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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - ROM Hacking - A little problem with Metedit... |
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Zoku Micro-Goomba                 Since: 02-27-06 From: East Cost Last post: 6625 days Last view: 6625 days |
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| No matter how many times I read the map editing instructions, I can't seem to figure out how to create new rooms on the map with more than 4 objects to manipulate. In other words, I just end up with a "zone bridge"/ Corridor with two doors or an elevator shaft depending on the zone color. Is there any way to create new rooms on the map with more terrain to manipulate and/or no doors? Because of this problem, I am forced to use the original game map in my current hack which is going to make it less interesting than some of the better hacks out there. | |||
NetSplit Paratroopa    Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6447 days Last view: 6447 days |
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| When you create a new room on the map, what is happening is that the editor is changing the room ID from FF (no room) to 00. If I recall correctly, you can use and + and - keys to change the ID of a room. Each of the 5 areas of the game only have so many rooms. Metroid works by having an index of rooms and laying those rooms out as sorts of puzzle pieces that it uses to make the whole map.
So yeah. In terms of rearranging the map, MetEdit isn't at all restrictive and has no problems; rather, I think it works great. It does have its shortcomings, though; it has terrible item support and won't let you edit doors. The problem you've been having, though, is simply you not knowing how to change room IDs. 
I hope this helps!  |
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Kirk Bradford Myers Shyguy   Since: 01-23-06 From: Baltimore, Maryland Last post: 6580 days Last view: 6580 days |
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| NetSplit is absolutely right about this. And to clarify, Metroid uses a set amount of rooms for each area, and these rooms can be assigned to any of the 1024 possible map locations. Metroid must use the same set of rooms for all areas of the map and rooms can be re-used, so keep in mind that when a certain room changes, every instance of that room on the map will change. It's up to you to make sure that this doesn't interfere with your overall level design. Like NetSplit says, it's like one big puzzle. After using MetEdit for a while, I find that it's just as much of a challenge creating a legitimate level design as it is playing through it. In putting together Metroid Begins, I've earned a new respect for programmers who rack their brains day in and day out over this stuff.
Also keep in mind when designing your levels that certain rooms tend to play certain musics. (The statue rooms all change to that creepy beepy music, for instance.) So it's best to leave the general purpose of these rooms as they are. I have not yet figured out what causes certain musics to play in certain rooms, but I am digging for it, believe me you! By the way, if you're handy with a hex editor, editing doors by hand is a snap once you get the hang of it. A full tutorial on room creation using this method can be found here, and a ROM map for all rooms can be found here. I find that hex editing often offers me a level of flexibility in designing rooms that MetEdit cannot always provide. However, it is great for beginners as a jumping off point for bigger and better things. Good luck with your Metroid hack. |
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Dragonsbrethren   440  Since: 12-01-05 From: New Jersey Last post: 6472 days Last view: 6472 days |
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| Just to add even more, you might want to try sketching out your map, labeling item placements, doors, and such. It'll give you some focus, "shooting blind" in Metroid is never reallly a good idea, as I know from experience. | |||
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Zoku Micro-Goomba Since: 02-27-06 From: East Cost Last post: 6625 days Last view: 6625 days |
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| Thank you all for your help and advice. I new I was doing something wrong but, couldn't quite put my finger on it. It's been a while since I used Metedit and I guess I'd forgotten about cycling through the room types with the -/+ keys. I currently have 2 different hacks of it that I'm working on and a few lesser ones that are more experimental. Nearly a year ago, I started on one that was coming along nicely until I lost it in a crash. It was pretty depressing having all that work go down the drain but, if it hadn't happened, I may not have come up with some of the newer ideas that I've been thinking of. Before I continue on, I may play through a few more of the already existing hacks out there to get some ideas on improving my own version. I just recently played through Metroid X and found it to be a fun and learning experience. I think I may tackle Zebian Illusion next. By the way, Kirk, is your Beginings hack finished and is it the one you made to improve upon the original game? If so, I would like to see it if I may. From reading your posts I can tell you're a serious Met-head. Back in the NES days of rooting around through the "secret worlds" I would actually dream about them in my sleep. One place in particular that always nagged at my curiosities was the bottom of the second vertical shaft in Brinstar where if you go down through the wall far enough, you'll find a weapon room with a chozo statue. Until I discovered the GG codes to move through walls, I never could get into that room no matter how hard I tried. Wow...that was such a long time ago. I really miss those days. The fun of exploring, never knowing what's on the other side of a door and the excitement you feel when you discover some new item or weapon. I guess that's what makes me want to make my own version of it. Well, I better quit for a while. I could talk about Metroid all day and night. (edited by Zoku on 02-27-06 08:33 PM) |
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NetSplit Paratroopa Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6447 days Last view: 6447 days |
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| I remember Metroid X from way back when; it was a really good hack and one of the first ones I played. The hacker who made it was also a really awesome guy. MX really ranks highly on my list of favorite hacks.
