Crazy Hand v1.31 - Character editing program

[Strong Badam]

Can't believe it took me this long to find this. Great work, I'm gonna mess around with this for some stuff. Wish it was easier to test out like Brawl hacking is.
I approve of the name, btw :3

Completely off topic but @ Ripple , are you the same Ripple that sometimes comes to TRavs?

He is indeed!

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Can't believe it took me this long to find this. Great work, I'm gonna mess around with this for some stuff. Wish it was easier to test out like Brawl hacking is.
I approve of the name, btw :3

He is indeed!

It's really easy to test! Just launch the game's dol in Dolphin. You just need to set the apploader path and stuff.

 

[Strong Badam]

It's a hassle for me to set up GCN -> USB and stuff. If I had like 3 extra USB ports it'd be pretty simple but it's kinda obnoxious for me haha. I'll probably still give it a go here and there, would be nice to test some moveset changes in the context of Melee's engine.

 

[Doq]

Alright, well DoctorKirby if yours ended up buggy, I'll give it a shot myself then. @ Achilles1515 , any idea when version 4.0 will be out? And do you think there's a chance I could get an early build of it to get my program set up for it? If not I understand.

It actually wasn't my program, it was Gamecube ISO Tool, in which I simply made a frontend and focused it on replacing vanilla with 20XX files. When it rebuilds the ISO, it's kinda glitchy, probably because it rebuilds from a GCReEx extraction--GCReEx is very strict on file sizes.

If only I had another program...

And just like that I found one. More on this later.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Also, I'm playing around with the whole script offset pointer thing. I see no real issue with it. It's kind of tedious to have to change everyone subsequent pointer after changing a single one, but I haven't run into any problems. Maybe it's because I haven't run into goto stuff yet.

 

[Achilles1515]

Alright, well DoctorKirby if yours ended up buggy, I'll give it a shot myself then. @ Achilles1515 , any idea when version 4.0 will be out? And do you think there's a chance I could get an early build of it to get my program set up for it? If not I understand.

Not yet set on a date for 4.0. Still working hard on it. But like I said, it just need to have the exact same functionality of GCR.

1) Ability to overwrite files with a larger size file.

- current 20XX files (specifically the alt costumes, replacing trophy files)
​

2) Ability to add files to the filesystem like Sham Rock describes here.

 

[Ampers]

@ MagicScrumpy ,
I was hoping @ Stratocaster would elaborate on that a bit too. I may have misunderstood him because I'm not too sure what the issue was.
And Scrumpy as far as working on the project, if there's anything you can think of that you'd like to contribute feel free to take a look at the source code and add it in. If you can't think of anything I'm sure I could come up with a task or two.


@ Strong Badam ,
I've never done any Brawl modding before so I'm curious, what makes it so much easier?
And I'm glad you like the name, haha. You worked on Master Hand, right? Was there any particular reason it was a read-only program?

 

[Ripple]

brawl is easy to mod because you never have to shut down the console in order to view changes. so its like its own dolphin.

lets say you wanted to change a hitbox, go the the character select menu and then just pop out the SD card. edit it, then pop it back in. its now changed the next time you load the character

 

[Achilles1515]

Eventual support for modifying character hurtboxes?

I don't know of documentation other than this.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

I've had limited (but some!) success in just playing around with the script pointers. I keep making careless mistakes when re-pointing everything lol

 

[MagicScrumpy]

If it hasn't been done, I can just do the simple task of making a drop-down list of sound effects.

 

[Ampers]

If it hasn't been done, I can just do the simple task of making a drop-down list of sound effects.

The only issue with that is that, as far as I'm aware, not all of the sounds have been named/identified. Stratocaster showed me his incomplete list and there were lots of gaps. For the time being I think it should just be left as a number you can edit.

Unless there's a complete list of sounds that he and I were unaware of... if there is one, that would be awesome if you make a drop down for that.

