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Lunar Magic suggestions and discussion (LM v3.40)

Tool

Minor suggestion: In the overworld editor's level name box, what do you think of adding the delete key as a hotkey for clearing the selected level's level name instantly? Or, better yet, a little button/other hotkey for clearing all the level names at once. This is something I've thought of before, considering how I always clear out the original level names eventually.
On a similar note to Sayuri's suggestion, I believe we should have a button in the level editor where we can directly access the layer 3 BG editor so we don't always have to go the overworld editor and access it from there.
My Mode 0 guide.

My Discord server. It has a lot of archived ASM stuff, so check that out!

I'm messing around with some Mode 0 stuff. Is there a reason you never completed the support for it? It'd be nice to be able to use the full amount of GFX space you can get with it.
Originally posted by AnasMario130
On a similar note to Sayuri's suggestion, I believe we should have a button in the level editor where we can directly access the layer 3 BG editor so we don't always have to go the overworld editor and access it from there.

seconding this, it always seemed like a really strange design choice to me
Me too. I think it's that way because it was designed as an offshoot of the title screen editor, but it would really make a lot more sense if it were in the level editor.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
I'd like to give a few Exanimation wishes after sitting down and trying to git gud at it:

• Here's a cheap mockup of new buttons to go up/down by 1 or 8 slots. It'd be very convenient to have a way to quickly cycle through an animation set without manually counting tiles on the way up or down and potentially landing on the wrong frame.

• An option/change for the exanimation window to remain on the particular slot it was on before the window was closed, instead of defaulting to 00 each time.

• The ability to access the exanimation slot of an animated tile by [button]+clicking it in the 8x8 editor, OR having the tile animated somewhere in the exanimation window itself. Any way of being able to see what tiles belong where without deducing it from the destination box would be welcome.


Other Submissions of mine!
Originally posted by Sayuri
Or, better yet, a little button/other hotkey for clearing all the level names at once. This is something I've thought of before, considering how I always clear out the original level names eventually.


Maybe.

Originally posted by Darkbloom
I'm messing around with some Mode 0 stuff. Is there a reason you never completed the support for it? It'd be nice to be able to use the full amount of GFX space you can get with it.


You can already use all 0x400 tiles if you're in the first 2bpp mode.

Originally posted by AnasMario130
On a similar note to Sayuri's suggestion, I believe we should have a button in the level editor where we can directly access the layer 3 BG editor so we don't always have to go the overworld editor and access it from there.


Even if I did add such a button, it would just open up in the overworld editor anyway. I'm not interested in creating a whole new editor just for the sake of separating it.

Originally posted by imamelia
I think it's that way because it was designed as an offshoot of the title screen editor, but it would really make a lot more sense if it were in the level editor.


Pretty much. The overworld editor's layer 2 editing mode can serve as a general purpose 8x8 SNES tilemap editor. That's why it ended up handling the title screen and credits (initially as easter eggs), then later the layer 3 images. I've even used it in the past to edit the titlescreen for another game in the debug build.

Originally posted by Deeke
Here's a cheap mockup of new buttons to go up/down by 1 or 8 slots. It'd be very convenient to have a way to quickly cycle through an animation set without manually counting tiles on the way up or down and potentially landing on the wrong frame.


Not really useful enough to bother with creating separate buttons for. Plus you can already use the arrow keys to go up/down by one in that list while it's collapsed.

Originally posted by Deeke
An option/change for the exanimation window to remain on the particular slot it was on before the window was closed, instead of defaulting to 00 each time.


Probably should.

Originally posted by Deeke
The ability to access the exanimation slot of an animated tile by [button]+clicking it in the 8x8 editor, OR having the tile animated somewhere in the exanimation window itself. Any way of being able to see what tiles belong where without deducing it from the destination box would be welcome.


You can just move the mouse over a tile in the 8x8 editor to get its tile number though.
Originally posted by FuSoYa
Originally posted by Deeke
The ability to access the exanimation slot of an animated tile by [button]+clicking it in the 8x8 editor, OR having the tile animated somewhere in the exanimation window itself. Any way of being able to see what tiles belong where without deducing it from the destination box would be welcome.


You can just move the mouse over a tile in the 8x8 editor to get its tile number though.


That's kind of what I was referring to - you highlight one of the tiles, then go through each exanimation slot until you find the one that matches up with the other. What'd be nice is if you could get from the tile directly to the proper exanimation window in one click (like this even cheaper mockup). Map16 is a different beast and probably shouldn't be compared at all, but the ability to warp directly to any tile you double-click on in the level is such a convenient feature - it'd be great to have something similar for exanimation.

