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Smaghetti, a new Super Mario Advance 4 editor, is currently in development! Check out the thread HERE!

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Main - ROM Hacking - Smaghetti - a Super Mario Advance 4 level editor New thread | New reply

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city41
Posted on 05-06-21 11:57 PM (rev. 3 of 05-14-21 05:34 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 167653


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We've been chatting about this in the SMA4 hacking thread, but I thought it made sense to start a fresh thread.

Smaghetti is a Super Mario Advance 4 level editor, available here: https://smaghetti.com

Still early days, and a lot more work to do, but it's progressing nicely.

It creates e-reader levels that are playable in an emulator or on real hardware with an everdrive.

It's really easy to use, just draw your level, pretty similar to mario maker in that regard.




As of time of writing it has

- 105 entities (ie enemies, terrain, etc) to work with
- multi room support, with doors to move between them (pipes not yet implemented)
- a built in emulator that takes you right to your level for fast feedback
- drag and drop, panning, undo/redo, fill, etc
- keyboard shortcuts (press ? to see the list)

Still to come

- full fledged room styles (plains, sky, underwater, etc)
- the more elaborate terrain (hills, boxes, air ships, etc)
- movement vectors for platforms
- autoscroll
- saving multiple levels to one save file
- regular levels, overworld, tile editing, etc

see the what's new page for the latest https://smaghetti.com/whats-new/

warning!! warning!!

It has not even reached alpha quality yet. I am actively working on it, and things changes a lot. if you make any levels now, just be aware they may stop working as the editor advances. Once the editor is of beta quality, the level format will be locked in and from there it will be safe to make elaborate levels. For now, you're better off just playing around with it.

mellodillo
Posted on 05-07-21 02:43 AM Link | Quote | ID: 167655

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I just joined up here today after stumbling on the SMA4 thread (really stoked to see it's active!!!), and just wanted to let you know I'd be more than happy to check this out/help where I can! I was tinkering with SMA4 hex editing a bit last year, hopefully I can relearn so I can help out somehow. Would love to see this project do well

city41
Posted on 05-07-21 03:28 AM Link | Quote | ID: 167656


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Posted by mellodillo
I just joined up here today after stumbling on the SMA4 thread (really stoked to see it's active!!!), and just wanted to let you know I'd be more than happy to check this out/help where I can! I was tinkering with SMA4 hex editing a bit last year, hopefully I can relearn so I can help out somehow. Would love to see this project do well


Awesome! That's great to hear.

I've created a few tools for reverse engineering and lately I've been brute forcing my way through the game. I wrote a script that tries every sprite/object combo there is and captures a screenshot if something appears on screen, then from there I filter down to the good ones. With that I have figured out a lot of things, but there's still a good deal more to find.

Here is everything that has been reverse engineered into Smaghetti
https://github.com/city41/smaghetti/tree/main/src/entities

And here are a bunch of random notes of just things I've found or figured out
https://github.com/city41/smaghetti/wiki

And also want to take this chance to also say I couldn't have done any of this without the awesome work people on this forum and other forums did well before I came along. All of the docs people wrote, the tools they made, and such were all extremely helpful!! I have it on my todo list to add a thank you page to Smaghetti. I have been collecting people's names who contributed. If you added to the SMA4 knowledge in any way, let me know and I'll make sure you're on the page.

mellodillo
Posted on 05-07-21 04:48 AM Link | Quote | ID: 167657

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Thanks for the links!!! Looks like there's a ton here so far!!

I'm not sure if this is new knowledge, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, so I'll share in here: Last year I stumbled across SMW Dolphins and Porcupuffers -- the sprite hex values are on TRCF, but to get them to show up in-game correctly, the 6th graphics value for the room needs to be set to 0A.

I know it's not much but I spent a solid few hours brute-forcing my way to that conclusion by fiddling with the hex values and reloading the same level.

I've gotta say, it's been satisfying getting the hang of editing the hex code and piecing together the patterns behind how the various stage elements work! I think the next thing I was chasing after was the unused yellow Cheep-Cheeps and green Para-Beetles...I believe I found the address of the Yellow Cheep-Cheeps in someone's notes as an unknown entity (the description lined up with the enemy's behavior) but I have no idea how to actually make it spawn yet, if that's even possible.

Anyway, I'll do my best to help out when I get free time! I don't know how much info I can offer so I won't ask to be credited, but I am so thrilled to see people actively pursuing SMA4 hacking!

XAIXER
Posted on 05-07-21 05:09 AM Link | Quote | ID: 167658


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This is incredible! Want any of my documentation that I have? Got a whole bunch of World-e info.