 

[darkside1222]

Y

@ D darkside1222
I plan to add them into the program at some point. However, the program does not currently support character specific subactions, so I'd have to make that a thing first. Honestly I'm not gonna make Master/Crazy hand a big priority since I don't think many people would find a use for it.

Yea that's true. Its not really of priority.

By the way ampers did you guys get the direct iso editing and loading done? I've managed to do it using your program and i could help you guys if you need any help.

 

[Tater]

Hey guys, not dead!

I won't lie, I've been slacking off a little on getting special moves mapped but I just finished mapping them for all characters(Sans kirby, due to some weird inconsistencies that I hope to fix soon)

Part of the reason I went so slowly with this is that I noticed some things in the code that I explored with varying degrees of success.

The HexString associated with Continuation Control is often absent in the aerial versions of special moves(See shiek's needle moves) It's possible that D0 00 00 03 is used to set a flag letting the game know that the character is on ground.

Possible offsets for reading control stick input

from plys - SpecialHi, plsk - SpecialHiStart/SpecialAirHiStart, plsk - SpecialSStart/SpecialAirSStart/SpecialAirS/SpecialAirSEnd
AC 01 80 00

from plys - SpecialAirHi, plsk - SpecialSEnd
AC 01 60 00

The different offsets (AC 01 80 00 and AC 01 60 00) are very close together and I have only seen them in moves that are controlled by control stick input.

I also went ahead and took the liberty of making a Github account for the project. I'll post the link here once I've got everything set up so everyone working on features is all on the same page.

I'm glad to see so much support and help from the community c:

 

[Stratocaster]

@ Ampers I think the confusion is that if you change one script offset you must change the subsequent ones, which is not exclusively true though that is kind of what I said. You can make a script offset point to a previously empty spot (where you can write a new script or to another existing script. This works fine as long as you don't run out of free space, but you will likely run out pretty quickly, and its really only useful when hex editing because you've gotta find a space for it and all.

The issue is when you're making a program like this, and you want it to work cleanly. I think I can explain it best with an example. Say you want to add a sound effect to Mario's Attack11 without removing any existing stuff. Well Attack12 has a script directly after the script for Attack11 ends, so in order to add some extra code, you will need to write over where Attack 12 was, and move that data down. Then you'll need to adjust the script offsets to match the shifted code. The alternative is to just write the new Attack11 script elsewhere, which is fine for a hex editing solution, but its an inefficient solution that you shouldn't use in your program because you waste the space Attack11 used to occupy.

I hope that answers your question, cause otherwise I'm not sure what it is.

 

[Strong Badam]

@ Strong Badam ,
I've never done any Brawl modding before so I'm curious, what makes it so much easier?
And I'm glad you like the name, haha. You worked on Master Hand, right? Was there any particular reason it was a read-only program?

As Ripple explained, Brawl hacking has a file patch code which reads from the SD card every time a file is read, so editing and retesting requires no reboot. It's also much more accessible, being able to be done via homebrew on console instead of doing stuff via Dolphin emulator.

I did a decent bit of work helping figure out attribute offsets and command names, but the bulk of the work was by Magus and Dantarion. AFAIK it was read-only because updating pointers when adding/removing lines is a difficult task, but don't quote me on that. The application was also initially made with the purpose of Project M development; its only purpose was to research what Melee data was, not to change it.

 

[Achilles1515]

FYI,
Attribute +0x148 (normally 0.5) has something to do with walljumping. If you make it something higher than 1.0, then the character can no longer walljump. That is the only thing I have noticed about changing the value.

 

[Tater]

Alright, I'm a noob at GitHub so if there's an issue with it let me know but it should be functional.

https://github.com/Crazy-Hand-Project/Crazy-Hand

This has the source code for version 1.0 of Crazy Hand with the changes I've made so far.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

It may be more user friendly to just name the special moves things like "Neutral B" and "Side B" rather than using their more official names. Everyone is familiar with those terms; just naming them as such would be a lot more navigable and easier to code.

