For the MASTERS of moding MELEE

[Zeus_Da_master]

#7 and 8 added.....
side note - i'd like to link up with whoever/people who are doing coding/moding with the AI and other things in 20XX, there are a lot of things/ideas that i think should be in it to make the game better. i'm willing to help out in whatever way i can. but for now, i'm making a thread about my ideas since idk who to give them too or how to do them. some of them will be simipliar than others, if you know how to do one of these, feel free to post how to do it... i'ma add more to here as i get time (these are all off the top of my head)...

#1 - Ai....... i was amazed when i played PM for the first time a few wks ago. i think we should do something like that with melee. i like how there is some slight modding going around with the teching, DI, and back to the stage with fox, but thats child play... heres my idea. keep level 1 cpus the way the are. make the cpus get harder, all the way up to level 8. in PM i noticed that sometimes the cpu would just stand there for a second or two, i'm guessing that that is to insinuate a real live person or something. then lets make level 9 cpus be unrealistic. make them perfect and unbeatable. make their combos so perfect. no pauses, perfect frame with everything.... i could break down the AI into so many sub categories, making one for each character, but thats pointless right now.. ex, have falcon and ganon stop using up B everytime you wavedash, jump cancel grab, or jump, luigi use up B for once, etc

#2 - Random character.... maybe make a new icon for random select in CSS?.... also when you select random character, whether on CSS or with endless friendlys, have it also choose random skins/colors. (this should be an easy one)

#3 - unfreeze GAME- like in TE, i think 20xx should have the unfreeze option when GAME appears at the end of a match, i like that.

#4 - unlimited friendlies... right now there is only 3 characters that you can select from, it'd be nice if it could b 5 or so, 3 is just such a small number.... also have an option for random (and again have it choose random skins)

#5 - stamina mode.... have it to where you can adjust it. instead of it only starting at 150hp, have it to be able to set anywhere from 0-999

#6 - ALT skins.... you know how when you hit X and Y it shows you the different colors/skins that you are selected. well make it to where when you hit L for the ATL skins, it also shows a screen shot of the skin that you're selecting.

#7 - always sheik... when you select sheik to be the computer, have it to where that ***** don't change back to zelda lol

#8 - animated PNGs.... is it possible that i can replace some of the pngs in the game with and animated GIF or an APNG?

 

[Doq]

1. soon? I'm seeing the AI project right now.
2. You can't use the current method?
3. no comment
4. also no comment
5. Exists in the Crazy Mod.
6. Might be possible with filesize increase, but all current attempts for this have failed.

 

[DRGN]

People occasionally ask how they can help, and the best answer is to start reading stickied threads, OPs, guides, etc. and just start learning. There isn't much "grunt work" or brute-force efforts that simply needs manpower thrown its way. Probably what the Melee hacking community needs most are researchers and coders (which could be for ASM codes to go into a game, or programs to make existing processes faster/easier/more accessible. there are also other misc. coding endeavors that I would say fall somewhere in-between). Even just the knowledge of how mods come to be, or of the processes to create/add them, can be very enlightening on what's possible, what's reasonable to ask about, and what's possible for you to get into easily (or what piques your interest the most).

If you have some thought of difficulty dissuading you, it shouldn't. More experienced modders want you to be able to jump right in and learn, so there's info and step-by-step guides all over the place to be soaked up. Plus there are tons of people who will answer any questions if you get stuck (although it's still preferred to do some googling or looking around first, so threads aren't too filled with the same questions).

And if the amount of content here -or at least the sifting of it- seems daunting, you'll soon find it's not so bad. The Melee Hacks and You thread's OP serves as a central hub, where one can look up guides and resources on any subject.


As for your specific questions:

1) There are at least three AI related projects currently in the works, plus I know there are others with strong backgrounds with interest in it. I think it would probably be great if we could combine these into one project, so no one is reinventing what others have solved, and easing the workload. But I'm pretty sure they're being done in different languages, so some would need to learn the syntax for whatever would be agreed upon (likely C over ASM).

2) I think many have had this idea, and yeah, it'd be nice.

3) Yeah, I kinda like it too. Would be a nice little toggleable option. But definitely really low priority in face of everything Achilles has on his to-do list.

4) *shrug*

5) This is already built into the current 20XX beta. "General Codes", then the "<General Codes>" submenu (at the bottom).

6) Definitely not missing due to a lack of the idea; this has been talked about for a long time. The reason it hasn't been done is because there's a fairly low limit on the game's RAM. That many CSP textures can't be loaded all at once. So we'd need to have some code that dynamically swaps them in & out of memory (maybe each time a character is changed?). I don't know of anyone working on such a code though.

 

[Zeus_Da_master]

People occasionally ask how they can help, and the best answer is to start reading stickied threads, OPs, guides, etc. and just start learning. There isn't much "grunt work" or brute-force efforts that simply needs manpower thrown its way. Probably what the Melee hacking community needs most are researchers and coders (which could be for ASM codes to go into a game, or programs to make existing processes faster/easier/more accessible. there are also other misc. coding endeavors that I would say fall somewhere in-between). Even just the knowledge of how mods come to be, or of the processes to create/add them, can be very enlightening on what's possible, what's reasonable to ask about, and what's possible for you to get into easily (or what piques your interest the most).

