Super Metroid/SMILE Help Thread

2009-09-17 09:00:05 pm

No, no, I think you don't understand. I want to make an object using a color that is not on the palette, without changing the palette of the others objects. If I redraw the object with different colors, it'll just take a random color on the palette when I enter it in the game, because his color doesn't exist.

Sadiztik Fish

2009-09-18 11:18:55 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Uhh, there's 7 different palettes for tiles to use. That way, you can change one palette and not have it affect any other blocks. And you just need to draw the block to use that palette.

1. Make the palette you want to use. I recommend not using 0, 1, 4, 5 cause a lot of tiles use them. And remember that the first 3 colors (not including transarent) of palettes 0 - 4 are for doors and switches.
2. Export this new palette
3. Open TLP, and the scenery you want to change.
4. Import the palette you made.
5. Change the palette to use the one you edited using the arrow boxes in the palette box.
6. Draw your tile using the colors you want.
7. Save and import the SCE into SMILE
8. Change the palette that the block uses to the one you edited.

rolando

2009-09-21 04:10:43 pm

there's a problem with the tileset repoint patch..when i apply it i can't move samus......but i could still pause....
has anyone had a problem like this before?

Flamestar666

2009-09-21 05:57:23 pm

I have a request more so of a question, and I hope someone can help with this.
I'm looking to add new rooms, can anyone point me/link me to some kind of documentation?

And now questions.

I'm looking to add heat damage to a few rooms which don't (e.g. Kraid's room) Does anyone know how to do that, and if so, can you share that with me?

Would it be possible to edit the game in such a way to give you health when you enter certain bodies of water/liquid while wearing a certain suit? Not a massive heal, but like 1 hp per 3 sec.

Also, I would like to change the map color to some other palette, how can i change that?
If anyone could help with that, that would be great.

Quietus

2009-09-21 07:41:52 pm

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

For adding new room, you should check out the Moonedit FAQ thread. I know page 2 has a huge section on it.

TailsLover

2009-09-21 09:58:03 pm

Merry Christmas

Question, I tried putting in the reflector things and it crashed my room. How do I fix this?

JAM

Edit history:

JAM: 2009-09-22 07:41:56 am

2009-09-22 07:26:18 am

Quote from Flamestar666:

I'm looking to add heat damage to a few rooms which don't (e.g. Kraid's room) Does anyone know how to do that, and if so, can you share that with me?

There is a "Heat bit" of FX data in Norfair and Tourian that causes damage when you are wearing only Power Suit. In these areas you can set heat damage to any room. As for other areas... The only way is to recode FX bits. I don't know how to do this, sorry.

Quote from Flamestar666:

Would it be possible to edit the game in such a way to give you health when you enter certain bodies of water/liquid while wearing a certain suit? Not a massive heal, but like 1 hp per 3 sec.

Look here:
http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,7630.msg271526.html#msg271526
Post by Black Falcon. He wrote new BTS blocks.

Quote from TailsLover:

Question, I tried putting in the reflector things and it crashed my room. How do I fix this?

Just add him to "Enemies Allowed" list. It works fine for me. Super Missile is painful thing

[quote="Flamestar666"]
I'm looking to add heat damage to a few rooms which don't (e.g. Kraid's room) Does anyone know how to do that, and if so, can you share that with me?
[/quote]
There is a "Heat bit" of FX data in Norfair and Tourian that causes damage when you are wearing only Power Suit. In these areas you can set heat damage to any room. As for other areas... The only way is to recode FX bits. I don't know how to do this, sorry.

[quote="Flamestar666"]
Would it be possible to edit the game in such a way to give you health when you enter certain bodies of water/liquid while wearing a certain suit? Not a massive heal, but like 1 hp per 3 sec.
[/quote]
Look here:
[url=http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,7630.msg271526.html#msg271526]http://forum.metroid2002.com/index.php/topic,7630.msg271526.html#msg271526[/url]
Post by Black Falcon. He wrote new BTS blocks.