 

[Ampers]

@ Stratocaster ,
What I was referring was this quote from you quite a while back (Right after I released MCAEdit v1.1):

As you expand functionality into adding and subtracting data you'll need to know that go to and subroutine functions have pointers in them which I recall are absolute pointers. You'll have to program those to adjust accordingly to any changes. I hope you add the ability to swap animations and such too.

Do these pointers point to other locations within the subaction script locations? If so that could be an issue. Or perhaps I'm just completely misinterpreting this...




@ D darkside1222
Nice, no I have not gotten the iso loading to work. I've only been doing research on it, have not tested anything yet. If you've got something functional I'd love to see it. Now that we have a github account you should be able to add it in there.
And actually regarding MH and CH, I just added support for them in tonight along with support for character specific subaction.




A note to anyone who is currently contributing or plans to contribute to this project:
Thanks for getting github set up, @ Tater . That will be very helpful. Now that we have many people potentially contributing to his project, I think it will be very important that we each do a good job of documenting what we changed in each update so that everybody can try and stay on the same page.
I think we should also try to do some commenting of our code too where applicable. I know I am definitely guilty of writing really obscure code and leaving no comments behind (speaking of which, kudos on figuring out my hitbox script code tater, haha). I'm not used to working on group projects where commenting is a lot more important. Obviously I don't expect anybody to comment every single line explaining what it did, but if you think it needs explanation, leave some hints behind like //this function is for _______ or //This is buggy, be careful etc...
And one last note: if you've looked at my code before, you may have noticed that I make all functions/methods/variables public and I do not use accesors/mutators. I know this is often considered bad coding practice but it makes things so much easier. I've never fully understood why accessors/mutators are necessary.

 

[Tater]

It may be more user friendly to just name the special moves things like "Neutral B" and "Side B" rather than using their more official names. Everyone is familiar with those terms; just naming them as such would be a lot more navigable and easier to code.

Yeah, that thought crossed my mind as I was writing down the names. I guess I liked the idea more than the result haha. I'm working on renaming moves right now, but that's not a top priority for me at the moment.

For now, sleep!

 

[darkside1222]

@ Ampers
Yes i've managed to get it fully working with direct saving modified subactions and attributes to the ISO. I'll contribute to the github once i've revised some of the code. I'll post an example of something functional later on. And nice job on adding MH and CH too!

 

[Stratocaster]

Do these pointers point to other locations within the subaction script locations? If so that could be an issue. Or perhaps I'm just completely misinterpreting this...

Ok now I understand your question. Again I'll just give you an example.

In Falcon's Attack100Loop script is the following function/event:
Go to
1c00000000004710

Since its a repeating script it has to point somewhere or else it would stop executing the hitboxes and such after a repetition of rapid jabs (or freeze?). If you look at the script offsets the script is at 0x470C, and this points to 0x4710. So basically it goes back and repeats the whole script over again (except it skips over the first 4 bytes after the first time).

So the answer to your question is yes, these Go to and subaction pointers point to other (absolute) location in the subaction script locations. In order to move them you'd have to somehow tie them together so it knows to adjust these to do. Its problematic, but possible. In this case you could say that the Go to function is the Attack100Loop script offset + 0x4. Then when the Attack100Loop scritp offset changes, update the go to function to be that new value + 0x4. Its problematic, but possible to work with. I didn't realize these were a thing when I started my code and it gave me issues.

 

[darkside1222]

Okay here's a functional test version of your program with direct ISO modification. I will contribute the code to the github once I fix up some stuff if there are any problems.

You will be prompt to choose an SSBM ISO upon start up of the program.

- Loads and saves directly to the ISO. No more rebuilding using other tools.
- Can restore the fighters to default directly to ISO now as well

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bonhnqxcpf92rgu/Crazy Hand ISO SUPPORT.zip?dl=0

 

[Ampers]

Okay here's a functional test version of your program with direct ISO modification. I will contribute the code to the github once I fix up some stuff if there are any problems.

