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Main - ROM Hacking Related Releases - Epic Edit - Super Mario Kart track editor New thread | New reply

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Stifu
Posted on 07-19-15 08:33 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160440


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You're welcome. It's going to be useful for me too, since I'm currently working on the backgrounds for my hack.

Posted by gridatttack
I see you also added the black line on top for more accuracy.

Yep, I guess you missed it in my other post.

Stifu
Posted on 07-25-15 03:19 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160489


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A bit of news. This will probably not be interesting to most people, but whatever.
I've been working on compression / decompression a bit more. Background: Jap and Euro SMK ROMs decompress data in a different way from US ROMs. This needs to be accounted for, otherwise, EE will compress data in a way non-US ROMs can't decompress correctly (like, the bottom half of a track map turns to garbage). In the past, I tried to blindly work around this problem by disabling some compression commands for non-US ROMs (which results in a lower compression rate), as I couldn't figure out how it all worked exactly. This seemed to work in most cases. I just tried to have another go at it, to understand the problem better and find a more suitable solution. Here's the result so far:

- From my few tests, it seems the Jap / Euro difference only shows for double compressed data. I'm not sure if that's correct or not, but for now, I'm going to assume it is. So for data only compressed once, I now use the same compression logic for all ROM regions. The benefit is smaller compressed data for non-US ROMs, which can really make a different when compressing data manually with the codec tool. I only fall back to my compressor "quirks mode" for non-US double-compressed data.
- I noticed a problem affecting all ROM regions related to updating podium graphics data (located at 737DA). Trying to decompress and recompress (twice) this data with EE corrupts it. It turns out it's due to the fact I set the decompression buffer to 16 KiB, which is too low, as this data is 18.5 KiB uncompressed. I bumped the decompression buffer size to 128 KiB to fix this issue (this may be overkill, but I'm not sure what limit SMK actually has).
- Trying to recompress podium graphics now works with US ROMs, but still won't work correctly with non-US ROMs. I'm not sure why. Also, I noticed Lunar Compress doesn't have this problem, so I guess it does something that I don't.

Stifu
Posted on 07-27-15 08:17 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160502


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I finally figured it all out.

The compression problem that affects Euro and Jap ROMs only occurs for double compressed data, for some reason. If the second compression uses a super command with a size which is a multiple of 256, then the game won't be able to decompress that data properly. In this case, EE now subtracts one from the compression command byte count to avoid this (1024 -> 1023, 768 -> 767, 512 -> 511, 256 -> 255). Finally, I can get rid of my old buggy workaround code for this issue.

This change has 2 benefits for Euro and Jap ROM hackers: the compression rate will be better (especially useful when compressing data manually), and the data will always be decompressed properly by the game.

As for Lunar Compress, after a few more tests, it turns out it could only recompress the podium data in a way that works with J/E ROMs by chance. In other cases, it can trigger the Euro / Jap decompression bug. So LC doesn't actually try to work around this quirk.

MandL27
Posted on 07-29-15 08:11 PM (rev. 2 of 07-29-15 08:14 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 160516


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Man, with all these updates (GP cup name editing, track order editing, etc), do you think EE 2.7.3 will be out sooN? If not, what other features do you plan to add between now and then?
I doubt most of this would be implemented (mostly because SMK Mashup exists ), but here's the wishlist I have:
- track music picker (something tells me AddMusicR or what have you won't be rolled into this, but being able to pick from the existing songs would still be a nice touch)
- driver stats editing
- mode name editing
- driver/gui GFX editing
Other than that, I can't think of too much that would keep this from becoming the perfect SMK editor.

Stifu
Posted on 07-29-15 08:33 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160517


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I don't plan to add more features for the next version (2.8), I'm just waiting a bit more in case bugs show up.

About your list:

- Track music picker would be easy (but it may make sense not to restrict it to tracks).
- Driver stats would be nice, even though SMK Mashup exists, just for the sake of having everything in a single tool. I already added many other SMK Mashup features for this reason. I may add it for the next major version after 2.8. No date or promise, but I guess I'll add it when I'll need it for my hack.
- Mode name editing is very low priority to me. It's easy to do manually with a hex editor, and it's actually not part of track editing (while there are still track editing features that are missing, such as Ghost pillar editing). Besides, if I add mode name editing, I could basically add editing for all of the game texts while I'm here (pause menu, etc).
- Driver graphics would be interesting, but like other graphics currently supported, it'd be editable through file import and export. It'd also be useful for color picking, but many other graphics would, too (Lakitu, dust effect, water effect, etc).

