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Dreamtool

I was looking into this after playing Kirby's Adventure on my friend's NES, and I couldn't read Japanese (probably not Chinese) text that was telling me what to do, insulting me or both. Could anyone tell me what it says?



https://www.dropbox.com/s/uwb0iszo0qv8yeg/Dreamtool%20Text.png

Thx a bunch to anyone who can decipher it.
<leod> what this mean http://www.dropbox.com/s/uwb0iszo0qv8yeg/Dreamtool%20Text.png
<Cobalt> create a folder, drop in this window. drop the folder to the project folder -- when the project folder loads please drop the folder
<Rena> create a folder and then drop it, the dropped folder is called the project folder -- when you load that folder drop it

So basically drop a folder in that window or something?
Your layout has been removed.
Thank you a bunch, all three of you.

First, does anyone know of a good Japanese to English text translator? It has a readme in Japanese and I would rather like to read it.

I also have another pic.



This one might be a bit harder, but I might be able to figure out a way to move the room.

http://bin.smwcentral.net/u/20088/Dreamtool2.png
Thanks to Leod (and friends) and that folder dragging thing, I was able to finally get that editor open and mess around with it!

What I figured out:
*F5 is the button you push to save your level to text file! (edit: Still can't seem to get saved levels loaded, so be careful.
*F3 and F4 let you increase/decrease the level number by one, respectively
*F1 and F2 switches you back and forth between menus
+ The first menu I am assuming is the header of the level, allowing you to change various things about the level like size and GFX files.
- The first option is how long (width) you want your level by screens
- The second option is how tall (height) you want your level by screens
- The third option is for changing the Map16 page of the tiles you want to use for tile placement. Haven't done much with this yet.
- 4th is for which tileset you want to use. Be sure to use this with the 3rd option since the tiles are scattered in the Map16 pages
- 5th is level palette
-No idea what the rest is for except the obvious BGM is background music.

*Pushing F2 after the header menu take you to the Tile placement editor!
+ Tab let's you change the visuals on how you want to place tiles with or without grid
+ "Page Up" is an undo button and "Page Down" is a redo button, very rad! No idea what the rest of those keys do, but they do do something *shrug*
- NOW YOU CAN PLACE TILES! Select which tile you want to add from the bottom left corner and place it within the level via left click. Right click selects the tile your mouse is hovering (like the eyedropper tool from MS paint) so you can paste more of that tile.
- IIRC YOU CANNOT DELETE PASTE TILES, you just overwrite them with a blank tile. There is only one layer for both land and background decorations, choose wisely

*Pushing F2 after the tile placement editor gets you to the SPRITE PLACEMENT EDITOR!
+ This thing is weird how to work it, but thanks to guess and check, I figured it out! They Sprite graphics will not be seen in editor based on what I attempted
- THE FIRST THING YOU DO is that you place a sprite using shift+left click. You can click+drag the sprite to move it to a different location.
- In order to make that sprite the sprite you want, you click on the sprite which highlights it red and then select which sprite you want from the oddly moving list on the right. You can also type in what sprite you want it to be by typing in the sprite number in the digit located in the bottom left corner of the window.
- You can delete a sprite using the delete button.

*Pushing F2 once more take you to a different editor that I have no idea what it does
+ That's as far as I got
- Hope this helps you and others!
I wonder what a HFD opcode would do in ASM...
I've been able to play around with it too! I had no idea what the first editor was, but thanks for helping me! Let me insert my findings.

*The editor TLMB was confused about is the SCREEN EXIT EDITOR!
+ Choose an exit on the bottom list.
- It should show a level on the right.
- Just choose where you want the exit to go and then show where the exit should place you on the next screen!

I might add more later.
author's blog & website: http://borokobo.web.fc2.com/
more kirby tools: http://www4.atpages.jp/borokobo/
improved data files http://www.mediafire.com/?82xs7kn352k39ab (put these in your data folder next to dreamtool. includes sprite names in english and a better tile properties bmp)

GETTING STARTED
DreamTool needs a Japanese dump of Kirby's Adventure to be placed in the root directory, and should be named "kirby.nes". If you attempt to use an American ROM or another dump, the checksum will not match and you will be given the option to continue or not. You can still edit an American ROM, but it will likely be corrupted. Once you have the ROM sorted out, DreamTool will ask for a project folder when it starts. Just drag your empty folder into the application. DreamTool doesn't seem to support a command line for starting with your project, so linux users without a desktop environment might be out of luck.

There are different "modes" in DreamTool. They correspond to tile editing, level header editing (BGM, etc), exit and finally sprite editing. You can cycle through these with F1 and F2 (backward and forward respectively)

HOTKEYS
These hotkeys are used multiple times throughout the editor

TAB change view (grid with tile properties, low brightness)
F1 F2 change editing mode (sprite mode, tile mode, door mode, room parameter mode)
F3 F4 change room
F5 save progress to the appropriate room###[###].txt file
F11 compile to .nes

TILE EDITING MODE HOTKEYS
Change the room's layout

LMB place tile in the room / select tile from the tileset
RMB pick existing tile in the room
ARROW KEYS change selected tile in the tileset (bottom right of the screen)

SPRITE EDITING MODE HOTKEYS
Move and change sprites in the room

LMB select sprite
LMB + drag move sprite
LMB + menu change sprite #

PROJECTS, SAVING AND COMPILING
DreamTool requires a blank folder to use as a project. In the project folder, DreamTool will save all your edits to text files which you can compile later.

Edited rooms are saved like this:

room*DECIMAL OF ROOM NUMBER*[*HEX OF ROOM NUMBER*].txt

Example: room010[00A].txt

When you save your text file with F5, you can compile all of the text files in your project folder to a .nes ROM by pressing F11. The editor basically takes the clean ROM you put in the folder and makes a new one with your levels patched in. You will always have a clean ROM because of this, but you will still need to make backups of your project if you mess up.

ROOM PARAMETERS IN ENGLISH
1 room width
2 room height
3 tileset (what foreground tiles are loaded)
4 BG bank (what ANIMATED background tiles are loaded)
5 BG color "BG_PAL" (tileset palette)
6 animation speed (changes speed of animated background mentioned earlier)
7 sprite bank (what sprite graphics are to be loaded)
8 sprite colors "SPR_PAL" (what palette the loaded sprite graphics share)
9 music "BGM"
10 start point "REVIVE_POS" (where you respawn in the room. THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM EXITS)
11 circular tower "SP_ROOM_TOWER" (as seen in butter building)
12 parallax scrolling (seen in the final battle)
13 status color (you can change the color of the HUD to grayscale as seen in world 7 level 6)

You can change these values in your level's text file instead of the header editing mode if you feel like it. When DreamTool compiles your changes should be applied. I might make a new post showing off the different tilesets and palettes you can pick.