You will be prompt to choose an SSBM ISO upon start up of the program.

- Loads and saves directly to the ISO. No more rebuilding using other tools.
- Can restore the fighters to default directly to ISO now as well

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bonhnqxcpf92rgu/Crazy Hand ISO SUPPORT.zip?dl=0

Very nicely done! Do you think you might also be able to set it up so that it would be able to install 20XX automatically like I had mentioned previously? I have no idea what kind of set up you have so that could be completely out of the picture.





@ Tater , apparently I have no idea how to use github... I've been trying to figure out just how to just commit a change or something and haven't gotten anything to work.

 

[darkside1222]

@ Ampers Thanks And yea it is possible to install 20XX using the iso file system i made as it is just replacing files in the iso.

However it doesn't have support for adding new files or replacing files with a bigger size than the original length so
this may mean that it won't support future versions of 20XX(4+)

 

[Achilles1515]

@ Ampers Thanks And yea it is possible to install 20XX using the iso file system i made as it is just replacing files in the iso.

However it doesn't have support for adding new files or replacing files with a bigger size than the original length so this means that the current version of 20xx is supported, but maybe not future versions.

It still wouldn't be compatible with everything in 20XX 3.02. Some of the alt costume files were larger than the trophies they replaced, along with soem of the stage swaps I believe. And maybe some of the PAL characters, too. Idk exactly.

I haven't tried out the modified program, but good stuff. Certainly a step in the right direction.

 

[darkside1222]

It still wouldn't be compatible with everything in 20XX 3.02. Some of the alt costume files were larger than the trophies they replaced, along with soem of the stage swaps I believe. And maybe some of the PAL characters, too. Idk exactly.

I haven't tried out the modified program, but good stuff. Certainly a step in the right direction.

Oh okay I see. Maybe in the future i'll add the support needed for installing 20XX.

 

[oksas]

I've been using the iso version that darkside posted for the last few hours, haven't had any problems whatsoever. works like a charm :D

 

[Tater]

@ Tater , apparently I have no idea how to use github... I've been trying to figure out just how to just commit a change or something and haven't gotten anything to work.

Yeah, Github is a pain in the ass to get set up... I had to tinker with it for an hour to get it working for myself. I downloaded EGit for eclipse which made things a bit easier(There's a guide for using EGit with Github which covers everything, which helped immensely.) I created a git repository for crazy hand using EGit, then opened the actual Github program and added that repository(so that Github will track changes I make in Eclipse)

The steps I take to commit a change is now:

1:Make changes to the code within eclipse
2:Use Egit to commit a change(right click the file -> team -> commit)
3:Use the actual Github program to publish changes to Crazy-Hand-Project by hitting the sync button.

I'm sure I overcomplicated it, and that there's a more simple and streamlined way to do this but I'll settle for what works haha.

Okay here's a functional test version of your program with direct ISO modification. I will contribute the code to the github once I fix up some stuff if there are any problems.
You will be prompt to choose an SSBM ISO upon start up of the program.
- Loads and saves directly to the ISO. No more rebuilding using other tools.
- Can restore the fighters to default directly to ISO now as well
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bonhnqxcpf92rgu/Crazy Hand ISO SUPPORT.zip?dl=0

Excellent work! With features like this, we might just see the popularity of Melee modding increase dramatically.

 

[Ampers]

@ Tater ,
I've been fiddling with GitHub for a while now and I finally got to the point where I almost had something work, but when I tried to press the sync button, it said "Sync failed to push local changes. It seems you do not have permission to push your changes to this repository."
Do you need to make it public or something in order for others to edit it?



@ D darkside1222 ,
Would you be able to make it so the file browser thing to locate the iso defaults to the location of the program? I think that would be a lot more convenient. I know, that's super nit-picky but I think that would be a nice touch if possible.

