Help ripping sprites from Battle Chess

Good evening, Im trying to rip the Battle Chess sprites from the amiga version, I have follow by Dj.Thunder tutorial (http://www.b3dgs.com/v6/tutorials/gfxrip/index.html) but I cant find any sprites at all in the savestate.

Can someone point me in the right direction?, I want to rip all the animations from the pieces, I know is a lot of work, so Im not asking for somneone to do all the work but rather help me understand how to do it myself. The savestate is smaller than other save states I have seen in the videos or examples. So maybe there is something worng with the way im generating the savestate? (tho is not that difficult).

Any help would be much appreciated.

regards,

[BippyM]

The gfx can be ripped with Maptapper but will take time as each seems to be stored seperately

Thanks for the link to the program, this one is much easier to use. I managed to find something in the uss (I attached it as a png to this thread). But I cant find the sprites, only like an image of the board with the pieces on top of it (like it was at the time I took the savestate).

Shouldnt that configuration of parameters show me all images on the file? the rest is still just noise, or every segment of the file requieres a different set of parameters?.

regards,

EDIT:

I found something!, Some of the king sprites, but only three im pretty sure there must be at least 30 sprites to account for all the animations, does this mean I have to keep digging all the other parts of the sprite, shouldnt they be grouped in like a sprite sheet, like with the tile set examples I have seen aorund?

regards,

[Codetapper]

The game is storing a different frame for each image, and the height is slightly different on each. By luck the frames you have displayed show 3 or 4 images in a row with the same height, so those look OK. If you adjust the first one a little, you'll get that image correct.

I have actually been working on a new tab for ripping just one frame and storing them on another sprite sheet which will help you - but it's not quite finished.

Ideally I would love for the config file to store all the image locations so it would be able to recreate the sprite sheet by jumping to each location and saving the data - completely based on a config file! But I might release it as-is for now as it helps a lot when ripping different sized frames (which is the majority of games).

Originally Posted by Codetapper

The game is storing a different frame for each image, and the height is slightly different on each. By luck the frames you have displayed show 3 or 4 images in a row with the same height, so those look OK. If you adjust the first one a little, you'll get that image correct.

What kind of adjustment should I make? as soon as I change the value of bplHeight the images get distorted.

Originally Posted by Codetapper

The game is storing a different frame for each image

This means that all the images of the sprite sheet are spread all over the memory dump? That would make the task near impossible to complete (it will take forever to collect all the spites D.

thanks for the replies

regards,

[Codetapper]

Try this. I recommend grid mode on!

Set the address to $2795C, 32x46 high, 5 planes. You'll see a frame of the queen.

Now Shift-Right arrow to move to the next tile. And it'll appear garbage. But if you press W twice so the height is 48 pixels high, you'll see the next 2 frames of animation.

Now Shift-Right arrow twice to move 2 tiles along. Press S twice so the height is back to 46 pixels. The frame will now be correct.

The next frame looks wrong, but if you increase the width to 48 pixels (Q key once) and height to 46, you'll see the next queen frame.

You basically repeat this for each frame. The only difference will be when I finish the change, you'll be able to say "store this frame" and it'll copy all the collected frames to the sprite sheet tab where you can save them in one hit.

I'll see if I can release another version tonight if I get enough programming time with the new tab in it!

Originally Posted by Codetapper

You basically repeat this for each frame. The only difference will be when I finish the change, you'll be able to say "store this frame" and it'll copy all the collected frames to the sprite sheet tab where you can save them in one hit.

This would be awesome.

I have manage to collect a few srpites, but I havent been able to find all of them, I have change the H and W values a lot and scan the memory dump but I always find the same set of sprites for each pieces. Like I cant find all the other sprites, always the same all over the memory dump, I have atached the queen ones I have found so far, now each of those frame have 3 versions, they do the walking animation, but I cant find the other 2 sprites for each of those positions.

Which other values can a adjust to find more sprites?

Thanks a lot for your time, this tool is awesome I tought it would be impossible but I have gather a lot of spirtes for all the pieces in a few hours. I just need to figure out how to make the rest show themselves.

regards,

[Codetapper]

I haven't looked at the game but the game may well decompress the animation it requires for each move, hence a queen moving animation might be in memory in your savestate and only when you take another piece would it load/decompress the new animation ready for ripping.

[BippyM]

Usw Q/A to alter the widths.. Play around with the sizes.. I have found a few, but like codetapper says. They probably load in.

Battlechess is a DOS disk game, so some cracked versions might have the files, if not HD install it, and use the files. Will just need the palette setting up

edit: Naturally the data may be compressed

CD32 and CDTV versions also exist!

[BippyM]

Okay attached is the data file from the CD32 version. This is unpacked I think and from a quick look all gfx seems to be there. You will need to manually set the palette (Loading the savestate in first might work)

Anyway give it a whirl.. You have nothing to lose

Originally Posted by bippym

Okay attached is the data file from the CD32 version. This is unpacked I think and from a quick look all gfx seems to be there. You will need to manually set the palette (Loading the savestate in first might work)

Anyway give it a whirl.. You have nothing to lose

Hello bippym, thanks for the reply.

I have been testing with the file but I cant get any of the spirtes to show, I have tested with a lot of values for W and H, and I can see the sprites but very distorted and cant seen to get them just right, could you give me some pointers or maybe approximate values?, there is another parameter I can try?

As for the memory dumps, you guys were right, they load on demand, so I moved the queen a bit around and got more sprites, but still not all the ones that were used in the animation, and I still have like weird things that look like sprite but I just cant make them appear, so maybe there is another parameter I have to play with?

I attached an image showing the distorted sprites.

Again tahnk you very much for your help and time guys.

[BippyM]

Hmmm maybe there is compression used :/

[Kimono]

@Angel : Maybye you will be happy to see these sprites. I ripped them directly from the Setup Board feature with taking screenshots:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/f...Th5XuSHmFKD4fg









I will show you next the attack animations and offer you the Battle Chess II gfx.

[Nishicorn]

BTW, it's not 'Tower', it's 'Rook'. The chess pieces have established names, you know.

[Arne]

Tower is a fairly common (if not the predominant) name in other languages for Rook (chariot) so you likely wouldn't be misunderstood if you used that term. I like the notion that the piece represents both -- a moving siege tower or primitive "tank". The etymology is quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)#History

(In no language is it called a Golem though.)