Tool: [Alpha] (MEH) Map Editor of Happiness

I explain you an failure. When i update Ini with new pointers which is neede it show glitch names but still 411 places. No more. I try do it with other configurations taked from G3HS. Still do not show all 747 pokemon <In my case>

A few posts back shinyquags you asked about the new icon imagery and I didn't see any feedback (maybe I missed it) anyways wanted to say they are simplistic but professional. They compliment the program pretty well.

Le pug said:

A few posts back shinyquags you asked about the new icon imagery and I didn't see any feedback (maybe I missed it) anyways wanted to say they are simplistic but professional. They compliment the program pretty well.

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Yay! I'm glad it looks alright. (The new iconography was by me) ^_^

Artemis64 said:

I really love this new map editor and the potential within it. However I would like to ask some questions and give some recommendations:
-When do you think this will be finalised?
-Do you intend to add the World Map Editor? (If so, will you add support for world map image editing?)
-What kind of plugins do you intend to add?

And a few recommendations:
-Clean up your INI...it's seriously difficult to understand and edit. I prefer the method of editing offsets in the INI than using an offset pointed to a new table.
-Fix up your Wild Pokémon Editor for use with 649 patches - it read all my extra Pokémon on Ruby wrongly, cutting off the last letter and instead giving the last letter to the next Pokémon, something that only has occurred with your tool so far.

And lastly, a compliment (you deserve it:)):

You're doing a great job with this app, it's potential is amazing. Best of luck!

Click to expand...

Also, last night, I transcribed the MEH ini to conf language.

It no longer looks like a writhing mass of equal signs.

http://pastebin.com/ZpzmCRKJ

We haven't implemented functionality for this yet, but it will come soon! Just don't delete your INI yet.

Sir, you must be God or something, because this tool looks amazing, and I'm really looking forward to use it :D
I just hope adding new tilesets wont be too much of a problem, since I had a lot of problems with A-Map back then.

Keep up with the good work and best wishes~

Vin_Prismriver said:

Sir, you must be God or something, because this tool looks amazing, and I'm really looking forward to use it :D
I just hope adding new tilesets wont be too much of a problem, since I had a lot of problems with A-Map back then.

Keep up with the good work and best wishes~

Click to expand...

Thanks for your support!

We're somewhat busy right now, so development may be a little slow.

But don't worry, things will get done :)

Speaking of things getting done...

First off, sorry about the lack of updates. School one again sucks up a very large portion of my time, so there's sadly not much I can do about that. Nevertheless, I did finally get started on a very essential feature of MEH: The Block Editor.

The current plans on the Block Editor are to keep it very similar to A-Map, but with major improvements on the tileset-editing side of things. First off, tilesets will be indexed PNGs instead of BMPs. This means that you can paste in tiles and most editors will automatically pick the most accurate colors for the tiles, simplifying the process dramatically. It will also pull palettes from the PNGs, so the palette editor will no longer be needed to editor in colors for new tiles.

Also, I'm planning on adding an inbuilt animation editor. However, there's a few issues with this that I also need some input on. Basically the issue is this: All in-game animations use ASM to do their work, as do Lu-Ho's animations as well. I have no idea how Lu-Ho's animations work at all, so this poses a huge problem. If I made my own animation editor, there's a good chance that I will be forced to make hackers redo all their animations, provided that they switch to the new system. The new system will make editing and adding animations a lot easier, and will also allow for animation previews from within the editor itself. Again though, this will be completely optional, and these are just ideas I'm throwing around at the moment.

As always, here's a screenshot of the current block editor window. As of now selection of blocks and tiles works perfectly, all that's needed is to actually edit. I plan on making it so that all tiles in both the editor and blockset viewer will update in live time with the edits so that you can see the tile in action while you edit it.


Again, let me know if you have any ideas for the block viewer while I'm working on it. I'm very excited to see what comes out of this!

I think the idea of your own animation editor rather than Lu-Ho's sounds good.

A feature I and hopefully other people would find useful is to be able to edit multiple tiles at once (for larger things like buildings etc) as it's painstakingly slow it you have a large tile to insert and have to create the tiles one by one.

Another thing that would be useful is an image importer that would take an indexed image and change the colours to the closest multiple of 8 so it's tileset-ready and export it. That would save me personally so much time.

Oh and as everyone has said before, the connection editor is fantastic.

Shiny Quagsire said:

Speaking of things getting done...

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First off, such an awesome post.
• I have a question though about the palettes for block editor... will there be any way to include more than 5 palettes for tileset 2? Like for emerald its palette 6-11 and for fire red isn't it 5-12? Idk probably not possible but would be nice.