[quote="TailsLover"]
Question, I tried putting in the reflector things and it crashed my room. How do I fix this?
[/quote]
Just add him to "Enemies Allowed" list. It works fine for me. Super Missile is painful thing

Grime

2009-09-23 09:17:04 am

Ouuuuum

HEX TWEAKS

Large compendium of working byte changes that can be used for hacks. Just bringing it to this thread's attention, as a lot of these changes will/have been asked about. If anyone has any such modifications documented that aren't on the page, shoot me a PM if you want them added to it.

Jathys

2009-09-23 11:00:11 pm

Here's most of what's new:

Doubled the speed of the file comparer.
Beefed up the BG_Editor (pasting from level editor clipboard, shows actual colors, etc...)
Fixed some common crashes involving the FX1 and Layer3 editors.
Fixed a few issues in the Samus Pose editor.
Update to SOLA (correctly checks for updates, now able to download plugins).
Adjusted the brightness settings (Bright and Blazing) to be more usable.

With this, I have to mention the only plugin that is available:
"Watcher" watches a specified ROM address and tells you when the value there changes. I know there are a few locations in the ROM that get "randomly" corrupted from time to time. With this, you'll be notified when the change happens, so we might be able to narrow down what caused it to change.

These aren't "real" plugins, but serve their purpose anyway. Right now, only programmers would be able to make them (PM me if you want to know how). In the next release, there will be a non-programming way of making them.

Something like the offsets Grime just listed, for example, could be stuck in a plug-in that people could turn on/off with checkboxes (if someone made such a plugin). That's the kind of stuff we're looking at here for now.

[u]Here's most of what's new[/u]:
[list]
[li]Doubled the speed of the file comparer.[/li]
[li]Beefed up the BG_Editor (pasting from level editor clipboard, shows actual colors, etc...)[/li]
[li]Fixed some common crashes involving the FX1 and Layer3 editors.[/li]
[li]Fixed a few issues in the Samus Pose editor.[/li]
[li]Update to SOLA (correctly checks for updates, now able to download plugins).[/li]
[li]Adjusted the brightness settings (Bright and Blazing) to be more usable.[/li]
[/list]

[u]With this, I have to mention the only plugin that is available[/u]:
"Watcher" watches a specified ROM address and tells you when the value there changes. I know there are a few locations in the ROM that get "randomly" corrupted from time to time.  With this, you'll be notified when the change happens, so we might be able to narrow down [i]what[/i] caused it to change.

[spoiler="A word about plugins"]These aren't "real" plugins, but serve their purpose anyway. Right now, only programmers would be able to make them (PM me if you want to know how). In the next release, there will be a non-programming way of making them.

Something like the offsets Grime just listed, for example, could be stuck in a plug-in that people could turn on/off with checkboxes (if someone made such a plugin).  That's the kind of stuff we're looking at here for now.[/spoiler]

Acheron

2009-09-24 12:43:07 am

Acclaimed Threshold

Constant Sorrows

Quote from Jathys:

Beefed up the BG_Editor (pasting from level editor clipboard, shows actual colors, etc...)

YAY

Sadiztik Fish

2009-09-25 11:08:23 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Sweet. Has this been released yet?

I just thought of something to day though while shifting stuff around. Is there anyway for SMILE to trace a pointer that points to something in $8F? There was a heap of data there, which I put in, but had no idea what it was for, so I didn't know if I could delete it. I was thinking you might be able to put in a feature that will tell you any pointers that point to that data, so you can find out what the data does/is.

Also, has the Kejmap thing been fixed in this release? To be honest, that's the only reason I still use 1.32. Get a clean rom, eopn the map, save the map, Kejmap is automatically applied. Which really screwed me over, cause Kejmap doesn't work on my rom. I wonder why it works on some roms and not others...

Jathys

2009-09-26 12:25:32 am

Quote from Sadiztik Fish:

Also, has the Kejmap thing been fixed in this release? To be honest, that's the only reason I still use 1.32. Get a clean rom, eopn the map, save the map, Kejmap is automatically applied. Which really screwed me over, cause Kejmap doesn't work on my rom. I wonder why it works on some roms and not others...

