News

Epic Edit 2.0
Posted on 07-Nov-2010 by Stifu
Here's Epic Edit 2.0! Not that many changes since the previous version, apart from support for importing and exporting tracks as .smkc (format used by MAKE, another SMK editor). Even if you don't use MAKE, the advantage is that this format contains more data than than the .mkt one (used by Track Designer), which only contains the map and its theme. So now you can export and import all the data currently supported for each track (objects, AI, etc). Enjoy!

Epic Edit 2.0

Posted on 07-Nov-2010 by Stifu

Here's Epic Edit 2.0!

Not that many changes since the previous version, apart from support for importing and exporting tracks as .smkc (format used by MAKE, another SMK editor). Even if you don't use MAKE, the advantage is that this format contains more data than than the .mkt one (used by Track Designer), which only contains the map and its theme. So now you can export and import all the data currently supported for each track (objects, AI, etc).

Enjoy!

Epic Edit 1.9
Posted on 12-Aug-2010 by Stifu
Here's Epic Edit 1.9! Among the new stuff, support for editing overlay tiles and item probabilities. Big thanks to teknix1, who's been a great help with Epic Edit since the end of 2009. PS: geek news: Epic Edit has been migrated from SVN to Mercurial not long ago (but stays at Google Code). Update (22-Aug-2010): I just released Epic Edit 1.9.1, which fixes a nasty regression.

Epic Edit 1.6
Posted on 04-Jun-2010 by Stifu
I have some good news and bad news. The good news: Epic Edit 1.6 is now out. It introduces lap line and driver starting position editing. It also fixes several bugs, including 4 data corruption ones. The bad news: if you've been using Epic Edit 1.5, your ROM may be affected by up to 4 data corruption bugs. The problems and their solution: If you have reordered your tracks, this will lead to issues when selecting your track in Time Trial. To fix this, put your tracks back to their original order (using Epic Edit 1.5). I already mentioned this in the previous news. If you have edited Koopa Beach 1, object zone data will be corrupt (due to the fact Koopa Beach 1 works differently from all other tracks). This leads to problems with Thwomps, which are in the Bowser Castle and Rainbow Road tracks. In Epic Edit 1.6, you can't try to modify Koopa Beach 1 object zones anymore. To fix your ROM, grab the original ROM (or one that's not corrupt), open it in a hex editor, and look for this series of bytes: B3 DB A1 DB 93 DB CF DA D9 DA. Just restore these values at the same location in your corrupt ROM. Certain overlay tiles (such as options blocks and stuff) may be corrupt in resaved tracks. Although Epic Edit doesn't support overlay tile editing yet, I've just been too hasty to commit a patch made by a contributor which loads and resaves overlay data, and which contained a bug. To fix the problem: either use a hex editor and restore the overlay data to what it was, or wait for Epic Edit to support overlay tile editing. If you're editing a Japanese or European ROM, some tracks may show up as partly garbled / corrupt in the game (this isn't new, it was like this with Epic Edit 1.0 too). This seems to be a decompression bug in the original Jap and Euro ROMs. To avoid this problem, Epic Edit now recompresses tracks slightly differently for non-US ROMs (leading to a very slightly lower compression rate). To fix the tracks concerned by this issue, simply resave them with Epic Edit 1.6 (ensuring they're marked as modified, with the star next to their name, else they won't be recompressed). Have fun.

Epic Edit 1.6

Posted on 04-Jun-2010 by Stifu

I have some good news and bad news.

The good news: Epic Edit 1.6 is now out. It introduces lap line and driver starting position editing. It also fixes several bugs, including 4 data corruption ones.
The bad news: if you've been using Epic Edit 1.5, your ROM may be affected by up to 4 data corruption bugs.

The problems and their solution:

If you have reordered your tracks, this will lead to issues when selecting your track in Time Trial. To fix this, put your tracks back to their original order (using Epic Edit 1.5). I already mentioned this in the previous news.

If you have edited Koopa Beach 1, object zone data will be corrupt (due to the fact Koopa Beach 1 works differently from all other tracks). This leads to problems with Thwomps, which are in the Bowser Castle and Rainbow Road tracks. In Epic Edit 1.6, you can't try to modify Koopa Beach 1 object zones anymore.
To fix your ROM, grab the original ROM (or one that's not corrupt), open it in a hex editor, and look for this series of bytes: B3 DB A1 DB 93 DB CF DA D9 DA. Just restore these values at the same location in your corrupt ROM.

