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| 0 users currently in ROM Hacking. |
| User | Post |
| NetSplit Posts: 106/144 |
Well, AlexAR, I finally got around to downloading this hack and playing it. I'm fairly impressed with how the Mario graphics turned out, but there are a ton of problems with this hack. Things like doors, palettes, and even just beam-down coordinates for checkpoints seem to have issues. All of these are easily editable in visine, and thus all of these problems can be corrected using that program (and yes, it does indeed run on Windows XP without problems, so far as I can tell). I'm not all that motivated to go through and fix all of this stuff; I did fix the majority of the problems in Cut Man's stage, but it's tedious and I'm not very into it because this isn't my hack and these are things that you could take care of if you were bothered to. Everything but the checkpoint stuff should be fixable (assuming there are no crazy bugs later in the game that I haven't yet gotten to). |
| Dragonsbrethren Posts: 222/442 |
Yeah, when I play Mega Man games I play all the way through, I don't bother with passwords, haven't in years, so saving isn't very important to me. |
| NetSplit Posts: 94/144 |
Is it obvious? Sure. Is it practical? Eh...
I've already tried adding SRAM to MM1, and the game really does not like it. The problem is that the game's mapper (Mapper 2) does not support SRAM, so the game needs to be converted to Mapper 1. This is all fine and dandy; just swap the game's mapper, right? Wrong. The mapper 2 bankswap routine is shorter than the mapper 1 bankswap routine, and the bankswap routine pops up a ton in the ROM. You have to stick the new routine into freespace somewhere and then find every bankswap routine and point them to the new routine. I did indeed get the game running on the new mapper, and the saving and continuing were all working fine, but the game had a tendancy to crash. It turns out that the game will commonly do NMI interrupts in the middle of the bankswap routine, causing the game to swap to the wrong bank and (commonly) crash in some spectacular way. I tried disabling NMI interrupts during the bankswap routine and was still having problems, and after a lot of fiddling I was indeed able to get the game to stop crashing (though it SHOULDN'T have stopped crashing; it was still interrupting during the routine), but because it was causing some extra slowdown and because it was still unstable with the potential for crashing, I reverted the ROM back to its state before this whole mess. It was a lot of wasted work. Beside the really technical aspect of saving (swapping the mapper), there's also getting the game to save every time a stage is beaten and having the option to continue the game or start a new game. This wasn't all that bad. I added some code to save every time the boss select screen was accessed, and on the title screen I added a sprite cursor and two options. Adding in the two options is a bit of a pain because you have to figure out and deal with the title screen format, which isn't totally straightforward. Depending on which option is selected, a load routine to load from SRAM is either executed or not executed. If executed, the saved game is loaded, and if not, the current game's status (in other words, zero progress through the game) will be saved to SRAM the moment you get to the boss select screen. Simple stuff, though a little bit of a hassle to add in. The game saved bosses killed/weapons gotten (these are the same thing, though the byte also holds whether you have the M beam or not), lives, and a few other things specific to my version of the game at that time. So yes, adding SRAM to MM1 is possible, but you have to jump through hoops to get the mapper change working properly, and it might still produce more slowdown because the bankswap routine is much longer than the original. It's really not worth it; just use saved states if you must save.  |
| insectduel Posts: 511/768 |
I played this hack entirely. I do not care about the bugs but It's great. I hope you make this one with a Megaman 2 hack.
Also for all Megaman 1 hackers. Isnt that obivious that this ROM needs a SRAM so you don't have to savestate each time you beat the bosses. I want to see that since my idea came from Megaman Anniversery Collection. |
| NetSplit Posts: 91/144 |
Dragonsbrethren: Guts Block updates work pretty simply. You have a main block that replaces every G block in the stage, and then you have a special-case screen (commonly boss rooms) in every stage on which a different block is used. The data is in tables, where the blocks used are the ID numbers of the blocks from the stage's block table (this value should be easy to get using visine; I don't think Rock 'n Roll shows it anywhere) and the screen ID is self-explanatory. Here are the offsets:
Guts-Block background update data: $1CE41 - Table of values for all 12 stages for the special-case Guts block background $1CE4D - Table of values for all 12 stages for the Guts block background $1CE59 - Table of values for all *10* used stages for which pages to use special-case Guts block backgrounds on Note that the first two tables are each #12 bytes long and the last is #10 bytes long. MM1 has 12 level slots and only 10 true levels, so a lot of tables (but not all!) are 2 bytes too long. I hope that helps. 
kuja killer: Well, those controller things wouldn't even really make any sense as glitches. There is no reason that various different inputs on the second controller would randomly affect things like jump velocity and sprite animation so perfectly, especially since those are all completely unrelated and the second controller is used for nothing else.