Also something completely irrelevant: when you open #lm{bg} and then click anywhere else, the whole thing gets shoved underneath Lunar Magic itself. I guess that's because it's similar kind of window to the Overworld Editor, but is there a reason it's like that instead of something like #lm{16x} which always remains onscreen?


Other Submissions of mine!
Originally posted by Deeke
That's kind of what I was referring to - you highlight one of the tiles, then go through each exanimation slot until you find the one that matches up with the other. What'd be nice is if you could get from the tile directly to the proper exanimation window in one click (like this even cheaper mockup). Map16 is a different beast and probably shouldn't be compared at all, but the ability to warp directly to any tile you double-click on in the level is such a convenient feature - it'd be great to have something similar for exanimation.


Will think about it, but it's a smaller use case and given the lack of discoverability I suspect it'd just end up as one of the more obscure features that almost no one remembers.

Originally posted by Deeke
Also something completely irrelevant: when you open #lm{bg} and then click anywhere else, the whole thing gets shoved underneath Lunar Magic itself. I guess that's because it's similar kind of window to the Overworld Editor, but is there a reason it's like that instead of something like #lm{16x} which always remains onscreen?


Yes, it's because the background editor needed zoom anyway. Given the larger size of the background it made more sense to make it a regular resizable window with minimize/maximize to make it nicer to work with instead of a tool window with fixed sizes like the Map16 editor.

You can technically still make a regular window act like a tool window that always stays above by making it owned by the main window... but it will stay above even while maximized. Which then leads to complaints like this one as some users don't realize what the implications are for that kind of setup.

But if you don't mind that, there is a hidden option for it you can toggle in the main editor (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F8).
Originally posted by FuSoYa
Originally posted by Darkbloom
I'm messing around with some Mode 0 stuff. Is there a reason you never completed the support for it? It'd be nice to be able to use the full amount of GFX space you can get with it.


You can already use all 0x400 tiles if you're in the first 2bpp mode.


Speaking of which, why exactly are there two 2bpp viewing modes anyway instead of one? I can understand the first one, but the second one? It doesn't even render layer 2 correctly as far as I know.

Originally posted by FuSoYa
Originally posted by AnasMario130
On a similar note to Sayuri's suggestion, I believe we should have a button in the level editor where we can directly access the layer 3 BG editor so we don't always have to go the overworld editor and access it from there.


Even if I did add such a button, it would just open up in the overworld editor anyway. I'm not interested in creating a whole new editor just for the sake of separating it.


I'm sorry, I think you've misunderstood me. What I mean is that the button will directly open the layer 3 BG editor for you. No need to make a separate editor for it. It would make a lot more sense for the L3 BG editor to be in the main editor as you're making those BGs in levels, not the overworld. Plus, of course, you can access it a little quicker.
My Mode 0 guide.

My Discord server. It has a lot of archived ASM stuff, so check that out!

Is there any chance we could be allowed to set map16 tiles to use graphics from page 3? I get that it wouldn't benefit most users since Lunar Magic doesn't give you more than 6 4KB files to work with for layers 1 and 2, but it would be very useful for third party resources that want to mess with the VRAM layout. If confusing less advanced users is a concern, then the function could easily be hidden behind a key combination like some other useful LM features. I'm very interested in this as I would find the increased tile count for layer 1 to be extremely useful for a couple of levels, and while I am able to load the graphics it is a major pain to design with when it doesn't display in Lunar Magic.

Now, if there's a way to do this already, then please tell me about it and have a laugh at my idiocy :)

Either way, thank you for your time!

Edit: it seems people have been asking for BG4/BG5 files (or using SP3/SP4 wrapping) for a while now, so I guess I'm adding to the pile. Note that I'm only actually asking for letting you use all 4 pages in the map16 editor though, and no actual VRAM modification!

allow shy guy emojis in post footers you cowards!
Originally posted by AnasMario130
Speaking of which, why exactly are there two 2bpp viewing modes anyway instead of one? I can understand the first one, but the second one? It doesn't even render layer 2 correctly as far as I know.


The first one has 0x100 tiles per GFX file, while the second one has 0x80 tiles per GFX file. The second one is a much older setup that was meant to also serve double duty as an alternative for editing things like the title screen tilemap within the Map16 editor (keep in mind this was back when the Map16 editor had just been replaced and the overworld editor's 8x8 tile selector was more limited, around version 1.90 or so).

I doubt anyone uses it that way these days... even back then I think only a few people were aware it could be used like that. But no harm in keeping it around.

Originally posted by FuSoYa
I'm sorry, I think you've misunderstood me. What I mean is that the button will directly open the layer 3 BG editor for you. No need to make a separate editor for it. It would make a lot more sense for the L3 BG editor to be in the main editor as you're making those BGs in levels, not the overworld. Plus, of course, you can access it a little quicker.


