Metroid Advance Game Editor (MAGE) Thread

[biospark]

In the next update, can we modifie Samus ?

Probably not until 1.1 (the next update will be 1.0).

[Meowmaritus]

I'm not sure if you want bug reports here or not but I just wanted to give you a heads up that as of 0.9.0, the text editor no longer recognizes the [DELAY=X] command (I haven't checked any other version of the application between the version you said you fixed that bug and 0.9.0)


While it is very silly that you forgot to include [DELAY] twice now, it showed another great example of what makes MAGE so wonderful: right on that very same text window, I was able to see the offset of that text, go there in a hex editor, and find out the value of the delay command (*cough* [\xE1XX] for anyone that needs it *cough*). Anyways, moral of the story is that the amount of thought you put into the numerous minuscule details of MAGE's GUI do not go unnoticed!

[biospark]

I'm not sure if you want bug reports here or not but I just wanted to give you a heads up that as of 0.9.0, the text editor no longer recognizes the [DELAY=X] command (I haven't checked any other version of the application between the version you said you fixed that bug and 0.9.0)

Huh, I could have sworn I fixed it as soon as it was mentioned here. I must have copied over it for some reason before I even released 0.8.0. Thanks for pointing that out. I've fixed it again, so hopefully it gets included with the next update this time.

[alexman25]

About the potential audio editor. I was wondering if it was making your own sounds, choosing when a certain sound plays, or both? Or is it something else entirely? Thankie in advance! Heh, advance.

[biospark]

About the potential audio editor. I was wondering if it was making your own sounds, choosing when a certain sound plays, or both? Or is it something else entirely? Thankie in advance! Heh, advance.

It would allow you to edit samples and music/sound effects (similar to editing wav and midi files). Don't expect it for at least two years, though.

[Kazuto]

General question for biospark, interdpth, or basically anyone who's done extensive GBA hacking: how do you find free space in GBA games?

I think I've seen it in Metroid Fusion... is it the point where you basically see orders of bytes that are just consecutive numbers? E.G., E0, E1, E2, E3... FE, FF, 00, 01...

Is there any good way to find most of the free space in the game?

[Cpt.Glitch]

Lots of FFs is generally freespace in most cases. It's usually at the very end of the rom. Fusion had an unused sound file, which gives you 128kbs of freespace. It can be found at offset 0xF9A28.

[NathanTech]

About the potential audio editor. I was wondering if it was making your own sounds, choosing when a certain sound plays, or both? Or is it something else entirely? Thankie in advance! Heh, advance.

It would allow you to edit samples and music/sound effects (similar to editing wav and midi files). Don't expect it for at least two years, though.

Well.......... Thats cleared that up....... Sappy wants nothing to do with any of the Metroid Advance games so I guess it's good to have an estimate.

[Kazuto]

Lots of FFs is generally freespace in most cases. It's usually at the very end of the rom. Fusion had an unused sound file, which gives you 128kbs of freespace. It can be found at offset 0xF9A28.

Right, with ARM's architecture, I guess it doesn't make any sense for there to be any free space in the middle of the rom. With that in mind... In Fusion, I just found FF's starting from $0879ECC8. They continue to be FF's until $08800000, whereby it starts a pattern of halfwords that increment by 1 byte each halfword. Those repeat all the way from $08800000 to $09FFFFFF. Is that actual free space, or am I looking at something that VBA is pulling out of thin air?

[biospark]

To my knowledge, the only free space is the FFs at the end of the rom. That being said, both fusion and zero mission have a good amount of unused code and data. If you're using MAGE, you never have to worry about free space. If you're writing custom asm, both games have unused sound effects which give you more space than you'll ever need (audio data is in range for bl instructions, which is good).

Regarding FFs you find earlier in the rom, I would play it safe and leave them untouched.

Also, 0x8800000 is the end of the rom.

[P.JBoy]

Freespace is indeed a long string of FF's. It's only an 8MiB ROM, so its ROM address space is $08000000..087FFFFF, everything after that is garbage, so in this case it is VBA. The ROM can be expanded up to 32MiB though, so don't needlessly try and find space in the middle of the ROM or anything

[Blade]

In Metroid Zero Mission, changing the Intro text (emergency order...) via the Text Editor won't do anything ingame.
Do I need to change other Values or is the Intro text hardcoded?

Edit: Sorry, just noticed I posted this in the wrong Thread

[Cpt.Glitch]

I had the same question. Turns out that text in the editor is for subtitles that aren't present when the game is in English. The actual letters are sprites I believe so you'd have to edit OAM data to change those up.

[Ven]

In Metroid Fusion, I've noticed that there's a very very nice amount of room space in the three "Debug" areas. Is there any way to move those rooms to the Main Deck? I was hoping to dramatically expand the Restricted Zone...
I'm mainly asking because I believe that the last time I expanded rooms, I ended up breaking the background in one of the elevator cutscenes. As such, I'd like to play it safe.

I'm including a patch, in case it's needed.

