Sue's Workshop buggy editor

PROBLEM: WEAPON FIRE COLLISION DETECTION BUG happening in Existing and Custom-made maps altered or made with Sue's Workshop.

With adding in extra enemies in the original maps. After about 40 or so entries, some of the NPC start to lose collison detection and you know as soon as you try to shoot them, the weapons have no effect and they still walking around when they're supposed to be dead.

When adding in new enemies in the custom-made maps. After about 100 or more entries, the same problem starts happening again but if you try to add in more entries after this problem starts up, then those extra entries carry the same bug.

PROBLEM: Spritesets are unsuable in the custom-made maps, the sprite sheet settings make no difference. The spritesets are mixed with other spritesets from already visited maps. Creating a HALL OF MIRRORS.

Surely Pixel knows the solutions to this problem....

BUT IN ORIGINAL MAPS, the NEW NPC Entries SPRITESETS slowly start to turn into a hall of mirrors when adding them into the original with Sue's Workshop.

PROBLEM: I put a red forcefield in my map (NPC). HOW do I get it to TURN
OFF? I need step by step instructions on how to remove an NPC entity
from the map.

PROBLEM: Altering a original PBM file in Ulead Express and then adding the Pixel thing at the end of the changed file, the game dosen't recognize the file and I get just a blue screen and it has been converted to PBM format using another program. So I can make custom backgrounds, I just cant seem to get them to work in the game.

Were these PBM files made with a special editor for PBM files, if so, which one? The game won't recognize a file converted into PBM from another graphic format.

QUESTION: HOW do we add in extra face pics for use in message dialogues? Adding in a new entrry after the last facepic, they don't show, up in the game, but it will show up if I use the first slot which is left blank.

 

Were these PBM files made with a special editor for PBM files, if so, which one? The game won't recognize a file converted into PBM from another graphic format.

As far as I know, those PBM files are just renamed Windows Bitmaps. Just changing the extension from pbm to bmp works just fine, so the reverse should too. But I have heard of PBMs before (Portable Bitmap?), so that might be where you're getting mixed up.

 

Oh that's just GREAT

Unfortunately I have just ruined 5 custom-made maps through ASCII JUNK corruption from using the wrong type of editor to make the Pixel change in because one of you guys here has failed to give full detailed written STEP BY STEP instructions on the hex coding process that you had to do in order to get the game to bypass the copy protection to recognize your custom-made files or altered ones as part of his game.

All because someone wrote this for instruction:

"Just add (C)Pixel to the end of each file you change or make"

I didn't know the change had to be done in binary to get the game to recognize it as part of the machine code checking process. I thought you type the change in ASCII text format. But doing the change in text and saving in a text editor just corrupts the binary code of the files and overwrites it with ASCII CODE JUNK instead, thus corrupting your custom-made maps.

Pixel put in a binary copy protection against hackers and to me it looks like this was done to discourage modding so that only he himself could mod the changes to his game. So I hope he knows all about the people pulling his game all to pieces for he obviously didn't want people to change things in his game.

If he don't like this modding business happening to Cave Story then we may have some problems, hopefully Variantinteractive has talked with Pixel and that he may be kind enough to allow moddling on the freeware version....

BUT It wouldn't surprise me if files being overwritten with ascii junk through using a text editor instead of a binary hex editor is why all the sprite sheets became all corrupted, corrupt NPC's not registereing their hotspots with weapon fire, and why the custom-made PBM's became full of ASCII JUNK, no wonder the game wouldn't show anything and just crashed or gave a blank screen or all messed up.

Having said that, can someone tell me how to shut off my forcefield?

 

the weapons have no effect and they still walking around when they're supposed to be dead.

Is it still showing red damage numbers? That sounds like flag 0200 behavior, it calls the entity's event instead of destroying it when its HP hits zero.

The spritesets are mixed with other spritesets from already visited maps. Creating a HALL OF MIRRORS.

BUT IN ORIGINAL MAPS, the NEW NPC Entries SPRITESETS slowly start to turn into a hall of mirrors when adding them into the original with Sue's Workshop.

I don't understand what you mean by hall of mirrors. Can you take a screenshot?

PROBLEM: I put a red forcefield in my map (NPC). HOW do I get it to TURN
OFF? I need step by step instructions on how to remove an NPC entity
from the map.

There are a few ways to activate and deactivate entites, depending on where you do it from and how permanent you want it to be.

A. If the entity is in another room:
1. Set the entity to FlagID xxxx
2. Use the "Edit Flags" command to set "NPC is invisible" or "NPC is visible".
3. Use <FL+xxxx and <FL-xxxx commands depending on which option you set.

