[stratoform]

The master post


Main webpage
https://stratoform.github.io


The hotwash is here. Destruction bin.
https://github.com/stratoform/remote

__________________________________________________

Description

This topic will serve as a focus point for whatever I'm doing. Which can be nearly nothing or anything.

Maybe some large data needs to be backed up from a temporary like defunct Dropbox links.

Other stuff I could be interested in is making games more overclocking friendly. Or random flaunty things that I end up gawking and poking at.

[ShadowOne333]

Awesome!
I keep eyes on your work, really like what you're doing

Will you continue the SMAS+SMW work here instead of the Redrawn thread?

[stratoform]

Thanks for coming!


Yes, the SMAS(W) Add-Ons discussion will continue here. It was muddying up the Redrawn thread and I felt I needed my own cave to stretch some more.


I just threw the updates here for now
https://github.com/stratoform/remote/tree/smas_wash
-- Replay levels fix
-- Luigi physics adjustments


Some things that I noticed for SMB3:
-- Mini-game portraits have yellow trouser buttons. Rest of sprites (map, in-game) have white ones. Opinions on which is right? SMBLL in-game has white buttons too. Boxart shows yellow + title screen too.

-- The reason the coin sparkle was turned off for Bowser's map is because .. they wanted to hide an animation glitch. All sorts of weird tiles show up in vram, like moving wheels and flowing lava.

Code: [Select]

$29/BD35 AE 27 07    LDX $0727
$29/BD38 E0 07       CPX #$07
$29/BD3A D0 11       BNE $11

Change $07 --> $FF and watch the strange show.


-- Which above got me wondering, maybe we can have dancing mushrooms since the Bros are around for the rescue. I'm not sure if the walls have lava on top? There's a chance some stuff can get animated but it's just a thought atm.


-- Alex O. was mentioning the in-game super powerups. Which actually makes sense since on the map, small Mario --> suit Mario. So I'll have to look at that too.

[Alex O.]

Here's the link to my .zip file, for reference.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h64vsu847zyoiw1/SMAS%2BSMW%20Patches.zip?dl=0

I tried fixing the Bowser's Castle part of SMB3's World 8 map, but it just messed up the tank stages' animations instead (The weird tiles are part of the World 8 map animations and the tank stages' animation; addresses are $238000-$23AFFF). Added the patch so you can see what I mean.

[stratoform]

I see what you mean about the tile sharing, and how the stuff is animated. Why did they do that way .. have to get creative to workaround.


Looked at the code for the super power-ups. That is clever find.

Code: [Select]

$27/A4AE BF 38 84 28 LDA $288438,x[$28:8483]
$27/A4B2 85 00       STA $00
$27/A4B4 BF 39 84 28 LDA $288439,x[$28:8484]
$27/A4B8 85 01       STA $01
$27/A4BA BF 3A 84 28 LDA $28843A,x[$28:8485]
$27/A4BE 85 02       STA $02

Insectduel = GBA powerups
288483 = 68  [small - flower]
288492 = AA  [small - leaf]

Table controls which code is run. Giving credit as-is to Insectduel. With Darhkdaiz who did the research (from notes).

__________________________________


I think I've found a solution to the castle animation problem. There's actually 2 map cycles:
worlds 1-4,6-8 = 31:a000 + 37:8000,9000,a000
world 5 = 39:c000,d000,e000,f000


It's actually world5 we can use as it has the castle layout but missing some tiles. It looks kinda different from the final product so maybe it was a prototype or something.

I'm working on the code switch (basically done) and figuring out which tiles have collision problems with sky world data.


edit: And to annoy me some more, the engine needs reworking again. File paths aren't so nice when asar macros are in use.

Then start cleaning house with some of the remaining Alex O smb3 patches. And figure out where I'm at.

__________________________________


Plugin engine is upgraded to be flexible with paths. And now I have a working coin road animation for World 8-4 SMB3.

Also it looks probable that the castle eyes were supposed to glow just like the skulls; some old smas alpha artwork shows the skulls with no eyes and a plain backdrop.

And now I see that the Sky Tower is using the old alpha graphics with plain backdrop, not the new smas updated one with the grass background. Will fix that also, maybe add some more patches and then hotdrop again.


edit: Problem is the castle uses the entire 15-colors in the palette. Which makes the blinking animation normally not possible. Have to try and get more creative.

