Super Metroid Integrated Level Editor (SMILE) Beginnners Guide by person701 Written in standard ASCII format. No ASM required! =D THIS WILL BE A LONG READ SO BE READY! ******************************************************************************* --- Table of Contents --- (I'm an organized person, be thankful) 1. Getting Around 2. A New Language: Hexidecimal 3. Tile Properties and BTS 4. Scroll Boxes 5. Items and Enemies 6. Effects (FX) 7. Room Properties 8. Changing Basic Game Mechanics 9. Background (AKA Layer 2) Editing 10. Map Editing ~Basics of hacking end here~ 11. The Graphics Editor and Beauty Salon 12. In-game Text Editing 13. Door Editing 14. Pointers 15. Contacts 'n Crap ******************************************************************************* ******************************************************************************* But before anything else, the intro! Ok, so you're either looking at this for one of few reason's. One: you're new to SMILE and in need of help, two: you're so busy bugging people that they just redirected you here, or three: you just need a refresher on something. In any case, I'm here to help (ya know, that one guy noone really knows who he is but he always seems to be there, or person701/Dan)! In all honesty, this is to get all you newbies out there started hacking with SMILE and since Jathys (creator of SMILE) hasn't gotten to a help document, this should help out. Be thankful I'm a very organized person otherwise you probably wouldn't find much out about the program without straining your eyes. Now begin reading scrub! ^-^ =============================================================================== 1. Getting Around ------------------------------------------------------------- First thing is first, you're going to need a Super Metroid ROM. I can't link you to one, neither can anyone else, nor can Metroid Construction direct you. once you have that, you can begin your fun. Start by opening your SMILE folder on your computer and open up the program named, well, SMILE! SOLA, for now, is being used as an update checker for SMILE. Anyways, once you open SMILE, it'll ask you to choose your ROM. Go find where ever your ROM is located in your computer and open it. CONGRATS! One small step for hackers, one giant leap for you (ok, so that was really cheesy)! By now, you should be staring at a partial black screen and a small blinking box in the top right flashing the colors yellow and red reading "CLICK." For the sake of saving Jathys emails (or at least to try) it's not an advertisment banner and it's also NOT annoying. It's there because this is what you click to open a room to edit (and because people were have strokes and heart attacks trying to figure out how to get SMILE working...). For now, click the drop down arrow and click on your first option (791F8). Oh em gee! You've succefully opened a room of Super Metroid to be used at your disposal. For the rest of this document, WE WILL BE WORKING WITH THIS ROOM (the landing site) unless otherwise specified for a section (or two maybe). Now you need to learn what's what. First, we have your typical toolbar at the top that contains the tabs "File, Edit, View, Tools, Help." Each one of those contain even more hacking materials. However, for now, let's get your view set up. _______________ [[ View > Window ]] <--When I do this, I'm telling you to click on the toolbar. With those options, you can set how big SMILE displays on your computer. If you want it to display full screen (and not the box like button does up top), click custom so you get a perfect fit for your computer monitor. ____________________________________ [[ View > Options > Show Scroll Areas ]] This let's you see what constitutes as one in-game screen. More on these later. But I suggest you keep this on. Like I said, you'll see why later. ;) ____________________ [[ View > Brightness ]] SMILE making things a little to dark for you? Well, the Brightness option does exactly like it says, brightens up the SMILE editing screen. If 'Normal' isn't good enough, 'Bright' is a great option. I find 'Blazing' reather blinding. x( Now that you're all set up I'll aquaint you with the screen. The biggest one that looks like it's from in-game is where you'll be doing all the level design. But before you edit a room, click Save Room under File. Up in the very top left, you should have two displayed numbers like this: 3578/5165 provided you haven't already placed any tiles. The number on the left is how much space you've used and the rigth is how much space you have... kinda. Go over that number (sometimes even getting near) is dangerous as it can and WILL overwrite data in other rooms, so be careful. Lucky for those who don't check often, SMILE will warn you before this happens. They're few and far between, but SMILE doesn't care when you overwrite stuff, so be careful. Which speaking of tiles, are located right under your main editing screen. I guess we could call the big one, "Level Screen" and the smaller "Tile Screen." Sounds good? Cool (and if not, oh well)! In the Tile Screen we have all the tiles in the tile set that's being used. The top seven rows (7) are CRE tiles and is what the game uses to draw things like Missiles and doors. Everything under that is what adds atmosphere to the game. Using the Tile Screen is pretty simple. Select a tile by left or right clicking it. If you have a keen eye, you'll notice that tile went