My internet connection has been faulty since last week and it’s too unpredictable to upload the next update. It randomly blinks out and causes me to be disconnected for seconds, minutes or even hours. The Graphic Generators upgrade is something that will completely screw things up if my connection decides to stop working in the middle of uploading it. The new features aren’t that major but I need to be sure they’ll all get on site or they won’t work until I’m back online. I apologize for the delay and I’ll keep working on things to make the update even bigger to make up for lost time.
I’m still building up enough content to have a decent update. Beside that preview I posted in the weblog last week, I have some other things done for the generator including minor adjustments to the engine itself. I also have two new GroupShot themes nearly done. Here’s the one I’m 100% done with:
This was something I wanted to do for the big Superhero update last year but I decided to go with the Mego package since it could work for both Marvel and DC. The other is ready to go now but I want to add some more optional graphics before I show you. I’ll have this and more ready in the next update.
Breakin’ News 
LittleBigPlanet 2 is out now and word on the street is that it’s amazing. It’ll be a while before I can get it but I will get it. Here’s something that a lot of people are missing: the Spacesuit costume is back. It’s only available in special instances so get it now. Go to the PSN store and it’s add-ons section but go to the LittleBigPlanet2 add-ons instead of the regular LBP section. The completely free Spacesuit is in there and works with both LBP 1 and 2.
Wizzy has been on an unstoppable rampage of fine, fine CPS2-style music and this one is just filled with magic:
That cool-looking X sprite is by Camo. Great job on that, too! Check out Wizzy’s YouTube page and subscribe if you like what you hear.
GFX Generators – I figured that a superhero-related update for the generator needed one new style that both Marvel and DC could use and there was only one obvious choice.
Okay, it’s only obvious to other toy geezers like me. Most of you are too young to remember Mego’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes toyline (see the Mego Museum site for details) but you may have seen the various tribute lines by Toy Biz, Kenner, Hasbro. Mattel is currently making DC figures with blister cards that mirror the old Mego packages that the new GroupShot screenstyle pays respect to. This lead to two new features for the generator engine. One simple addition is that the minilogos can now appear behind the sprite in some styles. The most important change is that screenstyles now have their own options on the second menu page under the sprite and palette options. The Mego style lets you choose a card color and whether you want the DC or Marvel head portraits on the side. This also let me combine a few older screenstyles that were just palette swaps like Apocalypse Now from X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter or the two versions of SFA’s China stage. The Slammasters Ring now has a few different Ring and Vs. options from both games that you can mix and match parts like this:
Expect to see many more backgrounds take crazy advantage of this in future updates.
New characters: the Atom, Blue Beetle, Captain Cold, Deathstroke, Green Arrow, Robin, Power Girl, Supergirl, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing
Character updates: Batman, the Belmonts, Catwoman, Hulk, Iron Man, Joker, Rick Taylor (Splatterhouse), Spider-Man, Superman
GroupShot New screenstyles: Mego – World’s Greatest Super-Heroes
Vs.Maker Updated screenstyes: Slammasters rings (options with multiple ring backgrounds and Vs. graphic)
Custom Sprites –
DC: Atoms Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Deathstroke, Robin (Tim Drake), Supergirl, Superman
Marvel: the Human Torch (in both flame on and off modes), Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, Iron Man (two poses in the fan-favorite 4th armor) and the Thing
Konami: Simon Belmont – CV2 outfit
Namco: Rick Taylor – a slight variation to the Splatterhouse 3 sprite.
Minilogo – the Atom (1960s and ‘All-New’), Batman (1970), Captain Cold, Captain Marvel, Deathstroke, Green Arrow (’70s), Riddler (’70s) and Robin (’70s blocky), Supergirl (modern curved) logos added to the DC section. The Falcon, Hulk (’70s-80s angle logo), Human Torch, Invisible Woman added to the Marvel section. New color variants of Aquaman, Shazam and Superman logos added. These were added to the GFX Generator character files as well.
I planned to have more than this but I was worn out from Black Friday comic convention and lack of sleep. I hope this makes up for the lack of comic-related content in the 10th Anniversary update.
edit: Deathstroke was accidentally left out of both the Sprite Gallery and Graphic Generator uploads. I’d like to think Ryan Choi’s vengeful ghost made that happen. That’s been fixed so Slade can now cause kill off interesting characters on this site now. Hooray.
No site updates until the October 29th. I’ll try to have something horror and monster-themed ready but I can’t make any promises.
This isn’t an update but it’s important enough to put in the news section.
I’m going to be at the All AmeriCon convention in Warren, Ohio this weekend (May 2nd). I have a post on Illmosis with more info here. Even if you can’t buy anything, stop by and get that Illmosis party flyer that mentions ScrollBoss’ 10th birthday.
ScrollBoss has been quiet for a while because I’ve focused on making more drawn art for the convention. People who know the early days of this site may remember I did the same thing when getting ready for other conventions. They may also remember that I’d make sure that the following month would have crazy updates to make up for it and that’s how May is going to be here.. Do you like the Vs. Maker graphic generator? Then you’ll like it even more when you see one of the new features in the next update. What is it? See if you can figure it out from this screenshot:
May is going to be an active month here so be sure to keep an eye on the site.
