GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[StupidMarioBros1Fan]

Recently I went back through my old Discord messages with Carnivorous to find the info used to change the Single Player POV Height for my Mario Characters mod, which according to the Setup Request/Bug thread, the info was also posted on a Discord server.

Anyways I've been messing around with it using the Memory Peek/Poke function in the Footsteps Patch, which for the rest of the thread will be referred to as MPP. Everything I explain here works on both Emulator & Console, the only issue I've run into was having the POV set too low/high for reasons I'll explain later but nothing game-breaking.

The POV Height is stored at:
RAM Address: 800552FC
Hex Address in 21990 file: 3456C

The default setting for Bond is 3D8F5C28 (Hex) / 0.0699999928 (Float)
For those curious, Mario was set to 3D6147AE (Hex) / 0.055 (Float)
I recommend not going past 3DBF7CEE (Hex) / 0.0935 (Float) I'll explain why later.
Note that this isn't the exact height where things begin to break, it's just the highest amount I have that works (Donkey Kong in Mario Characters)

Crouching, Tiny Mode and the Multiplayer POVs are multipliers of the POV Height. Edit the above number and everything will change accordingly.

The rest of this thread will be explaining what happens when changing the POV Height via MPP, please note that the only difference with changing the POV Height for the actual rom is that the POV Height is being changed during a Mission through Action Blocks. The side effects of changing the POV Height are the same and again, work on Emulator & Console.

First off, I had issues trying to use a Pointer command with the MPP function so I've been changing the POV Height directly meaning that it gets permanently changed until the game is shut off or the POV Height gets changed again. In other words, the change carries over into other Missions, the Multiplayer AND other Save Files. The workaround I've come up with is including an Action Block that changes the POV Height back to its original height. However since there are no Action Blocks for the Menus, this requires adding an Action Block to every Mission to avoid the Player accidentally skipping the reset. This also includes the Multiplayer Maps because despite not having any in the original game, Action Blocks do work in Multiplayer.


Because I was really curious on how it was done, I looked at the Girl Power Mode (play as Wai Lin) cheat for Tomorrow Never Dies 64 and found that the cheat option is actually just used as an On/Off switch through a MPP command. The model changing is also a MPP command that changes Bond's Outfit with Wai Lin being one of them.
Using this method it is possible to have Cheat options & combinations that change Bond's Outfit & POV.
Here I used 2 cheats to change Bond's outfit with the last using both cheats turned on:



Since it's just simple MPP commands, if you have enough knowledge & experience with Action Blocks, you can combine this with other things to have cheats make big changes to a level. TND64 already does this with Wai Lin & Bond swapping places with appropriate Dialogue.

The POV Height updates in real time so you can not only have it change halfway through a Mission, you can make it change gradually for a growing/shrinking effect.
Here I have the POV Height change based off Bond's Health:



I have noticed that Bond's speed is dependent on the POV Height because it changed even though I didn't mess with it. Not sure by how much but Bond moves significantly slower when he's short compared to when he's tall. Tiny Mode includes a speed boost so if you want to get crazy, you can use MPP commands to give Bond a speed boost through Tiny Mode instead of using Turbo Mode.

Now on to the one issue I've run into: Being too short or too tall.

If you set the POV Height too low then you'll be unable to move due to both being too short & too slow. Now I'm talking about setting it really low, like 3A03126F (Hex) / 0.0005 (Float) for example:


You should only be setting it this low for some kind of punishment, going into a prone position/crawling or your character is just a pair of eyes. lol
The average character won't need to be this short even while Crouching so it shouldn't be a concern.

There is an actual bottom to the POV Height which is an issue I ran into back in 2017 with the larger Mario characters. If the POV Height is set too high, the Player will hover over objects, unable to pick them up. Crouching will help but because it's a multiplier, the Player can still be too tall.



Ceilings are interesting, they do not interfere with movement even if the current Room has an upper floor like in Complex. They will still stop projectiles even without backside geometry or clipping from an above floor.



As you'd likely expect, the POV Height has no effect on your characters' hitboxes in Multiplayer, it's just trippy when there's such a huge disconnect.



And that's it for what I've experimented with. To sum it up:
If you don't make the POV Height too high/low & don't make mistakes with the Action Blocks when using the Memory Peek/Poke function, you have nearly full control over what the POV Height is set to and shouldn't run into any game breaking issues. If you do, please post them in a reply.

I'd like to thank Carnivorous for documenting the RAM & Hex Addresses for the POV Height & the Footsteps Patch, and whoever on the TND64's team figured out the method used for the Girl Power Mode cheat. I will gladly update that last one with proper credit if the name(s) is posted in a reply.

Hopefully this info is useful for future GE projects.
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Stupid Mario Brothers is a YouTube series, get asked about my username a lot.

[MRKane]

That's really great! Dark Noon has a shorter character and Wreck was looking into getting that befitting for the single player! Fantastic post!
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No Mr. Bond, I expect you to be re-coded!

[Lazlo52]

If you find yourself importing the exact same Action block into every map, you could potentially replace a built-in Action Block. Hm... The issue with that is finding the space for it; the easiest slot to replace is 000F End Stage because it's a bit pointless (you can just call the two commands it uses yourself), but that one's really small and doesn't leave a lot of room. The rest of them either have a common use or could easily be referenced by another script.

So, maybe that's not much of a good idea after all... Hum...
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Quote:

22 not happening nerds. forget about it. 23 til the day i die.

[Wreck]

I had sort of taken the reins of TND64 Expanded Edition development (with TiJay overseeing and giving approval of updates), and had included the bonus cheats Countdown Critical, Expect to Die, and Girl Power Mode.

In MRKane's mod, we needed to lower the POV for the main character. The info Carnivorous shared helped sort that out, thankfully.

Girl Power Mode does rely on a cheat option to determine whether or not to make various changes. Those can include your current character, starting position, partner model/position, text to display, etc. I didn't think about the POV for her until only just recently. I considered using 2BFE to update the POV when needed, but that would require an action block be placed in every single setup - including multiplayer. So, I settled on using the same trick I did for "Play as Oddjob" in the GE Compilation Pack, which has it use an adjusted Tiny Bond cheat height.

The All Bonds Deluxe mod also does some fun stuff to change which Bond you are based on the save folder you select. If you get creative enough, you could make a mod where the character you portray is different in each file. That could include a range of things, such as POV, inventory, starting position, dialogue, etc. With ASM modding, it could get even crazier, but not everyone has the technical know-how to do that (myself, included).