MandL27
Posted on 07-29-15 09:36 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160518


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Posted by Stifu
I don't plan to add more features for the next version (2.8), I'm just waiting a bit more in case bugs show up.

About your list:

- Track music picker would be easy (but it may make sense not to restrict it to tracks).
- Driver stats would be nice, even though SMK Mashup exists, just for the sake of having everything in a single tool. I already added many other SMK Mashup features for this reason. I may add it for the next major version after 2.8. No date or promise, but I guess I'll add it when I'll need it for my hack.
- Mode name editing is very low priority to me. It's easy to do manually with a hex editor, and it's actually not part of track editing (while there are still track editing features that are missing, such as Ghost pillar editing). Besides, if I add mode name editing, I could basically add editing for all of the game texts while I'm here (pause menu, etc).
- Driver graphics would be interesting, but like other graphics currently supported, it'd be editable through file import and export. It'd also be useful for color picking, but many other graphics would, too (Lakitu, dust effect, water effect, etc).

- Yeah. Kinda reminds me how in a non-enhanced F-Zero X rom you can make custom tracks use not-track themes, such as the menu theme.
- I tried to mention that SMK Mashup's existence would probably push a couple of these lower on the priority list, but then again having everything in one tool (main article: Lunar Magic) is definitely welcome.
- I figured if the strings are already loaded in the item probability editor (which they seem to be, given how the weird capitalization rule applies there as well), it'd probably make sense to edit them. And while we're at it, maybe add case-sensitivity on the editor's end for other string edits?
- Driver GFX is actually uncompressed, so anyone with a palette dump and YY-CHR could whack at it. But I then go back to your point of throwing everything in one tool.

MercuryPenny
Posted on 07-29-15 10:49 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160520

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Swapping level name orders around might be a useful thing to add. I'm throwing together a hex edit patch so I don't need to fumble about in a hex editor, but it would be cool if it was just in the editor itself.

MandL27
Posted on 07-29-15 11:16 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160521


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Posted by MercuryPenny
Swapping level name orders around might be a useful thing to add. I'm throwing together a hex edit patch so I don't need to fumble about in a hex editor, but it would be cool if it was just in the editor itself.

It already got added in the latest preview.

Stifu
Posted on 07-29-15 11:45 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160522


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Posted by MandL27
- I figured if the strings are already loaded in the item probability editor (which they seem to be, given how the weird capitalization rule applies there as well), it'd probably make sense to edit them.

This data is loaded from the ROM, indeed, so a good part of the work is already done. But there are also other things that are loaded but aren't editable (item icons graphics, object graphics...). But there are fewer of them with each EE release.

Posted by MandL27
And while we're at it, maybe add case-sensitivity on the editor's end for other string edits?

What do you mean? The text is all uppercase in the game, so it can't be case sensitive (unless I modify the game font or something, but I won't do that).

Posted by MandL27
- Driver GFX is actually uncompressed, so anyone with a palette dump and YY-CHR could whack at it. But I then go back to your point of throwing everything in one tool.

Still useful for managing colors (the main point, IMO). Some people were actually surprised changing colors ended up affecting characters. Anyway, driver graphics are not something I plan to support at the moment.
Besides, other tools such as a hex editor or an image editor will always be required. EE can't be the one and only tool (but at least it could do everything other SMK editors do).

MandL27
Posted on 07-29-15 11:58 PM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 12:01 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 160523


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Posted by Stifu
Posted by MandL27
- I figured if the strings are already loaded in the item probability editor (which they seem to be, given how the weird capitalization rule applies there as well), it'd probably make sense to edit them.

This data is loaded from the ROM, indeed, so a good part of the work is already done. But there are also other things that are loaded but aren't editable (item icons graphics, object graphics...). But there are fewer of them with each EE release.

Posted by MandL27
And while we're at it, maybe add case-sensitivity on the editor's end for other string edits?

What do you mean? The text is all uppercase in the game, so it can't be case sensitive (unless I modify the game font or something, but I won't do that).

