Conker's™ Hyrulian Tail ~ Screenshots and Videos!

Conn wrote:Problems & bugs:
(1) Then the difficult part starts: the bat gfx gets messed up, as well as the hole (dark world sprite only?)

(2) Further, it works only in gigantic areas (pyramids 5b, castle 1b, kakariko 18, lost woods 00). Do you have such a big area in your rom? Right now I do not know how to set it to small areas... and I already traced me nearly to death to find this out
If you set e.g. screen 2c (start, small) to where the bat flows, the coordinates handle it as it were a big screen, so the first part of the cave will be stored to top right of screen 2b, the second to the top left of screen 2c. You therefore need to shift the coordinates.

1) Like I said, this isn't a problem, you just need to have the correct tileset to be setup in your current spritesets in the area where you want the effect (I can do this easily in any overworld screen/dungeon room using the graphics schemes in HM):

in dungeons this tileset is loaded:



and in the overworld area where the bat appears this same tileset gets loaded so the correct gfx are shown:



2) Yeah I noticed that the effect doesn't work right on small overworld screens. I don't have a big area unfortunately so I'll probably shift the coordinates like you stated in another post. I'll try to figure out where this batcave should appear. If it becomes too hard I'll ask MoN and Euclid about it. Maybe MoN has documented this in his disassembly.

cool
the big-small screen conversation really is a problem. I re-checked, so the bat sprite seems to appear still between screen 2b and 2c. It's coordinates must be shifted as well with 20 bytes as I did with the cave.

You have 2 ways the cave tiles are transferred: when the cave is created and when you leave/reenter the screen. As you see in my above image I successfully transferred the cave tiles to screen 2c when it is created. But when you leave/reenter it vanishes, though it is at the correct coordinates at 7E/2000,x.
To explain this by the icerod patch. I first addressed the tile in 7E/2000,x to behave like ice. Result was that though you walked on the tile as on ice it still had the look of deep water. I had to make a vram transfer so that the tile at 7e/2000,x not only behaves as ice but also looked like ice.
Same happens when you pick up a pot. 7E/2000,x displays a pot and then you pick it up, a new value is written to 7e/2000,x (no more pot you can walk through on this tile then) and a vram transfer happens to display an empty podest.

Virtually when you leave/reenter the screen, the cave is there - I find it at 7e/2000,x. Only the vram transfer isn't executed that the tiles appear.
That's not such a big problem actually but I yet did not find out why the vram transfer happens at the pyramid and not at start 2c.

So I think your hack here can and will be finished (I already checked the created cave; when you address it with 7b entrance to get to Ganon from the pyramid, it works; so it is with the fly--9 teleport). If you are able to make the gfx, the hack is yet at 80% finished
Now you need to know a good location and then we finish it. If I am not capable, Euclid or Math will find my addresses surely useful.

Edit: uhoh, just tried to fall into the cave in the small screen 2c, just as it worked when I set it to big screen 1b, castle... didn't work. phew... if you only had one of those big screens, some problems would be simplified ^^

If everything else fails, I can probably rework the rift area to big a big area instead (like I originally intended) and replace the paintings with doorways of some sort to have enough gfx space for the area

that way it should solve most issues!

That's great to have plan B if anything else fails.

As said, I can make it work to 100% in a big screen: Ganon's bat sprite is there, you can fall in the cave and end up facing Ganon. The transport and stabilizing the cave when leaving/reentering the screen through 7e2000,x works:


Set (all pc):
(1) 01/6AF5: 1b (screen 1b)
(2) 01/46d1: a9 00 8f ca f3 7e 80 02 (hardcode to save lightworld)
(3) 0d/c2e5: a9 60 8f 9b f2 7e ea ea ea ea (calculated by 7e/f280+1b=7e/f29b; the value 60 at this ram address will load the tiles when leaving/reentering screen, and will be stored to this location as soon you fighted agahnim #2)
(4) 07/769a: cf fa  (calculated by 07/7664 + 1b +1b = 07/769a  - writes the bat cave tiles to 7e/2000,x when leaving/reentering screen)
That's all.
Now only needed to set 7b caves (face Ganon, otherwise you end up in Houlihans room) and fly--9 via HM to the new created hole (to test it you need to draw plain to the castle walls with HM otherwise you cannot leave the castle area).


But let's try to make it work in a small screen first; however I think I am a bit lost here; can you ask Math or Euclid if they are capable to shift it to work in small areas as well?

Here's all addresses I found until now in a txt:

http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/batcave.txt

it almost sounds like it's easier to skip the event and have the bird drop you off there with the hole already made.

