ZOLE 4 and ZOLE Live (Update 12/10/11)

Hey guys. This is basically a brand new topic taking over the old one. I never kept up to date, and I needed to get the word out of what's about to come.

So as of the making of this topic, ZOLE has been released as 1.23, ZOSE is out as 1.5 Beta 2 Final Release, ZOTE is 1.01, and ZOCF is 1.01. All tools are very far in development and nearly bug-free (There's some ones I know about in ZOLE that are minor and will be fixing later on). Now though, this topic is going to be a development thread for ZOLE Live.

What is ZOLE Live, you ask? Well, picture Google Docs, but with ZOLE. It's a separate program from ZOLE bug with chatting and real-time co-op editing. People can edit the same maps at once with their changes being synced and updated in real time. The server barely requires anything - During a testing session with 6 people, it was using 0% CPU, using 22MB of memory, and had no lag.

The main goal of the program is to allow people to create hacks together and improve development speed, and attract people to ZOLE. Here's a screenshot (fairly outdated), and as you can see, wasn't edited by the most responsible people. But either way, it shows its power:



Here's a recent one with a much later build:



Currently, here's the features it has as of the date of this post:
-Chatting
-ROM feeding, and server settings
-Users online list with what they're doing
-Interaction adding/editing/deleting with required permission
-Real-time map editing with other maps getting updated even if the user isn't in them
-Music changing that also works like the map editing
-Area ID and property editing, works in real time like everything else

Not too much, but still fairly functional and good enough to even make a hack right now. It won't be out for some time, but the rest of the things will be easy to add. I still have to add security to the server, and powers, like kicking, banning, etc...

~Lin

i would totally love to get to play a full level-dungeon hack of this game someday in the future if someone were to make one.

it'd be more fun and interesting compared to all the countless NES and SNES zelda hacks. playing a gameboy one would be a nice feeling

If this because a even-dummies-can-use-it tool, I'd love to make a Master Quest of this game... But a whole lot better than my previous attempt ORZ

I will try to make a zelda 2 remake.
All houses/caverns and dungeons must be 100% sidescrolling.
Only overworld is topdown.

Zelda 2 overworld remake:
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7358/zelda2overworldremake.png

I had thought of doing a Zelda 2 remake at some point (but with a more Zelda 1 twist), but never got around to it because of laziness and lack of romhacking knowledge. I could do one in Game Maker, but again, laziness (not to mention all the dirt I would get for using the "horrible" Game Maker).

Looks amazing.
Did you use any of my source code from the level viewer as reference?

I will try to make a zelda 2 remake.
All houses/caverns and dungeons must be 100% sidescrolling.
Only overworld is topdown.

Zelda 2 overworld remake:
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7358/zelda2overworldremake.png

Oh hell yes!

Oh hell yes!

Just making a remake on a reference bitmap.

I will try to make a zelda 2 remake.
All houses/caverns and dungeons must be 100% sidescrolling.
Only overworld is topdown.

Zelda 2 overworld remake:
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7358/zelda2overworldremake.png

Looks epic. Just so you know you're going to have to create a lot of duplicate areas for palette switches or add your own ASM script, and use the VRAM export/import to get those Seasons graphics (This is temporarily the ONLY way of editing graphics. The 'unique' and 'tileset' graphics aren't editable because they take advantage of the destination value during the graphics decompression). I'd recommend using an Ages ROM (Heh, that's all you CAN use right now) because a majority of the mapping uses Ages tiles. Also keep notice that some of that mapping is impossible, such as the merge with the graveyard tileset and regular overworld.

Looks amazing.
Did you use any of my source code from the level viewer as reference?

Yes, mostly during the other graphics decompression (In which case yours actually works for other tiles that set the VRAM outside of the tile VRAM whereas mine just crashes xD). But for the most part I figured out a lot of stuff on my own. The unmapped maps things I got from you too, and I just wish there was some way I could repay you because there's no way I could've gotten this far without using your viewer to check and see how things work (Not code. I don't know C++ really so most was hard to understand). But once again, thanks, a lot.

But anyway, as far as development goes, there's a serious issue with the tileset repointing so I'm going to have to write another ASM script (Yaaaay...) and redo the repointing system, or else most of the events in the game break. But once that is done, and beta testing once again finishes, it'll be ready for its first release.

I will try to make a zelda 2 remake.
All houses/caverns and dungeons must be 100% sidescrolling.
Only overworld is topdown.

Zelda 2 overworld remake:
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7358/zelda2overworldremake.png

I am very much looking forward to this. I hope you make it.

~DS

Just slice the whole map image into many pieces, and imitate them step by step in ZOLE.
Takes many hours if it must be perfect.

Well, I've basically fixed the bug with events breaking, but there is an up side and a down side to it. The good side is events shouldn't break (I haven't actually created the ASM script yet, but in theory they will work fine), but the bad side is I won't be creating anything to remove specific events. Basically it's either all or nothing. For example, after being decompressed and repointed, maps couldn't have the Past Maku Gate gone and the fixed Symettry village using the underwater (fixed) maps, unless the user were to use a hex editor. But oh well. This is kind of a good side to hacking since we don't have to worry about other maps and events ruining our hacks. So in result to this, I'm going to be creating a patch called "Break Events".

Just slice the whole map image into many pieces, and imitate them step by step in ZOLE.
Takes many hours if it must be perfect.

And hopefully fix the tons of mapping errors that map has.

Why would the symmetry city maps fail?  The game uses a table in RAM to determine whether to OR 2 to the plane it fetches the map from or not.  So any map on the world could use that bit.  The bit is also used for the boulder push area so it knows which side the water is on.

EDIT: All bugs fixed yesterday. Now for a new small and powerful tool, ZOCR. It doesn't do anything heavy, but really helps with hacking (From the looks of it, it doesn't seem too good, but it actually makes it so we can make a chest give any weapon [Or even item]).

I FUCKING LOVE YOU LIN! I got Ages when I was eight. It was the only game I played for a while. I beat it and seasons about 20 times.
June 28, 2010, 07:15:36 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)YES! IT'S HERE!
By the way, when will you resume JohtoMap ?