Mega Man X1-X3 and 7th saga Hacks and Docs (SNES)

[Plint Michigan]

You need to copy your cmd.exe from system32 and put it in the Lunar Compress folder. Run cmd.exe
and then type everything in. Here is a example on how to decompress the graphics for mega man x:
decomp.exe MegaManX.smc mmx.bin E6BB4 102 3840
That is a example from the read me of how to use it. It should decompress the font graphics for Mega Man X.

Thanks. ...Is it alright if I ask more questions, or is it getting annoying?

[slidelljohn]

@DarknessSavior   "They look fine to me (except the skull. Wasn't that supposed to be an "R" for reploid?)"
The skull is for the bosses in x1 and the "R" is for the ride armor.

@Plint Michigan      "Is it alright if I ask more questions, or is it getting annoying?"
Ask away. I dont mind at all.

Sorry for the late responses. Better now than never right?



(Mega man x1)

I had to take some time off from my hacks but I just now started working on them again. I made some modifications
to the life bar hack. Instead of having the traditional bars for energy there will now be numbers.

         

Here is a demo patch:  http://www.mediafire.com/?m2wdh6obtejm2yo

Now keep in mind this patch is nowhere near complete or playable. I recommend just viewing the opening video of the computer playing.
I haven't worked on the menu yet and I made some changes to the graphics that are stored in vram that is only partially completed.

   
       Old vram                 New vram

When I complete this hack the patch will come with fully document source code so you will easily be able to make your own modifications to the hack if you wanted to.

[justin3009]

That's actually really interesting.  Never thought of actually having a 'number' system to show the life and weapon usage left.  It actually looks pretty good too.

[KingMike]

So, was it you john, who asked about 7th Saga's hidden item data?
It seems it is indeed mixed in with the NPC data.

I have figured that out while attempting to dump both Elnard and 7th Saga's scripts.
(the NPC ID determines if it is an NPC, a hidden item or a teleport, or maybe something else I haven't discovered yet)
Still having some trouble finishing the script extraction. As I recall, the issue I had was deciding what to do about repeated strings, like if I should somehow attempt to mark them as repeats for whenever I get around to the insertion part.

[Plint Michigan]

Ask away. I dont mind at all.

Alright, I'm starting to have interest in sprite hacking again. My main goal is to change the main character (Not a big fan of the Humans VS Animals motif) to appeal more to myself, but I might change around other things to make it more interesting for others if I ever want to release a hack I make. Changing the main character is no problem for me, as the sprites are uncompressed and editable. But I'm still unsure about re-compressing decompressed graphics to make them editable. I already have Megaman edited for the most part, except most of his armor sprites are still unedited (Haven't gotten around to it) but no matter how many times I decompress and attempt to re-compress, I can never view the boss sprites. (Mostly I want to change all the characters into mythical monsters. Megaman himself is not MegaMiraj, with the robot masters based around monsters of Japanese yokai, Greek myth, etc. Like instead of a penguin, Chill Penguin is now the five pointed master of birds: Decarabia. Flame Stag is now based off the mythical deer dragon: Kirin/Quilin. And so on.) Before I can work on level or text editing, I STILL need to master editing the graphics, and that means learning how to re-compress popularly.

((Note: I'm starting with Megaman Xtreme first before I work on 16-bit games.))

Also, the numbers bar idea is even COOLER than the energy bars at the bottom.

[Vanya]

Sweet! That super compact HUD is down right sexy.
One thing I might suggest is to have the health icon and numbers flash red when it gets below a certain parentage to get the player's attention since the numbers can be easily overlooked in the heat of battle.

[slidelljohn]

@justin3009
Thanks. I tested several different designs before deciding to use the numbers. The main reason for
using the numbers is because of the sprite per line limit. The other life bars I made and even the
original would break the sprite per line limit on almost every level. The number life bar only does it
in one spot that I found. There could be more than one spot but I still need to test it out a little more.

@KingMike
Yes, that was me. Wasn't that almost two years ago?
I remember someone had just taught me how to run a trace but I didn't know how to read the code and
then you showed me one line of code where it was storing data in ram then everything clicked and I could
started to understand how it all worked. That helped a lot and I thank you for that.

I have a bunch of information documented for 7th saga that is for how each town is made. Everything like
NPC's, hidden items shops, music, events, rooms, and tiles. All of these documents will hopefully be released
soon. I have come a long way since I asked about finding the data for hidden items.

I will definitely be interested in those Elnard and 7th Saga's scripts when you finish them.

