Tales: Tails Adventures Level Editor Suite

Release 7: http://www.mediafire.com/download/gqbn1132vakum9x/libtales-bin-r7-win32.zip

Minor update that adds a couple of options to the Level Properties dialog: one to import the layout from another level, and another to delete all objects from the current level. I also fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when there were no objects in a level.

 

Release 8 out: Github Mediafire

New version which adds some features I used while slapping together an entry for SMS Power's hacking competition.

Code (Text):

1.  
2. * Added option to the enhancements editor to make a new game start directly from
3. a level instead of the world map.
4. * Added option to the enhancements editor to change the starting inventory
5. items.
6. * Added option to manually set the map and spawn numbers in the Warp Edit dialog
7. instead of restricting it to nominally valid values.
8. * Added ability to make warps point to spawn 0 of the world map (Tails' House).
9. * Fixed bug that caused exported ROMs to fail/freeze when loading graphics from
10. bank 0x20 or higher.
11. * Fixed camera boundaries display -- previously, it was one tile too far to the
12. left.
13. * Sorted the object list in the Object Properties dialog alphabetically instead
14. of by internal ID number.
15. * Changed names of some objects and graphics for consistency and accuracy.
16.  

 

The short answer: not anytime soon.

The long answer: As far as I've looked into it, all the Aspect-developed games run on basically the same engine, so the code I've written so far is probably a good starting point for a more comprehensive editor. That said, I didn't program this with multi-game support in mind (I'd never made a program on this scale before, so I was more concerned with keeping the project within a scope I could handle), and it would still take a lot of work to turn it into something more general. And the truth is I'm not as interested in the "real" SMS/GG Sonic games, so I'm not really in any rush to try it. If I do, I'll probably make a new utility starting from the same codebase, since there's a lot of sloppy stuff that needs rewriting (especially the GUI).

 

A paint bucket for the level editor makes sense and shouldn't be hard, so I'll see about throwing that in. I'm not really planning on expanding the graphics editing stuff since importing renders most of it unnecessary. For any substantial project, it really makes more sense to edit the images externally and use the "import all" function.

I use GIMP for editing, although it's very finicky about transparency in indexed PNGs, so don't enable transparency if you want to use it. Basically, you should export the graphics you want to edit using Tales, change whatever you need, and import them again. If you copy and paste data into an indexed image, GIMP will try its best to convert the colors to the image's colormap, which is probably your best bet for copying in external sprites. Obviously you might need to play with the palettes if they don't have the colors you need in them.

 

I don't think it would be too complex to implement, but I'd have to take the time to find the relevant portions of each enemy's object code and write suitable patches. I'll look into it, but don't expect anything right away.

 

What specifically is the problem? Are the colors wrong after importing, or is nothing happening period? Are you importing sprite mappings or raw graphics? Is the modified image the same size as the original? Any details will help.

Thanks. Obviously the 8-bit games are very simple compared to the 16-bit ones, so it's easier to put together a large-scale program for them. I way overdid the featureset relative to how much anyone actually cares about the game (myself included?), but it was a good way to learn how to work with SMS/GG games and write usable utilities.

I kind of thought there was already a tool for some of the games, but I'd never looked into it. Actually, taking a glance at what that program does, it looks like the other games might be doing something a bit more complicated after all. Oh well. At any rate, thank you -- this has been fun to work on. Fun to have the bulk of the features in the can, anyway.

 

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't exactly meticulous about error messages for that part of the program. I've imported plenty of GIMP-edited graphics into the game myself, so it certainly should work. It might be easiest if you just sent me a graphic you're having trouble with (original and exported versions) and told me what you're trying to replace so I can have a look myself.

As for the regular bomb, it's the first item in the initial state list for the item pickup object. Since you're not supposed to be able to pick it up, it doesn't have its own pickup label and the game calls it a Chaos Emerald, but otherwise it works fine.