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| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - - Posts by jman2050 |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 1/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| I don't think there is one... Ice Beam does exactly the same amount of damage as the regular beam except that it freezes enemies every other shot, not hurting them at all. In fact, I don't think there are HP values for normal enemies at all. After all, enemies ALWAYS kill normal enemies in one hit, the wave beam will ALWAYS do double damage, and the ice beam will ALWAYS freeze the enemy every other shot... I really can't see a need for the programmers to code for any other situation than that, unless it's a boss. | |||
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 2/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| I can understand where Chill is coming from. The original Super Metroid had its own intended path (you were supposed to get the Wave beam WAY later than when most usually do) that can be broken making use of special tricks in the game engine that could be discovered and explaited. Designing a SM hack is a lot harder in this regard because almost everyone KNOWS these tricks as well as how to exploit them. That leaves hackers three choices: 1) attempt to create a nonlinear structure like the original game that can't be easily figured out using the current tricks, 2) Design around these tricks in order to give a good direction to the game, at the expense of making it more linear than some would like, or 3) Hack in your OWN special moves and tricks into the engine that have not yet been discovered, and then design around those. In my design, I'd prefer option 2, which would net a game similar to MZM, though obviously better since it doesn't have the hideously bad controls  |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 3/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Well, some people like Fusion's linearity (I don't) so I won't hold it against him. I suppose another option could be to basically mimic the original Metroid in level design. It managed to be very nonlinear without relying too heavily on special moves. It also let you go about the game in many different paths. You didn't have to fight Kraid first if you didn't want to, though it was intended to be that way. Perhaps you should just leave the Wave Beam obtainable early anyway. Based on my playing, it really doesn't hurt the intended path much. Just make it require a bit more skill to get  |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 4/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| THe big game I'm playing right now is Prince of Persia: The Sands of TIme. Such a freaking brilliant game... probably the best game I've played behind KOTOR since last January. | |||
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 5/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| I made this the other day while messing around in Super Metroid. This adds a sort of rapid fire ability to your normal power beam. It is obtained as the 'Gatling Beam' and is savable to SRAM. Have fun, mess around with it, and most importantly tell me if any issues come up (since I plan on using this in an actual hack when the time comes). You can expect more tidbits like this from me when I feel like making them, so for now enjoy this. http://www.cgi101.com/~jman2050/SMGatling.zip PS. You'll need a HEADERED SM rom in order for this patch to work. EDIT - Darn my hastiness  Two more things: You'll know when you encounter the Gatling Beam, just play the game normally until you reach it. 2) The Gatling Beam only works when all other extra beams are turned off. Sorry, no rapid-fire Plasma for you (edited by jman2050 on 04-02-04 12:23 PM) |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 6/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Well, any time I release an IPS patch that basically means 'do whatever the heck you want with it', so sure, you can use it in your hack... it's not technically finished yet, but any modifications I make to this now will be implemented in my hack Squash monster: It wasn't terribly hard, I just found the code that handles the delay between shots that occur and modified it somewhat. The dialog box that says 'Gatling Beam' as well as the item itself had to be done by hand. I won't go into specifics though, besides, there's always File comparers |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 7/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Desktop? What's that? *looks on his computer for a moment* Ph you're talking about the big picture, with the little picture thingys all over it. Sorry, I had completely forgotten about it considering the 50+ windows and 15+ programs I have running at any point of my hacking leisure... |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 8/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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 Day and NIght in Super Metroid. notice the bluish tint applied to the actual level elements (I'll get to fixing up enemies and Samus eventually...) This has no effect on gameplay... yet. You'll just have to wait and see what i can come up with  (edited by jman2050 on 04-12-04 06:16 PM) |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 9/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Evil Peer: Yeah, it was palette cycling in a way, though it ended up being annoying in some instances. Also, I've designed it so you can apply the effect to any room you want using whaterver palette entries you specify (so if you have a room with w window, you can have the area outside the window turn to night while the interior area stays the same. Coby: Very carefully... I still have more to do regarding the color cycling, since it does cause some undesirable effects in some places. Squash: Changed enemies is one idea I've been tinkering around with. The other idea was to have a suit that behaves differently during day or night, say have higher defense at day, but higher attack at night, or something else like that. Once I finish the graphical effect I'll release an IPS patch, which means you can tinker with it as you please Yeah, I'll probably use it in my future hack, but why keep it from everyone else? I'm sure many of the more experienced hackers here can improve it even further  |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 10/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Excellent. your tracers have been absolutely INVALUABLE while dissecting Super Metroid, and I look forward to all improvements. I'll skip this one since I already have V6, but thanks again for this tool. Any chance on a competent memory viewer in the future? Or are you solely focusing on making tracings as customizable as possible? |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 11/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| holy crap this looks nice... so much potential... i personally are not into hacking SMB3, but I do think with DD's help you can make this tool invaluable to those who are. keep up the good work, and remember, DD is the SMB3 god so listen to everything he says |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 12/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Basically (in ZSNES's current state) the best you can do to track values during actual gameplay is to use the cheat searcher... and even then you can only track WRAM values, not even VRAM or OAM memory... basically, being able to track values in real-time, perhaps with a seperate window, would be an invaluable tool as the best I've been able to do was write my own debugging routines into Super metroid's status bar... but like you said, perhaps an e-mail reminder would be better if you could do this, so I'll be sure to do that (as for the car key thing, it happens to me too, so...) | |||