Partial "d'oh", but not a full one. Forgot to fix the Kejmap bug that actually exists (ie- using Kejmap 2 screws SMILE up, because it is tricked into thinking it's supposed to be using plain old Kejmap). Why? Because Kejmap support was added before Kejmap 2 existed and both codes access the exact same spot in the ROM.

No clue why it's automatically applying it for you though, as any coding that were to trick SMILE into thinking you have Kejmap would have hidden the button the moment the map editor was opened. By the way you worded yourself, I assume the button is there, but disappears after you save the map? Only other thing I can think of without being able to duplicate (ie- see) this would be... hmmm... At any point did you expand your rom by an amount other than $8000?

[quote="Sadiztik Fish"]Also, has the Kejmap thing been fixed in this release? To be honest, that's the only reason I still use 1.32. Get a clean rom, eopn the map, save the map, Kejmap is automatically applied. Which really screwed me over, cause Kejmap doesn't work on my rom. I wonder why it works on some roms and not others...[/quote]

Partial "d'oh", but not a full one. Forgot to fix the Kejmap bug that actually exists (ie- using Kejmap 2 screws SMILE up, because it is tricked into thinking it's supposed to be using plain old Kejmap).  Why?  Because Kejmap support was added before Kejmap 2 existed and both codes access the exact same spot in the ROM.

No clue why it's automatically applying it for you though, as any coding that were to trick SMILE into thinking you have Kejmap would have hidden the button the moment the map editor was opened. By the way you worded yourself, I assume the button is there, but disappears after you save the map? Only other thing I can think of without being able to duplicate (ie- see) this would be... hmmm... At any point did you expand your rom by an amount other than $8000?

Hiroshi Mishima

Edit history:

Hiroshi Mishima: 2009-09-26 02:15:21 am

2009-09-26 01:21:09 am

True White Dragon

You know, it feels like just as I get a handle on something in SMILE, something else goes awry. I'm posting my inquires here now, because my previous thread was neither needed (as I should have posted in here) nor did it stay on topic very quickly thanks to forces beyond my control.

Okay, here is my problem at the moment: When I save the map I did in the room I was working on, suddenly the map in the room connected to it starts messing up. It like switches or something I dunno. I fix that map, and the map I just did messes up. Back and forth, it's like a vicious little cycle and I'm baffled as to why. None of my other rooms appear to be doing this.

..also I hate to ask but could someone give me the location of the chatroom. I hate going into them, but I may as well in order to keep from constantly asking questions...

EDIT: I still don't know what happened, but I went back to an earlier version of the romhack I am doing and remade the one room and have no run into problems this time. Perhaps I did/changed something without knowing it, but if I don't know what I did, I don't know what to look out for next time. <_>;

You know, it feels like just as I get a handle on something in SMILE, something else goes awry. I'm posting my inquires here now, because my previous thread was neither needed (as I should have posted in here) nor did it stay on topic very quickly thanks to forces beyond my control.

Okay, here is my problem at the moment: When I save the map I did in the room I was working on, suddenly the map in the room connected to it starts messing up. It like switches or something I dunno. I fix that map, and the map I just did messes up. Back and forth, it's like a vicious little cycle and I'm baffled as to why. None of my other rooms appear to be doing this.

..also I hate to ask but could someone give me the location of the chatroom. I hate going into them, but I may as well in order to keep from constantly asking questions...

EDIT: I still don't know what happened, but I went back to an earlier version of the romhack I am doing and remade the one room and have no run into problems this time. Perhaps I did/changed something without knowing it, but if I don't know what I did, I don't know what to look out for next time. <_>;

Jathys

2009-09-27 12:41:18 am

Quote from Hiroshi Mishima:

Okay, here is my problem at the moment: When I save the map I did in the room I was working on, suddenly the map in the room connected to it starts messing up. It like switches or something I dunno. I fix that map, and the map I just did messes up. Back and forth, it's like a vicious little cycle and I'm baffled as to why. None of my other rooms appear to be doing this.

..also I hate to ask but could someone give me the location of the chatroom. I hate going into them, but I may as well in order to keep from constantly asking questions...