That would also do it :)so we have three possibilities for the final battle:

1) cave already created in small screen you can only access via fly--9 (yet doable)
2) event creates cave in a big screen (yet doable if you can create such a big screen in PU)
3) event creates cave in small area (if somebody is able to shift the coordinates)

Edit:
I think I now found out what the problem is. It's yet theory but a good one. First you need to know that 7e/2000,x always handles 4 small screens, it doesn't matter whether you have it combined in one big one or 4 small ones.
The problem with Ganon is where the game sets point zero.
So I choose start screen 2c to where the cave shall be created...
When the bat escapes and creates the hole it sets screen 2b as point zero (dunno why, maybe because it's directly below 1b or 5b), thus the bat will create the cave inbetween 2b and 2c. I recalculated the coordinates by shifting 20 bytes to right and the cave is now happily created in 2c when screen 2b is set as point zero.
But when you leave and reenter the screen, the game sets the native point zero which is 2c (and not 2b); thus the bat cave will actually be in 2d then.
To understand you need to know that the cave is always created inbetween 2 screens and must be shifted with 20 bytes to be centered...
I now shifted: the transport created cave with 20 bytes to right (zero 2b right border, it appears in 2c); then I shifted the stabilized cave with 20 to left (zero 2c rigth border, it appears in center 2c).

And... look what I got :d

I can even use the cave to face Ganon!

SePH, I think here is hope to get the correct coordinates for a small screen as soon you've chosen a screen for the final battle, so that I know what point zero is and calculate the screens by hand.
As soon you are at that point, we can further think about the remaining bugs: shifting the bat sprite and make the transport created cave as a cave you can fall in (for reasons I cannot retrace the cave to fall in in the transport created cave is still inbetween 2b/2c and you can walk over the shifted tiles as they were plain).

Edit 2:
found the x-ccordinates for the bat sprites; there are 2 parts, one when it approaches the pyramid, and one when it bumps into the top.
X-coordinate part 1: 0d/7717: CC
X-coordinate part 2: 0d/7696: E8
each 2 bytes will shift the bat sprite 8x8 (as far I've seen). Since we need to shift it 20 16x16 tiles, we must add 40 to this value. Unfortunately, the max for one screen is FF and we exceed this.
To get it into screen 2, it is necessary to change
part 1: 0D/771C: 07 -> 08
part 2: 0D/769B: 07 -> 08

The result:



Edit 3:
the rocks that appear when the cave is created can be shifted with
04/b1e4: e8 -> 28? (here for some reasons it can exceed ff)

Edit 4:
I also know why you cannot fall into the created cave. The reason is simple: I placed it so that it appears between 2b as point zero.
When you land with the bird and you try to fall in, the calculation is handled as if 2c is point zero; so I simply need a second store as 2c point zero.

Seph, I gathererd all information now to hack this into a small screen. What I need from you is a rom with savestate snes9x 1.51 (face aghanim #2) and the screen where you want it.

From my experience with the same x and y shifting (in my case of the flute song trigger), you need to make the coordinate values smaller rather then larger. For instance default area is 5B (which is big). But the bird falls in at the center, which makes it incompatible to a small area by default.
 
If you make the new coordinates on the left-upper side of the big 5B area, they should be compatible to any small area. Since the big area is simply an extension of the small one, with the base on the left-upper side (the base is not right-up or right-down or left-down).
 
But then the event should be set to this new area (2C in this case). This is why you can not extend over FF.

Unfortunately it isn't this way. 2c should be handled like top left of a big area... but the game starts with 2b for unknown reasons (guess because it is directly below 5b/1b).
But I have enough knowledge now to create a custom patch in whichever small area now, so no problem here. Only need Seph to catch up here so that I can insert it.

This is odd, because the areas ending with C are even, and so a natural start, the ones ending with B are a natural right part. But I guess this has been redone to regard the B as start (so C is then the right part).

It is nice, that you can bring it to the small area. Editing this event in general will really be a big achievement.

It's quite complicated... I gathered all infos here:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/batcave.txt

The base is really a problem and the only point I need to hijack the code. Since 2b is the base when I want 2c as cave screen, I need to create the cave 2 times at 7e2000,x when the transport happens - one time for base 2b (for the tile optics) and the other for the effect (fall in cave since you enter from base 2c then @_@). But since I know about this issue, no problem. For leaving/reentering the screen, 2c is always the base then.
Beginning at 0D/C2Aa the tiles for base 2b are transferred, need to hijack the code to set the tiles for base 2c (of course only when 2c is the desired screen).

As soon SePh knows the screen I can go to adjust this for his specific screen.

Wow so much work here since last time. Amazing work Conn!