Zebian Illusion is really disappointing, though. Incomplete, buggy, and pretty noobish, but it does have some pretty cool stuff near the beginning of the game and in Kraid's area. It was clearly done with minimal hex editing work; some things would have benefitted from hex editing, like the Maru Mari's placement (it should really have been in the mouth of this one thing rather than in front of it). Unless I'm thinking of a different hack, Tourian is done in this, but since the rest of the hack isn't done, it's inaccessable. Game genie codes or RAM hacking can always fix that, though. If I recall correctly, this hack is about as old Metroid X. There weren't really that many Metroid hacks that stuck out at me beside Metroid X. I think the next best one is Metroid Challenge, so if you've not tried that yet, I recommend you take a look at it next. I hope your hack turns out well. Good luck with it. |
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Dragonsbrethren 440 Since: 12-01-05 From: New Jersey Last post: 6472 days Last view: 6472 days |
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| I'm a fan of Metroid Deluxe, myself. | |||
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Kirk Bradford Myers Shyguy Since: 01-23-06 From: Baltimore, Maryland Last post: 6580 days Last view: 6580 days |
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It's amazing that I've never even tried Metroid X, as much as I've heard about it. I think this might be due to the fact that working on my own hack and trying to weed out some of the original programming/design errors that I've become privy to has made me leary of encountering these same flaws in a new Metroid hack the likes of which have not yet been prevented against. In hacking Metroid, I've found a shitload of flaws that are not even to this day documented, none of which are of consequence in Metroid Begins. Did you know that you can jump upwards through one-block thick platforms using the bombs and the Mid-air bomb boost jump? Had to design around that, since there's no way to prevent it...wouldn't want people going somewhere they weren't supposed to. Did you know you can reset the Mother Brain destruction sequence mid-explosion just by going backwards in the room far enough? Had to redesign Tourian to prevent that.  . There's a couple of others, I'll be releasing a full list of what was corrected with the Metroid Begins documentation.
I'm somewhat of a neurotic perfectionist when it comes to ROMhacking. My first tendency wouldn't be to play Metroid X, it would be to tear it apart and make sure it was up to my standards, and if not then correct what was wrong with it. And trying to perfect a game which by it's inherent nature was programmed in a way that makes it impossible to perfect fully has driven me up a wall and back down, so I can only imagine how others might not have noticed or bothered with the small stuff. Regardless I believe that I've gotten rid of all the "intolerable" errors in Metroid Begins, leaving only the stupid stuff like wrong color tiles (actually made less prominent with careful color placement,), phantom doors in vertical hallways (made null and void by area design,), and the imfamous wall-door trick which I am tring to find a solution for. I have one, but it makes the "doors in vertical hallways" error even more prominent to the point where it begins affecting horizontal passages and compromising level design. I've got to find a way to prevent both, which I probably won't do before the game's release on August 6th...but that's cool considering that this is an error you have to do something unusual to make work, and not one you can just bring about by simply doing what you are supposed to do. There were so many "incomplete" or "bad" hacks out there like the aforementioned "Zebian Illusion" that I guess I just sub-consciously lumped Metroid X in with the others, which may have been a mistake. Perhaps I'll have to give that one a try. Metroid Captive is antoher one I would like to give a chance to, just judging from the look of it. What I'd really like to do is to find a way to contact Curtis Himel, author of Metroid Challenge, and submit my Tourian design from Metroid Begins for use in that hack, too. As of version 0.87, Tourian is the only thing I believe he had left to finish, and considering that my version of Tourian is quite a bit harder than the original I'm sure it would fit into Metroid Challenge nicely. I'd just like to see him finally finish this hack, as it is for all intents and purposes incredible. The thing that breaks my heart though are the Metroid hacks that have lots of potential yet fall short. Metroid Mario comes to mind. This was an attempt to hack the levels of Metroid and use new graphics to give it the look of Super Mario Bros. 2. What the author did managed to finish looked surprisingly EXCELLENT!!! Granted, the fun (and the editing) stopped as soon as you hit the second Brinstar vertical hallway. Makes me think it was more of an experiment than anything. Project Ridien is another one that comes to mind. Project Ridien is one of those Zelda Challenge: Outlands style hacks that literally changes everything, and would have been an amazing hack if it did not require you to use "teleporters" which affect scrolling and are highly error-prone. When i read the documemntation for a hack and see "Just make sure you don't do this or don't do this..." I start to say "Ummm...uh oh." 
