Posts for snesmaster

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Posted: 11/27/2012 3:29 PM
(Edited: 11/27/2012 3:33 PM)
Post subject: NES Name Table Viewer
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
I decided to test this out on Castlvania 3 since it does not work on FCEUX. I was hoping it might work in this emulator. However there are two modes being displayed at once. One is the bar with your health and other info and the other is the game screen. The Name Table Viewer displays the bar with the health and info just fine, but the game screen is all garbled. Is there a way to add an option change the mode so it displays the game screen correctly? As a note Super Mario Bros. 3 does a similar thing with the Bar with all the info and the game screen, however in that case the game screen is displayed correctly and the bar is all messed up.
Posted: 11/27/2012 3:16 PM
Post subject: RAM Search
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
I was testing out the RAM Search feature on the NES game Super Mario Bros. 3. It is either broken, or I am doing something wrong. I start on level 1-1 with zero coins. I check "Specific Value" and "Equal To" then I enter "0" because I have zero coins. Then I click "Search" and it now only shows the values with "0". Next I collect one coin. Then I enter "1" in the "Specific Value" field and hit Search again. After doing this again for collecting a few more coins all the values disappear and it is not finding it. When I do the same thing in FCEUX it works fine. Is there something I'm doing wrong or some setting I need to adjust or is it a problem with the RAM Search feature? Thanks for any help with this.
Posted: 11/25/2012 9:33 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
1. If it does not work out I would say forgo the mouse over and just have Ctrl+C copy the BG window. In the rare case where I would need the Palette Window I could just use Alt+Print Screen to get it. 2. I look forward to seeing the new sprite mode once it is ready. Overall things are looking very good on this. I think the only two upgrades that are needed before I can start using this as my primary SNES Mapping Tool are: The ability to select the (snes9x / zsnes) color palette that would be displayed in the emulator and Graphics Debugger, and once the Sprite section is complete. Once it reaches that point I will start using it a lot, and I'm sure I will come up with a lot more suggestions or little things I run into while using it full time. Also at that point I will be using it to find codes for SNES games like stopping certain BG animation or walk through walls to make mapping the game easier. At that time I'm sure I will have some suggestions for the cheat code finder. The one for FCEUX works great for finding codes for NES games. However the zSNES one sucks real bad for finding codes on the SNES. I took a quick look and it looks like the one in BizHawk is much better then zSNES. Once I start using it I will provide some feedback on it.
Posted: 11/24/2012 5:48 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Being able to pick the backdrop color in the Graphics Debugger window is a big help. Thanks for taking the time to add that feature. Also the Ctrl+C will make life easier as well. Requests: 1. I have a request for a modification on the Ctrl + C feature. It seems there are two areas that can be copied. The color palate and the BG window. 99% of the time I will be copying from the BG window. It would save time if instead of having to have the mouse over the BG window to copy it, if the default was to copy the BG window and have it only copy the Palette window when the mouse is over that window. 2. I see you added the Sprites to the Graphics Debugger. Can they be displayed in their locations from the game. So when I copy the BG window with BG graphics and paste them in a Photoshop file and then copy the Sprites from that same window they will line up where they should be on the background. vSNES currently does this so let me know if it would be helpful for me to provide some screen shots as an example of what I'm requesting.
Posted: 11/24/2012 2:45 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
I don't think I have the programs required to compile the .cs files. What program is needed and is it free to download?
Posted: 11/18/2012 9:47 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Good to know it's not something I'm doing wrong :) Just give me a heads up once the color palette features are implemented so I can test it out.
Posted: 11/18/2012 2:21 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
If that is the case then the new color code is not working. It is exactly the same colors as the old version that was officially released. The colors still don't match zSNES / snes9x and they have not been changed at all from the previous version. I am using Interim Build SVN r3836 and comparing it to SVN r3523 Version 1.2.0 Released October 20, 2012. When comparing the colors they are exactly the same with no change at all.
Posted: 11/18/2012 1:25 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Looking through that it looks like the color stuff has been implemented. I just have no idea where to switch to the different color modes. Any help in this would be greatly appreciated. public enum ColorType 83 + { 84 + Bizhawk, 85 + Natt, 86 + Snes9x 87 + };
Posted: 11/18/2012 12:41 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Is there a place to view what new features are in the interim builds? I thought there was a new color palette in this version, but it appears to be identical to the last official build. In a previous message: "this targets the new bizhawk snes palette, which natt changed a couple of days ago" However I don't see a new color palette. Is there something I need to do to activate it, or is it just not in the interim build?
Posted: 11/18/2012 3:37 AM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
PM sent
Posted: 11/18/2012 3:00 AM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
I had a chance to test it out. The first file I tried gave me an error: System.OutOfMemoryException: Insufficient memory to continue the execution of the program. at PaintDotNet.Data.Photoshop.... And it goes on, let me know if you need the entire error. I have 16 gigs of RAM. That was with the map of the first level for DKC. It is a 17,220 KB file size and has lots and lots of layers in it. Next I tried a smaller file and that worked just fine. However it made the folders I keep layers in into layers themselves with nothing in them. Then I tried it just on one of the background images from the map edit program in a .psd file and that worked fine. I compared the new color palette with the one from BizHawk by taking a screen shot, and it was close but did not match, however that is to be expected since you said it was now using a new color palette. So once I get the new version of BizHawk I will verify it matches completely.
