Ice Age 2 (GBA): extreme map making
Added 2019-01-19 15:22:35 +0000 UTCHi folks,
A quick update on what I've been doing lately. I'm currently working on the game page of Ice Age 2: The Meltdown for the Game Boy Advance. I've already written the whole walkthrough and made maps of every level. The map making is actually what takes most of the time and I thought I'd share the process with you. I must say though, these are the largest maps I ever made, and it's not really a straigh-forward process.
Step 1: record a video, exploring every pixel on the map. Save the video without compression to preserve exact colors.
Step 2: open the video, take a screen capture (240x160 pixels) and remove the on-screen score and timer. Copy-paste into an image editor. Do this a couple hundred times, putting all images together on the pixel like a jigsaw puzzle.
The final size of the map is 5631x1310 pixels.
Step 3: the background is a complete mess. This is because while the foreground scrolls, the background image is more or less fixed. So, green-screen the whole background.
Step 4: Separately create the background from multiple screenshots. Enlarge it and tile it.
Then copy paste the green-screened map onto the new background.
Step 5: Fill the bottom of the map, using available patterns.
That's it. Time to make: 2 days.
Anyway, I'll start recording the sound track now. Would love to complete the whole game page by next week somewhere. After that, it's time for Quest for Glory 2.
Cheers,
Rudy