Zoku, you asked about Metroid Begins, and I'm going to stop rambling long enough to address that. Metroid Begins, for all intents and purposes is finished, but there are still a few very minor yet significant kinks to work out. I had to redesign the bottom of Norfair to re-incorporate the existing pallette switch and create a new one, so I'm going to need to playtest this game from the beginning again. In addition, I was having some trouble graphically with the Norfair/Ridley elevator shaft because I redefined the elevator structures to make them wider and Ridley seems to be the only area in the game without a legitimate blank tile to use. I've found a viable solution around that problem, it's just a matter of implementing it which will take a bit of digging through the levels with a hex editor to find spare bytes...
Once playtesting is finished, the only thing left to do will be a speed run and a resetting of the times required to achieve certain endings, which is as simple as editing four measly bytes. It is during this time that I will be making screenshots. Believe me, I'm as anxious to get those posted as you are to see them. Hopefully just another month, tops. I just don't want to release anything half-baked and then have to change it later. One more bit of advice...write your back-ups to CD-R at least once a month! Once a week would be better. You may lose some of your work, but only up to a point where you can recover some of it. I recently had six months worth of new work accumulated on my hard drive which I finally decided to stop being lazy about and backed up. My computer was hijacked by a virus the very next day! You don't know how relieved I was...
Take care. Once again, good luck with your hack. |
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NetSplit Paratroopa Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6447 days Last view: 6447 days |
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Originally posted by Kirk Bradford Myers Regarding the 'wall-door' trick, why not just make it so doors never close after being opened like in Super Metroid? From my notes: Change 4C6C, 8C6C, CC6C, 10C6C, and 14C6C to BD in order to make the doors for all areas never close Maybe that's what you're looking for? It'll kill the door timers, so the player can't get stuck in doors to execute that trick. Also, regarding color issues in vertical areas, I think I recall reading that each room has a default color value that all tiles are set to when first loaded. The actual colors are then loaded on top of that. This supposedly makes things faster, since less work has to be done for the majority of the room. The color issues should be lessened or eliminated if the values are all done right. I never verified this, though, so it may not be accurate. Maybe you'll find it helpful. |
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Zoku Micro-Goomba Since: 02-27-06 From: East Cost Last post: 6625 days Last view: 6625 days |
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| Wow. Zebian Illusion incomplete? That's a real bummer. I was expecting it to be a good one since it was done by Vagla. He certainly placed the difficulty at an irritating enough level to make me curse in the vertical shafts but, I was determined to try and beat it anyway. I too agree about the Maru Mari not being in the mouth of the statue. Seeing that really disapointed me.
Metroid X was fun but, the enemies didn't seem very challenging. The only part that I had any trouble with was Mother Brain's room because I stupedly made the assumption that it would be as easy as in the original version. It's still a great hack though and the second one that I've played through. I forgot the name of the first one I played through but, it was pretty decent too. I was messing around with my own version lastnight and realized I'd maybe made it a bit too hard so, I toned it down a little but, I still think it's rather challenging. After I finnish the the layout of the terrain, I'll probably try out some different colors. I finally did some more work on my site and just got through adding a page for my hack. I'm currently calling it "Metroid Revamped". I have a few pics up. If anyone wants to have a look, my site can be accessed through my profile info. I had no idea that Metroid had so many glitches! That's really something but, some of them like being able to bomb-jump through solid objects I figured was just suposed to be one of Samus' hidden abilities even though it wasn't realistic. Still that's a fun trick to pull in Torian to if you want to aggrivate the Metroids. What's even more fun is using it to try and trap them. Like a game within a game. Some of the weird stuff really is annoying though, like the color clashing that sometimes happens in vertical shafts and getting stuck behind doors in the secret worlds or mid-air jumps having to be performed almost perfectly in order to reach a platform. Playing a more realistic version without those extra abilities should be very interesting and challenging as well. I'm looking forward to Metroid Begin's. (edited by Zoku on 03-01-06 05:05 AM) |
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Kirk Bradford Myers Shyguy Since: 01-23-06 From: Baltimore, Maryland Last post: 6580 days Last view: 6580 days |
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Originally posted by NetSplit Hey, NetSplit. Found that trick in an old Acmlm thread ages ago, already tried it in my hack. That exactly the thing that I did to it that caused all the problems I was having!
