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Please chime in on a proposed restructuring of the ROM hacking sections.
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Main - ROM Hacking - Public Service Announcement: Use of the term "TSA" New thread | New reply

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Parasyte
Posted on 12-03-09 03:51 AM (rev. 4 of 12-03-09 04:08 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 121338


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Remember kids, every time you use the term "TSA", God kills a [potentially awesome] ROM hacker. This message brought to you by: http://www.kodewerx.org/wiki/index.php/Syndrome#Compression

So here's the deal: the popular term "Tile Squaroid Assembler" ("TSA") doesn't make any sense. As mentioned in the link above, "Squaroid" is not a real English language word. Not mentioned in the link, the encoding method is useful outside of tile placement. It is optimized for 2-dimensional data arrays (like images), but is also commonly implemented with 1-dimensional data for text compression (many a ROM hacker/translator is familiar with this). It can even be expanded to further multidimensional arrays.

The problem here is one of convention; the name is bad, and needs to be changed to something that makes sense. Alternatives such as "Map 16" make even less sense in the grand scheme; the Mega Man series game engines use multiple levels of this encoding method to reference not only 16px x 16px pieces of an image, but also 32x32, 256x256, and a final arbitrary size (that of the complete stage; which is almost never a perfect square). "Map *" is a bad name for these reasons, not to mention the argument for multidimensional data encoding as stated above.

It's hard to say what the encoding method is really called. Most notably, and at its most basic, it is simple array indexing. Suggestions, anyone?

Edit: Fixed the link and expanded form of the acronym.

zbyte
Posted on 12-03-09 03:55 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121341


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"Tile Encoding Method"? "Hash Table"? This might not be too hard...

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CyclopsCaveman
Posted on 12-03-09 04:15 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121357


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Dimensional Data Compression Method, DDMC

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never-obsolete
Posted on 12-03-09 04:58 AM (rev. 3 of 12-03-09 05:01 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 121371


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Metatile. I just recently found out what people were referring to when they said TSA, I thought it was something specific to SMB3.

KP9000
Posted on 12-03-09 05:04 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121372


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TSA is easiest to type. It's what has been used for years. I frankly don't give a crap about what it means, and nobody really should. So, let this thread be a voice that TSA = whatever the hell you want to call it.

Map16 sucks ass. Yes Kawa, I said it.

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RT-55J
Posted on 12-03-09 07:12 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121375

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Metatile is the only alternative suggested here that I've seen elsewhere, so I vote that we go with that.

smkdan
Posted on 12-03-09 08:30 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121376


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The 'S' is for squaroid? what the hell I thought it was Tile Set Assembly and while it doesn't pull words out of an imaginary dictionary it doesn't make much sense either. Metatiles are the way to go. In my source I just call them 'blocks' and 'bigblocks' because I'm just that boring I guess.

DahrkDaiz
Posted on 12-03-09 01:16 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121382


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I vote for Block Definitions or Name Table Data.

knuck
Posted on 12-03-09 01:18 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121383


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MAP16 > TSA
Don't really care about anything else.

KDE User X
Posted on 12-03-09 02:00 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121385


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..and who cares?

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Parasyte
Posted on 12-04-09 12:31 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121449


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I can see the logic behind "metatile" and "block" used to describe the encoding method. They tie in well with 2D arrays, but not much else.

CyclopsCaveman
Posted on 12-04-09 01:08 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121452


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Posted by CyclopsCaveman
Dimensional Data Compression Method, DDMC

*cough*

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Xenesis
Posted on 12-04-09 01:56 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121457


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Huh. And here when I thought people were talking about TSA Tables and the like I thought it was 'Tile Settings and Attributes' for all this time.

Celice
Posted on 12-04-09 03:48 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121462


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I always read it as

jargon

.

To which arguments over proper spelling and usage is rather useless, considering jargon is any sort of symbol much like a word But I like TSA fine and well, as well as whatever anyone else is using, so long as it's obvious what's being referred to (sort of like 0x00 vs. $00).

ShoFIZZLE
Posted on 12-04-09 05:23 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121471


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I'm jargon-illiterate.

Jigglysaint
Posted on 12-04-09 10:56 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121523


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Squaroid needs to be put in the dictionary. BTW, who came up with TSA anyway?

Tile Set Assembly sounds good, Block Assembler is good too. In the end though, TSA is just one of those things that were born during the formitive years of rom hacking, and it just stuck.

Parasyte
Posted on 12-05-09 05:17 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121539


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Too bad CAN'T HACK METROID AM GOAL didn't stick...

GreyMaria
Posted on 12-06-09 01:31 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121598

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Tile arrangements.

THERE, I SAID IT.

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Kawa
Posted on 12-06-09 10:25 AM Link | Quote | ID: 121624


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As I've explained earlier, I think MapX works fine, for whatever value of X. I think this may be one of few times knuck and I agree on something.

Classic Mario: levels > objects > map16 > map8 (nametable/hw)
Super Mario Land: levels > screens > stripes > map8
Super Mario Bros: levels > map16 > map8
Mario 64: levels > objects > OpenGL-ish bull
Classic Pokemon: levels > map?? > map16 > map8
Newer Pokemon: levels > map16 > map8

It's easy m'kaaay?

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MathOnNapkins
Posted on 12-07-09 03:08 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121734


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MapX is only descriptive when the metatile objects themselves are squares, though. From what I understand, the "TSA" in Mega Man games features any number of different shapes. The game I hack even uses non square TSA in the dungeons (LTTP).

MapX is a subtype of whatever we want to call this phenomenon.

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Main - ROM Hacking - Public Service Announcement: Use of the term "TSA" New thread | New reply

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