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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: February 08, 2019, 11:20:07 am »

sics
I send you private message with questions about several items. Thanks for proposals, some of them are really important for the editor.

Also, please provide a full rom name or link to it for me.
February 10, 2019, 07:16:58 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)sics

CadEditor already supported your romhack (Sonic 5 - Improvement Vol.2 (Nes))
There are configs for this game:
https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/tree/master/CadEditor/settings_nes/sonic_the_hedgehog_unl

You need to make only one change - replace dumps of PPU memory and palette files.
For example - for level 1 you need to open 1st level in emulator fceux and run my script:
https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/blob/master/Stuff/nes_lua/dump_chr_and_pal/dump_chr_and_pal.lua
It will create files chr.bin and pal.bin.
Next, rename this files to chr1-1(a).bin and pal1-1.bin (as I used in my configs) and replace files in settings_nes/sonic_the_hedgehog_unl directory.
That's all, you can open config in CadEditor with your ROM and edit it:


Here is ready dump for 1st level:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wxidj1o1ue7f3rs/sonic_the_hedgehog_unl.zip?dl=0
I made dump only for first part of the level - chr1-1(a).bin, you must add other dumps yourself - just walk the game while ppu content changed and dump it with my script again. You can change loaded ppu in the CadEditor with enable "Advanced" checkbox, and select VideoBlock combobox. If your have ppu banks as separate files already, you can just replace dumps my chrX-X(X).bin files with it.

Sorry for mistakes in English, it's not my native.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: February 06, 2019, 03:34:08 pm »

It's interesting UI task to view and edit multiple screens. Maybe I'll try to implement it with adding more scaling options. Also, it may be useful to save screens alignment and load it in layout editor (for enemy's editor) - now it's one of several options available from configs and I use it for some games when I did reverse, how layout stores in ROM file or no layout exists (Ninja Cats config, for example).

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: January 30, 2019, 06:59:47 am »

https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/releases/tag/v5.3

- Animation Plugin Update:
    Fix banks addresses (animation editor for Little Mermaid[NES])
    Select background color, and transparency
    Scaling
    Export to PNG (with transparency option)
    Load CHR and PAL from separate files at any moment
    View X/Y mirroring and pallete for tile at selecting tile
- Physics layer for Battletoads 3D levels
- Full-sized sprites for games Darkwing Duck, Chip & Dale, Duck Tales (partially), Little Mermaid [NES]
- Screens and Blocks editor for Hook [NES] (all levels)
- Enemy editor - ability to select different aligns for game (fix selection and render full-sized enemies' sprites for Ninja Cats [NES]
- Fix enemy editor for Mono (Windows/Linux) version of editor
- Fixes in scripts and configs

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: December 02, 2018, 06:53:22 am »

https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/releases/tag/v5.2

Release with updates gui, support of physics layer (as in Little Samson) and Game Boy games (1 config only for 1 level of Darkwing Duck GB). This features will used in next releases.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: November 10, 2018, 02:49:06 pm »

By the way, I know it is NES editor but is Rockman Mega World aka Mega Man: The Wily Wars possibly ? Or it will need someone to created a new Sega Genesis/Sega Mega editor for this game ?

Editor has plugin for building SMD graphics, so it can be used for editing this game, but you need someone, who can make configs for it. I'll add this games to my list, but I have no time to develop editor for now.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: November 07, 2018, 04:09:04 am »

I already found physics data and render it with one of the features of the editor (I used it to debug settings and check ideas)


There are not many games with collision data at separate layer (little samson, battletoads/bt&dd, journey to silius, maybe 1-2 others from supported list), but I can add ability to describe and edit this layer for those games in next release, thanks.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: November 02, 2018, 07:45:58 pm »

Can you provide the location of collision data in ROM file for level 1?
I'll add physics layer editor with it.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: April 24, 2018, 06:21:25 am »

When my money comes up, I'm gonna throw some cash your way to help with this editor. Keep up the great work, this editor is great!

Thanks! I'm really glad that someone likes my work


April 24, 2018, 06:28:41 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

That's a good idea. Sometimes the only way. It can load 100-200 lines of code even from very simple procedures, but since the code many times is not viewable this is the best way. I watched that youtube video, never seen code injected that way -interesting.

I spent a lot of time to create new methods for finding data in ROM in a simple way, that reverse engineering code (mostly for NES).