The deal is that, for some odd reason, when you open the door and it stays open, then you make tracks for another "room" in the given passage, the column of blank tiles that take their place decide to print themselves on top of every single subsequent room that you go to in horizontal and vertical shafts, usually where a door would be if that room had a door. This continues until you encounter another door in the same area. Part of the reason you see phantom doors in vertical shafts in the original Metroid is because you can move away from the door faster than the game can update the status of it, and when it goes to update it to "closed" it "closes" it in the next room your heading to, and your see the door where it shouldn't be. Usually that's the end of the story, bacause the door status is updated. But because using the above trick causes the game to never close the door, it still thinks it's supposed to print those "open door" blank tiles when you go to another room. The game is basically too retarded to update the door status if the door never closes. This wouldn't be such a major deal if it only compromised the look of the game slightly, like normal phantom doors do...but it also compromises level design as well. Those blank tiles will overwrite whatever was there in the next rooms, be they pillars, walls, or whatever, and act as transparent tiles that Samus can shoot/pass through...not good when tightening a level design to the point of near linear. In order to get to the bottom of this problem, I'm going to have to dig apart how door mechanics work within the game, something I thus far have no expertise in. Until then, the ability to pull off the wall-door trick is just going to have to stay. The first working released version of Metroid Begins will be 0.99.1a, so that research can continue and an update can be made if I ever figure this out, amongst other things. As for the color tiling problems, I have made significant improvements to this via careful color selection, level design, and re-setting the color attribute tables in the room datas themselves. While the problem will probably never completely go away, it will be a lot less noticable, and probably as good as it's ever going to get. So I have taken some time to work on this as much as I can. One thing is for sure, it will be a hell of a lot better to stomach than it was in the original Metroid! At least now when it does occur it won't look like a dog threw up his breakfast. 
Time to go finish that Ridley elevator graphics deal... |
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NetSplit Paratroopa Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6447 days Last view: 6447 days |
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| Zebian Illusion was the first hack Vagla did; considering that he was a newbie at the time and hacking wasn't as advanced then as it was now, it makes sense that it didn't turn out all that well. Meh. I prefer his MM Showdown hacks, myself; those were pretty fun. (I'm more into Mega Man than Metroid, though, but still )
I remember that there was this Metroid Eternal Darkness hack, or something of that sort, that looked kind of neat, but I don't remember anything about it. I don't know if it's bad or not, but it might be worth checking out; I've not heard anyone here mention it yet. Also, whatever happened to MegaDog's Metroid hacks? He kept on hyping up his newest Metroid hack, but I don't recall him ever releasing it. Maybe I'm just crazy, though.  |
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Dragonsbrethren 440 Since: 12-01-05 From: New Jersey Last post: 6472 days Last view: 6472 days |
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Is Mega Dog still arround? I haven't seen him since TEK went down (The third time, I believe...). You guys have actually inspired me to restart my Metroid hack I was working on ages ago, so if I don't meet my release date for my other hacks it's all your fault  |
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Dude Man Shyguy Since: 11-18-05 From: Wareham MA Last post: 6336 days Last view: 6336 days |
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| METGEN as I call it has been in production for well over a year (a few revamps here and there to blame)
I'ts almost done and expected for release within the next few weeks. I just hope people like it.... |
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Zoku Micro-Goomba Since: 02-27-06 From: East Cost Last post: 6625 days Last view: 6625 days |
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| Hey, Kirk. To cure that wall/doors technique maybe you could try disabling Samus from doing that little hop when she comes out of her Maru Mari form or maybe even make it so that she can't unroll as quickly as normal. Just an idea. I don't know any programming languages so, theorizing is all I have.
I've been loading up on Metroid hacks lately and so far I've collected 27 different games including that Eternal Darkness one. NetSplit is right. It does look neat. I played through Bionic Metroid this evening and found it very amusing even though it's really just a graphics and story hack. If it had had a new map and item collecting order, it would have been almost perfect. What I would really like to see is a Mega Man version. |
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Kirk Bradford Myers Shyguy Since: 01-23-06 From: Baltimore, Maryland Last post: 6580 days Last view: 6580 days |
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Originally posted by Zoku Zoku, you know something, that's not a half-bad idea! Of course, that would require a little bit of digging to find Samus's starting position relative to where she was when she comes out of ball mode. My guess is that she appears one or two pixels above where she was and gravity takes care of the rest and pulls her back down. The little hop, I believe, is for effect. I don't know how removing that effect would look in-game, but it would solve the problem and keep me from tearing door mechanics apart.
