Some questions about SM hacking

[TS666]

Hi, I'm new at hacking and I'd like to create my own ROM hack, but for that I'd like to ask some questions:

• I can't open the ROM with the newest version of SMILE, whatever I try it returns the error: "Run-time error '76': Path not found".
• How do I can replace Samus' sprites? (just because I've something on mind but with elements from another saga, I'll try creating the sprites for the new character by myself).
• How do I can add a key/artifact system? (once all keys or artifacts are collected the final area will be unlocked, just like Eris 2012 or Phazon Hack)
• A basic tutorial on how to use SMILE to get started? (textual and with images please, not a video).
• How do I can replace upgrades names and icons?.

That's all from now, I'll be looking fordward for your answers, thanks!.

[Vismund Cygnus]

1. Read le FAQ.

2. AHAHAHAHAHA.
Srs though. That's a lot more work than I think you think it is. (Sorry for the sass.)
Basically Samus has a lot of sprites. And I have no idea how to edit any of them.

3. Again, that's a really, really advanced kind of thing to do. The fact that you haven't used SMILE before means that there's no way you should even attempt this, not until you've got everything else down. Basically it's a lot of ASM magic, you'd have to manually code the new items you want and then code in the events so that when you've collected them the door/area will be unlocked.

4. Read le docs. You won't find a "basic tutorial with pictures" because I'm too lazy to finish mine, but there's a tutorial for basically everything there. I found Person701's guide helpful when I started

5. That's two different things. The first requires a decent amount of coding knowledge, and the second is simply GFX editing. Both of these should wait until you've learnt the basics of hacking.

Welcome to Metroid Construction! Learn to look around better first before posting stuff like this.

[TS666]

1. Read le FAQ.

2. AHAHAHAHAHA.
Srs though. That's a lot more work than I think you think it is. (Sorry for the sass.)
Basically Samus has a lot of sprites. And I have no idea how to edit any of them.

3. Again, that's a really, really advanced kind of thing to do. The fact that you haven't used SMILE before means that there's no way you should even attempt this, not until you've got everything else down. Basically it's a lot of ASM magic, you'd have to manually code the new items you want and then code in the events so that when you've collected them the door/area will be unlocked.

4. Read le docs. You won't find a "basic tutorial with pictures" because I'm too lazy to finish mine, but there's a tutorial for basically everything there. I found Person701's guide helpful when I started

5. That's two different things. The first requires a decent amount of coding knowledge, and the second is simply GFX editing. Both of these should wait until you've learnt the basics of hacking.

Welcome to Metroid Construction! Learn to look around better first before posting stuff like this.

Thanks for the reply but...

• My answer is not there, I already looked at it.
• Designing the sprites isn't the problem, the problem is putting them into the game... but fine if you don't know, someone else will answer.
• Advanced? Damn it I won't be able to do my hack with what I want and I woudln't like to left all the tough work for everyone else and me standing just like a lazy person watching what others can do.
• Thanks, no prob.
• Which kind of programmation language? and GFX editing won't be a big deal...

[MetroidMst]

First things first, #1 is indeed answered in this topic. I suggest reading it. Entirely. Pretty important to do before claiming your question isn't answered by it when it is indeed listed in there.

Second thing that I will mention, the programming language is assembly. Here is a general guide to the language if it helps at all.

Third, Samus' GFX is located in the ROM. (Obvious, I know. Bear with me.) Exact location I am unsure, but open the ROM with TLP or some other tile editing program and you will find the mess of her GFX in there pretty easy. Just keep scrolling until you see bits of her GFX floating around. And then enjoy.

Forth, I will echo Vismund's sentiment and suggest you get used to SMILE and find out what you can do with it before you head onto more complicated stuff.

[TS666]

First things first, #1 is indeed answered in this topic. I suggest reading it. Entirely. Pretty important to do before claiming your question isn't answered by it when it is indeed listed in there.

Second thing that I will mention, the programming language is assembly. Here is a general guide to the language if it helps at all.

Third, Samus' GFX is located in the ROM. (Obvious, I know. Bear with me.) Exact location I am unsure, but open the ROM with TLP or some other tile editing program and you will find the mess of her GFX in there pretty easy. Just keep scrolling until you see bits of her GFX floating around. And then enjoy.

Forth, I will echo Vismund's sentiment and suggest you get used to SMILE and find out what you can do with it before you head onto more complicated stuff.

