Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify (custom recolored VGA tilesets for Keen 4-6 avaiable here)

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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

Gagster wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 3:22 I've done some work on my personal enhancement on the Keen 5 tileset now, by using the MS-DOS VGA 256 color palette instead of the original 16 colored one, and using Asprite as my pixel-art editor.
However, it seems like I'm not able to make changes to the enemy sprites and such and make CGenius view the sprite-replacements (adding more colors where needed).
First of all congrats for your tiles. I like the approach removing the dithering. I have been doing that as well for Keen 4 Special at many parts and I think it fits very well to the cartoony retro style that those games represent.

Getting to your question: you can have multiple player sprites under gfx/player/<name>. Those are just the players, but checkout Keen4Coop for some inspiration.

About the enemy sprites, it is not difficult for me to implement such features as you might see with this mod. But let me see what sprites you plan to implement, because I know that is a lot of work and I have seen no one so far wanting to take that on. Also we would have a lot of files for the game. Would you be fine with that?
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

There's only one single enemy sprite I want to change as of now, and that's the "death" sprite for Sparky (the gray robot, 5SPR0275.BMP); it has way too much dithering for my taste.

However, if there at any point would be options to edit every single sprite there is in various Keen titles, I would consider removing the (in my opinion) ugly shade of light gray that's around a lot of enemy types because of that old 16 color limitation.

I've done more enhancement to my Keen 5 tile-edits since I posted last time, and one fun fact (maybe not so fun) about the tile-backgrounds on various stages in Keen 5 is that they are sometimes aligned wrongly, but with all the dithering that's present in the game the team behind Keen 5 and even I didn't notice the mistakes before. In the second picture I posted with the maze-map in the middle (second level), I corrected that tile because the lines from the other tiles did not match its symmetry, but after doing that I broke all the maze-map tiles in the background in an other stage in the game, so I had to reverse my changes.

Originally the tiles for the blue drill next to the TV-screen on the third image did not match the rest of the tiles next to it, but since this was the only one in the entire game attached to the pink background (originally purple with gray dithering), correcting the tiles here didn't have any negative effect for the rest of the game. On the left of the very same image there's a red control panel, and that tile also did not align with the background, so I had to edit that tile too. After doing that, I broke the alignment/symmetry of a red panel next to a key-door to the left of the level, so it's a compromise.

I'm working on my personal enhancement for Keen 4 with the VGA 256 color budget that I have applied here, and after that I plan too look at Keen 6. I'm not sure if I would do much with Keen 1-3, but the sky background in Keen 3 I might change to another shade of blue.

I would love to edit the Keen Dreams tiles if that game got support for that in CGenius in the long run. I know this is one of the more disliked Keen games around fans of the franchise, but I always had a soft spot for it. I have already extracted the various tiles for that game using DOSBox (I did that with all the games).
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

Well, I can open up the appplication like for the tilemaps where you would load sprites pictures which are replaced by the original ones. I will take a look on file 5SPR0275.BMP and add support for 5SPR0275.PNG and 5SPR0275.JPG as well, so we are complete for a lot of creativity.

Just give me a bit of time tackling some other issues I currently face and I will get back to your topic, making it into some new sprite loading code. :-)
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

That's awesome, I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, is there a legal way I can share my new Keen 5 tileset on this forum, if other users want to take a look at it?

The reason I ask is that while many of the tiles are now modified, some are not modified at all, thereby sharing the entire *.bmp files I have modified could possibly not be entirely legal as far as I know.

One solution to that could be to require the user to themselves extract all the *.bmp files from the Keen games themselves by using DOSBox and the ModKeen tools, and me only distributing the modifications to the *.bmp files themselves somehow, that has to be extracted on to the original *.bmp files.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

Here we go. In Version 2.4.5 when it is released you will be able use own bmp, jpg and png files in sprites.

Image

I don't how legal it is to modify IP of a registered DOS Games which is still being sold. Maybe someone in this forum can answer this.

I really don't know, but here goes the Commander Genius support for sprites :-)

What I can tell you though. There was a guy who created a Keen 3 tilemap which looks great and can be downloaded:

This has been many years and there never was a complain. I would say it is the same situation: Check this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmWaPpcOniQ
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

Awesome! Looking forward to version 2.4.5 of CGenius.

Btw I played through Keen 5 with my edited tileset just recently, well I almost played through the whole game because of an issue of the last level that didn't make it possible to break the round glass on the last machine with the shrapnel https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/Commande ... issues/388.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

The last level issue is fixed in 2.4.5 as well.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

Keen5/gfx/5TIL0000.PNG
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Keen5/gfx/5TIL0001.PNG
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Keen5/gfx/sprites/5SPR0275.PNG
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Keen5/gfx/sprites/5SPR0112.PNG
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Keen5/gfx/sprites/5SPR0113.PNG
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Keen5/gfx/sprites/5SPR0131.PNG
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Keen5/gfx/sprites/5SPR0132.PNG
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My take on the Keen 5 tileset with the DOS 256 color VGA palette.


Edit: Had some issues with transparency; applied the wrong shade of white.