[P.JBoy]

IIRC there are gremlins hiding in the debug rooms, I wouldn't be so quick to use them, but given that you can expand the ROM to four times the original size, I think you should be able to repoint your rooms to some nice free space

[passarbye]

IIRC there are gremlins hiding in the debug rooms, I wouldn't be so quick to use them, but given that you can expand the ROM to four times the original size, I think you should be able to repoint your rooms to some nice free space

I know SM hackers have to repoint shit manually all the time, but doesn't MAGE repoint everything for you anyway?  :pwuh:
I've never had problems editing rooms to have a different size, tileset, etc.

[interdpth]

IIRC there are gremlins hiding in the debug rooms, I wouldn't be so quick to use them, but given that you can expand the ROM to four times the original size, I think you should be able to repoint your rooms to some nice free space

I have an ASM patch to enable debug rooms to act like normal rooms, side affect is you need to set the scrolls up as soon as you apply it. Don't feel like making an IPS but can supply that code somewhere. (Had to use debug 1 for sr388)

http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4352.0.html

Here's an IPS.

[NathanTech]

I was gonna say there is a dropdown menu that lets you change the area a room is present in - but it seems using the debug rooms in a normal situation isn't something someone should actually do. Don't know why it happens.

[Ven]

IIRC there are gremlins hiding in the debug rooms, I wouldn't be so quick to use them, but given that you can expand the ROM to four times the original size, I think you should be able to repoint your rooms to some nice free space

I have an ASM patch to enable debug rooms to act like normal rooms, side affect is you need to set the scrolls up as soon as you apply it. Don't feel like making an IPS but can supply that code somewhere. (Had to use debug 1 for sr388)

http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4352.0.html

Here's an IPS.

Thank you!

I was gonna say there is a dropdown menu that lets you change the area a room is present in - but it seems using the debug rooms in a normal situation isn't something someone should actually do. Don't know why it happens.

I thought that dropdown in the header editor only changed what room I was looking at...

Speaking of the header editor... Um. The music thing. What values correspond to which track? The last time I tried changing music, I ended up with a bunch of junk sprites in the room, and then changing it again rendered the ROM unplayable-- I had to use a backup. Well, actually, even if I SAY unplayable, it's moreso that I could no longer access any rooms after the edited room in MAGE. I don't know if that's because changing the music is an awful, terrible, no-good idea or because I mistakenly skipped over all the actual music. (I had entered, I think, 0x30 and then 0x32 for music).

[P.JBoy]

I made a list of Fusion music tracks at some point that I made from watching the music value in RAM in a 100% TAS. It's probably incomplete and my descriptions might not speak to you as well as they do to me, but I hope it helps.

[biospark]

The last time I tried changing music, I ended up with a bunch of junk sprites in the room, and then changing it again rendered the ROM unplayable-- I had to use a backup. Well, actually, even if I SAY unplayable, it's moreso that I could no longer access any rooms after the edited room in MAGE. I don't know if that's because changing the music is an awful, terrible, no-good idea or because I mistakenly skipped over all the actual music. (I had entered, I think, 0x30 and then 0x32 for music).

Are you sure you didn't edit any other values? Editing the music should not affect the room in any other way. If you can recreate it, please post the steps here.

[NathanTech]

Is there a way to raise the sprite limit for a room?

[biospark]

Is there a way to raise the sprite limit for a room?

Nope. There are only 24 sprite slots in RAM. Depending on what sprites you're using, I wouldn't put 24 sprites in a room, since many sprites create other sprites (projectiles, etc).

[biospark]

It's the one year anniversary of MAGE! It's also time for 1.0!

Download
1.0.0 - 2017-06-21
  - Fixed bug where LZ77 BG0s weren't redrawn
  - Changed Room Options to prevent resizing width or height to 0
  - Added tool to add new data (rooms, tilesets, spritesets, etc.)
  - Added projects (to keep track of added data)
  - Added ability to drag and drop ROM files to load them
  - Fixed bug where sprites weren't completely drawn when switching slots
  - Fixed bug where scrolls could be moved offscreen and disappear
  - Added keyboard shortcut 'G' to Minimap Editor to load room under cursor
  - Fixed Tile Table Editor bug where cursor movement was limited on 512x256 backgrounds
  - Fixed bug where the text in drop down lists could be edited
  - Fixed Spriteset Editor bug where adding a slot didn't update graphics
  - Fixed Spriteset Editor bug when removing the last slot of a spriteset
  - Renamed "Level GFX" to "RLE GFX"
  - Renamed "BG3 GFX" to "LZ77 GFX"
  - Added ability to import BG0 from image
  - Renamed "Import BG3 from Image" to "Import LZ77 BG from Image"
  - Fixed Connection Editor bug where some invalid area/event connections weren't removed
  - Added option to export BG0 image (under "Tools")
  - Fixed Text Editor bug where the delay command wouldn't parse
  - Added option to shift tiles in Tile Table Editor ("Offset" tab)
  - Fixed bug where a corrupt room 0 would prevent loading other rooms
  - Added ability to edit sprite graphics rows in Sprite Editor (Fusion only)
  - Added status messages when editing room objects

Make sure to read all of the new changes! The documentation has been updated accordingly.

[Mayo-chan]

Really sweet, I love watching this project grow and develop.