to the ClipBoard (more on this in a little). Now that you have your tile selected, left click somewhere in the Level Screen and the tile you have selected should replace what was in the Level Screen with the one you chose. To the right we have tabs that include the ClipBoard (which holds whatever tiles are currently selected and holds up to 16x16 of them), BTS (collsion and stuff, more on this in section 2), and Music (can you guess?). Under that there is a box on tile properties (sigh, so much stuff we'll get to later) and your Graphic Set. Click on the Graphic Set and pick one and it'll change the tile set the room uses but be WARNED, YOU ROOM WILL BE MESSY AND SO WILL THE BACKGROUND. So it's good to know what set you wanna use before you edit a room. Above the ClipBoard and stuff, there are two green boxes. Left one is for choosing what room you want to edit and right one is to edit room states. Got that? A room state is, for example, when you first land in Crateria everything is rainy, then after Power Bombs it's all clear, and when you're escaping Zebes is about to explode. In basic words, the different ways a room changes. Not all rooms have multiple states but every room has at least one (otherwise if it didn't, there wouldn't be a room. It would sease to exist). Phew. Got all that? I wanred you this would be a long read. Take sometime to know where everything is at before reading on, it'll help in the long run. And besides, you're eyes might want to take a break from reading black letters for a little. Go get some food or drink and keep reading when you're ready. =) =============================================================================== 2. A New Language: Hexidecimal ------------------------------------------------ "OMG! A new language?!" "What's hex?!" "I'm lost fill me in." That third one is the one I'd prefer to hear. Hexideciaml ('Hex' for short) is not hard to learn at all and is based off of the deciaml system we use every day. Count to ten for me, in your head or aloud. If you can do that (for the sake of God, please be able to), you already know decimal. Now let's break the word Hexidecimal down. "Hex" is a prefix for 6. "Deci" is a prefix for 10. 6 + 10 = ?? Answer: 16 The decimal system counts in a base of 10. You know: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Hexidecimal counts in a base of 16. But it's just a tad different. One would not represent ten as "10." Instead, it has to be a bit more complicated and unfortunaly, is how a computer reads data. Counting to 16 in hex is actually more simple than I'm making it sound probably. ^^; Here's how you do it: Decimal | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 12| 13| 14| 15| 16| Hexidecimal | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | 10| Simple? Kinda? It'll start to click fast, trust me. Now to further things a little, if 10 in hex is 16, what's 11 in hex? Do you know or can you maybe guess? Answer: 17 So how is all this correlated to SMILE? SMILE reads numerical values in hex and doesn't spit them back out at you in regular ol' decimal. That's why it's important to know hex. You'll mainly need this when you need to know the ammount something in a room. These ammounts don't go past 2 digits often. Things you see in 4 digits is a pointer which tells the game and SMILE where to get data from usually. For now though, a quick lesson on how to read hex NUMERICALLY is a must for SMILE. Now, let's get on to room editing! =============================================================================== 3. Tile Properties and BTS ---------------------------------------------------- What are tile properties and BTS? Properties are things that tell the game if a tile or set of tiles are solid, shootable, or false to the naked eye. BTS can be thought of as Super Metroid's collision data. Except don't fear about having to place them everywhere. Most of the time making a tile solid is the best choise. Let's start with the Tile Properties box. Go select a tile in your Level Screen (you can right click and instantly select said tile) or Tile Screen. Place it somewhere in the room and go to the properties box. in order and with explination, here they are: -Air. X-Ray: It's makes an object look solid but disappears when the X-Ray Scope scrolls over it. -Slope: In otherwords, and tile that has a BTS applied to it will have this. -Air. Fool X-Ray: Looks solid, isn't, but doesn't disappear when the X-Ray Scope passes over. -Treadmill: Another property aquired when a BTS is applied. -Shootable Air: Air that can be destroied by being shot at. I know, WTF? -Horizontal: Used when grouping bomb and shot blocks. -Air???: I assume no one knows what this does. -Bombable Air: Go read 'Shootable Air.' Just, you bomb this... -Solid Block: It's solid. You can walk on it, you can run into it and be stopped. -Door: Gives the tile properties of a door. Nuff said. -Spike Block: What do you think? -Crumble Block: Step on it, it falls out under your feet. -Shot Block: A solid block that can be shot and disappear. -Vertical: Go read 'Horizontal.' -Grapple Block: The Grapple Beam can attatch to this tile. -Bomb Block: Solid block that can be bombed away. Catch all that? As a recap, select a tile, pick a property, and you're usually set. But, BTS seem to pop up a few times here so lemme teach you those too! ^_^ Click the tab, 'BTS.' You'll set a dropdown box with a metroid. These are furthering