Super Metroid/SMILE Help Thread

2007-11-07 12:33:31 am

Eschews avatars

Two questions, one kinda broad.

First: how do you make a given room exist in one area but show up on the map of another? (if that's not clear wording, it's what was done in golden dawn to some of the boss rooms and in SFI to crateria's map)

Second: what's the deal with room states? Sometimes you can only edit the enemies and PLMs; sometimes you can only edit FX1; sometimes you can edit the entire room layout! How do you tell which you can do (and specifically, how do you change room layout in different states?)

Black Telomeres

2007-11-07 07:37:37 am

Quote from ducknerd:

Two questions, one kinda broad.

First: how do you make a given room exist in one area but show up on the map of another? (if that's not clear wording, it's what was done in golden dawn to some of the boss rooms and in SFI to crateria's map)

Whenever there's an area transition, doors normally have their bitflag (its one of the fields in SMILE's door editor, mouseover each field until you find it) set to "40" rather than "00." The way you can have rooms in one area but have the map act as if you went through the room and it was in the current area you're in is merely to not put in that "40." However, there is one caveat: in order to have the map data correctly interpreted, you have to have the boss room (or whatever room you want) moved to the exact x/y location (20 down 25 across for example) of where it would be in area A only in Area B. Area A being the one its illusionarily in and area B the one its really in. Also, another consideration. You probably don't want any rooms near that location in Area B's map, because the minimap will show them (and thus be inaccurate if the player glances at it) instead of just being black. Now the real problem is that they can still pause in that room and your illusion is shattered >=) Btw, I think another one of the Japanese hacks also did this. Whichever hack had Botwoon in the escape.

Quote from ducknerd:

Second: what's the deal with room states? Sometimes you can only edit the enemies and PLMs; sometimes you can only edit FX1; sometimes you can edit the entire room layout! How do you tell which you can do (and specifically, how do you change room layout in different states?)

Basically the only way to tell is to try. You get used to which rooms have which restrictions about what you can alter in the alternate states as you gain more experience.

[quote="ducknerd"]
Two questions, one kinda broad.

First: how do you make a given room exist in one area but show up on the map of another? (if that's not clear wording, it's what was done in golden dawn to some of the boss rooms and in SFI to crateria's map)[/quote]

Whenever there's an area transition, doors normally have their bitflag (its one of the fields in SMILE's door editor, mouseover each field until you find it) set to "40" rather than "00." The way you can have rooms in one area but have the map act as if you went through the room and it was in the current area you're in is merely to not put in that "40." However, there is one caveat: in order to have the map data correctly interpreted, you have to have the boss room (or whatever room you want) moved to the exact x/y location (20 down 25 across for example) of where it would be in area A only in Area B. Area A being the one its illusionarily in and area B the one its really in. Also, another consideration. You probably don't want any rooms near that location in Area B's map, because the minimap will show them (and thus be inaccurate if the player glances at it) instead of just being black. Now the real problem is that they can still pause in that room and your illusion is shattered >=) Btw, I think another one of the Japanese hacks also did this. Whichever hack had Botwoon in the escape.

[quote="ducknerd"]Second: what's the deal with room states? Sometimes you can only edit the enemies and PLMs; sometimes you can only edit FX1; sometimes you can edit the entire room layout! How do you tell which you can do (and specifically, how do you change room layout in different states?)[/quote]

Basically the only way to tell is to try. You get used to which rooms have which restrictions about what you can alter in the alternate states as you gain more experience.

Sigfriedxx

Edit history:

Sigfriedxx: 2007-11-08 01:30:47 am

2007-11-07 10:16:38 am

Quote from ducknerd:

First: how do you make a given room exist in one area but show up on the map of another?

Can't you just use a GFX sheet from norfair but set the room area to say, Crateria?

ultimad13

2007-11-07 07:21:52 pm

I have (yes another) question. :|

If you edit a room and add an extra pathway that originally wasnt there...lets say like a morphball path to the Red door (thats takes you to the path to the Bomb Chozo) from the lowest Blue Door in the room you access at the beginning of the game. Instead of going through the morphball path it'll just take me back to the left side of the room and itll act as if I'm in the room the morphball path led to. Basically..how do you make the room transition?

Sorry about all these questions, brand new to this lol.

ducknerd

2007-11-08 12:33:58 am

Eschews avatars

Oh, it seems you've learned the joy of scroll areas! Don't worry about asking a lot of questions; SMILE has a fairly steep learning curve if you're new to game programming (plus SM's weird enought that it can still throw you off). You'll want to go to the drop-down menus and turn on "show scroll areas" (sorry, can't remember the exact menu path off the top of my head). Red boxes mean you can't scroll into them; if you move into them, the game will make Samus' sprite (but NOT her position) "wrap" around the screen. Green boxes scroll freely, and blue boxes are a little strange. While the "map blocks" in the game are 16 by 16 blocks, the game shows 16 by 12, with the bottom and top two rows lopped off. Blue boxes, if they don't have adjacent green boxes, will not scroll past this vertical 12-block-high zone. Basically, they exist to make it so one-block-high rooms won't scroll up and down.