____________________________________________


Given my unusual schedule, posted another demo.
https://github.com/stratoform/remote/tree/smas_wash


I did managed to get the Redux white gloves back in. Bowser castle coin road should shine. The castle eyes are not the Advance colors because of palette issues; I have an idea for that too but want to consider future patch conflicts, since I've hit some already.

I am going through the patch list again now (gba powerup et al).

I'm also curious to try fixing the World 5 mini-map (Advance) and updating the Bowser castle map also to Advance.



@Alex O.
Do you have a list of what the "SMAS+SMW - SMB3 GBA Sprites.ips" contains? Roughly which ones other than white gloves? I just thought about the Raccoon stripes so that's one. And the Bowser castle look.

And what is the "SMAS+SMW - Luigi Blue Garb.ips"?



@Misc
BTW, what does anyone think about the castle eye colors? Because the skulls light up from black - dark grey - light grey - dark grey. But not pure white. So it got me wondering some bit.

Based on current castle palette, eyes are more of a fiery color and castle is that dark purple-ish tint. If we switch to palette 6, it gets that grey castle wall look and the eyes can glow like Advance white. But should it be that pure like a flashlight?

I'll add the Advance option anyway once I figure it out. But wondering on an alternate. And an option to use the Advance castle sprite.


Here's the wip gif


NES


Advance

[Alex O.]

@stratoform
The SMB3 GBA Sprites patch includes SMA4 sprites for Peach (both for her letters and in-person), Boom Boom, Toad, Bowser, Statue Luigi, Pile-Driver Mini Goombas, Super & 1-Up Mushrooms (in levels), and Mario looking up during the title screen sequence. The Fixed GFX patch also has these changes and more.

The Luigi Blue Garb patch makes Luigi's shirt (in SMB1/TLL) and overalls (in SMB2/3/W) the same blue as Mario's; this applies in all instances (including the All-Stars title screen).

BTW, in SMB3, the Mario Bros' Tanooki forms' kicking sprites have incorrect feet as well.

[stratoform]

BTW, in SMB3, the Mario Bros' Tanooki forms' kicking sprites have incorrect feet as well.

Actually your observation led to a new finding. The kick tiles are actually drawn correctly in ROM (x1f3340 = Tanooki kick). But the game decides to use 3 separate foot tiles in vram (x1fba40); we need 4 based on the artwork. This could be a challenge but going to try forcing some engine gimmick to make this work.

And the frog kick tile has 1 extra glove/foot pixel that needs deletion. I'll show this picture sometime later.

__________________________________________________________


Put fixed kick sprites into the wash folder.
https://github.com/stratoform/remote/tree/smas_wash


Found nice clever way to handle it. Frees up 6 in-game tiles in vram for other purposes.


The frog and tanooki foot/glove tiles have some black outline collisions. Too close so it's harder to see the outline. I'll edit a few pixels later as a patch.


Getting closer to another wip source release since everything is more stable.

_________________________________________


@Alex O.
Would you mind helping me complete the authors list?

Code: [Select]

SMAS+SMW - Luigi Blue Garb = Alex O.?
SMAS+SMW - Original Title Screen = DarkSamus993
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 GBA Power-ups = insectduel
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 GBA Sprites
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 GBA Text = Alex O.
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 GBA Thwomps = insectduel  (according to readme, not 100% done)
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 Japanese Damage System = insectduel
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 Level Edits
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 Magic Ball Timer Fix = insectduel
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 NES Sprites = ...Alex O.?
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 No Statue Suit Glitch = insectduel
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 Normal Invincible Jump = terpsfan101
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 Star Points to 1-Ups = insectduel
SMAS+SMW - SMB3 Super Leaf Sprout SFX

I'm thinking maybe some of these are insectduel's but I don't see it on the webpage (his readmes are helpful to me).


Thanks for all you've helped me!!

Code: [Select]

Kick Sprite fix


org $218885+2
db $1a                    ; kick body tile


org $20e598
lda.b #$04                ; load foot tile
nop #2


org $20e5a7
ora.b #$00                ; oam page0


org $20e5af
ora.b #$00                ; oam page0


[Alex O.]

