I just completed mapping World 1: Yoshi's Island from Super Mario World on the SNES using Bizhawk. You can view the maps and sprites I captured from the game at:
http://www.snesmaps.com/maps/SuperMarioWorld/SuperMarioWorld.html
Overall the mapping experience was a very pleasant one. Much easier then using zSNES with vSNES and having to constantly load save states into a separate program to capture each screen shot and sprite frame.
There are three issues that when resolved will make the mapping experience go even quicker and easier.
1. I was unable to capture the animated sprite for the Iggy Koopa from the castle. That level uses a black background when all the BG layers are turned off, and the User Backdrop color does not register for the sprites in the graphics debugger. Once that feature is added I will go back and capture the sprites I am not able to capture now.
2. This one has to do with the "Hotkeys" under the SNES tab for turn on and off Layers. 90% of the time I want to turn on/off All of the BG layers or All of the sprite layers at the same time. So I just set them to the same hot key. However sometimes I need to just turn off a certain BG layer so then I must go in and make separate Hotkeys. Then when I'm done go back and make them the same Hotkey again. Also when I'm turning on and off certain BG layers, I need to futz around trying to remember what layers are on or off to get it so all the layers are on again. So what would really help is adding to that Hotkeys window under the SNES tab an option to have a separate Hotkey that would turn on/off All BG layers at the same time, and one that would turn on/off all Object layers at the same time. Then add one more Hotkey that can be used to turn On all layers back to normal. That way when I'm done getting what I need I don't need to sit there turning on and off layers trying to get them all back on.
3. This is more a bug report then a requested feature. I notice that the program will crash a lot if the emulator is paused when I bring up the Graphics Debugger. I have gotten in the habit of making sure the emulator is not paused when I open up the Graphics Debugger. The error message that comes up is:
"Unhandled exception has occurred in a component in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
When I click details I get this:
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LuaInterface
Assembly Version: 2.0.4.24551
Win32 Version: 2.0.4.24551
CodeBase: file:///C:/VideoGames/EMU/BizHawk/Builds/r4263/dll/LuaInterface.dll
----------------------------------------
lua51
Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0
Win32 Version:
CodeBase: file:///C:/VideoGames/EMU/BizHawk/Builds/r4263/dll/lua51.dll
----------------------------------------
EMU7800
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/VideoGames/EMU/BizHawk/Builds/r4263/dll/EMU7800.dll
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************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.
For example:
<configuration>
<system>
</configuration>
When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.
Thanks for taking the time to read all of my requests. Hopefully it won't take too much work to add the requested features. Please let me know when some or all of these features have been added and send me a link to the new build that has them so I can begin using them once they are ready.
The above image shows the Bizhawk window in Magenta and the full graphics that are being missed. 1 pixel at the top and 15 pixels at the bottom.