Super Metroid/SMILE Help Thread

Edit history:

Deep_Space_Observer: 2008-07-26 04:40:07 pm

2008-07-26 04:37:43 pm

Room I was working on is expanded, but the map doesn't work properly when I'm in it. I go through a left door and the map shows me to the right of where I was.

Edit: since the room is now directed to bank E08000 is it safe to use the PLM-/+ function in the room or will that still corrupt other rooms?

Thanks.

playerman1230

2008-07-26 05:00:08 pm

Hated by all

Quote from Deep_Space_Observer:

Edit: since the room is now directed to bank E08000 is it safe to use the PLM-/+ function in the room or will that still corrupt other rooms?

I thought you still have to edit the PLM pointer.

Acheron

2008-07-26 06:26:57 pm

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Quote from playerman1230:

I thought you still have to edit the PLM pointer.

That's correct. If you want to use +/- PLMs/enemies, you'll need to change the pointer for enemy set, population, and PLMs in the room. Note these are all in specific banks so you can't just put them anywhere.

It's a little more complicated than expanding rooms but if you're smart enough to do room expansion it's just an extra step. If you want me to go into it just let me know, I'll try to make a tutorial for it.

Bolognab

2008-07-26 09:47:39 pm

Exactly why do some doors open backwards? (when you shoot it it reverses) And how do I fix it?

Acheron

2008-07-26 10:17:16 pm

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When drawing a door you can't just copy a door bubble from another door and flip it. You need to copy a working door bubble that faces the same way.

Deep_Space_Observer

Edit history:

Deep_Space_Observer: 2008-07-26 11:31:10 pm

2008-07-26 11:27:27 pm

How do you make a scrolling sky background, and how do you fix map errors that result when you expand a room?

I think I understand the basic process of making new tilesets with TLP, but I have a question. Is this just replacing the tilesets that were already there, or can you create new tilesets to go along with the existing ones?

Quote from archeron86:

Well, you can add new FX sets if you find some free space in bank $83 (and there's lots of free space there). Otherwise no, not easily.

I would also like to understand how you convert between SMILE's "Bank $##" and what you see in the hex editor.

Edit: thanks for all the help.

Bolognab

2008-07-26 11:38:53 pm

Is there anything in GT's room that influences its usage of the gold shock waves attack? And if I changed an enemy's weakness from 02 to 06, would it take triple the amount of damage? Or does this only work for 04.

Acheron

2008-07-27 12:24:00 am

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Quote from Deep_Space_Observer:

How do you make a scrolling sky background, and how do you fix map errors that result when you expand a room?

I think I understand the basic process of making new tilesets with TLP, but I have a question. Is this just replacing the tilesets that were already there, or can you create new tilesets to go along with the existing ones?

Quote from archeron86:

Well, you can add new FX sets if you find some free space in bank $83 (and there's lots of free space there). Otherwise no, not easily.

I would also like to understand how you convert between SMILE's "Bank $##" and what you see in the hex editor.

Edit: thanks for all the help.

While you are limited to 30 tilesets in-game (and some of these you should leave alone, like boss room tilesets), a lot of them are wasted space and if you changed the pointers you could use them as entirely new tilesets. I've done this plenty already.

To convert banks, plug in the BANK number in the bottom of the "edit pointers" window on the left field, and the address WITHIN that bank in the right field. Look at the top of the "edit pointers" window, you'll see a value. That's the literal address in the ROM if you were to look at it in a hex editor.

Scrolling sky is an ongoing struggle, there's a really complicated fix posted above that Rakki found and unsane posted, or there's the easier workaround that BT has on his SMILE guide.

Map errors... use the map editor! It's mostly self-explanitory, ask if you can't figure it out though.

And I see how you misspelled my name there, don't think I didn't notice. laugh new

Quote from Bolognab:

Is there anything in GT's room that influences its usage of the gold shock waves attack? And if I changed an enemy's weakness from 02 to 06, would it take triple the amount of damage? Or does this only work for 04.

There is but I don't know what it is. I think it miiight have to do with the height he stands at? Maybe? I don't know, I had this problem with bomb torizo in Aegis as well.

And yes if you change him to 06 he will take 3 times as much damage as usual.

[quote="Deep_Space_Observer"]
How do you make a scrolling sky background, and how do you fix map errors that result when you expand a room?

I think I understand the basic process of making new tilesets with TLP, but I have a question. Is this just replacing the tilesets that were already there, or can you create new tilesets to go along with the existing ones?