Certain overlay tiles (such as options blocks and stuff) may be corrupt in resaved tracks. Although Epic Edit doesn't support overlay tile editing yet, I've just been too hasty to commit a patch made by a contributor which loads and resaves overlay data, and which contained a bug.
To fix the problem: either use a hex editor and restore the overlay data to what it was, or wait for Epic Edit to support overlay tile editing.

If you're editing a Japanese or European ROM, some tracks may show up as partly garbled / corrupt in the game (this isn't new, it was like this with Epic Edit 1.0 too). This seems to be a decompression bug in the original Jap and Euro ROMs. To avoid this problem, Epic Edit now recompresses tracks slightly differently for non-US ROMs (leading to a very slightly lower compression rate).
To fix the tracks concerned by this issue, simply resave them with Epic Edit 1.6 (ensuring they're marked as modified, with the star next to their name, else they won't be recompressed).

Have fun.

Some Epic Edit news
Posted on 02-Apr-2010 by Stifu
Attention Epic Edit users, I recently discovered a major bug in version 1.5: reordering tracks leads to corrupt track names in Time Trial. The bug has been fixed (it's in SVN), and the fix will be in the next version, but while waiting, for those who may have changed the order of the tracks with 1.5, you just need to put the tracks back in the original order to fix the problem. You'll then be able to reorder them again with the next version. Talking about the next version (probably 1.6), it'll feature lap line and driver starting position editing, and should be available within a few weeks.

Some Epic Edit news

Posted on 02-Apr-2010 by Stifu

Attention Epic Edit users, I recently discovered a major bug in version 1.5: reordering tracks leads to corrupt track names in Time Trial.
The bug has been fixed (it's in SVN), and the fix will be in the next version, but while waiting, for those who may have changed the order of the tracks with 1.5, you just need to put the tracks back in the original order to fix the problem. You'll then be able to reorder them again with the next version.

Talking about the next version (probably 1.6), it'll feature lap line and driver starting position editing, and should be available within a few weeks.

Epic Edit 1.5
Posted on 05-Jan-2010 by Stifu
Here's Epic Edit version 1.5! A good load of new feature this time around, such as object and AI editing. See the NEWS.txt file for more info. Big thanks to smkdan for his help, as well as the author of MAKE (as studying this editor saved me some time). 2 important things to note regarding this new version: From now on, the range in the ROM located between 512 and 1024 KB is entirely dedicated to Epic Edit. This means that if you have custom data in there, Epic Edit will erase it! Although objects and AI are now supported, the export function hasn't evolved yet: only the track map is exported, not the rest. Back up your ROMs, and enjoy.

Epic Edit 1.5

Posted on 05-Jan-2010 by Stifu

Here's Epic Edit version 1.5!

A good load of new feature this time around, such as object and AI editing. See the NEWS.txt file for more info.
Big thanks to smkdan for his help, as well as the author of MAKE (as studying this editor saved me some time).

2 important things to note regarding this new version:

From now on, the range in the ROM located between 512 and 1024 KB is entirely dedicated to Epic Edit. This means that if you have custom data in there, Epic Edit will erase it!
Although objects and AI are now supported, the export function hasn't evolved yet: only the track map is exported, not the rest.

Back up your ROMs, and enjoy.

Special"S"Forces
Posted on 25-Dec-2009 by Stifu
It's now been 10 years since I started Special"S"Forces, aka SSF (game project created with RPG Maker 95), in late 1999. In late 2002, I released a first demo of the game (about one hour long). The last time I actually worked on SSF was over 5 years ago. Today, I finally take the time to official put an end to this project. At the same time, I release a last version of SSF, since I put a lot work into it back in 2003 and 2004. The game is barely any longer than it used to be, I mainly worked on improving what's there. Unfortunately, since it'd take me too much time, I didn't bother translating it to English this time, therefore this last demo is only available in French. To sum things up, I think this incomplete game will only interest nostalgics of RPG Maker 95 games. As a reminder, the game only works on Windows. The Special"S"Forces page strikes this from todo list

Special"S"Forces

Posted on 25-Dec-2009 by Stifu

It's now been 10 years since I started Special"S"Forces, aka SSF (game project created with RPG Maker 95), in late 1999. In late 2002, I released a first demo of the game (about one hour long). The last time I actually worked on SSF was over 5 years ago.