of the property box. We'll use this in a second. Under it are green tiles and a row of grey ones. The green tiles are collision tiles and basically outline what the collision data is and where it is. All you need to do is fiddle with these. To apply them to a tile, drag and drop it on the proper tile. Honestly, I don't know what the yellow ones are for. Now for the grey row. Yay, more listing! =D From left to right... -Block will be destroied by a Super Missile. -Block will be destrioed by a Power Bomb. -Block will be destrioed by the Speed Booster. -Block will be destrioed by the Grapple Beam. -Has treadmill effect when Samus' feet touch it. Moves Right. -Has treadmill effect when Samus' feet touch it. Moves left. -Pushes Samus down affecting jump height. Mostly seen in Maridian rooms. -Block will be destrioed when an enemy touches them. -Makes a wall enemies cannot pass through but Samus can. Simple, right? Like the above, drag and drop to apply. You can also uncheck 'ReSpawning' so they don't come back after being destrioed. But wait, what was the dropdown with the metroid used for? Grouping blocks mainly (is also used with doors, which is cover way late in this guide). If you click, you'll notice four types: 1x1, 2x1, 1x2, and 2x2. Remember, these are always read from right to down. So a 2x1 would look like below... [][] ...while a 1x2 looks like this: [] [] Get it? There are also two of each type; Those that say 'spawn' by them and those that don't. 'spawn' simply means that after being destriod, they'll respwan. If there's nothing, they won't. So, let's make our first group of tiles shall we? We'll start with a 2x1 group (2 long, 1 tall). See below for an illustration. First, block 1 ('B1' below) will always be the top left most tile. Tiles 2-4 don't matter, but they'll be illustraed below. Here are your steps: ---------- [1][2] (Typical listing of 2x2 tiles) [3][4] ---------- 1. Give block 1 the property of either 'shootable, bombable, or crumble.' 2. Give block 2 the property of horizontal. 3. Up by the metroid, in the dropdown box, go alllllll the way to the bottom and select 'FF' 4. Grab the metroid and drag it over to block 2. It should now have FF over it. 5. Back to the metroid, go back to the top and select 01 (respawn) or 05 (no respawn) and use the metroid to apply to block 1. [B1][B2] [ ][ ] [ ][FF] [01][FF] -OR- [05][FF] Now outlined in a box, they both work together. If one goes, the otehr goes also! Feel accomplished? Let me bring on a bit more of a challenge. A 2x2 block! 1. Block 1: shoot, bomb, crumble property. 2. Block 2: horizontal property. 3. Block 3 and 4: vertical property. 4. Blocks 2, 3, and 4 get the value FF. 5. Block 1 get's 03 or 07 depending on respwan values. And viola! You've made a perfectly 2x2 group! Now if you haven't figured out already, 1x1 blocks are easy. Set their property and then apply either 00 or 04! Verticals aren't hard either. I'll let you fool around to get this one. ;) At first, yes this can be hard. But a little messing gets the job done! Well, I think that wraps this section up! Feeling a bit more powerful now that you've figured out how to hide passages inside the walls? Well guess what, we're gonna learn even more about hiding things next section! =============================================================================== 4. Scroll Boxes --------------------------------------------------------------- Remember what happened when I told you at the begining to do this: ____________________________________ [[ View > Options > Show Scroll Areas ]] ?? Well, do ya? If not, here's what happened: it displayed scroll areas! Why the exclamation?! Because these are what make hiding out-of-the-way areas in a room possible! They show what one in game screen would look like. Let me break things down with yet another great list. -Blue box: Free. Samus can traverse these with no in game scrolling problems. The only thing these do are prevent the bottom two tiles of the box from being seen in game. Are most commonly seen in hallways. -Green box: Ok, this really does have NO scrolling resrictions. -Red box: The screen will refuse to scroll unless Samus touches the proper PLM. Since getting these to work requires the use of Pointers, these will mainly be covered in section 14. Awww, I'm not going to get to hiding thing with red boxes anytime soon? Well, it does take understanding of other subjects, so suck it up for now. Besdies, you're prolly a newbie so I don't want to throw a ton of difficult stuff on you at once. But don't let that bog you down! =) If you're clever enough, you can manipulate the space between tiles to hide things. Jump to the green and blue boxes. They aren't too hard to manage. Use them to save some space in the room by blocking out the bottom two tiles. Again, blue boxes are mostly found in hallways. Greens on the other hand won't give any problems. Changing what type of scroll box is used where isn't to hard either. Just remember to save your room before doing this otherwise all your previous work will be deleted (again, SMILE doesn't care). _______________________ [[ Tools > Scroll Editor ]] And now the room should be zoomed out. If you wanna change a scroll area, just click it. That's right, click it. Click it good! Cheeeeeesssssyyyyy... ANYWAY, once you click, it'll cycle through it's usual cycle: Blue > Green > Red > (repeat) Simple concept yes? Like I said, we won't really get into red scroll