As for the MM1 pit problem, I don't know if I've ever triggered that bug, but it's not surprising. If you're high enough off the top of the screen, those helicopter enemies will actually go to the bottom of the screen instead of the top when they try to hit you. So, if you use the magnet beam to go as high off the top as you can, it kind of makes sense that it might be confused into thinking you're at the bottom of the screen falling into a pit. *shrugs* Now, for the MM2 stuff you posted. The huge batch of Wood Man screens are not that impressive. Basically, the game is displaying one screen and you're interacting with another. Usually, these screens are one screen apart. When you scroll, the screen that you're interacting with is visible until scrolling is over, at which point it changes over to the screen you see. You can make this happen by scrolling yourself one screen too far by doing something like wrapping around the screen through a wall. I'm not sure how it was done in Wood Man's stage, but I recall it being doable in Crash Man's stage. As for Flash Man, I don't know how he's doing that stuff, either, but the 2 extra screens that are point out appear to be prototype screens for the boss corridor and boss room. They're using the wrong blocks, though, since these screens appear to be pretty early by their very design. The Wily 4 stuff he points out is actually Mega Man 1 Wily 1 level data that is in this ROM for some reason. I'm surprised he didn't made the connection. This is something that was found in the ROM years ago (though it's more a Bubble Man thing than a Wily 4 thing, since Bubble Man is the main part of that set of data).
Also, the Metal Man stuff he found is interesting, because he stops right before it gets interesting. The next 4 screens are from Cut Man's stage in MM1. Funny.  |
| Ailure Posts: 1123/2602 |
Hehe, I played through it and while it does have the "Pirate hack" feeling, it's at least is a good one.
Apart from the dreaded midway bug, (I actually forgot to use savestates and had to start from the beginning on one stage grr) I only have two suggestions. 1. Diffrent graphics on bosses would be nice. Something like mouser, even with home-made graphics should be possible. 
2. Diffrent music (this is kind of hard to do, I know) It's little funny hack, seeing the goombas bounce around for the first time made me to laugh out loud. Edit: On certain places you can gain infinite 1-ups by just making the powerup reappear. :o |
| Dragonsbrethren Posts: 209/442 |
NetSplit, I was having problems with G blocks in my hack, which I'm not currently working on, can you post the offsets of the tiles that replace them? It looks odd when you pick up a G block on a starry sky and it's a blank square behind it. |
| insectduel Posts: 498/768 |
Oh, man I'm gonna try this right now. I'm gonna reply what I think soon. |
| kuja killer Posts: 57/104 |
Originally posted by NetSplit That controler 2 stuff is debugging stuff?  serious??
Sheesh I almost thought they were just plain glitches.  I already "NOP'ed" the thing out for my hack though so that none of it can be done...especially the whole super jumping thing screwing up graphics in gemini man stage....well ....i've moved that whole event to a different stage for mine ...not saying which but it's meant to be a surprise which I hope will make sense when you'd see. ...but i did make sure that no one will be able to bypass it without seeing protoman or else the rest of my ENTIRE stage will be fucked up since i have the pattern tables switching about 3 times throughout the stage for different reasons.
oh and one thing i noticed about mm1 that's just plain what the hell .....is if you actually try to jump as high as you can off the magnet beam at the top of the screen ...you'll automatically die....wtf ... (not talking about this persons's hack ...but just the game period)
http://geocities.com/garnet86404/screwed.zip take a look at this. I can't remember where i found this off of but someone compiled a ton of screenshots off megaman 2 doing more glitches and stuff with most of the stages. Crazy.
I took out most of the files from the original zip file because a majority of them was nesticle stuff ...and i don't want to get that emulator since it doesn't run well on my comp ...so it only has the screenshots of stuff being showed off. |
| NetSplit Posts: 90/144 |
Those second player controller things in MM3 are debug-related; they aren't buggy at all. They just allow you to do things you normally can't do, and this can in some situations cause a few oddities, but since they're not part of the normal game but rather optional *debug* functions, they shouldn't be considered at all. Hell, the only oddities I've noticed that I can recall at the moment are that you can make yourself invulnerable at the cost of your standard weapon, which may not even be a bug, and that you can actually get stuck in pits sometimes if you're using the high-jump feature (well, and you can bypass the Protoman scene in Gemini Man's stage, but that's barely worth mentioning). That's it. Definitely not enough to call MM3 a bug-ridden game.
Regarding bugs in MM1 and 2, I can't think of that many. MM1 has control problems mostly related to the energy items, terrible sprite-sprite collision when one sprite is treated as a solid (ie the moving platforms and flying head platform things), and that whole select-glitch thing. Ignoring a few minute things like getting sprites to momentarily glitch up graphically when you beat Fire Man (due to pattern table switching) and the absolutely ridiculous glitches I've seen done in tool-assisted speed runs that I have absolutely no idea how to execute (like jumping through walls), the game isn't really that buggy. The problems for these games only really occur when you try to edit them, and most of the issues are also fixable.
