How to create an elevator?

[Hawntah]

More specifically, clipdata 29 (Elevator Up) only seems to work in certain rooms, including ones that have an elevator in the original and for some odd reason, Brinstar room 0. If used in other rooms, it does absolutely nothing. Any ideas?

[Hawntah]

Thanks for all the help, guys. I really appreciate it. :<_<:

Seriously, does everyone hate MZM that much? It's kinda hard to make a decent hack without being able to create an elevator in any room.. :(

[Quote58]

Did you try talking to Interdepth considering he made the editor for ZM?

[Hawntah]

Did you try talking to Interdepth considering he made the editor for ZM?

I did, actually. He seemed to have lost interest in ZM hacking though, and didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know..

[Quietus]

That's a big part of the reason that nobody is making hacks for it - a complete lack of documentation or guides on how to do anything.  Maybe you could be the first, and it might galvanise others. :^_^:

[Hawntah]

That's a big part of the reason that nobody is making hacks for it - a complete lack of documentation or guides on how to do anything.  Maybe you could be the first, and it might galvanise others. :^_^:

That's an excellent idea.. there's just one little problem. This is my first time trying to hack anything and I have absolutely no hacking experience whatsoever. Many things I have been able to figure out how to do on my own. But this.. is different. It's not about lack of documentation. Adding an elevator to a room should be a simple matter, change the clipdata of one tile in DoubleHelix/a single byte in a hex editor. That's how all the elevators in Zero Mission are constructed, that's the method that, when used, results in a fully functional elevator.. in certain rooms. But not in others. For no obvious reason. There is no way I can solve this by myself without some extremely lucky trial-and-error random hex editing (unlikely), or successfully disassembling the game's code and figuring out why this is happening (even more unlikely). Which is why I was hoping someone on here might know something I don't..

[Metaquarius]

You should post the room ids where Elevator Up is actually working because I can't find one.
I've put an elevator in some Norfair rooms but it does nothing (except for room n°0 and room n°2 of course) Strangely enough, I cannot get the elevator door transition to work properly in those rooms too. Samus passes through those tiles as if they're No-Block tiles, this is not what I noticed with existing elevator doors.

[Hawntah]

You should post the room ids where Elevator Up is actually working because I can't find one.
I've put an elevator in some Norfair rooms but it does nothing (except for room n°0 and room n°2 of course) Strangely enough, I cannot get the elevator door transition to work properly in those rooms too. Samus passes through those tiles as if they're No-Block tiles, this is not what I noticed with existing elevator doors.

Thanks for actually looking into this!

As far as I can tell, the Elevator Up clipdata works in rooms that have an elevator in the original (obviously), Brinstar room 0 (might have something to do with Samus' appearance sequence at the very beginning of the game?), and Crateria room 3 (no idea why) however, I have not tested every single room so there might be some I've missed. It does not work in Crateria room 0 (so not all room 0's work), Kraid room 29 (so not all rooms with an area connection work), or Brinstar room 4 (so not all rooms that contain "elevator zoneline" clipdata work).

To make the elevator actually connect to some other door, you need to place a door of type 51, 3 tiles wide and 1 tile high in the path of the elevator. You also need to change the clipdata of all 3 tiles covered by this door to the appropriate Elevator Zoneline clipdata, Up for elevators going up, and Down for elevators going down. You then have to do the same in reverse in the other room. But the problem is, in most rooms the Elevator Up/Down clipdata acts like a Block clipdata, i.e. does absolutely nothing when you step on it and press up/down.

[Metaquarius]

It does not work in Crateria room 0 (so not all room 0's work), Kraid room 29 (so not all rooms with an area connection work), or Brinstar room 4 (so not all rooms that contain "elevator zoneline" clipdata work).

I see what you did : I also tried to place an elevator in rooms displaying area names like Chozo Ruins, but to no avail.

To make the elevator actually connect to some other door, you need to place...

I know how to place this kind of doors but I was not able to get it to work in any non-elevator rooms... until I found out about the "Area Connection" thing Interdpth wrote : a simple hex change, now it works !
Unfortunately, Elevator Up clipdata doesn't seem to give a fuck whether door and sprites are setup correctly or not (it just makes Samus go up indefinitely  :razz:), so I looked into the room header, but found nothing special about it, either stuff is hardcoded in the block properties or it has to do with room door data.

BTW, which version of DoubleHelix are you using ? Mine is 2009 and this one is really wicked.

Edit : So I checked room door data or whatever its called, and didn't find something interesting. :neutral:

[Hawntah]

I know how to place this kind of doors but I was not able to get it to work in any non-elevator rooms... until I found out about the "Area Connection" thing Interdpth wrote : a simple hex change, now it works !
Unfortunately, Elevator Up clipdata doesn't seem to give a fuck whether door and sprites are setup correctly or not (it just makes Samus go up indefinitely  :razz:)

So.. I'm a little confused, have you successfully connected two rooms with a working elevator, or does the elevator ignore your doors and just make Samus go up indefinitely?
Either way, the problem is making the Elevator Up clipdata work in all rooms.

