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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Super Mario Bros. X
39
66%
Lunar Magic
20
34%
 
Total votes: 59

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BuzzNBen
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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by BuzzNBen »

Super Mario Bros X and Lunar Magic are two separate Mario level editors. With Lunar Magic,
you can make your own Super Mario World levels, but it can become complicated if you make one mistake. With Super Mario Bros. X, you get a selection of resources from different Mario games and alot to work with, but the level editor isn't the greatest to work with (at least in my opinion).

Both level editors have its pros and its cons. I personally like Lunar Magic better because I like the controls better than Super Mario Bros. X's, plus it's easier to use if you just want to make a level.

Which level editor do you think is better?
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Clamestarebla »

Lunar Magic all day every day 'cause I really don't appreciate using SMBX as much. It's got a nice way of handling layers though. But the screen is too damn big.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by pholtos »

Something feels off about this poll...
thislooksright.png
thislooksright.png (4.26 KiB) Viewed 6077 times
Anyway I'd probably say smbx simply due to collabs being a lot simpler to get working and that I can actually understand how to use it somewhat.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Zygl »

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:Lunar Magic > jettisoning your own face into the sun > SMBX's editor
If we were talking engines this would be an actual debate maybe, but as far as editors go SMBX's is absolute garbage. Individually placing every single tile in the level is phenomenally tedious, and how on earth do you make a level editor and forget bulk movement? I had to completely delete and rebuild the second half of my MaGL X level like 3 times because I kept having to move a ceiling up one more block in the first half. It's terrible.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:
Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:Lunar Magic > jettisoning your own face into the sun > SMBX's editor
If we were talking engines this would be an actual debate maybe, but as far as editors go SMBX's is absolute garbage. Individually placing every single tile in the level is phenomenally tedious
You have an very odd way of making levels if you place every single tile. There are a lot of SMW hackers who do that anyways as well. Much of your post seems to relate to your personal quirks.

SMW requires other programs than just Lunar magic as well and you need to learn each of those just to insert graphics or music. SIngle editor to single editor, SMBX has a magnitude of difference.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Zygl »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:
Zyglrox Odyssey wrote:Lunar Magic > jettisoning your own face into the sun > SMBX's editor
If we were talking engines this would be an actual debate maybe, but as far as editors go SMBX's is absolute garbage. Individually placing every single tile in the level is phenomenally tedious
You have an very odd way of making levels if you place every single tile. There are a lot of SMW hackers who do that anyways as well. Much of your post seems to relate to your personal quirks.
Unless there's some feature I'm not aware of the closest you can get to not having to place every tile individually is clicking and holding a direction on the keyboard. Or using the fill button if you need to fill an area, I guess. But neither of those help when you have to move things. Granted, I could've avoided having to delete half my level to move things by making absolutely sure everything was placed as I wanted it or constructing my level a little differently, but the fact that "oh no I need to move this ceiling up a row now I have to delete half my level" is even a potential concern is ridiculous.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

At lease lines of the same block as easy to do with arrow buttons.

There is the copy paste editor. Are we aloud to talk about that in the context of this thread?
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Sorel »

I prefer SMBX, simply because you don't have to use other programs to do different things (compared to Lunar Magic) and I need my space. (The screen size is bigger in-editor and in-game.)
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by yogui »

Lunar magic. Sure SMBX has more built-in functionalities, but with other tools and ASM you can add a lot more in your levels in lunar magic.
And about the engine itself, I find SMBX being a pain in the ass to use. Having to place one by one the tiles, can't copy and paste a part of a level somewhere else, can't extend tiles horizontally or vertically, can't chose freely the scrolling of the background, and inserting external graphics is horrible. Sure you can add more tiles and more colors than in lunar magic, but you can only replace existing tile and have to make the tiles a gif and copy+recolor it. I find the map16 system in lunar magic much better, where you can organize tiles in your map16 however you want.
To tell the truth, there's only three things SMBX does better than lunar magic ; being able to use .mp3, using multiple moving layers at once and extending the level border as you want. The rest is worst.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by raekuul »

The impression that I get is that SMBX is better for making simple levels, while SMW can be hacked and tweaked to make more interesting things.

I prefer SMBX over SMW, mostly for the fact that it's not necessary to learn ASM to do fancier tricks with it. The major tradeoff is that I can't have some of the really fancy things that can be done with ASM, but most of the time I don't want to have them anyway. Granted, that's pretty much gone out the window with lunadll...

I usually don't mess around with graphics, so the advantages of the map16 system don't matter to me. The other faults of the building mode, though - the lack of copy-paste and the limited number of resizeable things - do make it more tedious to use than Lunar Magic.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by glitch4 »

I prefer SMBX since you can place many objects. Also LunaDLL is great to insert custom features , too.

SMW hacking is also cool , but you can get confused having many files and tools in there.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by ano0maly »

pholtos wrote:Something feels off about this poll...
thislooksright.png
So I'm not the only one to see it garbled.

