NSMBU Airship with SMM2 extras - Four palettes and extended


Note: Certain tiles are sorta stitched together in order to fit everything on the sheet. Also my first tileset port so it might be messy. Credit to Random Talking Bush for the original rips.
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Better NSMB2 Lift

If you want the old one for some reason it's still in the uploader.
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Couple more ports. None tilesets this time though.

NSMB2 Rickshaw Lift

The pivot or whatever only shows when the platforms are 3 tiles wide
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NSMB2 Burner Base

Also includes a lava variant
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NSMB2-esque Stone Lift

Had to make some edits to the sprites for them to actually mesh well together, making it slightly less accurate.
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NSMBU Bullet Bill Blaster

Credit to AboodXD and mrbengtsson for the rips.
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NSMBU Bouncy Cloud

Goes over the bouncy mushroom platform. Credits to AboodXD and mrbengtsson for the rip. Also, while not shown in the screenshot, I recently fixed it's centering, so I would recommend redownloading it.
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I also updated the link for the NSMB2 lift as I improved it, so I'd recommend downloading it again if you have the old one.

Turns out people still want these, so I fixed the links. I would suggest not using 'em though as they're old and lazy (I didn't even remove the extra edited tiles). However, if you still want them, here. No credit needed or wanted.
https://nsmbhd.net/file/hQ4VwM7Xco5SIWEM/d_2d_A_J_jyotyu_ncg.bin
https://nsmbhd.net/file/X0elzMLIRn8VI5H2/d_2d_TEN_A_J_jyotyu_ncg.bin
https://nsmbhd.net/file/1lkrIXS3SzDjPE0F/A_block_ncg.bin

i dont think anyone owns the concept of recreating one nsmb game in another, nor is it a particularly original concept in itself. no need to act like youre the only one that can do something like this, aquarirus. nslu is a different game from nsmbu, anyway

tutorial time
i havent tried this out in full yet but everything should work i think
if it does lmk cause thatd be good

You'll need:
-NSMBe
-A NSMB rom
-Graphics editing software (I'll be using GIMP for this tutorial)
-A hex editor (I'll be using HxD)

Like always, make a backup of your rom.

1. Navigate to /ARCHIVE/menu_title.narc/menu/title/USA, select UI_O_2P_game_setting_o_d_ncg.bin, decompress it, then export it. You can call it original.ncg.

2. Import this file over UI_O_2P_game_setting_o_d_ncg.bin and also download this png.

3. Download this template to edit the course icons (top) and how they look when selected (bottom, palette swap) in the graphics editing software of your choice. Once you're done making the desired edits, rearrange the icons using the tile arrangements at the far left as a guide (the one on the left is how they're currently arranged, and the one on the right is how they need to be arranged)

Start with tile 8 and go down from there. Selecting multiple parts at once will make the process go faster, if your graphics editing software can do that. After you're done, open mvslicons.png in your graphics editing software and replace the original icons with the modified ones; save afterwards.

4. Back in NSMBe, open the recently replaced UI_O_2P_game_setting_o_d_ncg.bin bitmap and its corresponding palette, UI_O_2P_game_setting_o_d_ncl.bin, which can be found in /ARCHIVE/menu_title.narc/menu/title. In the palette viewer, click "add all" to add all the palettes to the bitmap in NSMBe's 2D texture editor. In the texture editor's palette list, right click palettes 0, 1, and 2 to remove them. Then, tick the "View in 4bpp format" button (if it's unchecked), set the tile width to 4, click "Import all bitmaps with all palettes", and import your modifed mvslicons.png. Save and close out of the 2D texture editor.

5. Export this freshly modified UI_O_2P_game_setting_o_d_ncg.bin under the name trim-modified.ncg. Now, open both original.ncg and trim-modified.ncg in a hex editor. Firstly, go into trim-modified.ncg and copy everything (you can do this simply with CTRL-A -> CTRL-C). Next, go into original.ncg and select everything from 0x00480 to 0x01AFF. In HxD, you can do this by going to Edit -> Select block... and putting in 480 as the start offset and 1AFF as the end offset. The process should look like this:


And end with this being selected:

Now, paste what you have copied in its place (if you get a prompt saying "This operation changes the file-size", something's gone awry and you may wanna start from your backup rom or see if you can identify the problem). After that, save this newly-modified original.ncg as modified.ncg.

6. Go back to NSMBe, import modified.ncg over UI_O_2P_game_setting_o_d_ncg.bin, LZ compress it, and then you're done.

Dude, you gotta stop asking people to replace Mario and stuff. That's a pretty untouched part of nsmb hacking, so no one is just gonna do it for you. If you want something like this done you're probably gonna have to research and experiment as there isn't a proper tutorial on this stuff.

whats the error message

Tmk there isnt any sort of documentation of what each model is but you can figure out what most are by looking at the textures or their names. While i don't remember which model is for Mario off the top of my head, as mentioned before here replacing Mario's model has only been done a very few times and it isn't really documented. I'd recommend reading older forum posts as the head's been replaced once before so there are some mentions of how that was done.

This tutorial explains how to take tiles from one 2-palette tileset and add them to another 2-palette tileset without quality loss. I'd recommend giving it a brief readthrough before going along with it, just so you'll know what's up. I only started taking screenshots of the process by step 4, so bare with me. Click 'em if they're to small.


