How do you hack?

[personitis]

What patterns do you follow? How do you go about creating a room? Organization? How?

I generally figure out how many missiles/supers/powers/etc. there will be. Then map out an entire area on paper then transpose to SMILE. As for rooms, I look at what seems to work best within the map.

Mods/Admins, feel free to move. Didn't quite know where to put this.Thanks Blood.

[RealRed]

Well...
I tend to map everything, then do the level design. For when I'm level designing, I detail my scrolls one by one. I don't waste time skeletoning everything. this way, I never have to worry about running out of space later since the room is already complete.

As for items, it really depends on what I'm making.

[MetroidMst]

I follow my whims. Generally I do a small section or area of the same theme/tileset. I never map out ahead of time as that restrains the creative juices to a specific area. I map the room I'm building out as I need it, and that is it.

I prefer to have everything done prior to level designing. That means I have every tile already made and given the right pallete and all that junk so I can just focus on level design.

Items are whatever I think should go somewhere.

Most important, I always have a ready supply of snacks, music, and most definitely coffee. Sometimes I keep some Legos nearby for inspiration when needed.

Finally, I suggest getting yourself a DSO to help out and do all kinds of ASM stuff you can't understand. (You can't have mine.)

[personitis]

Ya know, legos sound like an interesting idea. I'll have to try that.

[RealRed]

Oh huh. Never even thought of legos. Also, snacks and music are a given, aren't they?  :heheh:

[Zhs2]

I write buttloads of code, playtest here and there, you know the drill. Sometimes I use music and sometimes I don't, but snacks is definitely needed. Mostly I get things done on a schedule that I've discussed with my modding partner...

[RT-55J]

So far, I've been mapping everything out on paper for my current hack idea. The only problem I can see with this method is that I've never managed to take any of my hack ideas off of paper before. :3 I blame this problem on my obsession with Pipe Dream as a kid. :P

[Antidote]

Since I don't hack SM, I usually just find a file in MP that strikes my interest and investigate it.

[squishy_ichigo]

I always have music playing when I'm hacking (and when I'm not hacking, like right now :P).

* red_jenpuren np: Eat This, bLiNd - Strike911 (4:14)

I tend to hack in strides, and when I get discouraged by something that goes wrong I usually stop hacking and do something else. Which is why I take so long when I hack... >_<

On level design, I tend to give the the whole room structure first, then go back and add all the snazzy details in.  I do one room at at time, and usually don't go back to rooms unless there is a problem with it.

I plan everything I do out beforehand. For Temple of Doom, I have room by room design ideas on paper. I might not follow the plans 100%, but it gives me somewhere to start, so I'm not sitting there going "Hmmm, what to do in this room..."

When I'm at work, random ideas pop into my head, which I try to jot down so I can remember them. Most of which are crappy ideas, but I get some good ones every once in awhile.
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[mod mode]
Also, wouldn't this be better in the off-topic board? :/
[/mod mode]

[Quietus]

I usually start with the map drawn on paper, as I like to have some form of layout before I begin.  I then set up a spreadsheet with list for all of the items I wish to use, so I can check them off when I'm done with them - mainly to ensure that the percentages are correct at the end.

When it comes to actually designing rooms, I clear the room of all tiles, and then select any basic block tile, and draw a really rough outline of the room with the one block, just togive it a framework for all of the tiles.  I then use that 'skeleton' to draw the room.

[Parabox]

I fail ^_^

[Lunaria]

I make a room then I link up the door with the last room I made (or any other where I want it) and then I paint it on my map. :3

Graphics I just draw what comes to mind and then I work with it from there. Originally the Ice tileset, for example, used to be spiky and such but commenters did not like it so I made it flat instead! Plus I added more detail on the ground, etc. :3

Overly for hacks I just get an idea and then I stick with it and add more to it over time! :3

[Silver Skree]

1) Find next room and link doors.
2) Assess what I want in this room (# of doors, PLMs, Enemies), and estimate how much level space I will need.
3) Repoint as needed
4) Set the Eff Ecks Wun
5) Build from a very, very minimal mental blueprint. This leaves a lot of room for creativity.
6) Place items and enemies
7) Periodically come back to this room over 9,000 times before finishing the hack for tweaks to pretty much anything. This is an everlasting refinement stage, up until the hack is finished. I polish the hell out of my rooms until I can't possibly be any happier with them.

[Malpercio]

wing it, from the first room in. recently, i have been keeping track of which items are where, tho

[Crashtour99]

How do I hack?  Quite simply, I don't.  At least, I don't consider it hacking.  I figure you have to know at least one programming language fluently before you can call yourself a hacker.   :heheh:

Anywho, what I do is wait for inspiration for some graphics edit I can change.
1)  Then put on some music that fits whatever idea came to mind.  (had some watery Maridia type music playing while I was recreating Botwoon)
2)  Study the way the graphics tiles are drawn, both looking in the ROM or in the graphics set, and going frame by frame in an emulator (screen shots were a necessity for Ridley  :cry:).
3)  Change the palette either first (usually) or on the fly (like with the Phantoon edit) as I redraw certain tiles pixel by pixel.
4)  Then check it out in a frame by frame study of the redrawn tiles in an emulator looking for glitches or things that just don't look right.
5)  Repeat steps 2-4 as necessary until satisfied with the result.  Then move on to next edit.