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 13/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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Eh, most of those messed up areas seem to be located in such a way that no one will ever notice when playing the game... so it's just nitpicky to complain about it. Although if you do have time, that is something you can do, just to show you really took the extra step  |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 14/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| Four things you should know: 1) Split, Squelch, and tabbed output. Axe all of them. They are neither useful nor convinient (except for possibly tabbed output, which can be used to import it into Excel for example, and I believe Evil Peer stated that already). With all of them off the output still will be a lot of messy numbers, but it'll look a lot neater, with all the important parts of it seperated into neat columns as opposed to what you've shown. The important information on each line will be shown in this order: Current location (Bank/Address), actual hex numbers in ROM (usually the opcode followed by the arguments it needs), the ASM instruction (if the instruction uses indexing, or is abranch statement, the actual ROM/RAM address the instruction is looking for will be in brackets [] ), the current values of registers A, X, and Y, as well as the current machine flags (P) at the time of executing that particular instruction. Now, the reason I say don't use squelch is because among all the extra garbage after all of this, there is the current stack pointer position (S:xxxx) and the Function level (FL:xxxx) The former being extremely useful in finding bugs caused by messing with the stack improperly. I have yet to really study what the other values are for. 2) Make absolutely sure you are using trace and not trace all. Trace will only trace each individual section of code once into the file. All later instances will be ignored (note though that they are still executed, so it is your responsibility to figure out when in your tracings a specific instruction written earlier was executed). Trace all should ONLY be used if you must know EVERYTHING that's happened before a bug in the program has occured (and even then you should be very careful, as even 1 or 2 seconds of tracing will results in a 50+ MB file or larger) 3) Trace from... assuming you have Mark 5/6 or up, you should have this feature in the trace menu. This is absolutely INVALUABLE is there is a specific routine that you want to trace without searching through pages of worthless stuff. Basically, in the dialog box, put in the starting address of tracing, number of times executed (I just put 1) than the ending address of tracing, along with number of times executed. Check 'Capture every pass' and press okay. Now, when tracing, only the instructions between when the instruction at the starting address and the instructions at the ending address will be written to file. Convinient, yes? Learn to use it and you'll save yourself many headaches. 4) If you can't use trace from, probably because you simply don't know the addresses of the section of code you're aiming for, take advantage of the emulator's trace memory. When you complete a tracing, all instructions executed will be written to file. Note when I said earlier that these instructions will only be written to file once, and all later executions of that instruction will be ignored by the tracer. If you decide to make a second tracing within the emulator, this tracing will actually replace the first tracing file completely, but the tracing memory is still intact, so if an instruction was written to the first file, it will not appear in the second file even though it is a brand new tracing. Say, for example, you're tracing Super metroid, and want to isolate the code that handles what happens when you go through a door. Obviously, you can't go into the door without moving the character, so to eliminate that useless data, you'd begin a first tracing of just you moving around and stuff. That way all instructions pertaining to that will be put into the trace memory. Now, end the first tracing and start a second tracing, this time going through the door. The movement code won't be traced because it was already traced in the first file. Crap, this was more than I wanted to write, but I guess it'll be useful for those who really want to get the best of Evil Peer's tracer |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 15/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| As for Trace v. Trace All, I have figured a lot more out about Chrono Trigger than I would have without Trace All. The downside to this is I have also had to wait 20+ minutes while finder searches through a gigabyte-worth of log files. With judicious use of Trace and Trace From, you can probably skirt your way around this feature. I don't want to downplay the effectiveness of trace all, but a bit of logic and smart string searching can garner quite a bit of good results when just using trace. But I understand your point. It's a lot easier to find out what a routine does if you're able to see everything that happens at that point. Also, thanks for clearing up the tabbed output and split options. As you said though, in practical terms they aren't really that useful. And ***NMI usually refers to the VBlank routine on the SNES, and can basically be read as a new frame within the tracings. And Hyperhacker, try clearing the trace memory before every tracing (unless of course you want to implement the suggestion I gave in my earlier post) A lot of this I figured out on my own, so I don't mind sharing it if it means making things easier for fellow SNES hackers  |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 16/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| *Looks at third screenshot* ! That's my away message at the bottom of the IRC window ! Seriously though, from what I've heard this tool can revolutionize the way NES roms are hacked. When people learn to use this to the fullest, I predict a breakout of new advancements in hacking. Now, get the source code to SNES9X and make the same tools for the SNES. Hacking Super Metroid using my current methods is very frustrating XD |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 17/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| of course people at nintendo use editors. Any major development team with half a brain uses editors. You don't think they make all the levels, data, graphics, and crap by hand, do you? Of course, these aren't the 'editors' we're used to, they're most likely in-house development software that they actually made themselves, but it's pretty much the same thing as any editor we have (though granted, I doubt those editors actually handled raw data, but rather their own 'high-level' data format which was then compiled into the raw data we know of now) | |||
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 18/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| I'll test for you, I really enjoyed your first demo. In return, I'll explain everything you need to know to edit the map on the top-right of the screen (admittedly though, it can become a bit tedious until Jathys implements a map editor into SMILE, but if you're willing, I am) You can find me on IRC at #supermetroid at irc.forgetit.net |
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 19/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| YOu can probably get good results by asking people on IRC (many of the more knowledgable hackers hang out there on a regular basis) You can try #rom-hacking on the Esper network or #acmlm on forget-it.net | |||
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jman2050 Red Koopa Level: 19 Posts: 20/123 EXP: 33172 For next: 2605 Since: 03-21-04 Since last post: 10 days Last activity: 103 days |
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| The bullcrap quota is indeed quite high, but it's still relatively easy to find info there, as long as you ask nicely and don't piss off any ops. Nevertheless, they are dangerous waters, so take precautions |
| Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - - Posts by jman2050 |