boxes now but something that can be done with them is using them to block off areas that will contain no tiles what so ever. Hey look, another space saver. =D The final thing to note in this section is how SMILE counts screens. The top left corner screen has the value of 00. Go over one and you have 01 on the x-coordinate. Down one you also get 01 on the y-coordinate. It's a smiple graph and to quickly show more, see below. X Y[00][01][02] [01] [02] Work's just like quadrant 2 on a graph (yea, sorry. I forgot to mention the VERY minimal Algebra skills you'll need for this). So with something a little more simple under our belts, we'll move onto something just as easy, yet more complicated at the same time. Now's time to answer my favorite SMILE n00b question, "How do I add items to a room?" =============================================================================== 5. Items and Enemies ---------------------------------------------------------- "How do I add items/enemies to a room?" ~Typical Newbie Answer: Short answer, you don't. Long answer... well read below! =D Without knowing any ASM (which is all done through a hex editor), you can't directly add items and enemies. However, if you want, you can skip down to section 14. But read on so you know what to expect from editing what's in the room currently. So, if you can't add items (whos proper names are PLMs) and enemies, what can you do? Well, you can subtract them. No worries though! If you need them back, you can add them right on back. So how does one go about accessing this magical add/subtract button? ________________________________ [[ Edit > Special > Enemy/PLM +/- ]] If you add anymore than the number you see when you open a fresh room, you'll crash it. Open the add/subtract 'button' in the landing site, room 791F8, the first room of SMILE. It says there are currently 3 enemies in the room and 6 PLMs. Without pointers, you won't be going past that limit. But you can, however, change the objects within the room. First thing's first though: don't change the ship. That's a rather... important enemy and shouldn't be messed with unless you know what you're doing. Let's go all the the bottom right corner of the room. Seen the green door cap? That's a PLM, right click it and hit 'Type.' It'll bring up a window that has a small text box below and a srcolling list to the left. Also in the top corner are two drop downs. Use those in conjuncting with what the text box says. If you scroll through the list you'll notice all the upgrades, doors caps, and some other misc. stuff. If you want to figure out how to set and item up, you can usually read the text in the below box that goes with it. There's just two things I want to explain: High and Low. These are really important for upgrades and door caps. High tells if it returns after you leave the room it's in. Low is the index. The index is really the more interesting one. Say two items (doesn't matter if it's two missile packs or an upgrade and Power Bombs) have the same low. What will happen if you grab one but not the other? It'll disappear! So, from the example, is you grab an upgrade, oh say the Speed Booster, but not the Power Bombs, you'll get the booster and the bombs will seem like they never exisited. Bend this little trick in your own ways how you like. ;) Accessing the enemy editing screen is just as easy. Rigth click, 'Species.' There's still the text box and the scroll list but... WHAT IS THAT?!?!? Don't flip out, it's still simple. =) Reading the text file with help you understand the Special, Speed, etc. that's under the list. As for the Enemy DNA box that's located next to the "OK" and "CANCEL" buttons, that's a tad more complicated. Still a piece of cake though. Really, it's self explainitory. So, up until now, you haven't met any hex numbers. Well, here's your first taste of this sweet cake. The only values in hex that the SMILE newbie will edit the most are "HP" and "Damage." The to below can be messed with as well, but unless you know what to do, it'll distort your enemy. -HP: How much health the enemy posseses. -Damage: Damage done when Samus get's hit. -Width&Height: What do you think? Then if you notice the little scroll bar under it. Go ahead and hit the over arrow once. Anything that says "Edit" with a little button is good to mess with. Anything else I wouldn't touch unless, again, you know what you're doing. -Palette Pointer: Wait, pointer? Don't worry, this one's safe. Click on it and use the sliders to start editing your colors. -Vulnerable Pointer: Safe also. Click and to can tell the game what does and doesn't damage the selected enemy. -Item Drop: Controls how much and what items can/will drop when the enemy dies. If we hit the over arrow again... We get more stuff! This time though, you'll mostly only want to edit things with a "!" by them. -Touch AI: What happens if Samus touches this enemy? -Shot AI: If Samus shoots it...? -Grapple AI: Or what if you Grapple it? Over again... Notice how at the top it now says, "Enemy DNA[4][Nnknowns]." Yup, don't mess, unless... I'm done repeating stuff. <_< Oh ho! But you can't just pick an enemy and say, "Ok, now it's in the room!" There's one last step before that happens. When you have the selected enemy from the left hand side scroll list, double click it in there and the same numbers will appear in the small box intitled "Enemies allowed in this room:" To remove enemies, double click