Super Metroid/SMILE Help Thread

2009-06-20 08:05:51 pm

All things considered, I shouldn't be awake. x.x

I have a couple of new questions regarding background and scroll.
1) If I'm editing a room that uses Layer 2 for a background instead of a background, can I simply copy over a pointer from another room to serve as the "background pointer" if I don't want to use Layer 2, or will that overwrite things?
2) There are some rooms with no scroll at all - instead of green, blue and red boxes, there is a color that the scroll editor won't let me mess with. Is there a way to make it so the scroll is editable?

Thanks.

Sadiztik Fish

2009-06-20 11:20:43 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Regarding scrolls: SMILE shows the scrolls for each block IF it has unique scroll data. If there are no scrolls showing in the room, then the room's scroll pointer is either 0000 or 0001. A pointer of 0000 means ALL blocks in the room act as a blue scroll, 0001 means green scrolls.
If it's anything else, its a pointer to data telling the game what screen is what color (00 = Red, 01 = Blue, 02 = Green).

If you want to make your own scroll data for a room, find free space in a hex editor and point to that. Though, what would be easier (and saves space), is to know what you want your room scrolls to be, and search a string in $8F that matches what you need. EG. If you wanted a 2x2 room to have 2 green scrolls on the top, Blue on bottom left, red on bottom right, you would open a hex editor, and search for 02 02 01 00 (G G B R), then put the address of that data into the scroll pointer for the room. Though this way means you can't change the scrolls, cause it will change the data for something else too.

Regarding scrolls: SMILE shows the scrolls for each block IF it has unique scroll data. If there are no scrolls showing in the room, then the room's scroll pointer is either 0000 or 0001. A pointer of 0000 means ALL blocks in the room act as a blue scroll, 0001 means green scrolls. 
If it's anything else, its a pointer to data telling the game what screen is what color (00 = Red, 01 = Blue, 02 = Green).

If you want to make your own scroll data for a room, find free space in a hex editor and point to that. Though, what would be easier (and saves space), is to know what you want your room scrolls to be, and search a string in $8F that matches what you need. EG. If you wanted a 2x2 room to have 2 green scrolls on the top, Blue on bottom left, red on bottom right, you would open a hex editor, and search for 02 02 01 00 (G G B R), then put the address of that data into the scroll pointer for the room. Though this way means you can't change the scrolls, cause it will change the data for something else too.

Draconis Kenjishiya

2009-06-21 12:05:43 am

All things considered, I shouldn't be awake. x.x

Ah. So if I did do that hex editing, it would mean PLM scroll changes would be impossible?

Sadiztik Fish

2009-06-21 06:06:29 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Not at all. The data loaded for scrolls in the room is completely different to the scroll PLM data. The room scroll data is one byte per scroll, PLMs are 2 bytes per scroll (screen changed, then what to change to), +1 at the end to signal the end of that data. Scroll PLMs do not over write data, they simply load more data to change scrolls. So you could still have 50 scroll PLMs in a room with a scroll pointer of 0000 (well the max is 32, but you get the idea).

Draconis Kenjishiya

2009-06-21 07:36:51 am

All things considered, I shouldn't be awake. x.x

Oh awesome! This makes a few rooms a bit more usable.

Now...I've just got to figure out that door adding thing...^.^;

Sadiztik Fish

2009-06-22 02:57:51 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Adding doors is easy. The door-out pointer leads to a pointer in $8F, which is another 2 byte pointer leading to the actual door data in bank $83. To add doors to a room, simply copy the door data at the location for the room, then paste it at free space in the same bank ($83). Each door shold be 12 bytes. So if you wanted 5 doors in a room, you paste it five times.

Now, you need to know where EVERY door begins that you pasted, because there was one pointer in Bank $8F for each door, not all doors. So, go to the end of bank 8F and write each pointer backwards. So if your new doors started at $83: EA00, EA10, EA20, you would go to bank $8F, and write down 00 EA 10 EA 20 EA.

Now, where this group of pointers begins, is what you put into the door_out pointer for the room. When you save, SMILE will ask if you want to copy the old data, CLICK NO, otherwise you will just copy over the old pointer to the new space.

omegawaffle

2009-06-22 02:36:16 pm

How do you change the spawn locations when u load a save file? i moved the ship in my hack to a differant spot but everytime i respawn i spawn where it would normally be.