I prefer SMBX to the extent that it's easy to import actual music and assemble levels together, but I haven't used either one, so I won't say further than that.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by S.N.N. »

SMBX is easier to collaborate with if only because the .lvl files can't overwrite each other in the same way .mwl files can in SMW. For instance, if someone sends in a .mwl that uses the same tiles or secondary exits as a different .mwl, it'll cancel out the first level and essentially "break" it. SMBX is also useful since you have a virtually unlimited amount of space, plus no 16 color limitations per tile and the use of MP3 music. However, the editor is an absolute piece of garbage that's clunky to use, and even with LunaDLL, really cool custom stuff that would be possible in SMW (e.g. "Carol" bosses) still can't be done. Also, these people who are saying that SMW is harder because it "requires external tools" obviously haven't given an honest attempt at actually inserting custom stuff. None of it is really hard at all (takes ~5-10 minutes tops) and there is so much documentation on it that anyone could figure it out.

..but on the whole, the SMBX people will think the SMBX editor is better, and the SMW people will think Lunar Magic is better. It'll really just boil down to picking them both apart with no real consensus I imagine.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by raocow »

The smbx editor is REALLY bad, but now that Wohlstand's editor exists it's much less of an issue

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14682

It basically makes the level building process in sbmx a lot closer to lunar magic.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by BuzzNBen »

raocow wrote:The smbx editor is REALLY bad, but now that Wohlstand's editor exists it's much less of an issue

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=14682

It basically makes the level building process in sbmx a lot closer to lunar magic.
Yes. That is an extremely helpful editor to have if you like Super Mario Bros. X's features, but dislike the level editor. However, you don't get the exact physics as Super Mario World.

I also dislike SMBX's editor because of the large space. And the large space in-game just seems off to me. Super Mario World's space is just perfect.

To be honest, I have a hard time with both level editors and I actually use Game Maker 99.9% of the time. So I've been working with a Game Maker engine:

http://forums.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12656
(It's not perfect I admit, but it's pretty close to the original SMW. The original creator of the engine discontinued it for some reason, so I've basically added more stuff to it.)

The reason I made this topic was because I am thinking of turning this into a level editor/game engine and I wanted to know everyone's opinions on the two current popular engines.

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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Willhart »

I personally love the larger screen and the way it interacts with some of the custom tilesets. No need to worry about where you are going and there is tons more space for details and structure. The sky is not to be feared.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Alice »

SMBX is better for layers, custom music and graphics, and collabs but Lunar Magic is superior in every other way. LM is actually user friendly in comparison to SMBX and it can do a lot more in the long run. Also SMW physics are better in my opinion over SMBX/SMB3 physics but that's irrelevant.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

S.N.N. wrote:and even with LunaDLL, really cool custom stuff that would be possible in SMW (e.g. "Carol" bosses) still can't be done.
LunaDLL hasn't been out that long, never has been featured in a game, and yet you know it's limitations already?

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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by S.N.N. »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:LunaDLL hasn't been out that long, never has been featured in a game, and yet you know it's limitations already?
Yes. If there is anything even remotely close to that technically impressive in A2XT, I'll happily retract that statement. Not trying to insult it or anything - I know it's a huge, huge step in the right direction and Kil has worked hard on it. Still, my point was that it's still a lot easier to get custom stuff into SMW (and an extremely wide variety of custom stuff at that) compared to SMBX, even with LunaDLL.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

S.N.N. wrote:Yes. If there is anything even remotely close to that technically impressive in A2XT, I'll happily retract that statement. Not trying to insult it or anything - I know it's a huge, huge step in the right direction and Kil has worked hard on it. Still, my point was that it's still a lot easier to get custom stuff into SMW (and an extremely wide variety of custom stuff at that) compared to SMBX, even with LunaDLL.
Well - I did make this one boss... :P I'm not sure what you mean by "Carol" bosses though so I can't really tell you if it's as technically advanced. All the stuff I've done in A2XT though has used C++ code, so it's more advanced than your usual LunaDLL stuff.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

I'm going to start using "This can't be done in SMBX!" for a running joke for future levels.
docopoper wrote:Well - I did make this one boss... :P I'm not sure what you mean by "Carol" bosses though so I can't really tell you if it's as technically advanced. All the stuff I've done in A2XT though has used C++ code, so it's more advanced than your usual LunaDLL stuff.
Carol bosses are technically advanced but typical aren't considered fun. They aren't the standard for normal hacks. Some of the best bosses are a lot simpler.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Clamestarebla »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote: Carol bosses are technically advanced but typical aren't considered fun. They aren't the standard for normal hacks. Some of the best bosses are a lot simpler.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by pholtos »

Clamestarebla wrote:Unless it's a Mouser re-skin boss, in which case your punishment is crucifixion.
All right we need to make an "Every Level Mouser" SMBX Episode.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

Well then no. My boss is not a Carol boss because people seem to find it very fun. Oh darn; SMBX fails again. :P
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Clamestarebla »

pholtos wrote:
Clamestarebla wrote:Unless it's a Mouser re-skin boss, in which case your punishment is crucifixion.
All right we need to make an "Every Level Mouser" SMBX Episode.
I don't really care about SMBX episodes but I'm tired of seeing Mouser in SMW hacks. I just lose all my joy when I see one,
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