them there. Like I said, PLMs and enemies aren't too hard once you know how to work with 'em. By now you've probably got your room all set and ready to go. "But wait! There's more!" =============================================================================== 6. Effects (FX) --------------------------------------------------------------- Let's add some more atmosphere to your new room! ____________ [[ Edit > FX1 ]] Here's another window. Right by the button that says, "Layer 3 Type (Editor)" (please note only certain layer 3's can be edited), there's a drop down list with so many plesant options. Here's a list: -None: Nothing. -Lava: Adds lava to the room. -Acid/Soda: Adds acid/soda to the room. -Water: Adds water to the room. -Spore: They're leaves falling but this works great for a snow effect also. -Rain: Rain falling. -Fog: Clouds of fog scrolling across the screen. -Sky Scrolling: Honestly, I dont' know... -(UNUSED): And I don't think anyone else knows either. -Fireflee FX: Makes the room darker everytime one of those light bugs is killed. -4 Statues: Used only in the statue room (Mode 7?). -Ceres Elevator: Mode 7, don't mess with. -Ceres Ridley: Mode 7, don't mess with. -Haze: Blue hazy effect at the bottom of the screen. Then below the dropdwon list are four surface options. These are used when you add liquids to the room (water, acid, soda, lava). Yet another list. -Surface Start: Where the top of the liquid lies. -Surface New: Where the top of the liquid where end up. -Surface Speed: How fast the liquid will move. -Surface Delay: How long until the liquid moves. Now instead of messing with those, you could, in the Level Screen, hold down the control key and a big red box appears. That is where all the liquid in the room where be. It's still a good idea to know how to work the surface options to get a rising/lowering liquid effect. Off to the side, the right exactly, you'll see a box labeled "Palette Blend." These change the tint of color between the air and the FX1. You'll have to fiddle with these to find what colors you're looking for. Under all those options are options for Animate Tiles, Pallet FX, C, and A/B each reached respectivly using the scroll bar at the bottom of the window. 'Animate Tile' does what you migth expect it to do, make the tiles start animation loops. 'Pallet FX' give more effects for layer 3 (which if you don't know by now are whatever FX you're adding to the room). 'C' (I don't know why it's named that) adds more effects. Finally, 'A/B' (again, don't ask me why) are there to further everything. So basically, everything past 'Animate Tile' just changes the different effects that are added to a room. Pretty simple. Just mess around with them for a little. Now's time for the section's lesson! We going to go back to the surface options. In our room (791F8) we'll add some water. So select Water as your layer 3. First let's start with Surface Start. This is where the top of the water will originally start or stay depending on what we do. There a likely four F's in that box right now (FFFF). The first two are what screen FROM THE TOP the water will start on. The second counts in pixels from the top. Each of these two parts are called "byte." Let's change the first byte: [03FF] That makes the water line at the top of the bottom row of scroll boxes. Go ahead and open the ROM on your emulator or hold Ctrl in the Level Screen and you should see what that did. If you made the 03 a 00, it would be at the very top of the room. A 01, one screen down and so on an so forth. Now change the second byte likt this: [0305] Hold Ctrl and... oh no!! It's not at the bottom row anymore! Actually, if you look carefully, it's just a smidge under the second to bottom row. This happens because the second byte reads differently. Not to hard to fix, just add 1 to the first byte. [0405] There, fixed. But how about we make the water at ship level? See if you can do that yourself then continue reading this document to see what you should have come up with. =) And now your back. You should have gotten any where between these two values: [0451] Top of ship [0498] Bottom of ship Now that the big one is out of the way, the rest of the surface options should be easy cheese. Surface New will tell where the surface will end up after moving. We'll use our last value (whatever you got for the ship level liquid) as the starting surface and as the new surface we'll put: [03FF] Now setting the surface speed is a little different. Put this in: [FFFF] And give Surface Delay a vlaue to. This tells the game how long until the liquid rises. For me, I gave it: [0F] And if you test it in the testroom or on your enmulator, you'll notice the water hardly rises. If we lower that value, the water will rise faster. Let's make it this now. [FF80] Notice it moved up faster. Liquid editing is a little tough at first, I'd say, but once you start, it's pretty simple. So with another long section crammed in your head, you may be feeling much more confindent creating your very own hack. But don't stop here! I have so much more to share. Though, if need be, go take a break. I know these parts are long and drawn out. =============================================================================== 7. Room Properties ------------------------------------------------------------ Still here? I told you to go take a break, jeeze. Well, it won't matter because this next section will practically be a