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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Gagster
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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 »

Keen4/gfx/4TIL0000.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/4TIL0001.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0107.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0108.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0111.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0112.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0113.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0114.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0115.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0116.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0127.PNG
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Keen4/gfx/sprites/4SPR0128.PNG
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As seen in my Keen 4 tile-edits, it's clear that I've used the HQP tilemaps for Keen 4 as a base, and having the 256 color limit of the VGA DOS color palette did make some challenges regarding some of the colors (the pyramids for instance). I had to attach a metal-object behind the torches found in the underground snail statue place in the very first level instead of using the brown background, because the very same torch is to be found on the oil level where the background is quite different in coloring.

There's also other examples where the old 16 color palette resulted in misplacement of tiles, as the grey "basement" tile in the pyramid levels had to have the same color as the main background walls (light brown instead of grey), because of tile misplacement of the original tiles made it so that some of the grey "basement" tile was misplaced some places in the eye-pyramid (the first downward slope had grey tiles sticking out where the walls in this section was not supposed to be grey).

Edit: Minor updates on the tilemaps

Edit 2: Had a blinking pixel on the overworld map on the oil-island.

Edit 3: Had the wrong color on the floor tile attached to the door to the wizard in the Dopefish level
Last edited by Gagster on Fri Jul 10, 2020 16:01, edited 3 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 »

Looking very good. The style of Miragia is dithered again, but somehow I like it more than the semi-transparent stuff we had before. I would add those Tilemaps and sprites to the Keen 4 Plus as an Update if you are fine with it.

P.S.: Still need to recreate the HQP Update with your Keen5 graphics.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

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It was intentional on my part to apply the classic dithering on Miragia rather than the modern style transparency (I'm not sure VGA DOS PCs from that era could handle modern style transparency).

It's perfect fine with me if you would like to add those tilemaps and such to an update for Keen 4 Plus, HQP and so on.

I'm currently hard at work with the tilemaps for Keen 6. I had to make compromises in Keen 6 already, because if I changed the light daytime sky colors to a more suitable one (in my opinion), a part of the window tile is also used as a ground tile for the background on one of the last levels. The windows also uses a cloud tile on one level (a building with rather large windows), so I had to revert all the sky tiles to the toothpaste-like blue color again from the 16 color palette. Not that of a bit deal when I think about it, because the world in Keen 6 is more "alien" than the other games in my opinion :-b

Here's a sneak peak from my work in progress tiles:

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Edit: I tried to modify the 4TIL0002.BMP tilemap for Keen 4 (adding a dark red color to the edges of the 8x8 pixel wizard instead of dark grey), but it doesn't seem to work in CGenius. I placed it inside Keen4/gfx with the other tilemaps (didn't work), and afterwards placed it inside the Keen4/gfx/sprites folder (that crashed Keen 4 when launching the game in CGenius).
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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 »

Can I have that file so I would debug CG with it on my side?
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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 »

Sure.

4TIL0002.BMP
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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 »

So far, CG does not seem to load these. I find it strange, that you get a crash. I just changed that. Next release will load those tiles as well.

I also have been testing a bit with your Keen 4 tiles. Looking very good :-)
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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 »

The 4TIL0002.BMP file only crashed CGenius while placed inside the gfx/sprites folder, not while placed just inside the gfx folder itself with the other tilemap files. If the file is placed within the gfx/sprites folder, the CGenius Launcher starts, but after launching Keen 4 from there the loading bar at the beginning gets shown, although being stuck at very little progress. Seconds after CGenius crashes back to my Windows 10 desktop.

Edit: Found another error in my Keen 4 tilemaps, more specifically the 4TIL0000.BMP one. The door that leads to the wizard in the Dopefish level have a floor tile attached to it, but had the blue color of the skies instead of the blue color of those floors next to it. I've edited my Keen 4 tilemaps post with these changes.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

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Not much to do left on my recolored Keen 6 tilemaps now, here are some previews:

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

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Keen6/gfx/6TIL0000.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/6TIL0001.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0106.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0107.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0110.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0111.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0114.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0115.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0127.PNG
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Keen6/gfx/sprites/6SPR0128.PNG
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Here's my take on a DOS VGA color palette in Keen 6 instead of the 16 colored one. I did struggle some places however while recoloring these tilemaps for Keen 6 with only 256 colors, mostly because there's not many colors to chose from when it comes to different shades of red and turquoise, thereby there's still dithering present on the world map in the light red parts (I tried to remove dithering here, but I wasn't satisfied with the end result, so I reverted the changes).

