
        
             
                 
MASter System And Compatibles Rom Editor

Index
Info.....................................1
Disclaimer...............................2
What's so great about this program?......3
How do I use this program?...............4
The Palette editor.......................5
Known bugs...............................6
History..................................7
Credits..................................8

1. Info
I need help! Massacre currently only lets you redraw the sprites.
The Master System must use some other way of storing graphics too.
If you know anything about this other storage method, please mail me!
Still no sight of a C version :(
Intresting(?) fact about Massacre:
This version (0.65) running on a 486SX 25Mhz is twice as fast as the earlier
versions (0.2-0.35) running on a P2 300Mhz!

2. Disclaimer
This program is freeware. Anyone caught selling this program will laughed at!
I can not be held responsible for what this program does to your computer
or what you do with this program and so forth...

3. What's so great about this program?
Massacre is currently the only sprite-editor which allows you to
change the graphics in Master System (and compatible) roms.
The later versions of Massacre are (as opposed to the earlier versions)
rather nice and work great even on slower computers.
The actual process of redrawing the sprites can be a pain though.
The Djgpp-version will have a much better mouse-driven interface...

4. How do I use this program?
Here is a step by step guide to editing a rom.

1. Start up Massacre by typing "Massacre" at the Dos-prompt.
2. Type in the filename of the rom you want to edit.
3. If you want to, you can specify which byte the program shall
   start with, this is useful if you have a very slow computer.
   If you have a really slow computer, you might want to type in
   "1" here as this will skip the nice logo fadeout.
4. Use the "N" and "P" keys on you keyboard to move up and down
   until you find something interesting. You can also press "B"
   to change the number of bitplanes (no. of colours/tile).
   (Press "R" to redraw the screen). If the tiles seem broken try
   messing around with the "+" and "-" keys (and "R").
   Explanation: The "+" and "-" keys will move you one byte forward
   or backward in the file. This is useful, because, as opposed to
   NES graphics, SMS sprite data does not always seem to begin on
   bytes which are multiples of 16.
5. Once you've found something you feel like changing, hit any of
   the cursor keys and a little yellow square should appear
   (probably in the upper left corner...). Move the square to
   the tile you want to edit and press space. If you move out of
   the box, you will reappear on the other side (and move one
   tile down or up in certain cases).
6. You will now move to the editing box. use the cursor keys to
   move around, and then press space to put the tile you chose in
   step 5 into the current slot. If you've done something wrong
   you can press "C" to clear the current slot.
7. You will now move back to the main window and get the opportunity
   to pick another tile and put into the editing box.
8. Once you feel you have gathered enough tiles, press "D" while in
   the editing box to switch to drawing mode.
9. Use the cursor keys to move around, and press space to draw a
   pixel in your current position. to the right is the palette (which
   in this version is not configurable). Use the keys "0" through "9"
   and "a,s,d,f,g,h" to choose between the colours.
   By pressing TAB you can enable the auto-drawing mode. Auto-drawing
   means you don't have to press space each time you want to draw a pixel.
   this is usefull for filling large areas with pixels of the same colour.
10.When you think you have done enough drawing hit escape to go back
   to the tile-placing mode. Now press "S" to save your changes (or
   possibly destroy the rom). (this can also be done from the main
   window...)
11.Mail me, and tell me what went wrong.

5. The Palette editor
Don't get too excited about this. It won't let you edit the in-game palettes,
it'll only let you choose which colours should be used within Massacre.
At first I wanted to make the palette editor a part of massacre, but I
couldn't be bothered so I made it a separate executable. Anyway here's how
to use it:
After running the paledit.exe file, you'll be presented with the first
16 colours of the standard VGA-palette. Use the cursor keys to move the
arrows up and down, and then press the "A" key to give your palette a
filename. Important! Don't try to give it an extension or your computer
will vaporize. Then hit "Q" to quit.
the next time you run Massacre, press the "E" key and type in the name
you used to save your palette. (without the extension, or POOOF!)
This is an incredibly inconvenient method of customizing the palette,
but for now, it's the only one available.

6. Known bugs
You can only edit the sprites :(
This means that you usually won't be able to change, for instance,
the title-screen.
Massacre has no decent error-detection. In case something goes wrong,
it will just exit to DOS... This, while not being a very great idea, is
at least better than crashing your computer...
So, if you are suddenly thrown out into DOS, mail me and tell me exactly
what you were doing when it happened.
The palette editor creates palettes which are darker than the Massage
palette. This is because Massage uses the values 0,32,48 or 63 for
each R, G and B value while Massacre uses 0,21,42 or 63...

7. History
Massacre version 0.65
 Slight speedup. About 30% faster.
 Nice logo fadeout.
 Main window and editing box now wrap (like Mario Bros).

Massacre version 0.6
 Nice Logo.
 Fixed another harmless bug.
 Byte counter added.
 The GUI is a little more friendly.
 Fixed the damn palette editor.
 Added auto-drawing mode.

Massacre version 0.5
 Incredible speed increase.
 Incredible version number increase!
 Fixed a rather harmless bug. (A stupid typo in the source code...)

Massacre version 0.35
 Very crappy palette editor.

Massacre version 0.3
 You can now save when editing in 8x16-mode.
 It won't crash if you press the "-" key on the first screen.

Massacre version 0.201
 Removed som numbers which were displayed for debugging purposes...
 Fixed the bug which would draw a pixel in the active colour
  whenever you exited the drawing mode.
 Wonderful new ASCII logo in this document

Massacre version 0.2
 Initial release

8. Credits
The latest version of Massacre is always available at:
http://purplesky.simplenet.com/emucamp/softs/massacre.html

The author of Massacre is:
Johannes Holmberg
bapple@home.se

Please mail me with questions, comments ideas or anything...

Thanks to:
Zoop                     -  For hosting the Massacre homepage.
Tobias Fridell           -  For providing lots of great info, teaching me C,
                            and for answering my stupid questions.
Super Majik Spiral Crew  -  For the smsctech.txt. What's happened to you?
Bjrn strm             -  For being generally helpful.


