Making a Hack

[Jet3rd]

Hello everyone. I'm pretty new here. I haven't done much but I'm starting to make a hack.

So basically I'll put my progress here and if I have problems, I'll probably ask for help here.

If you wanna follow the progress of a noob. Well. I'm your guy lol.

Images may contain spoilers ;P
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[Quietus]

If you wish to save this thread from being deleted, you'll need to provide some screenshots or a video of your work.

[Jet3rd]

Alright will do. Not much to be shown yet though. Mostly just some stuff on the first room.

[Jet3rd]

Ok i have a question. Please don't judge I'm very nooby.

So I am watching ShuyguyExpress' SMILE tutorials cuz they are very usefull.

On the plms one he said something about moving plms to different rooms using pointers.

How do i do this? His tutorial never shows how.

[personitis]

Find a room which has the amount of PLMs you want in the room you're currently working on, then manage your way to where the pointers are displayed for the room. For SMILE 2.5 it's "Edit > Pointers" I believe, for SMILE RF there's a tab in the main window (where you choose your room). Once there, write the pointer pertaining to PLMs down on paper or in a text document so you can reference it (or just memorize it, up to you), and then proceed back to the room you were working on. The pointer list/window should now change to display all the pointers for this room. Simply put in the value which you wrote down or memorized and if prompted with a message box, choose to use the data at the location. When doing this to "move" PLMs from a larger room to a smaller one, be aware that PLMs may find themselves off-screen in their new rooms due to the room being smaller. Each SMILE has it's own options to "move off-screen PLMs to screen."

It may also help to know a bit about what a pointer is to further your understanding of this process: a pointer is a value which is used to lookup the data at an address/location in the ROM. Once the bank is specified (which these pointers already have their banks specified so don't worry too much about them), the pointer you're seeing is telling the game to look at that location in the ROM to get the proper data. As such, it's possible to have multiple rooms share the same pointer and thus the data shared between rooms where changing the location of a missile in one will also change it in another. A simpler way to think about is that the game is a postal office and the pointers are street addresses: the postal office uses the proper addresses to make sure mail (information and data) gets delivered properly.

[Jet3rd]

That was super helpful! thanks.

Understanding what pointers are really helps too!  :grin:

[Jet3rd]

Hello again.

I have a few more questions.

First of all where is Ridely? I know i can edit him as an enemy but i can't seem to find him in his room... Am I just oblivious?

Edit: Nevermind about the Ridely thing. I guess he is offscreen? Time to experiment...

Also what's up with the first room in Ceres? Looks so weird in the smile and I've never seen anyone edit it at all in a hack.

That's all. Thanks for help in advance.

[personitis]

Ridley and Draygon both are stationed off-screen, as you've already found out. However, I know repositioning Draygon changes her swoop patterns and I think there may be some similar effect with Ridley? No too sure on that.

First room of Ceres and Ridley Ceres rooms look garbled because they use a different format for their level composition. Mode 7 is the mode used in these room and is a function of the SNES which is used to alter graphics more dynamically than simple flips and shifts. Courses from F-Zero and Mario Kart and the overworld flying segment from Demon's Crest are the more commonly known uses of this mode. The elevator shaft in Ceres rocks back and forth while Ridley's room draws his graphics to the background (layer 2) while he's flying away so that we can get that sweet turning and zooming toward the screen cinematic.

RF does have a Mode 7 editor, but only for scenes such as the title screen, Ceres intro, and Zebes explodes.

[Jet3rd]

I didn't know that about draygon however ridley i experimented with and it seems he is hardcoded to a certain area in one of the scroll blocks.

Thanks for the info. It's awesome to see what happens behind the scenesin your favorite games.

[Scyzer]

RF does have a Mode 7 editor, but only for scenes such as the title screen, Ceres intro, and Zebes explodes.

RF has 2 Mode 7 editors! The first one is built as a tool and edits stuff like the title screen and other misc scenes. The second one is built into the Level Editor and Tile Table and lets you edit Mode 7 rooms/tilesets (Ceres Shaft and Ridley's room). To edit Mode 7 rooms you just have to select the room to edit, then click Preferences > View > Enable Mode 7. Editing Mode 7 rooms this way is quite different and not easy. You'll need to have the Tile Table open as well if you want to build new 16x16s to place.

[Jet3rd]

Yea i tried RF but it looks like i have to install something to use it and i'd rather not install anything ;P

Good to know though!

[Jet3rd]

Also I'm taking a small break. school just started for me and I'm in highschool now so. I'll be back when things settle down.