[AtanoKSi]

Hi everyone!
I'm new on this forum but I've been reading a lot of topics. (which I found very useful)
Searched on the forum to see if this has been asked before but never found anything about it.

So, I'm a musician, but in my free time I like to play retro games, and lately (2017 beginning) I started my own smb1 romhack just for fun. (I have the plan to put it on a cartridge when I finish to play it on my nes)
At this time I have almost every sprite changed to my own design, almost every song changed to songs I've composed (That was hard to do since i know NOTHING about programming and it was the first time I heard about hex edit lol), and now I'm stuck at the level designs:

I use Smbutil, did some levels easily, but I have the idea of making a level without floor and using the unused vertical balls you can climb, but there's a problem, you can't move them up or down, just L-R and change size.

I've seen a romhack called "Hard Relay Mario" (I think is made by Mana and other people) that replaced a block with a cloud that you can climb exactly like the vertical balls (and they are totally available to move them up-down)
Is there any way to use that blocks from that romhack for using them in mine?
I suppose that if I knew where in the hex code they are and copy that part would be easy, but I know nothing about that...

(And I hope it is okay, I'm not trying to steal that romhackers work, I just don't know how to create them for myself)

Well, sorry if this is too long, I try to give the more info I can wishing somebody can help me.

[Vanya]

I imagine that what they did was change the graphics code for that unused block so that it uses the same tiles as the cloud block.
Have you tried contacting them directly?

[AtanoKSi]

Well, I don't think that was the case because they are single blocks, instead of the unmovable vertical balls.

I thought about contacting direct but ATA seems very secretive I never found a way to contact him (also the Mohawk is from 2007 more or less)

And for some reason theres very few info about that unused item

[Vanya]

The thing is that unless they expanded the ROM to be able to fit in code for a brand new block based on the graphics and placement of one block and the behavior of another, then they would have necessarily needed to alter the unused block directly. And expanding the ROM just to add in a custom block seems like far too much work with very little return.

[AtanoKSi]

Well, forgot to mention:
I've opened that romhack with smb util, and actually what they did is somehow replace the multicoin block behaviour to a climbable one
If this is correct, I should be able to do it with hex edit, but I don't know where in the code are them (the multicoiner and the climbing physics)
January 05, 2018, 08:46:54 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)@Vanya
I've managed to contact one of those japanese romhackers and this is what he told me (google translate lmao)

I'm not actually sure what is he telling me to replace



Any hex-skilled help?

[Vanya]

Looks like what they did was go to the spot in the code where it jumps to the routine that defines the block's behavior and pointed it to the spot where the behavior for the unused block is. And my best guess is that the way the blocks can be placed is separate from how they interact with Mario.

Google translate sucks. I think what he is saying is that you change something in the utility then change the assembly code in a hex editor.
I think that by binary editor he means a Hex editor. You might want to get someone to translate the original message.

[AtanoKSi]

I finally got it some hour ago!

1-Put the rom in the hex editor (I've used the built-in one from fceux)
2-search for this addres he told me 1A2Fh, there's a C4 located there.
3-Change it to 6D and save it.
Now open SMB utility, if you select a block and change it to "Used block" it will be a totally movile climbable ball!

I write it because I think there's very few info of how to do this things and it could be helpful for somebody!

[Vanya]

Cool. Glad it worked out.

[Eden.GT]

Replacing used blocks with climable objects? I suggest a 10-coin block instead:
$3E04 (Non-lined 10-coin block, for use in underground, castle, underwater)
$3DFF (Overworld 10-coin block)

I thought about contacting direct but ATA seems very secretive I never found a way to contact him

ATA's email is usually out of public, but I found it afterwards. I sent him an email once but he didn't seem to reply afterwards. I won't post it here because I respect others' privacy, so you might have to send me a private message if you want to contact him. He is known to use Google Translate to speak English though.