Posted by MandL27
- Driver GFX is actually uncompressed, so anyone with a palette dump and YY-CHR could whack at it. But I then go back to your point of throwing everything in one tool.

Still useful for managing colors (the main point, IMO). Some people were actually surprised changing colors ended up affecting characters. Anyway, driver graphics are not something I plan to support at the moment.
Besides, other tools such as a hex editor or an image editor will always be required. EE can't be the one and only tool (but at least it could do everything other SMK editors do).

- That reminds me: I should rerun the decompressor on the item box graphics to see if that odd bug was fixed.
- I meant on the editor's end, so we could get properly capitalized strings ("MarioKart GP" instead of "Mariokart Gp," for example).
- I think making slight edits to tracks and firing up snes9x has gotten me used to just trial-and-error testing, but driver editing in tracks would probably be useful for people who wanted to make edits and be able to see results in real time.

Stifu
Posted on 07-30-15 12:06 AM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 12:08 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 160524


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Posted by MandL27
- That reminds me: I should rerun the decompressor on the item box graphics to see if that odd bug was fixed.

I told you, I doubt there was a bug. But you didn't give precise steps to reproduce your problem, so I couldn't check it.

Posted by MandL27
- I meant on the editor's end, so we could get properly capitalized strings ("MarioKart GP" instead of "Mariokart Gp," for example).

How would you do that? I mean, dynamically, with no specific hacks. "Gp" into "GP" could be doable if I consider any 2-character word an acronym, but that may be wrong in other cases (like, if you want an "El Rancho" track or whatever, you don't want it capitalized as "EL Rancho").

I don't want to hard code anything (like "if MARIOKART GP then MarioKart GP"). I could do it like SMK Mashup and keep everything in upper case everywhere, but I think that's hard on the eyes.

MandL27
Posted on 07-30-15 12:48 AM (rev. 4 of 07-30-15 02:01 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 160525


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Posted by Stifu
Posted by MandL27
- That reminds me: I should rerun the decompressor on the item box graphics to see if that odd bug was fixed.

I told you, I doubt there was a bug. But you didn't give precise steps to reproduce your problem, so I couldn't check it.

Posted by MandL27
- I meant on the editor's end, so we could get properly capitalized strings ("MarioKart GP" instead of "Mariokart Gp," for example).

How would you do that? I mean, dynamically, with no specific hacks. "Gp" into "GP" could be doable if I consider any 2-character word an acronym, but that may be wrong in other cases (like, if you want an "El Rancho" track or whatever, you don't want it capitalized as "EL Rancho").

I don't want to hard code anything (like "if MARIOKART GP then MarioKart GP"). I could do it like SMK Mashup and keep everything in upper case everywhere, but I think that's hard on the eyes.

That's why I said make it only case-sensitive to the editor. Basically, insert it in allcaps, but let the user decide the case for how the editor displays it.
...maybe we should move this discussion to PM.
Edit: Does this place even have a PM system?
Edit 2: Apparently trying to change the AI block shape in the latest preview throws an error. It can be safely ignored, though.

Stifu
Posted on 07-30-15 08:21 AM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 08:31 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 160530


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Posted by MandL27
That's why I said make it only case-sensitive to the editor. Basically, insert it in allcaps, but let the user decide the case for how the editor displays it.

Where would you store this data? The ROM? A configuration file? That seems pointless to me, not to mention confusing for users.

Posted by MandL27
...maybe we should move this discussion to PM.
Edit: Does this place even have a PM system?

Yes, but no need.

Posted by MandL27
Edit 2: Apparently trying to change the AI block shape in the latest preview throws an error. It can be safely ignored, though.

Oh, I'll fix that ASAP. Thanks.
Edit: Fixed.

MandL27
Posted on 07-30-15 03:58 PM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 04:05 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 160531


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Posted by Stifu
Posted by MandL27
That's why I said make it only case-sensitive to the editor. Basically, insert it in allcaps, but let the user decide the case for how the editor displays it.

Where would you store this data? The ROM? A configuration file? That seems pointless to me, not to mention confusing for users.

Posted by MandL27
...maybe we should move this discussion to PM.
Edit: Does this place even have a PM system?

Yes, but no need.

