Blox: a new (unfinished) editor for SMB1 - Misc. ROM Hacking

I've been working on this on and off for quite a while now. I figured I'd go ahead and make a thread to get some input and see if people would even use this.

I started this project for a couple reasons. Mainly- my hack of SMB1 used way to many ASM hacks and nonsense for any of the existing editors to support it and second- basically, let's face it, the existing editors for SMB1 are poor. They all offer little to no customization outside of levels. It's all hard coded in the editors to only edit such and such addresses and no room is left for the "upper-class" hackers that change vital things. Anyway, progress so far is good (with what little time I do have.)

The first obstacle is mapper. I can't really decide what mapper to choose. Currently upon new ROM load the editor will patch up a couple things and default the ROM to mapper 2 and adds 6(!) more 16k PRG banks. Next, would be the level data loading routine. At this point, I'd say that I'm ~40% completed with a complete rewrite of the routine. Anyone that's ever worked with this routine will know why I'm rewriting it.

At this point:

A Lunar Magic-esque way to edit metatiles.

Updated 8x8 tile viewer. (The actual tile editing part is unfinished. You can view the older version for comparison here)

Backwards compatibility with current SMB1 levels.
Another test screen.

To sum it up, I'm going for a complete overhaul of the SMB1 level data routines. I may even try to shoot for having vertical levels. I've done some documenting on the metatile routines and I've deemed it TM16² (as apposed to LM's map16.) The system is simply an organized way to access and edit metatiles located within the games metatile jump subroutines. No functionality for sprites is implemented at all at this time.

It's still really early in the development stages and I'm just wanting to see what kind of SMB1 community(group?) we've got out there.

Refer to this post for information about a separate music hacking tool.

This looks nice so far and I support your work. I'll be happy to lend a hand with development if I can. What language/environment are you working in?
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Interested in MushROMs? View its progress, source code, and make contributions here.

I'm using C#. As for progress- I've significantly recoded and redesigned the 8x8 editor, albeit it's no where near being fully functional- I've made a method that stretches a bitmap to any given size, so no more worry about C#'s internal anti-aliasing tricks. (See the first pic of the 8x8 editor.)

I've also dabbed in some more ideas for the way level data should be parsed. Right now, I'm really liking the idea of just building levels with bare metatiles and not having normal/large/special object sets like the stock SMB does. I'm also thinking about using a mapper that can switch CHR banks and possibly using the level header for choosing which graphic bank to load for that level.

Give Mario some love?~

This really has potential. I would totally use this!

You can adopt my rewrite for the smas smb1 tilesets. It doesn't pose restrictions on the level and it should be more space efficient than just inserting raw tile data.

Also I'm quite familiar with C#. If you'd ever like a second opinion on your code, I'd be glad to look it over. I've spent many years getting good at drawing data like this.
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Interested in MushROMs? View its progress, source code, and make contributions here.

I've went through several ideas and I know what my individual hack needs, however, I'm not entirely sure what would be the best for the editor.

And ah, okay thanks. Once I get everything all packaged up and once I get my mind made on how everything should be (and however long that may be

) I may just send the whole thing over to you to get your opinion.

Give Mario some love?~

It may also help to do it before that. If there's something that can be done better, it's best to catch it now before later. Plus I'm always just curious how other editor designers work.
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Interested in MushROMs? View its progress, source code, and make contributions here.

If this editor finds its way to completion, I would be very impressed (it might also inspire me to edit SMB1)

. Good luck zkip!

Hmm, I would imagine since SMB1 is a pretty basic game, with not that much coding (?) and tilesets and etc involved, that an editor for this game would take a shorter amount of time than LM or like, a DKC editor, to make. How long would it take to complete this?

I think it might take him around a month or 2 just to get a working beta. Just a guess though.

c3 winter 2021 | music stuff | youtube

This editor looks pretty nice so far. I might actually use it whenever you release it. I looks kinda like Lunar Magic. Witch is a good thing.

Originally posted by HackerOfTheLegend

Hmm, I would imagine since SMB1 is a pretty basic game, with not that much coding (?) and tilesets and etc involved, that an editor for this game would take a shorter amount of time than LM or like, a DKC editor, to make. How long would it take to complete this?

That's somewhat true. Typically, NES games are a lot simpler than anything newer generation. Albeit, within this simplicity is also restrictions. You can't just add xx bytes to a NES ROM and call it expanded. Since the NES is an 8bit console, anything beyond that scope must be "bank swapped" which adds to the complexity of the process.

As for progress: I've been fairly busy and haven't gotten too much done. Thanks for the nice comments so far guys. I will keep this going best I can.

To keep everyone up to date here's a screenshot of everything so far.

Give Mario some love?~

Yoshiatom's Post

Nice work!
Keep it up, because I might give SMB hacking a go when you finish this.

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This seems interesting. Hopefully this turns out nice; I can definitly see potential. It does look a lot like LM, and if works similarly, I will look forward to this.
Keep it up!

cool

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Just making a post here to let you guys know that the project isn't dead. I've just become a little busy with making a music tool for this game, SMW-related stuff, as well as a few other hacking related things. I also thought it was much needed to let my social life have a bone here an there.

Now, it's time to buckle back down on this because it's been quite a while since I last worked on it. Within a few days I'll update this thread to include a notable changelog. Overall, this project should be completed and in it's final release within a month/a couple of months.

Thanks for the support guys!

Give Mario some love?~

So, are there any updates, perhaps? Also, you mean, you're working on an SMB1 Addmusic? That would be drop dead awesome. If that is the case, though, I hope it wouldn't be too hard to make/port music for.

Name suggestion for music program: AddmusicSMB

Yeah, is this dead or alive?

Originally posted by HackerOfTheLegend

Name suggestion for music program: AddmusicSMB

That's unoriginal, how about SMBMusicTool?

c3 winter 2021 | music stuff | youtube

It's not dead, albeit I've been fairly busy the past couple weeks with work and life and such and trying to get my power back on. The level editor hasn't had very much work done to it. It's all went into the music. For those who have tried porting to SMB1- It's terrible. (Weird note lengths that are indexed by table based on 1 of 3 tempo settings) So I completely rewrote SMB1's music engine to the point of where none of SMB1's code exists at all. This was majorly to incorporate a few new things:

Looping
Dynamic tempos
Ties
User defined envelopes
Plus a few more nicks and nacks.

Among all that, this newer engine takes up ~0.7 less byte size. Leaving roughly around 2K for pure music data. At this point the ASM side of the engine is pretty much finished, I just need to straighten up the actual insertion tool. (Which is MML-based.) Porting the existing SMB1 songs as well as sound effects into a format usable by the new engine is also a task needing to be done.

I don't currently have a fast enough connection to allow for video uploads, however, anyone that wants to genuinely test this (an experienced porter familiar with MML format) or help with getting the existing songs accurately ported to the new engine format, shoot me a PM and I'll get back with you.

Give Mario some love?~

A few questions:

- Will the output be compatible with the Disassembly made by Doppleganger?

- If it utilizes the Disassembly, Will it allow you to edit the limits on the Metatiles (per Attribute quadrant) and Sprites (per the Sprite's Listing) according to the needs of the hack?

- Will the source code be made availible once it's released?

- Are you planning a open-source (i.e. GNU) license to be used with the source?

- This is not a question for you, rather it's one to myself: Why does this remind me of the NoDice editor from the SMB3 Disassembly by Southbird?

EDIT: 100th Post!!!

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