@Plint Michigan
I can help you with X1-X3 but not Megaman Xtreme. How much snes asm do you know?

@Vanya
Thanks. It looks awesome, it doesn't take up much space, and it helps with bugs from sprite per line limit.
The flash when energy is low is a interesting idea. I might have to run a few tests to see how it looks in
game. I actually got the idea for the number life bar from super metroid. I even ripped the code from super
metroid that calculated the numbers and put it in mmx. I only had to slightly modify the code to get it to work
in mmx.

[creeperton]

.

[slidelljohn]

It is only for a unheadered v1.1 ROM. There is a readme that comes with the patch.

[Vanya]

@Vanya
Thanks. It looks awesome, it doesn't take up much space, and it helps with bugs from sprite per line limit.
The flash when energy is low is a interesting idea. I might have to run a few tests to see how it looks in
game. I actually got the idea for the number life bar from super metroid. I even ripped the code from super
metroid that calculated the numbers and put it in mmx. I only had to slightly modify the code to get it to work
in mmx.

Neat.

[justin3009]

The method used here actually allows for 'more enemy and PC life' as well without really any issues.  Which is what REALLY catches my eye the most about it all.

[Validus]

lifebars look so much cooler on the bottom!! GREAT IMPROVEMENT

[creeperton]

.

[justin3009]

I kind of think the only way the third one would work nicely is if the numbers flashed red or changed to red when you're life is low, as someone suggested.

I feel like that the player wouldn't even notice their health being low because it's not so in your face.

[slidelljohn]

@creeperton
I am going to make it to where you can have at least three times the sub-weapons. I would like to
put all of the sub-weapons from mmx 1-3 + a few more that I design or someone else designs.
There is plenty of empty ram for adding a bunch of sub-weapons.

@justin3009
"The method used here actually allows for 'more enemy and PC life' as well without really any issues."
Definitely need the extra life and sub-weapon energy if I am going to add the difficultly mode. 

[creeperton]

.

[slidelljohn]

(Mega Man X1)
Here is the newest patch for the number life points:      http://www.mediafire.com/?d12wg51yv9pc599

Life points and sub-weapon points are the same amount as in the original game. In the original game some of the
sub-weapons take off .5 points I changed those to take off 1 instead.

I played through the whole game a bunch of times and didn't find any bugs. If you find any bugs let me know so I can
fix them. The only bugs will probably be graphical since I rearranged some of the graphics in vram. If there are no bugs
then I will compress the code and write the source for the hack then post the completed hack with source at the top of
my first page.

Does anybody know what the difference is between V1.0 and V1.1 roms?

[KingMike]

Mega Man X1? Different copy-protection. I believe v1.1 was easier to emulate. Presumably v1.0 used a protection that was easier for copier owners to hack out of the game. Can't think of why else they'd want to change it.

I'd want to guess v1.0 used a well-known protection scheme. Fast/SlowROM maybe?
1.1 was probably based on mirroring-detection. I know I've heard that being used on one version of the game, and that would seem like something easier to emulate but perhaps harder to hack out of the game (and maybe harder to detect in that day?)

[justin3009]

Found one bug so far.

Introduction level when you destroy the bee copters.  When you see them crash at the bottom, some of the explosion graphics are scrambled in VRAM.  Loads up random e-tanks and what not.

[slidelljohn]

@KingMike
Thanks for the info KingMike.

@justin3009
Thanks justin. Fixed it.


(Mega Man X1)
The patch for the number life points is working good in geigers snes debugger but not in real hardware (sd2snes)
and also not in bsnes. I should have tested it in bsnes a long time ago. There is 2 bugs in sd2snes/bsnes:

1. I am using registers for division to load the number life points and the first number is not loading the correct number
only the second is. It should be a easy fix because I am probably not allowing enough machine cycles to pass. A couple
NOP's or some code rearranging should fix that.

2. Graphics are not storing to vram for the bosses icon. Apparently in real hardware you can only write to vram at certain
times. I did not know that since I was using geigers snes debugger to create and debug my hacks. That debugger/emulator
apparently allows you to write to vram at any time. I want all of my hacks to work on real hardware so I will fix these 2 things
before I release the final patch.


The 1st should be easy fix but the 2nd might not be since I am not really sure when I am supposed to write to vram. I have
read that you cant write to vram when the screen redraws but I don't know when it is redrawing. If anyone can save me some
time on the vram issue by explaining how/when to properly write to vram it would be greatly appreciated.