Language…
17 users online: anonimzwx, Darolac, DasFueller, Dennsen86,  Doctor No, Doopu, Fozymandias, Gamet2004, Green, LightAligns, Mike777, MorrieTheMagpie, RicardoDeMelo, romw314, sinseiga, Sokobansolver, twicepipes - Guests: 271 - Bots: 238
Users: 64,795 (2,375 active)
Latest user: mathew

Member of the Month: November

Link Thread Closed
The member and staff member of the month for November are RednGreen and Tahixham respectively. RednGreen is a great composer and one of the best collaborators of the music section, while Tahixham has been of great help during the graphic remoderation. Without further ado, enjoy the interviews.

Originally posted by RednGreen's interview
1. How did you get into SMW hacking?

The way I discovered SMW hacking is not so different from other people actually #ab{:P}
Five or six years ago - if I remember correctly - I was watching some Mario fangame videos (before getting into SMW hacking I was pretty interested in game making; I've used RPG Maker for quite a lot of time), when I stumbled upon some "Lunar Magic SMW level" video: basically, it was a custom level with fancy graphics and cool stuff. Other things which got me were that famous "Auto-Mario level", or that infamous "Super Mario World Ultra Secret Level" which a lot of you will probably know; I also remember watching SirRonLionHeart's Kaizo Mario World LPs.
Anyway, the idea of being able to modify a SNES game was amazing, especially considering SMW is one of my favourite games ever. I began playing some hacks (the very first ones that come to my mind are Mario is Missing 2: Luigi's New Adventure, Mario's Exodus to Death and the Panic in the Mushroom Kingdom episodes); I remember having some problems with IPS patches (I still didn't know about Lunar IPS and I used to put both clean ROM and IPS in the same folder, or something like that), but they were very fun to play, and that got me interested even more.
The funny thing is, at first I thought Lunar Magic was some kind of shareware program: my expectations were wrong, luckily #ab{:LOL:}

2. Can you tell us about the hacking project you are working or have worked on?

Uh, I actually haven't worked on many projects.
At some point, playing hacks made me wonder if I could do something myself, so I started reading tutorials and tutorials about tools, graphics, music and sprites insertion (I remember having some troubles with those Map16 things). I started making some not-too-kaizo hacks, taking inspiration from the original series, but I eventually tried to make my own "serious" hack: Super Mario - The Unknown Travel, which was abandoned due to various crashing problems. Wasn't that good, actually, even though I have to admit I put quite a lot of work into it back at the time. I also had the opportunity to help with the development of Quest on Full Moon Island (beta-testing, music composition/porting and a bit of level design) and SMWCP2 (I can't wait for its release!). I also contributed to some soundtrack projects, such as the Donkey Kong Country and Kirby's Superstar OST.
I'm currently doing a little thing with some friends, but that's a very secret secret #ab{:P}

3. What got your interest towards music composition?

I've been a huge fan of videogame music since I was a little kid, and I've always given particular emphasis to the feelings it can convey to the listener.
What first got me into music is Koji Kondo's outstanding works on Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 classics: I still can't imagine how he managed to create such beautiful music, so varied in style and melody.
I've never studied music theory myself, but I've always liked playing keyboard: I guess listening to my favourite music made me learn something about melodies, chord progressions and basslines (which I'm particularly fond of).
I remember listening to MIDIs on my old Windows 98 and messing around with a very old music editor called "Music Sculptor"; this probably helped to shape my passion for videogame soundtracks.
Growing up I got into RPGs, where music really has a great impact. That's where I thought: "I should try composing something myself", so I started doing music on FL Studio, and with the passing of time I've always tried to improve my skills, both musically and technically (I still have some difficulties though).
This coincides with my passion for retrogames: I began informing myself on old games and their respective composers, thus expanding my list of favourite artists (Dave Wise, Hiroki Kikuta, Jeremy Soule, Jun Ishikawa, Koji Kondo, Motoi Sakuraba, Nobuo Uematsu, Tim & Geoff Follin, Tomohito Nishiura, Mahito Yokota, Masakazu Sugimori, Yoko Shimomura, Yuzo Koshiro... but also "indie" composers such as Jake "Virt" Kaufman and Shnabubula).
Gaining knowledge of SNES hacking, I got interested even more in "retro-styled" music: what better occasion to start composing on SMW? My very first port is Twinrova's Theme from Ocarina of Time. I remember submitting it and getting it rejected #ab{:S} But I continued doing music, because it was somewhat fun. Listening to technically advanced SNES music (mostly from Tim and Geoff Follin) made me desire to improve more and more; luckily, the tools themselves have radically improved, and now it's way easier to port and compose SMW music #ab{:)}

