Intersted in working on my first hack

[obcd]

Hello everyone i would like some tips, i want to start on my own hack cause i love super metroid, but i would like to ask those of you who have made hacks before. what programs would you recommend i use to start making a hack? i wanna start off with a small yet simple hack and work my way up.

Is there any need for me to have coding skills?

I would like some help from you guys and hopefully make a fun hack you guys can enjoy :)

thanks for taking the time to read this

[begrimed]

You're very limited in what you can do without a little bit of coding know-how, but it's one of those things you'll pick up gradually as you go along if you don't know anything at the moment.

Tools? There's SMILE, obviously. Most people use SMILE 2.5 by Jathys, but there is also SMILE JX by JAM, which I haven't used myself.

Beyond that, YY-CHR or TileLayer Pro for graphics editing, a hex editor for small programming edits (HxD is free, and it is what most people use, but there are other free ones out there also). There are other tools, but those won't come into play until you start learning ASM code. The last 'tool' I can think of are the guides and references on the main site.

[Vismund Cygnus]

Well, there was probably no need for a thread for this, because if you'd looked the section that is helpfully called "documents" you'd likely get the same result that you're going to get from people here.

Anyway, for Super Metroid, you're obviously going to want to get SMILE by Jathys. I'm pretty sure that for that version you have to make an empty folder called "Plugins" in the "Files" folder or you'll encounter runtime error 76 and plague the forum with yet another unneeded thread.
HxD is a fantastic free hex editor, which you're going to need if you want to make any changes to physics, room sizes, and basically anything that isn't simple room data. This leads me to your second question, although you won't necessarily need any coding skills, you're going to need to learn to count hexadecimal (base16) if you're going to understand anything that you're trying to change.
Finally, Tile Layer Pro is a free utility that is pretty much essential if you want to make any edits to graphics.

Also, I'd strongly recommend you do some reading up before you same some kind of shitty half-hack. Person701's Beginner's Guide to SMILE is pretty much essential reading, it's a little brief and outdated, but pretty cool nonetheless. Grime's Site has a lot of really, really useful guides that are a little advanced but pretty much essential skills you're going to need if you're serious about hacking. I learnt a ton from the docs there, and I'm sure a lot of others have too.
Also, make sure you actually check the docs page and use that little "Search" box in the top corner before you make any threads about questions. I'd also recommend getting on IRC if you can't find the answers on the site. Just be patient, someone will answer eventually if they're around, we aren't your servants and impatience is just going to make people hate you.

Lastly, I've got a few pointers that are probably worth noting for when you start:
[spoiler]

• Make backups often!
• Learn to edit doors and the map. Not many people will play a half hack, and even less will find it enjoyable.
• Don't be afraid to break anything. Nobody gets anywhere by playing it safe.
• You will get better with practise.
• NEVER USE RED CRATERIA.
• Experiment with palettes to give your hack a more personal feel. Just learn to see what colours work well together and what don't.
• Get feedback from others, whether that's through Room of the Week or the General Projects/Screenshot thread.
• Finish more than just the landing site and another room before making a hack thread. Most serious hacks don't even have a thread until they are more than 25-50% done.
• The most important thing to remember is, of course, to have fun. There's no point in doing this if you're not having fun with it.

[/spoiler]
Alright, that should be enough to get you started. Happy hacking, welcome aboard, etc. and have fun!
(also someone maybe merge this with the general projects thread/hack ideas/talk of the day maybe?)

Damn Grime beat me to it :(

[Jordan5]

Firstly, this part of the forum is for hacks of Super Metroid, not for getting hack ideas. If you want to do that then try this topic. But seeing as you're here i'll try and answer your questions.

You obviously need SMILE to start hacking, I use both v2.5 and JX v2.83 as i prefer the old interface but the later version has lots of cool new feathers. I'd recommend these two versions and see which one you prefer to use. You will probably want Lunar Address if you're going to repoint data to free space while hacking (you will need to do this at least for level data) but it's very easy with the program. You will also want a hex editor for finding free space and other stuff as you get more competent, I use HxD but there are many out there. If you want to do any graphics editing you'll want a program like Tile Layer Pro so that you can do that. For a newbie that should be more than enough in terms of programs.

You don't need any coding skills, there are lots of very easy guids out there if you wish to do some hex editing or whatever but you don't need to know or do any of it if you dont want/can't do it. When i started I knew nothing (seriously, I didn't even know what hex was or anything) but now i'm slightly competent and with some help i wrote door scroll ASM so if you want to there's lots you can learn and people will be happy to help.

If you want to start off small, try a mini-hack, there's actually a competition running right now, and even though the deadline is in like a week, if you want some guidelines to make a hack they would be pretty good and you could submit whenever. Then you'd have something small done and people would be able to tell you what you've done well and what could be done better. Also, once you've shown to have actually produced something, more people will be happy to help you out.