If you have some thought of difficulty dissuading you, it shouldn't. More experienced modders want you to be able to jump right in and learn, so there's info and step-by-step guides all over the place to be soaked up. Plus there are tons of people who will answer any questions if you get stuck (although it's still preferred to do some googling or looking around first, so threads aren't too filled with the same questions).

And if the amount of content here -or at least the sifting of it- seems daunting, you'll soon find it's not so bad. The Melee Hacks and You thread's OP serves as a central hub, where one can look up guides and resources on any subject.


As for your specific questions:

1) There are at least three AI related projects currently in the works, plus I know there are others with strong backgrounds with interest in it. I think it would probably be great if we could combine these into one project, so no one is reinventing what others have solved, and easing the workload. But I'm pretty sure they're being done in different languages, so some would need to learn the syntax for whatever would be agreed upon (likely C over ASM).

2) I think many have had this idea, and yeah, it'd be nice.

3) Yeah, I kinda like it too. Would be a nice little toggleable option. But definitely really low priority in face of everything Achilles has on his to-do list.

4) *shrug*

5) This is already built into the current 20XX beta. "General Codes", then the "<General Codes>" submenu (at the bottom).

6) Definitely not missing due to a lack of the idea; this has been talked about for a long time. The reason it hasn't been done is because there's a fairly low limit on the game's RAM. That many CSP textures can't be loaded all at once. So we'd need to have some code that dynamically swaps them in & out of memory (maybe each time a character is changed?). I don't know of anyone working on such a code though.

for the stamina thing:
by the current 20XX beta, do you mean the 4.0? im new to 20XX also, only had it for about a month. i was told to not get 4 cuz it has bugs, to get 3.02 which just made me think of a question... i'm doing a lot of customizing with my version of 20xx, replaceing PNGs, and skins... if and when i get v4.0 or 5, will it overwrite all the customizing i'd have to redo all the stuff i did?

with the AI:
i agree, there would be a lot of wasted time unless we all get organized. why not make small groups in different areas. like SoCAL will work on marios AI, north cal will do link, etc... it would also be nice it we could have it to where we had choices of the AI. for example lets use falco, we could have a togged to use AI 1,2, or 3. AI1 spams lazers alot and is more defensive, AI2 is very aggressive, etc

with the RAM thing:
i understand that, but why not increase the ram capability? ultimately what i was thinking, is why not make our own melee (melee 2.0)? basically thats what we're doing anyway. if we just tear the game apart piece by piece and then rebuild it as something else, wouldn't the size not matter at all? we wouldn't have to worry about the files we replacing having to be the exact size, we could do whatever we want, we don't have to worry about the size having to fit on a disc, its on a SD card or computer, it could be whatever size we want right?.... and why not take some skins from brawl, n smash4 and add new characters and stages to melee?

i think i saw it in another post, but i didn't read too much of it yet. but i think i saw somewhere that there was a way to mod a characters hitboxes and moves? for ****s and giggles, why not have a create your own character option (unofficial tournament use). someone could take any character ex mario and have him use foxes up tilt, not have the same hit box as fox cuz marios legs aren't the same length, just have the hit box changed to be proportionate with the character, and have the character actually do the animation too. it might be fun for a lot of ppl to customize their own character that way, itd be like fighting a whole new character

 

[SinsOfApathy]

with the RAM thing:
i understand that, but why not increase the ram capability? ultimately what i was thinking, is why not make our own melee (melee 2.0)? basically thats what we're doing anyway. if we just tear the game apart piece by piece and then rebuild it as something else, wouldn't the size not matter at all? we wouldn't have to worry about the files we replacing having to be the exact size, we could do whatever we want, we don't have to worry about the size having to fit on a disc, its on a SD card or computer, it could be whatever size we want right?.... and why not take some skins from brawl, n smash4 and add new characters and stages to melee?

There's a few problems with that. Trust me, I've mulled over it and actually wrote a bit of code to recreate various structs at one point.

1. No one here has a strong background in graphics programming that I'm aware of. Probably trivial to solve if the project got some traction.

2. There's still a lot that we don't know about Melee. Even if we recreate functions based on what we can see, we still lack documentation on what it actually does, like a ton of the Stage related structs.

3. The file formats still aren't really well-known as far as how the data is structured. There's a part of me that would love to sit down and brute force this with what we do know, but I lack that kind of time.

4. Even after all this, it's a major legal issue. If none of us had ever looked at Melee's assembly or the decompiled C code, we'd have what's known as a "clean room" implementation, which is perfectly legal. But because all of us have, that leaves you with a situation where we can't contribute. People would have to be interested in writing the code from scratch with us providing various formulas and very light information on how something is performed, so as to not "taint" them. https://github.com/SirCmpwn/TrueCraft is an example of this for Minecraft.