BTW, which version of DoubleHelix are you using ? Mine is 2009 and this one is really wicked.

I'm actually using two different versions of DoubleHelix, an old one from 14/2/2009 which has more features (allows editing of doors, spritesets, scrolls, highlighting all tiles that use a certain type of clipdata, etc.), but is very buggy and the interface is split into 3 windows (:mad:), and a new version dated 25/2/2013 which has a single-window interface and does not cut off the bottom and right parts of the room but lacks a lot of features from the old version.

[Metaquarius]

51-type doors pointing to another area were not working for me until I edited manually the Area Connections in hex. That's why I supposed there was a link between door setup and elevators (which is the case in Super Metroid) but it doesn't apply here I guess.

Yeah, got the 2013 version for a moment, when I noticed all the missing features, I thought it was a bug or something, so I got rid of it. With a such unstable editor, how do you expect people to hack ZM seriously ?

[Zhs2]

Only like 10 people hacked Fusion or Zero Mission ever, and not even all at once. interdpth sort of gave up when he couldn't get user feedback - not to mention he hasn't been around for a good two weeks...

[Hawntah]

51-type doors pointing to another area were not working for me until I edited manually the Area Connections in hex. That's why I supposed there was a link between door setup and elevators (which is the case in Super Metroid) but it doesn't apply here I guess.
Yeah, got the 2013 version for a moment, when I noticed all the missing features, I thought it was a bug or something, so I got rid of it. With a such unstable editor, how do you expect people to hack ZM seriously ?

Ah, I see.. that makes sense. Well, it's better than no editor, right? It's actually pretty usable, so long as you stay away from certain features (scroll editor, I'm looking at you :nope:). But then again I've never tried SMILE so I don't have anything to compare it with.

Only like 10 people hacked Fusion or Zero Mission ever, and not even all at once. interdpth sort of gave up when he couldn't get user feedback - not to mention he hasn't been around for a good two weeks...

Fusion, I can understand, what with the event system making any major changes impossible, but I'm really surprised how few people have attempted to hack Zero Mission. Yeah, lack of documentation and all that, but that obviously didn't stop early Super Metroid hackers.

[Quietus]

that obviously didn't stop early Super Metroid hackers.

Actually, it wasn't much different.  Very few people were hacking Super at the time, and very few hacks were released.  It was only after the release of redesign that hacking for Super grew to any decent size.

[Metaquarius]

Except Metroid Zero Mission Redesign™ is not gonna happen soon if hackers don't even know simple things like getting that goddamn ElevatorUp to work in any rooms. Seemingly, two hackers have managed to make 8 new clipdata for ZM (see patch at http://interdpth.arc-nova.org/PJs%20stuff/), I'm pretty sure they know how clipdata routines works. Without any entry point to start with, disassembling the clipdata stuff is extremely unlikely. ZM hacking needs its coding genius like Kejardon or Jathys, Interdepth please come back ! :mad:

[Quietus]

And that's the problem.  No hacks without knowledge, and no knowledge without a hack.  Chicken and the egg. :neutral:

[Hawntah]

And that's the problem.  No hacks without knowledge, and no knowledge without a hack.  Chicken and the egg. :neutral:

Then how did Redesign get made? :pwuh:

[Quietus]

Drewseph, who remained ridiculously dedicated to the project, had direct contact with both Kejardon and Jathys, and spent years of his life building and revising it. :^_^:

[Yuki]

I too am interested in hacking Zero Mission, Hawntah/Metak, mind posting me the 2009 version of DH? I knew of it but couldn't find a download for it anywhere, only the new one. We should see if PJBoy can help us with anything ZM related, he's got experience with Fusion I know, and I think some in ZM

[Metaquarius]

http://interdpth.arc-nova.org/DoubleHelix.zip

[P.JBoy]

I can find out just about anything in these games, the only issue is time, and I don't tend to go out of my way to try and document things from these games anymore. If there's something you need to know, I can probably help out, but really you're better off figuring out how to figure stuff out yourself. That said, always feel free to pop into IRC and catch my attention

[Metaquarius]

really you're better off figuring out how to figure stuff out yourself

Best answer I've read in a while. Problem solved. :lol:

[Hawntah]

really you're better off figuring out how to figure stuff out yourself

Best answer I've read in a while. Problem solved. :lol:

Now, why didn't I think of this before.   :eyeroll:

[FlamingCobra]

I can't think of a single elevator in Zero Mission that doesn't go to another area. interdpth told me once that all doors/elevators that go to a different area are hardcoded.

[Hawntah]

I can't think of a single elevator in Zero Mission that doesn't go to another area. interdpth told me once that all doors/elevators that go to a different area are hardcoded.

The problem is I can't even make a normal area to area elevator work in most rooms, the clipdata that's supposed to act as an elevator just does nothing.