Sorry if things look a bit weird right now but my plan to update the layout, CSS and other things went awry like so much mad science. One good result is that things look a bit more consistent on every page. It’s not 100% yet but a lot of older pages finally got redone. I went into a few sections like the Tutorials got a bit of extra work to make the basics look nicer. I also remade the logos again. This new set turned out nice and crisp so I’ll probably stick with them for a while. One other new thing is the new Final Fight banner added to the main menu header rotation. The banners are randomly chosen but I stacked the list so that you’ll probably see it.
Meanwhile, I’m taking my time on coloring the Tyris Flare pic that I drew a while ago. Here’s another preview shot:
Don’t forget that Final Fight: Double Impact is available for X-Box Live and Playstation Network this week. You get fully enhanced versions of both Final Fight and Magic Sword with achievements, unlockable content, online co-op, remixed BGM, graphic filters and much, much more. If you have the system and the money, be sure to pick it up for all the pipe-swinging, lizardman bribing fun!
Work continues on that boring behind-the-scenes crap that no one really cares about. The biggest project right now is the new graphic gallery script that will eventually replace all the old sprite pages. It has some nice little features in it including links to the Game Index. I’m still working on it but here’s a preview using the Alex Kidd page:
Image gallery test
This is the big reason why I’m not going to update the sprite galleries for a while since it’d make more work for me to convert the pages to the new gallery data style.
I’ve also been working on more of those rectangle graphics that you see in certain parts of the site.
Here’s a look at something else I’ve been working on:
July 19th, 2010 will be the 10th Anniversary of ScrollBoss. I’m going to warn you right now that the first few updates of this year will probably be boring with very few sprites, sprite edits and things like that. The main reason is that I’m working on upgrades for sections of the site and you’ll see a bit of that in this update. The other reason… is something I’m not ready to announce yet. Here’s the newness of this update.
ScrollBoss Blog – The new ScrollBoss web log (powered by WordPress) will be getting a workout by serving as a blog, an eventual feedback outlet for things and the new engine for the site update news posts. If you’re reading this on ScrollBoss’ main menu, you’re really reading the weblog. The good news is that I can copy the old news posts and use their old dates to keep everything in order. The bad news is that I don’t think I can copy the responses. That old news (and responses) will be archived on the Old News page. The MugenBoss index page also got this update but it still looks ugly overall. That’s one of the sections I’ll be working on this year because the header is too damned fugly.
Tips and Cheats – The entire section has been modified to not suck as much. Each tip now has a link to the game’s index page if it exists. Added tips for Contra (NES), SoR3, Final Fight (SNES), Sonic Blast Man (SNES). Nothing that you couldn’t get from any decent code site but I may as well have it here too. I’m also trying to use more accurate tip descriptions like the Sonic Blast Man code that is always described as a level select even though it’s not.
Game Index and 1989 – Another code rewrite shows up on the Game Index’s main page and the 1989 Game List. Ninja Gaiden (NES), Sonic Blast Man added and the 1989 Game List was updated.
Logos – Sonic Blast Man added.
Mini-logos – Bayou Billy, Emma Frost, Vigilante (IREM) added.
The new computer is finished thanks to tons of help from one of my friends who is currently in mysterious mode right now or else I’d say who it was. Slowly getting things sorted out while taking time to work on things including a full color version of that NES-style Radd Spencer pic.
Since there’s no update here this week, allow me to suggest that you check out the two new links I added:
Quartermaster (by Shadi from the Capcom Arcade Shrine)
Deathamster’s Nest
edit (2009/08/30):
Okay, maybe this is almost like an update. The Sprite Rip page now has a zip file with the small lifebar portraits from Final Fight One (including the Food and Point frames plus Poison, Roxy, Sid and Billy.
Also, that NES-style Radd Spencer pic I drew a while ago is now in full color on the Illmosis site.
(this is an archived news post)
I’m putting this site on pause until my new, non-freezing computer is finished. You may have read my whining about system lock-ups, freezes and so-such before but they really do kill a lot of my time and momentum when I either wait for the freeze to end or just reboot my system and open up all the multiple programs and folders again. I also planned to start putting videos together but it’s hard to do that when a random freeze can hit you while recording. A good friend has helped out with most of the parts for this system and I just got the DVD/CD burner from Newegg today. The wait shouldn’t be that long. I also need time to work on a comic but I’ll still be working a bit on ScrollBoss, too.
I’m fine-tuning that article I’ve been threatening to add to the Minus World for a few weeks now and it may be ready for the next update. If you know where to look, you’ve already seen artwork for it. I’m also working on new game section-based graphic boxes. Thanks to the freezes I mentioned earlier, many weren’t finished in time for the big update and I accidentally forgot to replace the placeholders on pages like the Capcom section. I fixed that yesterday. Here’s a few of those along with some I’ll be using for future sections and such:
I’ll try to have some cool stuff ready before the next update which will probably be in September. I may even give the month a theme which will be a secret until then.
Another addition was an Amazon.com widget at the bottom of the main menu’s side menu. Game purchases made by clicking through the links over there give me a referral fee that’d help offset the costs of running this place, mainly the paid site account. If you can’t find those collections locally and plan to buy them through Amazon, buying it through those widget links would help me and the site out a lil’ bit. No pressure but be sure to check your local game stores first, especially any independent spots in your area. They need the most help these days.
See you in September!
edit: My computer froze up about 6 minutes after posting this and I had to reboot.
(this is an archived news post)