Hacking Reggie! - NSMBWii Level Editor

[computerboy]

¨Thanks for the update Treeki.

 

[Arisotura]

So anyway, hopefully I can get the thread back on topic. Here's an update!

We've taken a temporary break for a few days; both for New Years and because we just need it. I've been working non-stop on NSMB since mid-November.

We've all been working on creating levels with the editor in order to stress test it. I was originally aiming to release on the first, but obviously that didn't happen.

However, we've found quite a few bugs in it, which we're fixing (and finishing up the features we were working on).

So how's it coming? We're not as finished as we thought we were. No release date (there won't be one until we're very close to it) but I'm just letting you know how progress is going.

Some troll came into the IRC channel earlier to complain about how Reggie was supposedly "vapourware".

For those of you who think that: keep in mind that it's not easy to reverse engineer a Wii game's level format and develop a full, usable level editor for it. Making something that works well takes time - it's been less than 2 months since we started the project.

To give you an idea about the scale of it: right now there are 6130 lines of code in my copy of Reggie. Tempus's working copy has about 800 more due to one of the features which he's been working on. (We haven't merged that feature into my copy yet.) And the C extension module which speeds up level loads is about 250 lines of code.

Sure, a barebones editor would have been easy to make and have been done far quicker. But our goal isn't to make something crappy and get it out quickly - I learned that the hard way back in 2007 when I made a basic editor for NSMB DS. Reggie! has a lot of features and shortcuts geared just towards making editing easier and more intuitive. It even has documentation describing the structure of the editor and how to use it.

I'm working on it again now, and I really want to release it as soon as possible - but I don't want to release it until it's complete. You can know that it will be pretty awesome though.

This sounds fcking awesome. There's nothing better I can say, except that I'm impatient to see Reggie! out and give it a try (once I have my NSMB Wii disc dumped).

 

[_eyCaRambA_]

Thanks for the update

Looking forward! What I hear and see raises my expectations

Oh, and late happy new year xD

 

[TobiasAmaranth]

Alright guys, I think tossing a few treats your way would be nice. You'll need to use WiiScrubber to give these a playthrough. (Replace 1-01 - 1-03 in the retail game.) Treeki mentioned that we've been working on a few levels to stress test Reggie. These are the ones I have been making.

1-01 - Originally Nintendo's 2-Coin, but with an unused underground area added in. The entrance is a little further down than in NES 1-1 so that you don't skip most of the level. Adjustments were made to make the level more enjoyable for a single-player experience instead of just Coin Battle.

1-02 - Underground was created fully from scratch, and then Treeki added in the above-ground using the original 1-02 as a base. The level is based on NES 1-2. See if you can find all of the secrets.

1-03 - Using 1-05 as a base, I recreated NES 1-3 using a mix of mushrooms and cliffs. In addition to the three star coins, there's a secret exit here.

Treeki also did a level that showcases some clever ways to make stages reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. I'll let him post that one, though.

Here's some technical talk about my levels.

--Event Controllers Used--
1-01 - 38 - Location Based (May require enemies to be beaten), 43 - Orange ? Switch in a Brick Block.
1-02 - 38 - Location Based (May require enemies to be beaten), 32 - Star Coin (Collection of), 37 - Chainer (If X, then do Y), 156 - Red Coin Ring
1-03 - 33 - Location Based (May require standing on something to activate), Zone Enter (When you enter the zone, this goes off), 37 - Chainer ("If X, then do Y"), 34 - Conditional (If X AND Y, do Z), 39 - Multi-Chainer (If X, then do Y THROUGH Z)

--Events Used--
1-01 - 191 - Tile God (Create), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning
1-02 - 191 - Tile God (Create, Destroy), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning, 144 - Red Coin
1-03 - 191 - Tile God (Create, Destroy), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning

 

[longtom1]

Alright guys, I think tossing a few treats your way would be nice. You'll need to use WiiScrubber to give these a playthrough. (Replace 1-01 - 1-03 in the retail game.) Treeki mentioned that we've been working on a few levels to stress test Reggie. These are the ones I have been making.

1-01 - Originally Nintendo's 2-Coin, but with an unused underground area added in. The entrance is a little further down than in NES 1-1 so that you don't skip most of the level. Adjustments were made to make the level more enjoyable for a single-player experience instead of just Coin Battle.

1-02 - Underground was created fully from scratch, and then Treeki added in the above-ground using the original 1-02 as a base. The level is based on NES 1-2. See if you can find all of the secrets.

1-03 - Using 1-05 as a base, I recreated NES 1-3 using a mix of mushrooms and cliffs. In addition to the three star coins, there's a secret exit here.

Treeki also did a level that showcases some clever ways to make stages reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. I'll let him post that one, though.

Here's some technical talk about my levels.

--Event Controllers Used--
1-01 - 38 - Location Based (May require enemies to be beaten), 43 - Orange ? Switch in a Brick Block.
1-02 - 38 - Location Based (May require enemies to be beaten), 32 - Star Coin (Collection of), 37 - Chainer (If X, then do Y), 156 - Red Coin Ring
1-03 - 33 - Location Based (May require standing on something to activate), Zone Enter (When you enter the zone, this goes off), 37 - Chainer ("If X, then do Y"), 34 - Conditional (If X AND Y, do Z), 39 - Multi-Chainer (If X, then do Y THROUGH Z)

--Events Used--
1-01 - 191 - Tile God (Create), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning
1-02 - 191 - Tile God (Create, Destroy), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning, 144 - Red Coin
1-03 - 191 - Tile God (Create, Destroy), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning

You'll probably have to remove the link's to the files as I think they are not allowed as they'll contain Nintendo code

 

[pepxl]

nice to what this puppy made off

 

[WiiFan2012]

Thanks for the update! I'm excited about this!

