 |
|
Main
| FAQ
| Uploader
| IRC chat
| Radio
| Memberlist
| Active users
| Latest posts
| Calendar
| Stats
| Online users
| Search
| |||
| Views: 88,472,878 |
Main
| FAQ
| Uploader
| IRC chat
| Radio
| Memberlist
| Active users
| Latest posts
| Calendar
| Stats
| Online users
| Search
|
04-23-24 09:10 PM |
|
| Guest: Register | Login | |||
| 0 users currently in ROM Hacking | 3 guests |
| Main - ROM Hacking - Red Falcon, Contra editor (Formerly "Contra hacks...") | New thread | New reply |
| SuperWario427 |
| ||
 Mini Octorok Level: 9 Posts: 8/10 EXP: 2383 Next: 779 Since: 10-03-08 From: somewhere very far, lol... Last post: 5636 days Last view: 5578 days |
Posted by boingboingsplatPosted by SuperWario427 Hey, i didn't knew what to say, lol... ____________________ It's all over now... |
| Levesque |
| ||
 Red Cheep-cheep Account taken over, please contact admins to reclaim Level: 34 Posts: 116/217 EXP: 242649 Next: 11002 Since: 07-14-08 Last post: 3027 days Last view: 3027 days |
Posted by SuperWario427Posted by boingboingsplatPosted by SuperWario427 For now, editing to nothing is the closest to post deletion as you can get. |
| Trax |
| ||
 Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 597/1145 EXP: 3035160 Next: 131954 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3624 days Last view: 2876 days |
Some news, but nothing satisfying...
I know how to lay out the basic walls in indoor levels, no problem with that. I got the wall objects pinned down, along with their properties. The first 4 bytes are level attributes, and then 3 bytes per object, until you hit FF... Example with Room 1 of Level 2: Offset: 0xB8B6 Apparently, enemy sequences are stored elsewhere, with possibly a different format. If you set enemies like Running Man in the wall definitions, it will load just fine, but only once, just as the room opens... If you can find any info of enemy sequences, let me know... |
| Trax |
| ||
|
Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 694/1145 EXP: 3035160 Next: 131954 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3624 days Last view: 2876 days |
Okay, I got some time to work on Red Falcon again. Most of the data for indoor levels is now fully cracked, so it can be implemented to a usable state. I also found enemy cycles (the green punk guys), which will be edited in a separate section in the same window. A little screenshot:
Not everything works perfectly, but at least objects are displayed and enemy info seems correct as well. The little icon in the top-left corner is for rollers activation. Its location is not important, it just needs to be there to activate the rollers, and they go on on their own, with a predefined pattern. There are two types of rollers patterns, each one have a different object code (19 and 1A), but it seems the type used in Base I cannot be used in Base II and vice-versa. The enemy info labels (top-right) are not correct either, because they are still set for scrolling levels. This is an easy fix. The first row is for what I call section header. Four bytes that define things about the room. I don't know everything about them, only that the first byte is the number of cores to destroy to advance to next room. And by observation I know that the 4th byte is a kind of index for enemy cycles pointer, so normally, 0 for Base I and 1 for Base II. Logically, if you wanted to have another indoor level in a hack, you could possibly put 2 (and 3, so on...) in there, but you'd have to extend the table that refers to the pointer to the enemy cycles data, which will probably be possible within the editor eventually. Or simply set it to 0 or 1 and you'd have the same enemy cycles as Base I or Base II... The second row contain info for the currently selected enemy, just like other levels. In this order, you have X Position, Y Position, Enemy Type and Enemy Attributes. That last byte is different depending on the enemy type. Wall cannons have no attributes. Cores have 3: delay before deployment, plating and big core... |
| XTTX |
| ||
 Flurry Level: 36 Posts: 72/251 EXP: 304248 Next: 3862 Since: 04-14-08 From: DTOWN Last post: 2388 days Last view: 64 days |
When do you anticipate this coming out? That looks awesome and woud like to mess around with that editor! Good work.
