like that grapejuice metaphor to yourself, please. I respect your views, please respect mine.
Originally fiercely debated by Disch
I suppose then you'd want to put RAM at $0800-$1FFF to give hackers more RAM to work with too. When that break games which count on that being mirrored, I'll get a chuckle. You can't change an area of the system without breaking a game which relies on that behavior. By making your emulator play broken games, you're preventing your emulator from playing LEGIT games. It's a tradeoff. Like I said, were you to actually make an emulator you'd start to see that pretty quick.
I'd also like to know how you plan on replacing in game music with MP3s. That'd be a neat trick. At least the replaced graphics one is somewhat feasable (though still utterly stupid -- like I said in that txt file I linked to before someone recommended something like that on ZMD and I wanted to punch him in the face).
If you feel breaking the your game, limiting user emu selection, and causing emu authors grief is worth adding a whooping extra 5 colors to your palette -- then I guess nothing can stop you. But I'll shake my head in shame every time it's done. And I'll continue to try and get people away from it. Hacks like this do more harm than good.
99.99% of the hacks made are "perfect". Those handful that are broken are like the ugly grapejuice stain on the carpet of emulation.
EDIT: Hindsight sucks. What I meant about that music idea is that the emulator would both disable the music while at the same time reading it and comparing it with it's instruction/music cue config file and running that too. Unless I'm totally insane, that's a logical way to go about it. This is something where FCE Ultra XD's built in hex editor would come in handy.
Dish
Posts: 476/596 |
you could say that by arguing I'm trying to prevent that 00.01% from getting any larger  |
Reshaper256
Posts: 125/143 |
Originally posted by Disch
Yes the world will survive these irresonsible hacks. I know I'm kind of making a mountain out of a mole-hill -- but it's the idea that you're trying to extend on something that can't be extended upon. I feel like I'm talking in circles at this point.
That's because you are talking in circles, and you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. I understood your point from the beginning, and I agree whole-heartedly that people should avoid making changes to a ROM that would make it not play correctly on an old NES, for compatiblity reasons. I just don't agree that they should be forced to avoid such changes or flamed for not doing so.
edit: It's just not worth doing that to a fellow hacker who's worked hard on their hack. Please don't say, 'But they cheated so they didn't work hard enough.' They did work hard, so give them some credit and respect.
By your own words:
Originally posted by Disch
99.99% of the hacks made are "perfect". Those handful that are broken are like the ugly grapejuice stain on the carpet of emulation.
So... 99.99% are made perfect, meaning that this entire arguement is about 00.01% of the hacks out there. My problem is what happened to this thread. This discussion shouldn't exist. It's not that big of a deal, and I've been trying to say that from the beginning.
Dish
Posts: 475/596 |
Originally posted by Bit-Blade
Why the hell should I waste that god-given space like Nintendo did? More colors means more selection. Just an extra little dose.
I suppose then you'd want to put RAM at $0800-$1FFF to give hackers more RAM to work with too. When that break games which count on that being mirrored, I'll get a chuckle. You can't change an area of the system without breaking a game which relies on that behavior. By making your emulator play broken games, you're preventing your emulator from playing LEGIT games. It's a tradeoff. Like I said, were you to actually make an emulator you'd start to see that pretty quick.
I'd also like to know how you plan on replacing in game music with MP3s. That'd be a neat trick. At least the replaced graphics one is somewhat feasable (though still utterly stupid -- like I said in that txt file I linked to before someone recommended something like that on ZMD and I wanted to punch him in the face).
My conflict is the 'my way or the highway' attitude.
It's not "my way or the highway". It's "the system's way or another system's way". You can't change how the NES operates... try as you might. If you plan on making an NES hack, you WILL have to work within the boundaries of the NES system. That's just how it is.
Yes the world will survive these irresonsible hacks. I know I'm kind of making a mountain out of a mole-hill -- but it's the idea that you're trying to extend on something that can't be extended upon. I feel like I'm talking in circles at this point.