[Antidote]

um, crash, thats hacking <.<

[Digital_Mantra]

Firstly, I start off with very ambient music playing. Usually something alien and minimal, like biosphere or codec scovill, among others. Something to muster up thoughts of desolate alien landscapes and lost civilizations. This helps a lot more than upbeat music. To each their own.

Secondly, I treat each and every room as my own child, I tend to revisit these rooms numerous times to add more detail or remove detail depending on how I feel the mood is set right. I only do rooms one at a time, I never create a map first off and skeleton rooms for later detailing. I find that method retarded but it does work for some people so take no offense that I just called you retarded. Retard.

Thirdly, I stick a butt plug up my anus and down a bottle of absynthe, then switch the music to something more tribal, like steve roach. Here's where the magic happens. I black out and wake up to find several majestic rooms completed. Was it me that made them?

[FullOfFail]

I usually put on some SimCity 3k/4 or Civilization III music. Which may be bad because I keep building things too Earthish. When I first enter a room I delete everything but the doors and set up the scroll editor to be different. The rest of it is just going with the flow. Dunno what else to say..

[MetroidMst]

I just hit a huge lull in my hack and ideas weren't coming. So I started learning a song on guitar (Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams) and now things have picked back up. It seems jamming a little helps my brain juices to ooze back into creative mode. I also should note that I like to have at least one candle lit on my desk while I'm hacking. It doesn't do anything but melt, but the shapes the wax takes on after solidifying again can be quite interesting for Craterian mushrooms.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

1) Find next room and link doors.
2) Assess what I want in this room (# of doors, PLMs, Enemies), and estimate how much level space I will need.
3) Repoint as needed
4) Set the Eff Ecks Wun
5) Build from a very, very minimal mental blueprint. This leaves a lot of room for creativity.
6) Place items and enemies
7) Periodically come back to this room over 9,000 times before finishing the hack for tweaks to pretty much anything. This is an everlasting refinement stage, up until the hack is finished. I polish the hell out of my rooms until I can't possibly be any happier with them.

Usually something close to this. That wasn't always the case, but it was always something along those lines. I do try to get a rought idea of what I want overall, maybe even make a crappy MSPaint image of an outline of the whole thing (which is rarely accurate), but when it comes from room to room, I try to go with the flow. I get ideas, I try to run with it until I can't anymore. However, I'm something of a perfectionist and try to get a room looking exactly how I want it the first time through.

I'm slowly picking up the SMILE habit, it's just touch and go for the most part. I do, like someone else said, have a tendancy to stop when I hit a wall or dead-end and no one is around to help me out. I've been trying to get out of that, however. I also try to keep track of PLMs I place, usually with a notepad file.

[Lunaria]

Now that I think about it, this video fits in this topic too. :o
Making a room for Ice Metal [Crystal Cavern]

[MetroidMst]

I also try to keep track of PLMs I place, usually with a notepad file.

Same here. Notepad is awesome for such stuff. I also put in prins next to the item the total to that point so it looks like this.

01 Missile (5)
02 Morph Ball
03 Missile (10)
04 SMissile (5)
05 ETank (1)

I do it like that to keep track of the totals easier. I also do the same thing in a different Notepad to keep track of door indexs used so I don't put two doors in the same index and mess something up. This makes it muc easier also becuase If I change my mind about a door or item I just have to remove it from the notepad and hit save.

[squishy_ichigo]

I also do the same thing in a different Notepad to keep track of door indexs used so I don't put two doors in the same index and mess something up.

WAT? Why not use the same .txt?  I see no advantage of having two when you could have one! :D

* red_jenpuren tries to force his hacking standards and practices down MetroidMst's throat, but to no avail!

also... I've wanted to ask you MM... why it is you don't hang out with us on #metconst?  It makes me a very sad panda.

edit: adding obviously relative video of a sad panda.
Sexual Harassment Panda

[MetroidMst]

Here is why I use two. It is much easier to navigate with both on the side of SMILE, and it could get confusing with both on the same document since they all use the same indexs.

[spoiler][/spoiler]
I also never hang out in #metconst because I've never tried to go on it and doing so would take time away from my hacking. I'll stop by every now and then just for the heck of it, but I much prefer chating over a livestream run of a good hack. (Hint to anybody here.)

SHOCK AND AWE!!! Major spoilers in pic!

[attachment deleted by admin]

[personitis]

Just keep IRC open in the background. It's what I do and it doesn't bother me (only because I don't make it first priority).