Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Rom Hacking - Open source editors? (The future of Syndrome, MegaMan SNES editors, etc)
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Darth Coby
Posts: 1053/1371 |
Originally posted by bbitmaster
Originally posted by Coby
Yes, open source is the way to go! It would inspire me to go learn C after all, say, would it be possible to get a basic understanding of C by studying source?
Absolutely not! if you want to learn C, I suggest this tutorial which I loved so much that I decided to stick it on the fceuxd server.
http://fceuxd.infinihost.net/coronadotut.zip
I can't go on enough about how gret this tutorial is. It made learning C very easy for me almost 5 years ago.
Studying source code like that will get you nowhere if you're trying to learn the language.
Alright, thanks! I'll download it once I get back from school.  |
bbitmaster
Posts: 62/103 |
Originally posted by Coby
Yes, open source is the way to go! It would inspire me to go learn C after all, say, would it be possible to get a basic understanding of C by studying source?
Absolutely not! if you want to learn C, I suggest this tutorial which I loved so much that I decided to stick it on the fceuxd server.
http://fceuxd.infinihost.net/coronadotut.zip
I can't go on enough about how gret this tutorial is. It made learning C very easy for me almost 5 years ago.
Studying source code like that will get you nowhere if you're trying to learn the language.
On another note, I think open source is the way to go, and I'd certainly love to help out with this, but I'm not sure how much I can do since I'll be busy with other stuff.
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Darth Coby
Posts: 1050/1371 |
Yes, open source is the way to go! It would inspire me to go learn C after all, say, would it be possible to get a basic understanding of C by studying source? |
HyperLamer
Posts: 2948/8210 |
I like the idea. I've been pondering making some of my editors open-source if I ever get around to actually finishing the damn things.  (Actually, I'd love to get to work on Hack-O-Matic but that damn compression gets in the way, and I can't get LC to work for some reason.  ) |
Parasyte
Posts: 202/514 |
Right, I don't have any expectations for the editor taking off in the hands of the community as-a-whole. But what would be really nice is to see it sprout some new editors based on it's core. The core (as it is now) is not much. But it does have a lot of potential.
I had forgotten about the Zombies Ate My Neighbors editor being open source, though. Thanks for reminding me. I suppose it an MegaMan 7 share the same lack of interest among ROM hackers. I suppose what's interesting about Syndrome (or at least, how I visualize it) is that it's built without any specific game in mind. For example, take a look at almost any editor and you'll see what I mean. Hyrule Magic has a pretty flexible interface, but most of it is tailored for Zelda. Other editors like Lunar Magic and Smile are kind of packed into just a few windows, and provide few "tools" (most things are keyboard- and mouse-driven) if any at all. Making Syndrome Open Source, I would hope that it's core could be used as a foundation for other editors. But I suppose that could be somewhat unrealistic.
However, there are quite a few people out there with the skill to lend support to such a project. So it's not really all that unlikely. |
sloat
Posts: 32/85 |
I've had the source to my zamn editor out for almost three years, but I don't know of anyone adding to it or modifying it in any way. The only feature request I ever got was from you (Parasyte) and was about your password generator. I can't remember why I didn't ever use that though.
Anyway, I like the idea as well, but like dan said, don't get your hopes up. In my experience, asking for ideas or contributions from a small community almost never gets you anything. I think your best bet would be to find someone interested in working on it and turn the project over to them. |
dan
Posts: 340/782 |
I think it's a great idea in theory. But whether there are any people with the necessary skills in the ROM hacking community to work on Syndrome is the major problem. There seem to be very few people in the community who can work on level editors and use C.
But my opinion is to release the source code. The worst that could happen would be that the source never gets used. |
Parasyte
Posts: 201/514 |
I have not touched Syndrome (my MegaMan 7 editor) since last May. I have been planning to make it an open source project (under the GNU General Public License) for quite some time. But since I am unable to work on it at all (aside from a few little thingers I added just today) I was wondering what everyone thought about making the project available for the community to work on, rather than just me? It would allow for anyone to contribute what they could to the project, and also allow new editors to stem from the sources. I am unaware of any projects taking this approach to date, so I'm curious how it would actually work out. What do you think? I am interested in hearing comments and ideas.
You may visit Syndrome's small web page for a few screenshots of the editor in it's current state: http://parasyte.panicus.org/syn/
Also, I am releasing the most recent binary build, for the first time ever. As you will see, it is still a very young project, and contains no code to do any kind of editing. Despite that, there is still a lot of work that went into writing it. The source code is over 1,000 lines of C, and basically amounts to a buggy level viewer.
Download Syndrome here: http://parasyte.panicus.org/syn/syndrome.zip
The controls for using Syndrome are as follows:
Page Up: Switch to next stage
Page Down: Switch to previous stage
Tab: Switch stage viewing mode between ForeGround Only -> BackGround Only -> ForeGround and BackGround
You will see plenty of debug output to the console window, as well as many of the bugs in the level decoder (particularly in later stages). Stage 8 is a complete mess, and the last few stages seem to have bad background maps.
So uhh, have fun with the program, I guess. Then let me know what you think of the whole open source idea. |
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hukka
