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Member of the Month - January 2019 - The New Year's Show feat. LMPuny

It's 2019, and that means the beginning of another year of Member of the Month. This time it's LMPuny!

Quote
FPzero: Welcome, and thanks for tuning in for the first Member of the Month interview for 2019! Joining me today is LMPuny, an active SMW Hacker whose projects have generated a lot of interests during recent C3s. Glad you could be here. How's it going today?
LMPuny: hello fpzero
LMPuny: just enjoying 2018's last day here
LMPuny: 8 hours remaining for 2019 in chile
FPzero: Oh no, you're giving away my secret that we're being very bad about getting these interviews done in a timely manner hahaha
LMPuny: oopsie doopsie
LMPuny: my bad sir
LMPuny: makes a reverence
FPzero: No it's perfectly fine
FPzero: We seem to work best in crunch time over on the PR Team
LMPuny: lol

FPzero: Anyway, let's get into the questions. I always like hearing this one from people: How did you find out about SMW Hacking in the first place? What made you interested in it?
LMPuny: it's a kinda funny story
LMPuny: when i was a kid my dad practically made my way into videogames' world where i got to know about the existence of smw by a speedrun
LMPuny: i always wanted to play it among smb3
LMPuny: i used to google stuff like "super mario world" and always ended up playing flash games lol
LMPuny: but one day i got this game called "snes station" for ps2 where i could play it among other snes games
LMPuny: now, for smw hacking...
LMPuny: the first hack i got to know was one called "super mario world 2" (not yoshi island's)
LMPuny: i never got to play it, the first one i got to play was kaizo mario world (when i got my hands into emulators (zsnes))
LMPuny: i heard that it was made in lunar magic, downloaded it, opened kaizo mario world in it...
LMPuny: it was like a new world for me (get it? mario world? hahaha)
FPzero: Oh man, you started with Kaizo Mario World as one of your first hacks?
FPzero: You are a braver soul than I
LMPuny: yeah, it was minutes of frustration
LMPuny: especially the cave level
LMPuny: fuk that one and smw's glitch where you can't jump when going at high speeds
LMPuny: that just made it harder
FPzero: There's a reason that fast autoscroller went unused in the original game, yeah
LMPuny: anyways, when i discovered lunar magic i tried to tweak kaizo mario world
LMPuny: i didn't understood how to use it so i did basic tweaks to have fun
LMPuny: when it was enough, i closed it and never touched it again...
LMPuny: ...until 2013
LMPuny: it was when i discovered smw central by having interest back in smw hacking

FPzero: That was going to be my next question. What brought you to the site?
LMPuny: i started on the spanish subforums with basic questions as every user must have been lol
LMPuny: that's kinda hard to explain
LMPuny: i wanted to do a smw hack
LMPuny: because life was pulling off a difficult moment of my life, so i wanted to have something to forgive my problems
LMPuny: then i discovered smw central
LMPuny: my activity on this community started with retro mario, my third smw hack
LMPuny: (or as i'm renaming now, super mario bros. R)
LMPuny: i had two cancelled smw hacks that i never revealed to the site but i still went into smwc to download resources
LMPuny: the first one was coin-focused a-la nsmb2
LMPuny: and the second one was going to be centered around the on-off block
LMPuny: that's pretty much it
LMPuny: (i think i took this question way far away lol)
FPzero: No not at all! This is your interview, you can tell me as much as you'd like to!
LMPuny: oh nice
FPzero: Yeah, don't worry about length of answers too much
LMPuny: slap me another question
FPzero: Alright