 

[darkside1222]

@ D darkside1222 ,
Would you be able to make it so the file browser thing to locate the iso defaults to the location of the program? I think that would be a lot more convenient. I know, that's super nit-picky but I think that would be a nice touch if possible.

You were thinking the same thing as I was. I already changed it after i released the test version.

Regarding the github, since it was made by tater, i think you would have to do a pull request so he can merge your code? I'm not familiar with github so I can't really help

 

[Tater]

@ Tater ,
I've been fiddling with GitHub for a while now and I finally got to the point where I almost had something work, but when I tried to press the sync button, it said "Sync failed to push local changes. It seems you do not have permission to push your changes to this repository."
Do you need to make it public or something in order for others to edit it?

I was wondering about that... Looks like I'll have to add you and anyone else who wants to make changes to the collaborators list. If you pm me your github username I can take care of that.

 

[Ampers]

@ Tater ,
thanks, I got it working now. I've also found that EGit is not necessary to commit. What I have been doing is editing my code from within Eclipse and then going into the GitHub GUI application to commit and sync from there. Seems more efficient. Soon I'm going to give my step-by-step process of setting things up GitHub for future contributors to make the process as streamlined as possible.

Also, I noticed that you've been telling GitHub to ignore some of the additional files for out project, such as the "def" folder. Personally, I think we should include these into the project on Github, because that way people can just clone the project and have it set up properly. Plus that way if people need to modify some of those files for any reason (For instance I'm planning to add additional files for the animation swapping), they can just be synced together, no problem. What are your thoughts?



@ D darkside1222 ,
A feature that I planned to eventually add to the program was to make it so that whenever the program is done modifying files, it closes out of any reader/writer instances until the next time they are needed. That way you could have Crazy Hand open while testing things out in Dolphin. Right now, if you try to open up Dolphin while Crazy Hand is open it won't let you because the file is already open in another program.
Do you think you could look into adding this feature?

 

[darkside1222]

@ D darkside1222 ,
A feature that I planned to eventually add to the program was to make it so that whenever the program is done modifying files, it closes out of any reader/writer instances until the next time they are needed. That way you could have Crazy Hand open while testing things out in Dolphin. Right now, if you try to open up Dolphin while Crazy Hand is open it won't let you because the file is already open in another program.
Do you think you could look into adding this feature?

I was maybe thinking of adding a button where you would click it if you are done modifying all the files and you want to test it in dolphin. This button will close the reader/writer instances and will allow you to have both Crazy Hand and Dolphin open.

Once you are done testing on dolphin and you want to modify the characters again, you would just click on it again and it will reload the ISO for modifying.

How does that sound? I will release the ISO file system once I've finished this.

 

[Ampers]

I was maybe thinking of adding a button where you would click it if you are done modifying all the files and you want to test it in dolphin. This button will close the reader/writer instances and will allow you to have both Crazy Hand and Dolphin open.

Once you are done testing on dolphin and you want to modify the characters again, you would just click on it again and it will reload the ISO for modifying.

How does that sound? I will release the ISO file system once I've finished this.

Hmm, that would definitely work but I feel like it would be a lot more convenient if it just exited out of them automatically. I can also think of many bugs that could potentially arise from this. And honestly I think that what I suggested would probably be easier to implement, unless your new code (which I haven't seen so it's very possible) would complicate things.

This is what i was thinking: Whenever a function gets called that reads/writes data, We could just modify the function so that it first intializes the file, and then at the end closes the file.
What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Ampers]

I'm currently trying to get animation swapping to work in my program... but I must be misunderstanding how it works because I'm getting really janky glitches.

So I just did a test on Bowser. At first all I did was I swapped the animation pointer of his FSmash to his Bair. I double checked it in Master Hand, and the pointers were now the same for the two moves. I tested it in dolphin and the game froze as soon as I tried to use his FSmash. The music kept playing though...