XTTX- |
| smkdan |
| ||
 Ninji Level: 36 Posts: 188/238 EXP: 288589 Next: 19521 Since: 05-26-07 Last post: 4060 days Last view: 4009 days |
looks like this is developing pretty nicely. would you mind releasing the hacking notes necessary to produce an editor when you complete this? i'd like to recreate the editor in Windows and the notes would help out since i wouldn't (or someone else interested in recreating it) have to reinvent the wheel. definitely a project for me to consider, what do you say? if you have plans on creating a windows port then disregard this.
also, i think Contra is 128kb which is half the capacity of UNROM/UOROM (forgot which one). any plans on expansion to provide greater freedom for level design? i don't know how difficult it'd be since i haven't checked the level loader at all. |
| Trax |
| ||
|
Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 701/1145 EXP: 3035160 Next: 131954 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3624 days Last view: 2876 days |
I'm not sure when I'll get it out since my free time is quite limited again. The point I reached in coding let me edit and save the first level, but I didn't mind saving everything, because my goal up to that point was to release a one-level demo. So the data was simply saved over the rest, with no regard to what was replaced. But after I can do something neat and safe with indoor levels, most of the hard work will be done...
If anyone want an unofficial beta, I could send you a compiled copy of my editor as it is currently coded, but remember that you need Mac OS X (10.4 or later)... Vertical levels may need some tweakings, but they are basically like horizontal levels, only with screens stacked. So if we ignore little hard-coded details (which I didn't decode completely yet), any level should be made vertical or horizontal easily. But transforming an outdoor level to indoor (and vice-versa) may be a little more tricky, although not impossible either... Contra is a 128KB ROM that uses Mapper 1, i.e. MMC1. In that regard, there is, theoretically, a lot of potential with expansion, but adding banks to a ROM is something very tricky that needs a deep understading of bank switching and other details... If we put ROM expansion aside, the only potential is the unused space. Most of the time, Banks 0 and 7 are loaded during gameplay. Bank 0 has 0x295 bytes of unused space, and Bank 7 has 0x5EE. Bank 2, which contains Level Data and Enemy Data, has 0x2C4 bytes of unused space. Enemy cycles data for indoor levels are stored in Bank 0... By the way, wall cannons do have attributes. While disassembling Bank 0, I found that the last two bits of the attributes byte determine the cannon's rate of fire. The 4-byte table can be edited at will, so you can make the cannon shoot ultra-fast if you want... SMKDan, if you need anything about Contra, as I said many times, I'm ready to give any information needed. I try to insert as much comments as possible in my source code (although many would find there's not enough) as well as in disassemblies of the ROMs I work on. My coding is not always clean, but I can explain everything. Just ask... |
| Raccoon Sam |
| ||
 Cobrat Level: 56 Posts: 576/672 EXP: 1379743 Next: 18433 Since: 02-19-07 From: Hi Last post: 3465 days Last view: 2696 days |
I'd be glad to try out the beta. I'm (still) at 10.4.11, and always in the mood of bug-hunting.  ____________________ |
| Trax |
| ||
|
Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 756/1145 EXP: 3035160 Next: 131954 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3624 days Last view: 2876 days |
Okay, finally, some news about Red Falcon. It's been going slow, but I am pretty close from another demo release. I got most of the Base levels data covered up, so everything should be editable with ease.
That's a preview of what the Base rooms could look like. The wider rooms provide for more action, but it also involves many ASM tweaks and having more sprites on screen at the same time can cause lag and sprites not being drawn. Keep in mind that there can only be a maximum of 16 enemies simultaneously. And bullets are counted as enemies. Anyway, even if the rooms are left unchanged, there is a lot of potential for mega blast. You can expect a very long Base with many screens... What I call "Enemy Cycles" refers to the sequence of Green Guys for each room. The editor has a different section for that, where the type, attributes and delay of Green Guys can be modified at will. You can also add or remove enemies from the cycles... Stay tuned for more... |
| Parasyte |
| ||
 Red Goomba Level: 18 Posts: 10/48 EXP: 24780 Next: 5117 Since: 02-09-09 From: Flagstaff, AZ Last post: 5207 days Last view: 5185 days |
It looks like a pretty solid editor. I'll admit I was trying not to go insane from the all-red, then green palette... And the first screen shot with the corrected NES palette made me jump back a bit. Kind of like that feeling you got the first time you saw an HDTV after growing up on standard NTSC/PAL. 
