Editroid Thread

[snarfblam]

IE, I haven't really mentioned this yet, but it has been asked for a couple of times: The upcoming version of Editroid will be able to expand existing ROM hacks. There are certain situations where the expansion will cause problems, though. I tried expanding MDbTroid and it messed the title screen all up. (The rest of the ROM seemed fine.) Your patch can't be applied to a ROM after it's been expanded, either. You can't even use the 'pattern source editor' to allocate more tiles for the title screen on an expanded ROM.

It can still be done by hand easily enough, but it would be cool to either have a title screen hacking tutorial or at least a patch that can be used for an expanded ROM, if that's something you're interested in helping with after I'm done working on Editroid 2.1.

[snarfblam]

Editroid 2.1 is nearing completion (only need to test), which is good because I would like to release it before I go away for vacation. Here's a list of new features since 2.0:

• Built-in ROM expander - Does not come with a warranty on hacked ROMs. For example, glitches the title screen on MDbTroid, but works fine for my hack-in-progress.
• Add/delete rooms and structures - (You know, without breaking the ROM.)
• Improved physics preview - This has been discussed
• Slightly improved "Pointer Explorer" - I don't know if anyone but me uses this
• Advanced palette editor - Allows editing of all level palette data, namely Samus' colors. I think the normal palette editor covers all the other bases.
• Item Data Disassembler - Largely useless, allows you to put item data in your ASM. This was created before the advanced item editor.
• Advanced item editor - Complete item editing freedom.
• General bug fixes, UI changes - One thing I'll point out is that, since a common question is how to use empty map spaces, I've made this very trivial.

There are more features I'd like to have implemented, but I can't spend forever on it. It's also good if I can get feedback on what I've already got, and maybe on what features people might want, before I go back to work on Editroid. (I also want to spend some time actually working on my own NesTroid hack, and finishing up my practically-done Blaster Master editor.)

Also, Editroid 2.1 will not be 100% compatible with the old Expando ROM... It miscalculates the amount of free space for screens and structures. If you add too much new stuff, you may eventually overwrite item data. And god help you if you try to use the advanced item editor.

[snarfblam]

Link:

http://snarfblam.com/files/Editroid 2.1a.zip

Imma call this 2.1 alpha because then it doesn't look as bad if crap breaks.

[xorxif]

Thanks snarfblam! I've been looking forward to working with this one a long time. I'll let you know if I find any bugs.

[zobibor]

After playing with Editroid and Metedit along with some tile editors for a few years I found this Forum, I really hope that you (Snarfblam) have not abandoned Editroid totally by now...

I have made a few crappy non-finnished hacks before and have been planning a real one for a long time now, I mainly play the original game when I try to come up with Ideas on how things can be edited, anyway I thought I could tell you what I whould like to do in my hack:

changing the rom so that the save function replaces the password system.

apply a "lost woods" area somewhere in the game. (like the "lost caverns" in Smet: Redesign.) I was thinking of making something that reminded of "the cube" movies :S
EDIT: It could also be done like the mazes in SMB1 castles, I´m thinking side scrolling rooms now.

Change the max amount of energy tanks Samus can hold.

Make some sort of energy refill station (like the cure water in Kid icarus?)

Change the amount of missiles obtained when killing Kraid or Ridley (and then with your rom expand option add more missile pickups instead if the boss kill missile reward is decreased).

Change the Ice/Wave/Long beam pickups so they do not respawn.

Make some "New item" Patches (I saw the wall jump vid. I think space jump and spring ball whould be possible without too much work)

Change the intro message and other texts.

Make text messages appear in in-game rooms (most easily made by simply replacing graphic combos with letters i guess.. )

I don´t think that much of this is suitable for Editroid but Thats what I want to do in my hack anyway, might give you some idea. Tnx for editroid btw, I have had much fun with it =)

[Zhs2]

After playing with Editroid and Metedit along with some tile editors for a few years I found this Forum, I really hope that you (Snarfblam) have not abandoned Editroid totally by now...

Nah, he just did the thing where he gets about 90% of what he wanted to do done and then not get motivated to work on it anymore. :)

[snarfblam]

Nah, he just did the thing where he gets about 90% of what he wanted to do done and then not get motivated to work on it anymore. :)

I thought I'd given Editroid 110% ;_;

In fact, I have not abandoned Editroid. After I released version 2.1 I thought I'd pretty much covered everything, but working on my own hack I've realized that I'd like to further relax the game's limitations. I've just started working on a new version with two major goals: making much more memory available for room data (again) and enabling animated background graphics. It's gonna take a while, though.