• Also for a-map in block editor you can control+right click(drag) the tileset and it'll select multiple tiles at once. Will this be the same for MEH?
•Also I hate taking the time dragging every 8x8 or 16x16 if i multiselect into the blocks... If I'm assembling a house or something I just threw into the image then that can take time... I was wondering if it'd be possible to multiselect tiles from tileset and slam them into the blocks list by selecting in the corner of a block or something and it pastes all that you selected in the blocks around that block that require the space to fit it? Get what I'm saying?

•Also that last one works for the actual map building. You are done creating your 16x16 blocks ... but when its time to map and you want to tile in the buildings, you have to do it block by block. Any way to implement a multiblock selection in the block list when drawing maps?

•Also ... a-map 1.92 has a huge huge problem with repoints for extended roms. If you try to repoint newly inserted tilesets, blocks, city name changes, map dimensions, or inserted maps to a extended rom offset like 0x1029C34, the hack will still work but the tiles will be all messed up, most likely a repointing issue. Would love you long time if you could fix this with MEH.

Also it seems like 99% of background and behavior bytes are ??? [XX] ... anyway to name more of these? I know some of them are used often, but are still named ??? for some reason.

•For a-map 1.95 Tileset -> Insert New Tileset had so much potential and I thought this would be so amazing to implement (though I'm too scared to use it with emerald atm) I would love to see this fully functioning in MEH so that we are not limited to 75 tilesets for emerald. Adds for more tilesets --> More graphics -- > hacks become even better.

•Is it possible to load more than two tilesets at a time too? The last feature mashed with one would create one hell of a map. If you could tie in Tileset 0, Tileset 1, and Tileset 2 all into one map ........ oh man. (I'm just throwing ideas out there now lol)

•Will you be adding a world map editor?

•Also... if you could make level scripts easier on us peeps ...
•Also if you could include a-map 1.95's Viewing Size tab where you can make anything enlarged .. easier to locate tile errors and bugs.

All I got for now, hope any of this was helpful

slawter666 said:

Another thing that would be useful is an image importer that would take an indexed image and change the colours to the closest multiple of 8 so it's tileset-ready and export it. That would save me personally so much time.

Oh and as everyone has said before, the connection editor is fantastic.

Click to expand...

When I do add the support for pulling in the palette info from tilesets I'll have to do this anyhow since there's a good chance that people will not make it a multiple of 8. So it's pretty much already planned. Plus I'd have to convert it anyhow in the process of pulling and inserting the palette info anyhow.

slawter666 said:

Oh and as everyone has said before, the connection editor is fantastic.

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Thanks, I'm rather happy with how they turned out myself. :)

Le pug said:

First off, such an awesome post.
• I have a question though about the palettes for block editor... will there be any way to include more than 5 palettes for tileset 2? Like for emerald its palette 6-11 and for fire red isn't it 5-12? Idk probably not possible but would be nice.

Click to expand...

Possibly, using ASM. This option is fully editable in the INI so if someone *does* make that possible then you can go ahead and do that. Going beyond palette 12 though is impossible since 13-15 are used for textboxes.

Le pug said:

• Also for a-map in block editor you can control+right click(drag) the tileset and it'll select multiple tiles at once. Will this be the same for MEH?

Click to expand...

slawter666 said:

I think the idea of your own animation editor rather than Lu-Ho's sounds good.

A feature I and hopefully other people would find useful is to be able to edit multiple tiles at once (for larger things like buildings etc) as it's painstakingly slow it you have a large tile to insert and have to create the tiles one by one.

Click to expand...

Le pug said:

•Also I hate taking the time dragging every 8x8 or 16x16 if i multiselect into the blocks... If I'm assembling a house or something I just threw into the image then that can take time... I was wondering if it'd be possible to multiselect tiles from tileset and slam them into the blocks list by selecting in the corner of a block or something and it pastes all that you selected in the blocks around that block that require the space to fit it? Get what I'm saying?

Click to expand...

Since this idea has a been proposed several times (the second one), so I'll probably end up doing it. Luckily multiselect support is already built into the block selector so all that would be needed is to add multiselect support to the tile selector and support it in the actual editor when I create it.

Le pug said:

•Also that last one works for the actual map building. You are done creating your 16x16 blocks ... but when its time to map and you want to tile in the buildings, you have to do it block by block. Any way to implement a multiblock selection in the block list when drawing maps?

Click to expand...

Already implemented iirc, although I'll have to check because I think I recall it being a tad bit buggy.

Le pug said:

•Also ... a-map 1.92 has a huge huge problem with repoints for extended roms. If you try to repoint newly inserted tilesets, blocks, city name changes, map dimensions, or inserted maps to a extended rom offset like 0x1029C34, the hack will still work but the tiles will be all messed up, most likely a repointing issue. Would love you long time if you could fix this with MEH.

Click to expand...