If you feel breaking the your game, limiting user emu selection, and causing emu authors grief is worth adding a whooping extra 5 colors to your palette -- then I guess nothing can stop you. But I'll shake my head in shame every time it's done. And I'll continue to try and get people away from it. Hacks like this do more harm than good.
and we'll get a few of those perfect hacks every year or so.
It doesn't take a genius to make a "perfect" hack. Like I said.. you have to actually MAKE A POINT to break a commerical game... since commercial games are already working.
99.99% of the hacks made are "perfect". Those handful that are broken are like the ugly grapejuice stain on the carpet of emulation.
EDIT
This whole argument kind of parallels another topic you guys might have a different opinion on.
This is really about standards. I'm saying... "The NES is the standard and people that want to work with the NES must adhere to its abilities". While you're all saying "Shortcommings of emulators offer an exploitable way to bypass the system's abilities, so why not take advantage?"
This reminded me of ANOTHER standards vs. do-whatever-the-hell-you-feel-like mentality once I saw the Firefox button in your layout, Reshaper. Do you condone web pages doing IE-specific tweaks and relying on IE's improper/nonstandard rendering behavior for their layout? I mean yes it will work fine for IE -- but now, since that webmaster (or 'webbastard' as I like to call them) ignored the standards, EVERY OTHER browser will either have to mimic improper behavior and ignore the standards -- or they'll have to lack support for that page. It can easily be said that such webpages are problematic and should be avoided.
Why is it any different with ROM hacks? Why are the standards so much harder to see? If anything they should be 10000x clearer... since there's 1 failsafe, consistent test you can run on any game to make sure it's up to the standard: running it on the real thing |
Reshaper256
Posts: 124/143 |
Honestly I don't feel the need to reply to each and every statement made, because I agree with Disch on most of what he said. I'm not arguing that confusion is not created, nor am I arguing that things wouldn't be better off if everyone followed Disch's rules. But therein lies my problem:
Originally posted by Disch
If you can't hack within the boudaries of the system... choose another system.
My conflict is the 'my way or the highway' attitude. It's not like I'm demanding a lot by asking that people not be harassed for hacking outside of the boundaries of the system, as long as their hacks are playable in some way. The world will survive a few hacks that are only playable on certain emulators, and sure, it will create some confusion, but not to the extent that someone using custom palettes with their hack should be burnt at the stake.
Or maybe they should? Maybe we should uphold these rules of hacking perfection, and continue to flame/harass anyone who tries to hack without following all of them to the letter. Hopefully we won't run everyone off, and we'll get a few of those perfect hacks every year or so. |
Bit-Blade
Posts: 319/445 |
Why the hell should I waste that god-given space like Nintendo did? More colors means more selection. Just an extra little dose. Even if I had kept the nes palette spaces and not used that black, that would be only, what... 52 colors out of 64? Screw that, I'll make use of what is given to me.
And I never did properly explain the purpose of Destroyer. The NES palette uses very bright and very vibrant colors (in other words, almost completely desaturated). There is also the fact that the nes palette is sorely lacking in darker shades of colors, which is something that goes well with dark themed games like Castlevania. So... Destroyer's colors are somewhat grayer than the nes, which makes it much easier to mix colors. The more saturated a color is the more easily it will blend with a color that would normally clash with it. Like 1A and 16, or 16 and 12. Complete color saturation is always gray, so over doing saturating your colors is a very BAD thing. If you look at those screens you'll notice that they aren't quite as vibrant as the nes palette.
And the reason I would make an emulator like that is because it would be relying more upon the nes engine and it's games for the bulk of it. Most of the NES code itself would be executing normally. The only real changes would be to the graphics and sound, yet still remain NES bound. See what I mean now? I could let the games do the work for me. But I will admit that -as far as my ambitions are concerned- my time would be better spent building my own game engine from scratch. Still... that kind of emulator would be a lot of fun if I ever developed it.