FPzero: So, I think I first became aware of your projects during 2018 Winter C3 when you first showed off a 1 1/2 level demo of Retro Mario/Super Mario Bros R. I don't think it had a name at the time. I remember being incredibly impressed with it because it was probably the first Mode 0 Enabled hack I'd encountered in all my time on this site. Tell me, what inspired you to make a hack like this?
FPzero: And what challenges do you face making a Mode 0 hack?
LMPuny: what inspired me on doing an 8-bit like hack (as it was called when i first revealed it) was retro-styled modern games
LMPuny: i saw games like mega man 9 and 10 (i'm a huge fan of the mega man series) and, to a lesser extent, shovel knight, going back to the 8-bit style
LMPuny: that pretty much inspired me to do a hack with 8-bit graphic and sound fx
LMPuny: it started as experimental as i would continue developing my 2nd hack, but seeing how much i loved the fact i've done 8-bit sfx inthe snes (which was the hardest part of the hack), i decided to start a new route here
LMPuny: also during the development of my 2nd hack i've heard of mode 0 allowing you to use 4 layers at the cost of 2bpp gfx and i had planned a level for that hacck with mode 0 and a cool monochromatic parallax effect
LMPuny: maybe i'll end using that in smbr
LMPuny: and for the difficulties?
LMPuny: to start with the most tedious one
LMPuny: levels look like garbage in lunar magic
LMPuny: due to the 2bpp gfx
LMPuny: it's kinda tedious to work with them
LMPuny: if allowed i can send a image of what 1-1 looks like in lunar magic
FPzero: Yeah go ahead I've put images in interviews before
FPzero: Getting a behind-the-scenes look is always neat

LMPuny:

FPzero: Wow that looks awful to work with
LMPuny: yeah
FPzero: And yet the levels come out looking so nice and clean in the end
LMPuny: other difficulty about it, while minor, is layer 3 and 4
LMPuny: the uberasm code i use allows for the bottom of layer 3's tilemap to be used for layer 4
LMPuny: so that limits them both
LMPuny: but there's a way i haven't implemented in a level (but it's in the ROM) to have layer 4 and 3 at the same size of what you can see in a normal layer 3 image
LMPuny: there's no much more difficulties about working with mode 0
LMPuny: putting them aside, i think it's beautiful to work with it
LMPuny: you can practically decorate your levels with anything you can
LMPuny: it's satisfying to have detailed backgrounds and effects
LMPuny: but not too detailed for not losing the 8-bit feel
FPzero: I assume since you have to use the Layer 3 tilemap for both layer 3 and layer 4, you're unable to make horizontal levels that scroll vertically?
FPzero: Leaving you with very SMB1-style level layouts?
LMPuny: yea, pretty much
LMPuny: i had to work around that in 1-5 since you could see some parts of the shrooms' bases at the top of the screen
LMPuny: and 1-1's l3 hills when i added the new secret
FPzero: I think that's fine since games always have those kind of hidden things covered up
FPzero: Games are really only made to work their best in the form they release in. We as hackers have to put up with all the other weird quirks of the engine since we're doing things to the game that were never intended.
LMPuny: yeah, we just grab the base game and put a lot of stuff that weren't in the original game
LMPuny: it must be hard to do a game from scratch
FPzero: Yeah, I can only imagine

FPzero: So let's fast forward a bit to the 2018 Summer C3. You released another demo of the hack this time with a world map that Mario could just freely walk around on. That was so cool to experience when I played it on the C3 stream. I believe you've mentioned that you do some ASM of your own. Do you have to write a lot of custom ASM for this hack?
LMPuny: actually, it's like 62% mine stuff and 38% resources
FPzero: That's an impressive number
LMPuny: not only i have to write asm, i have to draw some graphics (i'm not very good at it) and compose the soundtrack
LMPuny: the disadvantage to have a lot of asm for that hack
LMPuny: is that sometimes you can have stuff that is incompatible with other stuff
LMPuny: i even managed to recreate famitracker's volume paths or whatever are they called with amk beta 1.1.0
LMPuny: but yeah, it got disadvantages too
LMPuny: once, when doing 1-4, my hack crashed whenever i used amk
LMPuny: it was so infuriating because i didn't want to port everything to a new rom, but suddendly i came up with the solution
LMPuny: but anyways focusing again on the question...
LMPuny: yeah, there's asm done by me and asm done by others
LMPuny: mine is 50% tweaks to the originals to get what i exactly want

