[njosro]

edit:

Finally I've completed the editors! Well, nothing's really ever finished, but they're good enough to be released.

level-up editor:
download


When you change a value, the displayed number in the level-up dialogue and actual value both get changed automatically.
(If you used a hex editor to change the actual value, the displayed number wouldn't change.)

dialog editor:
download


All the townsfolk dialog pointers in the game are accessible. (not title screen / ending text)
You can change the pointers easily.
Text can be changed with keyboard input or by clicking on a symbol from the game's default tile set.
You can change the text speed.
Includes a previewer so you can see how the text would look in the game.
You have full access to the bank which holds the text, so you can make text longer and relocate dialogs to unused areas.

(There used to be an older dialog editor that I made but it sucked.)

overworld editor:
download update


You can easily edit the maps with a Paint-like interface.
You can change every property of the warp areas, and move them by drag and drop.
You can change the raft locations (in the newest unreleased version).
It tells you all of a cave's connections when you select a cave area.
Quick Test allows you to start the game from anywhere on the map so you can test things very easily.
You can change the palace rock locations.
Includes a user manual that tells you about some of the game's mechanics.

sideview editor:
download




You can change all terrain data.
You can move objects by drag-and-drop. The editor automatically rearranges them.
You can change all enemy data through drag-and-drop.
You can change object types with the radio buttons.
A map lets you see all the room connections stemming from the current one (good for palaces).
You can see a list of every scene that shares a terrain or enemy layout.
Spawn bit checkboxes allow you to control which scenes allow a collectible item to appear in a given section.
You can insert and delete objects into scenes, including collectible items, without messing up anything else.
You can create entirely new terrain layouts from scratch by specifying how many terrain objects you need. New space will be allocated accordingly.
You can change the required palace items without messing up the "turning to stone" events.
Right-click on townsfolk to change their dialog index (Use the dialog editor for actual text editing and reference)
Quick Test lets you immediately jump to the scene you're editing in an emulator to test it out.
Includes a user manual that gives you a lot of insight into how the game puts the sideview together.

Read the user manual or you won't know what you're doing!

The only downside is that the graphics in the editors are rips and don't change.

I've tried to make these editors easy to use by automating a lot of low-level tasks, making friendly guis, including help files, and (my favourite feature) making Quick Test.

[PresidentLeever]

Cool, are you planning to make an enemy properties editor, a palette & tile editor or a control/physics editor?

[njosro]

Enemy properties editor, yes. Eventually!
I'm not to sure about a physics editor though, and definitely not a palette editor (I hate dealing with graphics).

Also, when the sideview editor is done, there will be a new option in the area dropdown menu in the overworld editor to open the sideview editor at the correct scene.

[Bahamut ZERO]

Concerning the Overworld and Sideview editors - Are they reading the graphics directly from the Rom?

If so, then making custom tiles/graphics in other editors like YYCHR would be a breeze to keep track of when using your level editors, as one wouldn't have to make/keep track of a reference sheet of what is what. 

Other than that question - shit looks great! Keep up the great progress. 

[Kallisto]

Wow this looks really awesome, but do you have any plans to make a non-romhacking version of this? There desperately needs to be a Zelda-2 Game-Maker like engine. There was a attempt on the SMBX, but it was a lot of hard work, and problems ( I was part of that project, and we had a lot of problems).

If not..well worth asking. 

[snarfblam]

There desperately needs to be a Zelda-2 Game-Maker like engine.

...that's an entirely different beast.

[mrrichard999]

Is there a chance of adding CHR type animated overworld tiles like how they did it on the FDS version where the ocean water has movement? This would be great also for the palaces and towns also if someone were to edit the tiles and add animated backgrounds.

[njosro]

Bahamut ZERO, I started these projects about 5 years ago. I imported sprites back then because I didn't know better and built everything off that. So unfortunately they are just using static graphics.

Kallisto, thanks! This is only meant to edit the rom and not create an entirely new game from scratch. But I have considered it in the past. Well, not so much creating a zelda 2 game maker... more like cloning zelda 2 IN game maker  but doing that is a LOT of work like you said.

mrrichard999, I know that Shadow of Night by ice_penguin has animated tiles, but I don't know how to do it.

[Grimlock]

Your editor looks pretty good, it's unfortunate that you don't plan on adding a palette editor.  That will severely limit the use of custom graphics for most users.  Palettes can still be edited without you adding a palette editor but it'll be beyond the ability of most and for those that do edit the palettes, they'll have a lot of work ahead of them to locate the appropriate palette data.

[Bahamut ZERO]

Bahamut ZERO, I started these projects about 5 years ago. I imported sprites back then because I didn't know better and built everything off that. So unfortunately they are just using static graphics.

All good, figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. 

[Sephirous]

Will you be adding Start Up support?
Meaning a way to edit what items, palaces defeated and stuff the new game option starts with?