break it's so easy! Room Properties are what defines where a room's dimensions are and where it's located. Before you go off changing stuff though, make sure to gather all the doors in your room and select them all (so move them all next to each other and select them at once so they're on the ClipBoard). Why? Because messing with room properties will destroy your doors. Not good at this point of the guide. ________________________ [[ Edit > Room Properties ]] There are only three things you should mess with in this window. The drop down list that has the different names of places and the Width and Height boxes. If you select a different area and hit ok, the room will be moved to that place. So, I could take a Maridia room and move it to Norfair if I wanted to. Width and Height do what they always do: change the width and height, but of the room this time around. Because doing this scatters everything in the room, this is why I told you to save your doors on the ClipBoard. After the room adjustments, place them back in with a left click. Sweet and short. That's all. Just becareful of your doors. And now, we move on to diffrent ingame mechanics. =============================================================================== 8. Changing Basic Game Mechanics ---------------------------------------------- The title of this section explains all. ________________________________ [[ Edit > Special > Game Behavior ]] So the first screen in the new window we see a few options. A quick list will explain these. -Hide Intro: If checked, hides all the talking before Ceres station and instead starts you directly on Zebes. -Hide Title Screen Demos: Take a guess. -Energy: How much energy you start with when you begin a new game. It's hex, so remember 63 = 99 energy. -Super Missile: How many Super Missiles you'll start with. Again, hex. -Power Bombs: Start with Powers? Hex. -Ceres Timer: This is actually more accurate to decimal. First byte is minutes and the second byte is seconds. -Zebes Timer: Works like above. -Fake Ridley Hits: How many hits it takes to get Ceres Ridley to fly away. 64 = 100. Now if you use the scroll bar to move over one screen you get teh General 1 section. More listing. -Disabled Start Button: Disables start. Just keep as Ceres though. -Blue Door Power Bombing: Tells whether Powers open blue doors or not. -Gravity Air: Can't say much here. Jus fool around with it. -Gravity Water: Can't say much here. Jus fool around with it. -Gravity Lava: Can't say much here. Jus fool around with it. -Max Bombs: The max number of Morph Ball Bombs you can lay. Max is 5, min is 1. -Bomb Timer: How long until the bombs explode. Again, just fiddle aound. The smaller the faster. -Max Beams: How many beams can be displayed on screen. Max 5, min 1. -Max Missiles: How many missiles can be displayed on screen. Max 5, min 1. Move over another screen. This screen is for editing pickups. The box on the left tells how much to give and the right box tells what sound to make. Next screen is the Projectile Editor. Everything here is explained right in your face, so I'm not going to notehr explaining here. Next screen is Non-Beam Damages. Also explains self. And the last screen over is Special Palette Blends. AKA Power Bomb explosion palette. Easy and simple to use. Lucky for me (and probably you as well), this section to was easy and all self explained. The next section will short also, so be happy! ^_^ =============================================================================== 9. Background (AKA Layer 2) Editing ------------------------------------------- I hope the last few sections haven't been boring. I was till 3am typing those (FTW). But aside, if you've been making your own room with the tiles given, you used a lot of layer 1 stuff. To top that you've also got to know effects or layer 3. So where's layer 2? It doesn't exist. ... No, I'm kidding. Layer 2 is the background to rooms. First, to fully view the background of a room hit F1 or do this: ________________ [[ View > Layer 1 ]] The way layers work are like below from left (topmost) to right (bottommost): Layer 3 > Layer 1 > Layer 2 So now that you can seeyour background, you can edit it! In certain rooms at least. If a room has a pure black background don't edit it (and it's likely SMILE won't let you edit it). For those, you'll end up having to use pointers. But if there is a background, even if it has black areas around/in it, you're good to edit it. Editing the background works the same way as editing layer 1. Using the Tile and Level Screens to build a background. Though you won't always be able to directly edit layer 2. Sometimes this is nessicary: _________________________________________________ [[ Tools > Background Editor > BG/Layer2 Scrolling ]] Here in the dropdown box, you get two options: Layer 2 Background (custom) which grants you free editing to the background or Ue BG_Data Pointer which as you see is pointer related. I think you know what to choose. But if you still can't edit through the first option, you will need pointers. Another note of this is any rooms containing the scrolling sky cannot be edited without a special pointer. Don't fret, I'll list it in the pointers section. _____________________________________ [[ Tools > Background Editor > EDIT BG ]] Doing this lets you edit layer 2 even more but is used more for when you're lokking to edit what the pointer contains. Though warning: if it looks like