[quote=archeron86]Well, you can add new FX sets if you find some free space in bank $83 (and there's lots of free space there). Otherwise no, not easily.[/quote]

I would also like to understand how you convert between SMILE's "Bank $##" and what you see in the hex editor.

Edit: thanks for all the help.
[/quote]

While you are limited to 30 tilesets in-game (and some of these you should leave alone, like boss room tilesets), a lot of them are wasted space and if you changed the pointers you could use them as entirely new tilesets. I've done this plenty already.

To convert banks, plug in the BANK number in the bottom of the "edit pointers" window on the left field, and the address WITHIN that bank in the right field. Look at the top of the "edit pointers" window, you'll see a value. That's the literal address in the ROM if you were to look at it in a hex editor.

Scrolling sky is an ongoing struggle, there's a really complicated fix posted above that Rakki found and unsane posted, or there's the easier workaround that BT has on his SMILE guide.

Map errors... use the map editor! It's mostly self-explanitory, ask if you can't figure it out though.

And I see how you misspelled my name there, don't think I didn't notice.  :laugh:

[quote="Bolognab"]
Is there anything in GT's room that influences its usage of the gold shock waves attack? And if I changed an enemy's weakness from 02 to 06, would it take triple the amount of damage? Or does this only work for 04.
[/quote]

There is but I don't know what it is. I think it miiight have to do with the height he stands at? Maybe? I don't know, I had this problem with bomb torizo in Aegis as well.

And yes if you change him to 06 he will take 3 times as much damage as usual.

Deep_Space_Observer

2008-07-27 01:27:45 am

Ugh, scrolling sky didn't give the effect I'd hoped for because it wasnt showing the part of the sky I wanted it to. I wanted to see the part with mountains and the sky right above that, but all I got was sky. So I tried expanding it to two blocks high, and now it's not working anymore. (I used BT's hack info for the scrolling sky). Also, the room to the left won't work in SMILE. I get a "test code 101" message, and according to the room ID I switched but it has the exact same tiles and stuff as the previous room. And the door data in it is all FF FF FF, I think it's been corrupted... wait, it's the extra scroll pointer data isn't it? I never repointed it so expanding the height increased the number of scroll blocks, eating up the next room and replacing it with the information of the room I was working on. But I can't seem to switch the bank for the scroll pointer, so how do I do that? Or is it one of those banks that the data has to be pointed to or it won't work?

Acheron

2008-07-27 01:47:24 am

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Quote from Deep_Space_Observer:

Ugh, scrolling sky didn't give the effect I'd hoped for because it wasnt showing the part of the sky I wanted it to. I wanted to see the part with mountains and the sky right above that, but all I got was sky. So I tried expanding it to two blocks high, and now it's not working anymore. (I used BT's hack info for the scrolling sky). Also, the room to the left won't work in SMILE. I get a "test code 101" message, and according to the room ID I switched but it has the exact same tiles and stuff as the previous room. And the door data in it is all FF FF FF, I think it's been corrupted... wait, it's the extra scroll pointer data isn't it? I never repointed it so expanding the height increased the number of scroll blocks, eating up the next room and replacing it with the information of the room I was working on. But I can't seem to switch the bank for the scroll pointer, so how do I do that? Or is it one of those banks that the data has to be pointed to or it won't work?

I'm not sure I follow everything you're saying but if you expand a room but don't give it a new scroll pointer you can end up overwriting the next room's room header info, which is bad and can break stuff. The fix isn't terribly hard but I'd use a backup if it's not a huge loss. You should back up obsessively when learning SMILE.

You can't switch banks for any of the stuff in the pointers window except for level data. It has to be in the bank listed there.

[quote="Deep_Space_Observer"]
Ugh, scrolling sky didn't give the effect I'd hoped for because it wasnt showing the part of the sky I wanted it to. I wanted to see the part with mountains and the sky right above that, but all I got was sky. So I tried expanding it to two blocks high, and now it's not working anymore. (I used BT's hack info for the scrolling sky). Also, the room to the left won't work in SMILE. I get a "test code 101" message, and according to the room ID I switched but it has the exact same tiles and stuff as the previous room. And the door data in it is all FF FF FF, I think it's been corrupted... wait, it's the extra scroll pointer data isn't it? I never repointed it so expanding the height increased the number of scroll blocks, eating up the next room and replacing it with the information of the room I was working on. But I can't seem to switch the bank for the scroll pointer, so how do I do that? Or is it one of those banks that the data has to be pointed to or it won't work?
[/quote]

I'm not sure I follow everything you're saying but if you expand a room but don't give it a new scroll pointer you can end up overwriting the next room's room header info, which is bad and can break stuff. The fix isn't terribly hard but I'd use a backup if it's not a huge loss. You should back up obsessively when learning SMILE.