4. When you compose music, how do you get inspired?

That's a nice question, because I don't really know either. I probably take inspiration from my favourite composers: each of them has a very unique style which varies in how they make use of chords, basslines, melodies, drums, which instruments they use (just to make an example,
I fell in love with the echoing pan flute Sakuraba often used to put on his music), metrics (I absolutely love weird time signatures, such as 7/8, 5/8 and 13/8) and the complexity of melodies (even if I'm not very good at that, since I'm used to click the notes rather than playing them on keyboard). The way I get inspired is rather "unsteady" though: there are periods in which I manage to make quite a lot of stuff, and periods in which I waste hours to make something, only to erase it after a while.
Sometimes I just find myself humming/playing some tune and "writing" it down on my PC.

5. In general, what has been your experience around the site?

I actually have lurked for about two months after registering to the site, and still haven't posted very much. Luckily, I got the opportunity to share my hobbies with some users (the custom music forum helped a lot, as well as the various C3 contests, where I can try and comment on the new, amazing stuff that people keeps making). Sometimes I just have a few problems posting: my English is still a bit sloppy, and it usually takes me a bunch of minutes to fix any grammatical errors #ab{:S}
Anyway, I was fine with virtually everyone I talked to: someone is kinder, someone is a bit more serious, but you can understand they all care about the community. I also had the opportunity to meet some other Italian hackers!
SMW Central is a great community, as well as a fundamental meeting point for hackers all around the world, and SMW hacking surely wouldn't have come this far without it.


Originally posted by Tahixham's interview
1. How did you find SMW Central?

Well, when I actually found SMW Central, I was pretty annoyed that I hadn't found it sooner. In short, I found it while searching for some hacks to play on Google - I had already been hacking SMW, but wanted to play others' hacks, too, so I came accross various websites (none of which I can remember names of now) and then eventually SMWC's hacks and featured hacks section. I'm not going to lie, I actually thought the site was a trap at first to catch the SMW hackers and get them arrested (I was 12, OK?) so I refrained from registering for a couple of weeks. I eventually decided to register under a terrible username, growler1109. I while after, not sure how long, I went back to FuSoYa's site and saw there was a link to SMWC there - took me six more months to find the site than it should have...

2. Tell us about your recent projects that you're working on.

At this moment in time, I am working on my CLDC entry - Catch the Silly Goose. I'm actually quite surprised I've managed to get so far making that, my hacking inspiration has literally gone from me now, I try to make stuff but then realise it's too much work and give up before even starting the first level. The CLDC entry, however, is going pretty well and almost done. Nowadays, I tend to work on programming websites and stuff - I'm not as good as others, that's for sure, but I like to try. I personally find that more enjoyable than hacking now, but I suppose I used to find hacking just as enjoyable when I started. Four and a half years have gone quick with this hacking stuff.

3. What has gotten your attention towards making graphics?

Probably because it's simpler than any of the other stuff - not saying graphics are easy to make, but it's much more accessible to everyone - unlike porting, ASMing and the likes, both of which I never really bothered to look at. My style has changed over time, but I personally find it easier to draw foregrounds. Another thing that interested me in it were users like Broozer - brilliant ExGFX artists whom I wanted to be like too. A lot of the time, I tend to get a lot of ideas and inspiration from other submissions and ExGFX artists, but I don't even draw ExGFX as much as I used to. I still like to do stuff for C3, though.