Extended ROM support is already fully baked into MEH, so pulling new tilesets from other parts of the ROM should be of no issue at all.

Le pug said:

Also it seems like 99% of background and behavior bytes are ??? [XX] ... anyway to name more of these? I know some of them are used often, but are still named ??? for some reason.

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I'll probably end up asking around and doing some research to get a newer list of actions on those behavior bytes. So that will end up being fixed as well.

Le pug said:

•For a-map 1.95 Tileset -> Insert New Tileset had so much potential and I thought this would be so amazing to implement (though I'm too scared to use it with emerald atm) I would love to see this fully functioning in MEH so that we are not limited to 75 tilesets for emerald. Adds for more tilesets --> More graphics -- > hacks become even better.

Click to expand...

For tilesets I have plans to implement a new system where instead of having arbitrary numbers assigned to them, you can scan for all used tilesets and then give them all their own names, as well as create new tilesets and edit existing ones without having to search for the map that uses it. Because if we treat tilesets as named pointers, then we don't have any weird issues with numbers and INIs and we can easily create new tilesets based on that. They're actually fairly simple to read and create. This will also prevent the weird "over reading blocksets" bug where there's a ton of garbage at the end, because we'll be able to store info on a per-hack basis for each usable tileset.

Le pug said:

•Is it possible to load more than two tilesets at a time too? The last feature mashed with one would create one hell of a map. If you could tie in Tileset 0, Tileset 1, and Tileset 2 all into one map ........ oh man. (I'm just throwing ideas out there now lol)

Click to expand...

No, that's a hardware limitation. I do have plans, however, to implement a tileset expander which will let you expand existing tilesets for more blocks. But in terms of graphics, the amount of tiles loaded into memory literally takes up the maximum amount usable. It might be possible to implement some weird trickery and use different tilesets on different GBA BG's but it would be overly complicated and not worth it in the end.

Le pug said:

•Will you be adding a world map editor?

•Also... if you could make level scripts easier on us peeps ...
•Also if you could include a-map 1.95's Viewing Size tab where you can make anything enlarged .. easier to locate tile errors and bugs.

Click to expand...

• Yes, it is planned and we have significant progress (it currently can pull the graphics and tilemap and recreate the tileset as an image) but it is not usable as an editor as of yet.
• Level scripts have always been a pain, and I think the most I could do is kinda sorta not currupt the first few bytes constantly like A-Map seems to do for some reason.
• Viewing size is possible (I actually implemented it in the Connections Viewer), so I'll probably end up doing something like that.

Sorry for the double post, but I felt that this was a significant enough development to not be merged with the previous post (Mods, if I am incorrect feel free to do what you guys do ;)).

So, new development in the block editor, but the actual inferfacing for editing is completely done. Mutiselection from the tile selection panel works fine, and it can pull information based on input from the block selection panel. All that's left now is to take all this information from the editor panel and actually write it back to the ROM!




Also regarding behavior bytes, I was discussing them with knizz and it appears that, once again, A-Map had a slight flaw with it's implementation on the modification of these behavioral bytes. As it turns out, block behavior is not determined by four separate bytes, but in fact one bitwise dword, with different bits controlling different things. As such, the behavior editor will be changed slightly to accomodate, but it will be more powerful as a result since we know more than in A-Map. Once I actually finish writing new block changes to the ROM I'll have to choose between starting on the tilesets first, or working on behavior bytes and such. I'm leaning towards tilesets because behavior bytes aren't the most needed thing in the world atm, and I'd like to at least be able to add new tiles with MEH in the future. Once we do that, we will have reached a point in which MEH can be considered at an Alpha, that is, a usable tool that should be considered as a viable option for the replacement of A-Map. It's only a matter of time and work now.

To that open source thing does MEH add in the extra pokemon spots as soon as it loads the Rom or do I need to change the Ini similar question for adding time specific pokemon

how was the proyect of making a new DNS system, is that done??

Tyranitar Killer said:

To that open source thing does MEH add in the extra pokemon spots as soon as it loads the Rom or do I need to change the Ini similar question for adding time specific pokemon

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Currently when the time based Pokemon are implemented it is designed to have two modes: One that keeps the same set of pokemon at all times of day (to maintain compatability) and one which actually has the different times for Pokemon. When you convert the legacy wilds to the new system, it will ask you if you want to convert it, and after conversion it will copy the esisting entries into all 4 time zones, which you can then modify later.

Gorrioncillo said:

how was the proyect of making a new DNS system, is that done??

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As of now, no. To be honest I really should make a proper DNS system but I am trying to get the rest of the needed features into MEH (like the block editor).