a mess, let it be! That's just special code to tell how the background is to run. So it goes to show that not all pointers can be editing with this. By now, you probably have a nive room set up. One with custom design, nice effects that make it feel very atmospheric, and now a fresh background. What are you forgeting? =============================================================================== 10. Map Editing --------------------------------------------------------------- You're forgetting the map! Editing this alters the pause screen map and the minimap. Here's what to do: ____________________ [[ Tools > Map Editor ]] And here we are. This works exactly the same as the level editor, the screen we just came from. At the bottom you have your Tile Screen, top you have what's now going to be called the Map Screen. Left of the Tile Screen there is a palette changer. Right of the Tile Screen are otehr misc. things like save, horizontal/vertical flip, and some check boxes. In the Map Screen, there should be a white box. That highlights the size and location of the room you came from, or the room currently opened. You can move that around by holding M and moving the mouse around. Click and drag the ship icon onto the map to show where the ship with be displayed. The checkboxes have their uses as well. Check "Reveal Hidden Tiles" to see the grid of the Map Editor. Unchecking "Mapping station reveals tile" will place a small red dot in the center of the tile and make the tile NOT appear when you load a map from teh map station in game. Uhh, yea. The Map Editor is pretty simple. Just don't loose track of the room you were in or it could be a pain trying to find it. You can also enter other rooms by pressing E over them and you'll load straight to them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, you've learned quite a lot if you were a newbie before! Now you have all the basic skills to start making your very own hack! YAY! =D This is the end of the basics. If you continue, it's no harder than what you've been learning and it's also what will make a or break making your hack one of the better ones out there. ******************************************************************************* ******************************************************************************* =============================================================================== 11. The Graphics Editor and Beauty Salon -------------------------------------- You're here 'cause you're hungry for more aren't ya? Well now we'll start changing colors and the way things look. _________________________ [[ Tools > Graphics Editor ]] You've seen some of these things before. Palette editor in the top left and Tile Screen like equivalent in the bottom left. What's center top is the first on the list to explain. Pick a tile from the Tile Screen. It then gets displayed in the center where it's broken into four parts. The small yellow boxes on the corners of this are to show what palette (to the left) is being used on that quater. You can click on it and change it to your heart's content. The rectangles along its side are used to flip the quarter horizontally or vertically. But using the screen on the right side of the window, you can change what's foudn in the quarters. All you need to do is find what you want the desired quarter to be replaced with, drag and drop, then choose a palette. Simple? =) That's all that. But you may be wondering, "How do others get those cool looking graphics in their hacks?" Well they use a program called Tile Layer Pro (TLP). That's not covered in this guide (I know, unfortunatly). That's what all the exporting stuff is for under your options in the Graphics Editor at the top (GFX, Palette, Tile Table, Pointers) are for. =============================================================================== 12. In-game Text Editing ------------------------------------------------------ I don't even feel like typing this section it's so easy to do yourself. _____________________ [[ Tools > Text Editor ]] All the green text is what you can edit. The drop down list includes different areas of text you can edit. If you don't know how to work this, then it's a wonder how you got this far (even with this guide). =============================================================================== 13. Door Editing -------------------------------------------------------------- "Door editing... door... DOOR." Don't freak out, this isn't to hard and only has a few guide lines that need to be followed. Doors are rather unique compaired to other tiles. They have two parts: the cap and the door. The door part is also given it's own BTS value to specify what number door in the room it is. Let's first do this: Find a door in your room and over the tiles with white boxes, hit D on your keryboard. You've now opened up the door editor. It's not hard to use this. The best part is, you don't even need to know what all of it does! I mean, yea, it's still useful, but you don't need to know it because of other factors. =D First let's look at the door I opened: [92FD][00][05][4E][06][04][00][8000][0000] The first number is the last four digits of the room the door will take you to. The second is the BitFlag (don't need), third is direction (don't need), fourth and fifth are Xi and Yi (don't need). Sixth and seventh are X and Y. These tell what screen the door will place Samus after entering. Distance from Door is