Posts by Treeki

Post form doesn't show up properly (no textarea), so I'm posting from XP.

Here's a screenshot.

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Is there a way to turn off the "native" menus on XP? They look awful, and using a skin with skinned menus doesn't seem to disable them.

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Posted by Xeruss
If you're going to rate the editor like that, the least you could do is give him a few suggestions.

*As though he still reads this site.*

Still do.

I just never post or anything.

So yeah, it's been over a year since I started with hacking NSMB already. Time passes really quickly.

As for the future of the editor.. I gave up on ROM hacking sometime around the start of this year. I just got frustrated with it, and I have way too many other projects I need to work on, maybe sometime I can get back into making an editor that doesn't suck like this one. (Seeing the code makes me embarassed.. seriously, my coding has improved so much since then.)

And as for some common problems:
+ Component "random_name.ocx" or one of its dependencies is not correctly registered
This means you need an OCX file and don't have it. Google the name (like mscomctl.ocx) and download it. Place it into C:\Windows\System32.

+ Overflow
If this happens when loading a ROM, the editor and my crappy file system loading code probably doesn't like it. Get another ROM.

If you specifically need me for a reason that isn't "OMG MAKE NSMB EDITUR UPDATE PLEEZ I MUST EDIT BACKGROUNDZ" then PM me or something.

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What's up? Editor is up! Blackhole89 pestered me to crosspost it on board2, so I did so.

NSMB Editor 4
This is my new editor for NSMB. I've been working on it for a few weeks on and off; it's basically a complete editor with almost all the same features as NSMBe2, but much more stable and easier to use.

- Features -
Complete graphics support:
Levels are rendered almost 100% accurately. Some complicated objects (especially diagonal objects) aren't rendered perfectly, but I've tried to implement it as best as I can. Each level uses the correct tileset.

Object previews:
No longer must you choose numbers for objects and hope you have the correct one.
Every object is shown in a list with previews. Tileset 0 (the generic tileset which all levels use) has each special object listed with notes on their use.

Minimap:
Click the View Minimap button to show a minimap of the level you're currently viewing. You can also click and drag to scroll the view.

No more stupid dialog boxes:
Editing an object or a sprite shows the info on the panel on the left. Objects can be dragged and resized easily. Blocks have the item they contain inside overlaid on top, so you can see what they contain at a glance.

Add/delete objects and sprites:
Now you can easily add and delete objects and sprites - you're not restricted to the default amount in each level.

Integrated Nitro Explorer:
Browse, extract and replace files in the ROM easily without a separate program, for more advanced hacking.

Export Level:
A level can be exported to a file, and later imported back in (either to the same slot, or a different slot).

Multiple Windows:
You can open and edit as many levels as you like in the same editor.

Sprite List: (New in 4.2)
Almost every sprite in the game is now identified and choosable in a list! Invalid sprites which won't work in a level are highlighted in red, and they can be made usable by changing the sprite set used. Note that some need specific sprite data to set up correctly.

Entrance Editing: (New in 4.3)
Change entrances and exits to create special areas, pipes, doors, move the start location, and other things.

Level Hex Editor: (New in 4.6)
For stuff not supported by the editor, edit individual blocks in a level file without having to constantly import/export files.

- Screenshots (Quite outdated) -
File Browser
Level Chooser
Main Editor
Minimap

- Download -
Version 4.0: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.0.zip [The original]
Version 4.1: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.1.zip [Can't think of any more witty time-based descriptions]
Version 4.2: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.2.zip [Older than time itself]
Version 4.3: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.3.zip [Seriously The Oldest]
Version 4.4: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.4.zip [Oldest]
Version 4.5: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.5.zip [Older]
Version 4.6: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.6.zip [Old]
Version 4.7: http://treeki.shacknet.nu/NSMBe4.7.zip
Requires .NET Framework 2.0 if you don't already have it. If you're on Linux or Mac OS X, use the special Mono version included. Enjoy it. Don't ask stupid questions.