Posted by MandL27
Edit 2: Apparently trying to change the AI block shape in the latest preview throws an error. It can be safely ignored, though.

Oh, I'll fix that ASAP. Thanks.
Edit: Fixed.

Yeah, that'd be rather confusing.
You sure? I thought it'd help keep this thread from becoming just a lot of back-and-forth between two users.
Also, this tutorial is quite outdated.

Stifu
Posted on 07-30-15 05:39 PM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 05:39 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 160532


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Posted by MandL27
You sure? I thought it'd help keep this thread from becoming just a lot of back-and-forth between two users.

Well, it lets other chime in if they want to. Besides, we're done here, I guess.

Posted by MandL27
Also, this tutorial is quite outdated.

I know, it's on my TODO list, but it takes time (if I do it too often, it's a waste of time). Besides, it's something any experienced EE user could contribute to. That'd let me spend time on improving EE instead (or just take a break).

I actually saw some guy complain about the EE overview page somewhere (not directly to me, that'd make too much sense, but to someone else)... Like, I've spent over 10 years documenting the SMK ROM, making an editor for it, and a web site for the editor, all of this for free, and some guy moans about how the overview page doesn't have enough info. Seriously. Entitled spoon-fed kids. How about helping instead? ¬_¬

MandL27
Posted on 07-30-15 06:06 PM Link | Quote | ID: 160533


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Posted by Stifu
Posted by MandL27
You sure? I thought it'd help keep this thread from becoming just a lot of back-and-forth between two users.

Well, it lets other chime in if they want to. Besides, we're done here, I guess.

Posted by MandL27
Also, this tutorial is quite outdated.

I know, it's on my TODO list, but it takes time (if I do it too often, it's a waste of time). Besides, it's something any experienced EE user could contribute to. That'd let me spend time on improving EE instead (or just take a break).

I actually saw some guy complain about the EE overview page somewhere (not directly to me, that'd make too much sense, but to someone else)... Like, I've spent over 10 years documenting the SMK ROM, making an editor for it, and a web site for the editor, all of this for free, and some guy moans about how the overview page doesn't have enough info. Seriously. Entitled spoon-fed kids. How about helping instead? ¬_¬

Well, how would I be able to contribute to it?

Stifu
Posted on 07-30-15 06:10 PM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 06:11 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 160534


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Posted by MandL27
Well, how would I be able to contribute to it?

If you mean the overview page, you could simply download it, update it (including images if you want), then send all of that to me.

Edit: Or as plain text, that'd be OK too.

MandL27
Posted on 07-30-15 07:07 PM (rev. 2 of 07-30-15 07:16 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 160535


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Posted by Stifu
Posted by MandL27
Well, how would I be able to contribute to it?

If you mean the overview page, you could simply download it, update it (including images if you want), then send all of that to me.

Edit: Or as plain text, that'd be OK too.

I didn't update the images, but I did add sections describing the new settings and codec tools, as well as going over the expanded AI tab.

Stifu
Posted on 07-31-15 12:02 AM Link | Quote | ID: 160537


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Thanks for that. But in the end, there was so little new content that it took me longer to check what was new than to write it myself.
I was more thinking along the lines to complete new sections, otherwise it's not worth it. Anyway, I'll add it to the site soon enough (probably reworded a bit) with more stuff.


Any reason this calls a Save As window when the save-on-exit prompt doesn't?

It just makes sense to me. I don't think the Save As behavior on exit is common behavior, and that just seems weird to me. Save As on the save button is just convenient, and I don't think it's worth wasting space to have 2 save buttons.

MandL27
Posted on 07-31-15 12:26 AM Link | Quote | ID: 160538


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Posted by Stifu
Thanks for that. But in the end, there was so little new content that it took me longer to check what was new than to write it myself.
I was more thinking along the lines to complete new sections, otherwise it's not worth it. Anyway, I'll add it to the site soon enough (probably reworded a bit) with more stuff.


Any reason this calls a Save As window when the save-on-exit prompt doesn't?

It just makes sense to me. I don't think the Save As behavior on exit is common behavior, and that just seems weird to me. Save As on the save button is just convenient, and I don't think it's worth wasting space to have 2 save buttons.

You could do what most apps do and not have a Save As button but instead list it either in the File dropdown or just have it as a separate keystroke (ctrl+A could work).
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