I'm not too privy on programming myself...much of what I've done to Metroid Begins was done with MetEdit, a hex editor, and some other tools including a ROM corrupter to help me find data. But I do have at least a rudimentary understanding of what I'm looking at when I pour over code. Looking at the Metroid source code by Snowbro helped me locate the ROM bytes for Samus's ending times, and setting breakpoints in FCE Ultra's debugger helped me weed out the amounts of energy/missiles that Samus gains when she picks up one of those little artfacts left behind by enemies. I changed that to slightly higher amounts (Energy=7,25, or 35 / Missiles=6 or 32) because I wanted to eliminate the deal where Samus has to sit at a vent hole picking off Zebs for two hours striaight in order to gain enough missiles and energy just to open a locked door and kill a miniboss. The whole design philosophy behind Samus gaining two rockets on pickup sucked...she could waste that on a Reo and a Geruta before she even reached the next door or miniboss. Getting through the game itself rather than concerning oneself with minute details while the meter is ticking should be the primary concern. And just for the record, Samus will start the game with 99 units of energy as in all other Metroid games.
Anyway, concerning the wall-door trick, I think I'm going to go about it like this, per your suggestion. First, I'm going to see if their is an address in the RAM that determines whether Samus is currently in a ball or not. When and if I find it. I'll set a breakpoint to see if I can determine what writes that address, and look in the resulting code to see if I can locate it in the ROM. My guess is that the byte which makes Samus do that little "hop" is located nearby. If I can reset this slightly, problem solved! If not..
Right now, though, I have to fix that elevator in Ridley, and there are a couple of small minor things I thought about tonight in Tourian that may need my tender-loving care. A searching for spare bytes I go! But many thinks for the suggestion, I will look into that and see what I can do.(edited by Kirk Bradford Myers on 03-02-06 06:11 AM) |
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Mega-Dog Since: 11-19-05 From: Minnesota Last post: 6306 days Last view: 6288 days |
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Originally posted by Dragonsbrethren I am still around, just rarely float around now days. I will mention that there is alot of things you can do with Metroid. Hopefully I will finish Metroid M2 someday, right now it is about 50% complete and has been WIP for over 2 years. There is still many things I would love to do with the Metorid engine, but my romhacking is getting exausted as I write new editors. At 1 time I was working on a MIEP (Metroid Item Editor Pro) but I decided to hold off and try to mess with SnowBro's code to implement it. The plans are to be able to change any item to any item such as an elevator, missle, energy tank, ect. You can actually do it right now but it requires Hex editing. If you guys have any questions about Metroid just PM me or even contact me on AIM sometime. |
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Zoku Micro-Goomba Since: 02-27-06 From: East Cost Last post: 6625 days Last view: 6625 days |
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Originally posted by Kirk Bradford Myers Glad I could be of some help. Originally posted by Kirk Bradford Myers Sounds complicated but, if there's a way it can be done, I'm sure you'll find it. Originally posted by Kirk Bradford Myers Good luck with it! (edited by Zoku on 03-11-06 06:58 PM) |
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AlexAR Ninji Since: 02-27-06 From: TX Last post: 6287 days Last view: 6285 days |
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Kirk, you sure do know your Metroid. 
Im working on a Metroid Hack myself. Im using Metedit of course and was wondering if you could give me a couple tips. 
Why wont the Bomb power up show up in my hack? Its tied to the Y-Map coordinate of another item correct? Of the long beam correct? I moved the long beam down 10 rooms and to the right 5 rooms..the bomb power up should have moved 10 rooms down but kept its original X coordinate correct? I have no other power ups on the same Y line, I can see and collect the long beam but not the bomb power up. Another problem, screen scrolling. Its supposed to alternate after every door correct? What about "chozo rooms"? Is it the actual "Room ID", or the fact that it contains that Chozo statue object make it a "Chozo Room"? If I were to change a platform object in a regular room to a Chozo statue, does that room automatically become a "Chozo Room" and keep the scrolling horizontal? I would greatly appreciate some of your wisdom on these matters Kirk.  |
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NetSplit Paratroopa Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6447 days Last view: 6447 days |
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| I don't know much about the items, but regarding your scroll question, there are 2 types of doors. One type will alternate between the two scroll types (horizontal -> vertical, vertical -> horizontal) while the other type will cause horizontal scrolling, regardless of the previous type of scrolling. Thus, it's not Chozo rooms that cause this to happen, but rather the kind of door that leads to them. |
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