- Changelog -
v4.0 - 13th April 2009:
Editor released.
v4.1 - 13th April 2009:
Now supports different region ROMs.
v4.2 - 19th April 2009:
Fixed a bug with different region ROMs.
Sprites are now listed and choosable. Some of them may be inaccurate; please inform me if so. Many thanks to Pirahnaplant for the list!
v4.3 - 26th April 2009:
- The biggest update yet!
- Entrance/exit editing is now supported.
- Views are viewable (sorry for the bad pun) but can't be edited yet.
- Multi-language support is added; Spanish is available.
- Level settings changeable, including tilesets and backgrounds.
- Right-click dragging to move the level field around added.
v4.4 - 13th May 2009:
- New option allowing levels which wrap horizontally and loop.
- Alternate version included which works on Mono, for Linux and Mac OS.
v4.5 - 23rd May 2009:
- Data finder added to the Settings tab. This tool makes it easier for advanced ROM hackers to find out more data about NSMB.
- Sprite sets are now choosable, so you can choose which sprites work in a level. Want to put Bowser in 1-1? Go for it, but don't complain when the game crashes halfway through the battle

- Mono graphics support fixed.
v4.6 - 14th June 2009:
- All levels should now work without crashing.
- Level files can now be edited in a hex editor without a separate program.
- Added options to the Options menu to delete all sprites and objects.
v4.7 - 29th June 2009:
- LZ compression is fixed.
- Object definitions updated.
- Dragging an object with the Shift key held will now allow you to resize it.
- Clicking and/or dragging an object with the Ctrl key held will create an exact clone of it.

- FAQ -
Check the readme file, this post is long enough already as it is.

- Credits -
Treeki- Main coding and design
Blackhole89- Object parsing/rendering code
Piranhaplant- Sprite list
Madman200, Tanks- Misc sprite data info
Master01 - Spanish translation for the sprite list
Treeki, Piranhaplant, Madman200- Sprite data list
Hex editor control- http://sourceforge.net/projects/hexbox
Icons- http://www.pinvoke.com

Have fun.

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Posted by blackhole89
Nice work! This has changed quite a bit since I last tried out the editor (which was, granted, really long ago...)

That's the reason why I ended up rewriting it. The old version was terrible (VB6

), full of bugs, extremely slow, and crashed a lot.

Posted by blackhole89
It would appear like blank cornerpieces of objects that have them (e.g. the bush at the start of 1-1 Area 1) aren't being blanked (i.e. set to blank tiles) by the renderer correctly (thus appearing as ground tiles). Could you fix that?

I've tried, but I can't figure out how the game blanks tiles. For now I added this which seems to work well enough: if (t.TileID == 0 && t.ControlByte == 0) t.TileID = -1;

There are a lot of inaccuracies like that (the diagonal object system, for example) that I want to fix some day. I was working on trying to convert the entire object renderer from NSMB using No$GBA's debugger and the disassembler in it, but I gave up after translating a 480-instruction function to pseudocode, and not finding anything useful.

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4.4 is out. Now with Mono support!

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Posted by Stepped Goomba Juice
Nice job on the editor. It's pretty easy to use, and MUCH more user-friendly than v2.

Here are a couple of things I'd like to see in the next version (not forcing or rushing you to do them, though), ordered by priority (in my opinion):

#1-View editing
#2-Music editing
#3-View backgrounds in the level editor

That's not a lot, and maybe you're already working on those (if so, then great), but just so you know. And don't feel rushed, please.
I await any future updates from you.

If by music editing you mean changing the music a level used, that goes along with views.

The reason I haven't implemented view editing yet is that I'm not entirely sure about the format - there are a lot of bytes I still don't know the use for.
For entrances, I waited until I had the entire format known to implement them - I think I'm going to do that for views as well.

As for backgrounds, I'm not planning to add that to the main editor, just the preview box. The reason for that is that backgrounds don't scroll at the same speed as the level - in most levels (especially ones where the view isn't located directly at the top left) backgrounds will be mislocated. I don't feel it's worth it, especially considering some backgrounds don't even render completely in my editor.