Oh, alright. Will add it to the list of possibilities.

Originally posted by Von Fahrenheit
Is there any chance we could be allowed to set map16 tiles to use graphics from page 3? I get that it wouldn't benefit most users since Lunar Magic doesn't give you more than 6 4KB files to work with for layers 1 and 2, but it would be very useful for third party resources that want to mess with the VRAM layout. If confusing less advanced users is a concern, then the function could easily be hidden behind a key combination like some other useful LM features. I'm very interested in this as I would find the increased tile count for layer 1 to be extremely useful for a couple of levels, and while I am able to load the graphics it is a major pain to design with when it doesn't display in Lunar Magic.

Now, if there's a way to do this already, then please tell me about it and have a laugh at my idiocy :)

Either way, thank you for your time!

Edit: it seems people have been asking for BG4/BG5 files (or using SP3/SP4 wrapping) for a while now, so I guess I'm adding to the pile. Note that I'm only actually asking for letting you use all 4 pages in the map16 editor though, and no actual VRAM modification!


LM already doesn't prevent you from referencing that area in Map16 tiles. As for loading GFX files in those slots for display purposes within LM so you can see what you're doing without being in 2bpp mode, you can use the GFX Display Override (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+G).
Kingshadowraze - this thread is for Lunar Magic suggestions, not to ask the questions you have already asked elsewhere a few hours ago. Please keep on topic in threads - thanks!
Hello! I have a suggestion. The overworld Map16 #lm{ow16xsel}, could have a button to edit the action of each tile. This would allow you to organize map16 the way you want.
Example: Make the water tile 3B become an exit tile, move the destruction tile A6 to tile 52, create more aquatic tiles, and various other things.
Originally posted by StackDino
Hello! I have a suggestion. The overworld Map16 #lm{ow16xsel}, could have a button to edit the action of each tile. This would allow you to organize map16 the way you want.
Example: Make the water tile 3B become an exit tile, move the destruction tile A6 to tile 52, create more aquatic tiles, and various other things.


That's kind of outside the realm of LM and would require you to edit the actual code of SMW itself.
User: Hinalyte / ID: 1553 ~ loading kotori.css
Hi.

There seems to be a "bug" regarding purple coins. When I place a purple coin in front of a tile that isn't from Map16 Page 0 (cement block, ledge, question blocks, etc), it becomes whichever tile it matches from Page 0 (cement block (tile 130) becomes tile 30, ledge tile (tile 100) becomes tile 0, etc). It would affect the leftmost tile (although if you place the purple coins per column, it would be negated).

Also, is there a proper documentation with regards to which objects are controlled by the item memory index? Based on my experience with toying around a level based on using it, for each coin you collect from a subscreen, the column from the coin you collected will be marked as "collected" the next time you enter that same level with those coins. Is this true and are there more into this?

Originally posted by Hinalyte
Hi.

There seems to be a "bug" regarding purple coins. When I place a purple coin in front of a tile that isn't from Map16 Page 0 (cement block, ledge, question blocks, etc), it becomes whichever tile it matches from Page 0 (cement block (tile 130) becomes tile 30, ledge tile (tile 100) becomes tile 0, etc). It would affect the leftmost tile (although if you place the purple coins per column, it would be negated).



Well, it depends on how you'd define a bug, but this is simply how object x16 is coded in SMW. It's not something Lunar Magic does or changes.

The routine is coded in such a way to always write 0 to the page and to either write $2C or nothing to the low value, depending on item memory. If it writes nothing, it will retain the low value of whatever tile was already there. See $0DB336 for the object's creation routine. By shuffling the code, it should be possible to make the behavior more 'sane', but arguably you shouldn't be stacking objects like that in the first place.

Originally posted by Hinalyte
Also, is there a proper documentation with regards to which objects are controlled by the item memory index? Based on my experience with toying around a level based on using it, for each coin you collect from a subscreen, the column from the coin you collected will be marked as "collected" the next time you enter that same level with those coins. Is this true and are there more into this?


Only coins, dragon coins, and some question blocks write to item memory. One easy way is to check the $9C value of a tile; only $00 and $15 will set item memory.

And indeed, all tiles on the same Y-column in a sub screen share the same bit for item memory.


Please, oh please, let us have access to these someday. The possibilities make my mind race.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Would this patch or something similar (I had my own version of it before that came out) be worth including in Lunar Magic?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
A few things that are slightly related; firstly a key that swaps the scrollwheel into horizontal scroll so people on smaller screens dont have to constantly hold shift to scroll. Secondly more zoom options, specifically 150% would be great for us stuck on the dreaded 1366x768.

Tool