Utilities: A new NES graphics editor!

[RHDNBot]

Update By: nesrocks

NAW is a new graphics creation tool targeted specifically for developing NES assets. The GUI should be familiar to artists.
Currently available for Windows only.

In NAW the screen area is an emulation of the NES image. It contains all of the basic building blocks: the CHR data, nametable, palette and sprites. What you see is the real thing!

It allows editing the nametables, the CHR pages and OAM data, all using a very visual workflow.
Some interesting features include:
- paste any type of image you copied from an outside program directly onto the CHR area. Color will be automatically reduced if need be. Optionally reduce the image to selection keeping proportions.
- load a tbl file to assign tiles to keys or assign them visually inside NAW so you can write to the nametable with the write tool.
- manipulate sprites. simulate scanline sprite limit, order sprites in OAM, simulate flicker.
- draw on the sprites layer directly and sprites will be created automatically. ideal for creating static screens (title screens, cutscenes, etc).
- export NROM with the static image (for proof of concept, etc)
- intuitive image editing tools (brush size, paint bucket, line, rectangle, color swap, selection).

It is in constant development and is also available at itch for free. Donations are welcomed to keep the project alive.
https://nesrocks.itch.io/naw

It should be important to mention that it doesn't open a ROM directly yet. Such a feature is planned for editing tiles, much like how yy-chr works, in the future.

As a NES graphics tool though it is useful for creating new sprites, backgrounds and tilesets for then to be manually inserted into the game with other ROM hacking tools.

It can also quickly import a PPU dump taken from Fceux or Mesen for you to edit uncompressed (a.k.a in NES PPU format) existing game's graphics. You may need to fiddle with the registers inside NAW to completely recreate the game's screen after importing the dump.

You can also import the OAM dump from Mesen to view sprites already assembled, making it easier to edit the CHR tiles.

For both of these features you go inside the emulator, open the ROM and play until you reach the section with the sprites you want to edit the tiles for. Dump the OAM and PPU memory and open those inside NAW.

Forum post: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=36749.0

RHDN Project Page

Relevant Link

[Chatterine]

This looks pretty awesome. I wonder how user-friendly it is? It should probably replace already existing editors such as djinn tilemapper.

[nesrocks]

Thank you! I was not aware of djinn mapper. It seems to do something similar to the PRG editor which is included in yy-chr .net

NAW's public version cannot yet open ROMs directly yet. It is in active development though and opening ROMs to edit the CHR tiles have been tested to some extent internally. Editing the ROMs bytes using a tileset is a really cool feature and honestly technically similar to nametable editing without attributes, so it should not be impossible to implement.

Anyway, feedback is very much appreciated. 

[Brutapode89]

Can we easily make more texts with this?

[Chatterine]

@nesrocks, Djinn is basically a glorified hex editor that's graphic-based and not byte-based, which means you what you get when viewing a game with it isn't the raw bytes from the game, but rather the tiles that correspond to the bytes. As such, while it's effective, it's kinda clunky to use. Still, I think a similar function could be added to your tool

[nesrocks]

Can we easily make more texts with this?

Hi! Can you clarify "more texts"? NAW has a visual .tbl editor that you can use to load/modify/export .tbl files. You can use it to place tiles in the nametable by typing on the keyboard directly. You can also manipulate tiles in the CHR table and on the Nametable easily with the tile and tile swap tools.

As mentioned, it doesn't open a ROM directly yet. It is planned!

@nesrocks, Djinn is basically a glorified hex editor that's graphic-based and not byte-based, which means you what you get when viewing a game with it isn't the raw bytes from the game, but rather the tiles that correspond to the bytes. As such, while it's effective, it's kinda clunky to use. Still, I think a similar function could be added to your tool

Yeah that's just like yy-chr PRG editor. I used that one extensively on the Super Pitfall hack to edit the rooms before switching to MapEd Pro. It can be useful to find nametables on the ROM for example, but also to find text. Since it shouldn't be too impossible to add as a feature in NAW I think it's worth considering ^^

[Brutapode89]

Hi! Can you clarify "more texts"?

In fact, I wanted say "Make long texts", like Her-Saki done with his spanish translation of the first Super Mario Bros.

[JP32]

In fact, I wanted say "Make long texts", like Her-Saki done with his spanish translation of the first Super Mario Bros.

You need to expand the rom to have more space for text, theres disassembly of smb1, and mmc1 mapper conversion that spanish translation uses. There is no easy way to do that if thats what you are asking for.