I did a lot of quick work on almost all of the site’s pages before resurrecting it after the recent hack attack. Some coding got smooshed here and there and a bit of it was sloppy, even if you couldn’t see it on the page. The pages are still being improved and updated bit-by-bit and you might even notice that a section your browsing suddenly gets upgraded when you go to the next page. That’s just me shoveling new pages onto the server and freaking you out.

PLEASE let me know if you run into any broken pages, broken images, broken links, horribly slow pages (especially the pages with a crapload of sprites) or anything like that by replying to this post. It’ll help if you let me know which browser you’re using and its version number (usually seen in the “About Browsername” option on the Help tab).

I’ll be back in about a week with that Avengers-based update.

First: if you don’t know what happened last week, please read the top part of this earlier post.

This isn’t really a content update (though a few new things probably slipped through), but I’ve made some adjustments to a lot of the site pages. Nearly every page on the site has been modified somehow. Some of it is that behind-the-scenes crap that only I could care about, but a few pages should look better and fit in better with the rest of the site. A few things (mostly images) are broken and I’ll try to fix them as I sort all this mess out. There are a few new things:

Sprites – New animations were added to the Magic Sword page (including an animated Black Orb). Crime Fighters and Vendetta now have separate gallery pages and the Vendetta page has a few new graphics.

The next content update will probably be on the week of May 5th. Yeah, you know where I’m going with this. There won’t be a ton of sprites, but the update will be very Avengers-centric. There will be another comic-related update after that and that Golden Age of Video Games update I mentioned months ago will hit at some point after that.

Thanks for coming back to the site!

This site was the victim of a hacker attack a few days ago. Anyone who visited this site in the past month should have their system checked. I scrubbed out the sub-domain, re-uploaded everything from the clean site backup I have and did a few more security-related things before opening the site again. A few images are broken for now, but nearly everything seems to be working correctly. The site may go down temporarily a few times before I announce the return. I need to have the site open for take care of a few more things. Please let me know (leave a comment here) if you run into any issues while on the site.

I apologize for any inconveniences and problems this site has caused you and I thank you for coming back.

EDIT (April 19, 2012): Okay, it looks like the site access problems have been straightened out now.

The rest of this post is just edits about the speeds and the time they happen.
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I’m doing a lot of project juggling right now, so this update is a bit on the tiny side. Don’t worry, because future updates will more than make up for it. More on that later.

GFX Generators: Nothing big here, but I started a few modifications to the engine to streamline some of the older coding. Please let me know in the comments section if you run into any errors so I can work on those.

Characters: Heihachi added to Namco section. Trish, Yun & Yang (same character slot) added to Capcom section. Mature, Vice, Yamazaki and Wolfgang Krauser added to SNK section. A new Tiny Titans character slot was added to the DC section (though Tiny Titans sprites will be added to individual characters when applicable).

Screenstyles: KoF2002 Mexico (day), MvsC Bath House (left and right sides) added to the variable bg styles in the Group and Vs generators.

Custom Sprites – Heihachi (including a slightly animated version) added to Namco section. Trish added to Capcom gallery. Robin added to the DC Comics gallery.


Future updates are going to be smaller and farther apart for a while as I work on some other projects. One of them is project I’ve been teasing for years and it’s time for me to get back on that line art grind. Don’t think I’m slacking on the pixel mapping (and bad rhymes) because some of those future updates are going to be big. I’ve actually finished a few smaller things for some future theme-based updates. Tiny Titans Robin may have broken the comic book drought this place has had for a while, but keep an eye for more than one comic update. I’m also working on that Golden Age of Video games update, but I’m not exactly sure when that will drop. There will be new posts on this page with news, WIP updates, teasers and some theme-based request posts. Those request line posts will be limited-time offers, so be there and be vocal.


News:


Beta V 1.0 is out. I haven’t checked it out yet, but I’ve already downloaded it. Check it out just in case the bigger blabbermouth news sites cause a cease & desist or something. You know how this crap goes.

Elevator Action Deluxe owners should know that there is a new DLC stage pack available this week. Don’t forget to pick up any of the free DLC characters you missed from before. It’s great to see that Square and Taito continue to add things to this game, even though the later levels of this game are still too tough for me.

Last, but definitely not least, Dynamo has a new post on NXISTENCE.NET about the pain of dealing with younger video game fans who just can’t understand what we see in all of these old games. It’s well worth a bit of your time to read it and know that you’re not alone on that issue.


Graphic Generators – I just made a small character update.
Capcom: Ibuki added. Poison (new SF3-to-SFA-like edits and a new palette), Ryu (SFA3 portrait headband edit) updated.
Namco: Nina, Kazuya and Yoshimitsu make a invasion with new scratch-made sprites.
Taito: Dolls from Growl/Runark are now one sprite with multiple palettes (three arcade, three Genesis/Mega Drive)

Mini-Logos – A Street Fighter IV-styled Street Fighter logo added to Capcom section. 70’s and late 80’s Avengers logos added to Marvel section. Illmosis and ScrollBoss logos added to Illmosis section.

Custom Sprites – Scratch-made sprites of Nina (Tekken 5), Kazuya (1, 2 & 5) and Yoshimitsu (2 & 3) were added to the Namco page.

edit: I also re-sized the scratch-made sprites of the Dolls from Growl because I didn’t notice that they were too tall.

Elsewhere:
NXistence
Noise Factory:TMNT IV: Turtles In Time
Dynamo just posted a breakdown of his five favorite BGM tracks from TMNT IV and it’s worth a read. The man is uniquely qualified to make these posts since he thinks about games on a nuts and bolts level AND he crafts some fine music himself. He also makes a reference to one of my favorite musicians in the description of the #1 track. Look that name up on YouTube if you don’t recognize it when you get to it. You’ll be glad you did.