You can't switch banks for any of the stuff in the pointers window except for level data. It has to be in the bank listed there.

Deep_Space_Observer

2008-07-27 02:03:53 am

But I don't know how to change the scroll pointer.

About the background thing, the room I was adding the sky into was one screen high, and I hoped to get the "right" part of the sky, so you see the clouds moving above the mountains, instead of just moving clouds.

Sadiztik Fish

2008-07-27 07:24:09 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

im sure theres the answer somewhere in this thread but i didnt want to look through 80 pages. what i want to do is have 5 or 6 rooms exactly the same 1 x 1 in tourian. each with 4 doors, ceiling floor left right and such. i know ill need to add doors with hex to have six rooms the same, so is it possible for someone to tell me exactly what i need to do for it to work?

Im trying to make a maze of sorts where only one door leads on and the others go back to the first room if you know what i mean.

Acheron

2008-07-27 11:11:21 am

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Quote from Deep_Space_Observer:

But I don't know how to change the scroll pointer.

About the background thing, the room I was adding the sky into was one screen high, and I hoped to get the "right" part of the sky, so you see the clouds moving above the mountains, instead of just moving clouds.

If all the doors in the area are at the edges, you can just put in "0001" for the scroll pointer (it's in the Edit Pointers window). Otherwise you will need to repoint to free space in that bank. You'll need to go to bank $8F (78000-7FFFF unheadered, if you are using headered god help you) and find some free space there (free space looks like FF FF FF FF FF). Then change the pointer to point to the free space there and you can re-do the scroll stuff.

If you mean you don't know how to edit scrolling in a room, go to Preferences->View->Tile Size->8x8. You can edit it from there. More info on this is in BT's SMILE guide.

Do not try to simply edit scrolls via the 8x8 view scroll editor in SMILE if you have expanded the room. You WILL overwrite room data elsewhere in the ROM. Use the above suggestion to change scroll pointers first, then you can edit them freely.

Quote from Sadiztik Fish:

im sure theres the answer somewhere in this thread but i didnt want to look through 80 pages. what i want to do is have 5 or 6 rooms exactly the same 1 x 1 in tourian. each with 4 doors, ceiling floor left right and such. i know ill need to add doors with hex to have six rooms the same, so is it possible for someone to tell me exactly what i need to do for it to work?

Im trying to make a maze of sorts where only one door leads on and the others go back to the first room if you know what i mean.

BT's guide, linked to in the first page of this thread, has a basic walkthrough for adding doors.

[quote="Deep_Space_Observer"]
But I don't know how to change the scroll pointer.

About the background thing, the room I was adding the sky into was one screen high, and I hoped to get the "right" part of the sky, so you see the clouds moving above the mountains, instead of just moving clouds.
[/quote]

If all the doors in the area are at the edges, you can just put in "0001" for the scroll pointer (it's in the Edit Pointers window). Otherwise you will need to repoint to free space in that bank. You'll need to go to bank $8F (78000-7FFFF unheadered, if you are using headered god help you) and find some free space there (free space looks like FF FF FF FF FF). Then change the pointer to point to the free space there and you can re-do the scroll stuff.

If you mean you don't know how to edit scrolling in a room, go to Preferences->View->Tile Size->8x8. You can edit it from there. More info on this is in BT's SMILE guide.

[b]Do not try to simply edit scrolls via the 8x8 view scroll editor in SMILE if you have expanded the room. You WILL overwrite room data elsewhere in the ROM. Use the above suggestion to change scroll pointers first, then you can edit them freely.[/b]

[quote="Sadiztik Fish"]
im sure theres the answer somewhere in this thread but i didnt want to look through 80 pages. what i want to do is have 5 or 6 rooms exactly the same 1 x 1 in tourian. each with 4 doors, ceiling floor left right and such. i know ill need to add doors with hex to have six rooms the same, so is it possible for someone to tell me exactly what i need to do for it to work?

Im trying to make a maze of sorts where only one door leads on and the others go back to the first room if you know what i mean.
[/quote]

BT's guide, linked to in the first page of this thread, has a basic walkthrough for adding doors.

Deep_Space_Observer

2008-07-27 12:49:54 pm

Thanks, 0001 works, I just thought you were talking about something much more complicated. I guess it would've been more accurate to say "I'm not sure how to repoint the scroll pointer", which is what I meant. But now I do.