Quietus

2009-06-22 03:42:35 pm

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Quote from TAxxOUTBR3AKxx:

I just thought I'd post this because I saw some people having issues with moving your ship around to another part of the room.

It's possible. It's easy. It's basically like any normal enemy. Wherever you move the ship to, it will appear there. Make sure though that "Split Ship when Moved" is unchecked before you move it (right-click the ship) and that you don't forget to copy it's slope tiles over as well. I'm not for sure whether or not this affects the ship negatively if you don't skip Ceres or when entering it during the Escape Sequence.

However, this does NOT make Samus load from the ship. Loading still works, but Samus will load according to where the ship used to be. So....from another room that connects to the Landing Site, hover on a door from the joined room --> to the Landing Site. Hit "L" on the door tile and a box will appear "Load Points(#) and Other." The Landing Site's load station is Index 00, which comes up by default.

There is a Scroll X and a Scroll Y value, that at default says "0400" respectively for each. If you know anything at all regarding these values, you will understand that the "4" is the value placement for # of scroll areas. So, Samus' default loading scroll area is 4,4....4th screen right (X) and 4th screen down (Y) from the upper left-most screen (0,0). If you decide to mess with the 2 far right values of the Scroll X/Y, it will affect which block in that scroll area Samus will load at.

For example: Say you moved your ship from it's original location, and moved it UP 2 Scroll Areas and RIGHT 1 Scroll Area so it's centered inside that new scroll area. So in that Load Points box, Samus' new Scroll X=0500 (5 screens right) and Scroll Y=0300 (3 Screens down). Just don't forget that you start from the top left scroll area in rooms!

Hope this helps you guys.

[quote="TAxxOUTBR3AKxx"]I just thought I'd post this because I saw some people having issues with moving your ship around to another part of the room.

It's possible. It's easy. It's basically like any normal enemy. Wherever you move the ship to, it will appear there. Make sure though that "Split Ship when Moved" is unchecked before you move it (right-click the ship) and that you don't forget to copy it's slope tiles over as well. I'm not for sure whether or not this affects the ship negatively if you don't skip Ceres or when entering it during the Escape Sequence.

However, this does NOT make Samus load from the ship. Loading still works, but Samus will load according to where the ship used to be. So....from another room that connects to the Landing Site, hover on a door from the joined room --> to the Landing Site. Hit "L" on the door tile and a box will appear "Load Points(#) and Other." The Landing Site's load station is Index 00, which comes up by default.

There is a Scroll X and a Scroll Y value, that at default says "0400" respectively for each. If you know anything at all regarding these values, you will understand that the "4" is the value placement for # of scroll areas. So, Samus' default loading scroll area is 4,4....4th screen right (X) and 4th screen down (Y) from the upper left-most screen (0,0). If you decide to mess with the 2 far right values of the Scroll X/Y, it will affect which block in that scroll area Samus will load at.

For example: Say you moved your ship from it's original location, and moved it UP 2 Scroll Areas and RIGHT 1 Scroll Area so it's centered inside that new scroll area. So in that Load Points box, Samus' new Scroll X=0500 (5 screens right) and Scroll Y=0300 (3 Screens down). Just don't forget that you start from the top left scroll area in rooms!

Hope this helps you guys.[/quote]

omegawaffle

2009-06-22 03:54:55 pm

Thank you!!!!

Also, do you know how to make a working gate?
I'm making a little display where u fire a missile and it bounces around the things that reflect ur shots and hit a gate however I dont understand on the gate settings what nybble is and how to make the gate bar go up down ect.

Draconis Kenjishiya

2009-06-22 03:55:51 pm

All things considered, I shouldn't be awake. x.x

Quote from Sadiztik Fish:

Adding doors is easy. The door-out pointer leads to a pointer in $8F, which is another 2 byte pointer leading to the actual door data in bank $83. To add doors to a room, simply copy the door data at the location for the room, then paste it at free space in the same bank ($83). Each door shold be 12 bytes. So if you wanted 5 doors in a room, you paste it five times.

Now, you need to know where EVERY door begins that you pasted, because there was one pointer in Bank $8F for each door, not all doors. So, go to the end of bank 8F and write each pointer backwards. So if your new doors started at $83: EA00, EA10, EA20, you would go to bank $8F, and write down 00 EA 10 EA 20 EA.