Edit 2: Major update; world map added, enhanced environment detail and so on.

Edit 3: Forgot to redo the tile at the secret level exit on world map with teleporter.

Edit 4: wrong shade of grey at side of windows (where the light hits), minor adjustments (changed some pixels at exit-door), added the sprites for gun & chocolate drink for copying to Keen5/gfx/sprites folder (sometimes old unedited sprites was shown in Keen 5 because those weren't included as separate sprites).

Edit 5: Minor changes, edited one of the red colors on the sides of the red metal floors/walls to a less bright one.

Edit 6: Removed the shining light part of the windows inside levels, as there's no sun outside that can brighten the sides of the windows (more close to original artwork).

Edit 7: I had two of the red symbols attached to two of the spheres on the world map placed on the wrong tiles, fixed now.
Last edited by Gagster on Tue Aug 04, 2020 20:47, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

Sounds good. I hope you have considered Keen4plus and keen4coop which already provide svga tiles.

Just saying, feel free to use them as base for your work.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

I have got some inspiration from those tile-packs, but I haven't used anything from there as a base yet. Since you're okay with me using those as bases, I might save some time by using some of the included tiles as a base for my work.

Since I limit myself to only using the 256 color VGA palette, I'm aiming at making those games look like I remembered them, that of course being through rose tinted nostalgia glasses where I "remember" a higher color palette than the EGA one.

I try not to derive too much from the original coloring of the tiles, but as with my Keen 5 tiles I have to take some creative liberties from time to time (some objects I have no idea what's supposed to be).

I downloaded the High Quality pack from the CGenius homepage some time ago, and I saw a lot of more advanced tile-editing than what I'm currently able to produce (much gradience and such), so for me having the VGA color limit makes things easier in my case (fewer colors to chose from).
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

Sounds good.

I can add your tiles to HQP where you also find the Keen 1-4 special tilesets. The users will have to copy files together though. Let me know if that is fine for you. It would be nice to remove the dithering of the world map tiles though for more consistency. Other than that good job.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

It's okay with me to add the Keen 5 tilesets I made to your HQP upload.

Regarding the Keen 5 world map I didn't do much simply because I currently don't know if I'm able to do much with the sphere shapes and all that kind of stuff. I tried experimenting with the blue background inside the big sphere (where most stages are located inside), but the end result I made didn't look right. In my limited VGA palette I wasn't happy with the shades of blue I got to replace the blue dithering inside the sphere, and I didn't want to break my 256 color rule. Without the dithering, the blue/black dithered walls looked kind of bland and empty in my opinion.

Maybe the blue color would look better if I removed all the dithering on the white spaceship-stuff next to it, and I agree it would add more consistency if all the dithering on the game map got removed. However, I'm taking baby steps now by just some simple color-editing while learning; after my take on the Keen 4 tileset are done, I'm going straight to Keen 6 to remove dithering/ add colors to that tileset.

After I'm done with Keen 4-6 tilesets, and maybe have also done some editing on the Keen 1-3 tilesets (I would love to edit the Keen Dreams tileset if CGenius in the future got support for that), I may try more advanced parts like removing the dithering on the skin-tone behind Keens watch on the main menu of Keen 4-6, maybe try to remove dithering on the game-map in Keen 5 and all the end-screens, intro screens and such (if CGenius would support edits of the additional sprites).
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

I don't see why this should be a problem.

I will take your graphics for HQP then.

I don't want to promise too much regarding Keen Dreams, because the CG engine code in that regard is a big mess right now. I will tidy up a bit more, once other priorities are taken care of.

Here is a small video using the Kylie Sprite and your tiles and sprite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq7Y5hOXpT8

Also special thanks to Zilem for the great artwork!
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Gagster »

I'm almost done with my modifications of the Keen 4 tiles now, and I've also added some colors to some of the sprites (the sprite for the green gun and various items is to be found both on the tilesheets and as separate sprites in the folder where all my Keen 4 sprites are extracted).

It seems like it was no issues modifying the individual sprites, copying them to Keen4/gfx/sprites and making CGenius see the modified sprites.

In other words, are all individual sprites supported now in CGenius, so that they can be modified? After the 2.4.5 launch I thought that you maybe only added support for the Sparky death sprite in Keen 5 because adding support for all the individual sprites must have been very time consuming.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by gerstrong »

Gagster wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 17:47 I'm almost done with my modifications of the Keen 4 tiles now, and I've also added some colors to some of the sprites (the sprite for the green gun and various items is to be found both on the tilesheets and as separate sprites in the folder where all my Keen 4 sprites are extracted).

It seems like it was no issues modifying the individual sprites, copying them to Keen4/gfx/sprites and making CGenius see the modified sprites.

In other words, are all individual sprites supported now in CGenius, so that they can be modified? After the 2.4.5 launch I thought that you maybe only added support for the Sparky death sprite in Keen 5 because adding support for all the individual sprites must have been very time consuming.
Actually, I just added some pattern code. Over the years we created code which helps us doing that easily, so why not add it for all sprites in all the galaxy games, right?

Have fun getting nice colors/artwork into the games :-)
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