On the later levels on that space-station thing, one of the levels have background art with a lot of the turquoise color and thereby a lot of dithering (shadows there that went from thick to light). The palette I used didn't have the colors I wanted to remove dither on the background elements here, so I didn't do much here. This also applies on the background tiles on some of the outdoor levels with more advanced red dithering; I didn't have the proper shades of red to do the shadows justice here while removing the dithering, so I didn't do much here either.

Other than that, I'm pretty OK with my end results here, and I seriously got a headache while removing the dithering on some of the crowded indoor background tiles; it was seriously painful to do.

Next up I might take a look at the world map for my Keen 5 recolored tiles, and see what I can do there (I'm not sure how I'll handle the big white spheres with advanced dithering, but I can at least take a look at the rest of the world map before taking that challenge).

In the long run I would like to add more colors to the enemy types, but after doing that this thread might be a bit too crowded with tiles, maybe I need to create a new topic here to just have all organized a bit better then?

Feel free to add those tiles to the HQP files if you would like to :)

Edit: Minor recoloring on toggle-able yellow switch

Edit 2: Minor color changes

Edit 3: Minor changes

Edit 4: Major update, added more colors (red, turquoise), lightened red ground tiles, removed dithering on world map, overall polish

Edit 5: Changes of how the dark blue skies in the later level looks, adjusted red colors on the red background with mountains in the back

Edit 6: Slight adjustments to the blue night sky colors

Edit 7: More slight adjustments to the blue night sky colors

Edit 8: More slight adjustments to the blue night sky colors - again

Edit 9: The grey indoor walltile color was a tad too dark compared to my Keen 5 tilemaps, fixed now
Last edited by Gagster on Tue Aug 04, 2020 23:08, 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

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I have now refined some of my recolored Keen 5 tiles; I've done some adjustments on tiles that I've not been that satisfied with (I've got more experience doing this thing now compared to some weeks ago), and i have also done a major overhaul of one tile that was previous unaltered (the blue thing or whatever it was that's a background tile in the room with the spike and the blue key).

I finally got somewhat of an idea what that blue background tile surrounded by purple lights was supposed to be; it's a concave sphere wall thing, since the light hits it in the opposite direction compared to a sphere that's convex. It's not always that easy to phantom what small 16x16 sprites with a total color palette of 16 colors are supposed to be :)

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The next thing I'll do is to finish the recoloring of the spaceship in the Keen 5 tileset, because after that is done one can get a more consistent experience while replaying Keen 4-6 with a richer 256 color VGA palette compared to the dither-heavy 16 colored one.

(I haven't uploaded a new revision of the Keen 5 tileset yet after these changes because I've started the recoloring process of the spaceship in Keen 5).
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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 »

Looks very cool. Btw, I have sent you a PM.
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Re: Original tilesets for Keen 1-6, so that users can modify each original tile for each game

Post by Tormentor667 »

This is awesome, really!
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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 happy to report that I'm finally making real progress on the tileset for the world map in Keen 5. The world map in Keen 5 is using heavy dithering to simulate depth, and heavy dithering on a 16 color palette means a lot of dots in different shapes all around.

Even with a DOS VGA 256 color palette, dithering is still going to be present, but now with a lot more grey shades than before (thereby not that heavy use of dithering compared to what the spaceship map used to have). I had to use a blur tool on an online application for all the various shapes and shadows on the spaceship, and after blurring the small parts of the images containing dithering, convert the images to the VGA palette again and reapply dithering with Aseprite before putting all the pieces where they belong.

I won't promise anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'll be finished with the world map in Keen 5 during this week, and after that I can take a look at all the sprites for the enemies and such that need a bit more coloring to fit the recolored tilesets for Keen 4-6 (only very minor, I'll remove the dark- and light grey shades where they are only present because the old 16 color EGA palette lacked enough colors).
Last edited by Gagster on Wed Jul 08, 2020 20:59, edited 1 time 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 »

Very cool, already getting excited for the new graphics :-)
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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 »

Just a small work-in-progress update regarding the ship world map in Keen 5

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The small cylinders on both sides may look a bit off compared to the rest of the ship that uses dithering, but overall the process of making the whole ship world map in 256 VGA recoloring is moving forward in a nice pace.
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