____________________
~XAIXER

city41
Posted on 05-07-21 03:29 PM (rev. 9 of 05-07-21 07:04 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 167660


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Posted by mellodillo

I'm not sure if this is new knowledge, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, so I'll share in here: Last year I stumbled across SMW Dolphins and Porcupuffers -- the sprite hex values are on TRCF, but to get them to show up in-game correctly, the 6th graphics value for the room needs to be set to 0A.



Cool, those are fun enemies. I haven't added them yet, but they should be pretty straightforward to add now that we know everything about them.

EDIT: I added dolphin pod (the swarm of dolphins), but it acts kinda strange. Need to research it more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CuiV2StlZA

I have also found there is at least a seventh byte that influences graphic sets, the 26th byte of the level settings section. I think it's possible all twelve bytes in that area are for graphic sets, I plan to run some experiments there.

I wrote a script that will dump an entity using all graphic set combos (just six bytes for now), from there by looking at the screenshots can often determine which graphic sets an entity belongs too. Some entities only belong to one, while others can belong to all of them, and a bunch of entities are somewhere in between.



I've gotta say, it's been satisfying getting the hang of editing the hex code and piecing together the patterns behind how the various stage elements work! I think the next thing I was chasing after was the unused yellow Cheep-Cheeps and green Para-Beetles...I believe I found the address of the Yellow Cheep-Cheeps in someone's notes as an unknown entity (the description lined up with the enemy's behavior) but I have no idea how to actually make it spawn yet, if that's even possible.



My script found a green parabeetle at graphics set [5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0] and object id 0x40. I haven't played with it yet though, so possibly it's not correct. I've not found any yellow cheep cheeps, that would be cool

EDIT: nope, 0x40 is buster beetle. So green parabeetle is still elusive.



This is incredible! Want any of my documentation that I have? Got a whole bunch of World-e info.



Yeah, please send it my way. I already have a ton of docs, I scoured the internet for them and several people have given me what they collected, but possibly I am still missing some.



youtube playlist

I've also been capturing video of unusued or interesting things in the game. The playlist is here
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHpd9DwlchgNiYuotmrfFE70g-ksEbrxd

Plokzig
Posted on 05-08-21 05:08 AM (rev. 3 of 06-30-21 09:01 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 167663


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As stated before, thanks for all your hard work

mellodillo
Posted on 05-08-21 06:57 PM (rev. 2 of 05-10-21 01:57 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 167668

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Posted by city41
Posted by mellodillo

I'm not sure if this is new knowledge, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, so I'll share in here: Last year I stumbled across SMW Dolphins and Porcupuffers -- the sprite hex values are on TRCF, but to get them to show up in-game correctly, the 6th graphics value for the room needs to be set to 0A.



Cool, those are fun enemies. I haven't added them yet, but they should be pretty straightforward to add now that we know everything about them.

EDIT: I added dolphin pod (the swarm of dolphins), but it acts kinda strange. Need to research it more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CuiV2StlZA



Ah yeah, you need to have water enabled in the level for the dolphins to not fall off the screen, same goes for porcupuffers I believe. I forget what byte is responsible for having water at the bottom of the screen but I know it's used in "Sea to Sky" as well.

EDIT: Something that crossed my mind while fiddling with ? blocks in the editor/after seeing your video with the item bubbles: Is it possible to put a poisonous mushroom in a ? block? I spent a long time playing with tile values but I don't think I ever found a way to do it, I'm curious if the entity exists in-game at all – as far as existing instances go, the only poison mushrooms I know of are the ones that appear from vegetable sprouts in Vegetable Volley.

city41
Posted on 05-11-21 03:06 AM (rev. 2 of 05-11-21 03:07 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 167673


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Posted by mellodillo

Ah yeah, you need to have water enabled in the level for the dolphins to not fall off the screen, same goes for porcupuffers I believe. I forget what byte is responsible for having water at the bottom of the screen but I know it's used in "Sea to Sky" as well.



Ah good to know. I haven't done anything with water yet so that's all new to me. If anyone has any info I'd love to hear it. I'll explore the ereader water levels and add proper water support at some point.



EDIT: Something that crossed my mind while fiddling with ? blocks in the editor/after seeing your video with the item bubbles: Is it possible to put a poisonous mushroom in a ? block?


Hmmm, so far I don't think it's possible, but I'm not 100% certain yet. The poison mushroom can spawn on its own, it's in Smaghetti in the power ups section.

You might find this tool interesting https://smaghetti.com/tools/hex-tree/. After loading an ereader level you can change specific bytes and then run the level. You can also start the level in a specific room by clicking the eye icon next to the rooms before it. So if you want to go straight to room 2 on a level, click the eye icons on room 0 and 1 then play the level.