FPzero: You mentioned composing your own music for levels. I've seen you posting some work in progress samples in #showoff every once in a while and I've liked what I hear! I'm curious how you create songs and their melodies. Not necessarily what program you use, but how you choose what notes to put in the song, things like that.
FPzero: (I didn't really know how to word this question very well oops)
LMPuny: when i want to compose a melody, i get some inspiration from smb's classic tracks and some modern ones
LMPuny: i have a yamaha dgx-660 (a good keyboard), so that helps because i can see the notes
LMPuny: then start to improve something
LMPuny: some chords, arpeggios, scales, staccatos, phrases here and there, then i make it little tweaks, and done
LMPuny: that's how i get the base for a song
FPzero: And then you iterate on it as you go, making adjustments when needed? I'm thinking of the castle song you were working on recently and all the WIPs you posted
LMPuny: yes
LMPuny: but as a chef is never satisfied of his own works, i sometimes don't get too satisfied of my work
LMPuny: i sometimes feel like the melodies i make are too "cheesy" or "unfitting"
LMPuny: for example, the parts starting from 0:20 from the fortress battle song, and the entirety of 1-4's song
LMPuny: in the future i want to rework on 1-4's theme song to be something more jazzy and appealing for an underwater level
FPzero: That sounds like a nice idea, I look forward to hearing it eventually!

FPzero: With C3 right around the corner, should we expect any fun releases or demos from you? You don't have to tell us exactly what you're working on or planning if you don't want to give it away early. You can tease us if you want.
LMPuny: with c3 starting, yeah i'll release a new demo with world 1 nearly complete
LMPuny: with the half of 1-castle and some features dropped but that will come the other c3
LMPuny: and not only smbr, i will release some other things, this time in a different thread
LMPuny: no, it won't be item memory plus cuz i'm lazy to make it compatible with lm3.0 if it is incompatible, but who knows that patch lol
LMPuny: and just to teaser something
LMPuny: with shiny ninetales and other people we're on a project that will also be teased this c3
LMPuny: it will feature a level of mine (that i don't have finished but i'll finish it no me mates manu por favor te amo )
FPzero: Sounds intriguing
FPzero: I'll definitely be looking around the subforum to see everything
LMPuny: nice

FPzero: Probably the last SMW question I have. I'm just curious what your thoughts on the release of Lunar Magic 3.0 are? I've been describing it to others as an update that "actually changes everything for SMW hacking". What about you? What are your thoughts on it?
LMPuny: i think i'll be totally honest here
LMPuny: it's a huge revolution for smw hacking, sure
LMPuny: but as we can see it's breaking most resources on the site
LMPuny: it's something like "two step forwards, one step backwards"
LMPuny: we're having problems with that in our project
LMPuny: but i know with time everything will be compatible with lm3.0
LMPuny: as a patch remoderator, i have to make everything compatible with it
LMPuny: fun fact: the first thing i'm hoping when i port my rom to lm3.0 is that it will crash instantly LOL
FPzero: It has been inconvenient hasn't it? There's been some discussion inside staff about how to handle everything since we were already in the middle of patch remoderation when this update dropped
FPzero: And now it looks like we have to remoderate the remoderation in some cases
LMPuny: yeah
LMPuny: you can compare it when we remoderated every sprite to use pixi, and then giepy pops out
LMPuny: not exactly similar but you can see some similar things in that event
LMPuny: still, lm3.0 has very cool features
FPzero: Yeah I see what you mean
LMPuny: like that superb optimization vitor made to the sprites and, of course, dynamic levels
FPzero: 3.0's new features are definitely really neat. The PR team is trying to figure out a good way we can celebrate the release with some kind of event after C3 but we haven't settled on what we'll do just yet
FPzero: But I think we might be in for a new wave of SMW hacking once all the dust settles and the majority of incompatibilities have been ironed out.
LMPuny: yeah, with dynamic levels i can think of many possible things
LMPuny: like, you hit a growing vine block, go up the vine, it's longer than usual, music suddendly changes, and whoa, you're in a bonus segment without using sublevels
FPzero: Oh man I never even thought about the idea of changing music tracks dynamically
FPzero: That has some amazing potential!
LMPuny: yeah
LMPuny: or even a "parallel worlds"-type level
LMPuny: ok i'm not giving more ideas
FPzero: Hahaha
LMPuny: use your mind reader, originality is neat

