Help needed modifying a MAME driver for sprite ripping

[bdlou]

Hey all. Wasn't sure of a good site to ask this at, so I figured I'd start here. I'm in the process of trying to rip the sprites out of the old arcade classic WWF Wrestlefest. I've modified the driver for the game so that I can black out everything but the characters. The next step would be to make the background that does show up be pink instead of black, since there is black on the edges of the characters that make removing the background a pain.

Does anyone have any pointers or suggestions on such a project? The ulimate goal is a project to recreate and expand upon this awesome game.

Thanks in advance!

Louis

[Ziggy]

Have you ever been to romhacking.net?

[bdlou]

Have you ever been to romhacking.net?

That doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I'm asking.

That's a great place to start. Thanks Ziggy!

[Anapan]

Having access to the mame driver, you could find out where and how the rom stores it's palette data, and modify the rom's background palettes to all be magenta. Pressing F4 in mame shows you palette data aswell. Another method that might work is using a windows memory editor like Gamewiz32 or softice to real-time hack the palette data as mame stores it in memory. Those methods might be easier than writing subroutines in mame's driver.
Romhacking.net has palette editor programs in it's utility archive. I don't know if arcade games use 15bpp like SNES and GBA do but I've used snespal successfully on a few roms before when doing character swaps and it works really well.
The game also plays in Raine so that may be a step back, but working in 256 color mode you may be able to save screenshots in 256 colors and load modified palettes into them with a batch script in Paint Shop Pro's batch mode to get the desired results.

[bdlou]

Thanks for the tips!

[Ziggy]

No, I meant you could ask on the forums there.

[bdlou]

No, I meant you could ask on the forums there.

I was making a joke about how silly I was for not thinking to go there. Especially since I've been to that site many times in the past to check out some of the hacks people have done.

[Ziggy]

Oh, well then excuse ME for not getting the sarcasm! I blame my job for making me too tired.

[bdlou]

Oh, well then excuse ME for not getting the sarcasm! I blame my job for making me too tired.

Come 'ere. Louis'll give you a big ol' hug.

[bdlou]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

Geez. I can't believe it's been almost a year. Someone contacted me about reviving the project. Here's an article about what I came up with so far. I'd love to get some expert eyes on this, as well as create awareness for the project in general!

WrestleFest Revival - Ripping the sprites for WrestleFest