Right now i just recommend opening SMILE and just playing around to see what looks good. It takes a while to get used to a tileset and see how it works and stuff, you could even submit to RoTW or the General Projects Screenshots Thread to get some feedback while making your hack or just playing around.

I think that's covered everything, just make sure you post in the right place next time or people will soon get annoyed :razz:

So yeah, welcome to MetConst and happy hacking! :grin:


Damn, Grime and Vis beat me to it! I guess we should've covered it between us anyway

[Quote58]

Beyond that, YY-CHR or TileLayer Pro or Tile Molester which is very flexible and can extremely useful, for graphics editing,

[obcd]

Firstly, this part of the forum is for completed hacks of Super Metroid, not for getting hack ideas. If you want to do that then try this topic. But seeing as you're here i'll try and answer your questions.

You obviously need SMILE to start hacking, I use both v2.5 and JX v2.83 as i prefer the old interface but the later version has lots of cool new feathers. I'd recommend these two versions and see which one you prefer to use. You will probably want Lunar Address if you're going to repoint data to free space while hacking (you will need to do this at least for level data) but it's very easy with the program. You will also want a hex editor for finding free space and other stuff as you get more competent, I use HxD but there are many out there. If you want to do any graphics editing you'll want a program like Tile Layer Pro so that you can do that. For a newbie that should be more than enough in terms of programs.

You don't need any coding skills, there are lots of very easy guids out there if you wish to do some hex editing or whatever but you don't need to know or do any of it if you dont want/can't do it. When i started I knew nothing (seriously, I didn't even know what hex was or anything) but now i'm slightly competent and with some help i wrote door scroll ASM so if you want to there's lots you can learn and people will be happy to help.

If you want to start off small, try a mini-hack, there's actually a competition running right now, and even though the deadline is in like a week, if you want some guidelines to make a hack they would be pretty good and you could submit whenever. Then you'd have something small done and people would be able to tell you what you've done well and what could be done better. Also, once you've shown to have actually produced something, more people will be happy to help you out.

Right now i just recommend opening SMILE and just playing around to see what looks good. It takes a while to get used to a tileset and see how it works and stuff, you could even submit to RoTW or the General Projects Screenshots Thread to get some feedback while making your hack or just playing around.

I think that's covered everything, just make sure you post in the right place next time or people will soon get annoyed :razz:

So yeah, welcome to MetConst and happy hacking! :grin:


Damn, Grime and Vis beat me to it! I guess we should've covered it between us anyway

but it says this at the top of the forum
Rules for Super Metroid board
- This board is for anything Super Metroid hack related.
- If you have a question on how to use SMILE, post in the Engine Works!
- When creating a new topic of any kind to show off a project, please include a couple screenshots, or the topic may be locked!
- In addition to the above, please consider posting any screenshots you simply want feedback on in the General Projects Screenshots/Vids thread or Room of the Week, if you feel competent enough instead of creating a new hack topic. Something that's only 5% done is assumed to never get finished!

[Lunaria]

I made a video guide on how to get slightly started on smile here: Link

[Zhs2]

I could consider allowing exactly one noob topic, given that I'm sure members both already in this topic and not have posted just about the same exact thing like a billion times and it's good to have a reference topic to point more nubs to. There has to be something like this in Engine Works already though. Somebody should find it for me so I can merge it without caring.

[Jordan5]

but it says this at the top of the forum
Rules for Super Metroid board
- This board is for anything Super Metroid hack related.
- If you have a question on how to use SMILE, post in the Engine Works!
- When creating a new topic of any kind to show off a project, please include a couple screenshots, or the topic may be locked!
- In addition to the above, please consider posting any screenshots you simply want feedback on in the General Projects Screenshots/Vids thread or Room of the Week, if you feel competent enough instead of creating a new hack topic. Something that's only 5% done is assumed to never get finished!

Didn't mean to say completed, whoops. But it doesn't really fit the criteria, as Vis said, this shouldn't really be a topic, more talk of the day or general hack ideas. If you searched around the site you would've found all the answers you were looking for as most others have been in your position at some point.

Oh, I wanted to say that once you get more comfortable with SMILE you should check out Grime's site as well as the documents of the main page. Pretty much everything you need to know to make a hack is documented somewhere for you to find  :^_^:

[obcd]

Well, there was probably no need for a thread for this, because if you'd looked the section that is helpfully called "documents" you'd likely get the same result that you're going to get from people here.

