Frequently Asked Questions

Here will be written any Frequently Asked Questions which will help with solving of already solved troubles or problems.

Where are the Level Settings?
If you need to change global level settings, open the menubar [Level->Properties]. But if you need to configure the current section, you must open the Section Properties window in the menu [View -> Section Settings].

I can't find the "auto-align" option!
This option is called "snap to grid" in this editor. To disable/enable it, please click the grid icon (it looks a bit like: "#") on the toolbar.

Is it possible to make the editor window the same resolution as SMBX's editor?
You can switch into Sub-Window mode in the "Window" menu and you have freedom to set a window size, also you can use zoom if you have too small of a screen or you want to place an item more accurately in the grid-less mode.

Why doesn't music play while editing?
To play music you can simply press the note "♪" icon on the toolbar, or you can set autostart playing of music: Open the menubar to [Tools -> Application Settings], and select the option: "Autoplay music after opening file", and music will automatically play each time you open the file. If music still doesn't play after this, please check the configs//data/music directory, it must contain the music files. If the folder doesn't exist, please copy your music folder from SMBX (for SMBX-compatible config packs only), or download the music pack from our site.

Instead of music I hear noise!!! Why?
This trouble appears when your music has a sample rate greater than 44100 Hz. To fix this you should resample the audio at 44100 Hz, using an audio editor, such as Audacity.

Begins from PGE Editor v0.2.0 it uses the SDL2_mixer instead of QMediaPlayer. SDL2_mixer plays music and all sounds in a single audio stream. All musics and sound should have the same sample rate as the audio stream. If the sample rate is not the same, music will be re-sampled in real-time mode. Real-time resampling is not good for CPU and can cause noises or wrong playback. To fix this, resample your music into 44100 Hz using an audio editor, and retry to add them into PGE.

I see ghosties instead NPCs, Why?
The "Ghostie" is a dummy image sprite. It appears if you use a broken custom image, an image in a non-supported format, corrupted image, etc. To fix this error, you must convert the image to a valid format. Supported file formats are: PNG, GIF, JPG, BMP. You can add more supported image formats, if you place special plugins into the imageformats dir, which you can get from the Qt website, here.

Why are some Blocks, BGOs, and NPCs partially transparent?
Check your mask images, may by they are is lazily-made (masks should be in black & white). Unlike SMBX, PGE supports the Alpha-channel (i.e. real semi-transparency effects), and you should make your masks correctly. More about Lazily-made graphics. Look examples in Semi-transparency render test.

Why do backgrounds repeat only horizontally and not vertically?
Because you are probably using a single-row background, which is not meant to be tiled vertically.

I recommend that you read more about backgrounds here.

I can't run editor, Configuration package selection list is empty!
Reason is: you doesn't installed any configuration package into your configs/ directory.

You can download any configuration package here.

'Object configurations are not loaded' error on open of any file
This error appears always when you have some errors of your configuration package. Please check the [Tools / Global configuration / Configuration Status] menu and look into "Errors" tab to see reasons of configuration package errors. Solutions to fix errors:


 * Reinstall this configuration package (install the "full" version of this config pack)
 * Check all paths if you was installed the "SMBX Integration" configuration package.

How to make a big screenshot of level section?
Simply open [File -> Export section into image...] menu item, set some options and target size, and save your image (will be saved into PNG format).

How to place buried/egged/bubbled NPC?
To place buried NPC, you need to locate the "Herb" NPC in the list (in the "Containers" category) and select the contents by using the special button. Read more about using NPC containers...

How to resize section boundaries?
To resize section you need to open section properties box (The Toolbar icon or [View -> Section Settings] menu) and click "Resize". This will enable a special interactive resizing mode: drag borders of green rectangle to set up of new size. Use context menu to crop large parts of resizing box. When you done resizing, press Enter key, "green tick" button on the toolbar or "apply" button in the section settings box. You can reject resizing with "Esc" key or "Cancel" button. This action can be undone with history.

What's the "Set as Boss" option on NPC's?
This is a special flag which was in SMBX a "Legacy Boss". This flag enables a special boss algorithm which will change music and, after defeating the boss, will spawn the exit "?" ball.

Is this a new version of SMBX?
This project is offered as the successor to SMBX, but it is just a "New SMBX". In fact, it is a standalone engine for creating custom platformer games, and is simply backwards-compatible with SMBX. SMBX - is a game, PGE -  is a game engine. All games are created based on their own game engines. SMBX - closed source, PGE - Libre and Open Source. This project can be used not only for Mario games based on SMBX, but for others too (while being entirely open source). Because it allows full flexibility and customizing (all items are defined by INI files), and NPCs will be allowed to be programmed by a script language, this allows one to create custom NPCs of their own without being restricted to using the AI of an existing NPC.

Do the graphics use the same format as SMBX?
Yes, in the SMBX-compatible configs you can use the graphics format of SMBX: - GIF file format without transparency - Must use black/white mask to apply transparency - Animation frames of sprite going down vertically. - Playable character sprite has a 10x10 frame table, and a total image size of 1000x1000 pixels and fixed by the position of the character's hitboxes. - All custom SMBX graphics are fully compatible with this engine.

The INI-file of my Config pack is not being loaded after I save it!
The first reason of this error is a BOM when you was saved file via Windows Notepad. I'm recommend to get Notepad++ or Akelpad to edit those files. Files should be saved in UTF-8 codepage without BOM.