Here's a crappy little demo of animated backgrounds:
Nestroid Animated Tiles



zobibor, the Nestroid scene could use a little more action. If you do start a hack, I'll be glad to help with the technical details. Anyways... I feel the need for an itemized response.

changing the rom so that the save function replaces the password system

Saving is something I've considered myself. It would probably be a pretty simple ASM hack (just copy password data to battery backed memory and use that when the player selects "CONTINUE"). If I get around to it, I'll be sure to publish a patch.

Change the max amount of energy tanks Samus can hold.

The player can actually hold one more tank than there were in the original. If you want more than that you would need to hack it to draw the tanks on multiple rows (the NES can only display so many sprites per scanline).

Make some sort of energy refill station (like the cure water in Kid icarus?)

:noes: GET OUT OF MY MIND...

Seriously, I whipped up "healy blocks" about a week ago (along with similar hurty blocks). If you're interested, I can share my notes. I don't have a ready-to-go patch at the moment.

Change the amount of missiles obtained when killing Kraid or Ridley (and then with your rom expand option add more missile pickups instead if the boss kill missile reward is decreased).

Change the Ice/Wave/Long beam pickups so they do not respawn.

Make some "New item" Patches (I saw the wall jump vid. I think space jump and spring ball whould be possible without too much work)

All three are simple in theory, even the new items. The only problem is they each require storing more data in the password. There are unused bits, but you would probably need to shuffle things around to group some unused bits with the existing item data bits. This is a non-issue if you ditch passwords for saving.

Make text messages appear in in-game rooms (most easily made by simply replacing graphic combos with letters i guess.. )

I've put thought into this in the past. The real obstacle is that the game is very limited in the number of combos you can have (this is a problem I hope to address). I think a more practical idea would be a simple routine that inserts the text into memory after the screen is loaded.

[Parabox]

Change the Ice/Wave/Long beam pickups so they do not respawn.

Naturally in NEStroid there are 4 beam pickups; Long beam in Brinstar, Ice beam in Brinstar, Wave beam in Norfair and 2nd Ice beam in Norfair. Of course you can change the item locations and amounts, but I thought I'd just point that out.

[zobibor]

Change the Ice/Wave/Long beam pickups so they do not respawn.

Naturally in NEStroid there are 4 beam pickups; Long beam in Brinstar, Ice beam in Brinstar, Wave beam in Norfair and 2nd Ice beam in Norfair. Of course you can change the item locations and amounts, but I thought I'd just point that out.

Yeah I know, my plans that deals with removing the respawning is in need of the two ice beams =)

[zobibor]

zobibor, the Nestroid scene could use a little more action. If you do start a hack, I'll be glad to help with the technical details. Anyways... I feel the need for an itemized response.

My problem is that I have to learn more about the more advanced hacking tecniques, I don´t understand the Hex editing yet, I have spent time studying the document that explains the Nestroid code though and It doesnt seem to be that hard if you give it some time. You are more than welcome with some technical explanations =) I´ll just need to figure out what I need to ask you first, hehe.

All three are simple in theory, even the new items. The only problem is they each require storing more data in the password. There are unused bits, but you would probably need to shuffle things around to group some unused bits with the existing item data bits. This is a non-issue if you ditch passwords for saving.

The first time I got a hold of the japanese Metroid FDS rom and found an emulator that could load it I totally hated nintendo for doing the password system in the first place, Passwords are cool in Kid Icarus (offtopic: is there any known bug passwords for Metroid like the ones in Kid Icarus BTW? like "000eee eeeeee eeeeee eeeeee" or "DUVANS MAMMOR KOMMER BORTOT"), but in Metroid, passwords are just wrong, I whould love to insert the code from the japanese FDS rom and get that cool zelda feeling on my hack, but I´m not even sure If that is possible at all. If such a thing whould be possible, every hacker should use it.

Anyway, another thing I am dreaming about at night is to split the tourian bridge room and have 1 room for the kraid statue and 1 room with the ridley statue (yes, boss kill reward item, sweeeet), I figured out a way to make tourian unaccessable before killing both bosses anyway ;) I guess my strong sides are the design and puzzle parts, designing atmospheric environments and come up with new ways to deny or give access to new areas depending on what items you currently have equipped. why the hell can´t nintendo show me some appreciation for buying their games my whole life and give me an ultimate Nestroid editor?  :cry:

I´d gladly share my ideas if you are interrested.  :^_^:

[Grimlock]

First off I want to congratulate you Snarfblam on making an amazing editor for Metroid.  I originally made a Metroid mod years ago using Metedit but got turned off when I realized the issues with the weapon editing and placement.  Recently I was editing Ghost's N Goblins with Gngedit and though I would see if a newer version of the editor was available.  I stumbled upon Editroid at zophar.net and have been hooked since.  I've been using Tile Layer Pro to edit my graphics and so far it's looking pretty awesome!