Just reread your post, hope that was what you were talking about. If you meant you got a DOOR transition, then change the properties of the blocks in your tunnel to air :D

Oh, it seems you've learned the joy of scroll areas! Don't worry about asking a lot of questions; SMILE has a fairly steep learning curve if you're new to game programming (plus SM's weird enought that it can still throw you off). You'll want to go to the drop-down menus and turn on "show scroll areas" (sorry, can't remember the exact menu path off the top of my head). Red boxes mean you can't scroll into them; if you move into them, the game will make Samus' sprite (but NOT her position) "wrap" around the screen. Green boxes scroll freely, and blue boxes are a little strange. While the "map blocks" in the game are 16 by 16 blocks, the game shows 16 by 12, with the bottom and top two rows lopped off. Blue boxes, if they don't have adjacent green boxes, will not scroll past this vertical 12-block-high zone. Basically, they exist to make it so one-block-high rooms won't scroll up and down.

Just reread your post, hope that was what you were talking about. If you meant you got a DOOR transition, then change the properties of the blocks in your tunnel to air :D

ultimad13

2007-11-09 05:22:59 pm

Yup that definitely helped. Ill experiment with that tonight. One more quick question. How do you disguise a speed booster, super missile or power bomb block?

ducknerd

2007-11-09 07:30:09 pm

Eschews avatars

In the right part of the SMILE window, there is a bar that says BTS (stands for Behind the Scenes, IIRC). There is a drop-down list and a series of icons. Just click on the icon you like (say, the super missile one) and drag it to the block you want to modify. SMILE will show it as a Super Missile block, but if you turn off the BTS layer (F3) or encounter the block in-game, it'll look like an ordinary block. For the record, that drop-down menu is used to give any BTS value to any block, and gets super handy when you start doing things like relocating doors and creating 1x2 shot blocks.

BTW, a great way to learn about SMILE is just to make another copy of the ROM and just see what works and what doesn't; that way, you don't have to worry about any crashing glitches that will destroy all your careful work.

ultimad13

Edit history:

ultimad13: 2007-11-11 11:29:59 am

2007-11-10 07:54:11 pm

yup thats basically what ive been doing :-D

Rather fun ^_^

Is there a way to edit scroll areas or something? I was looking through a few hacks and I noticed there scroll areas were changed.

Sigfriedxx

2007-11-11 11:55:11 am

Yes, you can edit scroll areas by going into scroll editor mode. to do this: Preferences>View>Tilesize>8x8

soulhunger

2007-11-11 07:56:45 pm

Okay, I just recently started messing with SMILE. I gave up last night, but this morning, with some help, I learned how to move items, and a little bit about doors. Definitely starting to get more fun now.

One thing I'm confused about though: When editing doors, what do the x and y boxes do? I assumed it was Samus' position after coming out of the door, but when I messed with it, I got really weird results, like coming out of a door, above the map, then coming out of a door way above Samus' ship. It was the right room, but the position was off. Then I got an idea -- use the same numbers as in the door that leads to the one I wanted to come out of. Voila, it worked. But the problem is that if I wanted to create my own rooms, I wouldn't know how to fill these boxes in.

Oh, and if it helps, I was just trying out the ship room as a sandbox. I changed the door directly left of the ship so that it would come out at the Super Missile door to the right.

Any help would be appreciated.

Fano7

Edit history:

Fano7: 2007-11-11 08:24:53 pm

2007-11-11 08:13:25 pm

Every Bit Counts

I'm new to smile, so I have some (well actualy 1) question(s). If I wanted to put space jump or grapple beam in the room with Samus ship, how would I do that?

Edit: How do you add enimes to a room?

Black Telomeres

2007-11-11 10:18:54 pm

soulhunger: you're not really intended to mess with those values in the door editor manually until you really become an expert at SMILE/SM editting. Cloning doors and transferring their properties to each other takes care of most of that stuff for you automatically if you do it correctly. http://www.freewebs.com/blacktelomeres/smilefaq.htm has more info about that.

As for "adding" spacejump, etc., that faq also has info on how to do that. Although the proscribed process of "adding" items is more like turning useless PLMs in the same room into whatever items you want so you dont have to use the add script unless you absolutely have to. And adding enemies can cause random errors so you need to test stuff and be careful when doing it. The short answer without wading through that SMILE faq is that adding enemies is doable with the option Edit>Special>Enemy/PLM +/-. But as I said, be careful with it. Adding PLMs with this script can also cause problems in surrounding rooms depending on where its used.

soulhunger: you're not really intended to mess with those values in the door editor manually until you really become an expert at SMILE/SM editting. Cloning doors and transferring their properties to each other takes care of most of that stuff for you automatically if you do it correctly. http://www.freewebs.com/blacktelomeres/smilefaq.htm has more info about that.