FPzero: Alright, let's wrap up the interview with a few random questions that I come up with on the spot
LMPuny: let's go
FPzero: Favorite romhack? Doesn't have to be SMW only
LMPuny: extra mario bros used to be my favorite
LMPuny: but now it's a short sonic the hedgehog one
LMPuny: brb searching how it's called
LMPuny: ok i can't find how it was called but it's a kaizo-type with some humor and crazy levels
LMPuny: with explosions everywhere
LMPuny: literally everywhere
FPzero: That sounds ridiculous, I love it
FPzero: Okay, favorite and least favorite colors?
LMPuny: favorite is orange
LMPuny: least favorite is blue
LMPuny: fuk blue it's overrated
FPzero: Wow!
FPzero: Those are fighting words to some I'm sure
LMPuny: yes
FPzero: Favorite music genres?
LMPuny: electronic, techno and relatives like techno jazz
LMPuny: and, while i don't hear it as much as the others, classic rock
FPzero: If you could visit anywhere on the planet, where would you go?
LMPuny: i would go to peru, brazil, iceland, and santiago (latter one from chile) to reunite with my chilean weones culiaos
LMPuny: i've heard the three former ones are beautiful locations
FPzero: I'm actually of partial Chilean descent myself and visited Santiago when I was 8. I don't remember much from my time there but we had a nice visit so I can see why it'd be on your list
FPzero: (don't ask me to speak Spanish though, I'm a failure to my heritage hahaha)
LMPuny: chilean spanish is harder than regular spanish anyways
FPzero: So I've heard. My dad has a book of Chilean phrases and yeah they're tough. I think most of them are vulgar too lol.
LMPuny: yes
LMPuny: conchetumare, is that one familiar
FPzero: Not offhand
FPzero: I looked it up, I was not disappointed lol
FPzero: Do you play Pokemon at all? If so, what's your favorite type?
LMPuny: no, i don't play pokemon
LMPuny: my brother and my friends use to play but me not
LMPuny: but for the type anyways, my favorite would be ghost
FPzero: Favorite emote/emoji?
LMPuny:
FPzero: Ah you have fine taste
FPzero:
LMPuny: why your looks kinda bigger than mine that's unfair
LMPuny: wait, it switched size lol
LMPuny: nvm
FPzero: lol
FPzero: Any hopes or goals for the New Year?
LMPuny: real life goals would be getting good academic performance again, evolve as a person and to meet more people
LMPuny: in hacking would be finishing world 2 of smbr and a secret super fx-related project
LMPuny: my hopes for the next year are that trump doesn't do any third world war-related shit and to the world to be a better place
FPzero: Any final thoughts you want to share with everyone as we finish up?
LMPuny: yes, i would like to say, thanks to the super mario world central community for all the help and feedback i got, i hope the quality of the site doesn't drop and that every issue, if there is, gets fixed
LMPuny: super mario world hacking was an unexpected step in my life and nowadays i take it as a funny hobby
LMPuny: and, during the process i met people like some people of the spanish community which i have nice friendships nowadays, and i hope central's is as friendly as them
LMPuny: thanks
LMPuny: and at last, funny fact:
LMPuny: i just ate a cat food chip 4 da lulz and my stomach hurts now
FPzero:
LMPuny: i eat regular food, just in case
LMPuny: that's it
FPzero: lol
FPzero: Alright well thank you so much for the interview and congrats again on becoming Member of the Month. I'm looking forward to seeing what you bring to C3! I hope you have a lovely rest of your New Year's Eve, and to everyone reading this once it goes live, I hope everyone else had a great New Year's celebration too. Thanks for joining us!
LMPuny: np, happy new year
Congrats on being Member of the Month, LMPuny! I've seen your Mode 0 hacks all the time on #showoff, and you're really doing a good job at the hack! You totally deserve the role after your hard work. #smw{:TUP:}
Just so you know, I'm very active on the site anymore like I was before; I'm mainly on Discord now.
Awesome job! I expect big things in C3 this year. #tb{:)}
                                                                                                                  
