Mega Man X6 Tweaks (v2.6) [on hiatus, pending code refactoring]

[DuoDynamo]

Come on, guys... you'll get me all teary-eyed at this rate :'^)
But seriously, it really is a honor to take part in such a cool project, and for a game that, even with all of its flaws, still means so much to me; and to be able to help make it more enjoyable for everyone. Again, thank you!

Also, something I'd like to mention is that even though I didn't have any immediate plans to actually put the retranslation into a game, I did take care to ensure that, for the voiced cutscenes, none of the retranslated lines exceeded their respective original ones in length, since each "box" was linked to a spoken line of dialogue.

That in itself provided a nice challenge, and I really had to twist some lines there to make the whole thing fit while still making sense (the infamous "I hid myself" line is a prime example of that).

[maru-unac]

I know it's probably not important but since you add X challenge color scheme for ultimate armor I wonder if you could add customization for X's undershirt so you can use X4 ultimate armor's X purple undershirt or X challenge armor's white undershirt for any armor

[pating]

There's an option which you can implement it when you use the tweaks patcher

http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1414/

[MegaPhilX]

Hi! I'm new as a user here but I've been playing this hack a lot and I would like to say thank you for creating such a great tool to make this game better. I'm posting here because I have a question.
I have always wanted to change the level design of most of the stages in both X5 and X6. Like at least changing the terrain to make more room for moving around and maybe even change the placement of enemies and ropes if possible... I find that giving the player more room and placing the enemies in fairer locations could improve the stages tremendously. For example changes like adding platforms to help rescue the reploids in Mijinion's stage, giving the player more room to navigate the laser puzzles in Sheldon's stage or placing the acid rain crystals differently (Maybe even increasing the size of their sprites) in Turtloid's stage.
Since I have seen some changes applied to the stages in this hack (For example the blind jump in Amazon Area), I would like to know how the stage graphics and collisions where extracted/modified and if I could possibly do some changes myself. I'm not asking anybody to do the changes for me. I'm just looking for information on how you made the changes to the stage and maybe attempt to do it myself... I apologize if this question was already asked.

[acediez]

I did take care to ensure that, for the voiced cutscenes, none of the retranslated lines exceeded their respective original ones in length, since each "box" was linked to a spoken line of dialogue.

That in itself provided a nice challenge, and I really had to twist some lines there to make the whole thing fit while still making sense (the infamous "I hid myself" line is a prime example of that).

Oh, I haven't mentioned it, but I did notice it when I was working with it. It couldn't have been a coincidence. The cutscene script was the first thing I edited in (and, for awhile, the only thing I intended to edit, considering most in-stage dialogues was just Alia). It helped a lot to speed up the process. So, thanks again! 

Since I have seen some changes applied to the stages in this hack (For example the blind jump in Amazon Area), I would like to know how the stage graphics and collisions where extracted/modified and if I could possibly do some changes myself. I'm not asking anybody to do the changes for me. I'm just looking for information on how you made the changes to the stage and maybe attempt to do it myself... I apologize if this question was already asked.

Hey Phil, nice to have you around here! I owe you some gratitud too, thanks for Mega Man Unlimited! Loved it!

The thing about stage editing is, while I have a good idea about the location of the map data, how to read it and modify it based on existing tiles... I didn't write any tools to make the process easier (despite this whole hack's effort, I know very little actual coding). My process was very rudimentary. If you want to replicate it, you would need some experience debugging PS1 games.

The overall process was:
- While playing, I located the map layout data of the specific screens I wanted to modify in RAM (even though we know which file contains the map layout of each given stage, it was easier and faster to locate an specific screen in RAM rather than trying to make sense of the entire map layout file from outside the game).
- Extract the chunk of RAM with the data of that specific screen data.
- Paste it anywhere you can work on it as a table, which makes it very easy to visualize. 1 halfword = 1 tile of the layout, and each halfword (2 bytes) is the "ID" of an existing tile definition. You can see the shape of the map screen when looking at the table. I simply used Excel. By trial and error, I identified the tiles I wanted to use, sometimes taking samples from somewhere else on the stage.

- Then I made modifications in RAM and tested it live until I got the results I wanted.

So as you can see, the actual modification is pretty easy. The challenge is finding the right chunk of data. I covered that process very broadly on the project's documentation (it's up on the site, link on the first post).