Pretend that each sentence below is a room in your ROM:
"The dog ran. The house is green."

Say you want the dog to run "fast". ". The" will get written over, leaving you with:
"The dog ran fast. house is green."

2nd room/sentence is screwed up. If we go back and add the ". The" onto that sentence again, we just chopped off the end of our new first sentence/room. Thing is, this gets a bit more complicated with rooms, as they are compressed data. If pieces of them are overwritten with pieces of data that shouldn't be there, all sorts of screwed up things can result.

Best way to prevent this is to watch how much space you have available to each room (SMILE's method of showing this is quite flawed, but is correct more often than not). Repointing the rooms to free space can also prevent this.

As for the chatting areas, #jzd on irc.esper.net is one of them.

[quote="Hiroshi Mishima"]Okay, here is my problem at the moment: When I save the map I did in the room I was working on, suddenly the map in the room connected to it starts messing up. It like switches or something I dunno. I fix that map, and the map I just did messes up. Back and forth, it's like a vicious little cycle and I'm baffled as to why. None of my other rooms appear to be doing this.

..also I hate to ask but could someone give me the location of the chatroom. I hate going into them, but I may as well in order to keep from constantly asking questions...[/quote]

Pretend that each sentence below is a room in your ROM:
"The dog ran. The house is green."

Say you want the dog to run "fast".  ". The" will get written over, leaving you with:
"The dog ran fast. house is green."

2nd room/sentence is screwed up.  If we go back and add the ". The" onto that sentence again, we just chopped off the end of our new first sentence/room.  Thing is, this gets a bit more complicated with rooms, as they are compressed data. If pieces of them are overwritten with pieces of data that shouldn't be there, all sorts of screwed up things can result.

Best way to prevent this is to watch how much space you have available to each room (SMILE's method of showing this is quite flawed, but is correct more often than not).  Repointing the rooms to free space can also prevent this.

As for the chatting areas, #jzd on irc.esper.net is one of them.

Sadiztik Fish

Edit history:

Sadiztik Fish: 2009-09-27 07:09:03 am

2009-09-27 06:30:07 am

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

Quote from Jathys:

Quote from Sadiztik Fish:

Also, has the Kejmap thing been fixed in this release? To be honest, that's the only reason I still use 1.32. Get a clean rom, eopn the map, save the map, Kejmap is automatically applied. Which really screwed me over, cause Kejmap doesn't work on my rom. I wonder why it works on some roms and not others...

Partial "d'oh", but not a full one. Forgot to fix the Kejmap bug that actually exists (ie- using Kejmap 2 screws SMILE up, because it is tricked into thinking it's supposed to be using plain old Kejmap). Why? Because Kejmap support was added before Kejmap 2 existed and both codes access the exact same spot in the ROM.

No clue why it's automatically applying it for you though, as any coding that were to trick SMILE into thinking you have Kejmap would have hidden the button the moment the map editor was opened. By the way you worded yourself, I assume the button is there, but disappears after you save the map? Only other thing I can think of without being able to duplicate (ie- see) this would be... hmmm... At any point did you expand your rom by an amount other than $8000?

I was gonna make a video of what I did, but I have no idea how to make a vid of my desktop, so I gave up. However, I can tell you exactly what I did (on numerous occasions).

1. Open SMILE 2.0 or later (I have the 2.3 update now)
2. Open a clean ROM from 1.32's folders (after copying it of course)
3. Open room 791F8
4. Open the map editor
5. Click save map, and click OK to save room
6. Run a file compare with the original clean rom.

I did put the changes in a spoiler, but that was a mistake... lol
SO have a handy attachment instead =D

I know the data around $214000 is for level data, because the compression in later SMILE's is different, but why the hell is the Kejmap data at $F800 there? And I know the data at $8131 is for the saving routines, which only changes for Kejmap.

I don't know why the 2 bytes at $112810 have changed, cause I think that's enemy data... Eh?