As for the screenshots, most of them are very simple to fix. I've still not gotten around to playing the hack, but I know that the vast majority of these are related to background updating when doors or guts-blocks are used. The door animations can be easily fixed using visine (I don't know if Rock 'n Roll can edit them or not). In visine, load up the stage for which you would like to edit the doors, and then press S. The currently highlighted block will change to the first door animation, and pressing S or Shift+S will cycle forward or backward through all of the door animations for that stage. You can then edit these blocks by pasting new TSA blocks onto them and right clicking to change attributes. visine does not support all of the door animation data; it will only let you edit the appearance of the animation, not the size or location of the animation, but that should be enough to fix these issues. For the guts blocks, if you're comfortable with a hex editor, I can give you some information to change what appears behind guts blocks, or I could also just change this stuff for you myself later on. It's simple enough. Regarding the first screenshot, that's not a problem with this hack at all. As far as all sprites are concerned, spikes are identical to air. The only difference between spikes and air is that Mega Man will die if he collides with a spike block. Thus, an item will see the spikes as air and fall right through them. In the third screenshot, the block that Guts Man is holding is using the wrong graphics. This is fixable; in Rock 'n Roll, load up Guts' stage and go to the Sprite Change editor. Sprite Change Set 3 (by default, so this will be it for you unless you changed it) should display Guts Man. The last row of graphics there is the row used for the block he throws. Find a row of graphics somewhere in the ROM, stick the block you want him to hold into that row, and then put that row of graphics into the Guts Man sprite change set in place of the old row. That'll fix it. The ninth screenshot shows what looks to be an item stuck in a wall. When an enemy is blown up such that it spawns an item inside a wall, the item is pushed rightward in an attempt to free it from the wall. This doesn't always work, however, and sometimes it'll get stuck somewhere in the wall. Assuming that's what happened there, that's the fault of the game, not the hacker, and was present in the original. I think that's it for now. This should fix pretty much all the issues beside the obvious ones that I assume don't need explaining. Good luck. |
| kuja killer Posts: 56/104 |
same as i thought ...i didn't stand to play more than 3 stages fully because of the random glitches.
Sorry, im not trying to be mean or something. but the hack in general is cool though ...with the whole mario themes and stuff. it's not bad ...just ...i don't know. it is a fact though that mm1 and mm2 are the only 2 games in the NES series that have ALOT of glitches and bugs. But usually only if a player attempts to actually figure out how to activate them. 3-6 have very little to none. well 3 may have alot but almost all of them require the use of a 2nd controller ...i know where exactly in the ROM, the joypad 2 register is to disable it killing off access to controller 2 glitches/secrets entirly though .... |
| Deleted User Posts: 170/-7750 |
too many bug's!
 |
| AlexAR Posts: 6/226 |
Muchas Gracias Googie, thank you as well Yoshi Dude. I tried to make the boss rooms look like iconic rooms from Mario's past. Mouser's Boos Room, SMB3's intro room,
SMB1 Castle to Pipe Transition Room. I wanted to include that tilting/floating Island you fight Iggy on in SMW, but I ran out of tiles. Im really happy you all are liking the graphics cause my next project is along the same lines. Heres a teaser....this is the Metroid Engine for those wondering. 
My site has more shots http://www.freewebs.com/digitalspace/ |
| Yoshi Dude Posts: 761/1408 |
Oh man, this hack.. 
I love how each of the bosses feature different Mario games and such. Originally posted by Meta KnucklesAha, I already tried doing that. Whoops. 8D |
| Googie Posts: 101/391 |
Sorry if I took a while to reply (I just beat Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and I'm working on Chaos Theory atm) The hack is pretty good, I enjoyed the levels you made and the Mario graphics add to the fun. Muy Bueno.
edit - fixed some spelling. |
| Imajin Posts: 122/273 |
Well, my NES emulators and ROMs are all on another computer, so I won't get to play this for awhile, but the concept sounds good, and the screens look very nice. |
| insectduel Posts: 497/768 |
Shoot, I need to go the the Concourse to download it Tomorrow. I'm at Fordham right now. Meaningless that I cannot wait 1 more day to play. |
| AlexAR Posts: 5/226 |
NetSplit, repair the checkpoints? Wow that would be nice. Just..you know..Id appreciate it if you let me know exactly what you plan to do. That way I can make a new download and news post and what not.
And maybe "Game Engine Constraints" was too harsh a phrase. I don't know a lot of "the lingo", suffice it to say, at least the first 2 Wily stages share tile data with the Cutman/Subcon level. When I started messing around with those Wilys stages, the tiles and palettes of the Subcon level went crazy. SO basically I harshly limited myself to just a couple edits on those stages, and eventually hardly any changes on the last 2 Wily stages. infidelity, yeah I know you can increase the speed of Dosbox, I'm not 100% sure I had increased it to 20,000, but the way the screen was drawn was just ran my patience. Every time I wanted to edit something or move or anything, the screen would draw itself 1 "tile" at a time...it kinda drove me crazy...lol And ill be sure to play your hack when released. legoman, read the read me. |
| Deleted User Posts: 169/-7750 |
good but I find some bugs! |
| infidelity Posts: 23/66 |
AlexAR
I had to resort to dosbox myself, due to VISINE crashing my PC. You can increase the speed of the program by holding "ctrl" while pressing "F12" You'll notice the framerate speed increase. The best speed to set it at is 20000. I believe the default value is 3000. Good Luck, and I'll be checking your hack out. Great work!
EDIT - By the way, have you ever played my Megaman Ultra Hack? I replaced Woodman's level with SMB world 1-1. If you haven't, just wait a little longer for the final official release of Megaman Ultra. Great job once again with your graphics editing! |
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