You can set it up in Area 2C, the rift (somewhere in that red rectangle if possible):



I'll send you this rom modified along with a portal to agahnim2... you'll just have to enter the dungeon in that entrance:



and then use this "temporary" portal to lead you directly to agahnim2



I'm pretty sure you can easily defeat with three hearts, if not I've placed 6 full heart containers in my starting room chests!

Oops, forgot to mention that I've modified the hole graphics when it's opened into grey cement sometime ago (blocks 3647-3655 in the 32x32 block editor)...



compared to original:



tell me if it's too much of an issue (to actually see if it works) and I'll probably redraw it back to normal or at least make it a hole!

Edit: I've redrawn the tiles temporary so they have at least a hole in it and sent you another rom, sorry about that

should look like this:



Same tile properties otherwise as the original game.. even if it looks smaller!

Finished, check your mails... made 2 versions, one with your native (left-side) fly-9 and one where I placed it on top of the cave to view the complete animation.
Please do not move the fly-9 anymore once you decided for wither variation - the sprite layer covering the bat after bumping into the pyramid will shift with this fly-9 point.

You need to set the 7B caves to get to Ganon instead to houlihan and of course the tiles for the bat, cave, small rocks and the sprite cover to be dense.




This code was really a nightmare, and I need a time-out now :sleep:

Edit:
when you look closely, you notice the bat wings are not covered completely by the sprite cover. This is also happening in ALTTP (below pic), but through the cave tiles you hardly notice.
If it still makes a problem as soon you finished animating your tiles, I can look over the code to fix that as well.

Works like a charm! No need for changes or anything! I'll simply fix the hole gfx animation and it'll be perfect

Thanks for your time and interest in making this happen!

Here's a video:



I'm serious now, take a good break this time lol

Conn........... this is WAY COOL!!!!

OUTSTANDING!

Thanks :)it took me hours to trace all addresses. Brutal was the cover sprite which is directly transferred from rom to oam transfer ram - most sprites have an intermediate ram save for the location.
Also the loopings intervals were hard to find: to make the looping, both x,y values have to be increased or decreased in dependence where the bat is.

Further, which might come out problematic one day: beginning at 07/7664, there are 2 byte pointers. These pointers are loaded each screen you enter. The one that stabilizes the special event "batcave" when leaving/reentering (native) screen 5b; 07/771a: cf fa points to: 07/7acf!
At 07/7acf, the code was overwritten. Native, it starts with lda #$0E3f, which is the cave tile to be stored at 7E2000,x.
In your rom this is overwritten by some other data, which makes this pointer corrupt; the data to stabilize the cave was not part!! So I copied the healthy data to unused space at  07/7cb0 and pointed there via the pointer.

I do not know why this data was overwritten, but I assume more pointers will point to corrupt addresses now... so if you encounter a problem somewhere (maybe at a special event) this may be the first place to look
Executional address is:

Code:


$0E/F65B 0A          ASL A                   A:002C X:002C ; Screen 2c in accumulator A: double A value number since pointer is 2 bytes
$0E/F65C AA          TAX                     A:0058 X:002C; transfer A (now 2C+2C=58 to X)
$0E/F65D FC 64 F6    JSR ($F664,x)[$0E:FCB0] A:0058 X:0058; load pointer at 07/7664+58(X)=07/76bc which is in this case the new one I set (FCB0) to execute healthy code and jsr to this location
$0E/FCB0 A9 3F 0E LDA #$0E3F    ; run healthy code, start with loading batcave tiles


Here's all changes I made in case anybody is interested:

Code:


(1)
01/6AF5 -> already set to 2c by HM through fly-9

(2)
01/46d1: af ca f3 7e 29 40 f0 02 -> a9 00 8f ca f3 7e 80 02
This is necessary to not get into dark world, (hardcode to save that you're in light world). Maybe not necessary in ~your rom~ since you should be in light world when encountering Agahnim #2.


(3)
stabilize cave in 2c:
0d/c2e5: af db f2 7e 09 20 8f db f2 7e  -TO -> a9 60 8f ac f2 7e ea ea ea ea

(4)
Further to stabilize the cave when leaving/reentering the screen
07/76bc: 2d f8 -> cf fa

(5)
cave tiles
first row (2 coordinates) - 34 bytes shift will put it into your desired location:
0D/C2Aa: bc 03 -> f0 03
0D/C2B4: be 03 -> f2 03 (shift 20 to right)
second row (one coordinate):
0DC2c0: 3c 04 -> 70 04 (shift 20 to right)
Third row (one coordinate):
0dc2cc: bc 04 -> f0 04 (shift 20 to right)