Question: Is there any way to put text from a .txt file into a hex editor, provided it's all hex values? I have a list of pointers in txt format that I need to put into the ROM, but it's a long list (over $1000 bytes), and I really don't want to type them all out into the hex editor manually aiwebs_016

[quote="Jathys"]
[quote="Sadiztik Fish"]Also, has the Kejmap thing been fixed in this release? To be honest, that's the only reason I still use 1.32. Get a clean rom, eopn the map, save the map, Kejmap is automatically applied. Which really screwed me over, cause Kejmap doesn't work on my rom. I wonder why it works on some roms and not others...[/quote]

Partial "d'oh", but not a full one. Forgot to fix the Kejmap bug that actually exists (ie- using Kejmap 2 screws SMILE up, because it is tricked into thinking it's supposed to be using plain old Kejmap).  Why?  Because Kejmap support was added before Kejmap 2 existed and both codes access the exact same spot in the ROM.

No clue why it's automatically applying it for you though, as any coding that were to trick SMILE into thinking you have Kejmap would have hidden the button the moment the map editor was opened. By the way you worded yourself, I assume the button is there, but disappears after you save the map? Only other thing I can think of without being able to duplicate (ie- see) this would be... hmmm... At any point did you expand your rom by an amount other than $8000?
[/quote]

I was gonna make a video of what I did, but I have no idea how to make a vid of my desktop, so I gave up. However, I can tell you exactly what I did (on numerous occasions).

1. Open SMILE 2.0 or later (I have the 2.3 update now)
2. Open a clean ROM from 1.32's folders (after copying it of course)
3. Open room 791F8
4. Open the map editor
5. Click save map, and click OK to save room
6. Run a file compare with the original clean rom.

I did put the changes in a spoiler, but that was a mistake... lol
SO have a handy attachment instead =D

I know the data around $214000 is for level data, because the compression in later SMILE's is different, but why the hell is the Kejmap data at $F800 there? And I know the data at $8131 is for the saving routines, which only changes for Kejmap.

I don't know why the 2 bytes at $112810 have changed, cause I think that's enemy data... :huh_orig:

Question: Is there any way to put text from a .txt file into a hex editor, provided it's all hex values? I have a list of pointers in txt format that I need to put into the ROM, but it's a long list (over $1000 bytes), and I [i]really[/i] don't want to type them all out into the hex editor manually [aiwebs_016]

attachment:

Changes.SMC.txt

Kejardon

2009-09-27 06:27:34 pm

Embarrasing Fact: Power suit made by lowest bidder

The way the game originally saved the map was by saving PORTIONS of the discovered map. These portions were part of a table that would be read at saving (to pick only the important parts to save) and loading (to know where to put the saved parts of the map). The table is big enough to fit the original maps and slightly more, but if you wanted to significantly enlarge the maps you would have to move the table to another spot in the ROM or something. Which is exactly what the original Kejmap does. Kejmap 2 doesn't use this table, instead it reads the map data and figures out what parts of the map AREN'T blank map data and saves the discovered map for those sections. Basically it's handling the job that SMILE probably does to automate the original Kejmap. Honestly I don't see how SMILE can actually mess up Kejmap 2, it should just write unneeded information at the end of the bank that is never used.
I have no idea why data in bank A2 is changing, that is an enemy data bank as you said... from a quick glance it looks like it's code for Samus's ship. Not sure what the value is for from just a glance though.

rolando

2009-09-28 05:39:20 pm

why if i mix the tileset repoint and the controlfreak patches in the rom the game acts weird????
see for yourself. if anything

Hiroshi Mishima

2009-09-29 02:50:21 am

True White Dragon

Quote from Jathys:

Best way to prevent this is to watch how much space you have available to each room (SMILE's method of showing this is quite flawed, but is correct more often than not). Repointing the rooms to free space can also prevent this.

Yeah, this is what I figured had happened upon further reflection, but I am glad to get confirmation on this. I realized later that I had made the mistake of repointing a room, working on it, and then working on another room I'd repointed earlier again to fix an error I'd noticed. From now on I try to make absolutely sure that a room is the way I want it to be before I move on. Also.. I think I need to repoint rooms a little further apart next time too.