Shiny Quagsire said:

Currently when the time based Pokemon are implemented it is designed to have two modes: One that keeps the same set of pokemon at all times of day (to maintain compatability) and one which actually has the different times for Pokemon. When you convert the legacy wilds to the new system, it will ask you if you want to convert it, and after conversion it will copy the esisting entries into all 4 time zones, which you can then modify later.


As of now, no. To be honest I really should make a proper DNS system but I am trying to get the rest of the needed features into MEH (like the block editor).

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Have you decided whether or not to code a DNS system that uses RSE's native clock? Or is that still too far off to be considered yet?

I'm super excited for the alpha version, but don't work too hard when school's still in session! We can wait if it means you get to study more!

EDIT: I was also thinking, when doing the Wild Pokemon Switcher, do you think you can give us the option to tie it to something other than the time of day? Perhaps a variable or something could control which tables are used instead? I feel like that would allow for some super cool ideas, and have a broader use in general!

Deokishisu said:

I'm super excited for the alpha version, but don't work too hard when school's still in session! We can wait if it means you get to study more!

EDIT: I was also thinking, when doing the Wild Pokemon Switcher, do you think you can give us the option to tie it to something other than the time of day? Perhaps a variable or something could control which tables are used instead? I feel like that would allow for some super cool ideas, and have a broader use in general!

Click to expand...

Basically this. And you have absolutely no idea how excited I am for this. (Opening up parallels in a real pain)

Deokishisu said:

Have you decided whether or not to code a DNS system that uses RSE's native clock? Or is that still too far off to be considered yet?

I'm super excited for the alpha version, but don't work too hard when school's still in session! We can wait if it means you get to study more!

EDIT: I was also thinking, when doing the Wild Pokemon Switcher, do you think you can give us the option to tie it to something other than the time of day? Perhaps a variable or something could control which tables are used instead? I feel like that would allow for some super cool ideas, and have a broader use in general!

Click to expand...

Thanks, it's always good to know that people are looking forward to using MEH. And regarding school, I've only been working when I actually have the time to so no worries there. With the RSE native clock, it's definitely planned, it's just that I haven't gotten around to it. What I'll probably do is create a hybrid system where the native clock data is formatted such that it would be compatible with the DN System of primal's tool. So all that's done is to insert the hybrid system and then patch over the same wild pokemon routines used by both.

And with the Wild Pokemon, it would definitely be possible to do something like that. I'll look into seeing if I could create a sort of "table" system and just have the Day/Night thing just be an overlay on top of the system.

Ewery1 said:

Basically this. And you have absolutely no idea how excited I am for this. (Opening up parallels in a real pain)

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Thanks, and I think you'll be equally excited about the next bit of news.

MEH Weekly-ish Update 5/11
So in this weekly-ish update we have yet another big progression here, one that will quite possibly make MEH an actual usable map editor: Tileset Editing.

We have two major changes with tileset editing. First, all exported tilesets will be indexed. Now if there's one major gripe I've heard of from A-Map, it's tile inserting. With indexed PNGs, tile inserting will be easier than ever. Instead of doing all this recoloring and adding all these different colors in A-Map's crappy palette editor, you can use your own preferred tools to do everything for you. Just paste in the tiles, and in most editors it will find the closest matching colors to the new tiles. And for palette editing, you can change the indexed colors and MEH will automatically import the modified palette.




(Ignore the corrupted palettes on this one, that was my fault :P)


Probably should be noted that I have yet to actually upload the changes to GitHub, mostly because it's not quite finished yet. In fact, I still haven't actually got the block editor to really truly edit the blocks yet. But once it is done it will be available for the public to try out.

This makes tile inserting a whole lot easier. Thank you man. MEH is looking really good

I can't open my any ROMs in this. I posted this in PHO a few weeks ago but I never really got a proper reply. I don't know whether it can load the rom but not the banks, or whether it can't load the rom at all.

Tao Dragon said:

I'm interested in this since I want to learn how to make new areas and edit existing ones. Where can I download?

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Bottom of the post under the large disclaimer. I wouldn't recommend MEH quite yet because there's still a few things I need to get finished before I'd consider it stable for hacking.

That being said, the block editor is completely finished (in terms of editing Blocks, behavior bytes come later). Here's a small screenshot with everything in action. I should note that everything edits in realtime (it looks quite magical when you do it!) and the changes are saves with the ROM.


As usual, you can download at the bottom of the thread description. All changes are uploaded to GitHub as well if you want to take a gander at it. ;)

Shiny Quagsire said:

As of now, no. To be honest I really should make a proper DNS system but I am trying to get the rest of the needed features into MEH (like the block editor).

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So, soon or later it will be a DNS system, that's great but i prefer as soon as you can, please, and as suggestion, it could be possible to change the way the game make the IVs, to do something like safari zone in X/Y, thanks for everything you do for the comunity