Graphic Generators – The engine just got a new feature: floor reflections.




A few older screens in the GroupShot generator’s 384×224 modes (Gen SFA2, Avengers MvsC, Avalon X-Men:COTA and Code Red XMvsSF) were upgraded with this. I also added Mojo World and the Savage Land from COTA (two versions of each) and two versions of the demolition site from KoF 2000.

New characters: Link for Nintendo. Tanya in the “Other” section. Rushing Beat enemies (just Ride & Kamikaze from the first game) for Jaleco. Seth, Heidern, Vanessa & Whip for SNK. Growl/Runark villains (female “Doll” enemy) added to Taito section. Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch (both with old sprites) for Marvel.

Game Index – Rolling Thunder 2 (Arcade) added. Growl (arcade) updated.

Company Index – Namco page added.

Custom Sprites – Link (original Legend of Zelda) added to the Nintendo page. Kamikaze and an improved version of Ride (both from Rushing Beat) added to the Jaleco page. The Dolls (female enemies) from Growl added to the Taito page. Tanya from Guardians of the ‘Hood added to the new Atari page. Yes, I made fan work based on GotH.

Mini-Logos – The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo section) and Hawkeye (Marvel section)

Sprites – Growl (a few sprites added) updated.

The Legend of Zelda hit U.S. shores today yesterday in 1986, so here’s a quick sprite to celebrate that:

If you want to see something more interesting, check out what Buyog made in the following link:
Happy Zelda Day

edit: There will be an update next week with a new effect for the Graphic Generators.

Sorry for the small update, but it’s going to be like this for a while as I work on commission art projects and all the other crap you hear me rambling about. The commission job is a piece of cartoony artwork and that’s one of the reasons why most of the new sprites share a common theme.

Graphic Generators

New Characters: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Ghost Monsters and Pooka for Namco. Space Invaders for Taito.
Updated Characters: Thanos (sprites)

GroupShot – 160×192 Box tributes (“Red Top” NES and Tengen NES game boxes added along with some Pac-related backgrounds)

Custom Sprites – Ms. Pac-Man, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde, Sue and Pooka (all scratch-made) added to the Namco page.

Mini-logos

This is the biggest custom mini-logo update I’ve ever done. I typed up a big breakdown of new logos, including the numerous company-based logos, but that draft got lost. I’m not typing all of that again so look at the big preview pic. The preview pic doesn’t even show all the variations of the logos like the flat Sega logo, darker SF logo, and more.

BTW: A few of these mini-logos were made because people replied in the Request Line topic I posted last year. It took me a while to get to them, but they still, as R-Truth would say, got got.

Sprites – Bad Dudes page updated with new sprites, animations and a fixed version of Blade’s charge-up animation.

Minus World – I updated the Bootleg Wrestlers page with a Animal’s LOD-like taunt from Bad Dudes vs. Dragonninja.

I’m taking a 96% pause from fan art to be added until the SOPA/ProtectIP crap rolls through, so I’m concentrating on sharpening up a few site-related things.

GFX Generators – Sprites now have a “Direction” option. Default is the direction that the screenstyle wants the sprites to face (like a Vs Screen with P1 facing normally and P2 having a horizontally-flipped sprite).

sprite direction demo

Default is how the screen suggests the sprites should be pointed. Normal had the sprite facing its original direction and Reverse flips the sprite horizontally. Screen Opposite causes the sprite to face the opposite direction that Default would make it face.

The Minus World – The Bootleg Wrestlers feature just got a big update with a better design, added wrestler references and more. I was supposed to do this last year, but it got lost in the shuffle.

Tutorials – The article I made in 2008 about browsers’ forced anti-aliasing turning sprites into pixel diarrhea has been rewritten and moved to the tutorial section. You can find it right here. I also replaced the game sprites with my own pixel art so the page can stay up after any of those IP bills become law.


A new site has been added to the Quick Links on the side navigation: NXISTENCE.NET. Anyone who wants to read articles about gaming but don’t want the annoying schmucky smarm or baseline idjitry of commons sites need to check them out. The site is run by good people, so go give that place some love!




Custom Graphics: 2001-2011

A Friendly reminder: ScrollBoss will be shut down if any of those bass-ackwards IP bills become law here in the U.S., so download the pack before this stuff is gone from the internet.

I just added a special .ZIP file download to the Custom Sprite Pack Downloads page. What’s in it? Nearly every custom sprite, mini-logo and portrait you’ve ever seen on this site and a that you haven’t seen. Seriously.



Custom Graphics: 2001-2011

I don’t know what the future of this site will be if SOPA, Protect IP or any other misguided bill of that sort passes, so I figured I’d bundle everything up into a .ZIP and let you save a copy of those pixels. Anyone who downloaded this from the PCS board doesn’t have the NameGFX I just added with the regular and customized in-game nametags from X-Men, SFA3 and Vampire Savior.

ScrollBoss is on semi-pause until SOPA and ProtectIP pass or fail their trials of becoming bills. ScrollBoss will close temporarily if either bill passes and Illmosis will be purged of its fan art. Even if the bills fail, I’m not sure if I want to make or even show old fan work of companies that allowed their name to be on the official SOPA support list (a link to the current PDF can be found on this page). Trust me, ScrollBoss will live on one way or another. Thanks for visiting and have a great 2012!

edit: I forgot to post a link to this. Just a lil’ something I’ve been working on for a while.

beforeinbetweenafter