But, I've got LittleBigPlanet to hold me off until release. LBP's level creator stunned me, in terms of being able to do almost anything! You can even make invisible platforms with Dark Matter. You know, its funny, we HAVE dark matter in our universe.


Anyway, back on topic!

 

[Yoshi Party]

thx for this->now we need an arc loader^^

 

[GolfDude]

the game wont load in a usb loader, but works in dolphin with the hacked level.. odd

 

[TobiasAmaranth]

You'll probably have to remove the link's to the files as I think they are not allowed as they'll contain Nintendo code

Judging from a discussion earlier in this topic, there's nothing specifically wrong with posting these files, legally.

QUOTE(GolfDude @ Jan 2 2010, 04:29 PM) the game wont load in a usb loader, but works in dolphin with the hacked level.. odd

If you use Wii-Scrubber, [DOESN'T WORK, SEE BELOW] make sure you have a clean ISO, and I recommend using rev 14 with Neogamma 7 or 8. Also, if you are crashing trying to load the world map (single player) then try using multiplayer and track down which stage is crashing. We're trying to figure out what breaks the game (It's something to do with WiiScrubber, our alternate method should be able to get around this issue)

Edit: Okay so, even my copy doesn't work for some reason. I suggest loading in a stage at a time, replacing 1-02. There's something with Wii Scrubber that totally fubars it.

 

[Det1re]

Seems like there is no problem when you replace the files using [oldschool] Trucha Signer. Now testing the levels. =)

 

[TobiasAmaranth]

Might have to give that one a try myself and see if I can replace more than 2 levels at a time with it. >.>

 

[Det1re]

Pretty hard levels, TobiasAmaranth.
Especially when you're thinking that most will be like back in SMB1 times. 01-01 was the best in my opinion. Thanks for sharing.


Edit: Btw, patched ISO worked with WiiFlow, NeoGamma and cLoader. All, which I tested. So Trucha Signer is the way to go.

 

[pepxl]

i just used wiiscrubber replaced the stage arc's and all loaded great didnt need trucha signer

 

[RGadelha]

But, I've got LittleBigPlanet to hold me off until release...

It's for PSP isn't it?
I would like to have a PSP too!

Edit:
I think I forgot to say but it's not too late:
Happy New Year everybody!

 

[GolfDude]

i only replaced 1-3 and as i said.. no go in usb, but fine in dolphin emu

 

[jmlsteele]

Used Trucha signer, replaced all 3. Second time play 1-1 there was no music, and eventually (when I got the star) the game froze. First time through on all of the levels worked fine, and they are excellent levels

 

[Cyan]

Trucha signer will work only if the original level's file size is bigger than the new level.
You can't replace with a bigger one.

 

[Arisotura]

Alright guys, I think tossing a few treats your way would be nice. You'll need to use WiiScrubber to give these a playthrough. (Replace 1-01 - 1-03 in the retail game.) Treeki mentioned that we've been working on a few levels to stress test Reggie. These are the ones I have been making.

1-01 - Originally Nintendo's 2-Coin, but with an unused underground area added in. The entrance is a little further down than in NES 1-1 so that you don't skip most of the level. Adjustments were made to make the level more enjoyable for a single-player experience instead of just Coin Battle.

1-02 - Underground was created fully from scratch, and then Treeki added in the above-ground using the original 1-02 as a base. The level is based on NES 1-2. See if you can find all of the secrets.

1-03 - Using 1-05 as a base, I recreated NES 1-3 using a mix of mushrooms and cliffs. In addition to the three star coins, there's a secret exit here.

Treeki also did a level that showcases some clever ways to make stages reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. I'll let him post that one, though.

Here's some technical talk about my levels.

--Event Controllers Used--
1-01 - 38 - Location Based (May require enemies to be beaten), 43 - Orange ? Switch in a Brick Block.
1-02 - 38 - Location Based (May require enemies to be beaten), 32 - Star Coin (Collection of), 37 - Chainer (If X, then do Y), 156 - Red Coin Ring
1-03 - 33 - Location Based (May require standing on something to activate), Zone Enter (When you enter the zone, this goes off), 37 - Chainer ("If X, then do Y"), 34 - Conditional (If X AND Y, do Z), 39 - Multi-Chainer (If X, then do Y THROUGH Z)

--Events Used--
1-01 - 191 - Tile God (Create), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning
1-02 - 191 - Tile God (Create, Destroy), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning, 144 - Red Coin
1-03 - 191 - Tile God (Create, Destroy), 149 - Rotation Controller - Spinning

You'll probably have to remove the link's to the files as I think they are not allowed as they'll contain Nintendo code

They don't. They just contain the level header and bgdat files, aka level definiton. No code within that.

 

[Treeki]

Well, anyway, here's another update.

I'm working on a cool new feature: you will be able to add metadata to your levels (name, author, comments, etc). The game will ignore it, but Reggie will be able to load/save it.

I'm also looking into a way to add comments to your in-game objects and have them preserved within the level file, which would be useful for the more complicated event structures and such.

I could implement level locking fairly easily using this method as well (so released levels couldn't be viewed and edited) - but what would be the point? Reggie will be open source, so the method could easily be discovered and removed. And Wart and Tanooki can view some parts of levels.