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I just got 6 dodongos while viewing this thread.

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Anyone got some info on this?

I've been taking a look at it, but it's hard to do much; I have no idea where to start to find data.

Raccoon Sam found this old thread about SMA4 hacking: http://acmlm.cjb.net:2/boardb/thread.php?id=31856 - it's interesting but not extremely helpful due to its total lack of any actual info.

I figured out how to edit the level in memory once it's been loaded, but that doesn't really help to figure out the level format. I've heard that it's apparently the same as SMB3-NES's - but where is the data?

DJBouche suggested looking through LZ77 decompression calls in one of the posts there. I did that and after about an hour, I ended up with quite a nice decompressor.

... which would be useful if I was, you know, looking for graphics - but I'm not. Almost all the files I decompressed (at least, the ones which are loaded when entering 1-1) contained graphics. The ones which didn't have nothing remotely resembling SMB3's levels.

I'll try out more in a debugger for now, but if anyone has some info on this, it would be really appreciated..

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Nice ninja post edit there.

Don't get too ahead of yourself. While additions are definitely possible (just look at SMW) we should focus on editing what we have first.

As for editing data, the problem with doing it here is that if I change something, I have no idea what it's going to affect. I'm used to DS hacking where I can open a ROM and see all the files inside. In a GBA game, the ROM is just one huge glob of data where nothing is organised at all.

I'm totally unfamiliar with this type of hacking so I've been working through a debugger to try and find stuff. The problem here is that to find any useful data, I need to trace through a lot of the game's code to see where it comes from originally.

I'll try and work on it more; I'll post back if I have any more updates.

...
my own edit: The first line in this post was referring to copyRIGHThunter, not Kawa. Way to ninja my post as well.

[19:35:41] <&Kuro-chan> New reply by Kawa (ROM Hacking: Super Mario Advance 4: SMB3 Editor!? (Video Links Included) (5226) (+388)) - http://acmlm.kafuka.org:81/board?p=111904
[19:35:50] <&Kuro-chan> New reply by Treeki (ROM Hacking: Super Mario Advance 4: SMB3 Editor!? (Video Links Included) (5226) (+474)) - http://acmlm.kafuka.org:81/board?p=111905

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Posted by copyRIGHThunter
What program/debugger do you guys use to look at and modify the hex data? Is there a function inside of any GBA emulators?

Use a hex editor. xvi32 is pretty nice.

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Posted by chungy
Knock yourself out

btw, it's on one of those free file hosting sites, so be patient

any chance you could upload it somewhere else? I've also been looking for stuff from it, but DepositFiles is being constantly retarded. Server errors every time I try to download and now "We are sorry, but all downloading slots for your country are busy.".

I'm in a country of 30,000 people. I highly doubt "all downloading slots" are full.

So anyway, I decided "fuck it, I'll download it on my VPS and transfer it later".
Installed Opera, battled with X over a network (which is extremely slow) until I finally manage to download it.
HEY DEPOSITFILES I AM PRETTY SURE THAT I'M NOT DOWNLOADING ANYTHING ELSE. Especially considering that my server has a unique IP address. So what the fuck?

Trying again, but still, I doubt it will work.. and I thought Megaupload and Rapidshare were bad.

edit: Finally got it to download.

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I'd be willing to help with making an editor, as well. Not sure who would be better though - me or Kawa.

I haven't really got that far yet though; trying to find the level data has got me majorly stuck.

I had an idea which failed horribly - in the old SMA4 thread, DJ Bouche sent a PM to sludge/User 2427 with a lot of data about the game.
I found a thread here (in General Chat) where chungy posted a download for the AcmlmBoard archive databases; I thought I could find the PM there, but it turns out that it only has archives 2 and 3 (not 1). So much for spending hours on downloading that.

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Also, to add onto RS's info, there are no paths. NO PATHS.

Movement works solely based on tiles. You can completely redraw the map and Mario can still move around fine. How's that for simplicity?

