"Metroid 2: The Return of Samus" Editor Date (m/d/y): 3/10/04 Version: 0.60 beta M2Edit is a freeware Metroid 2 ROM editor for the Windows 9X/NT/2K operating system. Built in 100% Intel 80x86 Assembly by Texel (aka Etecoon), it is the only public Metroid 2 Editor as of the writing of this file. This editor is not complete, as you will see when you run it. *IT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS* and will likely not be finished for quite some time. I will not leave a contact in this e-mail, so good luck getting ahold of me. M2Edit's homepage exists at Jesse D's Metroid 2 Secret World page. There can be found a means to contact me. Do not try to contact me or Jesse D for a Metroid 2 rom, I will never distribute any to anyone no matter who they are. If you ask me for one, I'll mailbomb you and report you to the IDSA (I joke not). However, I would like feedback on the editor, so find the contact if you can. Current Features: - Map editing - Changing rooms is possible. - Changing the scrolling data is possible. - Room editing - Rooms can be edited in any way. - Tile editing and displaying are available, but tile palette selection is not automatic. Planned Features: - Tile properties editing - Sprite editor - Item location editor - Enemy location editor - Patching application General Keys: Delete - removes a room (ONLY WORKS ON MAP DISPLAY, *NOT* ROOM DISPLAY!) Arrow Keys (when the Map Window is selected) - moves from room to room Keys 1-7 - "hot keys" to the maps 1 through 7 Keys "-" and "=" - cycle through the tile index Keys "[" and "]" - cycle through the tile palettes S - Activates "Select Mode" P - Activates "Paint Mode" Menus: File -> Save - saves the edited file. (WARNING! SAVING YOUR MISTAKES IS A BAD IDEA!) - Will prompt you if you want to create a backup file before saving. File -> Exit - Exits the program and formats your hard drive. Map Editing: In the upper left region of the editor you will see a window with white boxes in various patterns (assuming you loaded a valid Metroid 2 file). This is the Map Editor, and each of the boxes is a room. The room layout you see in this editor is NOT, I repeat, NOT the in-game layout. Rather, what you see is how the game is laid out inside of the ROM itself. This can be thoroughly confusing in various maps as rooms seem to lead nowhere or lead into the walls of other rooms. This is perfectly natural. The game itself uses a special index I call the "Scrolling Index" which is used to tell the game how to scroll to the other white boxes in that window. the map you see in the black box is 16x16 rooms, or 256 rooms. The black rooms are ALWAYS room 45, as you will see when moving around through the maps. Nintendo, for whatever reason, used room 45 as the standard blank room as filler. However, room 45 is still a valid room, and in some parts it is used in the actual game. Room 45 is often either a blank room filled with a background, or a vertical hallway (or something that is used a lot). You can easily view the room 45 of a particular map by clicking a black region in the map editor. The room number 45 will be shown in the room combo box. It will also show the scroll number. Blank rooms typically are 0F in the scrolling index. If you see something else, then the room is being used in the game. Room selection: Room selection is very easy. Click on a room in the map region of the editor, and it will be selected. The room selection is static, so selections do not change if you switch to a different map. The yellow boxes are selection, and the green box is the active selection that is being displayed in the Room display window. Rooms that are red are rooms that are the same as the current green selection. This feature was added to make it easier to find repeating rooms. For ease of use, I've added 2 other options to the selection: Ctrl-Selection - By holding control you can add or remove individual rooms from a selection. Shift-Selection - By first selecting one room as normal, and then holding shift and clicking another room, the editor will select all of the rooms inside the rectange formed by the two selected rooms (the first room is used as one corner, and the second room acts as the opposite corner). You can Ctrl-Select more rooms or remove rooms from any of the selections. Pressing Delete will set all of the selected rooms to room 45. Note that Delete will remove the scrolling data. "Deleting" is setting the room to 45 and the scrolling to 0F. You can do this manually if you so wish. Changing rooms: Below the Map editor and the Map selection is a combo box that will display the room number of the last-selected room. This combo box can be used to change the rooms in the game. First one selects all of the rooms that are going to be changed. Then go to the combo box and select the room of choice. Note that you can peruse through the various rooms through the combination box without changing your selection on the map editor. When the room of choice is selected, simply press "Apply," and the editor will change all of the selected rooms. To cancel, just click the map editor region again (if you don't want to lose your selection of rooms, click a room that is already selected), or press the "Cancel" button. Room Editor: The room editing portion of the editor consists of the larger window to the right of the map window. Inside are displayed the rooms that are selected in the window to the left. Do note that tile palette selection is not automatic, so if the room looks screwed up or like a Secret World, adjust the Index and Palette tabs until it appears properly. The Queen's (several) room(s) will currently not display properly. There is nothing wrong with your ROM, it's the editor, and no amount of adjusting will fix it. Select Mode: This mode allows you to click in the room window and select various tiles. The tile you select will appear in the larger, single-tile window below. Its number will be selected in the adjoining combo box, and finally the tile will be selected in the tile index selection below that. Control and Shift features