[Jigglysaint]

Will the editor allow for viewing and placing collectable objects past the normal amount?  I created a hack that expanded the collectables to include spells, techs(like downstab), items that replace level ups, as well as place heart and magic containers in palaces.

I wanted to finish the hack but the only side view editor is for DOS, and running it on DOXbox is slow as molasses.

[njosro]

I'd like to add "start up support" eventually along with enemy properties editing and magic editing.

Jigglysaint, your hack sounds very interesting. How were you able to include more than fifteen collectible items and incorporate it into the terrain placement engine? I understand that replacing spells and level ups makes room, but I don't understand how you changed the game's terrain "construction" code. Does your way make collectible items use up 4 bytes instead of 3 in the layout code?
If you used Dwedit's DOS editor, it doesn't support that kind of stuff so I'm curious how you got started with placing the extra collectibles?

[Jigglysaint]

I forgot how I did it exactly, since it was a while ago, but basically I made it so that anything after the normal cut off also counts for the pickup.  i also added graphics of items to each bank so I could allow any item to show up anywhere.  The only problem is as a result, I needed to use the exp tiles as extra space, so I decided to do away with the exp table altogether(or will at some point).
There is more I want to do, such as add working boss keys(they would alter the terrain since it's saved in the sram allowing for on the fly editing, change some spells since reflect is now part of the skillset as well as the down and upward thrust.  Also need to fill that list out with 5 more techs.  I could do a peril beam, or a -2 HC beam, though most likely nothing to do with sprite interaction.  I also want to have bosses give up items other than keys, and have multiple bosses in palaces give different items.

[Dogeritos]

This looks amazing. I'll have to get around to messing with it when I'm done with my Zelda 3 hack!

[njosro]

Update!
The sideview editor now lets you add or remove objects. It's a big deal.
You can see which scenes use which layout, and you can change the source terrain data that a scene pulls from.
The adding and deleting has been something I wanted to have for a long time, but never got the motivation to sit down and do it. Now it's done and I feel very accomplished

BUT this leads to some complications. The editor adds an object to a terrain layout by checking the next two bytes (or three, for collectible objects). If they're all FF, then appending is easy. If not, then it has to go through the entire bank searching for a block of contiguous FFs large enough to accommodate the terrain data plus the extra bytes. Then it erases the bytes where the terrain data was originally. Then the pointers are updated to point to the new location. This is equivalent to copying a file in a file system that uses contiguous allocation except for the erasing part. When you add and/or delete things over and over, the free space available could become fragmented. Classic file system problem except it's the free space that's broken up instead of files.
Since there's enough free space in each bank to make this unlikely, I will leave it for now. Just thought it might be interesting for those of you who are into this sort of thing.

To give a Windows analogy, you can imagine each sideview scene as a folder with 2 shortcuts in it. Each terrain layout and each enemy layout is a file. The files are not in the scene folders; rather there are shortcuts in the scene folders that point to the files (which are scattered about somewhere else). Shortcuts from two different scene folders could point to the same file.
So let's say you have one scene folder (let's call it caveA) and another scene folder (let's call it caveB). Inside the caveA folder is a shortcut leading to a certain terrain layout file and another shortcut leading to a certain enemy layout file. Inside the caveB folder is a shortcut leading to the same terrain layout file but different enemy layout file. So if you find and change that terrain layout file, then both caveA and caveB will change. If you move the terrain layout file, then you need to find all the shortcuts that pointed to the original location of the file and update them.

When file allocation is contiguous, it means that the beginning of a file comes directly after the end of the previous one. To append to a file, in my case I move the 1 file to some empty space somewhere else that has enough room, and update some shortcuts. But to append to a file and NOT have fragmentation (of free space), you have to move all the data in every file that comes after it to make room. Which means you have to update every shortcut that's affected. Which means I'll deal with it another time (or not at all)

[Jigglysaint]

Basically it's the same issue for any game that has an object based system.  You are limited to what you have in the room unless you mess with the pointers and adjust manually the length of each room.  The most important thing is that the side view can be edited.  Hopefully in the future there will be editing of which room has which items active or deactivated.

[njosro]

Jigglysaint, Editing which items are activated/deactivated already exists in my editor. And yes, it is the same for most every game, but not everyone understands that. I get a lot of messages asking for features like this that "seem easy" so I can now just refer to this instead of giving the same answer each time.

[njosro]

More progress!

The game's original code had issues with changing the required item of a palace. If you tried to change it, the palaces turning to stone would mess up.

Now the editor lets you change the required item for each palace via the Data menu. The first time you do this, it rewrites some asm so the changes you make will work properly.

The great palace works fully now as well.

[njosro]

Released! They're all available for download now.

If you find a bug that messes up an editor's functionality (ex: clicking a button at a certain time makes everything crash) then just PM me.

I hope we can start seeing some awesome zelda 2 hacks soon!