(Why didn't Nintendo do that for other games as well..)

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So this level format is fucking insane.

Custom level format y/n?

(Yes, it's possible.)

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Posted by MathOnNapkins
What's so insane about it?

Don't get me wrong, though. If a format impedes editability, I'm all for changing it.

I could easily create a tile-based format with the info I have.

The current format is limited, makes it very easy to crash the game or cause random glitches (at least from my experimentations) and just a pain (seeing as objects can be either 4 or 5 bytes). Don't forget stuff like object sets which makes it even more confusing to edit and display.

I've been messing around with the level data and crashed the game so many times just by changing bytes, which shouldn't happen IMO. Even simple things like placing a panel block (like the ones in 1-1) above an empty area will either cause the game to crash or cause tile glitches. I think that existed in SMB3 NES too. It's unreasonable that something like resizing an object or using the wrong ID should be able to totally ruin your level.

Stuff like this might be acceptable on the NES with all the hardware limitations (space etc) but I don't see why we should have to put up with it on the GBA. Even LM lets you display Map16 tiles directly.

Basically, what I'm proposing would remove the "object" system and allow you to modify the level tilemap directly. While you wouldn't be able to modify existing levels, it would allow a lot of possibilities for custom levels. You wouldn't be restricted to the default object arrangements in the game (like bushes) or any other limits.

Besides, when the standard level format is loaded, it's converted to a tilemap in RAM - so it doesn't make much difference.

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Posted by Kawa
Though that does take away all the challenge of writing an object-based map editor, you bring up some good points.

You can make an object-based one if you want. Sure, it'd be a good challenge, and it might work pretty well once it's done - but our goal here is to hack SMA4, no matter how we get there. Even if it involves ASM hacking and redoing a fundamental part of the game's engine, at this point it seems like it might work better to take a path like this.

But I'm rambling now. I should probably start working on it.

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Hey 14159, got any idea what object sets each level uses? I've figured out that changing the GFX value (HH) in the level header changes the graphics the game loads into VRAM (01 for 1-1, 13 for 1-2) but it doesn't affect the behaviour of each tile, and the graphics which they use.

I've been working on the custom level format. I've got it working pretty nicely (although right now it loads the same level data for all levels - I'll fix that later)

I need to figure out a way to convert the original levels to my format easily. The best thing about this format is that you can design pretty much anything with the tiles - you don't have SMB3's object or space restrictions. Once my editor is done, it should take care of level pointers and such by itself.

I really want to make the editor as accurate as possible which is also another reason why I wanted to do my own format - more flexible, easier to hack, less technical problems, easier to edit - seems like a win-win situation to me. Because of this, I'm going as far as replicating some aspects of the GBA hardware (like the way SMA4 loads graphics into VRAM) - it might seem pointless but I'm a perfectionist. Also, don't you just want to see glitched sprites the exact same way they'll show up ingame?

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Well, it didn't end up being what I wanted

I was looking for the DB of the first incarnation.

But anyway, I found what I wanted elsewhere (The SMA4 info, which 14159 posted) so it's fine.

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So anyway, this is probably a stupid question - but I've never done anything like this before; I'm used to DS hacking.

Which of these would be the best choice?

Right now, the level data in the ROM is just an 11-byte level header along with objects. Assuming that my editor can expand a ROM and convert it to the new format (similar to SM64 hacking with the ROM extender) I could do either of these...

Choice 1
I'd remove the original level data and leave just the level headers. I'd end up with a bunch of extra free space this way. The only problem - what would I put there? It wouldn't be big enough to fit the converted levels (or at least not all of them), so I'm not sure..

Choice 2
This might be the easier method, both to plan and to edit. I'd use the free space on the end of the ROM and also make the ROM file bigger (tested it; it works)
I'd add on a pointer table for the tilemaps. Then I'd just append the tilemaps to the end of the ROM.
The only thing I'm worried about is that I'd be wasting the original level data's space, seeing as the object data there would be unused.

Anyone with more experience want to clear this up for me?

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