Then there's the entities position table (enemies/items). I only ever modified one of these (the portal for Metal Shark Player's Hidden Stage). Unfortunately I did a very poor job at documenting it, but I remember how I got there, I would be able to locate those tables again if needed.

After that, you'd still have to deal with the process of either rebuilding the whole disc or injecting the modified data (which, since it's a disc based game, has some challenges).

If you already know your way on debugging PS1 games, the notes on my workbook should be enough to get you started. Trying to locate the screens I already documented would be a good place to start. If you get into this, let me know whenever you get stuck. Good luck!

Btw, as usual, the actual credits for this knowledge is DarkSamus933. He figured ou the map layout files and entity tables on X4 way before I even started working on X6, and shared everything with me. He later made the first stage modification for X6, the block on Secret Lab 2-2, and I used his process as a basis for everything I did after. I merely found my own way to get there.

[Frost_5_N]

Is there away for me to enable the sub weapons for shadow armor x,or even enable the normal buster? I'm asking, as i still like the unused weapon palettes for shadow armor x, or his normal buster animation that is also unused and would love to see them in action.

[acediez]

Shadow Armor files have the special weapon palettes for the armor, but they don't include the actual sprites of the weapons in action. The game crashes when you try to use one, and I don't know for sure what causes it. Maybe it's the missing sprites, maybe it's something else.

I gave it an honest try, and then filed it under "not worth the trouble".

You can keep the normal X Buster on the Shadow Armor by simply not collection the arms part. If you want to have the full armor sprite even when it's incomplete, there's an option for that on the patcher tool.

[Sakamoto1289]

1. Blade's charge buster shot description says it leaves plasma when it hit an enemy kinda like Ultimate's or Fourth's charge buster shot, but in the game it looks random when it wants to leave plasma, pierces enemy or sometimes its like Falcon's charge buster shot. It'll be cool if you can make it look like Ultimate/Fourth's charge buster shot

I think making it have a sure chance to always leave a plasma shot would be better, since it's damage is not that impressive when trying to pierce something.

Another interesting change that I would appreciate is to make Falcon Armor's charge shot the same as it was in X5, as in it can pierce through armors and walls. The current version is pathetic compare to even un-armored X, and if we equip normal X with Shock Buffer, there would hardly be any reason to use the Falcon Armor beside charging up special weapons

[PurpleKT]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTaaBngjiA&t

This guy was doing a speedrun of tweaks. However, he had improvements that were not present in the 2.5 tweaks patcher. Such as as boss redesigns (Ex; Mijinion's goo not moving after you), Stage Redesigns (Ex, factory's alternative routes, turtloid stage spike changes, lasers removed from secret lab 1), music improvements (Ex: The boss victory music, Dynamo battle theme, Wolffang stage theme, capsule theme, and save file theme), and a new X saber animation.

Can someone help me find the version he is playing on? Both me and my freind really want to play that version but can't find it.

[LeonHelsing]

Dunno about the redesigns, but for the music and VFX changes, the guy likes to do post-production edits to spice up his videos.

[Aceearly1993]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTaaBngjiA&t

This guy was doing a speedrun of tweaks. However, he had improvements that were not present in the 2.5 tweaks patcher. Such as as boss redesigns (Ex; Mijinion's goo not moving after you), Stage Redesigns (Ex, factory's alternative routes, turtloid stage spike changes, lasers removed from secret lab 1), music improvements (Ex: The boss victory music, Dynamo battle theme, Wolffang stage theme, capsule theme, and save file theme), and a new X saber animation.

Can someone help me find the version he is playing on? Both me and my freind really want to play that version but can't find it.

The saber animation effect form this guy's video is most likely after effects customly edited and added when composing this video, same as the music this guy uses in video as replacement
Some of his other videos also contain after effect and replaced music so we can safely assume the points you pointed are after effects that would make the video look flashy, and possibly cheats that disable enemy/hazard; in short it's unlikely that we could get the exact visual appeal that would come out from this video ported in our X6 games

[acediez]

This guy was doing a speedrun of tweaks. However, he had improvements that were not present in the 2.5 tweaks patcher. Such as as boss redesigns (Ex; Mijinion's goo not moving after you), Stage Redesigns (Ex, factory's alternative routes, turtloid stage spike changes, lasers removed from secret lab 1), music improvements (Ex: The boss victory music, Dynamo battle theme, Wolffang stage theme, capsule theme, and save file theme), and a new X saber animation.