Any way, here's a tip to get rid of those pesky dotfiles, fellow OS X hacker: http://blog.jasper.es/archives/11-dotfiles-osx-tar-wraaah-frustration!!!!111!.html |
| finisher |
| ||
|
Red Goomba Level: 18 Posts: 11/48 EXP: 25320 Next: 4577 Since: 06-09-08 Last post: 3954 days Last view: 2494 days |
Hey, I like this. Hope to see a new level soon |
| Batman |
| ||
 Micro-Goomba Level: 11 Posts: 4/17 EXP: 5268 Next: 717 Since: 11-04-08 Last post: 5010 days Last view: 5008 days |
Posted by LegomenPosted by Grey Mario Well, we didn't exactly have a choice. "Star Fox" was a registered trademark here in the UK. Nintendo couldn't use the name, so they instead used Star Wing. Same case for Lylat Wars. |
| finisher |
| ||
|
Red Goomba Level: 18 Posts: 12/48 EXP: 25320 Next: 4577 Since: 06-09-08 Last post: 3954 days Last view: 2494 days |
Don't mean to be impatient, but.... how's this thing coming along? |
| Trax |
| ||
|
Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 777/1145 EXP: 3035160 Next: 131954 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3624 days Last view: 2876 days |
March was pretty busy for me, I was moving as well as helping two friends to do the same, so the progress has halted. Now I'm not yet connected, so I have to use other's computers for now. But the project is far from dead. I'm still disassembling the ROM to find out as much details as possible. In the best case, I'll be connected by the end of April, so you can expect something new in the course of May. Stay tuned... |
| shadowtails2 |
| ||
 Goomba Level: 13 Posts: 3/25 EXP: 9256 Next: 1011 Since: 04-19-09 Last post: 3650 days Last view: 3575 days |
Will be this editor for windows platform or only for Mac? |
| Kawa |
| ||
 CHIKKN NI A BAAZZKIT!!! 80's Cheerilee is best pony Level: 138 Posts: 1770/5344 EXP: 30938524 Next: 724457 Since: 02-20-07 From: The Netherlands Last post: 4495 days Last view: 2631 days |
If you read the thread, you'd know.
But since you probably won't accept that for an answer, I remember reading that it was Mac only, due to the GUI toolkit used, but that if you wanted to do Windows or Linux versions you could get the game format documentation. And no, you can't pay us to make one for you  ____________________ Wife make lunch - Shampoo Opera - give it a spin Spare some of your free time? <GreyMaria> I walked around the Lake so many goddamn times that my sex drive was brutally murdered Kawa rocks — byuu |
| KDE User X |
| ||
 Koopa Level: 25 Posts: 36/104 EXP: 79347 Next: 10273 Since: 12-26-08 From: Finland Last post: 5196 days Last view: 5195 days |
Posted by Kawa FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUC- *gets out* ____________________ 
|
| shadowtails2 |
| ||
|
Goomba Level: 13 Posts: 4/25 EXP: 9256 Next: 1011 Since: 04-19-09 Last post: 3650 days Last view: 3575 days |
Sorry if i wrote something wrong |
| shadowtails2 |
| ||
|
Goomba Level: 13 Posts: 5/25 EXP: 9256 Next: 1011 Since: 04-19-09 Last post: 3650 days Last view: 3575 days |
Does anybody got beta version of red falcon?I have contact trax but he does not reply.I think that he is very busy. |
| Trax |
| ||
|
Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 787/1145 EXP: 3035160 Next: 131954 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3624 days Last view: 2876 days |
I am still alive, I just don't have access to Internet at home yet. I received a message from someone (can't remember who it was from) and I did reply...
Or, it is because it fell in the junk mail folder and I didn't detect it... Anyways, Raccoon Sam got a beta version of Red Falcon, the same that was used to make my demo of Level 1, but I don't think he created something significant with it, except finding bugs... My current issue is free space management. Since the editor is meant to be able to expand levels, it needs to find the correct offset for unused space and modify the pointers accordingly... There are still many things that seem hard-coded on a per-level basis that I couldn't decipher yet. If you play my demo through level 1 and continue, you will be sent back to what looks like level 1 again, except with some glitches, including one that prevents any further movement. My goal is to reproduce the first level as the second one, by modifying everything possible... Problems I have right now: - Player's initial coordinated after dying. - Some enemies vertical adjustment. (corrected) - Palette, graphics and collision parameters change suddenly after a few screens. |
| Main - ROM Hacking - Red Falcon, Contra editor (Formerly "Contra hacks...") | New thread | New reply |
© 2005-2023 Acmlm, blackhole89, Xkeeper et al. |
|
MySQL - queries: 127, rows: 166/167, time: 0.017 seconds. |