Today, I finally take the time to official put an end to this project. At the same time, I release a last version of SSF, since I put a lot work into it back in 2003 and 2004. The game is barely any longer than it used to be, I mainly worked on improving what's there. Unfortunately, since it'd take me too much time, I didn't bother translating it to English this time, therefore this last demo is only available in French.

To sum things up, I think this incomplete game will only interest nostalgics of RPG Maker 95 games. As a reminder, the game only works on Windows.

The Special"S"Forces page

*strikes this from todo list*

Epic Edit news
Posted on 06-Oct-2009 by Stifu
Epic Edit development is coming along nicely, and I've added a few nice features since version 1.0. Most notably, track objects as well as the AI can now be edited. All of this will be included in the next version, which shouldn't be too far away. Here's a little screenshot showing what AI editing looks like: Description: when a computer driver enters a zone (zones being either rectangles or triangles), it will then drive toward the zone's target point (those little white circles located in the next zone). Colors (blue, green, yellow and red) represent the speed of the computer driver (from slowest to fastest) when in that zone. Oh, and I forgot to mention here that the Epic Edit source code is available on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/epicedit/ So interested people can always grab the latest version of sources from there.

Epic Edit news

Posted on 06-Oct-2009 by Stifu

Epic Edit development is coming along nicely, and I've added a few nice features since version 1.0. Most notably, track objects as well as the AI can now be edited. All of this will be included in the next version, which shouldn't be too far away.

Here's a little screenshot showing what AI editing looks like:

Description: when a computer driver enters a zone (zones being either rectangles or triangles), it will then drive toward the zone's target point (those little white circles located in the next zone). Colors (blue, green, yellow and red) represent the speed of the computer driver (from slowest to fastest) when in that zone.

Oh, and I forgot to mention here that the Epic Edit source code is available on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/epicedit/
So interested people can always grab the latest version of sources from there.

Epic Edit 1.0
Posted on 03-Aug-2009 by Stifu
Here's the first real release of Epic Edit, at last. It resaves data in a clean way, with a high compression rate. Enjoy. And back up your ROMs. PS: the old board being too buggy and insecure, we now have a new one. And since the news comment system was tightly coupled with the old message board, it's no longer available for now.

Epic Edit 1.0 Preview 3
Posted on 13-May-2009 by Stifu
Here we go for a third and last pre-release of Epic Edit. No new features, but more stability, more speed, and a more readable source code. Also, Preview 2 introduced a Mono-specific regression that made tile laying quite slow. This is fixed. By the way, for Mono users, the minimum recommended version is now the 2.0 one (Preview 3 brings some optimizations that cause graphic glitches with Mono 1.9.1). On a side note, Epic Edit still doesn't work on Mac with Mono, but I've reported the bugs that prevent it from working. The next version of Epic Edit will be the 1.0 final one, and will finally allow to resave ROMs. Tracks in Super Mario Kart are double compressed, and since Preview 2, Midwife has implemented a (non-optimal) method for one of both of the needed compression routines, so there's one more to go. If anyone experienced when it comes to compression wants to contribute to Epic Edit, get in touch with me, that'll speed things up.

Epic Edit 1.0 Preview 3

Posted on 13-May-2009 by Stifu

Here we go for a third and last pre-release of Epic Edit. No new features, but more stability, more speed, and a more readable source code.
Also, Preview 2 introduced a Mono-specific regression that made tile laying quite slow. This is fixed. By the way, for Mono users, the minimum recommended version is now the 2.0 one (Preview 3 brings some optimizations that cause graphic glitches with Mono 1.9.1). On a side note, Epic Edit still doesn't work on Mac with Mono, but I've reported the bugs that prevent it from working.

The next version of Epic Edit will be the 1.0 final one, and will finally allow to resave ROMs. Tracks in Super Mario Kart are double compressed, and since Preview 2, Midwife has implemented a (non-optimal) method for one of both of the needed compression routines, so there's one more to go. If anyone experienced when it comes to compression wants to contribute to Epic Edit, get in touch with me, that'll speed things up.

Epic Edit 1.0 Preview 2
Posted on 03-Jan-2009 by Stifu
It's only been 2 weeks since the first pre-release of Epic Edit, but I've still had enough time to get some more work done. Enough to justify a new version release. The two biggest changes are a cache system that greatly improves performances, and the ability to select and copy multiple tiles. See history.txt for the rest. Get it from the Epic Edit page.

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