@stratoform
The Luigi Blue Garb, SMB3 GBA Sprites, and SMB3 NES Sprites patches are my work. The SMB3 Super Leaf Sprout SFX was taken from Insectduel's All-Stars port of Frank's 2nd SMB3 Hack (http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=13061.0). The SMB3 Level Edits were partially inspired by AgentTer's SMB3 hack (http://acmlm.kafuka.org/board/thread.php?id=8419).

[stratoform]

Cool! Thanks for the details.

I've got a question about the Magic Ball Fix. It mentions this

It's a fix version of SMB3's Magic Ball. When you grab it, the timer stops.
Normally the time will continue to tick and causing the player to die when timer goes to zero.
The timer stops in the original game if Boom Boom is defeated spawning the Magic Ball.

Tried both versions of SMAS and ... not seeing the problem? When Boom Boom is defeated, the timer stops cold.

With the patch applied, I don't see a change.

It sounds like the expected behavior should be that the timer keeps ticking until the ball is grabbed??

[Alex O.]

I dunno, either... I've checked Super Mario Wiki's SMB3 glitch page, the patch itself (via IPS Peek), and gamehacking.net and found nothing.
I thought that was an actual bug, but I guess not.

[stratoform]

I dissected the patch. It does this

Code: [Select]

$28/F193 A9 01       LDA #$01
$28/F195 8D F3 05    STA !RAM_SMB3_Level_FreezeTimeLimitFlag
$28/F198 60          RTS

But the game already shuts down the timer when Boom Boom is defeated.

Code: [Select]

$28/DCB0 A9 01       LDA #$01
$28/DCB2 8D 9C 1F    STA $1F9C
$28/DCB5 8D F3 05    STA !RAM_SMB3_Level_FreezeTimeLimitFlag

Which only makes the patch useful if we decide to keep counting the clock until we grab the ball.


I will check the Koopa kids to see how the wand timer works. And I think also NES and GBA to cross-check. ^^

[Alex O.]

Just checked every version of SMB3; they all stop the timer when Boom Boom explodes and upon defeating the Koopalings.

[stratoform]

Thanks! That is interesting to know .. I'll keep it as an optional, disabled patch and resume the timer on explosion so that it works. A difficulty add-on I guess.


I'll be on the lookout for anything else to ask.

________________________________________


Good news is that I'm chomping down the Alex O. patch list for inclusion.

I did research the crouched floater sfx + tail animation (requires adding new pose commands). Which is also related to the Frog wand pose they added to Advance 4 - I'd like that also. And both are shared with the new idle poses code. Didn't think I'd have to make another plugin engine to handle this problem.

Which now I also want to add a Hammer Suit sliding upgrade patch.

Will see how much I can stuff before thinking ... mmm ... too much.

[Alex O.]

I was able to get Hammer Mario to slide (change 0x10AF6A / $21AF6A in SMAS+SMW to 01), but his ducking sprite is off as a result.



SMA4 also has the tail animation when Mario is holding an object as well (The SFX are already present for that situation in the All-Stars version.).

[stratoform]

Thanks! You were close with Hammer; it should be 00.

[Alex O.]

You're welcome.
And thanks for the correction. Updated the zip file.

[stratoform]

So I was looking at the Starman 1-Up patch by "Southbird at http://www.sonicepoch.com/sm3mix/". It is buggy because it uses some unsafe enemy variables (05DD array + 4 = 05E1). So the chain can get messed up fast.

The stomp points chain uses 05F4. So that can be reused for Starman. Working.

[ShadowOne333]

Sorry to intrude
Did you manage to implement the Redux changes into your code without much issue?

I believe in terms of graphics I added thw white gloves on SMB3, recolored Bowser in SMW (to look closer to SMA2), made Yoshi's arms fit his body, and the flipped overalls for SMB1, LL and SMB2 to match Mario's SMB3 and SMW design.
I also fixed the errors with Birdo and the other enemy in the SMB2 credits text.
I can't recall the other changes, but I know those of the top of my head if you need help

[rinkymehra19]

Cool! Thanks for the details. mobdro

[stratoform]

No bother - Thanks for the info!

To not drive me crazy, I have been focusing on one game at a time (SMB3 atm) -- the white gloves are done and play nicely with the new plugin layering format.

I did not know about the others though.

Once I'm nearly satisfied with how SMB3, I'll drop to 2/1/LL since there's a lot less to do. Full release.

Then go to SMW since I figure it'll be a lot of hell with all the bugfixes out there. And add some more SMB3 Advance stuff.