1) GREAT! The answer was on the comments and I looked only at the spoiler, sorry my sillyness :O_o:.
2) Thanks, I'll give it a read.
3) Very good, surely there are lots of sprites!.
4) Of course, I'll deal with the basic and see what I can do...

Thanks for your answer!.

[Alisa Orlova]

del

[Mettyk25jigsaw]

Just thought I'd add an idea that could do the same thing as your third query in your original post about a key artifact but in a different and much easier way, I just though of it. I don't know if you are interested in this idea though but it wouldn't require any complicated asm etc...

Anyway down to the point, you could have a room prior to the entrance of tourian the final area and place a bunch of grey always closed doors there (wait a minute I just thought of a second and related/similar idea and better, will add after this 1), these type of grey doors cannot be opened by any weapon whatsoever, absolutely none, however what you could do is anywhere all over the planet have specific doors that are openable like Power bomb doors, Miss doors and S.Miss doors placed in certain rooms and you would probably want to make them look apart and NOT a door that you would transition through and then give each one a same high and low as a door in the previously mentioned room with a bunch of always closed grey doors. What this does is when you open the openable door that you place anywhere on planet, once one is open the door that has the same high and low inside the grey door room, well that door will disappear as though it never existed therefore allowing you through that door. I hope you get the idea...

2nd idea, although this idea will require a patch and may want to do later down on the track since you're a newbie and I would advise you to...Actually 2 patches, sorry...

Patches needed are:

1 = 'Event Plm' --- Done if I remember by a person called 'Squichi Ichigo'
2 = 'Event Doors --- Done by 'JAM'

Patches are on the main site under patches and are under the names Squichi Ichigo and JAM...

Idea = It's related to the first but may be more appealing....

Still have the grey door room idea, but instead of having actual doors to open them (like Miss drs etc [anywhere on planet]) place an event PLM on your own personally designed tile (or use a tile that's already there) and make the player have to be in morph ball to access the area where the event PLM is placed (in front of your preferred tile) this patch seems to only work in morph ball mode inside a tunnel of 1 tile high (morph ball needed) if you place a bomb or a power bomb while in a stationary position right on the tile itself, otherwise if you're standing up while touching the ev plm it will automatically go off the event without doing anything but not so in morph ball mode.
   Now for example if you use an event value of let's say '37', you will need to have the low of the event PLM as '37' and the high as '00', now the door that it is suppose to let you access to inside the grey door room is where JAM's 'Event door' patch comes into play, with this patch it allows the door to flash only when an event is set, in this case when player has bombed tile where you placed the event plm...With the grey door, set the high to '30' or 'B0 and the low to '37' (exampled event)...In this case the door should be flashing once player has bombed the tile...

This could be well too much for you to understand right now but after learning more about SMILE and how the game is done, this is one way you could incorporate in a certain way a key/artefact to your game..
If this is too much for you to understand right now since your a beginner I advise you to when you have learnt more about designing a hack and learnt about all the exciting things you can do Inside SMILE and lets be honest the amount you can do is ENORMOUS, then come back to this post and you may well understand what I am at...Wouldn't expect you to now though...

Anyway good luck with your hack and can't wait to play it and have fun with it.... :grin:

[Smiley]

As for changing the item names, there are two steps. First you have to change the message box that appears when you pick up the item, and then you have to change the graphics in the equipment screen.

The first requires hex editing, but it isn't too hard. MetroidMst's guide is quite handy for this.

For the equipment screen, you just have to locate the graphics in the ROM with a tile editor such as TLP and just edit the graphics. They're located at 1B0000.

Samus' graphics... well, have fun editing this [spoiler][/spoiler]

One last thing, try to avoid saying "the latest version of x." First off, there are currently two different versions of SMILE, 2.5 and JX, both of which are "latest." Two, it'll only be latest until an update comes out. Just to avoid confusion in the future.

Happy hacking! :^_^:

[Quote58]

In terms of the artifact/key thing, that's actually very easy to do (did it in sunshine oddity [one of the not horribly buggy didn't have time to finish things]). It would be easy to make, however idk what you have planned for the place where you use them so come to me when you haven't just started hacking(ie. Make the whole hack first) and I'd be happy to set that up for you. Plms are very easy to make BTW.
And about the sprites, not sure if it was answered but don't bother trying that idea. Unless you want to spend forever trying to get the sprites inserted properly (like the Justin Bailey patch) or you know how her animation code works (like sadi or red monkey) you're not going to get anywhere.