Now, where this group of pointers begins, is what you put into the door_out pointer for the room. When you save, SMILE will ask if you want to copy the old data, CLICK NO, otherwise you will just copy over the old pointer to the new space.

Oh, haha. I think I clicked "yes" last time with my test rom, maybe I just fucked up that part. It's just...how do I know what's a door? I know you said it was 12 bytes, and if I wanted to add 3 doors in a room, I had to copy those 12 bytes 3 times into bank $83's free space, but like, I found this:
74 AE 00 04 11 06 01 00 00 80 00 00
Is that a door, for example?

[quote="Sadiztik Fish"]
Adding doors is easy. The door-out pointer leads to a pointer in $8F, which is another 2 byte pointer leading to the actual door data in bank $83. To add doors to a room, simply copy the door data at the location for the room, then paste it at free space in the same bank ($83). Each door shold be 12 bytes. So if you wanted 5 doors in a room, you paste it five times.

Now, you need to know where EVERY door begins that you pasted, because there was one pointer in Bank $8F for each door, not all doors. So, go to the end of bank 8F and write each pointer backwards. So if your new doors started at $83: EA00, EA10, EA20, you would go to bank $8F, and write down 00 EA 10 EA 20 EA.

Now, where this group of pointers begins, is what you put into the door_out pointer for the room. When you save, SMILE will ask if you want to copy the old data, CLICK NO, otherwise you will just copy over the old pointer to the new space.
[/quote]

Oh, haha. I think I clicked "yes" last time with my test rom, maybe I just fucked up that part. It's just...how do I know what's a door? I know you said it was 12 bytes, and if I wanted to add 3 doors in a room, I had to copy those 12 bytes 3 times into bank $83's free space, but like, I found this:
74 AE 00 04 11 06 01 00 00 80 00 00
Is that a door, for example?

omegawaffle

Edit history:

omegawaffle: 2009-06-22 06:39:55 pm

2009-06-22 04:02:35 pm

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

HELP HELP HELP

I SET A POINTER IN A ROOM TO E08000 TO INCREASE SIZE NOW I CANT EVEN OPEN IT IN SMILE HELP HELP HELP I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DELETE AND/OR ADD ROOMS TO FIX THIS DAMN IT I HATE YOU --> khaaaan

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

HELP HELP HELP

I SET A POINTER IN A ROOM TO E08000 TO INCREASE SIZE NOW I CANT EVEN OPEN IT IN SMILE HELP HELP HELP I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DELETE AND/OR ADD ROOMS TO FIX THIS DAMN IT I HATE YOU --> :khan:

Sadiztik Fish

2009-06-22 09:41:54 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Did you expand the rom first?, if you didn't, then SMILE would have created the extra bytes, but not in full banks. Go into a hex editor, and add bytes until the last byte is 307FFF.

omegawaffle

2009-06-23 11:34:33 am

i dont have a hex editor or atleast i dont know it aiwebs_016

MetroidMst

2009-06-23 03:09:05 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

Quote from omegawaffle:

i dont have a hex editor or atleast i dont know it aiwebs_016

You really need a hex editor to hack "properly." You don't need it, but it is the most vauble tool besides SMILE itself. Google it and find one, and then figure out how to use it, then you'll be much better equiped to be hacking.

omegawaffle

2009-06-23 06:24:09 pm

omg i love you guys Crying or Very sad

thank you so fucking much!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MetroidMst

2009-06-23 08:00:55 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

There are a million hex editors out there, I'm not going to tell you which one to get. (The free ones work fine for me.)

How were you going to expand a room without an editor? I'm a little lost on that one since you would have no idea if the pointer you gave SMILE lead to free space in the ROM or not...

As far as I know, to get your room back you will need a hex editor and find out which room you accidentally corrupted, and then check it out in the editor for any unsual stuff. If nothing seems to work from there you can copy the room from the Original un-edited game and paste that into your new one. It will get rid of any changes you made to it, but you will get your room back.

Another thing you can do is get another room to replace your corrupted one, there are plenty of them to choose from.

Sadiztik Fish

2009-06-23 09:11:21 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

I thought he couldn't even open the ROM in SMILE? Which only happens for 3 reasons (that I know of):

1. The rom is not made up of FULL banks.
2. The rom is corrupted in some way.
3. The rom is the PAL version, though you can force this in a hex editor if you know how ;)

I just thought that putting the pointer in if it didnt exist woud create that data, but ONLY that data, not the rest of the bank after it, which would result in the first problem.