also exist for this window under the Select Mode. To modify tiles in this mode, select the tiles you want to change, and then select the tile that you want to change them to from the selection below. All you have to do next is click "Set." Paint Mode: In this mode, clicking and dragging in the room window will set the tiles to the currently selected tile. You can change that tile any time you like either using the combo box or by clicking in the tile index selection below that. Tile Editing: To edit the appearance of a tile, select it from the tile index selection, and then click the window with the super-sized tile that you selected. This will bring up the tile editor, which allows you to change the appearance of the tile you selected. There are two other larger windows in this window, one is the tile palette selection, and the other is the tile index selection. The tile index selection is the tiles that you use while room editing. These tiles are made up of 4 tiles from the tile palette selection. Do note that one tile from the tile palette selection can be used multiple times. That is what the "Tile Usage" checkbox is for. Each colored box corresponds directly with the colors in the tile pixel editor. Boxes of the same color are the same tile. Therefore, modifying the pixel data on one box of one color will modify ALL of the tiles that have boxes of the same color around them. Fool around with this until you get it, but do NOT click "Apply Changes" if you made a mistake. Tile Editing: This is self-explanatory. Select the color you want, and then click and drag in the window above with the really large scaled tile. Tile Index Editing: This is marginally more complicated. These 4 windows represent the 4 tiles used in the tile index. This allows you to change the tile index. First, click any of the 4 tiles you want to change. Clicking a selected tile again will deselect it. Next, select a tile from the tile palette. Now all you have to do is click the "Change Tile" button, and all of the selected tiles will be changed. If you don't understand it, screw around with it and see how it changes the tiles in-game. I'm sure you'll figure it out. There are two other buttons in this window, "Cancel" and "Apply Changes." "Cancel" will close the window and not apply any of the changes you made to the tile index or tile palette. "Apply Changes" will apply all of the changes you made to the game's tile indexes and palettes. Note that "Apply Changes" will not save the changes. If you accidentally clicked "Apply Changes" you can close the editor without saving, and your mistake will not be saved (provided you didn't save it after making the mistake). This window is incomplete, and that is why there are gaps in it. Things like tile properties and the like will probably be modified in this window in future versions. Scrolling Index: The scrolling index dictates how the game scrolls from room to room. Though inside of rooms, the screen scrolls freely to the limit of those rooms. The scrolling Index dictates how rooms scroll to other rooms. For instance in some regions of the game, the scrolling stops when Samus reaches a transition area. When she proceeds to the edge of that area, she initiates a move to another region of the map. However, if that room had been set to free scrolling, Samus could continue moving that direction without initiating a move to another map. Scroll Types: Though I have them listed in the program, it's necessary to know the abbreviations. Key: H = used in Horizontal Halls and is used as a prefix to other horizontal scrolling types. These rooms will not scroll up and down. V = used in Vertical Shafts and is used as a prefix to other vertical scrolling types. These rooms will not scroll left and right. St = stop scrolling any particular direction. End = same as "St," except it is being used to make it easier to understand. "End" rooms act as end pieces to a pipe. For vertical shafts, they are the very top piece and the very bottom piece. In horizontal halls, the left and right end pieces. These rooms aren't required. You can make halls or shafts lead to wide open areas or things like that if you want to. These can be freely combined with each other. 00 = "Fr Scroll," or "Free Scroll," scrolls to other rooms with no restrictions. Used in wide open areas or convex corners in wide open areas. 01* = "St R," stops scrolling right. 02* = "St L," stops scrolling left. 03* = "V," will only scroll up and down, used in vertical shafts. 04* = "St U," stops scrolling up. 05* = "St U R," stops scrolling up and right, used at concave corners. 06* = "St U L," stops scrolling up and left, used at concave corners. 07* = "V End U" stops scrolling up, only used in vertical shafts. 08* = "St D," stops scrolling down. 09* = "St D R," stops scrolling down and right, used at concave corners. 0A* = "St D L," stops scrolling down and left, used at concave corners. 0B* = "V End D," stops scrolling down, used in vertical shafts. 0C* = "H," will only scroll left and right, used in horizontal halls. 0D* = "H End R," stops scrolling right, used in horizontal halls. 0E* = "H End L," stops scrolling left, used in horizontal halls. 0F* = "No Scroll," won't scroll to other rooms. * = scroll types will initiate a room, map, music, and/or palette change when Samus touches the protected scroll direction. These were designed to act sort of like mnemonics. Simply read aloud what they are, such as: "St U R" = Stop (scrolling) Up, Right "H End R" = Horizontal (hall) End Right "V End D" = Vertical (shaft) End Down etc. Potential Problems: Q: Why can't I change how rooms jump to other maps or other rooms? A: Because I have not yet figured out how to reliably modify the data that controls that. Q: Why can't I change the enemies or items? A: See above. Credits: Programming - Texel ROM Hacking - Texel, CapCom, Jesse D, SnowBro Help - InFeStEd ArCh0n "M2Edit" Copyright 2001-2004 Texel "Metroid 2: The Return of Samus" Copyright Nintendo of America (Download and current release information available at http://m2sw.zophar.net/m2edit.)