This is also largely the situation that it's speculated lead to P:M's shutdown. While they were creating something new, if there was any proof they ever took the knowledge gained from Brawl's code with them, then they have an uphill legal battle.

 

[DRGN]

for the stamina thing:
by the current 20XX beta, do you mean the 4.0? im new to 20XX also, only had it for about a month. i was told to not get 4 cuz it has bugs, to get 3.02 which just made me think of a question... i'm doing a lot of customizing with my version of 20xx, replaceing PNGs, and skins... if and when i get v4.0 or 5, will it overwrite all the customizing i'd have to redo all the stuff i did?

4.0 should be more stable. Achilles has been building it from the ground up, completely rewriting codes that were in v3. It's not finished yet, a few things have yet to be added, and a few things are experimental, but that's of course because it's a beta still. I'm glad he's given us the sneak peek though, as there's a lot of fun and great stuff in it.

And yeah, when you create one of the new builds, you'll need to re-add your customization. I do have a feature in DTW that can help with the textures though, by allowing you to mass import all of your custom ones at once. When you’re on the “Disc File Tree” tab and you import a texture, it will be imported to the file and offset (location in that file) described in the filename. This of course only works with the standard file naming convention that you see is given to textures when you export them (so if you've exported them with the program, and didn't change their name, you don't need to worry about it). If you want to rename them to add some note of your own, add it to the beginning of the name, followed by an underscore. e.g. instead of "GmStRoll.dat_0x108d00_8.png", it could also be renamed to something like "HAL Labs logo_GmStRoll.dat_0x108d00_8.png", and it will work just the same. So try putting all of your custom textures into one folder. Then, if you start working on a new build of the game, you should be able to easily select them all and do just one import operation.

 

[Zeus_Da_master]

This is also largely the situation that it's speculated lead to P:M's shutdown. While they were creating something new, if there was any proof they ever took the knowledge gained from Brawl's code with them, then they have an uphill legal battle.

as long as we don't sell it or make money off of it, theres no laws being broken. ppl do that with music all the time, taking artists beats and reusing them, sampling hooks and stuff. its totally legal as long as we don't make money off it.... i know a professional coder that i met in college like 10 yrs ago. its possible to reach out to him, but we would have to get donations for him.

 

[SinsOfApathy]

as long as we don't sell it or make money off of it, theres no laws being broken. ppl do that with music all the time, taking artists beats and reusing them, sampling hooks and stuff. its totally legal as long as we don't make money off it.... i know a professional coder that i met in college like 10 yrs ago. its possible to reach out to him, but we would have to get donations for him.

It's extrememly iffy and has very little to do with whether or not we make money.

We have "backups," which aren't possible to legally obtain due to Nintendo's customer agreement. U.S. Courts have a precedent that such a violation negates the copyright laws permitting reverse engineering.

Sony v. Connectix found that disassembly of the code copied from the console was fine as long as none of the original code was used. So, we would be screening every single commit to make sure no one attempted to copy the code verbatim.

Compaq v. Procom was regarding essentially hardcoded values being reused for harddrive inter-operation by Procom, which Compaq won due to the parameters being sufficiently creative.

Blizzard v. BNetD held that because the authors had agreed to a EULA, their fair use rights were waived. The project was open-source, though if I remember correctly Blizzard basically drained them of money by going for them over other things like hosting advertisements on their launcher or something.

So basically, if we ever had a legal battle with Nintendo over it, regardless of the legitimacy of our usage, it really comes down to the fact we'd have to be able to pay a lawyer a lot of money. Ryan Morrison "The Video Game Lawyer" represents Project M, so it'd be easy enough to find someone. But, it's really not worth the trouble.

 

[Zeus_Da_master]

It's extrememly iffy and has very little to do with whether or not we make money.

We have "backups," which aren't possible to legally obtain due to Nintendo's customer agreement. U.S. Courts have a precedent that such a violation negates the copyright laws permitting reverse engineering.

Sony v. Connectix found that disassembly of the code copied from the console was fine as long as none of the original code was used. So, we would be screening every single commit to make sure no one attempted to copy the code verbatim.

Compaq v. Procom was regarding essentially hardcoded values being reused for harddrive inter-operation by Procom, which Compaq won due to the parameters being sufficiently creative.

Blizzard v. BNetD held that because the authors had agreed to a EULA, their fair use rights were waived. The project was open-source, though if I remember correctly Blizzard basically drained them of money by going for them over other things like hosting advertisements on their launcher or something.

So basically, if we ever had a legal battle with Nintendo over it, regardless of the legitimacy of our usage, it really comes down to the fact we'd have to be able to pay a lawyer a lot of money. Ryan Morrison "The Video Game Lawyer" represents Project M, so it'd be easy enough to find someone. But, it's really not worth the trouble.

****, to me its worth it; i'll take on full responsibility, i'll take one for the team