Anyway, for Super Metroid, you're obviously going to want to get SMILE by Jathys. I'm pretty sure that for that version you have to make an empty folder called "Plugins" in the "Files" folder or you'll encounter runtime error 76 and plague the forum with yet another unneeded thread.
HxD is a fantastic free hex editor, which you're going to need if you want to make any changes to physics, room sizes, and basically anything that isn't simple room data. This leads me to your second question, although you won't necessarily need any coding skills, you're going to need to learn to count hexadecimal (base16) if you're going to understand anything that you're trying to change.
Finally, Tile Layer Pro is a free utility that is pretty much essential if you want to make any edits to graphics.

Also, I'd strongly recommend you do some reading up before you same some kind of shitty half-hack. Person701's Beginner's Guide to SMILE is pretty much essential reading, it's a little brief and outdated, but pretty cool nonetheless. Grime's Site has a lot of really, really useful guides that are a little advanced but pretty much essential skills you're going to need if you're serious about hacking. I learnt a ton from the docs there, and I'm sure a lot of others have too.
Also, make sure you actually check the docs page and use that little "Search" box in the top corner before you make any threads about questions. I'd also recommend getting on IRC if you can't find the answers on the site. Just be patient, someone will answer eventually if they're around, we aren't your servants and impatience is just going to make people hate you.

Lastly, I've got a few pointers that are probably worth noting for when you start:
[spoiler]

• Make backups often!
• Learn to edit doors and the map. Not many people will play a half hack, and even less will find it enjoyable.
• Don't be afraid to break anything. Nobody gets anywhere by playing it safe.
• You will get better with practise.
• NEVER USE RED CRATERIA.
• Experiment with palettes to give your hack a more personal feel. Just learn to see what colours work well together and what don't.
• Get feedback from others, whether that's through Room of the Week or the General Projects/Screenshot thread.
• Finish more than just the landing site and another room before making a hack thread. Most serious hacks don't even have a thread until they are more than 25-50% done.
• The most important thing to remember is, of course, to have fun. There's no point in doing this if you're not having fun with it.

[/spoiler]
Alright, that should be enough to get you started. Happy hacking, welcome aboard, etc. and have fun!
(also someone maybe merge this with the general projects thread/hack ideas/talk of the day maybe?)

Damn Grime beat me to it :(

thanks for the info questions about the tile layer pro do i download the first link or the 2nd link

[obcd]

also thanks everyone for the help i started downloading and i hope maybe one day you guys get to play my hack :)

[obcd]

You're very limited in what you can do without a little bit of coding know-how, but it's one of those things you'll pick up gradually as you go along if you don't know anything at the moment.

Tools? There's SMILE, obviously. Most people use SMILE 2.5 by Jathys, but there is also SMILE JX by JAM, which I haven't used myself.

Beyond that, YY-CHR or TileLayer Pro for graphics editing, a hex editor for small programming edits (HxD is free, and it is what most people use, but there are other free ones out there also). There are other tools, but those won't come into play until you start learning ASM code. The last 'tool' I can think of are the guides and references on the main site.

ok so i downloaded tilelayer pro and i loaded the palettes in the game but all of them are purple green and yellow and not regular color why is that? anything i can do to fix it? or am i doing something wrong

[Digital_Mantra]

Hello everyone i would like some tips, i want to start on my own hack cause i love super metroid, but i would like to ask those of you who have made hacks before. what programs would you recommend i use to start making a hack? i wanna start off with a small yet simple hack and work my way up.

First off, get that coding shit out of your head, you're starting up, get used to SMILE and lvl design and enemy placement, etc.
Don't overwhelm yourself with hex/asm editing yet. Just make a hack/half hack, make a decent room you're proud of, work from there.
So many new people come into this and say they're going to start making a SM hack and instantly jump to asm/coding or simply samus suit palettes.
Just make some rooms man. Get a feel, test them, how they play out. that would be the best focal point for work on a first hack. :)

[obcd]

Hello everyone i would like some tips, i want to start on my own hack cause i love super metroid, but i would like to ask those of you who have made hacks before. what programs would you recommend i use to start making a hack? i wanna start off with a small yet simple hack and work my way up.

First off, get that coding shit out of your head, you're starting up, get used to SMILE and lvl design and enemy placement, etc.
Don't overwhelm yourself with hex/asm editing yet. Just make a hack/half hack, make a decent room you're proud of, work from there.
So many new people come into this and say they're going to start making a SM hack and instantly jump to asm/coding or simply samus suit palettes.
Just make some rooms man. Get a feel, test them, how they play out. that would be the best focal point for work on a first hack. :)

will do sir thanks for the help lol

[FullOfFail]

This Playlist has some tutorials on TLP. It's how I learned.

The rest should come with trial and error.

[18mlivingston]

I could help but I can't mod I'm more of a beta tester since I'm a glitch/bug magnet so contact me if you need testing.