the eigth value and is unknown as to what it does ("Then why does it hav a name?" IDK, don't as me). The last one is Sroll Pointer which is used when a door loads in a red scroll area. The only three values you need to know are the Room ID (first) and the X and Y. Under all the numbers are a box with options. Click the options to direct which way the door leads the screen and click the picture to tell whether a door cap will appear after exiting of not. And to the right in the yellow box you'll see things that say "Door $00" and similar numbers. That shows how many doors are in the room. The one that's highlighted is the current door your viewing. All that was kinda easy right? Now the BTS. A door either has nothing or it has a number over it. Either way, it's been assigned a door. If it has nothing, it's BTS is 00. Using the metroid up by the ClipBoard, we can select any BTS and apply it to a door. But note, if you give a door a BTS past what's in the door editor, the room will cese to work. Example: There a three doors in a room ($00, $01, $02) and you give a door a BTS of 03. There's only three doors in the room and you've just told the game to use door number four's properties, which doesn't exist in that room. Let's s do a little switcher-roo change here. In the landing site, there are two doors on the left side of the room. The top one has BTS of 02 and the bottom 00 (nothing). Use the little metroid and give EACH AND EVERY TILE OF THE DOOR (NOT THE CAP) what the other door had. So no the top should have 00 and the bottom 02. If you enter both of these in game, you'll notice they've tkaen the property of each other! But now, let's move our door and have it point else where. Copy the door you want to move and place it, but not anywhere. It has to be either on the edge of the screen or on the edge of a red scroll box and have 6 tiles below it and above it in the scroll box (in otherwords, the middle of the scroll box). Save you room. Now go find a room you wish to be led to through your moved door. Find a door in that room and check where it lies in the room (remember how to counts screens in SMILE!). Head back to your other room and open the door editor. In the first box, put in the room you want to go to, then in the X and Y boxes, put repectivly where the door will spit you out. If done correctly, you've repointed doors! But what about getting back...? Do the same thing to get back. Edit it and everything. If you're having problems, make sure you're using the right door (and it's right BTS values), make sure you counted the area the door's at properly, make ABSOLUTE sure that it's against a non scrolling area (red scroll box or edge of screen), and make sure it's in the center of the scroll box. Still having problems? Check out Grime's guide on room expansion (part 2 I believe). That may clear up any problems you have. =============================================================================== 14. Pointers ------------------------------------------------------------------ I've probably made these seem like hell haven't I? Well, they aren't too bad. It's just the fact that they affect so much of the game and if making a hack and you lose an important pointer, you're pretty screwed. _________________ [[ Edit > Pointers ]] -FX1: Current layer 3 the room is using. -Enemy Pop/Allowed: How many enemies are in the room. -Enemy Set: Basically, the enemies allowed list from the enemy editor. -Scroll: I assume it's for scrolling right? -Unknown1/RoomVar: ... -FX2: One of the things I don't know. =\ -PLM: What, where, and how many PLMs are in the room. -BG_Data: Background/Layer 2 pointer. -Layer 1_2: I've only used it for one thing: kill the scrolling sky background. -Door Out: Amount of doors and their properties. Let me get this out of the way: I said it was possible to rid of the scrolling sky background like at the landing site. If you want to custom your own, put these in place of the other pointers: FX2: 0000 Layer1_2: 91D3 Killed. All pointers truley are is data. Each room has em. If you want something from another room, like more PLMs or less enemies, instead of doing ASM work to get them, switch two room's pointers and you'll have what one room had. Basically, you're causing two rooms to switch certain properties. It's safe and easy, just make sure you document your pointers if you're affraid you'll lose them (I know I do just incase, you never know). =============================================================================== 15. Contacts 'n Crap ---------------------------------------------------------- You're done. It's over. I've just taught you how to use SMILE, but only so far. There's other programs that work in conjunction with SMILE, but this, this was for SMILE. Well, hope you enjoied and learned a lot. ^_^ Get to making yourself and everyone a good hack! ******************************************************************************* ******************************************************************************* This is only to be downloaded and used (for free!) by http://www.metroidconstruction.com/ Contact me for questions, comments, or mistakes person701@gmail.com #metconst (IRC Channel on irc.esper.net - not my channel) Send glitches and problem about SMILE to Jathys jathys@hotmail.com (E-mail) http://jathys.zophar.net/index.html (Site) #jzd (IRC Channel on irc.esper.net) Version 1.0 - Finished 6/20/09 (I still have a few things to add)