Arva

2009-06-24 12:08:25 pm

QI[9]IQ

Are there yet any knowledge unvealed about door scroll pointers? I wish to make two doors directly connected to each other in the same room to work properly without having the scroll areas to freak out (both doors would need to be in red scroll areas). An example of this is in the first elevator room of brinstar with the wall jumping critters. Technically it would be as when walking through a door and it would turn a red scroll into a green. This would be of great use indeed.

SleepingSeaweed

2009-06-24 12:34:28 pm

I got an answer to that from kejardon a while ago... I'll just repost it.

Quote:

More often than not, it's just unused (0000).
When it is used, the code is typically

SEP #$20
LDA #$XX
STA $7ECDXX

or
E2 20 A9 XX 8F XX CD 7E

There might be a PHP and PLP or a REP #$20... I don't remember which. But if you follow the pointer to code in bank 8F (78000 - 7FFFF) you should be able to find the above pattern easily.
The values you'd want to change are the XX's. First one is the scroll value, second one is the screen to change plus $20 (screen 00 => 20).

The atypical ones are going to vary from case to case and can feasibly do anything. Learn assembly if you're curious about them.

So basically you could just use that code and replace XX with the correct values for your screen.

omegawaffle

Edit history:

omegawaffle: 2009-06-24 01:52:38 pm

2009-06-24 01:22:43 pm

Ugh, sorry guys i made some pot brownies the other day sorry about overreacting. <------LOL

Can you guys explain to me how i copy and paste a room?

and to Sadiztik Fish i only couldnt load that room not rom.

OK i got my hex editor now what do i do?

MetroidMst

2009-06-24 06:23:49 pm

Go ahead. Stare.

I'll try my best, as I've only seen it work, not done it myself.

The room select button in SMILE has a list of numbers that somehow point to where that room is in which bank in the hex editor. You need to find both the begining and end of the room in the original unedited game, and then open up your hack in the editor and paste that info into the same area. This should theoritically give your hack the original room and let you start to play around with it again in SMILE.

As to how to figure out what the room numbers mean and where they point... Someone else will need to explain that as I didn't pay much attention to that part. Embarassed

Sadiztik Fish

2009-06-24 08:15:24 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

The MDB list (the yellow drop down list in other words) is simply the location of each room's header in $8F. A header is nothing more than the pointers for the room, which point to the actual data making up the room. Ever wonder where a pointer was saved to? It's the room header (so everytime you edit the pointers of a room, you are actually only editing the room header).

What MetroidMst said to do would work, though I would just open a hex editor and change the data directly, but I know where it is. To fix the room another easier way would be to open a clean rom (or backup), go to the corrupted room. Now open the rom with the corrupted room BUT DO NOT OPEN ANYTHING OR RELOAD THE ROOM. Now just go save room. The old room will be saved over the corrupted one, including it's pointers.

Keep in mind that if the room has more than one state, you will need to do it again for each state.

Draconis Kenjishiya

2009-06-25 09:44:10 am

All things considered, I shouldn't be awake. x.x

Quote from Arva:

Are there yet any knowledge unvealed about door scroll pointers? I wish to make two doors directly connected to each other in the same room to work properly without having the scroll areas to freak out (both doors would need to be in red scroll areas). An example of this is in the first elevator room of brinstar with the wall jumping critters. Technically it would be as when walking through a door and it would turn a red scroll into a green. This would be of great use indeed.

I think you might be able to do this by making a 3x1 room - that is, if the room itself is 1x1. Have the green scroll and the room in the center, and then the other two with red scrolls, so when you run through, say for example, the right door, you'd pop out the left side without issue. I haven't tried this myself, but by theory to me, it should work.

omegawaffle

2009-06-25 01:49:13 pm

Hey thanks dude but one more question is there a non-phazon corruption related way to increase a room size cause i need to

daltone

2009-06-25 02:37:41 pm

Burrrp!

I need to know where the properties for the varia suit and gravity suit start and end in hex so i can start screwing with them, if anyone knows the hex location for these it would be super, or if you know where i could start looking on the net for more info, thanks in advance.