This won't work in the same room unless you exit and re-enter, since FlagIDs are only checked when the map is loaded. However, this is the only method that will keep the change after leaving the map, or after saving and loading the game.

--------------------

B. If the entity is in the same room:
1. Set the entity to Event yyyy
2. To deactivate an entity, use <CNPyyyy:0000:0000 command to change the entity's sprite to zero, the default blank entity.
3. To activate a sprite zero entity, use <CNPyyyy:ssss:0000, where ssss is the sprite you want. You can also change 0000 to 0002 to make it face the other way.

--------------------

C. Easier way to remove an entity in the same room:
1. Set the entity to Event yyyy
2. Use <DNPyyyy command.

This will completely delete the entity, and it will not be restored until you re-enter the map. You cannot use <CNP after this.

--------------------

D. Easier way to add an entity in the same room:
1. Use <SNPssss:cccc:rrrr:0000 to create a sprite of type ssss at column cccc row rrrr. You can also change 0000 to 0002 to make it face the other way.

The event, flagID, and flags of the new entity will all be zero. These can only be set when editing entities, so if you need them, use method B instead.

--------------------

In case you're wondering, the original game uses method A to remove the forcefield, and method B to turn it on during the fight with Igor. Method D, the <SNP command, is never used by the original game anywhere, but it seems to work fine.

QUESTION: HOW do we add in extra face pics for use in message dialogues?

This might require editing the code in the EXE file to look for more faces, I'm not sure.

 

Please don't describe values to me as X=Y, X to me it's too confusing. I understand plain NUMBERS, I don't like algebra, the TSC commands list is full of confusing Algebra in some of those commands and making it very hard for me to understand what value to put in the script command, that list should list all the proper values and their tables, and not use Chinese language to represent the columns for values.

When you say entity, are you referring to the forcefield here?




.

























.

 

While I didn't write Sue's Workshop, I got on thing to say to you: GTFO. Please do not come in here and troll and complain. The game is not open source whatsoever, and most people have no clue as to edit it, so the editors are guranteed to be buggy, but they help out a lot in the creation of new maps. And then you had to whine about the whole bitmap image (c)pixel thing. Guess what? I had problems with the exact same thing and I looked how to do it on my own. Dont blame someone for not making detailed instructions. YOU GET OFF YOUR ASS AND FIND THEM YOUR SELF. And it comes with a warning that it is buggy and that stuff might get erased so dont complain you messed up some maps cuz its your own damn fault.

Pardon my language SkyeWelse

 

That kind of attitude and disrespect from it is just not acceptable.

 

First of all if your asking a question or looking for help, ask politely. Don't demand answers or blame others for your mistakes. And then you belittled the tsc list, something someone probably worked really hard on. I used it and didnt have any problems.

 

Yea, I could probably help you, but I haven't read any of your posts just on the grounds of what you titled this thead. Sue's workshop is fucking amazing and you should be greatful.

 

That kind of attitude and disrespect from it is just not acceptable.

You've shown zero respect for anyone else in your posts, instead demanding to have everything handfed to you, and criticizing those working hard to understand this game's engine for not providing everything exactly as you want it.

Learn algebra. Learn the difference between ascii and binary file formats, and which editors are appropriate for which. You obviously want to accomplish something with Cave Story. You're not going to unless you put the effort into understanding things yourself.

My own problems and questions I have not recieved the answers I was hoping for, but rather than insult the community for not making reality conform to my wishes, I sat down and tried to figure out myself how to do what I want within the bounds of what I have to work with. That's just what you have to do when modding a game.

As far as I'm concerned, given the tone of your original demands for help, Kapow and eXodus were more than gracious in even trying to answer your problems. Be grateful, not resentful.

 

You've shown zero respect for anyone else in your posts, instead demanding to have everything handfed to you, and criticizing those working hard to understand this game's engine for not providing everything exactly as you want it.

Learn algebra. Learn the difference between ascii and binary file formats, and which editors are appropriate for which. You obviously want to accomplish something with Cave Story. You're not going to unless you put the effort into understanding things yourself.

My own problems and questions I have not recieved the answers I was hoping for, but rather than insult the community for not making reality conform to my wishes, I sat down and tried to figure out myself how to do what I want within the bounds of what I have to work with. That's just what you have to do when modding a game.

As far as I'm concerned, given the tone of your original demands for help, Kapow and eXodus were more than gracious in even trying to answer your problems. Be grateful, not resentful.