Posted: 11/18/2012 12:46 AM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Thanks for taking the time to put that together. I just downloaded it and will let you know how it works as soon as I get a chance to test it out. To test it out fully I will need the newest build of BizHawk. A real life example of where this will come in handy, is for Donkey Kong Country. I'm part way through mapping the game. I'm using BG Maps from a map editor for one of the layers and capturing some of the BG layers from the emulator as well as capturing all the sprites from the emulator. So the color palette of the Map editor maps needs to match the color palette of the emulator. The map editor maps for DKC uses the same color palette as zSNES and snes9x. So I should be able to run your tool on these maps and then it should be consistent with the graphics I grab from the Graphics Debugger in BizHawk. Don't worry I will test it on copies of my files just encase something goes wrong. Let me know when I can download the most recent version of BizHawk so I can test it out.
Posted: 11/17/2012 3:09 AM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
zeromus wrote:
it would take a couple of hours of photoshop scripting, which might then take a couple of days to run
Is writing that script something you would be willing to do? If so I can send you one of my .psd files to test it with. Unfortunately I don't know enough about Photoshop scripting to do that myself. Recording Actions to make some of the repetitive steps easier is about as far as I can go.
Posted: 11/16/2012 6:47 PM
Post subject: Re: Using BizHawk to map games
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
natt wrote:
snesmaster wrote:
1. Add a feature to be able to set the color pallet so it is the same standard that both zSNES and SNES9x use to keep consistency in mapping projects.
I took a look at some color conversions in sneshawk, and compared them to a few reference images on http://www.snesmaps.com as far as I can tell, the latter is wrong. Granted, it's not a "big deal"... but why not convert all of your projects to use more correct color conversion formulas, instead of converting the emulator to use less correct color conversion formulas?
I have no idea how to convert Photoshop files to different colors using color conversion tables from the BizHawk emulator. Is that something you know how to do? There would be about 4,500 image files to convert. Many of those have multiple layers that would all need converting. How much work would it take to have an option to use the zSNES / snes9x color palette? Keep in mind it's not just zSNES / snes9x that use that same palette, most map editors for SNES games also use that same palette.
Posted: 11/15/2012 11:55 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
I would definitely recommend checking out vSNES. It is a great tool. The main problem with it is that you can't view the information live while playing the game like can be done with the one you're working on. The things I notice are missing from the Graphics Debugger are the BG Modes. When viewing "BG1", BG2" and so on there are buttons for BG Mode 0 through 7. Most of the time they are not needed, but sometimes they are needed to view a layer correctly. There are also priority switches for "priority 1" and "priority 0". The priority buttons turn on and off certain parts of the BG Layer. Sometimes this can be useful for capturing specific parts of a map. Having the sprites viewer built in the same window on a different tab makes it easy to switch between capturing the backgrounds and the sprites. Being able to hit "Ctrl + C" to copy the image currently being displayed in the Graphics Debugger to the clipboard would be useful for pasting the images into my Photoshop file for piecing together the map. Let me know once you have new builds and I will be glad to test them out and give you feedback. Thanks again for all the work you are doing on this project. I have been wanting something like this to come along for the past 3 or 4 years and it looks like it is almost here! :)
Posted: 11/15/2012 10:24 PM
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Double-clicking changes the backdrop color in the emulator window, not the Graphics Viewer window. I need to be able to change it in the Graphics Viewer window since that is where I capture the layers to make the maps.
Posted: 11/15/2012 4:24 PM
(Edited: 11/15/2012 4:36 PM)
Post subject: Using BizHawk to map games
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snesmaster
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 11/15/2012
Posts: 67
Location: Upstate, NY
Hi, I'm the owner of http://www.snesmaps.com and I also work with http://vgmaps.com to make screen shot maps of NES and SNES games. I'm starting this thread to open a dialog with the programmers working on BizHawk to talk to mappers using their emulator to map SNES games. First off I want to say I'm very impressed with the work you have done so far. This will make mapping games much easier then when I was using zSNES with vSNES. It was a big hassle having to save a state and open that file in a separate program for each and every screen shot where capturing sprites or indivual background layers were needed. I love being able to open the "Graphics Debugger" and do all that live now. Thank you very much for all the work you have put into this project. I have a few requests of features to add that will make this emulator work better as a mapping tool for SNES games. 1. Add a feature to be able to set the color pallet so it is the same standard that both zSNES and SNES9x use to keep consistency in mapping projects. 2. Be able to view sprites in the "Graphics Debugger". 3. Be able to turn the individual 16x16 sprite tiles on and off, so sprites hidden under other sprites can be reveled. 4. For the Toggle BG options under the SNES tab for the HotKeys, include an option to make a hotkey turn all the layers back on. That way if I am messing around turning different layers on and off to get the screen shot I need, I can just hit one button to get it back to normal mode showing all the BG layers. 5. When I bring up the "Graphics Debugger" in Super Mario World and try to capture the BG1 Layer it has a black background in the Graphics Debugger Screen. There is the "Use Backdrop" color option for the emulator screen, however I can't find a way to change the color of the backdrop in the Graphics Debugger Window. I need to be able to make it a color like magenta so I can remove the transparent part of it in Photoshop when mapping the individual layers of the game. I look forward to working with you guys to make this the #1 emulator to use for mapping SNES games. I hope you are able to implement some of my requested features to make mapping SNES game much easier. Let me know if you have any questions about my suggested features. Or if any of these features already exist and I'm just not seeing how to use them correctly. Thanks again for all the hard work you guys have been putting into this project! Here is the link to the ongoing discussion on vgmaps about this topic: http://www.vgmaps.com/forums/index.php?topic=1859.0
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