1. Determine which tileset you will be adding tiles too, and which tileset you will be taking tiles from. For this tutorial, I'll be adding tiles from the bonus room tileset to the grasslands tileset as an example. I would suggest adding to the tileset that would be more inconvenient to remap, as any tiles you add will need that done to them.


2. Figure out the names of the tilesets you will be adding to/taking from. I thought there was a list of what tilesets corresponded to which NCGs/NCLs, but I couldn't find it. Luckily, its easy to figure it out yourself-- simply open the tileset in the editor, go to the graphics tab, and write down the file name listed under "Bitmaps" somewhere. Do this for both tilesets, and take note of which is which as well.


3. Find their palettes in the file explorer. They should be named in basically the same way their bitmaps are, but with "ncl" instead of "ncg" in their names. You can find them in the BG_ncl folder. Once you've found them, decompress both of them.


4. Open the palette of the tileset you are taking tiles from with the hex editor. Copy everything in the large middle column and exit.

Now, open the palette of the tileset you are adding tiles to in the hex editor, go to the end of the large middle column, and paste everything you copied earlier.

Then, save, exit, and lz77 compress the palettes. To check if this all is going well so far, try opening the palette of the tileset you are adding tiles to normally and see if it has 4 palettes now. If it does, go on to step 5. If not, either backtrack, ask for clarification, or I guess just ask me to do it if you really can't figure it out.


5. Now, if you're doing this in a throwaway rom, you can just replace any palette file with this one. If you're not using a throwaway rom, you can either replace the palette of the tileset you're taking tiles from (as I'm assuming you're going to import some other tileset over it anyway) or extract some other palette file, replace it with this one, then put it back when you're done with the tutorial. I'd recommend the former. Now, open the graphics of the two tilesets you're gonna merge in the file explorer (they'll be in the BG_ncg folder). Open the one you're adding tiles to first and the one you're taking tiles from second, then add the 2nd palette from this ncl to the bitmaps.

Afterwards, click the "Export all bitmaps with all palettes button", name the png as whatever, and close the tileset you're taking tiles from by right clicking its file name in the "Bitmaps" list. Keep the tileset you're adding tiles to open in the graphics editor.


6. Open the newly exported png in a graphics editor of your choice. I'll be using GIMP, but any program that supports transparency, copying and pasting, and cropping will do. You may also want a reference image of the original tileset graphics, an 8x8 grid, and a way to easily distinguish the left and right halves of the image, but these are ultimately optional. The 256x112 pixel area on the right is the area you'll be taking tiles from, and the area on the left is the one you'll be adding tiles to. You may need to leave behind some tiles, trim duplicates, etc. etc., to make everything fit into the area on the left side.

Once you've gotten everything you want moved, crop the area on the left to 256x112 pixels and save.



7. Now, remember how you left the graphics of the tileset you're adding tiles to open? I should hope so. Open that up and click the "Import this bitmap with existing palette" button and select the modified png you just saved. Make sure you click the button that says "Import this bitmap with existing palette" and NOT the one that says "Import this bitmap and recreate palette".

Once you've done that, save it and close the graphics editor.


8. All you have to do now is open the tileset you added tiles to in the tileset editor and do stuff like remapping and defining the tile behaviors and such of the tiles you added. All the tiles you added should be using palettes 3 and 4.

After you've done all that, just save and you're done!


If you have any questions or just suggestions on how I could phrase all this better, I would encourage leaving them, as I wrote all this pretty late.

Tried applying the xdelta patch to a fresh US nsmb rom but it doesn't seem to work. Do you by any chance know why?

Not sure about NSMB2 hacking but replacing music, graphics, and sound effects are all possible in NSMBDS. Replacing the character model is also """possible""" but the subject isn't very well researched or documented (it's only been done a couple times really).

That's because the head model is separate from the body. Do you think you could send it here so I could take a look?

you can if you want I guess but its not the most original concept

Bad design? Yes. It hinders world building by putting an out of place level somewhere with no visual indication and implies contradictory details regarding the level theme. It's like putting a harmless grassland level in the middle of a threatening molten lava land, albeit to a much less extreme degree depending on context.
Bad level design? No. The world map and the level in question are two separate entities, and while directly connected to each other most problems that apply to one don't necessarily apply to the other.

If it's something you can't get around, or if the effort put in to getting around it isn't worth it then it's not really a big deal. It's a NSMB hack after all (tho still something worth keeping in mind).

Also, just for reference, the US version of NSMB is the standard for hacking. Most ASM patches and documentation are built around it.

"Other means" basically just means downloading the game off some website, so I'm not sure why John was so cryptic about that. However, we can't link a site where you can download the game or post it here as it'd be against the board's rules. Dumping a ROM basically means copying it off of the game cartridge. It's not something I know how to do so I can't really give any advice on that.

Ah, that's great to hear. The site could really benefit from some sort of centralization of information and hopefully it'll encourage newbies to continue NSMB hacking.

Wait, do you want to know how to design an icon for your rom hack, or change an icon on your PC? Because those are 2 relatively different things.

well do you need tips for designing one or do you already have one ready and you just need to put it in the game?

well usually you can just scale down a render of marios head, clean it up, and use that as the icon. Alternatively, you can use sprites from other games, like Mario 3 or something, and scale them up to fit the size of the icon. You could also make a sprite of your own, too. To add the icon to your rom pretty sure you have to open the file called banner.bin, select 4bpp mode, and click the import bitmap and recreate palette button.