I now need to create a new species. I just want to copy one of the ones that's already there, that way I can use its AI/movement for a guardian boss without giving the rest of them the same stats.

Acheron

Edit history:

Acheron: 2008-07-27 04:09:44 pm

2008-07-27 02:52:15 pm

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Quote from Deep_Space_Observer:

Thanks, 0001 works, I just thought you were talking about something much more complicated. I guess it would've been more accurate to say "I'm not sure how to repoint the scroll pointer", which is what I meant. But now I do.

I now need to create a new species. I just want to copy one of the ones that's already there, that way I can use its AI/movement for a guardian boss without giving the rest of them the same stats.

I haven't actually tried this myself yet. It's probably a bit complicated for a beginner in hex and sort of hard to explain how it works in theory. I'll check and see if I can do it, then I'll write a quick guide if it isn't too complex. I know it's been done though, I think SAC had that.

Edit: Fun times!

http://drewseph.zophar.net/Kejardon/AutoMapIcons.txt

Figured out how to move and rename area name icons on the map, if anyone's interested. As always, thanks to Kejardon for pioneering basically friggin' everything I do ASM-wise. If there's any interest in this I can write a guide up; it's probably about the most basic hexing/tile editing you can do so it's a good "first time" lesson for using both a hex editor and TLP.

[quote="Deep_Space_Observer"]
Thanks, 0001 works, I just thought you were talking about something much more complicated. I guess it would've been more accurate to say "I'm not sure how to repoint the scroll pointer", which is what I meant. But now I do.

I now need to create a new species. I just want to copy one of the ones that's already there, that way I can use its AI/movement for a guardian boss without giving the rest of them the same stats.
[/quote]

I haven't actually tried this myself yet. It's probably a bit complicated for a beginner in hex and sort of hard to explain how it works in theory. I'll check and see if I can do it, then I'll write a quick guide if it isn't too complex. I know it's been done though, I think SAC had that.

Edit: Fun times!

http://drewseph.zophar.net/Kejardon/AutoMapIcons.txt

Figured out how to move and rename area name icons on the map, if anyone's interested. As always, thanks to Kejardon for pioneering basically friggin' everything I do ASM-wise. If there's any interest in this I can write a guide up; it's probably about the most basic hexing/tile editing you can do so it's a good "first time" lesson for using both a hex editor and TLP.

Cardweaver

2008-07-27 05:23:44 pm

Quote from Acheron86:

Edit: Fun times!

http://drewseph.zophar.net/Kejardon/AutoMapIcons.txt

Figured out how to move and rename area name icons on the map, if anyone's interested. As always, thanks to Kejardon for pioneering basically friggin' everything I do ASM-wise. If there's any interest in this I can write a guide up; it's probably about the most basic hexing/tile editing you can do so it's a good "first time" lesson for using both a hex editor and TLP.

I'm very interested.

Also, I'm wondering about the palette number in the enemies sub window. Its down where the allowed species is, to the right of the listed species, and from what I can tell, it ranges from 0001 to 0007. I understand that it tells the enemy which of the palettes to use (such as if there are 2 enemies with 0002, one of them will have the other's palette instead of its own). What I can't understand is how to change these numbers. I want to make use of the green crabs in crateria in a different room, but if I can't change that number, or add in a new one, then I'm not sure how this'll be possible.

[quote="Acheron86"]
Edit: Fun times!

http://drewseph.zophar.net/Kejardon/AutoMapIcons.txt

Figured out how to move and rename area name icons on the map, if anyone's interested. As always, thanks to Kejardon for pioneering basically friggin' everything I do ASM-wise. If there's any interest in this I can write a guide up; it's probably about the most basic hexing/tile editing you can do so it's a good "first time" lesson for using both a hex editor and TLP.
[/quote]

I'm very interested.

Also, I'm wondering about the palette number in the enemies sub window. Its down where the allowed species is, to the right of the listed species, and from what I can tell, it ranges from 0001 to 0007. I understand that it tells the enemy which of the palettes to use (such as if there are 2 enemies with 0002, one of them will have the other's palette instead of its own). What I can't understand is how to change these numbers. I want to make use of the green crabs in crateria in a different room, but if I can't change that number, or add in a new one, then I'm not sure how this'll be possible.