Shmitz you just made my buddy list

 

I am indeed grateful for the help I received from those two, but I would like to have seen some script examples along with the steps so I could see how the command actually works with a script example, this is what's lacking in the TSC guide because it is not very user-friendly, there's no script examples to show how these commands work in given situations and that's what the beginner needs to see.... I like those little clips to show how to set up the things in action, like mini tutorials.. Most companies nowdays use little movie clip tutorials in their software packages to teach others from beginner to advance on how to do things.

When someone points out a few shortcomings in a written document or in an editor or game, they are not pulling the author down personally by bringing up those important points which are lacking. If you are not sure about what I mean then don't just sit there and form your own conclusions and then come in here and dump all your trash and abuse on me...If you are not sure about anything I say, then ASK and then you will learn where I'm coming from instead of forming your own judgements.

NOW about the TSC Commands list: What's so wrong in saying that there is not much instructions for beginners for this list? That's not being ungrateful or resentful toward anyone at all or a being unreasonable or demmanding, far from it, that is telling the truth that it's not fully developed and there's room for improvement to make it better. Alot of work has been done, and more work can be done to make it better and more user-FRIENDLY which is the most important thing of all...So hopefully someone has some insight and will provide some scripts to teach the beginner. I can't believe how I'm getting so misunderstood in here...


Now back to Sue's Workshop, this guy has done a good job on the editor, but it needs more work,

If Sues Workshop had the ability to:

* An option like a randomize seed generator to put things quickly on the map and generate dirt, terrain, to build basic maps quickly as a foundation to start on.

* More powerful Cut and paste, Instead of inserting one NPC in at a time from a selection lis, you can use the rectangle selection tool to select the npc ICON and use the selection tool to mark out a desired space and just click the mouse to paste them in like you do with the tiles. But have a number , say 300 is the limit that you can paste in.. The same thing also to delete them, use the rectangle selection window to select the desired amount of NPC's and just hit del. Much better than having to del one of them at a time. EDITING THE NPC's, for more than one NPC flag to set, you should be able to just select the NPC's while in the FLAG mode using the rectangle tool and they highlight a different color and up pops a global flag settings window.

That will be very handy for those who insert 50 or so NPC's in a map and then later on change their minds and want to change the flag settings to a use a different setting, depending on what they are trying to do, they can use Global flag setting, otherwise we have to edit each NPC one at a time and change each local flag setting which is long, tedious, and painstaking and takes ages.. I don't fancy the idea of having to click click click the mouse all the time and sit there for ages to delete them one at a time or change settings of them one at a time.....

* cut and paste in whole terrains and caves, buildings, pools, ect to save time building them all from scratch.

* ability to select anything we make up from scratch and then save the selection as a group to use later on to load it back into the map, move the group anywhere we want to and hit paste. So we can not just save maps but also bits and pieces of the map to files in a groups folder.

* a library of workable scripts - starting to see it

* An tickable option to generate a border or wall or walls when you created a new map

ect..ect.. the list goes on

These are not demmands at all, these are called IDEAS !!

When I start to see that kind of stuff coming into the editor, THEN I will say that Sue's Workshop is now starting to now shape into a more powerful editor, but until then I will say it is not powerful enough because we can only change local settings at the moment, not global, and there are not enough options yet.

 

Long-ass pile of bullshit that fills up an entire page

Please GTFO, kthx

 

Now I will warn one more time. I won't accept any spinless trash talk from anybody in my thread ok so stay focused on the issue and cease this abuse please or leave.

Now If a few guys in here are interpreting every single word that I say as personal attacks on everyone simply because I had pointed out what is still missing in Sue's Workshop or what was missing in the game or missing out of the TSC list, then they don't have the correct perspective of what I'm about.... For my perspective is this: I am focused only on talking about the ISSUES to do with the game, not about attacking personalities.

 

Please don't describe values to me as X=Y, X to me it's too confusing. I understand plain NUMBERS, I don't like algebra, the TSC commands list is full of confusing Algebra in some of those commands and making it very hard for me to understand what value to put in the script command, that list should list all the proper values and their tables, and not use Chinese language to represent the columns for values.

Uh. You replace the letters with the numbers, how is that difficult?

<CNPx:y:z     Change eNtity [P?]     Change entity X to entity type Y with direction Z

Say you have an entity with event number 0120. You want it to become a forcefield entity, which is type 0013. The direction doesn't matter for forcefields, so use 0000.

That's your X, Y, and Z. You want to change entity 0120 to entity type 0013 with direction 0000. So, "<CNP0120:0013:0000".

When you say entity, are you referring to the forcefield here?