For example, this script is for reading tiles from name tables and try to build all possible type of blocks with it and check, are those blocks can be found in ROM. All you need is just run level and start script (press 1,2,3 for change nametables and select fast or full search)
https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/tree/master/Stuff/nes_lua/lua_blockfinder

And this is script for control emulator via sockets from other languages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3D5gljbkO0

Really, I think, then tools for romhackers must be more powerful, then exists now.
My English is bad, so I recording videos, when text is now very important


April 24, 2018, 06:34:32 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Some more planned games from other consoles?

My main interest is NES because I already created tools for debugging. But maybe I'll just make the plugin for SNES, and try to port some configs with it. For example, I have a script for search data from already made configs in others ROM regional versions. I checked Ninja Gaiden for NES and Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for SNES and found, that some levels in similar (blocks and screens are identical).

Really, my project is community project. I am only only one programmer, but icons, sprites for objects, configs and some other things created by others users (with my help, sometimes).

Now I need several weeks for rest and finish onther projects, later I'll back to work on CadEditor.

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Personal Projects / Re: [New Tool] Visual SAK - Visual Swiss Army Knife

« on: April 22, 2018, 07:13:54 am »

Hehe if you have really used Delphi 7 you would know that is all but 'simple instrument'. It is called a RAD (Rapid Application Development) not by chance

I mean "simple" not as "primitive", but "comfortable for programmer".
My criteria for choosing language for creating tools:

Simple for programmer (imho)
 + Delphi, vb, C#, python
 - C++, Java

Simple for the user (no need to install some dlls or runtime libraries):
 + Delphi, C++, C# (.net framework preinstalled on modern windows)
 +/- Python (can be compiled with one Exe with some magic and big size of app)
 - Java

Easy to implementation extension system
 + Python (as every interpreted languages)
 +/- C (with embedded interpreter of python or Lua), C# (I just use CSScript for using dinamic compiling C# as scripts)
 -/+ Delphi (with DLL plugins, for example, and any other languages)

Language is "alive" - bugfixes, updating 3rd party libraries for different tasks, possible cross-platform, chances to make team with other programmers, the advantage to training programmer skills for professional coding, etc.
 + Python, C#, C++
 - Delphi

Also, one of authors of Delphi is author of C# too.

Sorry for offtop and for mistakes, my English is poor.

P.S. spiiin really if have specific questions about SNES and maybe some games (Final Fantasy 5), don't hesitate to ask!

Ok, when I start to implement plugin for SNES for my editor, I pm to you, thanks.

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Personal Projects / Re: [New Tool] Visual SAK - Visual Swiss Army Knife

« on: April 21, 2018, 10:46:32 am »

It crashes on shutdown sometimes with EInvalidPointer exception.
I understand, for the program should do, but can't do it on real ROMS, because of no examples and I don't know much any SNES/GBA addresses for any game I can try to see it from screenshots, but why no put some example projects with the program?

I like Delphi 7 and use it a long time ago, but I think, that's there is no pascal community now. It's nice for single programmers to use simple instruments like Delphi/visual basic, but there is no chance to get a power of the synergic use of several programs together. At least, you can add an option to export palettes/tile maps to uncompressed files (if your tool hasn't it, I can't check all features).


 

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Personal Projects / Re: [New Tool] Visual SAK - Visual Swiss Army Knife

« on: April 21, 2018, 07:32:24 am »

What programming language did you use?
Why didn't you post sources? It may be interesting to have examples of building snes graphics to me.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: April 20, 2018, 02:59:54 am »

This program looks pretty amazing. I saw that there was support added for Sega Genesis. Could it be possible to include a few SNES games as well?

It's possible, but SNES/SMD games often keep level packed in ROM and unpack into RAM before the level will load. I made dumps for levels and editor works with it, but after that users need to use a packer (if it exists at all, there is a separate task to make it). I made a plugin for compress and insert archive with level back into ROM for Contra Hard Corps, but for other games, user need to do it manual (most of supported sega games used RNC packer, that was ported to win32 by lab313 - https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1310/). I don't know situations with available packers for SNES games at all.

Also, I need to create plugin to build snes tiles, there is not very hard.

I'm curious how do you find the pointers for the level layout, where level begins/ends to load those graphics to edit?