4. Tell us about how you feel about the site's community.

SMW Central has such a wide range of users. In all honesty, I like the community. I've had quite a few friends here that have come and gone after a while, I've also lost contact with a couple. But now, there are many people I get along with on IRC, like HyperStarlight and Koopster, and a few of whom I would consider close friends, such as x-treme. Like every community on any website you'll go to, SMWC has it's idiots, but in general, it's a very nice community and one I wouldn't want to leave. There's a wide range of talent here, from composers, to artists, to programmers, it's pretty cool to actually see the skills that everyone has all in one place.

5. Now as a staff member, what can you say about it?

Well, getting the position back in January from the staff applications was one of the biggest shocks I've had since... forever. I do enjoy being a staff member, I found that out when I resigned for a month - which I do still feel a bit bad about as I really hadn't thought it through properly. I quite enjoy all the aspects of it, it's a fun thing to do. I had one fear when I did get promoted, however, and that was that my personality would change into a more serious user (I've seen it happen before, not necessarily hear, though), but I actually feel I have become less serious than what I used to be. But yeah, I do enjoy it.
Originally posted by aj6666
Tahixmham

#ab{O.O}

Ignoring that, congratulations to you two. RednGreen has composed some excellent music which I am very impressed with so well done to him. Also congrats Tahixham.
Congrats to you both! I haven't seen RednGreen too much on the forums, but I can tell he's a great composer, since I listened to some of his ports and they are real good! He deserved it. Congrats to silly goose Tahixham too.

EDIT: ninja'd. Also lol Tahixmham.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
>Tahixmham
>hack remoderation

aj go home you're drunk

In all seriousness, congrats you two~! You really deserved it~
Originally posted by aj6666
Tahixmham has been of great help during the hack remoderation

#smw{o_O?}

Congrats to both of you! To be fair I wasn't expecting RednGreen to make it, but I can't despise the fact that he's a great composer. Tahix's also been a pretty nice guy goose helping out on the GFX remoderation.

Nice job! \:D/
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
Nobody's perfect :/

^ Tahixham when got SoTM'd.

Also congratulations for both of you, it was really deserved.
Congratulations both of you, obviously we'll deserved! #w{=)}
Originally posted by aj6666
Nobody's perfect :/


So true :/ Anyway, Congrats both of you guys~! Both of you guys deserve it. :P
Thank you guys, much appreciated!
Originally posted by RednGreen
Thank you guys, much appreciated!

Yeah, I listen to your compositions time and time again and they sound amazing. You definitely deserve it.

By the way, unless you do not want to, you have the ability to have a custom color for a month as being MotM (unless an administrator hasn't granted you it).
Congrats you two. #smw{:peace:}
Hey remember me! Me neither!

a.k.a. TehUndeadSpartan222 on youtube

Chikorita is best pokemon <3

Check out my scratch(.mit.edu)! Username is MarioGamer120. Working on a Five Nights at Sugarcube Corner 2.Link




Currently: Ripping off (what used to be) MercuryPenny's footer, which is also a rip off of someone else's footer, so... I don't know if I'm like stealing a footer sence im ripping of a ripped of footer but...meh. I won't worry about it, and also celebrating 1,000 subs on youtube :D and trying to beat nightmare mode on FNAF3 and 20 mode on FNAF 1 and 2
Well deserved. Congratulations!
Congratulations, RednGreen. It's high time you got this honor, but I'm amazed you didn't get it before I did.

And a high five to Tahixham as well.
Check out my music!
Originally posted by Moose
Congratulations, RednGreen. It's high time you got this honor, but I'm amazed you didn't get it before I did.

And a high five to Tahixham as well.

My thoughts. I have been waiting for you two :D

(better late than never)
LINKS Twitter | YouTube | SoundCloud | Fortaleza Reznor
to hear birds and see none.
Link Thread Closed