...Where?

there's no script examples to show how these commands work in given situations and that's what the beginner needs to see

The game is full of them. In fact, it already does exactly what you want to do: activate and deactivate force field entities. You should be able to read and understand the existing game script before you try to write your own.

An option like a randomize seed generator to put things quickly on the map and generate dirt, terrain, to build basic maps quickly as a foundation to start on.

Randomly generating terrain would require a great deal of time and effort on fine-tuning the restraints on the algorithm to make platforms and such, unless you just want an unnavigable mess of random tiles. I've never seen a fan-made map editor that does anything like what you're suggesting, you'll have to design your own maps.

cut and paste in whole terrains and caves, buildings, pools, ect to save time building them all from scratch.

I guess you mean a tile block copy/paste function, where you select a rectangle to copy? That would be very useful.

EDITING THE NPC's, for more than one NPC flag to set, you should be able to just select the NPC's while in the FLAG mode using the rectangle tool and they highlight a different color and up pops a global flag settings window.

Mass changes on selected entities is also a good idea.

until then I will say it is not powerful enough

That's your opinion. There will always be more things it could edit, "enough" is just a line in the sand.

Now I will warn one more time. I won't accept any spinless trash talk from anybody in my thread

HAHAHHAHAHA "my thread". Grow up.

 

"QUOTE: Uh. You replace the letters with the numbers, how is that difficult?

Code:
<CNPx:y:z Change eNtity [P?] Change entity X to entity type Y with direction Z
Say you have an entity with event number 0120. You want it to become a forcefield entity, which is type 0013. The direction doesn't matter for forcefields, so use 0000.

That's your X, Y, and Z. You want to change entity 0120 to entity type 0013 with direction 0000. So, "<CNP0120:0013:0000".

Yes I understand somewhat, but With some commands in the TSC list it can get a little bit tricky because I know in the script it's all just a bunch of numbers.. It would be good if there was a rem statement where we could put text descriptions in the script to make things easier to decode. This Pixel guy was quite advanced...

Here are some suggestions for more user-friendliness

In Sue's Workshop, I hope the author in his next update seriously considers putting in a TILE WINDOWS option just like you had with windows 95 to stop windows from blocking out one another out of view because you edit both the map and the script windows ALOT and its a nuisance when they get in the way and you have to manually move them to get to the other window.

What is the size limit of the maps that this game can handle? Does anyone know? So far the map size seems to be huge, I haven't found the limit yet.
my Mistry Heights map is 250 rows deep by 30 across, and is full of falling critters, pignons, and other things as well as moving blocks, so just how big can these maps become? Game seems to crash if you don't have a border
enclosed on large maps, so that's why I suggested that the editor should place in a border around the map when you go to make a new map.

I don't know how to put in a boss bar fight yet (Balrog, Igor). Or how to make ANP work although I know its to do with animating a sprite. Although I can make Balrog and Igor appear as Entities (but with no boss bar fight). How do I get this to work?

The author needs to make this following change to Sue's Workshop to make things a little easier.

FILE, TOOLS, RUN, HELP, SCRIPTS

Because the scripts part is found all the way down at the bottom of all the maps that you have to scroll to. It's in the wrong place.

There needs to be a "fill tile option" in the editor like paintbrush for ground and dirt, especially useful for doing maps that are much larger than one screen size. Or anything you click on to fill inside an enclosed area would be even better. This would save a lot of time.

As for the random generator thing, I was thinking of the airbrush in paintbrush, that the user can scatter the tiles or npc's very light or heavy in places in the map, it is up to the user to decide how long to press the button down if he wants a map that is navigational or not or just clear some things out of the way to make some paths, ect. But a random generator would be very useful as a base to start with, user just has to select an npc or tile and click random or just mark out an area to randomize in and away they go..

Come to think of it, a trees, rocks tileset would add a nice touch to maps, different colored caves, different types of rock.. But I think we only can use 1 tileset at a time.

"I guess you mean a tile block copy/paste function, where you select a rectangle to copy? That would be very useful."

That or either a custom library of Ready-made caves, terrains, that you can just cut and paste in then drag them around with the mouse into the map window like paintbrush does and just pop them down into place and the ability to save a highlighted selection as a Group to paste in later on when you need to use it.

Or if you want to get more advanced than that, a cave, building, or terrain generator where up pops a generator window and you just change the settings around to make different caves, buildings, terrains, ect. But that's alot more work and is way more advanced and complicated but that would be a lot more powerful. It would prob need custom tilesets as the tilesets that came with the game are limited.