The visual effects and music replacement are very likely post-production. I don't know about the other changes, but they didn't come from here. I haven't done any updates since v2.5, I have been working on other games for the last year or so.

You should all go ask him/her to make their hacks public! 
March 28, 2021, 01:29:12 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Another interesting change that I would appreciate is to make Falcon Armor's charge shot the same as it was in X5, as in it can pierce through armors and walls.

You can make it pierce through armors through the damage tables, you just have to edit the type of colission for the Falcon charged buster for every enemy. But I don't know how to make it pierce through walls. I really really wanted to do this, but couldn't pull it off at the time! 😔
Maybe next time!

[Megatronformayor]

Would it be possible to change the warning sound to that of X4 and X5 and also add in some of the enemies from those games into X6.

[acediez]

You can make it pierce through armors through the damage tables, you just have to edit the type of colission for the Falcon charged buster for every enemy. But I don't know how to make it pierce through walls. I really really wanted to do this, but couldn't pull it off at the time! 😔
Maybe next time!

Got into a bit of inspiration. It wasn't that bad!



I'll try to add it as an option to some future update, whenever that might be.

[pating]

 



Thanks for the update Acediez. I can't wait to play Megaman X6 one more time

[Frownjob]

I've been crudely reading through this thread to try and understand how to go about ripping, editing, and replacing the player character sprites in the PSX MMX titles. You all have managed to inject entire portraits into the game where they otherwise didn't exist-- surely I should be able to extract, modify, and replace sprites no? Would anyone be willing to explain how the portrait injection works, and is it possible to do what I want to do (replace player character sprites)?

EDIT: I just discovered the workbook, I'll look through this and see if it's got what I'm looking for.

[acediez]

There isn't anything specific about spritesheets in the workbook, there's only info about a handful of palettes. 🤷‍♂️
Characters and weapon spritesheets are compressed. The decompression routine was documented by DarkSamus993, and he even released a decompression tool.

https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=21330

However, AFAIK, no one has written a compression tool yet, which would enable inserting modified spritesheets back in the game. Either that or modifying code to work with uncompressed data all the way through, but I don't think there's enough space in RAM for that.

It's certainly possible, and thanks to DarkSamus993 the documentation is already there. I'm not interested in that kind of cosmetic changes, so I personally haven't dug into that, and I don't plan to. But I'd be happy if someone else does! (It would be the first step to being able to split the armor's spritesheets 😮)

[Cupshadow]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTaaBngjiA&t

This guy was doing a speedrun of tweaks. However, he had improvements that were not present in the 2.5 tweaks patcher. Such as as boss redesigns (Ex; Mijinion's goo not moving after you), Stage Redesigns (Ex, factory's alternative routes, turtloid stage spike changes, lasers removed from secret lab 1), music improvements (Ex: The boss victory music, Dynamo battle theme, Wolffang stage theme, capsule theme, and save file theme), and a new X saber animation.

Can someone help me find the version he is playing on? Both me and my freind really want to play that version but can't find it.

Talking about the stage and stuff. I think he did all the work by himself and possibility to get this version public is very unlikely as he don't have a time to reply.

[MegaPhilX]

@acediez
Thanks for all the details you provided. I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner. I don't hang out on message boards much and on top of that I forgot my password.
I don't have much romhacking experience. I'd have to really dedicate a lot of time to redesigning the stages implement them. And since I've been doing scripting a lot at work these days, I'm really not in the mood to do more of that kind of stuff when I finish my work day. We'll see if I can get in the mood to continue my MMU project and maybe think about about what to do with X6 at some point.
I love the change you showed to make the Falcon Armor shot go through walls. That's a key improvement since the Falcon Armor was so crappy in X6. Even Naked X's shot was better. Falcon Armor's shot just dings against everything. o_O

[AlterD]

is it possible to add a palette swap for Black Zero to look like Zero Nightmare with the effects and saber like how the Ultimate Armor and Zero Nightmare himself have a set of palette swaps in the patcher version?