Then I remembered Stratocaster saying something about an unkonwn offset right after the animation pointer that may be causing this, so I copied this pointer over from his Bair again, so now both pointers were identical to Bair. When I tested it this time, the game didn't freeze but when I used FSmash I got this super weird visual glitch:

His body would just flail around and do messed up stuff. Also it didn't do the exact same thing every time I used FSmash. It would always be a little different, but still this same kind of bizarre stuff.


Does anybody who knows about changing animations know what I might be dong wrong? @ MagicScrumpy or @ Stratocaster maybe?

 

[Achilles1515]

Just follow this guide.

http://smashboards.com/threads/melee-hacks-and-you-updated-1-7-11.247119/page-101#post-15136472

 

[Tater]

I'm currently trying to get animation swapping to work in my program... but I must be misunderstanding how it works because I'm getting really janky glitches.

So I just did a test on Bowser. At first all I did was I swapped the animation pointer of his FSmash to his Bair. I double checked it in Master Hand, and the pointers were now the same for the two moves. I tested it in dolphin and the game froze as soon as I tried to use his FSmash. The music kept playing though...

Then I remembered Stratocaster saying something about an unkonwn offset right after the animation pointer that may be causing this, so I copied this pointer over from his Bair again, so now both pointers were identical to Bair. When I tested it this time, the game didn't freeze but when I used FSmash I got this super weird visual glitch:

His body would just flail around and do messed up stuff. Also it didn't do the exact same thing every time I used FSmash. It would always be a little different, but still this same kind of bizarre stuff.


Does anybody who knows about changing animations know what I might be dong wrong? @ MagicScrumpy or @ Stratocaster maybe?

We should totally have animation randomizing be an option when randomizing characters.

Anyways, to reply to your earlier post:

Having character data files on the github project itself would be fine, I hadn't given much thought regarding what we would do if we added new folders for character data(Like with your animation editing)

I do have a couple of concerns regarding this, though:

1: I'm not sure if character data files ripped from the melee ISO qualify as Nintendo's IP/copyrighted content. My gut says yes, which is why I chose to not sync player files to github, but I also doubt it would matter much if we had them on our project. Just thinking of any possible liabilities there

2:This is more of a minor inconvenience but it came to mind: If anyone who contributes to the project has edited character files in root(to test out the program/actually use it) or any other folder containing character data, it will commit changes to those characters to the github project, meaning when someone syncs with it they might end up with a young link that shoots bombs out of his sword or any other edits done to characters by other people. This isn't a huge issue at all considering we have a "restore default characters" button but I felt it was worth mentioning.

That being said, I say we go ahead and do it since there's almost zero chance of any downsides.

 

[Ampers]

We should totally have animation randomizing be an option when randomizing characters.

Anyways, to reply to your earlier post:

Having character data files on the github project itself would be fine, I hadn't given much thought regarding what we would do if we added new folders for character data(Like with your animation editing)

I do have a couple of concerns regarding this, though:

1: I'm not sure if character data files ripped from the melee ISO qualify as Nintendo's IP/copyrighted content. My gut says yes, which is why I chose to not sync player files to github, but I also doubt it would matter much if we had them on our project. Just thinking of any possible liabilities there

2:This is more of a minor inconvenience but it came to mind: If anyone who contributes to the project has edited character files in root(to test out the program/actually use it) or any other folder containing character data, it will commit changes to those characters to the github project, meaning when someone syncs with it they might end up with a young link that shoots bombs out of his sword or any other edits done to characters by other people. This isn't a huge issue at all considering we have a "restore default characters" button but I felt it was worth mentioning.

That being said, I say we go ahead and do it since there's almost zero chance of any downsides.

Well I'm sure they do technically belong to Nintendo, but I would be amazed if we got in trouble for using them. I mean Melee is so old now...
But I wasn't really thinking we should sync up the "root" directory on GitHub considering pretty much exactly what you said about people changing that when testing. I was more so just referring to stuff like the "def" folder I had that just includes clean copies of every character's .dat file.