Edit: Beleive me, Resh, I've done worse than that. Congratulations on phrasing your sentiments on the matter so clearly. I had a great deal of trouble trying to explain myself. And I couldn't agree with you more. I'm just getting sick of dragging myself into this debate every time it crops up... |
Dish
Posts: 474/596 |
Originally posted by Reshaper256
Concerning the creation of new emulators with the bugs fixed, the author of any new emulators could leave a bug intact just so it would be compatible with such ROM hacks, or the author could choose not to. I really don't see the conflict here
ermm.... you just stated the conflict. Either they maintain support for the bad ROM (potentially breaking proper ROMs) -- or they emulate the system properly (but break the bad ROM). The proper behavior conflicts with the improperly emulated behavior -- an emulator cannot take both paths -- it must choose one. What it has to sacrifice is where the conflict comes in. That sacrifice could be avoided if all ROMs were proper (granted it's already too late for that, but adding to the improper ROM count only adds to the problem).
Asking a ROM hacker to make his hacks work on the old NES would be akin to asking an emulator author to fix all the emulator's bugs and only have perfect emulation.
A) It's not even that big of an issue for ROM hacking since commercial ROMs already work on the real thing. The only thing we're asking here is DON'T BREAK THE ROM. Not only is that not unreasonable... it's actually very easy to do. In fact... you have to go OUT OF YOUR WAY to break the ROM -- it's not something that is usually done on accident.
B) Emulators DO try to remove all their bugs. It's not an unreasonable request that they keep up to date with the latest findings on the NES. In fact, many emus do (Nintendulator is the perfect example -- it's updated almost daily)
It's just unreasonable, and although hackers would be forced to have more creativity, they couldn't do as much with it.
If you can't hack within the boudaries of the system... choose another system.
Although I would love to avoid any ROM hacks I make from becoming broken in the future, I don't believe we can tell others to only release a hack if they can make it playable on the original NES.
Considering the harm and confusion it causes -- I say yes -- you should not release a 'NES' homebrew/hack which is not actually an NES game. For it to be an NES game it must run on the NES.
There is no grey area of -almost- an NES game. Fortunately this is one of those things that's black and white. If X game works on the NES... it is a valid game and emus will do everything in their power to support it. If not, it's not an NES game and emus shouldn't need to maintain support for it.
If it's playable on only certain emulators, the ROM hacker should definitely make this point clear, but their obligation ends there, especially after putting forth the creative effort to make the hack to start with.
That's certainly their option. But like I said, taking that option dumps all sorts of unnecessary baggage and problems onto emu authors and the hack audience.
Let's just not cripple others for the sake of ease or simplicity.
Let's just not cripple emu authors for the sake of adding 5 more colors to your palette. For christ's sake it's not like I'm demanding the world here -- just follow the freakin rules!
Originally posted by Bit-Blade
Now if I were a talented programmer and ASM writer, you know what I would do? I would create an emulator that would rape the hell out the nes. It would offer a sort of game maker's format, but it would probably require a lot of intimate knowledge of the game in question, as well as understanding sprite AI as well as sprite definitions (not how to edit them, but just how they behave).
Fortunately for every emu author on the planet -- no such thing has been made. Do you not SEE the mess that would cause? Anyway -- why would you even bother with an emu if you're planning on adding all that? Why not just make a game maker or sorts? Such a thing would actually be better all around since you wouldn't have any limitations at all -- I mean modern computers can do anything -- why would you keep ANY of the NES restrictions?
Although... were you actually to get serious about programming and sit down and make an emulator -- I'm actually pretty confident that not only would my points become more and more clear -- but that your tune would change... and that all those ideas which seem like a good idea now would just be problematic for an emulator.
As for your pics -- looks like you could just turn the contrast on your monitor down to get the same effects as the custom palette. Or hell.. just make an operable custom palette that's a little darker. I fail to see why you need to replace the extra blacks with colors, or replace those colors with different colors -- judging from those pics you really don't need to at all. |
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hukka