                              
Originally posted by LMPuny
i just ate a cat food chip 4 da lulz and my stomach hurts now

CAT FOOD CHIPS?! Yuck! #smw{:x}

Anyways, congrats, dood~!
The Hacking of PuyoPuyo. Come join the fun, friends. 『いけいけ団長、頑張れ頑張れ団長!』
Help us raise funds for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. #ДопомагаємоРазом / #HelpTogether
“Even if you personally are so dissatisfied with life that you want the world to end, surely the cruel reality is that it will continue on, unchanging. All the better for someone perfectly content, like me.”
Aya Shameimaru, Touhou Suzunaan ~ Forbidden Scrollery
Originally posted by LMPuny
LMPuny: but as we can see it's breaking most resources on the site

Most is far from true. You could say some doesn't have support for the new feature and a very few of them break with it. Now that's actually accurate.

Aside from the lack of accuracy on that tiny detail. Good job LMPuny, you deserve it.
Your layout has been removed.
What a nice start to the interviews for this year. Congrats, LMPuny!
What is a Lunar Magic, and can I eat it?
Congrats
p/
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
Congratulations my boy Puny, you're the best! #smrpg{<3} (don't get triggered anonimzwx pls)

Originally posted by LMPuny
to reunite with my chilean weones culiaos

Se prendio esta mierda
Layout made by MaxodeX
2021 TRENO vibe check thread


Good one, LMPuny. I have to say you deserved it, what with being of extreme help in the patch remoderation and all. Keep up!





Dream team (feed them, please):






Congratulations for the nomination! Glad to see you liked the sprite optimizations featured on LM 3.00. Hope you won't have too much trouble adapting your ASM work to it; I believe it will be easier easier than you think ;)

Also regarding mode 0 and LM display, have you tried pressing Ctrl+F7 on the editor? It's a 2bpp viewing mode, probably could help you out viewing the levels better in LM. Apparently there's two 2bpp viewing modes, so try pressing Ctrl+F7 a few times until you see slight better results ^^
GitHub - Twitter - YouTube - SnesLab Discord
Originally posted by Vitor Vilela
Congratulations for the nomination! Glad to see you liked the sprite optimizations featured on LM 3.00. Hope you won't have too much trouble adapting your ASM work to it; I believe it will be easier easier than you think ;)

Also regarding mode 0 and LM display, have you tried pressing Ctrl+F7 on the editor? It's a 2bpp viewing mode, probably could help you out viewing the levels better in LM. Apparently there's two 2bpp viewing modes, so try pressing Ctrl+F7 a few times until you see slight better results ^^




It 20% works in the 2bpp mode 2. Tiles from 000-2FF are looking fine but LM shows sprite tiles for 8x8 tiles 300-3FF due to SP1 and SP2 starting in the 0x300 area, and the levels' FG are mostly composed by them, so they still look kinda garbled but the other tiles makes the levels look better.

Originally posted by Shiny Ninetales
(don't get triggered anonimzwx pls)


lol si el anonz

Originally posted by Falconpunch
Congrats on being Member of the Month, LMPuny! I've seen your Mode 0 hacks all the time on #showoff, and you're really doing a good job at the hack! You totally deserve the role after your hard work. #smw{:TUP:}


Thanks, I promise faster progress on the hack and more things coming up this C3.

Originally posted by Major Flare
Good one, LMPuny. I have to say you deserved it, what with being of extreme help in the patch remoderation and all. Keep up!


Again, thanks.



Mod edit: I closed a bad tag for you --FP

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Also a Fortaleza Reznor user. If you... digo, si hablas español, hackeas, buscas ayuda, o simplemente se te da conocer gente, únete, somos puerta abierta.
Surely, this is one of the best looking hacks currently in the making. Congrats.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame