Arnie

[Radertified]

Attached are the maps for Arnie.

My sincerest apologies to Codetapper, as I didn't realize it was already being worked on! Sorry!

A quick question to anyone that may know.

When ripping the maps for this game, I found that many tiles were missing on the map screen (roofs, ladders...), but they were visible in the tile ripper. By chance, I was messing with the mask value and accidentally set it to $0fff (the default is $ffff). This fixed everything.

Can anyone explain to me why that would have worked, and if possible, how I can figure out the mask value in future if required?

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by Radertified

Attached are the maps for Arnie.

My sincerest apologies to Codetapper, as I didn't realize it was already being worked on! Sorry!

A quick question to anyone that may know.

When ripping the maps for this game, I found that many tiles were missing on the map screen (roofs, ladders...), but they were visible in the tile ripper. By chance, I was messing with the mask value and accidentally set it to $0fff (the default is $ffff). This fixed everything.

Can anyone explain to me why that would have worked, and if possible, how I can figure out the mask value in future if required?

No problem about finishing the Arnie maps. I'm glad you've done them.

The mask is automatically calculated based on a best-guess brute-force approach. If you use the built-in search and give the app a selection of tiles that turn out to be numbers 1-50, it will try a mask of $ffff, $7fff, $3fff, $1fff, $fff etc until it matches the tiles you used. With a small range of tiles, it can sometimes get it wrong because it doesn't know if certain bits are masked out by the game. If all the tiles you used happen to be plain tiles yet some others used a certain bit to indicate a walkable platform or something, it won't know. And it always bails out of a search when the highest mask is found.

If you go into the tile ripper tab and note the highest tile number (by hovering over it and looking down the bottom in the status bar) it'll give you a good clue. Say it's showing 503 ($1f7) but the search matched with a mask of $fff, try lowering the value to $1ff to begin with, press F5 to make it refresh the map, and note if any tiles change. If it's not quite right, try $3ff etc. You have to just play around with the numbers until you get the correct map.

Some games will have a lot of tiles (Odyssey springs to mind) yet the mask is low as the game switches banks of tiles, so hovering over the tile and noting the number will not always be correct. Basically, it's as good as I can realistically make an automated search as there are infinite numbers of tricks programmers can use.

[TCD]

Thank you Radertified The maps have been added to HOL

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

No problem about finishing the Arnie maps. I'm glad you've done them.

The mask is automatically calculated based on a best-guess brute-force approach. If you use the built-in search and give the app a selection of tiles that turn out to be numbers 1-50, it will try a mask of $ffff, $7fff, $3fff, $1fff, $fff etc until it matches the tiles you used. With a small range of tiles, it can sometimes get it wrong because it doesn't know if certain bits are masked out by the game. If all the tiles you used happen to be plain tiles yet some others used a certain bit to indicate a walkable platform or something, it won't know. And it always bails out of a search when the highest mask is found.

If you go into the tile ripper tab and note the highest tile number (by hovering over it and looking down the bottom in the status bar) it'll give you a good clue. Say it's showing 503 ($1f7) but the search matched with a mask of $fff, try lowering the value to $1ff to begin with, press F5 to make it refresh the map, and note if any tiles change. If it's not quite right, try $3ff etc. You have to just play around with the numbers until you get the correct map.

Some games will have a lot of tiles (Odyssey springs to mind) yet the mask is low as the game switches banks of tiles, so hovering over the tile and noting the number will not always be correct. Basically, it's as good as I can realistically make an automated search as there are infinite numbers of tricks programmers can use.

Thanks for the pointers, Codetapper! I appreciate the support you're giving, and the amount of detail you go into. Very informative

Originally Posted by TCD

Thank you Radertified The maps have been added to HOL

No problem

Here's all of the Arnie 2 maps. HOL only has level 1, so I played through and ripped them all (note to any future players... playing the entire game doesn't give you any additional levels, so you can play each level from the menu and save some time).

[TCD]

Thank you once again and added to HOL

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by TCD

Thank you once again and added to HOL

No problem