README

Little Sprite Editor

This is a graphics editor for Game Boy games. It is primarily intended for demaking. It may still be usedful for editing all kinds of games that have no maps greater than VRAM.

Requirements

• Windows (or probably Wine)
• Effective FHD (2K recommended)

Building

Get Delphi Community Edition and build.

The tool was made with Delphi 12.1. Because PNGDelphi has a very bad bug (you must have filed a Delphi issue to access that link) when displaying scaled paletted PNGs, this repository contains a copy of that file with a patch I made. There is a chance that this patch will not work with other versions. The OAM editor of this tool will be mostly useless without that patch.

Features

• No proprietary formats - 100% hardware memory dumps, held together by an INI file (named .lse).
• Any input box that accepts numbers (except for the spin edits) will work with decimal or hex numbers, the latter can be entered as 0x42, x42 or $42.
• Combine stacked objects and (optionally) the background for more colors - but paint without caring. Right as you draw, the tool will make all necessary pixel adjustments to make sure your drawn color will show.
• Use drag-and-drop for most actions.
• Place images you want to recreate (demake) on the editor, which can be moved, resized, hidden or painted "through" (like if they weren't there).

Missing Features

This is a very early preview. Missing features, among many others, are:

• Quit/save confirmation
• Undo/redo
• OAM sprite lock (ignore sprite when drawing)
• Relative paths for File⁠s.
• Optional updating of uses when moving tiles around (how to deal with 8×16 OBJs?)
• Make an icon (probably something with a cute duckling)
• General polishing
• Maybe export-only palette file formats (LD [HL] n8 in compiled and ASM code variants)

MDI Children

Files

Note: File (capitalized and in italics) refers to an entry in the list of this window. A file can be used by multiple File⁠s.

Here you can define he File⁠s to work with. The main .lse file only contains the data from this window and the I/O Registers window, as well as overlays. VRAM, OAM, CGB palettes must be stored in File⁠s to not lose the corresponding data on exit. The following file types exist:

• Tiles on Bank 0
• Tiles on Bank 1 (CGB only)
• Tile Maps (there is only one file type for both maps, as both use consecutive memory on the same bank)
• Attribute Maps (dito, but CGB only)
• Object Attribute Memory
• CGB BG Palettes
• CGB OBJ PAL

You have the complete freedom and full control over the use of the File⁠s. You can use multiple areas of the same file, or store the same data in multiple files - there is absoluty no limit. Configuring offsets is done by setting a start offset in your file, the number of bytes or "pieces" (items) and start offset in the Game Boy's memory (a zero-based addressing is used for CGB palettes since we don't know where they go).

• Add File: Pick a file and load it. First you pick a file, then you pick the File type and set the offsets that are in the file. When done, the File is loaded into the tool's VRAM/OAM/Palette and corresponding content is overwritten.
  • Auto-Add Emulicious Exports...: Loads files created by using the Save As... feature in Emulicious' memory editor. .vrm (VRAM), .pal (Palettes) and .bin (OAM) are added, depending on which of them are present. It does not matter which of the three you select in the file picker. Instead of adding and configuring 7 File⁠s, this feature does this automatically.
• New File: Same as Add File, but the File does not have to exist and is not loaded (but saved) when done.
• Edit Offsets: Configure the selected File again. When done, the tool will ask you if you want to load the File.
• Save As: Pick a new file name for the selected File. The File is saved when done.
• Remove File: Remove the selected file from the list. The File will no longer be written when you save, but the current content will be kept in memory.
• Reload Files: Load all File⁠s like they were just added. Does not wipe memory before, so memory that no longer corresponds to a File (but did so before) is retained.

Non-obvious usage:

• Drag and drop to move File⁠s. Naturally, this only comes into the next time you load your project or click Reload Files.

Tiles

Just a viewer of the tile data in VRAM. Left is bank 0, right is bank 1. Tiles cannot be edited in this window, but only in the Main Preview & Editor, meaning that the tile must be visible there.

Non-obvious usage:

• Drag and drop to swap tiles. Hold Ctrl to copy instead.
• Drag and drop on Tilemaps window to use the tile where dropped.
• Drag and drop on OAM window to use the tile where dropped.

Tilemaps

Mostly self-explanatory. You can select a tile to edit its properties. The selected tile is in orange.

The Copy feature allows you to copy the selected tile's properties to the next tile you selected. Its drop down menu allows you to set which properties will be affected by this. This can be any of the properties to the left. The tile number can also be incremented or decremented before the selected tile is copied (in CGB mode, banks will switch when the tile number overflows or underflows).

Non-obvious usage:

• Right-click equals Copy mode.

I/O registers

Mostly self-explanatory.

Palettes

Mostly self-explanatory.

Left-click or right-click a palette entry to select it, which means you can draw with this color in the Main Preview & Editor window (see below). OBJ Transparent color is found in the bottom left of this window and is the only palette-ID-unaware color. Only one selected color can be OBJ Transparent because one opaque color will be in the color editor.

The color editor can be used to edit the selected color. You have various options to do so:

• Change R, G, B values (0-31)
• Change CGB Word value
• Edit hex color (CSS)
• Set the color to the color in the circle in the top right of the group box. This circle holds a color picked from your desktop (and most-importantly Editor overlays). To change it, click the circle, hold your mouse button and release it on the pixel to pick the color from.

Even without the editor, you can double-click either of the two selected colors to pick a color using the Windows color picker. (Does not work if that color is the transparent color.)

Non-obvious usage:

• Drag and drop to swap color. Hold Ctrl to copy instead.

OAM

Displays OAM content. Each object is represented by an image of its tile(s), and a four-line label with its properties (OAM data): First row is Y, second is X, third is tile bank and number, fourth is flags. The label becomes gray when the object's rectangle is entirely outside of the viewport. The flags are displayed as follows:

• P is for priority
• Y is for Y flip
• X is for X flip
• A is for DMG palette 0
• B is for DMG palette 1
• Bank is displayed in the third line instead
• 0 to 7 is for the corresponding CGB palette

Edit OAM by clicking the corresponding row in the label to the right of the image. Clicking the third row only allows you to edit the tile number, whereas the bank is edited using the fourth (flags) row, as it is technically a flag. The fourth row brings up a popup menu which serves as a simple flag editor.

Non-obvious usage:

• Drag and drop on Main Preview & Editor to place.
• Drag and drop to swap OAM. Hold Ctrl to copy and Shift to move instead (if both are held, copy takes precedence).

Main Preview & Editor

Used to paint. If you try to paint in a color+palette-ref (the color (value) itself does not currently matter) that corresponds to neither background nor any object in that location, a beep is heard instead. If a pixel is modified, all other objects' pixels in that location are painted in transparent instead, making sure your painted color is visible even when stacking multiple objects for more colors.

Use the color picker to pick a color (left-click or right-click).

Use the pointer icon in the toolbar to move and resize overlays. Use its dropdown to add new overlays, or to remove them (by clicking the name).

Non-obvious usage:

• Holding Ctrl equals color picker tool.
• If the Overlays checkbox has the focus, use Space to toggle.