But it is true it's not powerful enough yet because it takes too long to make things with it at the moment as there are only a few options and we have to build everything from the tile window as well as there is just the tileset at the moment but no object libraries yet where we can select what we want and have the editor paste it in and drag and drop it into place.

Last but not least...Please don't tell me to grow up, I said it was my thread because I am the author of it.

 

I don't know how to put in a boss bar fight yet (Balrog, Igor). Or how to make ANP work although I know its to do with animating a sprite. Although I can make Balrog and Igor appear as Entities (but with no boss bar fight). How do I get this to work?

ANP is currently undocumented, it's unknown what sprites use what animations and how.

For a boss fight, you need to turn on the entity's 0200 flag, set it to event xxxx, and call <BSLxxxx. The 0200 flag means the entity's event is called when you defeat it. The entity also won't disappear when "killed" with this flag on, so you can use commands on it in its event script.

Last but not least...Please don't tell me to grow up, I said it was my thread because I am the author of it.

So what were you "warning" people for?

 

i wanna know what he was warning people for too, this douche thinks he owns this whole forum.

 

QUOTE: "ANP is currently undocumented, it's unknown what sprites use what animations and how."

I took a look at the scripts regarding this ANP command and see that it is used in the cutscenes in the beginning of the game when after you get the locket, used alot for the shutters for the Core room to close and open the doors, and in many other situations, but I still don't understand this command very well or how to use it.

I've just created a map that is 450 rows deep by 30 rows across to see what is gonna take to break the game and well, I didn't break the engine, but I did break something else...I free fall fine for about 20 screens down, if I go any further down the map than abt this number, suddenly the free fall suddenly stops and the rest of the map is underwater even though there is no water at all in the map... I wonder what happens if I do a map 450 rows across and see if the same water thing occurs, then I'll know what the limit is. But having large maps and air and water is handy.

QUOTE: "For a boss fight, you need to turn on the entity's 0200 flag, set it to event <i>xxxx</i>, and call <BSL<i>xxxx</i>. The 0200 flag means the entity's event is called when you defeat it. The entity also won't disappear when "killed" with this flag on, so you can use commands on it in its event script."

Hmmm...Maybe Sue's workshop should put in the boss script along with the other scripts or allow us to Save a piece of script and store it in the scripts collection along with cast, arms, stage select, ect. Okay, what is <i> and </i> mean? Not seen this in a command before. Or were you trying to do si italics using an html code?

Wadeizzle, I don't care how old or young you may be, but making personal attacks in public on a message board against another member is just not on ok. That goes also to anybody else who tries to be smart and think it's cool to swear and abuse others in reply to posts or just wanna be smart. I don't come in your threads to abuse and swear or get smart at you, so please don't do that to me. Thankyou. .


.


.

 

QUOTE: "ANP is currently undocumented, it's unknown what sprites use what animations and how."

I took a look at the scripts regarding this ANP command and see that it is used in the cutscenes in the beginning of the game when after you get the locket, used alot for the shutters for the Core room to close and open the doors, and in many other situations, but I still don't understand this command very well or how to use it.

I've just created a map that is 450 rows deep by 30 rows across to see what is gonna take to break the game and well, I didn't break the engine, but I did break something else...I free fall fine for about 20 screens down, if I go any further down the map than abt this number, suddenly the free fall suddenly stops and the rest of the map is underwater even though there is no water at all in the map... I wonder what happens if I do a map 450 rows across and see if the same water thing occurs, then I'll know what the limit is. But having large maps and air and water is handy.

QUOTE: "For a boss fight, you need to turn on the entity's 0200 flag, set it to event <i>xxxx</i>, and call <BSL<i>xxxx</i>. The 0200 flag means the entity's event is called when you defeat it. The entity also won't disappear when "killed" with this flag on, so you can use commands on it in its event script."

Hmmm...Maybe Sue's workshop should put in the boss script along with the other scripts or allow us to Save a piece of script and store it in the scripts collection along with cast, arms, stage select, ect. Okay, what is <i> and </i> mean? Not seen this in a command before. Or were you trying to do si italics using an html code?

Wadeizzle, I don't care how old or young you may be, but making personal attacks in public on a message board against another member is just not on ok. That goes also to anybody else who tries to be smart and think it's cool to swear and abuse others in reply to posts or just wanna be smart. I don't come in your threads to abuse and swear or get smart at you, so please don't do that to me. Thankyou. .


.


.

Well ya know people would hate me too if I went into a forum trolling. And these aren't "personal attacks", we're telling it like it is, you're acting like a douchebag, if anyone else was we'ed insult them too.