So far I've drawn up a city area (where you start), a sewer area bellow the city, an alien type forest, a crypt/ruin, and the final level which is a lab.

I've already created the graphics for the city area and sewer area and several rooms.  I've got the graphics for the forest and crypt designed and still lack the design of the Lab graphics but have a good idea how I'm going to make them.  I've been hand drawing the graphics in Tile Layer Pro and its been working great.  With the ROM expanded there is a ton of room for the extra tiles.

[Grimlock]

Ideas for Editroid Improvement  :grin:

I've been doing some heavy graphics modifications and structure redesign.  Here's my wish list I've come up with so far:

ZOOM FEATURE - STRUCTURE EDITING
1)   Add zoom feature for structure editing similar to Tile Layer Pros 1-2-3-4.  With my screens native 1680 by 1050 it's really hard to view the 8x8 tiles when building the full 16x16 blocks

ZOOM FEATURE - ROOM EDITING
2)   Add zoom feature for main room editing similar to Tile Layer Pros 1-2-3-4.  Again with most screens being higher resolution a feature like this would be very welcome.

STRUCTURE SELECTION WINDOW
3)   Add a floating window similar to the structure editor window that displays the available structures.  When a structure is selected in a room you would be able to click on a structure displayed in the floating window and change the selected structure to the one clicked on.  The floating window would show the available structures one above the other with a slider on the side to scroll up and down.

CLEAN START/ROOM CLEAR OUT OPTION
4)   Clear all rooms option.  This would be great for people like me who want to start from scratch.  Hopefully you would be able to do this yet keep all the available rooms in memory.  Then you could create your rooms scattered, clear the grid once a final layout is decided and then begin placing the rooms in the new layout.  EDIT: This would delete all the rooms from the grid yet retain the individual room layouts.

FASTER STRUCTURE EDITING
5)   Building/editing structures can take a while when deleting tiles is needed, a feature like shift-click a tile to delete from the structure while in the structure editing window would be a great time saver.  Right now the right-click>delete, right-click>delete, right-click>delete can be very tedious.

Thanks, even without these changes Editroid is an amazing program, by far the best NES game editor I've ever used!  If I come up with any other ideas I'll post them here.

[snarfblam]

In the past, I've considered the zooming features as well as the structure selector you've described. Number four and five might be nice to have as well, but I doubt any of these features will ever happen. Time spent working on these features is time not spent working on more useful features. Also, for what it's worth, Editroid was developed on a 1680x1050 display.

[SpiderWaffle]

I've checking on some of the hacks here:
http://metroidconstruction.com/hacks.php?x=top

But they all seem to be supermetroid.  Is there a way to tell which are for Metroid if any?

In Editroid the editing is a little confusing, I've gathered you can delete rooms by copying and pasting a blank room but that's the only way I've found.  I remember reading how the original metroid designers chunked a lot of the level data to save space, and I see that when I try and edit, like deleting a chunk of 5 blocks, and then it will modify every room that's the same as that one.

Is there a way to see which block chunks you have to work with and call on the one already made to edit a room.  And a way to see what rooms you have to choose to from and add or delete rooms?

I'm trying to gather what potential there is to edit the game beyond what was given in the original.  I think you have full functionality on which doors change to and from vertical and horizontal scrolling.  Then I saw there was a hack to allow ice and wave and same time, is this something you have to patch into editroid?  What other things like this can you do?  For example I saw there were unrecognized powerup items, is there a way you can patch these to be new items?  Can you change things like which way a enemy moves, or weather the lava jumpers go high or low, I think this might be psedo-randomly decided at the start of the game or something?  Edit things like lava damage, enemy damage, enemy HP?  Or make enemy generators or different types of generators?

[Quietus]

I answered this in the other thread too, but:

But they all seem to be supermetroid.  Is there a way to tell which are for Metroid if any?

I might be wrong, but I think they are ALL for Super Metroid at the moment.

[snarfblam]

Umm... I'll tackle this one point at a time.

But they all seem to be supermetroid.  Is there a way to tell which are for Metroid if any?

I believe Quietus is right on this one. There are Metroid hacks posted on other sites, but I've yet to come upon an exceptional Metroid hack. I've got two Metroid hacks in progress, but neither is close to complete.

I've gathered you can delete rooms by copying and pasting a blank room but that's the only way I've found.

Depending on the version of Editroid, the exact menu layout may vary, but there should be an option to disable a map location. Alternatively, you can use zero on the number pad (make sure numlock is on). Disabling a screen is different from having an empty screen, because the game will still scroll to an empty screen, but scrolling will stop when you reach a disabled screen.

Use one through five on the number pad, or the options in the toolbar/menu, to enable a screen and tell the editor which level you intend the screen to belong to.

