hi all, i am back once again from being inactive
something that was bothering me from the day i played with uzemario was creating custom levels.
at first i thought "oh it might be something like plain text" so i opened it up in notepad++ , but it isn't sadly
so anyone got an idea on how to make custom levels for that game?
schepers_cp
uzemario custom levels?
- schepers_cp
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Re: uzemario custom levels?
The data is in binary form so if you use a hex editor you can read/write it. Hex Editor Neo has a free trial, I find it the best one available actually worth registration price if you do this type of thing frequently, but there are other totally free ones that do the job well. I just skimmed through the files but it looks like it is no compression as I can see some noticeably patterns instead of pure chaos.
I can't seem to get this game to run on Uzem 1.4 otherwise I'd try to determine this myself. With the rom on the wiki or the one from UCC2013, gets past the Uzebox logo then blank screen...weird. I would open up one of the first map file in a hex editor and maybe 20 bytes in(to avoid the first few bytes that specify width, height etc) just corrupt 5-10 bytes in a row with 0xFF and save it. Then go in the game and see if it is a vertical or horizontal line that is corrupted. Then if it is some sort of line it is a simple format, and knowing that you can probably deduce more by further corruption. It seems silly to do that when the source is available, but I skimmed through that quick and didn't see the actual scroll loading.
I can't seem to get this game to run on Uzem 1.4 otherwise I'd try to determine this myself. With the rom on the wiki or the one from UCC2013, gets past the Uzebox logo then blank screen...weird. I would open up one of the first map file in a hex editor and maybe 20 bytes in(to avoid the first few bytes that specify width, height etc) just corrupt 5-10 bytes in a row with 0xFF and save it. Then go in the game and see if it is a vertical or horizontal line that is corrupted. Then if it is some sort of line it is a simple format, and knowing that you can probably deduce more by further corruption. It seems silly to do that when the source is available, but I skimmed through that quick and didn't see the actual scroll loading.
- schepers_cp
- Posts: 125
- Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:48 pm
- Location: netherlands
- Contact:
Re: uzemario custom levels?
so i downloaded a hex editor, and i see the bytes now, which is a good thing. but now i am puzzled with something else:
what's the working format?
is it like this?:
bytes 1-2: map width
bytes 3-4: map height
bytes 5-6: player start x
bytes 7-8: player start y
bytes 9-?? map data?
i did notice that 2 bytes at a time are being read. (aka 16 bits)
(got this from the load_map() void in the source code)
maybe we can make a simple map editor (in gamemaker) or something?
what's the working format?
is it like this?:
bytes 1-2: map width
bytes 3-4: map height
bytes 5-6: player start x
bytes 7-8: player start y
bytes 9-?? map data?
i did notice that 2 bytes at a time are being read. (aka 16 bits)
(got this from the load_map() void in the source code)
maybe we can make a simple map editor (in gamemaker) or something?
Re: uzemario custom levels?
It looks like Gerkl who made the game, last visited in 2013 so it is unlikely to contact him to ask how he did it. I would take a guess and say he did it either manually, or making an image of the entire level and converting the output of gconvert maps to the SD image with a custom program. Making a level editor takes a considerable amount of time and you have to weigh that against how many levels you are going to be making and how long it would take just to do it manually. Of course if it is interesting then why not, though that engine will probably be superseded when someone(finally) shows a fast/working SD scroller that doesn't rely on PetitFS blocking.
Maybe it would be easier to focus on some existing general purpose level editor like Tiled and see if you can make a script to get the output you need.
Maybe it would be easier to focus on some existing general purpose level editor like Tiled and see if you can make a script to get the output you need.
Re: uzemario custom levels?
The uzem issue is weird. I first tried the game (as got from here) with my hacked emulator, then checked out the current uzem 1.40, and both seems to run it properly. Does the SD emulation work at you properly? I mean does it find the files all right? I tried to run the game without the level files, then I get exactly what you noted: a blank screen after the logo. Just look at the emulator's report on the console: if it works right, then it should report like "SD Emulation of the following files:", and you should see the maps listed there.
Re: uzemario custom levels?
Yes the .umm files show up in the console window as being emulated and there is only like 8 files in the directory. I tried it again and didn't work of course, then I tried Alter Ego which can't open it's data file even though it's there...not sure what I built this against, but apparently my SD emulation is bad. Really weird, I will have to look into it.
Re: uzemario custom levels?
Now I also have a problem. I wanted to play with it a bit, but for me the game doesn't run on the real hardware... I mean that I put it on an SD card, plug it in the Uzebox, and it just keeps resetting, unable to list the contents. I checked, it has this problem with mario.uze itself, even if it is alone on the card (without even the levels). An empty SD card doesn't produce this behavior (the bootloader's game list remains empty). I have no programmer to bypass the bootloader.