(6)
Tiles to cover bat sprite when creating hole (shift 60 tiles)

0d/7730: 68 97 -> c8 95; 0d/7734: 78 97 -> d8 95; 0d/7738: 88 97 -> e8 95
0d/773c: 68 a7 -> c8 a5; 0d/7740: 78 a7 -> d8 a5; 0d/7748: 88 a7 -> e8 a5
0d/7748: 65 90 -> c5 8e; 0d/774c: 8b 90 -> eb 8e



(7)
rom corrupt at 07/7acf.
Copied healthy code to 07/7cb0
Set (change 4) to 07/76bc: cf fa -> b0 FC

07/7cb4 BC 23 -> b0 23    
07/7cb9 BE 23 -> b2 23
07/7cbe C0 23 -> b4 23
07/7cc3 3C 24 -> 30 24
07/7cc8 3E 24 -> 32 24
07/7ccd 40 24 -> 34 24
07/7cd2 BC 24 -> b0 24
07/7cd7 BE 24 -> b2 24
07/7cdc C0 24 -> b4 24

(8) hijack code to execute 07/7CB0, so that transport cave can be accessed.
0d/c2d7: jsl to 07/7ce0) ea ea
07/7ce0: a9 ff ff 99 12 10 (repeat deleted code), jsr to 07/7cb0, 6b

(9)
Rock:
changed 04/b1E4: E8 -> 88 to center small rocks in hole when bat crashes in

(10)
Bat Part 1 (loop around):
Screen set X: 0d/771c: 07 -> 09
Screen set Y: 0d/7726: 06 -> 0A
Coordinates X: 0d/7717: CC -> 1C
Coordinates Y: 0d/7721: 32 (ok)
Get the correct looping interval of part 1:
0d/7590: x - 5c 09 70 09 a0 09 98 09 y - 0a 36 0a 30 0a e0 09 04 07 04 0a 00

Bat Part 2 (bump into ground):
X:
0D/769B: 07 -> 09 (screen)
0d/7696: E8 -> 88 (coordinate)

Y:
0d/76a5: 05 -> 09


Just a few notes from your change:

7EF2CA is a ram location which stores whether an "event" has occurred on said map (2C in this case i'm guessing). if you check math's ram docs, it's the overworld maps (where the x bits in 0xx0 0000 means something), the original code (point 3) had it so the 0x40 gets written in area 5c. When the area is reloaded (coming back from another area), this ram location is used to redraw the tiles over the base tiles if the event has been activated.

The same mechanism is used to determine the following things:
- whether or not the hyrule castle gate is "open" and needs to have the gate open gfx drawn over the gate closed gfx
- whether or not the turtle rock entrance is opened
- whether or not monkey palace is opened
- the grave in the graveyard has been pushed or not
and more - if you have a look at a finished lttp game you'll find lots of places around that area which has 0x20/0x40/0x60 written on it

The best solution here is to make 0x40 to be a trigger for area 2c to do exactly what area 5B used to do with the hole - the game's original programming will do the rest to set your flags right.

Started editing the hole overlay using the original lttp graphics



It triggered me to finally work a bit more on my rift overworld tileset. I'm still working on it in paint shop pro so nothing is inserted yet but one of the screens will be pretty much look like so

One of the rift areas will have a painting that leads you to the Spencer Estate dungeon (resident evil 1 mansion) and that also has that batcave hole event in it (ganon final battle):



Spooky eh. Can't wait to finish all those tilesets

This looks really great and the bat-event really makes it perfect. Regarding the event. This is why I've always disadvised to edit Agahnim-2. Since it has a chain reaction (luckily it's done now, thanks to Conn). One more big achievement out of the way.

I really feel as if Zelda 3 hacking as come a long way recently.

When the best Zelda 3 minds come together GREAT things happen.

We really are like the first pioneers!

Always astonishing what you guyz are able to do out of my hacks. I get an idea now why you put the dark world screen as a new layer.
Marvellous job, SePH

Thank you all!

@ Conn: -Yeah, the 2 layers on overworld asm hack by neonswift plays a key role in having more freedom to create my areas. It works pretty much the same way as the minish cap game otherwise (he even recreated the same tilesets lol).

The only downside to that 2 layers overlay hack is that it doesn't work correctly on bigger areas. Too much data to load on the same screen I believe. If you make a big area... in game it will only load the first quarter of the dark world overlay (being one out of four small screens) and it will load it in all four quarters.

Here's a video of my current insertion progression for the rift area and batcave event



Nowhere near finished yet but I like the new edges so much that I might use them in the rift dungeons too

whoopy, amazing how you made it that the bat fly among the chains
Gonna get really marvellous!