I remember reading how the original metroid designers chunked a lot of the level data to save space, and I see that when I try and edit, like deleting a chunk of 5 blocks, and then it will modify every room that's the same as that one.

Is there a way to see which block chunks you have to work with and call on the one already made edit a room.  And a way to see what rooms you have to choose to from and add or delete rooms?

I'm not exactly sure what you are asking here. The screens in Metroid are heavily recycled. If two screens look the same, they probably share data. If want to change one without affecting the others, use the add/remove button in the toolbar to duplicate the screen (only available on expanded ROMs). To see which "structures" (I think this is what you are referring to as "block chunks") and screens are available, right now the only option is to cycle through them all. Maybe the next version of Editroid will include a structure and room browser (this is not a promise).

I think you have full functionality on which doors change to and from vertical and horizontal scrolling.

I have a detailed explanation of how doors work in Metroid here.

Then I saw there was a hack to allow ice and wave and same time, is this something you have to patch into editroid? 

I've posted the code and an IPS patch you can apply to your ROM here, but this patch won't be compatible with the upcoming version of Editroid. I intend to release an Editroid 3.0 compatible version some time after I release Editroid 3.0.

What other things like this can you do?  For example I saw there were unrecognized powerup items, is there was you patch these to be new items?  Can you change things like which way a enemy moves, or weather the lava jumpers go high or low, I think this might be psedo-randomly decided at the start of the game or something?  Edit things like lava damage?  Or make enemy generators or different types of generators?

With ASM, you can do anything. If you know ASM, the whole game has been reverse engineered, which helps immensely. I haven't researched any of these specifically.

[SpiderWaffle]

For Wave+Ice patch, I was wonder I can get snarfblASM how to assemble it to produce an IPS file?  And then how do you apply the IPS file to your rom?

I've been trying to find a way to look at structures and screen that are available.  You said you can "cycle through them" how do you do this?  And if you know structure or screen you want, say "structure 5" or "screen 5" how would apply that structure in a screen editor or that screen to the map editor?  The only way I can see any of this is with the "pointer explorer" and the "structure editor".  I can delete structures from a screen if put the screen on the map, but I don't know how to select which screen I put on, pressing 1-5 always puts the same screen on for that area depending on which coordinate it is, and I can't figure out any way to add structures to a screen, the add structure function doesn't seem to work.

Then I was wondering, what the palette and advanced palette editor are for and how they work?

Thanks a bunch

[snarfblam]

For Wave+Ice patch, I was wonder I can get snarfblASM how to assemble it to produce an IPS file?  And then how do you apply the IPS file to your rom?

snarfblASM has a bug where the output file always has a .BIN extension. When the .PATCH directive is used, the output is actually an IPS file. It just has the wrong extension. You can confirm this by opening the .BIN file in notepad. An IPS patch begins with "PATCH". Just change the extension to .IPS. Buuuuuuut... there should already be an IPS in the zip.

Like I said, if you use wavy ice in your ROM, Editroid 3.0 will have problems with it. FYI, you really shouldn't be applying patches to the copy of the ROM you are editing anyways (just in case this is what you were doing). If you want to test a patch, apply it to a copy. Likewise, when you distribute the ROM, keep a copy of the ROM without patches.

You said you can "cycle through them" how do you do this?

Peep dem tooltips, dawg. Everything is labelled. Keyboard shortcuts are shown in the tooltips. You're looking for the "Previous Screen", "Next Screen", "Previous Type" and "Next Type" buttons.

"Add structure" creates a new object type that can be edited with the structure editor. "Add object" adds an object to the screen. ("Structure" refers to the object type definition, "object" refers to an instance of an object placed in a screen.)

I added a video to the first post which goes over the basics.

[passarbye]

looks good, and i might be able to figure this one out! :)

waiting on the newest version though.

[SpiderWaffle]

3.0 looks amazing!

I'm trying to learn all that can with 2.1 now, when 3.0 hits I'm going to using it a lot too.  I don't know if anyone is interested in graphics art for new hack?

[snarfblam]

So this one time I made a thing.

Editroid 3.0 (beta)

Sauce

[SpiderWaffle]

Made some spaghetti sauce too? :D

[xorxif]

I looked through Editroid 3.0, All the new features look fun to work with, but where did the "patches" section under tools go? The doorway scrolling patch was particularly useful I thought. Why were they removed?

Also, how do you want bugs reported?

[snarfblam]

I removed the patches menu because the patches were trivial, except for the "Super Metroid Doors" patch, which wasn't very well done to begin with. I'll post the relevant ASM on the wiki. You're probably right about the doorway scrolling patch, though. I suppose I'll put that back in.

As for bugs, there's an Editroid bugs thread. Just include as much info as you can.

[SpiderWaffle]

Wavy-Ice is nice too.  Wasn't there another?