As for "adding" spacejump, etc., that faq also has info on how to do that. Although the proscribed process of "adding" items is more like turning useless PLMs in the same room into whatever items you want so you dont have to use the add script unless you absolutely have to. And adding enemies can cause random errors so you need to test stuff and be careful when doing it. The short answer without wading through that SMILE faq is that adding enemies is doable with the option Edit>Special>Enemy/PLM +/-. But as I said, be careful with it. Adding PLMs with this script can also cause problems in surrounding rooms depending on where its used.

Fano7

Edit history:

Fano7: 2007-11-12 06:30:50 am

2007-11-12 06:19:55 am

Every Bit Counts

But what if I wanted to add an enemy to a room that has none? Also, what if I wanted to add an item to a room that has none?

Edit: Whats all this garbage for?

attachment:

Super Metroid (JU) [!]000.png

Black Telomeres

Edit history:

Black Telomeres: 2007-11-12 06:59:33 am

2007-11-12 06:56:26 am

Wow, I have no idea what you did to that room to cause that (never got anything like that myself) but its quite the insane looking error. Anything from enemies with incorrect parameters to the graphic set being changed could cause something like that. It depends on what you changed. It'd be hard to guess just from looking at it.

And I dunno, I've never tried adding enemies to rooms without any. It probably depends on the room. Make a backup of your rom and test it, look for errors or blank enemies added in adjacent rooms as well. Adding PLMs to a room has a decent probability of adding another PLM in a room after/before that room in a random place which you may not want. Or it may remove/rearrange PLMs in adjacent rooms

Sigfriedxx

2007-11-12 10:01:52 am

You can add Enemies and PLM's to rooms without any easily. just find free space in the proper banks they are located in, see the pointer window. the number on the left is the bank #, the 2 byte value is the pointer. Follow the pointer to the bank and find free space in the bank, and change the pointer to match that address, and then go to plm/enemy +/-

NEVER add either plm/Enemy to any room before relocating the current data to free space! the rom is packed almost air tight, and there is valuable data in between. Add any new data and you'll corrupt another rooms data, maybe a room header, maybe scroll data, usually F- up the enemy data or PLM data, and end up with a screen flooded with red '?' block plm's

Fano7

2007-11-12 04:10:58 pm

Every Bit Counts

I don't really understand. So let me make it eaiser to explain. If I wanted to add Botween (or some other boss) and Space Jump in the room with Samus ship, how do I do (or can I)?

ducknerd

2007-11-13 01:05:54 am

Eschews avatars

Space Jump is an item, and all items, colored doors, and scroll modifiers are handled as PLMs. Right-clicking on a PLM will let you modify its attributes. There are a few PLMs in the landing site, so just edit one of them. As for Botwoon, bosses are very heavily scripted in SM and trying to put them in another room is basically impossible without excellent knowledge of assembly code and the game's programming. Also, please read both BT's guide and the Japanese one before posting questions; they have basically all the answers you need for casual editing and will save both you and us a lot of time.

Oh, and thanks Sigriedxx. I had no idea you could actually use the Enemy/PLM +- thing without seriously glitching things up.

Fano7

2007-11-13 06:06:24 am

Every Bit Counts

Thanks. I don't see this anywhere, but how do you cover up a shot or crumble block? Like so that way they are there, even though they don't look like it.

P.JMan

2007-11-13 10:27:22 am

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

You change this 1st. If you double click the picture of the block then it highlights all the crumble blocks in red

attachment:

untitled.PNG

ultimad13

2007-11-13 09:26:27 pm

ducknerd, where can I find those guides?

P.JMan

2007-11-14 10:23:05 am

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

BT's http://www.freewebs.com/blacktelomeres/smilefaq.htm

Japanese one (which is pretty darn useful if you know japanese) http://sukamax.hp.infoseek.co.jp/SMILE.html

ducknerd

2007-11-15 10:29:42 pm

Eschews avatars

For the record, google translator works for that Japanese FAQ, it's just... interesting to read. It is quite thorough, though, if you can stay sane reading it.

FirePhoenix

2007-11-16 03:19:49 pm

Quick something I wanted to mention. There's a SMILE help file in the works on a Moonedit server. If you know how SMILE works and how to use Moonedit, maybe you can help us out. The server address is 213.239.193.176 and the server port is 6918. Then click on the file named SMILE and join it. THat's where the editing is going on. RIght now, there's only a table of contents but with help we should be able to get a help file done.

rolando

2007-11-16 06:41:23 pm

ok this is what i did i copied the gravity suit and gave it a new number code
now do i go into SMILE and change the # to the same number has the acid?
wait does acid even have a number or plm?
im i going towards the right direction with this so far or?

rolando

2007-11-16 06:51:50 pm

Quote from rolando:

ok this is what i did i copied the gravity suit and gave it a new number code
now do i go into SMILE and change the # to the same number has the acid?
wait does acid even have a number or plm?
im i going towards the right direction with this so far or?

oh and is there an assembly program? if so which one is good but free?