JAM

2009-09-29 08:25:56 am

Quote from rolando:

why if i mix the tileset repoint and the controlfreak patches in the rom the game acts weird????
see for yourself. if anything

I suppose, both of patches use free space in bank $E0. So one patch is overwriting another.

Now I have a question. How to change tile sheet for "Super Metroid" logo?

I want to add a few new 8*8 tiles and create new 16*16 tiles.
I know where is 8*8 tiles.
I know where is tile table which depends on what 16*16 tiles to draw in logo.
I just don't know how to create new 16*16 tiles from new 8*8 tiles.

P.S. Yes, I understand some things about hacking, but there are still many things in which i'm newbie.

Crashtour99

2009-09-29 11:50:54 am

Quote from JAM:

Now I have a question. How to change tile sheet for "Super Metroid" logo?

Squishy_Ichigo wrote up a guide for just such a thing that I found very useful.
It can be found here...
http://www.metroidconstruction.com/docs/squishy_ichigoTitleScreen.txt

Keep in mind that this is using SMILE 1.32, since the special gfx ripping/saving function was removed in later versions. I found a copy of it that someone had posted earlier in this thread, around page 60 or so, if I remember right.

Hope this helps.

Jathys

2009-09-29 12:02:33 pm

Quote from Crashtour99:

Keep in mind that this is using SMILE 1.32, since the special gfx ripping/saving function was removed in later versions. I found a copy of it that someone had posted earlier in this thread, around page 60 or so, if I remember right.

Not removed, but rather accidentally covered up. With the release of SMILE 2.3, this has been fixed.

JAM

2009-09-29 08:44:31 pm

Quote from Crashtour99:

Quote from JAM:

Now I have a question. How to change tile sheet for "Super Metroid" logo?

Squishy_Ichigo wrote up a guide for just such a thing that I found very useful.
It can be found here...
http://www.metroidconstruction.com/docs/squishy_ichigoTitleScreen.txt

Thanks, I've already done this. I drew new 8*8 tiles to extend the logo. And by using this guide I know how to place 16*16 tiles to title screen. But how can I change unused 16*16 tiles to include new 8*8 tiles in them?

Sadiztik Fish

2009-09-29 10:21:09 pm

OMG FLAN!!!!!!!

JAM, you probably need to do quite a bit of repointing to get those new tiles to show. Don't worry though, I'm working on (i think) pretty much the same thing you are. When I'm done I'll release the patch, etc.

Pretty much, I'm rewriting the tilemaps for the titles screen to allow the "Super Metroid" logo to fit almost anywhere on the screen. All you'd have to do is fill in the GFX for the title. That way people won't have to sqeeze their title screens into the tiny space allocated for them.

That said, you can only have up to FF for the size of the title screen. Meaning 16 8x8s across by 16 down. If you've gone outside of that range, you won't be able to use them without further repointing.

*it was really hard to word that properly, so if it doesn't make sense, sorry. When I'm done with my patch I'll let you have a look at it.

JAM

2009-10-01 08:37:18 am

Sadiztik Fish
I see, thanks... Will be waiting for it. As for your questions about pointers list... You got that file from comparasion of 2 ROMs. You can just open one ROM (changed) and create an IPS patch based of your second ROM (unchanged) and later apply this patch to another ROM to apply the difference between two of your ROMs. Or you need just small file with bytes transfered in hex in it?

What program should I use to edit *.ttb files? Now I'm using hex editor

Black Falcon

2009-10-01 12:27:10 pm

Quote from JAM:

What program should I use to edit *.ttb files? Now I'm using hex editor

.ttb means tiletable.
Tiletables are used to organize your tileset(8x8) in SMILE for a better view.
You can see them in the lower part of the SMILE window
(where you grab your tiles(16x16) and put them into your room).
Newer versions of SMILE allow exporting/importing tiletables in the graphics editor
so you don't need to edit them again.
AND: there's a difference between CRE and SCENERY tiletables.
Nice feature: double click on a tile(16x16) in the tiletable gives you a menu where you can make
it air, solid, slope etc.