I'm starting with a tiny game called Impact Racing, an obscure budget combat-racer by Funcom Dublin, 1996. You destroy a certain number of cars while finishing laps before time runs out, so you can get more weapon upgrades before you reach the final stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouIGHt2LBro
I was looking at an image file that I had tried loading into IrfanView years ago, and realized that I could just use "open as > raw" on one of the images that did work, get the correct width and height out of it, and see where those numbers showed up in the header.
And then I realized that a block of numbers was actually a palette-indexed image with 16 colors. And that all of the texture images are like that. So now I just have to figure out how color palettes are ordered.
There's also the whole issue of like... even if I *could* figure out how a file format is structured, I'd still have to learn how to program a tool (outside of Unity/Gamemaker) that could actually convert PS1 files into PC-readable formats.
Still tempted though. Maybe just pick away at it on the side.
I'd honestly love to learn how to read actual PS1 file formats for a few games. It's such an involved process though - developers kept rolling their own tools and headers, so almost everything has to be approached on a game-by-game basis. There's no "one size fits all" solution for converting PS1 images/models.
I found out last night that SCEE made a tool to assist development of PocketStation save file headers, in binary and assembly formats. The binary is useable as-is β open in a hex editor and copy/paste into an existing save file.
Tool works on W10, too!
http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=415
Skidding locks the player to the nearest position on an 8x8 grid, but tries to make sure that it can travel a minimum eight pixels before it snaps.
If a direction is held while skidding, the player will launch full speed in the new direction. If not, player will come to a dead stop. Jumping can cancel out of the skid completely.
Quickly studied the camera in Kirby's Adventure, and I'm surprised to find that its follow window is effectively a 32Γ32 pixel square β off-center by 16px left & 32px up.
The only reason why Kirby travels outside the square is because the majority of its rooms only scroll along one axis, horizontal or vertical.
This is the gamedev equivalent of sticking my hand into a running shower to check water temperature, but what I'm doing is checking that child objects work as expected. Only the body has move code attached, the tail inherits everything.
It's worth noting that this isn't like Unity, where a child object is physically nested inside it's parent. In GameMaker, the parent doesn't need to be present, the child will simply behave the same - unless it is told to override specific events.
Audio/visual artist, tip-toeing haphazardly into gamedev. Follow me on my journey as I break all the things. πͺπ¦β¨
Cis, He/Him! πΉ