Lunar Magic suggestions and discussion (LM v3.50)

We discussed $0FBE 2 years ago.



While it comes in handy for copying as well, it's main use is to save a level to a different level number. If the option were made persistent, I suspect it'd create the opposite problem except more often. And an option to make the option persistent just seems like overkill.



The main map is already the size of the SNES tilemap in VRAM. Making it larger would mean creating a dynamic rendering engine for scrolling and changing several other things.



Not really. Using F2 in the overworld editor will let you see which events have been assigned to which tile. But the overworld doesn't know if a level will activate other events via secret exits / custom ASM, so you'd need to look at the map/levels to guess at those ones anyway.

True. So the VRAM patch is the main custom code that references it? Is that all?

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.

Some way to replace the Map16 tiles by index in the foreground could be nice.

See the routine at $06F540.



Check the "Edit" menu in the level editor for "Remap Direct Map16".

I looked through some of the help document, but could not find anything about it. Regarding keyboard navigation, is there an option to scroll more quickly than simply using the up/down or left/right arrows? For example, perhaps using SHIFT+Right arrow could scroll a screen at a time or something similar? Or is there already an option to do this somewhere?

Also, this may not be useful for many, but is there a list of all keyboard shortcuts consolidated in one place? If not, it might be a nice reference as perhaps a help file section. Just a couple of random thoughts.

Thomas made a comprehensive list of Lunar Magic's shortcuts. As far as I'm aware, a full list is not included in Lunar Magic (I might be wrong).

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ROM Hack Manager - SMW Resources - SMW Toolbox

Shift+Arrows is already used for resizing objects.

Also keep in mind the Spacebar+Scroll Wheel thing was just added to 3.40, which was released in September.

Thanks, I totally forgot about that new shortcut, and had forgotten about the resizing when I wrote it.

If you're open to adding shortcuts, one I think that might be quite useful (and is more an extension of an existing shortcut) is Alt+Scroll Wheel to go up and down in the level numbers numerically as an alternative to PgUp/PgDn.

Edit: another occurred to me after I posted this: having Ctrl+S to save in the 16x16 Tile Editor (mostly to help end the meme that is people forgetting to save in that editor. )

Simple but highly game-changing suggestion here: double-clicking a block and having it jump to that block/page number in the Add Objects window when it's open.

It currently does this for the Map16 editor when that's open, and that's incredibly useful. But when actually building the level, it would be nice to have that same luxury in the Add Objects window. I have major custom blocks on page 03, and most level tiles on pages 20+, so minimizing the extra scrolling back and forth would be much appreciated!

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Originally known as A Yoshi (2006-2009), Aquifer (2010-2011), and Azurik (2012-2014).

While we are on the subject, I know File>Levels>Analyze Resources in Levels exists, and it is great, but is there any option to see specifically where blocks exist in a level? For example, some option to double click (or variant, a menu command, some other alternative) on a block in the MAP 16 editor, to see the exact coordinates of every block in the level that uses that MAP 16 block would be nice. An example would be when you have two blocks that look the same, but have different gameplay properties.

Here are two suggestions

A button that allows you to select layer 1, 2 (if used in a level), and sprites, all together at the same time. This could be useful for moving around or deleting entire chunks of a level, without having to switch between layer and sprite editing modes. Maybe this could be useful for the overworld editor too?

On the subject of the overworld, I also suggest allowing for selecting multiple layer 1 tiles on the L1 window at once, like on the ow layer 2 editor window. Currently you can only select one tile at a time. This could be useful for placing larger decorative layer 1 objects on the map, without having to piece them together one tile at a time.

Not sure I want to use up a scroll wheel shortcut for that...



The save button already visually shows when you have unsaved changes. I don't think a different keyboard shortcut is going to help them remember that.



You can already paste from the Map16 editor into the level editor though. In fact I usually find it easier to use it for that, and to just use the Add Objects window for when I want regular objects.



Yeah I suppose something like that could come in handy now and then.



Having separate modes has helped keep things simple, both for implementation and usage. It's worked well for SMW, so I don't think I'll be looking to change that.



Yes, I should probably think about putting that in at some point.

Would it be worth adding a way to edit all of the default palettes (as in all of them, without color 8 being hardcoded or the berry palettes being copied)? I realized that having a custom palette for every level would take up 0x40400 bytes, or over 8 LoROM banks, and being able to edit and use some pre-existing palettes without being limited to 8 colors could save a lot of space.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.

Hello Fusoya,
I know that in this thread the question had been tackling and answered in 2021,

https://smwc.me/1586379

but today, is the possibility in the overworld to activate the Slot FG7 and FG8 would be possible?

It would do good, unless, as you had to talk about it,
I could find a Patch VRAM to use them, but then or find it?

Thank you in advance and big thank you for your fabulous work!

Unlikely, very few people are going to want to limit themselves to that. And I'm not too interested in adding a new palette system to micromanage them like the original game did.



Perhaps. I was already considering doing something similar a few weeks ago after we discussed the erase level thing. Except it would be automatic and compare against all existing RAT-protected level palettes/etc for matches on saving. That would however slow down saving, so I'd likely put it in as a separate option that was off by default. I just haven't decided yet if it'd be worth implementing.



Unfortunately I don't believe anyone has done a VRAM patch for that yet, and I don't currently have plans to do one myself.



You're welcome.

Why shortcut for making Layer 1 tile selector window access to level map16 data is undocumented?

Because that feature is unofficial... and originally, not entirely intentional. The game had several copies of the same routine for accessing Map16 data, so I just patched them all. That meant the overworld could already use the level Map16 for pages 2+, so later I added support for displaying it in LM as well in case someone wanted to use that extra Map16 on the overworld.

I thought I'd asked before, but can't find it, but is there any way to manually mark or unmark levels that have been modified? It may seem silly, but an example use case might be if you make a level or a test, and then later save it to a different level, say for organization, and then you put the original SMW level back in so it is easier to identify that it has not been modified, and export all the modified levels. In this case, you would not want the original SMW level, and even though it has been restored, it will still be exported as a modified level, leaving extra levels in your folder every time you export them. For my question, if I could somehow identify that that level should not be considered as having been modified, it would not export it.