[Crashtour99]

And about the sprites, not sure if it was answered but don't bother trying that idea. Unless you want to spend forever trying to get the sprites inserted properly (like the Justin Bailey patch) or you know how her animation code works (like sadi, crashtour, or red monkey) you're not going to get anywhere.

Edited because damn you Quote...  lol

Seriously though, there are only a handful of people who have even attempted resprites of Samus.  Auximines did it the hard way without understanding the coding or data structures at all for his Justin Bailey patch.
And if you want to do something like this?
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eA8eYsw9sU[/spoiler]
Well, that's literally about 1,000 times harder than you might think it is...

[Lunaria]

5. That's two different things. The first requires a decent amount of coding knowledge, and the second is simply GFX editing. Both of these should wait until you've learnt the basics of hacking.

Which kind of programmation language? and GFX editing won't be a big deal...

It just requires basic knowledge of hex adresses as well as hex translation to different languages. IIRC, A starts at 41, and then B is 42, etc. The item pick-up names are stored in plain-text like that in a certain location in the ROM, which is documented on the site... somewhere. The graphics for the upgrades are not compressed so just open the ROM in a tile editor in the right mode and you'll find them after a bit searching around. (They are somewhere around 1/3 of the ROM file in, IIRC.)

If you want to edit the items name on the status screen (where you turn upgrades on or off.) you'll need to mess with those graphics, and in certain cases re-point the graphical table, etc. That would require Assembly knowledge, which is the go-to language when it comes to hacking, HAVE FUN! :D

How do I can replace Samus' sprites? (just because I've something on mind but with elements from another saga, I'll try creating the sprites for the new character by myself).

By replacing all of these graphics with whatever you have in mind, as well as recode the graphics loading/pose selection code to better suit your new graphics:

[spoiler][/spoiler]
(Samus graphics are not compressed, by the way.)

A basic tutorial on how to use SMILE to get started? (textual and with images please, not a video).

I'm afraid no such thing exist, to my knowledge at least. However, I do have the start of a video tutorial up here in case you change your mind about video. It's main focus is teaching about SMILE, some terminology, and, of course, design.

[Metaquarius]

And about the sprites, not sure if it was answered but don't bother trying that idea. Unless you want to spend forever trying to get the sprites inserted properly (like the Justin Bailey patch) or you know how her animation code works (like sadi, crashtour, or red monkey) you're not going to get anywhere.

Edited because damn you Quote...  lol

Seriously though, there are only a handful of people who have even attempted resprites of Samus.  Auximines did it the hard way without understanding the coding or data structures at all for his Justin Bailey patch.
And if you want to do something like this?
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eA8eYsw9sU[/spoiler]
Well, that's literally about 1,000 times harder than you might think it is...

Editing Samus' sprites is not that hard, you have even written a guide about samus animation stuff not so long ago, I don't see why it hasn't been linked in this thread yet : http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,145.msg32651.html#msg32651

Instead of bragging around how great you are, at least, try to be helpful. This document is a really good starting point if you intend to be any kind of serious at editing Samus and stuff, providing you already know how to insert GFX.

[Crashtour99]

Probably because that guide is going to go right over their head.  Having lofty goals is good and all, but a beginner has to start out small.  Some of what this person wants to achieve takes a lot of knowledge, time, and patience to learn.  Wasn't meant to be bragging, more a demonstration of what could be done with such time, knowledge, and patience.

If you want to learn mountain climbing, you don't start out with Mt. Everest...

[Lunaria]

While most people come into ROM hacking with no experience what-so-ever, I still think it's better to just answer their questions instead of assuming they are idiots right of the batch. (Unless they have proven themselves to be so.) Furthermore, we might get people in here who have messed with ROM hacking before, just not super metroid, etc. Assuming people are in-experienced is fine, but if you refuse to be helpful because of that, well, then I'm unsure how much helping you're actually doing. :P

[Vismund Cygnus]

I think given that the first sentence of the first post was "Hi I am new to rom hacking" I think it was safe to assume he is new to rom hacking.
That being said, the info may as well have been posted here for anyone else wanting to know the answers. That kinda stuff is good for future reference, given the forum has a handy "search" function that everyone forgets exists.

[Lunaria]

Yeah, of course Vismund, he could have other experiences that'd help him though. (programming, etc.) But my point was more in general, I feel this community is at times too hostile towards new people. :p

[Alisa Orlova]

del