The tool is very raw and has no documentation, but eventually I will fix that I think it will be helpful in learning the last final bits about e-reader levels after the easier stuff has already been figured out. To see this tool at its current best, load star02 or star04.

mellodillo
Posted on 05-11-21 04:19 AM Link | Quote | ID: 167674

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Posted by city41

You might find this tool interesting https://smaghetti.com/tools/hex-tree/. After loading an ereader level you can change specific bytes and then run the level. You can also start the level in a specific room by clicking the eye icon next to the rooms before it. So if you want to go straight to room 2 on a level, click the eye icons on room 0 and 1 then play the level.

The tool is very raw and has no documentation, but eventually I will fix that I think it will be helpful in learning the last final bits about e-reader levels after the easier stuff has already been figured out. To see this tool at its current best, load star02 or star04.


Interesting!! I'll be sure to check this out! It'll definitely be helpful to have a quicker way to edit and test levels like this, especially while documenting level attributes. It's impressive just how much you've done so far!

city41
Posted on 05-11-21 02:48 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167676


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Also here is the project board: https://github.com/city41/smaghetti/projects/2

And if anyone finds any bugs or has feature requests, you can report them here or on github: https://github.com/city41/smaghetti/issues

city41
Posted on 05-14-21 05:32 AM (rev. 2 of 05-14-21 05:33 AM) Link | Quote | ID: 167677


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Smaghetti now has a what's new page

https://smaghetti.com/whats-new/

Googie
Posted on 05-16-21 02:51 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167684


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I'm gonna have to try this baby out!

____________________
My Linktree

mellodillo
Posted on 05-16-21 06:28 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167687

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Yeah, it looks like it's really coming along!!! Still blown away by your findings on YouTube, I never considered that the moving blue whistle was actually a homing Bullet Bill! I'm gonna have a break from my job soon, so hopefully during that time I'll have more time to dig in and give feedback.

city41
Posted on 05-17-21 03:24 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167689


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Thanks everyone!

I just started a pretty big change to the editor: adding layer support. This will allow adding decorations (like the big hills in the background) as well as the "black room" at the end of most levels. It will also allow the large terrain objects like hills, stairs, etc. It also paves the way for the giant world stuff: giant question blocks, giant bricks, etc.

There will be three layers: decorations, terrain, playfield. They are needed because so many of the terrain and decoration objects are gigantic, so when working with them you can either hide or lock the other layers and then only the decorations will be operable. Having everything live in the same space (ie no layers) just wouldn't work. It'd be a real cluster.

This is what I mean by terrain being gigantic



A lot of terrain is these big, unchangeable objects. Want a hill? You have like 4 choices and that's it

It's interesting Nintendo did it this way, but it probably saves a lot of rom space and memory for them, so makes sense from their perspective. Sadly it makes making new levels a tad more limited, but what can ya do?

Oquendo
Posted on 05-20-21 05:54 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167692

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Wow, it so very cooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
look at this boy, This link is a super pack of hacking resources for sma4
https://drive.google.com/file/d/194Y7b1JkcxxkP4-If_N5pmMkpGhGnbMp/view?usp=sharing
Good Luck Matt

city41
Posted on 05-21-21 08:04 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167693


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Posted by Oquendo
Wow, it so very cooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
look at this boy, This link is a super pack of hacking resources for sma4
https://drive.google.com/file/d/194Y7b1JkcxxkP4-If_N5pmMkpGhGnbMp/view?usp=sharing
Good Luck Matt


Doh, looks like Google took it down.

Oquendo
Posted on 05-25-21 07:34 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167695

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Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
That's Weird
How strange to me, at least it appears to me, I have not even deleted it
Oh boy
https://mega.nz/file/Bh5glBgY#rTbr_MNU9cwOIFE6SN8BlaTPLb-ngnrC71Pvq3klji8
google puts a lot of trouble, so I uploaded it to Mega

city41
Posted on 05-25-21 08:02 PM Link | Quote | ID: 167696


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Posted by Oquendo
I uploaded it to Mega


Thanks Oquendo! I have most of this stuff, but looks like there's a couple things in here that are new to me. I'll definitely check them out.

Someone made a pretty cool level with Smaghetti:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRESZU6zoPs

Oquendo
Posted on 05-28-21 04:56 PM (rev. 2 of 05-28-21 05:01 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 167703

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Hello, look at this booooooooooooooy
a we page with super tools of hacking sma4:

http://caitsith2.com/ereader/sma4.htm
http://caitsith2.com/ereader/devtools.htm
http://caitsith2.com/ereader/tech.htm
http://users.skynet.be/firefly/gba/e-reader/
http://www.devrs.com/gba/

Good luck
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