Simple way  - use code/data logger in right place - if start it before level loading, and finish when level loaded, it shows only data used in level. I have lua script, that helps me to analyze that data - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21xjfEBDkJM

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: April 18, 2018, 11:12:49 am »

Unblocking the downloaded file worked! Thank you very much!

Now I just need to figure out how to edit the settings for displaying and editing items and enemies. In Ninja Gaiden, the X and Y coordinates are stored in separate parts of memory, and you have to index into the locations based on the level and enemy/item count. The enemies also have an additional coordinate to determine when they spawn, based on the player's X coordinate. And some bosses are positioned by code, not data, but there are only a handful of them.

Can the editor be extended to handle all of this through the settings?

Yes, if you very familiar with C#, you can try to extend config for enable object editor yourself. But it's not easy - there are several things must be defined in config - get/setObjectFunction redefined for reading/writing enemy's data from to editor structures, isEnemyEditorEnabled change to enabled enemy editor plugin, and define functions get/setLayoutFunc - this is rectangle with screen indexes, that will define "shape" of all level.

Looks like object format similar to Flintstones: Rescue Dino and Hoppy. Example of redefing all this functions can be found in config for level Shatterhand, level 1 (and ShatterhandUtils.cs file).

https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/tree/master/CadEditor/settings_shatterhand

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Personal Projects / Re: Ninja Gaiden series (NES) Trilogy Upgrade: Graphics Pack for HDNES/Mesen

« on: April 18, 2018, 10:06:00 am »

From your screenshot, it appears that it is working for you!

Note that Ryu has only 3 colors in his palette on the NES, but in your screenshot, there are regions of light and shadow on his legs, his scabbard is brown instead of blue, and his skin is not the same color as his shoes. I briefly opened the ROM with and without the HdPack enabled to verify the difference.

Oh, really. Thanks!

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: April 18, 2018, 09:29:17 am »

Did you select correct settings file and rom file to open it?

- If so, please check if you have all dlls files from zip archive extracted with the editor.
- Also, check if your system not prevents blocking dlls, loaded from the internet (editor load plugins dynamic - some games do not need it all). Explanation how to do this:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/delay/p/unblockingdownloadedfile/
- If anything not helps, please send me in pm description of your pc - windows version and .net framework installed.

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Personal Projects / Re: Ninja Gaiden series (NES) Trilogy Upgrade: Graphics Pack for HDNES/Mesen

« on: April 18, 2018, 08:54:26 am »

I am trying to use hd-hack, but emulator was not read it.
I am using later build of mesen (0.9.5), other hd-packs working as expected with it (hd-pack option is enabled), but this is not. I can't find any log messages about why hd-pack does not apply to this game.

I tried different names of the rom file + hd-pack folder, nothing help.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: December 31, 2017, 05:21:21 am »

Capcom developed only snes & gba version of Aladdin, as I know. Nes version is pirate port, if you mean it, but it also can be added to CadEditor. I already check it and can try to add it, if you want.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: December 27, 2017, 09:44:35 am »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21xjfEBDkJM

I made gui for autocorrupter script, it might be very useful for finding level data for NES. Proccess is shown on video.
December 27, 2017, 09:44:55 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Awesome editor, nice video too!

Thank you.

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Personal Projects / Re: Capcom Games Editor (NES)

« on: December 12, 2017, 08:21:31 pm »

Release v4.6

https://github.com/spiiin/CadEditor/releases/tag/v4.6
- Lzkn1-compressor & plugin for compression data for Contra Hard Corps
(thanks Lab313 and r57shell for compressing library)
- Sega Block Editor updates:
 Renderer fixes, scroll bar returned, showing all possible tiles, axis, option to repeat command for every tile in current block
- Change open settings file (partial read at before opening for using dump files, not only ROMs)
- Fix bug in settings for  Zombies Ate My Neighbors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfIWeDwu68w

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Personal Projects / Re: Little Nemo Dream Master - A Wonderful Wand Edition

« on: September 25, 2017, 09:01:06 am »

I just realized that the 'Edit BigBlocks' and 'Edit Blocks' options are grayed out and not accessible for levels 8-2 and 8-3. Am I missing something or is that the way it is for now? If so, will these be available for the next update?

I made small update to fix this and some other things.
https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=17150.msg344076#msg344076