Acheron

2008-07-27 05:30:01 pm

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Have you tried double-clicking the numbers? :P

As for the map guide, I'll write it up after a little more testing, I just don't want to screw anything up.

ducknerd

2008-07-27 05:37:22 pm

Eschews avatars

Hm, I've noticed a little bug in SMILE 1.23 (due to computer issues, I can't get 1.32; it's entirely possible this was fixed). In some rooms (this particular one is 12 screens high and contains space pirates), when I save, exit, and reenter the room all enemies will be moved up by one tile. Sometimes it'll be reflected in actual gameplay, sometimes not. Sometimes I'll change all the enemies back to their proper places and gameply will show them as being a tile lower than they should be! It's a small bug, but it's driving me nuts. Any ideas on how to combat it?

Also, does anyone know the offsets I would need to edit the damage of Botwoon's projectiles?

Acheron

2008-07-27 05:49:28 pm

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Quote from ducknerd:

Hm, I've noticed a little bug in SMILE 1.23 (due to computer issues, I can't get 1.32; it's entirely possible this was fixed). In some rooms (this particular one is 12 screens high and contains space pirates), when I save, exit, and reenter the room all enemies will be moved up by one tile. Sometimes it'll be reflected in actual gameplay, sometimes not. Sometimes I'll change all the enemies back to their proper places and gameply will show them as being a tile lower than they should be! It's a small bug, but it's driving me nuts. Any ideas on how to combat it?

Also, does anyone know the offsets I would need to edit the damage of Botwoon's projectiles?

It's a bug in 1.32 as well. As long as you don't move the enemies from their position when editing a room, they'll stay where they were last placed regardless of how they display themselves in SMILE (at least for 1.32). In other words, put a pirate in the right place in SMILE and save. If he looks normal in-game just leave him alone no matter how he appears to be standing in SMILE. If that doesn't work, it might be a version problem.

I have no idea where Botwoon's projectiles are stored. I wish I did.

[quote="ducknerd"]
Hm, I've noticed a little bug in SMILE 1.23 (due to computer issues, I can't get 1.32; it's entirely possible this was fixed). In some rooms (this particular one is 12 screens high and contains space pirates), when I save, exit, and reenter the room all enemies will be moved up by one tile. Sometimes it'll be reflected in actual gameplay, sometimes not. Sometimes I'll change all the enemies back to their proper places and gameply will show them as being a tile lower than they should be! It's a small bug, but it's driving me nuts. Any ideas on how to combat it?

Also, does anyone know the offsets I would need to edit the damage of Botwoon's projectiles?
[/quote]

It's a bug in 1.32 as well. As long as you don't move the enemies from their position when editing a room, they'll stay where they were last placed regardless of how they display themselves in SMILE (at least for 1.32). In other words, put a pirate in the right place in SMILE and save. If he looks normal in-game just leave him alone no matter how he appears to be standing in SMILE. If that doesn't work, it might be a version problem.

I have no idea where Botwoon's projectiles are stored. I wish I did.

Bolognab

2008-07-27 07:25:43 pm

Does anyone know a door scroll value that would allow me to scroll into a red scrolling area without scrolling into the red areas beside that one red scrolling area?

lol I said scroll five times in one sentence

Acheron

2008-07-27 07:41:12 pm

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Quote from Bolognab:

Does anyone know a door scroll value that would allow me to scroll into a red scrolling area without scrolling into the red areas beside that one red scrolling area?

lol I said scroll five times in one sentence

I don't know exactly what you're asking. You want to have an area that's normally unscrollable be scrollable when you enter from a certain door? You could probably use the "make scroll PLM" function and point to it from the door's scroll pointer, but I'm not sure, I haven't tested that.

Black Telomeres

2008-07-27 07:51:29 pm

Quote from Acheron86:

It's a bug in 1.32 as well. As long as you don't move the enemies from their position when editing a room, they'll stay where they were last placed regardless of how they display themselves in SMILE (at least for 1.32). In other words, put a pirate in the right place in SMILE and save. If he looks normal in-game just leave him alone no matter how he appears to be standing in SMILE. If that doesn't work, it might be a version problem.

Wow I've never seen that error. What the butt.

Acheron

2008-07-27 07:52:38 pm

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Quote from Black Telomeres:

Wow I've never seen that error. What the butt.

Really? Put a missile space pirate somewhere, save the room, see if he doesn't look off in SMILE when you reload the room. If you're right then dang.

Black Telomeres

2008-07-27 07:59:31 pm

Oh, ok, by "One tile" he means by some infinitely insignificant amount :P

Bolognab

2008-07-27 08:14:52 pm

That always happens to me, and especially to the green spike-shooting things in Brinstar.

Acheron: I'm not sure what you mean either. But you seemed to understand what I said.